A police launch swung up to the San Francisco and took Lindbergh aboard. He was brought to the Macom, yacht of the Mayor of New York, amid a deafening chorus of whistles. Indeed, so great was the din that conversation among the welcoming committees was quite impossible and remained so throughout the hour’s voyage to the Battery.
As the Macom moved forward the huge disorderly fleet of crowding vessels swung into rough column behind her. Massive ocean going tugs and fireboats clung close aboard to guard her from too curious craft who sought to wedge their way in toward the yacht for a better look at the bare-headed boy standing atop her pilot house.
As in Washington, the air was well filled with planes. Their motors’ roar lent a sort of solemn undertone to the shrieking chorus of whistles and sirens.
There was an interview below decks. It was not very successful. The whistles made too much noise and Lindbergh very properly refused to discuss his “feelings”, which are meat and drink to the writing man.
It was estimated that 300,000 people were massed in the vicinity of the Battery when the Macom hove alongside. Lining the streets clear to Central Park was a multitude that was variously estimated from 3,000,000 to 4,500,000. Scores of people were in their places before eight A.M. on upper Fifth Avenue. Lindbergh did not pass them until three P.M. Traffic was disrupted. Police control was strained to its utmost.
As evidence of the almost unanimous turnout for the occasion, the Police Department of the City issued special instructions to all citizens about leaving their houses protected against thieves, something that hadn’t been done for a generation.
When the cavalcade with Lindbergh leading started up Broadway there came the famous New York “snow storm” consisting of a myriad paper bits and confetti streamers floating downward from the skyscrapers. Photographs do scant justice to the spectacle.
At the City Hall Mayor Walker expressed the city’s sentiments with a felicity that deserves their record here. He spoke more informally than most had spoken in Washington; by the same token he echoed through his easily forgivable eloquence much that the inarticulate thousands waiting without the lines would like to have said.
He struck right at the heart of things when he began:
“Let me dispense with any unnecessary official side or function, Colonel, by telling you that if you have prepared yourself with any letters of introduction to New York City they are not necessary.