There are some so-called women's hotels in New York, but these are, without exception, to be avoided by a young girl with all her might. They are very cheap, but are dirty, squalid, and vulgar. They contain no provision for decent privacy, for adequate bathing, or for proper cleanliness; the food is unwholesome and uninviting, and the society no better than the accommodations, being composed in large part of broken-down failures of the sex, who are little likely to inspire a young girl with hopefulness or high ideals. Their one recommendation is the exclusion of men, which is not, after all, a matter of importance, since there is no reason why a self-respecting girl should not meet men and enjoy their acquaintance when circumstances and the proprieties admit of it. There is an enterprise on foot to build a woman's apartment-house, where the rooms and flats will be rented only to women working for a living who can furnish adequate and respectable references; where the rent will be low, the accommodations pleasant and pretty, and a restaurant of moderate prices in the building; but as yet this admirable scheme remains unrealized in New York, though similar Ladies' Chambers are settled and profitable institutions in London.
Perhaps the best thing a girl unacquainted with New York can do is to write and secure a room for two weeks at the Margaret-Louisa Home in East Seventeenth Street. This home—one of the many admirable foundations made by the Vanderbilt family—was built for the purpose of providing a safe and comfortable stopping-place for women of small means, and is closely connected with the Young Women's Christian Association in the next street. Owing to the constant demand for admission, no one person may remain longer than two weeks, which, after all, allows quite sufficient time for the search of a permanent abiding-place. In the interim one pays $3 a week for a room, and finds meals in the restaurant below at very moderate prices. That is to say, one can live there, with economy, at the rate of about seventy-five cents a day.
The best permanent arrangement for a girl young and alone is to find lodgings in a boarding-house. Excellent accommodations in the pleasantest quarters of the city can be had for $10 a week. This means a small hall room, the use of the bath-room and of the drawing-room, light, heat, attendance, and three meals a day. Two girls can usually arrange to lessen their expenses and double their comfort by taking a double room at $16. This plan is advisable, because it gives one a home in a clean, healthy, and agreeable part of town; provides ample food, which a girl hard at work requires; and insures attendance and consideration in case of illness. From a social point of view it provides her with entire protection and respectability; she meets and makes friends with a nice class of men and women living in the house, and has a pleasant reception-room in which to receive visits. Madison Avenue and the side streets leading out of Fifth Avenue contain a rich choice of such boarding-houses, but here and there certain streets are considered undesirable places to live, and it is well to select a boarding-house which appears quiet and dignified in its aspect, and whose landlady has the same appearance.
Another method is to take a room in a house that furnishes merely lodgings, where one can be housed for a sum ranging between $3 and $5 a week. A small gas-stove will serve for preparing breakfast and a light supper at night, and the hearty meal of the day can be had at a restaurant at one o'clock, when others are lunching. When two girls club together this is not a bad plan. The quickly cooked oatmeal, an egg, and a cup of tea will serve for breakfast; jam, a roll, and a glass of milk make a supper; and there are many cheap restaurants where a table d'hôte midday dinner of the most ample description is to be had for fifty cents, and one portion is ample for two. There are, of course, in the less-fashionable quarters of town, plain, cheap boarding-houses where everything is included for from $6 to $7 a week, but these rarely give the use of a general drawing-room, and the accommodations are very plain. Still, in Washington Square, Lafayette Place, and similar places one may by careful search sometimes find excellent lodgings at a most reasonable rate.
Still another method is to rent a large empty room somewhere, usually a sort of loft at the top of a house, and furnish it one's self. This is a popular plan among the girls in the art schools who wish a home and studio combined. They divide off the corners of the room by cheap screens into bedrooms and kitchen, and leave the centre for sitting and work room. They paint their floor to save a carpet, content themselves with a divan or two, a table, and a few chairs, and they do "light housekeeping" by the aid of a gas-stove, tinned goods, and the delicatessen stores, where one can find all manner of cooked dishes needing only to be warmed. When two or three girls combine on such a scheme they can keep their expenses down to about $18 or $20 a month each, and have a very good time of it.
There is also apartment life, which is not very dear, and is often most agreeable. Indeed, if it can be afforded, it is the pleasantest of all, since no one appreciates the pleasant privacy and relaxation of home life more than the woman who must face the world and fight her own battle. These housekeeping flats may be had all the way from $25 a month up, according to size, location, and convenience. A maid-of-all-work will serve as laundress, cook, and house-maid for from $12 to $15 a month, and the other expenses can be regulated according to one's means; but when two or three share the expenses, and the pennies are looked after closely, this is not an expensive mode of life.
Dress is possibly the next most important point for consideration, for nowhere is a woman judged more by her appearance than in New York. This does not imply that a girl unable to dress expensively need ever suffer from that fact, but it does mean that gewgaws, frippery, loud colors, affectations of masculinity, slovenliness, or eccentricities of costume will severely militate against the success, socially and financially, of a girl who comes to New York to earn her living. New-Yorkers possibly more than others are very sensitive as to the appearance of persons they are seen with, and many a pleasant clever girl has found it hard to get on here because she could not or would not realize that people did not like to be seen walking with her in the street, and shrank from presenting her to their friends because her appearance seemed to require an explanation on their part that she was better than she looked.
It is not infrequent that a high-spirited girl, when warned of this, replies proudly that those who judge her by her clothes are unworthy of her consideration, and are no loss as friends, but such an answer, though natural perhaps, is certainly foolish. Strangers and new acquaintances are necessarily ignorant of her qualities of mind and heart, and their only clew to her character is her outward appearance. Very properly they reason that a dignified, well-bred girl would be likely to dress with quiet, inconspicuous neatness, and if they find no such outward indication of refinement, they see no particular reason to continue the acquaintance on the possible chance of their being mistaken. Of course capable women can conquer this prejudice in time, but it certainly seems hardly worth while to deliberately place in one's path an obstacle to be overcome.
Avoid fierce frizzy untidy fringes, fluttering ribbons, cheap finery, high-heeled shoes; flee the short-haired, mannish, hands-in-pocket swagger, the dirty plush and draggled cheese-cloth attempt at æstheticism, and, above all, eschew the still more unforgivable offence of dingy fingernails, greasy skin, unbrushed skirt edges, and unblackened shoes. There is still another type of girl who needs a suggestion. She of plain appearance, who apparently has become convinced of the uselessness of any attempt to beautify herself, and who screws her hair into an uncompromising knot at the most unbecoming angle; wears, if she is near-sighted, great steel-bowed spectacles instead of pince-nez, and arrays herself in colors and costumes which seem specially chosen for their unsuitability to her coloring and figure. Each and all of these need to be reminded that success in life consists as much in being a charming and agreeable-looking woman, sought after as an acquaintance and companion by refined and pleasant people, as in winning fame and money by one's own efforts.
The wardrobe needed by a girl who is in New York for work instead of play is very simple, and not at all expensive. The serge or cloth tailor gown, consisting of a skirt and coat, has grown to be as much a uniform of the well-dressed business woman as the simple regulation morning suit is that of the business man. These can be had at prices ranging from $12 to $30, ready made in the big shops, or can be ordered from a tailor for about $35 or $40. The latter is the more advisable purchase, as the material is so good and the cut so recent that a serge gown, if of medium weight, can be worn summer and winter for two years. An addition of a heavy outer coat or cape makes such a costume sufficiently warm for any weather one is exposed to in New York, and by leaving off the coat and wearing the skirt with a bodice, the hottest weather of summer can be endured. If, added to this, one possesses a pretty silk costume, with one high-necked and one low-necked bodice, one is provided to meet all social as well as work-a-day demands upon one's wardrobe. In New York one either wears street dress and a bonnet, or else full dress. A demi-toilet is not necessary except when one can afford to indulge one's tastes regardless of economy. To the theatre, to restaurants in the evening, for calling, at afternoon teas or luncheons, for any social event, in fact, that occurs in the daytime or in a public place one wears a street dress and bonnet or hat. For even the simplest dinner parties—unless, indeed, one is the only guest and the invitation is impromptu—evening dress is the correct wear, and if by chance one has an invitation to a box at the opera, it is again customary to wear evening dress. Sitting in the orchestra stalls in the opera one would wear street dress and bonnet.