A little beyond Seventy-second Street near where the Natural History Museum was being built, I picked mushrooms on the hills occupied by squatters and goats. Up at Nineteenth Street and Fourth Avenue, near where the Unitarian Church now stands, was an open lot which was used for a circus, and I remember at one time it was occupied by a panorama of the Siege of Paris. On the corner of Nineteenth Street and Broadway, in the midst of one of the busiest parts of the town, was a quiet dwelling, occupying almost a whole block of land. Here were green trees and shrubbery with grass, and in the “back yard” they still kept chickens and a cow! This was the home of the Misses Goelet, who had lived here all their lives, and even the influx of business, theaters, etc., could not make them sell and give up the home they cared for.
Delmonico’s was on Twenty-sixth Street. It was one of those landmarks that always kept pace with the trend of the times. I can remember only one very distinctive restaurant at that time; it was named the Au Petit Vefour and was run by Henri, who used to cook for the Stomach Club in Washington Square. Like all French places, it was not particularly smart, but the table and service were always immaculate. Henri went down to the markets every morning at six o’clock, digging down to the bottom of the boxes of fruit and vegetables, and feeling of the chickens until he managed to bring home the raw material which he and madame between them prepared in a style fit for a king. Calories, vitamines, etc., had not become popular, and I do not believe Henri ever heard of them, but he could serve, by instinct, a balanced ration accompanied by the proper wine. When you got through, however, it cost as much as Delmonico’s.
It is hard to picture New York without subways, and to think of the tired workingman reaching his home after a hard day’s work by the aid of a lumbering horse car. It seems almost incredible that so many changes have taken place in thirty years. The horses of the Fifth Avenue buses were the butt of many a joke in Life. One crossed by ferry to Brooklyn, and the city was just beginning to dig the trench on Broadway for the cable car, announcing with a loud voice that it was the first cable in America. It did no good to tell them that I rode on one in San Francisco in the ’seventies.
Of course, there were no traffic laws, as these are quite recent, and this made the streets seem more crowded than they are to-day and therefore harder to cross. There were one or two policemen at the most prominent corners, but these seemed to have been chosen for their great physical beauty rather than to aid traffic; vehicles could go right, left, or backward if they desired.
The Tenderloin (which word originated from the remark of a police captain that he would take it as his beat—“the best part of the animal” from the point of view of graft) was in one section. Due to some misdirected effort it is now scattered over the city. The days of Chicago May are gone—she with golden hair, pale-blue eyes, looking fourteen, but really twenty-five—dear, pathetic creature for whom everyone was sorry. No longer does she beg the unsuspecting clubman to “take her home and let her warm herself for a while by his fire,” only to bawl him out in the vilest language if he did not recognize her when, dressed in his “long and high,” he dallied up Fifth Avenue, making Sunday calls. These days are gone, yes, but is it any better, I wonder, to have a gambling den, a blind pig, or a house of prostitution tucked safely away behind the portals of one’s most respectable apartment house?
William A. Coffin originated a plan for the improvement of New York which was said by prominent architects to be practical and paying, but could not be carried through in a democratic country—there are many arguments in favor of dictatorship. The human race will not economize for its grandchildren unless forced to, and it will seldom vote “yes” for a project that will not benefit the present generation. To fill in the East River from Brooklyn Bridge to Fiftieth Street was the idea, and so broaden the land and make a space to spread. The Fall River Line would have to unload farther North, but there is no particular reason why the shipping should concentrate itself at the Battery. Another argument against it was that the good health of New York was due to the fact that it was surrounded by water. This may be true, but it does not seem to me that the East River carries away any refuse. The development of the airplane will most likely make this unnecessary, however, as mankind will take to the hills and the valleys will cease to have value.
New York is always symbolized for me by the steam that rises from the housetops and looks so much like the plume of Henry of Navarre. It is not black and dirty as is the smoke of so many European cities, but diaphanous and variable, like the Latin races of which one element of the population is composed. However, it is always and steadfastly anchored to as solid a foundation as ever existed—that of the English-speaking peoples.
I had hardly had time to renew my acquaintance with the greatest metropolis of my country when I was called away to another large city.
To Chicago must be given the credit for the first public mural decorations in America, and with her, Frank Millet (in whose brain was born the original idea), backed by that most unusual genius—Daniel Burnham. Millet was the director of fine arts for the Exposition of 1892, and one day, after a meeting, the whole committee went over to the Manufacturers’ Building, where he was asked what color he wished to have the ironwork painted. He wanted to know what the matter was with the present color—it was that reddish gray, or crushed strawberry, the color of iron as it comes from the foundry.
“Do you, as color man, stand for it as it is?” said Burnham.