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Silent, grim, colossal, the Big City has ever stood against its
revilers. They call it hard as iron; they read more
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.
They say life's what happens when you're busy making other plans. But sometimes in New York, life is what happens read more
They say life's what happens when you're busy making other plans. But sometimes in New York, life is what happens when you're waiting for a table.
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.
In dress, habits, manners, provincialism, routine and narrowness,
he acquired that charming insolence, that irritating
completeness, that sophisticated read more
In dress, habits, manners, provincialism, routine and narrowness,
he acquired that charming insolence, that irritating
completeness, that sophisticated crassness, that overbalanced
poise that makes the Manhattan gentleman so delightfully small in
his greatness.
If there ever was an aviary overstocked with jays it is that
Yaptown-on-the-Hudson, call New York. Cosmopolitan they call read more
If there ever was an aviary overstocked with jays it is that
Yaptown-on-the-Hudson, call New York. Cosmopolitan they call it,
you bet. So's a piece of fly-paper. You listen close when
they're buzzing and trying to pull their feet out of the sticky
stuff. "Little old New York's good enough for us"--that's what
they sing.
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.
New York is the Caoutchouc City. . . . They have the furor
rubberendi.
New York is the Caoutchouc City. . . . They have the furor
rubberendi.
"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."
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