new york is a perplexing city to loaf in. (walt whitman if he came back to mannahatta would soon get brain fever.) during the middle hours of the day, at any rate, it is almost impossible to idle with the proper spirit and completeness. there is a prevailing bustle and skirmish that “exerts a compulsion,” as president wilson would say. the air is electric and nervous. we have often tried to dawdle gently about the neighbourhood of the city hall in the lunch hour, to let the general form and spirit of that clearing among the cliffs sink into our mind, so that we could get some picture of it. we have sat under a big brown umbrella, to have our shoes shined, when we had nothing more important to do than go to the doughnut foundry on park row and try some of those delectable combinations of foods they have there, such as sponge cake with whipped cream and chocolate fudge. and in a few seconds we have found ourself getting all stirred up and crying loudly to the artist that we only wanted a once-over, as we had an important appointment. you have to put a very heavy brake on your spirit in downtown new york[pg 214] or you find yourself dashing about in a prickle of excitement, gloriously happy just to be in a hurry, without particularly caring whither you are hastening, or why.
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one of the odd things about being in a hurry is that it seems so fiercely important when you yourself are the hurrier and so comically ludicrous when it is someone else. we see our friend artaxerxes scorching up church street and we scream with laughter at him, because we know perfectly well that there is absolutely not one of his affairs important enough to cause him to buzz along like that. we look after him with a sort of mild and affectionate pity for a deluded creature who thinks that his concerns are of such glorious magnitude. and then, a few hours later, we find ourself on a subway car with only ten minutes to catch the train for salamis at atlantic avenue. and what is our state of mind? we stand, gritting our teeth (we are too excited to sit, even if there were a seat) and holding our watch. the whole train, it seems to us, is occupied by invalids, tottering souls and lumbago cripples, who creep off at the stations as though five seconds made not the[pg 215] slightest difference. we glare and fume and could gladly see them all maced in sunder with battle-axes. nothing, it seems to us, could soothe our bitter hunger for haste but to have a brilliant lexington avenue express draw up at the platform with not a soul in it. out would step a polite guard, looking at his watch. “you want to catch a train at 5:27?” he asks. “yes, sir, yes, sir; step aboard.” all the other competitors are beaten back with knotted thongs and we are ushered to a seat. the bells go chiming in quick sequence up the length of the train and we are off at top speed, flying wildly past massed platforms of indignant people. we draw up at atlantic avenue, and the solitary passenger, somewhat appeased, steps off. “compliments of the interborough, sir,” says the guard.
the commuter, urgently posting toward the 5:27, misses the finest flavour of the city's life, for it is in the two or three hours after office work is over that the town is at her best. what a spry and smiling mood is shown along the pavements, particularly on these clear, warm evenings when the dropping sun pours a glowing tide of soft rosy light along the cross-town streets. there is a cool lightness in the air; restaurants are not yet crowded (it is, let us say, a little after six) and beside snowy tablecloths the waiters stand indulgently with folded arms. everybody seems in a blithe and spirited humour. work is over for the day, and now what shall we do for[pg 216] amusement? this is the very peak of living, it seems to us, as we sally cheerily along the street. it is like the beginning of an o. henry story. the streets are fluttering with beautiful women; light summer frocks are twinkling in the busy frolic air. oh, to be turned loose at the corner of broadway and thirty-second street at 6:15 o'clock of a june evening, with nothing to do but follow the smile of adventure to the utmost! thirty-second, we might add, is our favourite street in new york. it saddens us to think that the old boarding house on the corner of madison avenue is vanished now and all those quaint and humorous persons dispersed. we can still remember the creak of the long stairs and the clink of a broken slab in the tiled flooring of the hall as one walked down to the dining room.
affection for any particular street largely depends on the associations it has accumulated in one's mind. for several years most of our adventures in new york centred round thirty-second street; but its physique has changed so much lately that it has lost some of its appeal. we remember an old stone-yard that used to stand where the pennsylvania hotel is now, a queer jumbled collection of odd carvings and relics. at the front door there was a bust of pan on a tall pedestal, which used to face us with a queer crooked grin twice a day, morning and evening. we had a great affection for that effigy, and even wrote a little piece about him in one of the[pg 217] papers, for which we got about $4 at a time when it was considerably needed. we used to say to ourself that some day when we had a home in the country we would buy pan and set him in a long island garden where he would feel more at home than in the dusty winds of thirty-second street. time went on and we disappeared from our old haunts, and when we came back pan had vanished, too. you may imagine our pleasure when we found him again the other day standing in front of a chop house on forty-fourth street.
but one great addition to the delights of the thirty-second street region is the new and shining white tunnel that leads one from the penn station subway platform right into the heart of what used (we think) to be called greeley square. it is so dazzling and candid in its new tiling that it seems rather like a vast hospital corridor. one emerges through the hudson tube station and perhaps sets one's course for a little restaurant on thirty-fifth street which always holds first place in our affection. it is somewhat declined from its former estate, for the upper floors, where the violent orchestra was and the smiling little dandruffian used to sing solos when the evening grew glorious, are now rented to a feather and ostrich plume factory. but the old basement is still there, much the same in essentials, by which we mean the pickled beet appetizers, the minestrone soup, the delicious soft bread with its brittle crust,[pg 218] and the thick slices of rather pale roast beef swimming in thin, pinkish gravy. and the three old french waiters, hardened in long experience of the frailties of mortality, smile to see a former friend. one, grinning upon us rather bashfully, recalls the time when there was a hilarious oriental wedding celebrating in a private room upstairs and two young men insisted on going in to dance with the bride. he has forgiven various pranks, we can see, though he was wont to be outraged at the time. “getting very stout,” he says, beaming down at us. “you weigh a hundred pounds more than you used to.” this is not merely cruel; it is untrue. we refrain from retorting on the growth of his bald spot.
