Church Street

“ But on Sundays, exchanges, squares, bazaars lanes and alleys, all are thrown open free to all corners and the amount of business transacted during Sunday morning church time can only be judged by personal observation of the immense concourse or patrons that flock to and block up every passage and avenue and outlet and inlet. Round about the exchanges and covered ways are streets innumerable, Cutler-street, Harrow-street, White-street, all long and narrow thoroughfares, and one and all literally crammed full, road and pavement. Such an amazing spectacle is to be found nowhere else. ”

“ The above society comprised a great many members, and acted in conjunction with a large number of the resident gentry of the parish.
Justice Walk, which extends from Church Street to Lawrence Street, took its name from a magistrate who lived in it. An avenue of lime trees formerly adorned it, and, being kept in good order, it was a very agreeable footway for passengers. There is now in it a commodious Wesleyan Chapel, built in 1841. The exterior is plain and unpretending. The interior is neat, comfortable, and well ventilated. ”

“ The old Allen Street Presbyterian Church building, where God's people have continued to battle against sin and Satan for some sixty-four years, has at last yielded to the pressure of the advancing tide of business on Grand Street, and been sold. The present expectation of the Church is to remain in the neighborhood, and it is hoped that a more desirable location may be obtained, and a building, suited to the times and the needs of the people, erected thereon. ”

“ Half-way down the street a little degraded church suddenly spouts a friar, who, punch-like, hammers out on the steps his rendering of the new nature, which is to remember its cash obligations to Christ, and so vanishes again in a clap of the door. ”

“ It leads into Dean’s Yard, the quietest of squares, and, under ancient gates, into ancient cloisters and covered ways, and the relics and fragments of the Benedictine Abbey. Behind Great College Street stand Barton Street and Cowley Street. And for quiet and solitude these should belong to a city of the dead; or better still, they should be what they pretend to be. For the houses among themselves pretend to be the Cathedral Close; they whisper to the stray traveler: “Seek no farther. This, and none other, is the Close of the Cathedral or Collegiate Church of St. Peter. ”

“ George’s Church, in the Borough, into the high road which leads to the cast-iron bridge of Southwark, are no end of narrow courts, winding alleys, and ruined houses, which a bold-hearted man would hesitate to thread after dusk. Here stand numbers of houses which are unroofed and uninhabited. Years ago they were doomed to be pulled down, and it was resolved that a wide, open street should be built upon the space they now occupy: years may still roll away before they are removed. ”

“ Across the street, and on either side of us, there were rows of small boxlike frame houses built with narrow doorways, which opened from the sidewalk into funny little kitchens, where women, in soiled calico dresses, appeared to iron all day long. It was the poorer quarter of what is known in Richmond as "Church Hill," a portion of the city which had been left behind in the earlier fashionable progress westward. ”

“ Seen from the lofty spire of Trinity Church, the street presents a singular appearance. The perspective is closed by Grace Church, at Tenth street. The long lines of passers and carriages take distinct shapes, and seem like immense black bands moving slowly in opposite directions. The men seem like pigmies, and the horses like dogs. ”

“ Holy Trinity, Sloane Street, or All Saints, Margaret Street, may be beautifully ornate, and the congregation what Lord Beaconsfield called "sparkling and modish"; but they can never have the romantic charm of the Village Church where you were confirmed side by side with the keeper's son, or proposed to the Vicar's daughter when you were wreathing holly round the lectern. There is a magic in the memory of a country home with which no urban associations can compete. ”

“ Clement Danes Church, Strand, but removed before 1671 to Thames Street, in 1672 to St. Paul's Churchyard, and in 1673 to Fenchurch Street. With the bookselling business he combined that of a circulating library, his speciality being plays, poetry, and romances. ”

“ A street running from the east end of the church towards the north gives the spectator the advantage of a still more distant standpoint, from which the towers, transepts, choir, and porch group themselves into one harmonious whole, the long line of iron railings bounding the churchyard being the only drawback. ”

“ Were it necessary to represent this street upon the stage, the decorator would simply have to paint his scenes upon the edges, and leave the side toward the audience bare. As you walk along you see a given building sideways for five minutes or more, but you cannot see it as it was meant to be seen—full in front—for as many seconds. We even know of churches in the cross streets, though near Broadway, whose square towers are stone-fronted after the usual fashion, but present nothing to the crowded thoroughfare but undressed walls of brick! Yes, a Christian church, in flagrante delictu. ”

“ Other streets are proposed by the same active genius under which Regent-street has been accomplished; the vile houses which surrounded and hid the finest portico in London—that of St. Martin’s church—are already taken down; a square is to be formed round this building, with two large openings into the Strand, and plans are already in agitation to lay open other churches in the same manner. Even the economical citizens have given us a peep at St. Bride’s—being ashamed again to hide beauties which accident had given them an opportunity of displaying to greater advantage. ”

“ We can remember this locality when it was little else but green pasture—the Lion’s Field we believe it was called—but how changed is it now! its verdure has fled,—it is country no longer; for the once open fields now swarm with innumerable homes of men! Near p. 103the bottom of St. Ann Street, the oldest and still principal street of this suburb, stands Christ Church, a neat little cruciform structure, with diminutive spire, and small lancet-shaped windows, erected in 1838, to meet the spiritual wants of this growing neighbourhood. ”

“ The solar print is a dead thing, and here is the living line. Street can afford, with great economy of line, immense vitality; his son says that he never carried an india rubber and never put in a line that he was not sure of, and on the pages of the dusty note-books the line lives and vibrates. One of 1874 may open at a chapel of the abbey at Vézelay or a capital from the choir arcade of Auxerre, or another of 1860, at the church of Ainay or the gateway of Nevers; but all the work of all the years is interchangeable in respect of firmness and life, certainty and authority ”

“ If you look west along the next block of West (P) Street, you notice how different are the north and south sides. Along the south side are houses of an absolutely different period. All those on the north side were built in the seventies or later, including the Presbyterian Church, except the one on the corner of Congress (31st) Street, which was the residence of General Otho Holland Williams, a Revolutionary officer, who was in the same company with General Lingan. ”

“ And I have watched, all through a summer’s day,
The brown-winged barges loaded up with hay,
And seen the heavy cargo-steamers slide
Past Woolwich Ferry, with the flowing tide;
Found joy in travel on a motor ’bus,
And glowing worlds Within the Radius!
And so, for songs, my heart must needs repeat
The cries and whispers of the London street.
[10]
[11]
Contents “This great grey city that bred me and mine ...”
[14]
[15]
Part I
[16]
[17]
Streets
Church Street wears ever a smile, from having watched bright belles
Coming home with young men, after balls, “at all hours.” ”

“ At the corner of this street stands her Majesty’s Custom House. Adjoining is Trinity Church, which contains the mortal remains of Parnell the poet, and Matthew Henry, immortalized in his far-famed commentary. Trinity-street contains nothing worthy of special notice: it leads, however, to a memorable spot, of surpassing interest to all who love to trace the “records of a good man’s life.” Higher up is Crook-street, where stands the chapel built for Matthew Henry. These chapel walls once echoed the voice of that eloquent man, who assiduously asserted the pure principles of the Gospel. ”

“ But not one man in a hundred, not one in a thousand, who, passing along Third Street, looked up Willing's Alley, dreamt for a minute that somewhere in that alley, embedded in a network [Pg 188] of brokers' and railroad offices, carefully concealing every trace of itself, was a church with a large congregation. Most churches in Philadelphia, as everywhere, like to display themselves prominently with an elaborate façade, or a lofty steeple, or a green enclosure, or a graveyard full of monuments. ”

“ I said that the church was built on a rock, and its western face, forming one of the principal streets of the city, is so steep as to consist alternately of steps and inclines, until, at a short distance in advance of the west front, it is changed to an almost interminable flight of steps. The grand west entrance is an open porch, like an enormous crypt, beneath the three western bays of the nave and its aisles, whose walls and piers it reproduces in its plan. ”

“ At the junction of Park Row and Nassau Street, where the Times Building is, the Brick Presbyterian Church was erected in 1768. There was a small burying-ground within the shadow of its walls, and green fields stretched from it in all directions. It was sold in 1854, and a new church was built at Fifth Avenue and Thirty-seventh Street. ”

“ There’s more Christianity there than there is here. The public-house is close shut on Saturday night, and not opened till Monday morning. No fruit is allowed to be sold in the street. I am a Protestant. I don’t know the name of the church, but I goes down to a new-built church, near King’s-cross. ”

“ Indeed, it seems as if no effort can be abreast of the fast-growing needs of the metropolis. But here is, at least, a large and handsome church situate in a locality in which primâ facie it would appear a very God-send. Alighting at the Westbourne-park Station, and passing over the bridge, a sign-board directs the inquirer along the main Newtown-street, and after four or five minutes’ walk another board points out the site of the church. Or an equally ready way of access may now be found from the Notting-hill Station, by the Ladbroke and recently-opened Golborne-road. ”

“ Good-by, Bret Harte, good night, good night!
[Pg 358] "THE LITTLE CHURCH 'ROUND THE CORNER."
In Twenty-Ninth Street, New York, and only a few paces distant from Fifth Avenue, stands a low, rambling, picturesque brown structure that has the appearance of a modest chapel to which various additions have been built from time to time. Between this building and the street is a well-shaded lawn, and there is scarcely a day in the year on which the twittering of birds among the boughs of the big trees does not attract the attention of passers-by. ”

“ The return from the Abbey, in either case, to be as usual, viz. round St. Margaret's church yard, into King street, through Union street, along New Palace yard, and so into Westminster hall.
It is almost indifferent which of the six first ways, now proposed, be taken; but there is a stronger reason than mere convenience for changing the common course. Some of the streets in the old track are so ruinous, that there is danger lest the houses, loaded as they will be with people, all pressing forward in the same direction, should fall down upon the procession. ”

“ On the point of ground between these two diverging streets, and facing the very centre of the main street as it leads from the shore, stands the church, surrounded by a large churchyard. Although the situation of the building is so good, it cannot lay claim to much beauty either externally or within; it is of fair size, and sufficiently commodious in its arrangement, but that is all that can be said for it. The Roman Catholics possess a much prettier and more, ecclesiastical-looking place of worship, and their convent and clergy-house also are neat and cheerful-looking buildings. ”

“ The Catholic Apostolic Church is situated in College Street, near to Whitehead’s Grove. The exterior has some claim to architectural design, although the entrance at the side is small, and there are no windows to give relief to its massive appearance. There is ample light, however, in the interior of the structure, and it is in every respect commodious.
The spacious Drill Hall belonging to the 1st Middlesex Engineer Volunteers is also in College Street, near to the Fulham Road, where recruits are enlisted. ”

“ The church, which is seen through the opening, is said to be one of the{227} finest parish churches in England. There is a strange piece of street architecture on the road leading from the station to the town: among other detached houses is a fine specimen of Queen Anne’s reign, of fair size and highly enriched, that has been inhabited for generations by the same family ”

“ Clay Street holds good boarding-houses, but decay is manifest. We pass on to Stockton, still a favorite residence street; turning south we pass, near Sacramento, the church in which Starr King first preached, now proudly owned by the negro Methodists. At Post we reach Union Square, nearly covered by the wooden pavilion in which the Mechanics' Institute holds its fairs. Diagonally opposite the southeast corner of the desecrated park are the buildings of the ambitious City College, and east of them a beautiful church edifice always spoken of as "Starr King's Church." ”