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diff --git a/42501-8.txt b/42501-8.txt deleted file mode 100644 index ae741ba..0000000 --- a/42501-8.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,2982 +0,0 @@ -The Project Gutenberg EBook of New York Sketches, by Jesse Lynch Williams - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with -almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or -re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included -with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org - - -Title: New York Sketches - -Author: Jesse Lynch Williams - -Release Date: April 9, 2013 [EBook #42501] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK NEW YORK SKETCHES *** - - - - -Produced by Charlene Taylor, Charlie Howard, and the Online -Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net - - - - - - - - - -NEW YORK SKETCHES - - -[Illustration: On the Harlem River--University Heights from Fort -George.] - - - - - NEW YORK SKETCHES - - BY - - JESSE LYNCH WILLIAMS - - [Illustration] - - WITH ILLUSTRATIONS - - CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS - NEW YORK 1902 - - - - - COPYRIGHT, 1902, BY - CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS - - Published, November, 1902 - - Trow Directory - Printing & Bookbinding Company - New York - - - - - TO - - Meade Creighton Williams - - - - -CONTENTS - - - PAGE - THE WATER-FRONT 1 - - THE WALK UP-TOWN 27 - - THE CROSS STREETS 63 - - RURAL NEW YORK CITY 99 - - - - -ILLUSTRATIONS - - - On the Harlem River--University Heights from Fort - George _Frontispiece_ - - PAGE - Grant's Tomb and Riverside Drive (from the New Jersey - Shore) 3 - - Down along the Battery sea-wall is the place to watch - the ships go by 5 - - Old New Amsterdam 7 - - Just as it has been for years. (Between South Ferry and - the Bridge.) - - New New York 9 - - Not a stone's throw farther up ... the towering white - city of the new century. (Between South Ferry and - the Bridge.) - - From the point of view of the Jersey commuter ... some - uncommon, weird effects 11 - - (Looking back at Manhattan from a North River - ferry-boat.) - - Swooping silently, confidently across from one city to - the other 13 - - (East River and Brooklyn Bridge.) - - Looking up the East River from the Foot of Fifty-ninth - Street 15 - - Even in sky-line he could find something new almost - every week or two 17 - - The end of the day--looking back at Manhattan from the - Brooklyn Bridge. - - For the little scenes ... quaint and lovable, one goes - down along the South Street water-front 19 - - Smacks and oyster-floats near Fulton Market. (At the - foot of Beekman Street, East River.) - - This is the tired city's playground 21 - - Washington Bridge and the Speedway--Harlem River - looking south. - - Here is where the town ends, and the country begins 23 - - (High Bridge as seen looking south from Washington - Bridge.) - - The Old and the New, from Lower New York across the - Bridge to Brooklyn 24 - - From the top of the high building at Broadway and Pine - Street. - - The old town does not change so fast about its edges 25 - - (Along the upper East River front looking north toward - Blackwell's Island.) - - ... opposite the oval of the ancient Bowling Green 29 - - ... immigrant hotels and homes 30 - - No. 1 Broadway 30 - - Lower Broadway during a parade 30 - - The beautiful spire of Trinity 31 - - ... clattering, crowded, typical Broadway 32 - - City Hall with its grateful lack of height 33 - - What's the matter? 34 - - In the wake of a fire-engine 35 - - No longer to be thrilled ... will mean to be old 37 - - Grace Church spire becomes nearer 39 - - Through Union Square 40 - - ... windows which draw women's heads around 41 - - Instead of buyers ... mostly shoppers 42 - - ... crossing Fifth Avenue at Twenty-third Street 43 - - Madison Square with the sparkle of a clear ... October - morning 44 - - In front of the Fifth Avenue Hotel 45 - - Diana on top glistening in the sun 46 - - Seeing the Avenue from a stage-top 47 - - ... people go to the right, up Fifth Avenue 48 - - A seller of pencils 49 - - It is also better walking up here 50 - - ... those who walk for the sake of walking 51 - - At the lower corner of the Waldorf-Astoria 52 - - ... with baby-carriages 53 - - This is the region of Clubs 54 - - (The Union League.) - - ... close-ranked boarding-school squads 55 - - ... the coachmen and footmen flock there 56 - - The Church of the Heavenly Rest 57 - - Approaching St. Thomas's 59 - - The University Club ... with college coats-of-arms 60 - - Olympia Jackies on shore leave 61 - - Down near the eastern end of the street 65 - - Across Trinity Church-yard, from the West 67 - - An Evening View of St. Paul's Church 69 - - The sights and smells of the water-front are here too 71 - - An Old Landmark on the Lower West Side 73 - - (Junction of Canal and Laight Streets.) - - Up Beekman Street 75 - - Each ... has to change in the greatest possible hurry - from block to block. - - Under the Approach to Brooklyn Bridge 77 - - Chinatown 79 - - It still remains whimsically individual and village-like 81 - - A Fourteenth Street Tree 83 - - Such as broad Twenty-third Street with its famous shops - 85 - - A Cross Street at Madison Square 87 - - Across Twenty-fourth Street--Madison Square when the - Dewey Arch was there 88 - - Herald Square 91 - - As it Looks on a Wet Night--The Circle, Fifty-ninth - Street and Eighth Avenue 93 - - Hideous high buildings 95 - - Looking east from Central Park at night. - - Flushing Volunteer Fire Department Responding to a Fire - Alarm 103 - - A Bit of Farm Land in the Heart of Greater New York 105 - - Acre after acre, farm after farm, and never a sign of - city in sight. - - One of the Farmhouses that have Come to Town 107 - - The old Duryea House, Flushing, once used as a - head-quarters for Hessian officers. - - East End of Duryea House, where the Cow is Stabled 108 - - The Old Water-power Mill from the Rear of the Old - Country Cross-roads Store 109 - - The Old Country Cross-roads Store, Established 1828 110 - - In the background is the old water-power mill. - - Interior of the Old Country Cross-roads Store 111 - - The Colony of Chinese Farmers, Near the Geographical - Centre of New York City 112 - - Working as industrially as the peasants of Europe, blue - skirts, red handkerchiefs about their heads 113 - - Remains of a Windmill in New York City, Between Astoria - and Steinway 114 - - The Dreary Edge of Long Island City 115 - - The Procession of Market-wagons at College Point Ferry - 116 - - Past dirty backyards and sad vacant lots 117 - - New York City Up in the Beginnings of the Bronx - Regions--Skating at Bronxdale 119 - - Another Kind of City Life--Along the Marshes of Jamaica - Bay 121 - - There is profitable oyster-dredging in several sections - of the city 123 - - Cemetery Ridge, Near Richmond, Staten Island 126 - - A Peaceful Scene in New York 127 - - In the distance is St. Andrew's Church, Borough of - Richmond, Staten Island. - - A Relic of the Early Nineteenth Century, Borough of - Richmond 128 - - An Old-fashioned, Stone-arched Bridge. (Richmond, Staten - Island) 129 - - An Old House in Flatbush 131 - - - - -THE WATER-FRONT - - - - -[Illustration: Grant's Tomb and Riverside Drive (from the New Jersey -Shore).] - - - - -THE WATER-FRONT - - -Down along the Battery sea-wall is the place to watch the ships go by. - -Coastwise schooners, lumber-laden, which can get far up the river under -their own sail; big, full-rigged clipper ships that have to be towed -from the lower bay, their topmasts down in order to scrape under the -Brooklyn Bridge; barques, brigs, brigantines--all sorts of sailing -craft, with cargoes from all seas, and flying the flags of all nations. - -White-painted river steamers that seem all the more flimsy and riverish -if they happen to churn out past the dark, compactly built ocean liners, -who come so deliberately and arrogantly up past the Statue of Liberty, -to dock after the long, hard job of crossing, the home-comers on the -decks already waving handkerchiefs. Plucky little tugs (that whistle -on the slightest provocation), pushing queer, bulky floats, which bear -with ease whole trains of freight-cars, dirty cars looking frightened -and out of place, which the choppy seas try to reach up and wash. And -still queerer old sloop scows, with soiled, awkward canvas and no shape -to speak of, bound for no one seems to know where and carrying you -seldom see what. And always, everywhere, all day and night, whistling -and pushing in and out between everybody, the ubiquitous, faithful, -narrow-minded old ferry-boats, with their wonderful helmsmen in the -pilot-house, turning the wheel and looking unexcitable.... - -That is the way it is down around Pier A, where the New York Dock -Commission meets and the Police Patrol boat lies, and by Castle Garden, -where the river craft pass so close you can almost reach out and touch -them with your hand. - -The "water-front" means something different when you think of Riverside -and its greenness, a few miles to the north, with Grant's tomb, white -and glaring in the sun, and Columbia Library back on Cathedral Heights. - -[Illustration: Down along the Battery sea-wall is the place to watch the -ships go by.] - -Here the "lordly" Hudson is not yet obliged to become busy North River, -and there is plenty of water between a white-sailed schooner yacht and -a dirty tug slowly towing in silence--for there is no excuse here for -whistling--a cargo of brick for a new country house up at Garrisons; -while on the shore itself instead of wharves and warehouses and -ferry-slips there are yacht and rowing club houses and an occasional -bathing pavilion; and above the water edge, in place of the broken ridge -of stone buildings with countless windows, there is the real bluff of -good green earth with the well-kept drive on top and the sun glinting on -harness-chains and automobiles. - - * * * * * - -Now, between these two contrasts you will find--you _may_ find, I mean, -for most of you prefer to exhaust Europe and the Orient before you begin -to look at New York--as many different sorts of interests and kinds of -picturesqueness as there are miles, as there are blocks almost. - -For instance, down there by the starting-point. If you go up toward -the bridge from South Ferry a block or so and pull down your hat-brim -far enough to hide the tower of the Produce Exchange, you have a bit -of old New Amsterdam, just as it has been for years, so old and so -Amsterdamish, with its long, sloping roofs, gable windows, and even -wooden-shoe-like canal-boats, that you may easily feel that you are in -Holland, if you like. As a matter of fact, it is more like Hamburg, I -am told, but either will do if you get an added enjoyment out of things -by noting their similarity to something else and appreciate mountains -and sunsets more by quoting some other person's sensations about other -sunsets and mountains. - -[Illustration: Old New Amsterdam. - -Just as it has been for years. - -(Between South Ferry and the Bridge.)] - -But if you believe that there is also an inherent, characteristic -beauty in the material manifestations of the spirit of our own new, -vigorous, fearless republic--and whether you do or not, if you care to -look at one of these sudden contrasts referred to--not a stone's throw -farther up the water-front there is a notable sight of newest New York. -This, too, is good to look at. Behind a foreground of tall masts with -their square rigging and mystery (symbols of the world's commerce, if -you wish), looms up a wondrous bit of the towering white city of the new -century, a cluster of modern high buildings which, notwithstanding the -perspective of a dozen blocks, are still high, enormously, alarmingly -high--symbols of modern capital, perhaps, and its far-reaching -possibilities, or they may remind you, in their massive grouping, of a -cluster of mountains, with their bright peaks glistening in the sun far -above the dark shadows of the valleys in which the streams of business -flow, down to the wharves and so out over the world. - -Now, separately they may be impossible, these high buildings of -ours--these vulgar, impertinent "sky-scrapers;" but, as a group, and -in perspective, they are fine, with a strong, manly beauty all their -own. It is the same as with the young nation; we have grown up so fast -and so far that some of our traits, when considered alone, may seem -displeasing, but they appear less so when we are viewed as a whole and -from the right point of view. - -[Illustration: New New York. - -Not a stone's throw farther up ... the towering white city of the new -century. - -(Between South Ferry and the Bridge.)] - -Or, on the other hand, for scenes not representatively commercial, nor -residential either in the sense that Riverside is, but more of the -sort that the word "picturesque" suggests to most people: There are all -those odd nooks and corners, here and there up one river and down the -other, popping out upon you with unexpected vistas full of life and -color. Somehow the old town does not change so fast about its edges as -back from the water. It seems to take a longer time to slough off the -old landmarks. - -[Illustration: From the point of view of the Jersey commuter ... some -uncommon, weird effects. - -(Looking back at Manhattan from a North River ferry-boat.)] - -The comfortable country houses along the shore, half-way up the island, -first become uncomfortable city houses; then tenements, warehouses, -sometimes hospitals, even police stations, before they are finally -hustled out of existence to make room for a foul-smelling gas-house -or another big brewery. Many of them are still standing, or tumbling -down; pathetic old things they are, with incongruous cupolas and dusty -fanlights and, on the river side, an occasional bit of old-fashioned -garden, with a bunker which was formerly a terrace, and the dirty -remains of a summer-house where children once had a good time--and still -do have, different-looking children, who love the nearby water just as -much and are drowned in it more numerously. It is not only by way of -the recreation piers that these children and their parents enjoy the -water. It is a deep-rooted instinct in human nature to walk out to the -end of a dock and sit down and gaze; and hundreds of them do so every -day in summer, up along here. Now and then through these vistas you get -a good view of beautiful Blackwell's Island with its prison and hospital -and poorhouse buildings. Those who see it oftenest do not consider it -beautiful. They always speak of it as "The Island." - -For those who do not care to prowl about for the scattered bits -of interest or who prefer what Baedeker would call "a magnificent -panorama," there are plenty of good points of vantage from which to see -whole sections at once, such as the Statue of Liberty or the tops of -high buildings, or, obviously, Brooklyn Bridge, which is so very obvious -that many Manhattanese would never make use of this opportunity were -it not for an occasional out-of-town visitor on their hands. No one -ought to be allowed to live in New York City--he ought to be made to -live in Brooklyn--who does not go out there and look back at his town -once a year. He could look at it every day and get new effects of light -and color. Even in sky-line he could find something new almost every -week or two. In a few years there will be a more or less even line--at -least a gentle undulation--instead of these raw, jagged breaks that -give a disquieting sense of incompletion, or else look as if a great -conflagration had eaten out the rest of the buildings. - -[Illustration: Swooping silently, confidently across from one city to -the other.... - -(East River and Brooklyn Bridge.)] - -The sky-line and its constant change can be watched to best advantage -from the point of view of the Jersey commuter on the ferry; he also has -some wonderful coloring to look at and some uncommon, weird effects, -such as that of a late autumn afternoon (when he has missed the 5.15 and -has to go out on the 6.26) and it is already quite dark, but the city -is still at work and the towering office-buildings are lighted--are -brilliant indeed with many perfectly even rows of light dots. The dark -plays tricks with the distance, and the water is black and snaky and -smells of the night. All sorts of strange flares of light and puffs of -shadow come from somewhere, and altogether the commuter, if he were not -so accustomed to the scene, ought not to mind being late for dinner. -However, the commuter is used to this, too. - -That scene is spectacular. There is another from the water that is -dramatic. Possibly the pilots on the Fall River steamers become -hardened, but to most of us there is an exciting delight in creeping up -under that great bridge of ours and daringly slipping through without -having it fall down this time; and then looking rather boastfully back -at it, swooping silently, confidently across from one city to the -other, as graceful and lean and characteristically American in its line -as our cup defenders, and as overwhelmingly powerful and fearless as -Niagara Falls. However much like the Thames Embankment is the bit of -East Fifty-ninth Street in a yellow fog, and however skilful you may be -in making an occasional acre of the Bronx resemble the Seine, our big -bridges cannot very well remind anyone of anything abroad, because there -aren't any others. - -[Illustration: Looking up the East River from the Foot of Fifty-ninth -Street.] - -For the little scenes that are not inspiring or awful, but simply quaint -and lovable, one goes down along the South Street water-front. Fulton -Market with its memorable smells and the marketeers and 'longshoremen; -and behind it the slip where clean-cut American-model smacks put in, -and sway excitedly to the wash from the Brooklyn ferry-boats, which is -not noticed by the sturdy New Haven Line steamers nearby. On the edge -of the street and the water are the oyster floats, half house and half -boat, which look like solid shops, with front doors, from the street -side until, the seas hitting them, they, too, begin to sway awkwardly -and startle the unaccustomed passer-by. - -It is down around here that you find slouching idly in front of -ship-stores, loafing on cables and anchors, the jolly jack tar of -modern days. From all parts of the world he comes, any number of him, -if you can tell him when you see him, for he is seldom tarry and less -often jolly, unless drunk on the very poor grog he gets in the various -evil-looking dives thickly strewn along the water-fronts. Some of these -are modern plate-glass saloons, but here and there is a cosey old-time -tavern (with a step-down at the entrance instead of a step-up), low -ceiling, dark interior, and in the window a thickly painted ship's model -with flies on the rigging. - -Farther down, near Wall Street ferry, where the smells of the world -are gathered, you may see the stevedores unloading liqueurs and spices -from tropical ports, and coffees and teas; nearby are the places where -certain men make their livings tasting these teas all day long, while -the horse-cars jangle by. - -[Illustration: Even in sky-line he could find something new almost every -week or two. - -The end of the day--looking back at Manhattan from the Brooklyn Bridge.] - -Old Slip and other odd-named streets are along here, where once the -water came before the city outgrew its clothes; before Water Street, -now two or three blocks back, had lost all right to its name. Here the -big slanting bowsprits hunch away in over South Street as if trying to -be quits with the land for its encroachment, and the plain old brick -buildings huddled together across the way have no cornices for fear of -their being poked off. Queer old buildings they are, sail lofts with -their peculiar roofs, and sailors' lodging-houses, and the shops where -the seaman can buy everything he needs from suspenders to anchor cables, -so that after a ten-thousand mile cruise he can spend all his several -months' pay within two blocks of where he first puts foot on shore and -within one night from when he does so. Very often he has not energy to -go farther or money to buy anything, thanks to the slavery system which -conducts the sailors' lodging-houses across the way. There is nothing -very picturesque about our modern merchant marine and its ill-used and -over-worked sailors; it is only pathetic. - -Those are some of the reasons, I think, why East River is more -interesting to most of us than North River. Another reason, perhaps, is -that East River is not a river at all, but an arm of the ocean which -makes Long Island, and true to its nature in spite of man's error it -holds the charm of the sea. The North River side of the town in the old -days had less to do with the business of those who go down to the sea -in ships, was more rural and residential; and now its water-front is so -jammed with railway ferry-houses and ocean-steamship docks that there is -little room for anything else. - -[Illustration: For the little scenes ... quaint and lovable, one goes -down along the South Street water-front. - -Smacks and oyster-floats near Fulton Market. (At the foot of Beekman -Street, East River.)] - -However, these long, roofed docks of famous Cunarders and American and -White Star Liners, and of the French steamers (which have a round-roof -dock of a sort all their own) are interesting in their way, too, and the -names of the foreign ports at the open entrance cause a strange fret to -be up and going; especially on certain days of the week when thick smoke -begins to pour from the great funnels which stick out so enormously -above the top story of the now noisy piers. Cabs and carriages with -coachmen almost hidden by trunks and steamer-rugs crowd in through the -dock-gates, while, within, the hold baggage-derricks are rattling and -there is an excited chatter of good-by talk.... - -By the time you get up to Gansevoort Market, with its broad expanse of -cobble-stones, the steamship lines begin to thin out and the ferries -are now sprinkled more sparsely. Where the avenues grow out into -their teens, there are coal-yards and lumber-yards. On the warehouses -and factories are great twenty-foot letters advertising soap and -cereals, all of which are the best.... Farther up is the region of -slaughter-houses and their smells, gas-houses and their smells.... And -so on up to Riverside, and across the new bridge to the unknown wildness -of Manhattan's farthest north, and Fort Washington with its breastworks, -which, it is pleasing to see, are being visited and picnicked upon more -often than formerly. - -[Illustration: This is the tired city's playground. - -Washington Bridge and the Speedway--Harlem River looking south.] - -But over on the east edge of the town there is more to look at and more -of a variety. All the way from the Bridge and the big white battle-ships -squatting in the Navy Yard across the river; up past Kip's Bay with its -dapper steam-yachts waiting to take their owners home from business; -past Bellevue Hospital and its Morgue, past Thirty-fourth Street ferry -with its streams of funerals and fishing-parties; Blackwell's Island -with its green grass and the young doctors playing tennis, oblivious to -their surroundings; Hell Gate with its boiling tide, where so many are -drowned every year; East River Park with its bit of green turf (it is -too bad there are not more of these parks on our water-fronts); past -Ward's Island with its public institutions; Randall's Island with more -public institutions--and so, up into the Harlem, where soon, around the -bend, the occasional tall mast looks very incongruous when seen across a -stretch of real estate. - -And now you have a totally different feel in the air and a totally -different sort of "scenery." It is as different as the use it is put to. -Below McComb's Dam Bridge, clear to the Battery, it was nearly all work; -up here it is nearly all play. - -On the banks of the river, rowing clubs, yacht clubs, bathing -pavilions--they bump into each other, they are so thick; on the -water itself their members and their contents bump into each other -on holidays--launches, barges, racing-shells and all sorts of small -pleasure craft. - -[Illustration: Here is where the town ends, and the country begins. - -(High Bridge as seen looking south from Washington Bridge.)] - -Near the Manhattan end of McComb's Dam Bridge are the two fields famous -for football victories, baseball championships, track games, open-air -horse shows; across the bridge go the bicyclers and automobilists, -hordes of them, brazen-braided bicyclists who use chewing-gum and lean -far over, leather coated chauffeurs with their eyes unnecessarily -protected. - -[Illustration: The Old and the New, from Lower New York Across the -Bridge to Brooklyn. - -From the top of the high building at Broadway and Pine Street.] - -Up the river are college and school ovals and athletic fields; on the -ridges upon either side are walks and paths for lovers. For the lonely -pedestrian and antiquarians, two old revolutionary forts and some good -colonial architecture. Whirly-go-rounds and big wheels for children, -groves and beer-gardens for picnickers; while down on one bank of the -stream upon the broad Speedway go the thoroughbred trotters with their -red-faced masters behind in light-colored driving coats, eyes goggled, -arms extended. - -On the opposite banks are the two railroads taking people to Ardsley -Casino, St. Andrew's Golf Club, and the other country clubs and the -public links at Van Cortlandt Park, and taking picnickers and family -parties to Mosholu Park, and regiments and squadrons to drill and play -battle in the inspection ground nearby, and botanists and naturalists -and sportsmen for their fun farther up in the good green country. - -[Illustration: The old town does not change so fast about its edges. - -(Along the upper East River front looking north toward Blackwell's -Island.)] - -No wonder there is a different feeling in the air up along the best -known end of the city's water-front. The small, unimportant looking -winding river, long distance views, wooded hills, green terraces, and -even the great solid masonry of High Bridge, and the asphalt and stone -resting-places on Washington Bridge somehow help to make you feel the -spirit of freedom and outdoors and relaxation. This is the tired city's -playground. Here is where the town ends, and the country begins. - -[Illustration] - - - - -THE WALK UP-TOWN - - - - -[Illustration: ... opposite the oval of the ancient Bowling Green.] - - - - -THE WALK UP-TOWN - - -The walk up-town reaches from the bottom of the buzzing region where -money is made to the bright zone where it is spent and displayed; and -the walk is a delight all the way. It is full of variety, color, charm, -exhilaration--almost intoxication, on its best days. - -Indeed, there are connoisseurs in cities who say that of all walks -of this sort in the world New York's is the best. The walk in London -from the city to the West End by way of Fleet Street, the Strand, and -Piccadilly, is teeming with interest to the tourist--Temple Bar, St. -Clement's, Trafalgar Square and all--but, for a walk up-town, a walk -home to be taken daily, it is apt to be oppressive and saddening, even -without the fog; so say many of those who know it best. Paris, with -her boulevards, undoubtedly has unapproachable opportunities for the -_flaneur_, but like Rome and Vienna and most of the other European -capitals, she has no one main artery for a homeward stream of working -humanity at close of day; and that is what "the walk up-town" means. - -[Illustration: ... immigrant hotels and homes.] - -[Illustration: No. 1 Broadway.] - -[Illustration: Lower Broadway during a parade.] - -And yet so few, comparatively, of those whose physique and office hours -permit, take this appetizing, worry-dispelling walk of ours; this is -made obvious every afternoon, from three o'clock on, by the surface and -elevated cars, into which the bulk of scowling New York seems to prefer -to push itself, after a day spent mostly indoors; here to get bumped -and ill-tempered, snatching an occasional glimpse of the afternoon paper -held in the hand which does not clutch the strap overhead. It seems a -great pity. The walk is just the right length to take before dressing -for dinner. A line drawn eastward from the park plaza at Fifty-eighth -Street will almost strike an old mile-stone still standing in Third -Avenue, which says, "4 miles from City Hall, New York." The City Hall -was in Wall Street when those old-fashioned letters were cut, and Third -Avenue was the Post Road. - -[Illustration: The beautiful spire of Trinity] - - -I - -Many good New Yorkers (chiefly, however, of that small per cent. born in -New York, who generally know rather little about their town except that -they love it) have not been so remotely far down the island as Battery -Park for a decade, unless to engage passage at the steamship offices -which until recently were to be found in the sturdy houses of the good -old Row (though once called "Mushroom Row") opposite the oval of the -ancient Bowling Green, where now the oddly placed statue of Abram de -Peyster sits and stares all day. (Now that these old gable windows and -broad chimneys are gone I wonder how he will like the new Custom-house.) - -[Illustration: ... clattering, crowded, typical Broadway] - -Now, the grandmothers of these same New Yorkers, long ago, before -there were any steamships, when Castle Garden was a separate island -and Battery Park was a fashionable esplanade from which to watch the -shipping in the bay and the sunsets over the Jersey hills--their -grandmothers, dressed in tight pelisses and carrying reticules, were -wont to take a brisk walk, in their very low-cut shoes, along the -sea-wall before breakfast and breathe the early morning air. They did -not have so far to go in those days, and it was a fashionable thing to -do. To-day you can see almost every variety of humanity on the cement -paths from Pier A to Castle Garden, except that known as fashionable. -But the sunsets are just as good and the lights on the gentle hills of -Staten Island quite as soft and there are more varieties of water-craft -to gaze at in the bristling bay. I should think more people would come -to look at it all. - -[Illustration: ... City Hall with its grateful lack of height ...] - -I mean of those even who do not like to mingle with other species -than their own and yet want fresh air and exercise. On a Sunday in -winter if they were to come down here for their afternoon stroll they -would find (after a pleasant trip on nearly empty elevated cars) less -"objectionable" people and fewer of them than on the crowded up-town -walks. - -What there are of strollers down here--in winter--are representatives of -the various sets of eminently respectable janitors' families (of which -there are almost as many grades as there are heights of the roofs from -which they have descended), and modest young jackies, with flapping -trousers, and open-mouthed emigrants, though more of the latter are -to be seen on those flimsy, one-horsed express wagons coming from the -Barge Office, seated on piles of dirty baggage--with steerage tags still -fresh--whole families of them, bright-colored head-gear and squalling -children, bound for the foreign-named emigrant hotels and homes which -are as interesting as the immigrants. Some of these latter are right -opposite there on State Street, including one with "pillared balcony -rising from the second floor to the roof," which is said to be the -earlier home of Jacob Dolph in Bunner's novel--a better fate surely than -that of the other New York house for which the book was named. - -[Illustration: What's the matter?] - -Across the park and up and around West Street are more of these -immigrant places, some with foreign lettering and some plain Raines's -law hotels with mirrored bars. One of them, perhaps the smallest and -lowest-ceiled of all, is where Stevenson slept, or tried to, in his -amateur emigranting. - -These are among the few older houses in New York used for the same -purposes as from the beginning. They seem to have been left stranded -down around this earliest part of the town by an eddy in the commercial -current which sweeps nearly everything else to the northward from -its original moorings.... But this is not what is commonly meant by -"down-town," though it is the farthest down you can go, nor is it where -the walk up-town properly begins. - -The Walk Up-town begins where the real Broadway begins, somewhat above -the bend, past the foreign consulates, away from the old houses and the -early nineteenth century atmosphere. Crowded sidewalks, a continuous -roar, intent passers-by, jammed streets, clanging cable-cars with -down-towners dodging them automatically; the region of the modern high -business building. - -[Illustration: In the wake of a fire-engine.] - -Above are stories uncountable (unless you are willing to be bumped -into); beside you, hurried-looking people gazing straight ahead or -dashing in and out of these large doors which are kept swinging back -and forth all day; very heavy doors to push, especially in winter, -when there are sometimes three sets of them. Within is the vestibule -bulletin-board with hundreds of men's names and office-numbers on it; -near by stands a judicial-looking person in uniform who knows them all, -and starts the various elevators by exclaiming "Up!" in a resonant -voice. While outside the crowd still hums and hurries on; it never gets -tired; it seems to pay no attention to anything. It is a matter of -wonder how a living is made by all the newsstands on the corners; all -the dealers in pencils and pipe-cleaners and shoe-strings and rubber -faces who are thick between the corners, to whom as little heed is -given as to the clatter of trucks or the wrangling of the now-blocked -cable-cars, or the cursing truck-drivers, or the echoing hammering of -the iron-workers on the huge girders of that new office building across -the way. - -But that is simply because the crowd is accustomed to all these common -phenomena of the city street. As a matter of fact, half of them are -not so terrifically busy and important as they consider themselves. -They seem to be in a great hurry, but they do not move very fast, as -all know who try to take the walk up-town at a brisk pace, and most of -them wear that intent, troubled expression of countenance simply from -imitation or a habit generated by the spirit of the place. But it gives -a quaking sensation to the poor young man from the country who has -been walking the streets for weeks looking for a job; and it makes the -visiting foreigner take out his note-book and write a stereotyped phrase -or two about Americans--next to his note about our "Quick Lunch" signs -which never fail to astonish him, and behind which may be seen lunchers -lingering for the space of two cigars. - -An ambulance, with its nervous, arrogant bell, comes scudding down -the street. A very important young interne is on the rear keeping his -balance with arrogant ease. His youthful, spectacled face is set in -stony indifference to all possible human suffering. The police clear the -way for him. And now see your rushing "busy throng" forget itself and -stop rushing. It blocks the sidewalk in five seconds, and still stays -there, growing larger, after those walking up-town have passed on. - -The beautiful spire of Trinity, with its soft, brown stone and the green -trees and quaintly lettered historic tombs beneath and the damp monument -to Revolutionary martyrs over in one corner--no longer looks down -benignly on all about it, because, for the most part, it has to look up. -On all sides men have reared their marts of commerce higher than the -house of God. - -[Illustration: No longer to be thrilled ... will mean to be old.] - -It seems perfectly proper that they should, for they must build in -some direction and see what valuable real estate they have given up to -those dead people who cannot even appreciate it. Here among the quiet -graves the thoughtful stranger is accustomed to moralize tritely on how -thoughtless of death and eternity is "the hurrying throng" just outside -the iron fence, who, by the way, have to pass that church every day, in -many cases three or four times, and so can't very well keep on being -impressed by the nearness of death, etc., about which, perhaps, it is -just as well not to worry during the hours God meant for work. Even -though one cannot get much of a view from the steeple, except down Wall -Street, which looks harmless and disappointingly narrow and quiet at -first sight, Trinity is still one of the show-places of New York, and -it makes a pleasing and restful landmark in the walk up Broadway. It -deserves to be starred in Baedeker. - -Now comes the most rushing section of all down-town: from Trinity to -St. Paul's, clattering, crowded, typical Down-Town. So much in a hurry -is it that at Cedar Street it skips in twenty or thirty feet a whole -section of numbers from 119 to 135. The east side of the street is not -so capricious; it skips merely from No. 120 to 128. - -The people that cover the sidewalks up and down this section, -occasionally overflowing into the streets, would probably be pronounced -a typical New York crowd, although half of them never spend an entire -day in New York City from one end of the month to the other, and half -of that half sleep and eat two of their meals in another State of the -Union. The proportion might seem even greater than that, perhaps it is, -if at the usual hour the up-town walker should be obliged to struggle up -Cortlandt Street or any of the ferry streets down which the torrents of -commuters pour. - - * * * * * - -Up near St. Paul's the sky-scrapers again become thick, so that the -occasional old-fashioned five or six story buildings of solid walls with -steep steps leading up to the door, seem like playthings beside which -the modern building shoots up--on up, as if just beginning where the -old ones left off. More like towers are many of these new edifices, or -magnified obelisks, as seen from the ferries, the windows and lettering -for hieroglyphics. Others are shaped like plain goods-boxes on end, or -suggest, the ornate ones, pieces of carefully cut cake standing alone -and ready to fall over at any moment and damage the icing. - -[Illustration: ... Grace Church Spire becomes nearer.] - -Good old St. Paul's, which is really old and, to some of us, more -lovable than ornate, Anglican Trinity, has also been made to look -insignificant in size by its overpowering commercial neighbors, -especially as seen from the Sixth Avenue Elevated cars against the -new, ridiculous high building on Park Row. But St. Paul's turns its -plain, broad, Colonial back upon busy Broadway and does not seem -to care so much as Trinity. The church-yard is not so old nor so -large as Trinity's, but somehow it always seems to me more rural and -church-yardish and feels as sunny and sequestered as though miles -instead of a few feet from Broadway and business. - -[Illustration: Through Union Square.] - -Now, off to the right oblique from St. Paul's, marches Park Row with -its very mixed crowd, which overflows the sidewalks, not only now at -going-home time, but at all hours of the day and most of the night; -and on up, under the bridge conduit, black just now with home-hurrying -Brooklynites and Long Islanders, we know we could soon come to the -Bowery and all that the Bowery means, and that, of course, is a walk -worth taking. But The Walk Up-town, as such, lies straight up Broadway, -between the substantial old Astor House, the last large hotel remaining -down-town, and the huge, obtrusive post-office building, as hideous -as a badly tied bundle, but which leads us on because we know--or, if -strangers, because we do not know--that when once we get beyond it -we shall see the calm, unstrenuous beauty of the City Hall with its -grateful lack of height, in its restful bit of park. Here, under the -first trees, is the unconventional statue of Nathan Hale, and there, -under those other trees--up near the court-house, I suppose--is where -certain memorable boy stories used to begin, with a poor, pathetic -newsboy who did noble deeds and in the last chapter always married the -daughter of his former employer, now his partner. - -By this time some of the regular walkers up-town have settled down to a -steady pace; others are just falling in at this point--just falling in -here where once (not so very many years ago) the city fathers thought -that few would pass but farmers on the way to market, and so put cheap -red sandstone in the back of the City Hall. - -[Illustration: ... windows which draw women's heads around.] - -Over there, on the west side of the street, still stands a complete row -of early buildings--one of the very few remaining along Broadway--with -gable windows and wide chimneys. Lawyers' offices and insurance signs -are very prominent for a time. Then comes a block or two chiefly of -sporting-goods stores with windows crowded full of hammerless guns, -smokeless cartridges, portable canoes, and other delights which from -morning to night draw sighs out of little boys who press their faces -against the glass awhile and then run on. Next is a thin stratum -composed chiefly of ticket-scalpers, then suddenly you find yourself in -the heart of the wholesale district, with millions of brazen signs, one -over another, with names "like a list of Rhine wines;" block after block -of it, a long, unbroken stretch. - -[Illustration: Instead of buyers ... mostly shoppers.] - - -II - -This comes nearer to being monotonous than any part of the walk. But -even here, to lure the walker on, far ahead, almost exactly in the -centre of the cańon of commercial Broadway, can be seen the pure white -spire of Grace Church, planted there at the bend of the thoroughfare, as -if purposely to stand out like a beacon and signal to those below that -Broadway changes at last and that up there are some Christians. - -But there are always plenty of people to look at, nor are they all -black-mustached, black-cigared merchants talking dollars; at six -o'clock women and girls pour down the stairs and elevators, and out -upon the street with a look of relief; stenographers, cloak inspectors, -forewomen, and little girls of all ages. Then you hear "Good-night, -Mame." "Good-night, Rachel." "What's your hurry? Got a date?" And off -they go, mostly to the eastward, looking exceedingly happy and not -invariably overworked. - -[Illustration: ... crossing Fifth Avenue at Twenty-third Street.] - -Others are emissaries from the sweat-shops, men with long beards and -large bundles and very sober eyes, patriarchal-looking sometimes when -the beard is white, who go upstairs with their loads and come down again -and trudge off down the side-street once more to go on where they left -off, by gas-light now. - -And all this was once the great Broadway where not many years ago the -promenaders strutted up and down in the afternoon, women in low neck and -India shawls; dandies, as they were then called, in tremendous trousers -with huge checks. Occasionally even now you see a few strollers here by -mistake, elderly people from a distance revisiting New York after many -years and bringing their families with them. "Now, children, you are on -Broadway!" the fatherly smile seems to say. "Look at everything." They -probably stop at the Astor House. - -[Illustration: ... Madison Square with the sparkle of a clear ... -October morning.] - -As the wholesale dry-goods district is left behind and the realm of the -jobbers in "notions" is reached, and the handlers of artificial flowers -and patent buttons and all sorts of specialties, Grace Church spire -becomes nearer and clearer, so that the base of it can be seen. Here, as -below, and farther below and above and everywhere along Broadway, are -the stoop and sidewalk sellers of candies, dogs, combs, chewing-gum, -pipes, looking-glasses, and horrible burning smells. They seem -especially to love the neighborhood of what all walkers up-town detest, -a new building in the course of erection--with sidewalks blocked, and -a set of steep steps to mount--only, your true walker up-town always -prefers to go around by way of the street, where he is almost run down -by a cab, perhaps, which he forgets entirely a moment later when he -suddenly hears a stirring bell, an approaching roar, and a shrieking -whistle growing louder: - -Across Broadway flashes a fire-engine, with the horses at a gallop, -the earth trembling, the hatless driver leaning forward with arms out -straight, and a trail of sparks and smoke behind. Another whizz, and the -long ladder-wagon shoots across with firemen slinging on their flapping -coats, while behind in its wake are borne many small crazed boys, who -could no more keep from running than the alarm-bell at the engine-house -could keep from ringing when the policeman turned on the circuit. -And young boys are not the only ones. No more to be thrilled by this -delight--it will mean to be old. - -[Illustration: In front of the Fifth Avenue Hotel.] - - -III - -At last Grace Church, with its clean light stone, is reached; and the -green grass and shrubbery in front of the interesting-looking Gothic -rectory. It is a glad relief. And now--in fact, a little before this -point--about where stood that melancholy building bearing the plaintive -sign "Old London Street"--which was used now for church services and now -prize-fights and had never been much of a success at anything--about -here, the up-town walkers notice (unless lured off to the left by the -thick tree-tops of Washington Square to look at the goodliest row of -houses in all the island) that the character of Broadway has changed -even more than the direction of the street changes. A short distance -below the bend all the stores were wholesale, now they are becoming -solidly retail. Instead of buyers the people along the street are -mostly shoppers. Down there were very few women; up here are very few -men. This is especially noticeable when Union Square is reached, with -cable-cars clanging around Dead Man's Curve in front of Lafayette's -statue. Here, down Fourteenth Street, may be seen shops and shoppers of -the most virulent type; windows which draw women's heads around whether -they want to look or not, causing them to run you down and making them -deaf to your apologies for it. Big dry-goods stores and small millinery -shops; general stores and department stores, and the places where -the sidewalks are crowded with what is known to the trade as "Louis -Fourteenth Street furniture." All this accounts for there being more -restaurants now and different smells and another feeling in the air. - -[Illustration: ... Diana on top glistening in the sun.] - -From the upper corner of Union Square, with its glittering -jewellery-shops and music-stores and publishers' buildings, and its -somewhat pathetic-looking hotels, once fashionable but now fast becoming -out-of-date and landmarky (though they seem good enough to those who -sit and wait on park benches all day), the open spaciousness of Madison -Square comes into view, the next green oasis for the up-town traveller. -This will help him up the intervening blocks if he is not interested in -the stretch of stores, though these are a different sort of shop, and -they seem to say, with their large, impressive windows, their footmen, -their buttons at the door, "We are very superior and fashionable." - -[Illustration: Seeing the Avenue from a stage-top.] - -The shoppers, too, are not so rapacious along here, because they have -more time; and the clatter is not so great, because there are more -rubber-tired carriages in the street. Nor are all these people shoppers -by any means, for along this bit of Broadway mingle types of all -the different sorts of men and women who use Broadway at all: nuns, -actors, pickpockets, detectives, sandwich-men, little girls going to -Huyler's, artists on the way to the Players'--the best people and the -worst people, the most mixed crowd in town may be seen here of a bright -afternoon. - -When they get up to Madison Square the crowd divides and, as some would -have us think, all the "nice" people go to the right, up Fifth Avenue, -while all the rest go the left, up the Broadway Rialto and the typical -part of the Tenderloin. - -But when Madison Square is reached you have come to one of the Places -of New York. It is the picture so many confirmed New Yorkers see when -homesick, Madison Square with the sparkle of a clear, bracing October -morning, the creamy Garden Tower over the trees, standing out clear-cut -against the sky, Diana on top glistening in the sun; a soft, purple -light under the branches in the park, a long, decorative row of cabs -waiting for "fares," over toward the statue of Farragut, and lithe -New York women, wearing clothes as they alone know how to wear them, -crossing Fifth Avenue at Twenty-third Street while a tall Tammany -policeman holds the carriages back with a wave of his little finger. - -[Illustration: ... people go to the right, up Fifth Avenue.] - -It is all so typically New York. Over on the north side by the Worth -monument I have heard people exclaim, "Oh, Paris!" because, I suppose, -there is a broad open expanse of asphalt and the street-lights are in a -cluster, but it seems to me to be as New Yorkish as New York can be. It -has an atmosphere distinctively its own--so distinctly its own that many -people, as I tried to say on an earlier page, miss it entirely, simply -because they are looking for and failing to find the atmosphere of some -other place. - -[Illustration: A seller of pencils.] - - -IV - -Now this last lap of the walk--from green Madison Square and the new -Martin's up the sparkling avenue to the broad, bright Plaza at the Park -entrance, where the brightly polished hotels look down at the driving, -with their awnings flapping and flags out straight--makes the most -popular part of all the walk. - -This is the land of liveried servants and jangling harness, far away, -or pretending to be, from work and worry; this is where enjoyment is -sought and vanity let loose--and that, with the accompanying glitter and -glamour, is always more interesting to the great bulk of humanity. - -It is also better walking up here. The pavements are cleaner now and -there is more room upon them. A man could stand still in the middle of -the broad, smooth walk and look up in the air without collecting a crowd -instantaneously. You can talk to your companion and hear the reply since -the welcome relief of asphalt. - -Here can be seen hundreds of those who walk for the sake of -walking, not only at this hour but all day long. In the morning, -large, prosperous-looking New Yorkers with side-whiskers and -well-fed bodies--and, unintentionally, such amusing expressions, -sometimes--walking part way, at least, down to business, with partly -read newspapers under their arms; while in the opposite direction go -young girls, slender, erect, with hair in a braid and school-books under -their arms and well-prepared lessons. - -[Illustration: It is also better walking up here.] - -Then come those that walk at the convenience of dogs, attractive or -kickable, and a little later the close-ranked boarding-school squads and -the cohorts of nurse-maids with baby-carriages four abreast, charging -everyone off the sidewalk. Next come the mothers of the babies and their -aunts, setting out for shopping, unless they have gone to ride in the -Park, and for Guild Meetings and Reading Clubs and Political Economy -Classes and Heaven knows what other important morning engagements, -ending, perhaps, with a visit to the nerve-specialist. - -And so on throughout the morning and afternoon and evening hours, each -with its characteristic phase, until the last late theatre-party -has gone home, laughing and talking, from supper at Sherry's or the -Waldorf-Astoria; the last late bachelor has left the now quiet club; the -rapping of his cane along the silent avenue dies away down an echoing -side-street; and a lonely policeman nods in the shadow of the church -gate-post. Suddenly the earliest milk-wagon comes jangling up from the -ferry; then dawn comes up over the gas-houses along East River and it -all begins over again. - -[Illustration: ... those who walk for the sake of walking.] - -But the most popular and populous time of all is the regular -walking-home hour, not only for those who have spent the day down -toward the end of the island at work, but for those who have no more -serious business to look after than wandering from club to club drinking -cocktails, or from house to house drinking tea. - -All who take the walk regularly meet many of the same ones every day, -not only acquaintances, but others whom we somehow never see in any -other place, but learn to know quite well, and we wonder who they -are--and they wonder who we are, I suppose. Pairs of pink-faced old -gentlemen, walking arm-in-arm and talking vigorously. Contented young -couples who look at the old furniture in the antique-shop windows and -who are evidently married, and other younger couples who evidently soon -will be, and see nothing, not even their friends. Intent-browed young -business men with newspapers under their arms; governesses out with -their charges; bevies of fluffy girls with woodcock eyes, especially on -matinée day with programmes in their hands, talking gushingly. - -[Illustration: At the lower corner of the Waldorf-Astoria.] - -It is a sort of a club, this walking-up-the-avenue crowd; and each -member grows to expect certain other members at particular points in the -walk, and is rather disappointed when, for instance, the old gentleman -with the large nose is not with his daughter this evening. "What can be -the matter?" the rest of us ask each other, seeing her alone. - -There is one man, the disagreeable member of the club, a -bull-frog-looking man of middle age with a Germanic face and beard, a -long stride, and a tightly buttoned walking-coat (I'm sure he's proud -of his chest), who comes down when we are on the way up and gets very -indignant every time we happen to be late. His scowl says, as plainly as -this type, "What are you doing way down here by the Reform Club? You -know you ought to be passing the Cathedral by this time!" And the worst -of it is, we always do feel ashamed, and I'm afraid he sees it. - -[Illustration: ... with baby-carriages.] - - * * * * * - -This mile and a half from where Flora McFlimsey lived to the beginning -of the driving in the Park is not the staid, sombre, provincial old -Fifth Avenue which Flora McFlimsey knew. Up Fifth Avenue to the Park New -York is a world-city. - -Not merely have so many of the brownstone dwellings, with their high -stoops and unattractive impressiveness, been turned over to business or -pulled down altogether to make room for huge, hyphenated hotels, but the -old spirit of the place itself has been turned out; the atmosphere is -different. - -The imported smartness of the shops, breeches makers to His Royal -Highness So-and-So, and millinery establishments with the same Madame -Luciles and Mademoiselle Lusettes and high prices, that have previously -risen to fame in Paris and London, together with the numerous clubs -and picture-galleries, all furnish local color; but it is the people -themselves that you see along the streets, the various languages they -speak, their expression of countenance, the way they hold themselves, -the manner of their servants--in a word, it is the atmosphere of the -spot that makes you feel that it is not a mere metropolis, but along -this one strip at least our New York is a cosmopolis. - -[Illustration: This is the region of clubs. (The Union League.)] - -And the Walk-Up-town hour is the best time to observe it, when all the -world is driving or walking home from various duties and pleasures. - -There, on that four-in-hand down from Westchester County comes a group -of those New Yorkers who, unwillingly or otherwise, get their names so -often in the papers. The lackey stands up and blows the horn and they -manage very well to endure the staring of those on the sidewalks. - -Here, in the victoria behind them, is a woman who worships them. She -would give many of her husband's new dollars to be up there too, though -pretending not to see the drag. See how she leans back in the cushions -and tries to prop her eyebrows up, after the manner of the Duchess she -once saw in the Row. She succeeds fairly well, too, if only her husband -wouldn't spoil it by crossing his legs and exposing his socks. - -Here are other women with sweet, artless faces who do not seem to be -strenuous or spoiled (as yet) by the world they move in, and these are -the most beautiful women in all the world; some in broughams (as one -popular story-writer invariably puts his heroines), or else walking -independently with an interesting gait. - -[Illustration: ... close-ranked boarding-school squads.] - -Here, in that landau, comes the latest foreign-titled visitor, urbane -and thoughtfully attentive to all that his friends are saying and -pointing out to him. And here is a bit of color, some world-examining, -tired-eyed Maharajah, with silk clothes--or was it only one of the -foreign consuls who drive along here every day. - -There goes a fashionable city doctor, who has a high gig, and -correspondingly high prices, hurrying home for his office hours. Surely, -it would be more comfortable to get in and out of a low phaėton; this -vehicle is as high as that loud, conspicuous, advertising florist's -wagon--can it be for the same reason? - -Here in that grinding automobile come a man and two women on their way -to an East Side _table d'hōte_, to see Bohemia, as they think; see how -reckless and devilish they look by anticipation! Up there on that 'bus -are some people from the country, real people from the real country, -and their mouths are open and they don't care. They are having much -more pleasure out of their trip than the self-conscious family group -entering that big gilded hotel, whose windows are constructed for seeing -in as well as out (and that is another way of advertising). - -[Illustration: ... the coachmen and footmen flock there.] - -Here comes a prominent citizen outlining his speech on his way home -to dress for the great banquet to-night, for he is a well-known -after-dinner orator, and during certain months of the year never has a -chance to dine at home with his family. Suppose, after all, he fails of -being nominated! - -Here come a man and his wife walking down to a well-known -restaurant--early, so that he will have plenty of time to smoke at -the table and she to get comfortably settled at the theatre with the -programme folded before the curtain rises; such a sensible way. He is -not prominent at all, but they have a great deal of quiet happiness out -of living, these two. - -And there goes the very English comedian these two are to see in -Pinero's new piece after dinner, though they did not observe him, to his -disappointment. It is rather late for an actor to be walking down to -his club to dine, but he is the star and doesn't come on until the end -of the first act, and his costume is merely that same broad-shouldered -English-cut frock coat he now has on. We, however, must hurry on. - -[Illustration: The Church of the Heavenly Rest.] - - * * * * * - -Because it keeps the eyes so busy, seeing all the people that pass, one -block of buildings seems very much like another the first few times -the new-comer takes this walk, except, of course, for conspicuous -landmarks like that of the new library on the site of the late reservoir -or the Arcade on the site of the old Windsor Hotel, with its ghastly -memories; but after awhile all the blocks begin to seem very different; -not only the one where you saw a boy on a bicycle run down and killed, -or where certain well-known people live, but the blocks formerly -considered monotonous. There are volumes of stories along the way. -Down Twenty-ninth Street can be seen, so near the avenue and yet so -sequestered, the Church of the Transfiguration, as quaint and low and -toy-like as a stage-setting, ever blessed by stage-people for the act -which made the Little Church Around the Corner known to everyone, and by -which certain pharisees were taught the lesson they should have learned -from the parable in their New Testament. - -Farther up is a church of another sort, where Europeans of more or -less noble blood marry American daughters of acknowledged solvency, -while the crowd covers the sidewalks and neighboring house-steps. -Here, consequently, other people's children come to be married, though -neither, perhaps, attended this church before the rehearsal, and get -quite a good deal about it in the society column too, though, to tell -the truth, they had hoped that the solemn union of these two souls -would appropriately call forth more publicity. Shed a tear for them -in passing. There are many similar disappointments in life along this -thoroughfare. - -Farther back we passed what a famous old rich man intended for the -finest house in New York, and it has thus far served chiefly as a marble -moral. Its brilliance is dingy now, its impressiveness is gone, and -its grandeur is something like that of a Swiss _chalet_ at the base of -a mountain since the erection across the street of an overpowering, -glittering hotel. - -This is the region of clubs; they are more numerous than drug-stores, -as thick as florists' shops. But it seems only yesterday that a certain -club, in moving up beyond Fortieth Street, was said to be going -ruinously far up-town. Now nearly all the well-known clubs are creeping -farther and farther along, even the old Union Club, which for long -pretended to enjoy its cheerless exclusiveness down at the corner of -Twenty-first Street, stranded among piano-makers and publishers, and -then with a leap and a bound went up to Fiftieth Street to build its -bright new home. - -[Illustration: Approaching St. Thomas's.] - -Soon the new, beautiful University Club at Fifty-fourth Street, with the -various college coats of arms on its walls, which never fail to draw -attention from the out-of-town visitors on 'bus-tops, will not seem to -be very far up-town, and by and by even the great, white Metropolitan -will not be so much like a lonely iceberg opposite the Park entrance. I -wonder if anyone knows the names of them all; there always seem to be -others to learn about. Also one learns in time that two or three houses -which for a long time were thought to be clubs are really the homes -of former mayors, receiving from the city, according to the old Dutch -custom, the two lighted lamps for their doorways. This section of the -avenue where, in former years, were well-known rural road-houses along -the drive, is once more becoming, since the residence _régime_ is over, -the region of famous hostelries of another sort. - -[Illustration: The University Club ... with college coats of arms.] - -There is just one of the old variety left, and it, strangely enough, -is within a few feet of two of the most famous restaurants in -America--the somewhat quaint and quite dirty old Willow Tree Cottage; -named presumably for the tough old willow-tree which still persistently -stands out in front, not seeming to mind the glare and stare of the -tall electric lights any more than the complacent old tumble-down -frame tavern itself resents the proximity of Delmonico's and Sherry's, -with whom it seems to fancy itself to be in bitter but successful -rivalry--for do not all the coachmen and footmen flock there during the -long, wet waits of winter nights, while the dances are going on across -at Sherry's and Delmonico's? Business is better than it has been for -years. - -In time, even the inconspicuous houses that formerly seemed so much -alike become differentiated and, like the separate blocks, gain -individualities of their own, though you may never know who are the -owners. They mean something to you, just as do so many of the regular -up-town walkers whose names you do not know; fine old comfortable -places many of them are, even though the architects of their day -did try hard to make them uncomfortable with high, steep steps and -other absurdities. When a "For Sale" sign comes to one of these you -feel sorry, and finally when one day in your walk up-town you see it -irrevocably going the way of all brick, with a contractor's sign out in -front, blatantly boasting of his wickedness, you resent it as a personal -loss. - -[Illustration: Olympia Jackies on shore leave.] - -It seems all wrong to be pulling down those thick walls; exposing -the privacy of the inside of the house, its arrangement of rooms and -fireplaces, and the occupant's taste in color and wall decorations. Two -young women who take the walk up-town always look the other way when -they pass this sad display; they say it's unfair to take advantage of -the house. Soon there will be a deep pit there with puffing derricks, -the sidewalk closed, and show-bills boldly screaming. And by the time -we have returned from the next sojourn out of town there will be an -office-building of ever-so-many stories or another great hotel. Already -the sign there will tell about it. - -You quicken your pace as you draw near the Park; some of the up-town -walkers who live along here have already reached the end of their -journey and are running up the steps taking out door-keys. The little -boy in knickerbockers who seems responsible for lighting Fifth Avenue -has already begun his zigzag trip along the street; soon the long double -rows of lights will seem to meet in perspective. A few belated children -are being hurried home by their maids from dancing-school; their white -frocks sticking out beneath their coats gleam in the half light. Cabs -and carriages with diners in them go spinning by, the coachmen whip up -to pass ahead of you at the street-crossing; you catch a gleam of men's -shirt-bosoms within and the light fluffiness of women, with the perfume -of gloves. Fewer people are left on the sidewalks now--those that are -look at their watches. The sun is well set by the time you reach the -Plaza, but down Fifty-ninth Street you can see long bars of after-glow -across the Hudson. - -In the half-dark, under the Park trees, comes a group of Italian -laborers; their hob-nailed shoes clatter on the cement-walk, their blue -blouses and red neckerchiefs stand out against the almost black of the -trees; they, too, are walking home for the night. The Walk Up-town is -finished and the show is over for to-day. - - - - -THE CROSS STREETS - - - - -[Illustration: Down near the eastern end of the street.] - - - - -THE CROSS STREETS - - -A city should be laid out like a golf links; except for an occasional -compromise in the interest of art or expediency it should be allowed to -follow the natural topography of the country. - -But this is not the way the matter was regarded by the commission -appointed in 1807 to lay out the rural regions beyond New York, which -by that time had grown up to the street now called Houston, and then -called North Street, probably because it seemed so far north--though, to -be sure, there were scattered hamlets and villages, with remembered and -forgotten names, here and there, all the way up to the historic town -of Haarlem. The commissioners saw fit to mark off straight street after -shameless straight street with the uncompromising regularity of a huge -foot-ball field, and gave them numbers like the white five-yard lines, -instead of names. They paid little heed to the original arrangements -of nature, which had done very well by the island, and still less to -man's previous provisions, spontaneously made along the lines of least -resistance--except, notably, in the case of Greenwich, which still -remains whimsically individual and village-like despite the attempt to -swallow it whole by the "new" city system. - -This plan, calling for endless grading and levelling, remains to this -day the official city chart as now lived down to in the perpendicular -gorges cut through the hills of solid rock seen on approaching Manhattan -Field; but the commissioners' marks have not invariably been followed, -or New York would have still fewer of its restful green spots to gladden -the eye, nor even Central Park, indeed, for that space also is checkered -in their chart with streets and avenues as thickly as in the crowded -regions above and below it. - -[Illustration: Across Trinity Church-yard, from the West.] - -However, anyone can criticise creative work, whether it be the plan -of a play or a city, but it is difficult to create. Not many of us -to-day who complacently patronize the honorable commissioners would -have made a better job of it if we had lived at that time--and had been -consulted. For at that time, we must bear in mind, even more important -foreign luxuries than golf were not highly regarded in America, and -America had quite recently thrown off a foreign power. That in itself -explains the matter. Our country was at the extreme of its reaction -from monarchical ideals, and democratic simplicity was running into -the ground. In our straining to be rid of all artificiality we were -ousting art and beauty too. It was so in most parts of our awkward young -nation; but especially did the materialistic tendency of this dreary -disagreeable period manifest itself here in commercial New York, where -Knickerbocker families were lopping the "Vans" off their names--to the -amusement of contemporaneous aristocracy in older, more conservative -sections of the country, and in some cases to the sincere regret of -their present-day descendants. - -[Illustration: An Evening View of St. Paul's Church.] - -Now, the present-day descendants have, in some instances, restored the -original spelling on their visiting cards; in other cases they have -consoled themselves with hyphens, and most of them, it is safe to say, -are bravely recovering from the tendency to over-simplicity. But the -present-day city corporation of Greater New York could not, if it so -desired, put a Richmond Hill back where it formerly stood, southwest of -Washington Square and skirted by Minetta River--any more than it can -bring to life Aaron Burr and the other historical personages who at -various times occupied the hospitable villa which stood on the top of it -and which is also gone to dust. They cannot restore the Collect Pond, -which was filled up at such great expense, and covered by the Tombs -prison and which, it is held by those who ought to know, would have -made an admirable centre of a fine park much needed in that section, as -the city has since learned. They cannot re-establish Love Lane, which -used to lead from the popular Bloomingdale road (Broadway), nearly -through the site of the building where this book is published, and so -westward to Chelsea village. - -They wanted to be very practical, those commissioners of 1807. They -prided themselves upon it. Naturally they did not fancy eccentricities -of landscape and could not tolerate sentimental names. "Love Lane? What -nonsense," said these extremely dignified and quite humorless officials; -"this is to be Twenty-first Street." They wanted to be very practical, -and so it seems the greater pity that with several years of dignified -deliberation they were so unpractical as to make that notorious mistake -of providing posterity with such a paucity of thoroughfares in the -directions in which most of the traffic was bound to flow--that is, up -and down, as practical men might have foreseen, and of running thick -ranks of straight streets, as numerously as possible, across the narrow -island from river to river, where but few were needed; thus causing -the north and south thoroughfares, which they have dubbed avenues, to -be swamped with heterogeneous traffic, complicating the problem for -later-day rapid transit, giving future generations another cause for -criticism, and furnishing a set of cross streets the like of which -cannot be found in any other city of the world. - - -[Illustration: The sights and smells of the water-front are here too.] - -I - -These are the streets which visitors to New York always remark; the -characteristic cross streets of the typical up-town region of long -regular rows of rectangular residences that look so much alike, with -steep similar steps leading up to sombre similar doors and a doctor's -sign in every other window. Bleak, barren, echoing streets where -during the long, monotonous mornings "rags-an-bot'l" are called for, -and bananas and strawberries are sold from wagons by aid of resonant -voices, and nothing else is heard except at long intervals the welcome -postman's whistle or the occasional slamming of a carriage door. -Meantime the sun gets around to the north side of the street, and the -airing of babies and fox-terriers goes on, while down at the corner -one elevated train after another approaches, roars, and rumbles away -in the distance all day long until at last the men begin coming home -from business. These are the ordinary unromantic streets on which live -so few New Yorkers in fiction (it is so easy to put them on the Avenue -or Gramercy Park or Washington Square), but on which most of them seem -to live in real life. A slice of all New York with all its layers of -society and all its mixed interests may be seen in a walk along one of -these typical streets which stretch across the island as straight and -stiff as iron grooves and waste not an inch in their progress from one -river, out into which they have gradually encroached, to the other river -into which also they extend. It is a short walk, the island is so narrow. - -[Illustration: An Old Landmark on the Lower West Side. - -(Junction of Canal and Laight Streets.)] - -Away over on the ragged eastern edge of the city it starts, out of -a ferry-house or else upon the abrupt water-front with river waves -slapping against the solid bulwark. Here are open, free sky, wide -horizon, the smell of the water, or else of the neighboring gas-house, -brisk breezes and sea-gulls flapping lazily. The street's progress -begins between an open lot where rival gangs of East Side boys meet to -fight, on one side, and, on the other, a great roomy lumber-yard, with -a very small brick building for an office. A dingy saloon, of course, -stands on the corner of the first so-called avenue. Away over here the -avenues have letters instead of numbers for names. Across the way--and -it is easily crossed, for on some of these remote thoroughfares the -traffic is so scarce that occasional blades of grass come up between the -cobble-stones--is a weather-boarded and weather-beaten old house of sad -mien, whose curtainless gable windows stare and stare out toward the -river, thinking of other days.... Some warehouses and a factory or two -are usually along here, with buzz-saws snarling; then another lettered -avenue or two and the first of the elevated railroads roars overhead. -This is now several blocks nearer the splendor of Fifth Avenue, but the -neighborhood does not look it, for here is the thick of the tenement -district, with dingy fire-escapes above, and below in the street, -bumping against everyone, thousands of city children, each of them with -at least one lung. The traffic is more crowded now, the street darker, -the air not so good. Above are numerous windows showing the subdivisions -where many families live--very comfortably and happily in numerous -cases; you could not induce them to move into the sunshine and open of -the country. Here, on the ground floor of the flat, is a grocery with -sickening fruit out in front; on one side of it a doctor's sign, on the -other an undertaker's. The window shows a three-foot coffin lined with -soiled white satin, much admired by the wise-eyed little girls. - -[Illustration: Up Beekman Street. Each ... has to change in the greatest -possible hurry from block to block.] - -As each of these succeeding avenues is crossed, with its rush and -roar of up-town and down-town traffic, the neighborhood is said to -be more "respectable," meaning more expensive; more of the women -on the sidewalks wear hats and paint, and there are fewer children -without shoes; private houses are becoming more frequent; babies less -frequent; there is more pretence and less spontaneity. The flats are -now apartments; they have ornate, hideous entrances, which add only -to the rent.... So on until here is Madison Avenue and a whole block -of private houses, varied only by an occasional stable, pleasant, -clean-looking little stables, preferable architecturally to the houses -in some cases. And here at last is Fifth Avenue; and it seems miles -away from the tenements, sparkling, gay, happy or pretending to be, -with streams of carefully dressed people flowing in both directions; -New York's wonderful women, New York's well-built, tight-collared young -men; shining carriages with good-looking horses and well-kept harness, -mixed with big, dirty trucks whose drivers seem unconscious of the -incongruity, but quite well aware of their own superior bumping ability. -Dodging in and out miraculously are a few bicycles.... And now when the -other side of the avenue is reached the rest is an anti-climax. Here -is the trades-people's entrance to the great impressive house on the -corner, so near that other entrance on the avenue, but so far that it -will never be reached by that white-aproned butcher-boy's family--in -this generation, at least. Beyond the conservatory is a bit of backyard, -a pathetic little New York yard, but very green and cheerful, bounded -at the rear by a high peremptory wall which seems to keep the ambitious -brownstone next door from elbowing its way up toward the avenue. - -[Illustration: Under the Approach to Brooklyn Bridge.] - -These next houses, however, are quite fine and impressive, too, and -they are not so alike as they seem at first; in fact, it is quite -remarkable how much individuality architects have learned of late years -to put into the eighteen or twenty feet they have to deal with. The -monotony is varied occasionally with an English basement house or a tall -wrought-iron gateway and a hood over the entrance. Here is a white -Colonial doorway with side-lights. The son of the house studied art, -perhaps, and persuaded his father to make this kind of improvement, -though the old gentleman was inclined to copy the rococo style of the -railroad president opposite.... Half-way down the block, unless a -wedding or a tea is taking place, the street is as quiet as Wall Street -on a Sunday. Behind us can be seen the streams of people flowing up and -down Fifth Avenue. - -By the time Sixth Avenue is crossed brick frequently come into use in -place of brownstone, and there are not only doctors' signs now, but -"Robes et Manteaux" are announced, or sometimes, as on that ugly iron -balcony, merely Madame somebody. By this time also there have already -appeared on some of the newel-posts by the door-bell, "Boarders," -or "Furnished Rooms"--modestly written on a mere slip of paper, as -though it had been deemed unnecessary to shout the words out for the -neighborhood to hear. In there, back of these lace-curtains, yellow, -though not with age, is the parlor--the boarding-house parlor--with -tidies which always come off and small gilt chairs which generally -break, and wax wreaths under glass, like cheeses under fly-screens in -country groceries. In the place of honor hangs the crayon portrait of -the dear deceased, in an ornate frame. But most of the boarders never go -there, except to pay their bills; down in the basement dining-room is -where they congregate, you can see them now through the grated window, -at the tables. Here, on the corner, is the little tailor-shop or -laundry, which is usually found in the low building back of that facing -the avenue, which latter is always a saloon unless it is a drug-store; -on the opposite corner is still another saloon--rivals very likely in -the Tammany district as well as in business, with a policy-shop or a -pool-room on the floor above, as all the neighbors know, though the -local good government club cannot stop it. Here is the "family entrance" -which no family ever enters. - -[Illustration: Chinatown.] - -Then come more apartments and more private residences, not invariably -_passé_, more boarding-houses, many, many boarding-houses, theatrical -boarding-houses, students' boarding-houses, foreign boarding-houses; -more small business places, and so on across various mongrel avenues -until here is the region of warehouses and piano factories and finally -even railway tracks with large astonishing trains of cars. Cross these -tracks and you are beyond the city, in the suburbs, as much as the -lateral edges of this city can have suburbs; yet this is only the -distance of a long golf-hole from residences and urbanity. Here are -stock-yards with squealing pigs, awful smells, deep, black mire, and -then a long dock reaching far out into the Hudson, with lazy river -barges flopping along-side it, and dock-rats fishing off the end--a hot, -hateful walk if ever your business or pleasure calls you out there of a -summer afternoon. There the typical up-town cross street ends its dreary -existence. - - -II - -Down-town it is so different. - -Down-town--"'way down-town," in the vernacular--in latitude far south -of homes and peace and contemplation, where everything is business -and dollars and hardness, and the streets might well be economically -straight, and rigorously business-like, they are incongruously crooked, -running hither and thither in a dreamy, unpractical manner, beginning -where they please and ending where it suits them best, in a narrow, -Old-World way, despite their astonishing, New-World architecture. -Numbers would do well enough for names down here, but instead of concise -and business-like street-signs, the lamp-posts show quaint, incongruous -names, sentimental names, poetic names sometimes, because these streets -were born and not made. - -[Illustration: It still remains whimsically individual and village-like.] - -They were born of the needs or whims of the early population, including -cows, long before the little western city became self-conscious about -its incipient greatness, and ordered a ready-made plan for its future -growth. It was too late for the painstaking commissioners down here. One -little settlement of houses had gradually reached out toward another, -each with its own line of streets or paths, until finally they all -grew together solidly into a city, not caring whether they dovetailed -or not, and one or the other or both of the old road names stuck fast. -The Beaver's Path, leading from the Parade (which afterward became -the Bowling Green) over to the swampy inlet which by drainage became -the sheep pasture and later was named Broad Street, is still called -Beaver Street to this day. The Maiden Lane, where New York girls used -to stroll (and in still more primitive times used to do the washing) -along-side the stream which gave the street its present winding shape -and low grading, is still called Maiden Lane, though probably the only -strollers in the modern jostling crowd along this street, now the -heart of the diamond district, are the special detectives who have a -personal acquaintance with every distinguished jewellery crook in the -country, and guard "the Lane," as they call it, so carefully that not -in fifteen years has a member of the profession crossed the "dead-line" -successfully. There is Bridge Street, which no longer has any stream to -bridge; Dock Street, where there is no dock; Water Street, once upon -the river-front but now separated from the water by several blocks and -much enormously valuable real estate; and Wall Street, which now seems -to lack the wooden wall by which Governor Stuyvesant sought to keep New -Englanders out of town. His efforts were of no permanent value. - -[Illustration: A Fourteenth Street Tree.] - -Nowadays they seem such narrow, crowded little runways, these down-town -cross streets; so crowded that men and horses share the middle of them -together; so narrow that from the windy tops of the irregular white -cliffs which line them you must lean far over in order to see the busy -little men at the dry asphalt bottom, far below, rapidly crawling -hither and thither like excitable ants whose hill has been disturbed. -And in modern times they seem dark and gloomy, near the bottom, even -in the clear, smokeless air of Manhattan, so that lights are turned on -sometimes at mid-day, for at best the sun gets into these valleys for -only a few minutes, so high have the tall buildings grown. But they -were not narrow in those old days of the Dutch; seemed quite the right -width, no doubt, to gossip across, from one Dutch stoop to another, at -close of day, with the after-supper pipe when the chickens and children -had gone to sleep and there was nothing to interrupt the peaceful, -puffing conversation except the lazy clattering bell of an occasional -cow coming home late for milking. Nor were they gloomy in those days, -for the sun found its way unobstructed for hours at a time, when they -were lined with small low-storied houses which the family occupied -upstairs, with business below. Everyone went home for luncheon in those -days--a pleasant, simple system adhered to in this city, it is said, -until comparatively recent times by more than one family whose present -representatives require for their happiness two or three homes in -various other parts of the world in addition to their town house. This -latter does not contain a shop on the ground floor. It is situated far -up the island, at some point beyond the marsh where their forebears went -duck-shooting (now Washington Square), or in some cases even beyond -the site of the second kissing bridge, over which the Boston Post road -crossed the small stream where Seventy-seventh Street now runs. - -[Illustration: Such as broad Twenty-third Street with its famous shops.] - -Now, being such a narrow island, none of its cross streets can be very -long, as was pointed out, even at the city's greatest breadth. The -highest cross-street number I ever found was 742 East Twelfth. But -these down-town cross streets are much shorter, even those that succeed -in getting all the way across without stopping; they are so abruptly -short that each little street has to change in the greatest possible -hurry from block to block, like vaudeville performers, in order to show -all the features of a self-respecting cross street in the business -section. Hence the sudden contrasts. For instance, down at one end of -a certain well-known business street may be seen some low houses of -sturdy red brick, beginning to look antique now with their solid walls -and visible roofs. They line an open, sunny spot, with the smell of -spices and coffee in the air. A market was situated here over a hundred -years ago, and this broad, open space still has the atmosphere of a -marketplace. The sights and smells of the water-front are here, too, -ships and stevedores unloading them, sailors lounging before dingy -drinking-places, and across the cobble-stones is a ferry-house, with -"truck" wagons on the way back to Long Island waiting for the gates -to open, the unmistakable country mud, so different from city mire, -still sticking in cakes to the spokes, notwithstanding the night spent -in town. Nothing worth remarking, perhaps, in all this, but that the -name of the street is Wall Street, and all this seems so different -from the Wall Street of a stone's-throw inland, with crowded walks, -dapper business men, creased trousers, tall, steel buildings, express -elevators, messengers dashing in and out, tickers busy, and all the -hum and suppressed excitement of the Wall Street the world knows, as -different and as suddenly different as the change that is felt in -the very air upon stepping across through the noise and shabby rush -of lower Sixth Avenue into the enchanted peace of Greenwich village, -with sparrows chirping in the wistaria vines that cover old-fashioned -balconies on streets slanting at unexpected angles. - -[Illustration: A Cross Street at Madison Square.] - -[Illustration: Across Twenty-fourth Street--Madison Square when the -Dewey Arch was there.] - -The typical part of these down-town cross streets is, of course, that -latter part, the section more or less near Broadway, and crowded to -suffocation with great businesses in great buildings, commonly known as -hideous American sky-scrapers. This is the real down-town to most of the -men who are down there, and who are too busy thinking about what these -streets mean to each of them to-day to bother much with what the streets -were in the past, or even to notice how the modern tangle of spars and -rigging looks as seen down at the end of the street from the office -window. - -Of course, all these men in the tall buildings, whether possessed -of creative genius or of intelligence enough only to run one of the -elevators, are alike Philistines to those persons who find nothing -romantic or interesting in our modern, much-maligned sky-scrapers, -which have also been called "monuments of modern materialism," and even -worse names, no doubt, because they are unprecedented and unacademic, -probably, as much as because ugly and unrestrained. To many of us, -however, shameless as it may be to confess it, these down-town streets -are fascinating enough for what they are to-day, even if they had no -past to make them all the more charming; and these erect, jubilant young -buildings, whether beautiful or not, seem quite interesting--from their -bright tops, where, far above the turmoil and confusion, Mrs. Janitor -sits sewing in the sun while the children play hide-and-seek behind -water-butts and air-shafts (there is no danger of falling off, it is a -relief to know, because the roof is walled in like a garden), down to -the dark bottom where are the safe-deposit vaults, and the trusty old -watchmen, and the oblong boxes with great fortunes in them, along-side -of wills that may cause family fights a few years later, and add to -the affluence of certain lawyers in the offices overhead. Deep down, -thirty or forty feet under the crowded sidewalk, the stokers shovel -coal under big boilers all day, and electricians do interesting tricks -with switchboards, somewhat as in the hold of a modern battle-ship. -In the many tiers of floors overhead are the men with the minds that -make these high buildings necessary and make down-town what it is, with -their dreams and schemes, their courage and imagination, their trust and -distrust in the knowledge and ignorance of other human beings which are -the means by which they bring about great successes and great failures, -and have all the fun of playing a game, with the peace of conscience -and self-satisfaction which come from hard work and manly sweat. - -Here during daylight, or part of it, they are moving about, far up -on high or down near the teeming surface, in and out of the numerous -subdivisions termed offices, until finally they call the game off for -the day, go down in the express elevator, out upon the narrow little -streets, and turn north toward the upper part of the island. And each, -like a homing pigeon, finds his own division or subdivision in a long, -solid block of divisions called homes, in the part of town where run the -many rows of even, similar streets. - - -III - -These two views across two parts of New York, the two most typical -parts, deal chiefly with what a stranger might see and feel, who came -and looked and departed. Very little has been said to show what the -cross-streets mean to those who are in the town and of it, who know the -town and like it--either because their "father's father's father" did, -or else because their work or fate has cast them upon this island and -kept them there until it no longer seems a desert island. The latter -class, indeed, when once they have learned to love the town of their -adoption, frequently become its warmest enthusiasts, even though they -may have held at one time that city contentedness could not be had -without the symmetry, softness, and repose of older civilizations, -or even that true happiness was impossible when walled in by stone and -steel from the sight and smell of green fields and running brooks. - -[Illustration: Herald Square.] - -He who loves New York loves its streets for what they have been and are -to him, not for what they may seem to those who do not use them. They -who know the town best become as homesick when away from it for the -straightness of the well-kept streets up-town as for the crookedness -and quaintness of the noisy thoroughfares below. The straightness, they -point out complacently, is very convenient for getting about, just as -the numbering system makes it easy for strangers. On the walk up-town -they enjoy looking down upon the expected unexpectedness of the odd -little cross streets, which twist and turn or end suddenly in blank -walls, or are crossed by passageways in mid-air, like the Bridge of -Sighs, down Franklin Street, from the Criminal Court-house to the Tombs. -But farther along in their walk they are just as fond of looking down -the perspective of the straight side streets from the central spine of -Fifth Avenue past block after block of New York homes, away down beyond -the almost-converging rows of even lamp-posts to the Hudson and the -purple Palisades of Jersey, with the glorious gleam and glow of the -sunset; while the energetic "L" trains scurry past, one after another, -trailing beautiful swirls of steam and carrying other New Yorkers to -other homes. None of this could be enjoyed if the cross streets tied -knots in themselves like those in London and some American cities. Even -outsiders appreciate these characteristic New York vistas; and nearly -every poet who comes to town discovers its symbolic incongruity afresh -and sings it to those who have enjoyed it before he was born, just as -most young writers of prose feel called upon to turn their attention the -other way and unearth the great East Side of New York. - -[Illustration: As it Looks on a Wet Night--The Circle, Fifty-ninth -Street and Eighth Avenue.] - -There is no such thing as a typical cross street to New Yorkers. -Individually, each thoroughfare departs as widely from the type as the -men who walk along them differ from the figure known in certain parts of -this country as the typical New Yorker. In New York there is no typical -New Yorker. These so-called similar streets, which look so much alike -to a visitor driving up Fifth Avenue, end so very differently. Some of -them, for instance, after beginning their decline toward the river and -oblivion, are redeemed to respectability, not to say exclusiveness, -again, like some of the streets in the small Twentieths running out -into what was formerly the village of Chelsea; and those who know New -York--even when standing where the Twentieth Streets are tainted with -Sixth Avenue--are cognizant of this fact, just as they are of the peace -and green campus and academic architecture of the Episcopal Theological -Seminary away over there, and of the thirty-foot lawns of London -Terrace, far down along West Twenty-third Street. - -There are other residence streets which do not decline at all, but are -solidly impressive and expensive all the way over to the river, like -those from Central Park to Riverside Drive. And your old New Yorker -does not feel depressed by their conventional similarity, their lack -of individuality; he likes to think that these streets and houses no -longer seem so unbearably new as they were only a short time ago, but -in some cases are at last acquiring the atmosphere of home and getting -rid of the odor of a real-estate project. Then, of course, so many cross -streets would refuse to be classed as typical because they run through -squares or parks, or into reservoirs or other streets, or jump over -railroad tracks by means of viaducts, burrow under avenues by means of -tunnels, or end abruptly at the top of a hill on a high embankment of -interesting masonry, as at the eastern terminus of Forty-first Street--a -spot which never feels like New York at all to me. - -[Illustration: Hideous high buildings. - -Looking east from Central Park at night.] - -Some notice should be taken also of those all-important up-town cross -streets where business has eaten out residence in streaks, as moths -devour clothes, such as broad Twenty-third Street with its famous -shops, and narrow Twenty-eighth Street, with its numerous cheap _table -d'hōtes_, each of which is the best in town; and 125th Street, which is -a Harlem combination of both. These are the streets by which surface-car -passengers are transferred all over the city. These are the streets -upon which those who have grown up with New York, if they have paid -attention to its growth as well as their own, delight to meditate. -Even comparatively young old New Yorkers can say "I remember when" of -memorable evenings in the old Academy of Music in Fourteenth Street off -Union Square, and of the days when Delmonico's had got as far up-town as -Fourteenth Street and Fifth Avenue. - -Furthermore, it could easily be shown that, for those who love old New -York, there is plenty of local historical association along these same -straight, unromantic-looking cross streets--for those who know how to -find it. For that matter one might go still further and hold that there -would not be so much antiquarian delight in New York if these streets -were not new and straight and non-committal looking. If, for instance, -the old Union Road, which was the roundabout, wet-weather route to -Greenwich village, had not been cut up and mangled by a merciless city -plan there wouldn't be the fun of tracing it by projecting corners -and odd angles of houses along West Twelfth Street between Fifth and -Sixth Avenues. It would be merely an open, ordinary street, concealing -nothing, and no more exciting to follow than Pearl Street down-town--and -not half so crooked or historical as Pearl Street. There would not be -that odd, pocket-like courtway called Mulligan "Place," with a dimly -lighted entrance leading off Sixth Avenue between Tenth and Eleventh -Streets. Nor would there be that still more interesting triangular -remnant of an old Jewish burying-ground over the way, behind the old -Grapevine Tavern. For either the whole cemetery would have been allowed -to remain on Union Road (or Street), which is not likely, or else they -would have removed all the graves and covered the entire site with -buildings, as was the case with a dozen other burying-grounds here and -there. If the commissioners had not had their way we could not have all -those inner rows of houses to explore, like the "Weaver's Row," once -near the Great Kiln Road, but now buried behind a Sixth Avenue store -between Sixteenth and Seventeenth Streets, and entered, if entered at -all, by way of a dark, ill-smelling alley. Nor would the negro quarter, -a little farther up-town, have its inner rows which seem so appropriate -for negro quarters, especially the whitewashed courts opening off -Thirtieth Street, where may be found, in these secluded spots, trees and -seats under them, with old, turbanned mammies smoking pipes and looking -much more like Richmond darkies than those one expects to see two blocks -from Daly's Theatre. Colonel Carter of Cartersville could not have -found such an interesting New York residence if the commissioners had -not had their way, nor could he have entered it by a tunnel-like passage -under the house opposite the Tenth Street studios. Even Greenwich would -not be quite so entertaining without those permanent marks of the -conflict between village and city which resulted in separating West -Eleventh Street so far from Tenth, and in twisting Fourth Street around -farther and farther until it finally ends in despair in Thirteenth -Street. If the commissioners had not had their way we should have had no -"Down Love Lane" written by Mr. Janvier. - - * * * * * - -Looked at from the point of view of use and knowledge, every street, -like every person, gains a distinct personality, some being merely more -strongly distinguished than others. And just as every human being, -whatever his name or his looks may be, continues to win more or less -sympathy the more you know of him and his history and his ambitions, so -with these streets, and their checkered careers, their sudden changes -from decade to decade--or in still less time, in our American cities, -their transformation from farm land to suburban road, and then to -fashionable city street, and then to small business and then to great -business. Such, after all, is the stuff of which abiding city charm is -made, not of plans and architecture. - - - - -RURAL NEW YORK CITY - - - - -[Illustration] - - - - -RURAL NEW YORK CITY - - -There is pretty good snipe shooting within the city limits of New York, -and I have heard that an occasional trout still rises to the fly in one -or two spots along a certain stream--which need not be made better known -than it is already, though it can hardly be worth whipping much longer -at any rate. - -A great many ducks, however, are still shot every season in the city, -by those who know where to go for them; and as for inferior sport, -like rabbits--if you include them as game--on certain days of the year -probably more gunners and dogs are out after rabbits within the limits -of Greater New York than in any region of equal extent in the world, -though to be sure the bags brought in hardly compare with those of -certain parts of Australia or some of our Western States. Down toward -Far Rockaway, a little this side of the salt marshes of Jamaica Bay, in -the hedges and cabbage-patches of the "truck" farms, there is plenty of -good cover for rabbits, as well as in the brush-piles and pastures of -the rolling Borough of Richmond on Staten Island, and the forests and -stone fences of the hilly Bronx, up around Pelham Bay Park for instance. -But the gunners must keep out of the parks, of course, though many -ubiquitous little boys with snares do not. - -In such parts of the city, except when No Trespassing signs prevent, -on any day of the open season scores of men and youths may be seen -whose work and homes are generally in the densest parts of the city, -respectable citizens from the extreme east and west sides of Manhattan, -artisans and clerks, salesmen and small shopkeepers, who, quite -unexpectedly in some cases, share the ancient fret and longing of the -primitive man in common with those other New Yorkers who can go farther -out on Long Island or farther up into New York State to satisfy it. To -be sure, the former do not get as many shots as the latter, but they get -the outdoors and the exercise and the return to nature, which is the -main thing. And the advantage of going shooting in Greater New York is -that you can tramp until too dark to see, and yet get back in time to -dine at home, thus satisfying an appetite acquired in the open with a -dinner cooked in the city. - -[Illustration: Flushing Volunteer Fire Department Responding to a Fire -Alarm.] - -Once a certain young family went off to a far corner of Greater New York -to attack the perennial summer problem. By walking through a hideously -suburban village with a beautifully rural name they found, just over the -brow of a hill, quite as a friend had told them they would, tucked -away all alone in a green glade beside an ancient forest, a charming -little diamond-paned, lattice-windowed cottage, covered thick with vines -outside, and yet supplied with modern plumbing within. It seemed too -good to be true. There was no distinctly front yard or back yard, not -even a public road in sight, and no neighbors to bother them except the -landlord, who lived in the one house near by and was very agreeable. All -through the close season they enjoyed the whistling of quail at their -breakfast; in their afternoon walks, squirrels and rabbits and uncommon -song-birds were too common to be remarked; and once, within forty yards -of the house, great consternation was caused by a black snake, though it -was not black snakes but mosquitoes that made them look elsewhere next -year, and taught them a life-lesson in regard to English lattice-windows -and American mosquito-screens. - -But until the mosquitoes became so persistent it seemed--this -country-place within a city, or _rus in urbe_, as they probably enjoyed -calling it--an almost perfect solution of the problem for a small family -whose head had to be within commuting distance of down-town. For though -so remote, it was not inaccessible; two railroads and a trolley line -were just over the dip of the hill that hid them, so that there was time -for the young man of the house to linger with his family at breakfast, -which was served out-of-doors, with no more objectionable witnesses -than the thrushes in the hedges. And then, too, there was time to get -exercise in the afternoon before dinner. "It seemed an ideal spot," to -quote their account of it, "except that on our walks, just as we thought -that we had found some sequestered dell where nobody had come since the -Indians left, we would be pretty sure to hear a slight rustle behind us, -and there--not an Indian but a Tammany policeman would break through the -thicket, with startling white gloves and gleaming brass buttons, looking -exactly like the policemen in the Park. Of course he would continue on -his beat and disappear in a moment, but by that time we had forgotten to -listen to the birds and things, and the distant hum of the trolley would -break in and remind us of all things we have wanted to forget." - -[Illustration: A Bit of Farm Land in the Heart of Greater New York. - -"Acre after acre, farm after farm, and never a sign of city in sight."] - - -I - -In a way, that is rather typical of most of the rurality found within -the boundaries of these modern aggregations or trusts of large and -small towns, and intervening country, held together (more or less) -by one name, under one municipal government, and called a "city" by -legislature. There is plenty that is not at all city-like within the -city walls--called limits--there is plenty of nature, but in most cases -those wanting to commune with it are reminded that it is no longer -within the domain of nature. The city has stretched out its hand, and -the mark of the beast can usually be seen. - -You can find not only rural seclusion and bucolic simplicity, but the -rudeness and crudeness of the wilderness and primeval forest; indeed, -even forest fires have been known in Greater New York. But the trouble -is that so often the bucolic simplicity has cleverly advertised lots -staked out across it; the rural seclusion shows a couple of factory -chimneys on the near horizon. The forest fire was put out by the fire -department. - -There are numerous peaceful duck-ponds in the Borough of Queens, for -instance, as muddy and peaceful as ever you saw, but so many of them are -lighted by gas every evening. Besides the fisheries, there is profitable -oyster-dredging in several sections of this city; and in at least one -place it can be seen by electric light. There are many potato-patches -patrolled by the police. - -[Illustration: One of the Farmhouses that Have Come to Town. - -The old Duryea House, Flushing, once used as a head-quarters for Hessian -officers.] - -Not far from the geographical centre of the city there are fields where, -as all who have ever commuted to and from the north shore of Long Island -must remember, German women may be seen every day in the tilling season, -working away as industriously as the peasants of Europe, blue skirts, -red handkerchiefs about their heads, and all: while not far away, at -frequent intervals, passes a whining, thumping trolley-car, marked -Brooklyn Bridge. - -[Illustration: East End of Duryea House, where the Cow is Stabled.] - -In another quarter, on a dreary, desolate waste, neither farm land, -nor city, nor village, there stands an old weather-beaten hut, long, -low, patched up and tumbled down, with an old soap-box for a front -doorstep--all beautifully toned by time, the kind amateurs like to -sketch, when found far away from home in their travels. The thing that -recalls the city in this case, rather startlingly, is a rudely lettered -sign, with the S's turned the wrong way, offering lots for sale in -Greater New York. - -It is not necessary to go far away from the beaten paths of travel in -Greater New York to witness any of these scenes of the comedy, sometimes -tragedy, brought about by the contending forces of city and country. -Most of what has been cited can be observed from car-windows. For -that matter, somewhat similar incongruity can be found in all of our -modern, legally enlarged cities, London, with the hedges and gardens -of Hampstead Heath, and certain parts of the Surrey Side, or Chicago, -with its broad stretches of prairie and farms--the subject of so many -American newspaper jokes a few years ago. - -[Illustration: The Old Water-power Mill from the Rear of the Old Country -Cross-roads Store.] - -[Illustration: The Old Country Cross-roads Store, Established 1828. - -In the background is the old water-power mill.] - -[Illustration: Interior of the Old Country Cross-roads Store.] - -But New York--and this is another respect in which it is different from -other cities--our great Greater New York, which is better known as -having the most densely populated tenement districts in the world, can -show places that are more truly rural than any other city of modern -times, places where the town does not succeed in obtruding itself at -all. From Hampstead Heath, green and delightful as it is, every now -and then the gilded cross of St. Paul's may be seen gleaming far below -through the trees. And in Chicago, bucolic as certain sections of it -may be, one can spy the towers of the city for miles away, across the -prairie; even when down in certain wild, murderous-looking ravines there -is ever on high the appalling cloud of soft-coal smoke. But out in the -broad, rolling farm lands of Long Island you can walk on for hours and -not find any sign of the city you are in, except the enormous tax-rate, -which, by the way, has the effect of discouraging the farmers (many of -whom did not want to become city people at all) from spending money for -paint and improvements, and this only results in making the country -look more primitive, and less like what is absurdly called a city. - -[Illustration] - -[Illustration: The Colony of Chinese Farmers, Near the Geographical -Centre of New York City.] - -But the best of these rural parts of town cannot be spied from -car-windows, or the beaten paths of travel. - - -II - -Make a journey out through the open country to the southeast of -Flushing, past the Oakland Golf Club, and over toward the Creedmoor -Rifle Range, after a while turn north and follow a twisting road that -leads down into the ravine at the head of Little Neck Bay, where a few -of the many Little Neck clams come from. All of these places are well -within the eastern boundary of the city, and this little journey will -furnish a very good example of a certain kind of rural New York, but -only one kind, for it is only one small corner of a very big place. - -[Illustration: Working as industrially as the peasants of Europe, blue -skirts, red handkerchiefs about their heads....] - -As soon as you have ridden, or walked--it is better to walk if there is -plenty of time--beyond the fine elms of the ancient Flushing streets, -you will be in as peaceful looking farming country as can be found -anywhere. But the interesting thing about it is that here are seen not -merely a few incongruous green patches that happen to be left between -rapidly devouring suburban towns--like the fields near Woodside where -the German women work--out here one rides through acre after acre of -it, farm after farm, mile after mile, up hill, down hill, corn-fields, -wheat-fields, stone fences, rail fences, no fences, and never a town in -sight, much less anything to suggest the city, except the procession of -market-wagons at certain hours, to or from College Point Ferry, and they -aren't so conspicuously urban after all. - -[Illustration: Remains of a windmill in New York City, Between Astoria -and Steinway.] - -Even the huge advertising sign-boards which usually shout to passers-by -along the approaches to cities are rather scarce in this country, -for it is about midway between two branches of the only railroad on -Long Island, and there is no need for a trolley. There is nothing -but country roads, with more or less comfortable farm-houses and -large, squatty barns; not only old farm-houses, but what is much more -striking, farm-houses that are new. Now, it does seem odd to build a new -farm-house in a city. - -[Illustration: The Dreary Edge of Long Island City.] - -Out in the fields the men are ploughing. A rooster crows in the -barn-yard. A woman comes out to take in the clothes. Children climb -the fence to gaze when people pass by. And one can ride for a matter -of miles and see no other kind of life, except the birds in the hedge -and an occasional country dog, not suburban dogs, but distinctly farm -dogs, the kind that have deep, ominous barks, as heard at night from -a distance. By and by, down the dusty, sunny, lane-like road plods a -fat old family Dobbin, pulling an old-fashioned phaėton in which are -seated a couple of prim old maiden ladies, dressed in black, who try to -make him move faster in the presence of strangers, and so push and jerk -animatedly on the reins, which he enjoys catching with his tail, and -holds serenely until beyond the bend in the road. - -[Illustration: The Procession of Market-wagons at College Point Ferry.] - -Of course, this is part of the city. The road map proves it. But there -are very few places along this route where you can find it out in any -other way. The road leads up over a sort of plateau; a wide expanse of -country can be viewed in all directions, but there are only more fields -to see, more farm-houses and squatty barns, perhaps a village church -steeple in the distance, a village that has its oldest inhabitant and -a church with a church-yard. Away off to the north, across a gleaming -strip of water, which the map shows to be Long Island Sound, lie the -blue hills of the Bronx. They, too, are well within Greater New York. -So is all that country to the southwest, far beyond the range of the -eye, Jamaica, and Jamaica Bay and Coney Island. And over there, more to -the west, is dreary East New York and endless Brooklyn, and dirty Long -Island City, and, still farther, crowded Manhattan Island itself. Then -one realizes something of the extent of this strange manner of city. It -is very ridiculous. - -[Illustration: Past dirty backyards and sad vacant lots.] - -When at last the head of Little Neck Bay is reached, here is another -variety of primitive country scene. The upland road skirting the hill, -beyond which the rifles of Creedmoor are crashing, takes a sudden turn -down a steep grade, a guileless-looking grade, but very dangerous for -bicyclists, especially in the fall when the ruts and rocks are covered -thick with leaves for days at a time. Then, after passing a nearer view -(through a vista of big trees) of the blue Sound, with the darker blue -of the hills beyond, the road drops down into a peaceful old valley, -tucked away as serene and unmolested as it was early in the nineteenth -century, when the country cross-roads store down there was first built, -along-side of the water-power mill, which is somewhat older. In front -is an old dam and mill-pond, called "The Alley," recently improved, -but still containing black bass; in the rear Little Neck Bay opens out -to the Sound beyond, one of the sniping and ducking places of Greater -New York. The old store, presumably the polling-place of that election -district of the city, is where prominent personages of the neighborhood -congregate and tell fishing and shooting stories, and gossip, and talk -politics, seated on boxes and barrels around the white-bodied stove, for -the sake of which they chew tobacco. - -It is one of those stores that contain everything--from anchor-chains to -chewing-gum. There are bicycle sundries in the show-case and boneless -bacon suspended from the old rafters, but the best thing in the place -is a stream of running water. This is led down by a pipe from the side -of the hill, acts as a refrigerator for a sort of bar in one corner of -the store--for this establishment sells a greater variety of commodities -than most department stores--and passes out into Long Island Sound in -the rear. - -The fact that they are in Greater New York does not seem to bother them -much down in this happy valley, at least it hasn't changed their mode of -life apparently. The last time we were there a well-tanned Long Islander -was buying some duck loads; he said he was merely going out after a few -snipe, but he ordered No. 5's. - -[Illustration: New York City Up in the Beginnings of the Bronx -Regions--Skating at Bronxdale.] - -"Have you a policeman out here?" we asked him. - -"Oh, yes, but he doesn't come around very often." - -"How often?" - -"Oh, I generally catch a glimpse of him once a month or so," said the -gunner. "But then, you see, these here city policemen have to be pretty -careful, they're likely to get lost." - -"Down near Bay Ridge," a man on the cracker-barrel put in as he -stroked the store-cat, "one night a policeman got off his beat and -floundered into the swamp, and if it hadn't been that some folks of the -neighborhood rescued him, he'd have perished--of mosquitoes." - -"We don't have any mosquitoes here on the north shore," put in the -other, addressing us without blinking. He is probably the humorist of -the neighborhood. - - * * * * * - -This is only one of the many pilgrimages that may be made in Greater New -York, and shows only one sort of rurality. It is the great variety of -unurban scenes that is the most impressive thing about this city. Here -is another sort, seen along certain parts of Jamaica Bay: - -Long, level sweeps of flat land, covered with tall, wild grass that -the sea-breezes like to race across. The plain is intersected here and -there with streams of tide-water. At rare intervals there are lonely -little clumps of scrub-oaks, huddled close together for comfort. Away -off in the distance the yellow sand-dunes loom up as big as mountains, -and beyond is the deep, thrilling blue of the open sea, with sharp-cut -horizon. - -The sun comes up, the wonderful color tricks of the early morning are -exhibited, and the morning flight of birds begins. The tide comes -hurrying in, soon hiding the mud flats where the snipe were feeding. -The breeze freshens up, and whitecaps, like specks, can be seen on the -distant blue band of the ocean.... The sun gets hot. The tide turns. -The estuaries begin to show their mud-banks again. The sun sinks lower; -and distant inlets reflect it brilliantly. The birds come back, the -breeze dies down, and the sun sets splendidly across the long, flat -plain; another day has passed over this part of a so-called city and no -man has been within a mile of the spot. The nearest sign of habitation -is the lonely life-saving station away over there on the dunes, and, -perhaps, a fisherman's shanty. Far out on the sky-line is the smoke of a -home-coming steamer, whose approach has already been announced from Fire -Island, forty miles down the coast. - -[Illustration: Another Kind of City Life--Along the Marshes of Jamaica -Bay.] - -Then, here is another sort: A rambling, stony road, occasionally passing -comfortable old houses--historic houses in some cases--with trees and -lawns in front, leading down to stone walls that abut the road. The -double-porticoed house where Aaron Burr died is not far from here. An -old-fashioned, stone-arched bridge, a church steeple around the bend, a -cluster of trees, and under them, a blacksmith shop. Trudging up the -hill is a little boy, who stares and sniffles, carrying a slate and -geography in one hand, and leading a little sister by the other, who -also sniffles and stares. This, too, is Greater New York, Borough of -Richmond, better known as Staten Island. This borough has nearly all -kinds of wild and tame rurality and suburbanity. Its farms need not be -described. - - -III - -Pointing out mere farms in the city becomes rather monotonous; they are -too common. But there is one kind of farm in New York that is not at -all common, that has never existed in any other city, so far as I know, -in ancient or modern times. It is situated, oddly enough, in about the -centre of the 317 square miles of New York--so well as the centre of a -boot-shaped area can be located. - -[Illustration: There is profitable oyster-dredging in several sections -of the city.] - -Cross Thirty-fourth Street Ferry to Long Island City, which really -does not smell so bad as certain of our poets would have us believe; -take the car marked "Steinway," and ride for fifteen or twenty minutes -out through dreary city edge, past small, unpainted manufactories, -squalid tenements, dirty backyards, and sad vacant lots that serve as -the last resting-place for decayed trucks and overworked wagons. Soon -after passing a tumble-down windmill, which looks like an historic old -relic, on a hill-top, but which was built in 1867 and tumbled down -only recently, the Steinway Silk Mills will be reached (they can be -distinguished by the long, low wings of the building covered with -windows like a hothouse). Leave the car here and strike off to the left, -down the lane which will soon be an alley, and then a hundred yards or -so from the highway will be seen the first of the odd, paper-covered -houses of a colony of Chinese farmers who earn their living by tilling -the soil of Greater New York. - -At short distances are the other huts crouching at the foot of big -trees, with queer gourds hanging out in front to dry, and large unusual -crocks lying about, and huge baskets, and mattings--all clearly -from China; they are as different from what could be bought on the -neighboring avenue as the farm and farmers themselves are different -from most Long Island farms and farmers. Out in the fields, which are -tilled in the Oriental way, utilizing every inch of ground clean up to -the fence, and laid out with even divisions at regular intervals, like -rice-fields, the farmers themselves may be seen, working with Chinese -implements, their pigtails tucked up under their straw hats, while the -western world wags on in its own way all around them. This is less than -five miles from the glass-covered parade-ground of the Waldorf-Astoria. - -They have only three houses among them, that is, there are only three -of these groups of rooms, made of old boards and boxes and covered with -tar paper; but no one in the neighborhood seems to know just how many -Chinamen live there. The same sleeping space would hold a score or more -over in Pell Street. - -Being Chinamen, they grow only Chinese produce, a peculiar kind of bean -and some sort of salad, and those large, artistic shaped melons, seen -only in China or Chinatown, which they call something that sounds like -"moncha," and which, one of them told me, bring two cents a pound from -the Chinese merchants and restaurateurs of Manhattan. For my part, I -was very glad to learn of these farms, for I had always been perplexed -to account for the fresh salads and green vegetables, of unmistakably -Chinese origin, that can be found in season in New York's Chinatown. -Under an old shed near by they have their market-wagon, in which, -looking inscrutable, they drive their stuff to market through Long -Island City, and by way of James Slip Ferry over to Chinatown; then back -to the farm again, looking inscrutable. And on Sundays, for all we know, -they leave the wagon behind and go to gamble their earnings away in Mott -Street, or perhaps away over in some of the well-known places of Jersey -City. Then back across the two ferries to farming on dreary Monday -mornings. - - -IV - -Even up in Manhattan there are still places astonishingly unlike what -is expected of the crowded little island on which stands New York -proper. There is Fort Washington with tall trees growing out of the -Revolutionary breastworks, land, under their branches, a fine view up -the Hudson to the mountains--a quiet, sequestered bit of public park -which the public hasn't yet learned to treat as a park, though within -sight of the crowds crossing the viaduct from the Grant Monument on -Riverside. There are wild flowers up there every spring, and until quite -recently so few people visited this spot for days at a time that there -were sometimes woodcock and perhaps other game in the thickly wooded -ravine by the railroad. Soon, however, the grass on the breastworks will -be worn off entirely, and the aged deaf man who tends the river light on -Jeffreys Hook will become sophisticated, if he is still alive. - -[Illustration: Cemetery Ridge, Near Richmond, Staten Island.] - -It will take longer, however, for the regions to the north, beyond -Washington Heights, down through Inwood and past Tubby Hook, to look -like part of a city. And across the Spuyten Duyvil Creek from Manhattan -Island, up through the winding roads of Riverdale to Mount St. Vincent, -and so across the line to Yonkers, it is still wooded, comparatively -secluded and country-like, even though so many of the fine country -places thereabouts are being deserted. Over to the eastward, across -Broadway, a peaceful road which does not look like a part of the same -thoroughfare as the one with actors and sky-scrapers upon it, there are -the still wilder stretches of Mosholu and Van Cortlandt Park, where, -a year or two ago, large, well-painted signs on the trees used to say -"Beware of the Buffaloes." - -[Illustration: A Peaceful Scene in New York. - -In the distance is St. Andrew's Church, Borough of Richmond, Staten -Island.] - -The open country sport of golf has had a good deal to do with making -this rural park more generally appreciated. Golf has done for Van -Cortlandt what the bicycle had done for the Bronx and Pelham Bay Parks. -There are still natural, wild enough looking bits, off from the beaten -paths, in all these parks, scenes that look delightfully dark and sylvan -in the yearly thousands of amateur photographs--the camera does not -show the German family approaching from the rear, or the egg-shells and -broken beer-bottles behind the bushes--but beware of the police if you -break a twig, or pick a blossom. - - -V - -Those who enjoy the study of all the forms of nature except the highest -can find plenty to sigh over in the way the city thrusts itself upon -the country. But to those who think that the haunts and habits of the -Man are not less worthy of observation than those of the Beaver and -the Skunk, it is all rather interesting, and some of it not so deeply -deplorable. - -[Illustration: A Relic of the Early Nineteenth Century, Borough of -Richmond.] - -There are certain old country taverns, here and there, up toward -Westchester, and down beyond Brooklyn and over on Staten Island--not -only those which everybody knows, like the Hermitage in the Bronx and -Garrisons over by the fort at Willets Point, but remote ones which have -not yet been exploited in plays or books, and which still have a fine -old flavor, with faded prints of Dexter and Maud S. and much earlier -favorites in the bar-room. In some cases, to be sure, though still -situated at a country cross-roads, with green fields all about, they are -now used for Tammany head-quarters with pictures of the new candidate -for sheriff in the old-fashioned windows--but most of them would have -gone out of existence entirely after the death of the stage-coach, if it -had not been for the approach of the city, and the side-whiskered New -Yorkers of a previous generation who drove fast horses. If the ghosts -of these men ever drive back to lament the good old days together, they -must be somewhat surprised, possibly disappointed, to find these rural -road-houses doing a better business than even in their day. The bicycle -revived the road-house, and though the bicycle has since been abandoned -by those who prefer fashion to exercise, the places that the wheel -disclosed are not forgotten. They are visited now in automobiles. - -[Illustration: An Old-fashioned Stone-arched Bridge. (Richmond, Staten -Island.)] - -There are all those historic country-houses within the city limits, well -known, and in some cases restored, chiefly by reason of being within -the city, like the Van Cortlandt house, now a part of the park, and the -Jumel mansion standing over Manhattan Field, a house which gets into -most historical novels of New York. Similarly Claremont Park has adopted -the impressive Zabriskie mansion; and the old Lorillard house in the -Bronx might have been torn down by this time but that it has been made -into a park house and restaurant. Nearly all these are tableted by the -"patriotic" societies, and made to feel their importance. The Bowne -place in Flushing, a very old type of Long Island farm-house, was turned -into a museum by the Bowne family itself--an excellent idea. The Quaker -Meeting-house in Flushing, though not so old by twenty-five years as -it is painted in the sign which says "Built in 1695," will probably be -preserved as a museum too. - -[Illustration: An Old House in Flatbush.] - -Another relic in that locality well worth keeping is the Duryea place, -a striking old stone farm-house with a wide window on the second floor, -now shut in with a wooden cover supported by a long brace-pole reaching -to the ground. Out of this window, it is said, a cannon used to point. -This was while the house was head-quarters for Hessian officers, during -the long monotonous months when "the main army of the British army lay -at Flushing from Whitestone to Jamaica;" and upon Flushing Heights -there stood one of the tar-barrel beacons that reached from New York to -Norwich Hill, near Oyster Bay. The British officers used to kill time -by playing at Fives against the blank wall of the Quaker Meeting-house, -or by riding over to Hempstead Plains to the fox-hunts--where the -Meadowbrook Hunt Club rides to the hounds to-day. The common soldiers -meanwhile stayed in Flushing and amused themselves, according to the -same historian, by rolling cannon-balls about a course of nine holes. -That was probably the nearest approach to the great game at that time -in America, and it may have been played on the site of the present -Flushing Golf Club. - -These same soldiers also amused themselves in less innocent ways, so -that the Quakers and other non-combatants in and about this notorious -Tory centre used to hide their live stock indoors over night, to keep -it from being made into meals by the British. That may account for the -habit of the family occupying the Duryea place referred to; they keep -their cow in a room at one end of the house. At any rate it is not -necessary for New Yorkers to go to Ireland to see sights of that sort. - -Those are a few of the historic country places that have come to town. -There is a surprisingly large number of them, and even when they are not -adopted and tableted by the D. A. R. or D. R., or S. R. or S. A. R., -they are at least known to local fame, and are pointed out and made much -of. - -But the many abandoned country houses which are not especially historic -or significant--except to certain old persons to whom they once meant -home--goodly old places, no longer even near the country, but caught -by the tide well within the city, that is the kind to be sorry for. -Nobody pays much attention to them. A forlorn For Sale sign hangs out -in front, weather-beaten and discouraged. The tall Colonial columns -still try to stand up straight and to appear unconscious of the faded -paint and broken windows, hoping that no one notices the tangle of -weeds in the old-fashioned garden, where old-fashioned children used to -play hide-and-seek among the box-paths, now overgrown or buried under -tin cans.... Across the way, perhaps, there has already squatted an -unabashed row of cheap, vulgar houses, impudent, staring little city -homes, vividly painted, and all exactly alike, with highly ornamented -wooden stoops below and zinc cornices above, like false-hair fronts. -They look at times as though they were putting their heads together to -gossip and smile about their odd, old neighbor that has such out-of-date -fan-lights, that has no electric bell, no folding-beds, and not a bit of -zinc cornicing. - -Meanwhile the old house turns its gaze the other way, thinking of days -gone by, patiently waiting the end--which will come soon enough. - -[Illustration] - - - - -Transcriber's Notes: - -Simple typographical errors were corrected. - -Punctuation and spelling were made consistent when a predominant -preference was found in this book; otherwise they were not changed. - -Page 8, first line: "manifestations of the spirit" could be "or". - - - - - -End of Project Gutenberg's New York Sketches, by Jesse Lynch Williams - -*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK NEW YORK SKETCHES *** - -***** This file should be named 42501-8.txt or 42501-8.zip ***** -This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: - http://www.gutenberg.org/4/2/5/0/42501/ - -Produced by Charlene Taylor, Charlie Howard, and the Online -Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net - - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions -will be renamed. - -Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no -one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation -(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without -permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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