But keenly attuned ears, when they paused to listen, could already hear off in the distance the first faint roll of the drums in the march of progress. “Little Old New York” was growing up and getting to be a big city. And so the Knickerbockers and other aristocracy must leave their brownstone dwellings for quieter districts further uptown. Business was slowly encroaching on their life’s peaceful way.
* * * * *
Another day and another generation. Gone the green lawns, enclosed by iron fences where modest cows and showy peacocks mingled, friendly. Gone the harpsichord, the candle, the lamp, to give way to the piano and the gas-lamp. Close up against each other the buildings now nestle round Union Square and on into Fourteenth Street. The horse-drawn street car rattles back and forth where No. 11 stands with some remaining dignity of the old days. On the large glass window—for No. 11’s original charming exterior has already yielded to the changes necessitated by trade—is to be read “Steck Piano Company.”
In the lovely old ballroom where valiant gentlemen and languishing ladies once danced to soft and lilting strains of music, under the candles’ glow, and where “The Last Leaf” entertained his stalwart cronies with cock fighting, the Steck Piano Company now gives concerts and recitals.
The old house has “tenants.” And as tenants come and go, the Steck Piano Company tarries but a while, and then moves on.
A lease for the piano company’s quarters in No. 11 is drawn up for another firm for $5,000 per year. In place of the Steck Piano Company on the large window is to be read—“American Mutoscope and Biograph Company.”
However, the name of the new tenant signified nothing whatever to the real estate firm adjacent to No. 11 that had made the new lease. It was understood that Mutoscope pictures to be shown in Penny Arcades were being made, and there was no particular interest in the matter. The “Biograph” part of the name had little significance, if any, until in the passage of time a young actor from Louisville, called Griffith, came to labor where labor had been little known and to wonder about the queer new job he had somewhat reluctantly fallen heir to.
The gentlemen of the real estate firm did some wondering too. Up to this time, the peace of their quarters had been disturbed only by the occasional lady-like afternoon concert of the Steck Piano Company. The few preceding directors of the American Mutoscope and Biograph Company had done their work quietly and unemotionally.
Now, whatever was going on in what was once “The Last Leaf’s” gay and elegant drawing-room, and why did such shocking language drift through to disturb the conservative transactions in real estate!
“Say, what’s the matter with you—you’re dying you know—you’ve been shot and you’re dying! Well, that’s better, something like it! You, here, you’ve done the shooting, you’re the murderer, naturally you’re a bit perturbed, you’ve lots to think about—yourself for one thing! You’re not surrendering at the nearest police station, no, you’re beating it, beating it, you understand. Now we’ll try it again—That’s better, something like it! Now we’ll take it. All right, everybody! Shoot!”