Broadway, New York City

“ But The Walk Up-town, as such, lies straight up Broadway, between the substantial old Astor House, the last large hotel remaining down-town, and the huge, obtrusive post-office building, as hideous as a badly tied bundle, but which leads us on because we know—or, if strangers, because we do not know—that when once we get beyond it we shall see the calm, unstrenuous beauty of the City Hall with its grateful lack of height, in its restful bit of park. ”

“ The long and narrow formation of Manhattan Island puts Broadway longitudinally in the centre of the city, and necessarily throws into it an enormous traffic. One can hardly make any extended movements in New York without getting into Broadway. Hence the noted 27 street has its show, always on exhibition, of the restless rush of life in the modern Babylon. The architecture of its great buildings, which tower far skyward, excites admiration, and its perpetual din of traffic, with the moving crowds and jam of vehicles, is the type of New York activity. ”

“ Broadway, from Chambers Street to Tenth, is largely given up to wholesale trade, one of the most prominent features along the route, however, being the massive building of the New York Life Insurance Company. West of Broadway, below Canal Street, lies the great wholesale dry goods centre of the United States, and farther uptown are the wholesale dealers in straw goods, millinery, feathers, and ready-made clothing. Where Broadway changes its direction at Tenth Street, the character of business changes. ”

“ The haunts of traffic are closed: the great artery of the city is silent as death: the mad current of life which whirled along it incessantly a few hours ago, has disappeared; or if there is life upon its broad flag-stones, it is life of a peculiar character, far different from the life of the day. And there it spreads before you, under the midnight stars, its vast extent defined by two lines of light, which, in the far distance melt into one vague mass of brightness. New York is the Empire City of the continent and Broadway is the Empire Street of the world. ”

“ By the year 1825, when gas was introduced into the city south of Canal street, the west side of Broadway above Chambers street was the fashionable shopping mart. The cross streets were used mainly for residences, and these daily poured a throng of pedestrians into Broadway, making it the fashionable promenade. At this time long rows p. 122of poplar trees lined the sidewalks. The principal hotels and theatres, restaurants, and pleasure resorts were to be found along the street, and Broadway became what it has since been, a miniature of the great city of which it is the chief artery. ”

“ Then he wondered whether any man had done wrong for her sake—whether or not two of her lovers had fought in the soft Sicilian moonlight and one had done the other to death. Well, why not? There were worse things than death, after all.
As they went on farther and farther down-town, Broadway began to seem emptier. It was the first Saturday in June, and most of the stores were closed. When they drew near to the City Hall, the great street, although not so desolate as it is on a Sunday, lacked not a little of its week-day activity. ”

“ The sailor ashore in New York—and how many, many thousands visit it every year!—will find much to note. The public buildings of the great city are not remarkable; but the one great street, Broadway, which is about eight miles long, and almost straight, is a very special feature. Unceasing throngs of busy men and women, loungers and idlers, vehicles of all kinds, street cars, omnibuses, and carriages—there are no cabs hardly in New York—pass and re-pass from early morn to dewy eve, while the shops, always called “stores,” rival those of the Boulevards or Regent Street. ”

“ The seats of fashion were to be found on the Battery, which would have remained the most delightful locality for residence in New York if the people of the metropolis had not conceived a repugnance to living in near proximity to business quarters. Lower Broadway, Upper Pearl and Nassau Streets were of high respectability; and Broadway had been paved as far as the City Hall. Beyond lay charming country roads, occasional country houses to which the leading families retreated from the summer heat, and thrifty farms whose owners were happily ignorant of the enormous future values of their fields. ”

“ On the morning of the fourth of that month, after an anxious and most perilous but safe journey, I found myself in the big city of New York, a free man—one more added to the mighty throng which, like the confused waves of the troubled sea, surged to and fro between the lofty walls of Broadway. ”

“ The public buildings will compare favorably with any in the world, and there is no city on the globe that can boast so many palatial warehouses and stores. Broadway is one of the best built thoroughfares in the world. The stores which line it are generally from five to six stories high above ground, p. 53with two cellars below the pavement, and vaults extending to near the middle of the street. ”

“ The fashionable retail stores of New York lie chiefly along Broadway, between the St. Nicholas Hotel and Thirty-fourth street. A few are to be found in the cross streets leading from the great thoroughfare, and some are in the Sixth avenue, but Broadway almost monopolizes the fashionable retail trade of the city. All the large stores are conducted on the same general plan, the main object of which is to secure the greatest convenience and comfort for the purchaser, and the greatest dispatch and promptness on the part of the employés. ”

“ In connection with Chatham Square it is the great route from the lower end of the island to Harlem Bridge. Nearly all the east side street car lines touch it at some point, and the Third avenue line traverses its entire length. It lies within a stone’s throw of Broadway, but is entirely different from it in every respect. Were Broadway a street in another city the difference could not be greater.
The Bowery is devoted mainly to the cheap trade. The children of Israel abound here. The display of goods in the shops flashy, and not often attractive. ”

“ Blotting out for the moment the city's chief canyon of travel as it is to-day, with its brobdingnagian structures, and its sights and sounds of business and pleasure and enterprise, let the highway of old take its place. As far back as fifty years ago, residences were gradually metamorphosed into business hives, but they managed to retain much of their conservative appearance for a long time, as though a battle were being waged as to whether Broadway should be a place of homes-212- or a business thoroughfare. ”

“ The business center of New York refused to spread. Wall Street, the financial heart of the metropolis, is only four blocks from the Battery, the City Hall three quarters of a mile. Two miles north, at Union Square and Broadway, is the center of the publishing business. A half mile farther, at Broadway and 23d, the famous "flat-iron" building and the tower of Madison Square Garden dominate the region of hotels and theaters. ”

“ A single artery intersects the symmetrical quarters of New York, and that is old Broadway, the Strand of London, and the Boulevard MontmartreMontmartre of Paris; hardly passable at its lower end, where it is crowded with people, and almost deserted higher up; a street where sheds and marble palaces are huddled together; a stream of carriages, omnibusses, cabs, drays, and waggons, with the pavement for its banks, across which a bridge has been thrown for the traffic of foot passengers. ”

“ It is only the foolish ones who dream of such a possibility. It takes time and experience to get on at a big time house like the Palace Theatre in New York City, which is recognized as Broadway's best showroom for the vaudeville artist. Look at the history of the stars you know. Evelyn Law worked four years before she reached her present Broadway fame. Ann Pennington has been working fifteen years, Fred and Adele Astaire nearly fourteen years—and I can name all the stars on Broadway and tell you exactly how long it took them to reach the pinnacle of their present success. ”

“ In the central part of the city, toward the southern end of the island, with Broadway as the main artery, are the largest banks and great commercial houses. Farther up is the retail shopping district, and above that are the homes of the well-to-do classes. Fifth Avenue, which but a few years ago was occupied solely by the homes of rich people, is becoming more and more a business thoroughfare as far as Fiftieth Street. ”

“ In time the city overgrew the college grounds so completely that those interested in remembering where they had been set up a tablet at West Broadway and Murray Street, as a reminder that they should not be entirely forgotten. From the park it was the wont of the youthful poets to walk along Broadway below Trinity Church—then the fashionable promenade,—and so on to the Battery,-117- past where Irving had lived by the Bowling Green, past where Paulding was then living. ”

“ Theatres, Clubs, Hotels. New York has about 40 theatres, in addition to almost as many more variety houses and concert halls. The largest is the Metropolitan Opera House, opened in 1883, which occupies the block bounded by Broadway, Seventh Avenue, Thirty-ninth and Fortieth streets. It seats 3200 persons. Among the largest and most luxurious of the theatres, most of which are on or near Broadway, are the Broadway, at Forty-first Street ”

“ And it is a mistake to suppose, as many persons do, that “Broadway prices” are higher than those of other localities. The best goods in the city are to be found here, and they bring only what they are worth, and no more. Yet it must not be supposed that all Broadway dealers are models of honesty. ”

“ For some unaccountable reason they prefer to remain in New York, living from hand to mouth, and doing nothing to improve themselves, mentally, worldly, or financially. We have one of these in mind now. Sitting on the west side of Broadway, not far from White street, a young man of about thirty-two or three, healthy, stout, and quite intelligent looking, employs his time in tending a small stand, upon which a few gum-drops and chocolates are displayed for sale. ”

“ The fall season, starting on Division street and lower Broadway in July, gains headway in August, rushes up Fifth avenue in September, and then gradually spreads out north and south, east and west, lingering for the longest time where the current is least swift. Third avenue and Fifth avenue, Grand street and Harlem cannot buy early and all at once. ”

“ Broadway is no longer the broadest street in New York, but it is still the most important. The number of immensely tall office buildings with which it is now lined give it a curiously canyon-like appearance. ”

“ But even here, to lure the walker on, far ahead, almost exactly in the centre of the cañon of commercial Broadway, can be seen the pure white spire of Grace Church, planted there at the bend of the thoroughfare, as if purposely to stand out like a beacon and signal to those below that Broadway changes at last and that up there are some Christians.
But there are always plenty of people to look at, nor are they all black-mustached, black-cigared merchants talking dollars; at six o'clock women and girls pour down the stairs and elevators, and out upon the street with a look of relief ”

“ You may stand in the open space at the intersection of Park and Worth streets, the true Five Points, in the midst of a wide sea of sin and suffering, and gaze right into Broadway with its marble palaces of trade, its busy, well-dressed throng, and its roar and bustle so indicative of wealth and prosperity. ”

“ Broadway is New York, and it was there that the Doctor and I walked until evening.
After having dined at Fifth Avenue Hotel, I ended my day’s work by going to the Barnum Theatre, where they were acting a play called “New York Streets,” which attracted a large audience. In the fourth Act there was a fire, and real fire-engines, worked by real firemen; hence the “great attraction.”
The next morning I left the Doctor to his own affairs, and agreed to meet him at the hotel at two o’clock. ”

“ In London, the prevalence of westerly winds drives the surge waves of coal-smoke eastward, blackening every thing; in New-York the western part of the town is cleaner, because newer and built on a better plan. Broadway is the dividing line; and it is a violent strain upon one's standing in fashionable life to live eastward of it, below Union Square, even in the most expensive style. But the eastward world has its own great thoroughfare, wider than Broadway, though not as long, running nearly parallel with the main artery of the grander world. ”

“ If you don't believe it, just walk the length of Broadway on a sunny day, when it is mad with life and motion,—and then walk it, at night, and see the kind of life which creeps over its flag-stones under the light of the stars. ”

“ But up and down Broadway there courses a constant traffic; on foot, in automobiles, in trolley-cars. Broadway boasts its own department-stores, some of them sizable, many hundreds of small shops, cheap theaters—and some better—by the score. It is an entertaining thoroughfare and yet we will venture to say that not one in ten thousand of the many transients who come to New York at regular intervals and who know the Great White Way as well as four corners up at home, have ever stepped foot within it. We will go further. Of the two million humans who go to make the population of Brooklyn ”