Show about am out new am ap A sit written Wait tesa expires expressly sly ft fey dor this magazine the pres present eilf populate po population on A ASSUMING of these united sta states acs ics to be ninety millions more th than all one out oi of twenty two persons person live lie within t the he city of new york A further large proportion live near the city and have their chief interests ter there ther th there ere is is now within the limits of the C city a population greater than there was in tile the whole united states at the beginning 0 of f administration the population of all the rocky mountain and tile the pacific coast states combined is less than the population of the city of new york if the people of new york city were join joined ed hand it in hand they would form a chain long enough to reah from the atlantic to the pacific coast and the city is growing all t the ic time growing faster than any other c city great or small in the w whole hold world in iii five years the gains of new york city equals the population of boston st louis 0 or r baltimore there is no fallacy greater than a widespread aspre ad idea preval prevalent in remote parts of the country that the people of new york are puffed up and arrogant there bisno truth whatever in the idea new york is so vast that the individual kno knows AV s how insignificant is his part partain it I 1 the whole and instead of feeling big lie he shrinks to his own proper liff littleness leness there is in N new le W york no distinction in being a new yorker where everybody tat you know possesses os a common characteristic it ip is agne one that means nothing to your eyes being a new yorker is th the e common no normal amal condition and it is tile the outsider who knows something diff different crent and here again is is a curious distinction in a provincial town the stranger at once anc C is distinguished not so in new york so many people come from near and far for temporary sojourn that they blend imperceptibly with the crowd and theres there is no possibility of e them this pro prosperous sperows loul looking ing gentleman with pride 77 7 7 in his port defiance in his hi eye may be a millionaire m Ilio manufacturer from uptown or he be may be a merchant mer chani f from ottumwa iowa secure in the possession of his twenty thousand dollars and scorning tile the base earth as lie he stalks along this weather beaten man may be a farmer far mer from maine or an ice ice wagon dever from harlem this bewildered old lady who mio asks the way W to the pennsylvania ferry may be from buckwheat ridge ride or again she may be from brooklyn the new yorker does not know and he does not care a rap pride of environ environment nick belongs to the villager 0 or the provincial town townsman silian not to the metropolitan jt it is told of an old lady who lived in the inter interior i 0 r of maine that she at last was taken to the coast and looked looke dout out upon the atlantic ocean after she had looked in silence for a long time her daughter ventured to ask her what she thought of it all well the old lady responded I 1 its itt S all a right but it nigh as big as I 1 expected it to be bel it is thus with many who see new york and go away to kic give their impressions they have sc seen new ncy york yes acs they have seen the ocean also but they have of either ther no seen but a small portion one mail m a n has seen the present new york any more than he has seen all of the atlantic and according to what lie he has seen cen s lie he reports favorably or unfavorably bly tinged also in most cases cafes with lii his personal prejudices arising from ma many ny diverse causes this series of articles is written by one who feels himself I 1 chrly fitted to tell to ta others who have not seen the preat great city ali the things which they most wish to io know himself born in tile the middle west a and n A coin coming irig to new york twenty years ago he has lived there und and gio grown wn into the life of the great city without ever once Jor forgetting getting his early life and the impressions pres which it contrasts with tho those se of his later experiences it is not the intention however li 0 wever to make the story narrative for one thing the city has vastly changed in twenty years and for another actual pe personal rhonal experienc experienced ei s varied by too many irrelevant details to be interesting or many informing in 0 aming let us suppose that we start from acom a completely rural neighborhood approach new vot york reaby by the back door and with unaccustomed eyes look upon the picture as it gradually unfolds we will start at a point about forty miles from the northern boundary of the city it is in the county of putnam and the particular neighborhood from which we will start being off the railroad lacks tile suburban characteristics of places of more conven convenient ieni access it has indeed remained almost untouched by the passing of time the fences are stone walls P built from the superabundant material which tile the fields themselves furnish the houses are frame cottages few of which are less than fifty years old A brook runs through a narrow valley with a few tillable acres I 1 lying ing between hills bills which rise rice a thousand acet feet on oil either side k at the base of the hills a few cows are pastur pastured cd while above is forest land often cut over during two hundred years past for timber or firewood there are stones everywhere great ledges a hundred feet high bare slopes of rock and boulders of every size size up to thal thai of a small libuse house between the stones thestil the soil is of surpassing fertility the land was once part of the great estate was confiscated at the time of tile the revolution Rd and sold to the people whose descendants s together with a very few newcomers occupy the soil today to day there are but few family nine name n ine among this people of the old stock who have intermarried inter hiter marri married ed until their relationship is of the most bewildering complexity they are arc almost exclusively of en english stock stocky derived through new eng england and in colonial times cimei they go to the methodist ch church and vote the democratic ticket t and bave vivid aka traditions of the days when witchcraft was a live issue and still point the file finger of scorn acorn to the families s whose ancestors we were rc T tb 0 ries in the days which tried mens jt it is is evening and the sun is ii going down dow n b behind chind the western western hills hezekiah Hezekia li tompkins is bringing in in a load of smooth white potatoes new dug from the fields roscoe conkling travis is ip setting out to drive the cows from the mountain side john lockwood is looking up affairs with reference to his apple crop now ready for picking nels adams is rounding bounding up his dogs clogs for a nights campaign in quest of 0 skunk skins wherefore many a w window indo W in the little valley will be violently closed before the morning cometh yet six miles as the crow flies from this seemingly remote spot the mighty hudson hows flows past the famous academy at west point great steamers with thousands of passengers enraptured with the finest scenery upon the continent of america ica are entering or emerging e marg ing i from f the lo 10 lower r gate of the highlands thousands of others 0 are being hurried by on oil trains and the toots of their engines are arc now and then borne along the air at night the clouds above the little valley show the pencils of light thrown from the searchlights of the river above the southern horizon chesky the sky shines with a steady glo glow ny it is is the reflection of the radiance of the tens of thousands of lamps which chic h ii 9 the streets of the city of new york yet a majority of the people of th tins I 1 s neighborhood have never seen that thai there are arc two controlling reasons for the fact one ofte is that it costs at least six sixty ty cents for the round trip by the alica cheapest est possible way I 1 the dollars which the farmers win win from the stony soil come hardly and slowly enough but once grasped they are clutched with an iron grip which death alone can relax the other and more important reason is that they are afraid what they are afraid of nobody knows least of all themselves th that they are aide afraid of getting lost is perhaps the closest explanation though they phrase it by saying 1 I ka know ow what to d do 0 when r agat gat there why they imagine themselves likely to d do 0 something dreads dread ful fill and dangerous when they are in new york lc notwithstanding usual sanity and propriety when in putnam coun county tyis is to be explained by bv b v some psychologist greater than the die writer how wholly irrational is this habit of making a mystery odthe of the great city will be shown in the articles which will follow but we must start afar L I 1 fo for r new york we start an hour after sunrise which is athe the time that old sol shows his face above the eastern hills the road runs along the little valley with perpendicular farms on oil either side it is seldom that a dog barka at us there is an annual dog tax of fifty cents and the few dogs know better than to bark tile the passerby passer b by y might be the tax collector collect orl 1 the road is narrow but and well kept we are bound not for garrisons opposite westpoint which is nearer on the map but for peekskill Peek skill because fause the latter is reached without crossing the formidable range of hills which lies hei between our starting place and the bic nearer village we reach raach peekskill Peek skill as we reaca any other village we wc see sec old fashioned houses with he fine grounds scattered amohn rows of work mens cottages and are soon in the villa village 9 e with its three story buildings ft rolley cars chinese chinesa c laundries and english sparrows nane none of which are known at tompkins corners we go to the venerable erable railroad station and take a train to yonkers we look out at tile the splendid skill bayr wh iab is formed by bya a b end ill in the hudson oa cosite this point and at dunderberg dun derberg mountain which rises from tile the opposite shore the train comes alona along and we move rd the r bai is upon mhd east cast bank of tile the hudson forthe entire distance passing through a few very short tunnels at various various points one of these passes under tinder tle the famous sing i prison riso n soon to be abolished the river for a part of the distance distan ce stretches out to a breadth of four or five miles below this expanse known as the tappan zee tile the river narrows to a mile and a half and thence for twenty miles we are opposite the palisades great cliffs cliff s of abar mbar rock which have the appearance of columns which rise up tip frosti the river to a height of four or five huri hundred dred feet the forest trees at their top look like a mere fringe and the effect of tile the picture is mag beyond description tile the writer once asked a putnam county youth auth if lie would not like to have a resi residence over over there pointing 01 the palisades it may suit city people was tile the reply but I 1 have had c enough ol oj rocks 1 I would like to go where I 1 would never see sec a rock again we are not done with the palisades adas when we coine come lo 10 to the yonkers station and here we will leave ava the train we are arc in a city of close upon a hundred thousand inhabitants but bill as in most suburban places it seems but in an overgrown village the stores are one or two stories higher than in peekskill Peek skill there aren are wore nore trolley cars but otherwise there does not seem any very great difference we have a choice of routes into new york kand and we will choose a bedford park car we ve run along a street lined at first with stores then with isolated cottages or vacant lots and finally see upon our right a great cemetery where a vast number of the cites dead rich and alii poor high and low just and unjust rest in m the same untroubled S cp tens fens of thousands of si simple nible shafts s rise rise like a forest to 40 mark where tile the multitude rest while a few attempt disobedience to the law which ordains equality to all and sl sleep cap in in gor gorgeous cotis 1 I 1 tombs 0 abs from which in the ille last daysi day tacy will conic come no more readily than their neighbors who rest beneath the grass covered mounds woodlawn Ce cemetery y it is calli calac d dand a nol it is in the city city of new york W we e have co come me I 1 nto into i the c city ity without knowing when lien ar or where the air air seems no different our pulse beats just the same the sun shines and tile the shadows fall as in the village or open country we will leave the car and look about us after we have passed the cemetery the more important streets are paved wi with ill brick pr or inac macadam adani those less important have merely stone sidewalks crossi crossings and d gutters with the middle of tile the street s still 11 un unpaved this is but a temporary phase however in a few years tile the caving angwill ing will be completed everywhere we see sea ev cadences de cices of extreme newness tile the houses are new the very adry streets arc new A very few old houses relics of former days yet stand while he here re and there afi on a vacant lot is an apple or cherry tree mute witness of the days of farms and orchards at another place upon a vacant lot is a rod lot stone wall still marking blidt once was the boundary line of two farms perhaps in colonial times on one plot not yet divided into building lots may be seen the remains of earthworks earthworms earth works erected by bv tile the american during the revolution while the name of tile the street at which we alighted gun hill I road is eloquent of the past the houses with a very few exceptions are twenty one feet wide being built upon twenty five foot lots this gives four feet for passage and se security against the spread of fire practically all have a few flowers in m front and quite a little flower garden in the rear while flowers cats cais and children are the most frequent topics dis cussed over the fences of t these liese back yards asua usua usually my the ilic lots are tw twenty en ty five gi e by y one hundred feet and there are no nuisance breeding alleys at the rear of the lot lots all goods must be lc carried in the fronc 6 all li houses auses have a cellar under the whole house and this is histia usually ily dry and reasonably abl light most of uie houses now under construction i in i the neighborhood we li have ve chosen for 0 our 1 r first view run back fifty four feet or more and are planned to accommodate two families the owner tt usually occupying tile the ground floor we find also a f few eny newly constructed houses of brick those we have been describing being frame which have accommodations for three families A little further down we find solid brick blocks the northern vanguard of 01 tile e vast and cv ever cr growing army of t hat flat houses which holds the greater greate part of the cites population we have lidid reached the ilic northern terminus of the elevated railway system and will take that route when plunging ilig into tile the city but we will defer tile the telling until next months issue but first we vt will go over to lo that great structure of bf glass which lie lies bear at hand it is the conservatory of all the c new york ork botanical society and is open to the public free of charge every day of the year inside we may wander for hours looking at the strange and beautiful tropical pl plants abts which it holds the place of honor is is given to a banana plant with great bunches of fruit and leaves ten tell feet long it is not possible to enter enier upon a description of the thel plans which we see here for a mere catalogue would occupy a whole issue of this magazine |