We think that a man who had been out of Brooklyn for twenty years and whose recollections of the wonderful beach that forms her southern outpost were recollections of great gardens; of Patrick Gilmore playing inimitable marches in front of one giant hotel and of the incomparable Siedl leading his orchestra beside another, would do better than to return to Coney island. Siedl is dead; so is Gilmore and even the huge wooden hotel that looked down upon him was pulled apart last year to make room for the encroaching streets and houses of a growing Brooklyn. The paint and the tinsel of Coney island grows tarnished—and that twenty-year exile could find little else than the sea to hold his interest. And the folk who go to Coney island today seem to care very little for the sea—save perhaps as a giant bath-tub.
We think that the absentee of twenty years' standing would do far better to go to Prospect Park. That really superb pleasure-ground, planned through the foresight of a Brooklyn man of half a century ago, remains practically unchanged through the years. It remains one of the great parks, not only of America, but of the entire world. It is the real lion of Brooklyn. It is incomparably finer than its rival, the somewhat neglected Central Park of Manhattan. And alas, Manhattan seems to think so, too, for to Prospect Park it sends each bright summer Sunday not the best but the roughest of its hordes. And Brooklyn sighs when it sees its lovely playground stolen from it.
It is more than playground—Prospect Park. It is history. There are no historic buildings in Brooklyn—unless we except the Dutch Reformed church out in Flatbush—but all of Prospect Park was once a battlefield—the theater of that bitter and bloody conflict of July, 1776, when Washington was routed by British strategy and forced to retire from the city that he needed most of all to hold. Through its great meadows Continental and Briton and Hessian once marched with murder in their hearts. In those great meadows today the boys and girls of the Brooklyn of today play tennis; the older men, after the fashion of the Brooklyn of other days, their croquet. And annually down the greensward the little children of Brooklyn march in brilliant June-time pageant.
The Sunday-school parade of Brooklyn is one of the older institutions of the town that still survives. Annually and upon the first Thursday afternoon of June the children of all the Sabbath-schools of the borough march out upon its streets. There is not room even in Prospect Park for all of these—for sometimes there are 150,000 of them marching of an afternoon; and the great distances within Brooklyn must also be brought into consideration. But the largest of the individual parades always marches in the park—marches like trained troopers up past the dignitaries in the reviewing stand, and the mayor, and the other city officers, the Governor of the State, not infrequently the President of the United States. There is much music, great excitement—and ice-cream afterwards. Sharp denominational bars are let down and the ice-cream goes to all. And the boys and girls who are to be the men and women of the Brooklyn of tomorrow and who are to face its great problems march proudly by, knowing that the loving eye of father or of mother must be upon them.
The problems of the Brooklyn of tomorrow are not to be carelessly dismissed. Nor is the problem of Brooklyn's future in any way hopeless. The changing of conditions, the changing of habits, the changing of institutions does not of necessity spell utter ruin. Cosmopolitanism does not mean the end of all things. We have called her dull and emotionless and provincial, and yet many of her residents are quick and appreciative—well-traveled and well-read—anxious to meet the new conditions, to solve the problems that have been entailed. And we have not the slightest doubt that in the long run they will be solved, that Brooklyn will be ready and willing to undertake the great problem that has been thrust upon her—the fusing of her hundreds of thousands of foreign-born into first-rate Americans.
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WILLIAM PENN'S TOWN
To approach Philadelphia in a humble spirit of absolute appreciation, you must come to her by one of the historic pikes that spread from her like cart-wheel spokes from their hub. You will find one of those old roads easily enough, for they radiate from her in every direction. And when you have found your pike you will discover that it is a fine road, even in these days when there is a "good-roads movement" abroad in the land. You can traverse it into town as best suits your fancy—and your purse. If you are fortunate enough to own an automobile you will find motoring one of the greatest of many joys in the southeastern corner of Pennsylvania. If your purse is thin you can have joyous health out of walking the long miles such as is denied to your proud motorist. And if you have neither money nor robust health for hard walking, you will find a trolley line along each of the important pikes. Philadelphia does not close her most gracious avenues of approach to you—no matter who you are or what you are.
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