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.
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.
... those who walk for the sake of walking.