Silent, grim, colossal, the Big City has ever stood against its
revilers. They call it hard as iron; they say that nothing of
pity beats in its bosom; they compare its streets with lonely
forests and deserts of lava. But beneath the hard crust of the
lobster is found a delectable and luscious food. Perhaps a
different simile would have been wiser. Still nobody should take
offence. We would call nobody a lobster with good and sufficient
claws.
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"If you don't mind me asking," came the bell-like tones of the
Golden Diana, "I'd like to know where read more
"If you don't mind me asking," came the bell-like tones of the
Golden Diana, "I'd like to know where you got that City Hall
brogue. I did not know that Liberty was necessarily Irish." "If
ye'd studied the history of art in its foreign complications,
ye'd not need ask," replied Mrs. Liberty, "If ye wasn't so light
and giddy ye'd know that I was made by a Dago and presented to
the American people on behalf of the French Government for the
purpose of welcomin' Irish immigrants into the Dutch city of New
York. 'Tis that I've been doing night and day since I was
erected."
You'd think New York people was all wise; but no, they can't get
a chance to learn. Every thing's read more
You'd think New York people was all wise; but no, they can't get
a chance to learn. Every thing's too compressed. Even the
hay-seeds are bailed hay-seeds. But what else can you expect
from a town that's shut off for the world by the ocean on one
side and New Jersey on the other?
Some day this old Broadway shall climb to the skies,
As a ribbon of cloud on a soul-wind shall read more
Some day this old Broadway shall climb to the skies,
As a ribbon of cloud on a soul-wind shall rise,
And we shall be lifted, rejoicing by night,
Till we join with the planets who choir their delight,
The signs in the streets and the signs in the skies
Shall make a new Zodiac, guiding the wise,
And Broadway make one with that marvelous stair
That is climbed by the rainbow-clad spirits of prayer.
Man has always assumed that he was more intelligent than dolphins because he had achieved so much...the wheel, New York, read more
Man has always assumed that he was more intelligent than dolphins because he had achieved so much...the wheel, New York, wars and so on...while all the dolphins had ever done was muck about in the water having a good time. But conversely, the dolphins had always believed that they were far more intelligent than man...for precisely the same reason.
It couldn't have happened anywhere but in little old New York.
It couldn't have happened anywhere but in little old New York.
Far below and around lay the city like a ragged purple dream.
The irregular houses were like the broken read more
Far below and around lay the city like a ragged purple dream.
The irregular houses were like the broken exteriors of cliffs
lining deep gulches and winding streams. Some were mountainous;
some lay in long, monotonous rows like, the basalt precipices
hanging over desert canons. Such was the background of the
wonderful, cruel, enchanting, bewildering, fatal, great city.
But into this background were cut myriads of brilliant
parallelograms and circles and squares through which glowed many
colored lights. And out of the violet and purple depths ascended
like the city's soul, sound and odors and thrills that make up
the civic body. There arose the breath of gaiety unrestrained,
of love, of hate, of all the passions that man can know. There
below him lay all things, good or bad, that can be brought from
the four corners of the earth to instruct, please, thrill,
enrich, elevate, cast down, nurture or kill. Thus the flavor of
it came up to him and went into his blood.
One belongs to New York instantly, one belongs to it as much in five minutes as in five years
One belongs to New York instantly, one belongs to it as much in five minutes as in five years
George Washington, with his right art upraised, sits his iron
horse at the lower corner of Union Square. . read more
George Washington, with his right art upraised, sits his iron
horse at the lower corner of Union Square. . . . Should the
General raise his left hand as he has raised his right, it would
point to a quarter of the city that forms a haven for the
oppressed and suppressed of foreign lands. In the cause of
national or personal freedom they have found refuge here, and the
patriot who made it for them sits his steed, overlooking their
district, while he listens through his left ear to vaudeville
that caricatures the posterity of the proteges.
Stream of the living world
Where dash the billows of strife!--
One plunge in the mighty torrent
read more
Stream of the living world
Where dash the billows of strife!--
One plunge in the mighty torrent
Is a year of tamer life!
City of glorious days,
Of hope, and labour and mirth,
With room and to spare, on thy splendid bays
For the ships of all the earth!
