XIV
THE CATHEDRAL ON THE AVENUE
SAINT PATRICK’S CATHEDRAL on Fifth Avenue is the largest and finest Catholic church in the city. It is a magnificent structure, taking up the whole block between Fiftieth and Fifty-first streets and Madison Avenue. It fronts, of course, on Fifth Avenue, from where perhaps it can best be seen. One longs to see it standing in a more open space and to see its beauties as a whole from further off as one now sees its spires, which are remarkable from nearby but glorious from a greater distance.
XV
QUEENSBORO BRIDGE
QUEENSBORO BRIDGE is the most northerly of Manhattan’s four East River bridges. Its mile and a half of mighty steel structure reaches from Second Avenue and Fifty-ninth Street well into Queens County, Long Island. Far below it in the middle of the river is Blackwells Island, on the south end of which is one of the city hospitals. The rest of this island is the cheerless home of an ever-changing group of those unfortunates, who through some unkind trick of fate have slipped, or have seemed to slip, into that uncharted realm vaguely called “Without the Law.”
