"Oh! it was such a difference; she could not work with half the spirit now that it was only for herself; she had always had some one to live for, and now she could not feel any interest in what she did."
Margaret often went for her in her phaeton and brought her back to her aunt's to tea, and there grew up between them a sympathy and affection that was destined to last for life.
THE SANITARY TOPOGRAPHY OF NEW YORK CITY.
The rapid growth of New York City is at present exciting universal interest throughout the country; and as a place of residence, or in a business point of view, it would be difficult to over-estimate the vast advantages it possesses. Nature has lavished upon the island its choicest gifts; surrounded on one side by the East and Harlem rivers, on the other by the beautiful Hudson, the "Rhine of America," as an entirety, its advantages for natural drainage and general healthfulness cannot be surpassed. But eighteen miles from the Atlantic Ocean, with an admirable harbor, the nations of the earth already vie with each other in pouring into the lap of this infant giant their most costly productions and most beautiful works of art. It is now the most populous city and the greatest commercial emporium of the western hemisphere, and stands with its youthful vigor a proud rival of the largest cities of the old world. With the vast undeveloped wealth of free America, and the energy and ambition of her sturdy sons to press it forward, is it not easy to foreshadow the prospective importance of this metropolis of the Union?
But one subject of uneasiness presents itself in this glance at the future, and that is the rather limited space which nature's barriers have allowed us, and which threatens eventually to stop the progress of the city. "Manhattan Island is but thirteen and one half miles long, and has an average width of one and three fifths miles. This gives an area of twenty-two square miles, or fourteen hundred acres."[62]
We may consider the city as pretty solidly built up as far north as Fifty-ninth street, the border of Central Park. The census of next year will probably show the population to number between thirteen and fourteen hundred thousand souls; and the rate of increase is estimated to be between six and seven per cent per annum. Thus the population of the island in 1880 will number far above two millions, and the city be extended as far northward as Ninetieth street. There are but "37,244 lots of full size, that is, twenty-five by one hundred feet, between Eighty-sixth and One Hundred and Fifty-fifth street."[63] This shows conclusively that before many more such decades of years roll round, every available portion of the island will be built upon, and our further expansion apparently prevented. But this, we hope, will be obviated by the erection of the East River bridge, and other modes of rapid transit to our sister city, Brooklyn, and the Jersey shore; thus enabling us to bring within our limits all the territory that will be required.
For the present, the rapidly increasing number of our commercial houses and the consequent greed for space shown by trade in the lower part of the city, as well as our constantly augmenting population, show conclusively that the better class of residents now occupying locations south of Thirty-fourth street will be obliged to look elsewhere for homes. That this is to be the case no one can doubt, who has studied the progress of business marts in their up-town march, during the last two years. The invasion of Union Square, the magnificent buildings on Broadway between Eighteenth and Nineteenth streets, the "Grand Hotel," and, more than all else, the appropriation of the lower end of Fifth Avenue for public galleries, attest this fact, and warn us that no prominent location below Thirty-fourth street will, in a short time, be safe from the all-powerful grasp of this insatiable demand. With this fact before us, the question arises, What portion of the island offers the greatest prospective permanency for private residences, and at the same time the best inducements for the happiness and physical well-being of the people?
That tract of the island bounded on the south by Thirty-fourth street, on the east by Lexington avenue, on the west by Sixth avenue, and on the north by Fifty-seventh street, is undoubtedly very desirable property; but with our rapid growth it is impossible to tell what it will be twenty years hence; and besides, we are lured past this portion by the many advantages offered by the section north of it.