Word: booth
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Thomas Burke is one of the few men in Cambridge who can tell a woman off and get away with it. Patrolman Burke puts in more than ten hours each weekday in publicly villifying errant drivers, jay-walkers, and absent-minded pedestrians from his green-painted booth in Harvard Square, and gets considerable pleasure out of this. "There is no doubt," claims Burke, "that women are much worse drivers than men. They spend all their time lookin' around at things, and none of it lookin' at the road. And when they have some one else in the car with...
...figure out exactly what they are going to do. In addition to barking at them over an electric amplifier which carries his words more than a hundred yards through the noise of the Square, he attempts to regulate them with a manually-operated push-button traffic signal. Both the booth and traffic signal were built ten years ago when traffic conditions in the Square reached their present state of chaos, but the amplifier was not added until 1941, more or less as a last resort...
...inordinate number of cars, buses, trolley lines and subways in the Square. The loud-speaker idea has received a lot of publicity all over the country, and a man from "Life" has been around to photograph the whole contraption. As far as Burke knows, however, the Harvard Square booth is the only one of its kind in the country; a similar unit in Central Square closed down last year. Outside of its traffic control duties, the booth attracts a clamoring stream of information seekers. Burke is constantly assailed by people requiring guidance of all kinds. He is now able...
...also has its occupational hazards. Last summer Burke was clicking the traffic light and directing a divinity student when there was a low rumbling and Burke stuck his head out of the window. He was greeted by an uncomfortably large Jordan Marsh truck which rammed the booth, picked it up, and deposited it in front of a jewelry store on Brattle Street. The booth was somewhat crumpled and Burke wrenched his shoulder, which still annoys him during damp weather, but the Jordan Marsh man was very apologetic, and Burke dismisses the incident. He figures the odds are strong against...
Star items offered at the booth are assorted candies and nylons--available in two shades. Girls may also purchase such things as Radcliffe calendars, playing cards, Annex cookbooks and song books, and stationery. Committee members are also selling Christmas cards in the dormitories...