V
THE CITY HALL
NOTHING better exemplifies the growth of New York than does the City Hall, standing as it does almost in the shadow of the Municipal Building. In the old days when it was the principal structure on City Hall Park, its three stories afforded ample room in which to carry on the city’s affairs. It now houses only four offices, including that of the Mayor and that of the Art Commission. The other city offices, and their number is astounding, are elsewhere. But although the city has grown beyond recognition, the City Hall has proudly kept its place, and is honored as is a venerable old man, a bit less active than he was perhaps, but still the dignified head of a noble house.
VI
WALL STREET
HERE is the force of the sea and the romance of a fairy tale. Here immense fortunes are won in a day and lost in less, and the hopes and savings of years vanish in an hour. Here are bank messengers who become millionnaires overnight and capitalists who awake penniless. It is the market of the whole country and of others. Here are corn and wheat heaped in huge confusion, millions of bales of cotton and barrels of oil, high-piled above the sky-scrapers. Railroads, steamers, banks and bullion; raw gold and ore, coal, silver and copper, mounting to the clouds in glimmering pinnacles and smoking hills. And through it all and around it all, pulses the restless swing and change, the tireless tide of “the street.”
And the traders! Giants and pygmies. Tumbling over each other, swarming, pushing, struggling. Here holding up a million head of cattle to the highest bidder, there beating down the price of a small nation. Here is a man beaten by a crowd for buying oil and there is another lying dead because he sold it. And away over there runs a little man who has succeeded in stealing a pig and is now scurrying off with it to safety.