Music: Rained Out

Last week the rains that had filled New York City’s thirsty reservoirs to 92% of capacity and earned plaudits for Rainmaker Dr. Wallace E. Howell* (TIME, July 24)” were drowning out some of the city’s best summer music. The Lewisohn Stadium concerts, with four performances canceled, three postponed and nearly a score more threatened by lowering skies and cool winds, had already run $50,000 into the red.

Plucky little Minnie (Mrs. Charles) Guggenheimer, who started the concerts to entertain doughboys during World War I and had mothered them ever since, sent out an S 0 S asking for 50,000 stadium fans to pitch in a dollar apiece. Already one week of mid-August concerts had been lopped off the schedule. If the $50,000 was not forthcoming and the weather didn’t improve, the 1950 season would end even sooner.

*Editorialized New York’s tabloid Daily News last week: “Whether Dr. Howell did it or whether Nature deserves the credit, the fact remains that it happened . Let’s by all means renew [Howell’s contract].”