Westward with the Prince of Wales

by W. Douglas Newton

When the Prince landed he seemed to me a little anxious; he was at the threshold of a great and important city, and his welcome was yet a matter of speculation. In less than fifteen minutes he was smiling as he had smiled all through Canada, and, as in Canada, he was standing in his car, formality forgotten, waving back to the crowd with a friendliness that matched the friendliness with which he was received.

He faced the city of Splendid Heights with glances of wonder at the line of cornices that crowned the narrow canyon of Broadway, and rose up crescendo in a vista closed by the campanile of the Woolworth Building, raised like a pencil against the sky, fifty-five storeys high. On the beaches beneath these great crags, on the sidewalks, and pinned between the sturdy policemen—who do not turn backs to the crowd but face it alertly—and the sheer walls was a lively and vast throng. And rising up by storeys was a lively and vast throng, hanging out of windows and clinging to ledges, perilous but happy in their skyscraper-eye view.

And from these high-up windows there began at once a characteristic "Down Town" expression of friendliness. Ticker-tape began to shoot downward in long uncoiling snakes to catch in flagpoles and window-ledges in strange festoons. Strips of paper began to descend in artificial snow, and confetti, and basket-loads of torn letter paper. All manner of bits of paper fluttered and swirled in the air, making a grey nebula in the distance; glittering like spangles of gold against the severe white cliffs of the skyscrapers when the sun caught them.

On the narrow roadway the long line of automobiles was littered and strung with paper, and the Prince had a mantle of it, and was still cheery. He could not help himself. The reception he was getting would have swept away a man of stone, and he has never even begun to be a man of stone. The pace was slow, because of the marching Marine escort, and people and Prince had full opportunity for sizing up each other. And both people and Prince were satisfied.

Escorted by the motor-cyclist police, splendid fellows who chew gum and do their duty with an astonishing certainty and nimbleness, the Prince came to the City Hall Square, where the modern Brontosaurs of commerce lift mightily above the low and graceful City Hall, which has the look of a petite mother perpetually astonished at the size of the brood she has reared.

Inside the hall the Prince became a New Yorker, and received a civic welcome. He expressed his real pride at now being a Freeman of the two greatest cities in the world, New York and London, two cities that were, moreover, so much akin, and upon which depends to an extraordinary degree the financial health and the material as well as spiritual welfare of all continents. As for his welcome, he had learnt to appreciate the quality of American friendship from contact with members of the splendid fighting forces that had come overseas, but even that, he indicated, had not prepared him for the wonder of the greeting he had received.

Outside the City Hall the vast throng had waited patiently, and they seemed to let their suppressed energy go as the Prince came out of the City Hall to face the massed batteries of photographers, who would only allow snapshots to be his "pass" to his automobile.

The throngs in financial "Down Town" gave way to the massed ranks of workers from the big wholesale and retail houses that occupy middle New York as the Prince passed up Broadway, the street that is not as broad as other streets, and the only one that wanders at its own fancy in a kingdom of parallels and right-angles. At the corner where stands Wanamaker's great store the crowd was thickest. Here was stationed a band in a quaint old-time uniform of red tunics, bell trousers and shakos, while facing them across the street was a squad of girls in pretty blue and white military uniforms and hats.

Soon the line of cars swung into speed and gained Fifth Avenue, passing the Flatiron building, which is now not a wonder. Such soaring structures as the Metropolitan Tower, close by in Madison Square, have taken the shine out of it, and in the general atmosphere of giants one does not notice its freakishness unless one is looking for it.

Fifth Avenue is superb; it is the route of pageants by right of air and quality. It is Oxford Street, London, made broad and straight and clean. It has fine buildings along its magnificent reach, and some noble ones. It has dignity and vivacity, it has space and it has an air. In the graceful open space about Madison Square there stood the massive Arch of Victory, under which America's soldiers had swung when they returned from the front. It was a temporary arch constructed with realism and ingenuity; the Prince passed under it on his way up the avenue.