tattoo

tattooers say something about a damage suit as a consequenceof a removal job he had done.

Take the bus across the bridge, walk a few paces back,descend into the dark well of Brooklyn's Sands Street. Shadesof such famous artists as Billy Donnelly, Jim Wilson, andLew- the- Jew haunt this fascinating district. But today youwill find only one Rembrandt of the needle, Jack Redcloud( the barber- shop at Number 139). Only a few years agoSands Street was almost riotous with anywhere from four toseven artists. But the depression and the absence of the Navysent Donnelly back to England, dispatched Wilson toPanama, and Lew- the- Jew to Newark, New Jersey, the otherartists disappearing also. The Newark shop keeps on openingand closing indecisively.

It is useless to make a trip to New York's South Street.There the tattooing pursuit is as dead as the two otherancient trades of that street: the making and selling of sails,and the carving of ships' figureheads. Professor Jack was thelast permanent artist in this section; no one knows where heis now. In the summer, an itinerant tattooist may blunderinto South Street for a couple of days, try his luck among thelistless seamen, and disappear.

*

The tattooers of New York discuss each other in somewhatironic terms, though almost all are awed by Bob Wicks andhis oil- paintings. Each one has a bright spot in his career ofwhich he is exultantly proud. Graf is intense about a recentsummer in Coney Island when he was exhibited and photo-graphed next to Mrs. Jack( Legs) Diamond. He is also proudbecause he placed six U. S. presidents on the chest of LadyViola, a circus performer, and a picture of the Capitol onher back, dedicating her arms to the portraits of ten movie

* A report reaches me that in Pittsburgh, in Federal Street, near theFederal Street bridge, a Professor Jack or a Sailor Jack has a tattoo- shop.It may and may not be the Professor of New York's last romantic bit of

waterfront.

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