King Street

“ The newest street in London town, The Kingsway, the Kingsway! The newest street in London town, Who’ll pace it up and pace it down? The brave, the strong, who strive and try, And think and work, who fight and die To make their England’s royal way The King’s Way, the King’s Way!
The noblest street in London town, The Kingsway, the Kingsway! The noblest street in London town, The stir of life beats up and down; In serried ranks the sabres shine, And Art and Craft and Thought divine, All crowd and fill the great highway, The Kingsway, the Kingsway! ”

“ The street elects a king and queen, plasters itself with bunting, arches itself with electric lights, lines its curbs with temporary booths, fills its corners with shows, sells confetti until the pedestrian swims in it—and then whoops it up for a week. ”

“ Before, however, we enter upon what may be styled King Street proper, it will be convenient to make a momentary digression northwards into Duke Street, anciently a quiet, retired thoroughfare, skirted on the right and left by the premises and grounds and houses of several most respectable inhabitants. ”

“ King Street received its title because it was the direct road between the Court and the Abbey. Princes Street, a modern thoroughfare, occupying the site of Old Westminster Mews, was so called on account of its proximity to King Street. Parker Street perpetuates the memory of Archbishop Parker, one of the principal benefactors of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge. This street was formerly known as Bennet Street, the old name of the College. Great George Street covers the ground originally occupied by the stable-yard of “The George and the Dragon,” a well-known coaching house in bygone days. ”

“ A road cut diagonally from the Bridge to the opening of King Street, at once avoided this natural impediment, and also led to a point where an easy connection was made with the track for wheels, which ran along the shore of the harbour to the Garrison. But for the ravine alluded to, which now appears to the south of Moss Park, Lot Street, or, which is the same thing, Queen Street, would at an early period, have begun to dispute with King Street, its claim to be the chief thoroughfare of York. ”

“ In 1812 the population of the place was under 1,000. It is now, including the suburbs, where some of the wealthiest citizens live in houses as well-built and as luxuriously fitted up as any in London, about 116,000. King Street, the principal one, is built up with substantial brick and stone buildings, many of which are equal to any on the American Continent. Forty years since, it was completely composed of wooden structures, and was barely passable to pedestrians. Now, it is adorned with stately stores, where the latest novelties of the Old World and the New are ostentatiously displayed. ”

“ How can an English Street whose name is derived from New York have any native character? How, moreover, can a street that has an ugly name ever suggest anything but ugliness? Further, why should we miss the chance of commemorating some great Englishman—ancient or modern, King Alfred or General Buller—by conferring on this new street his illustrious name? Now, let me soothe these querists by showing that a name cannot (in the long run) make any shadow of difference in our sentiment for the street that bears it, for that our sentiment is solely according to the character of the street itself ”

“ IF you leave King William-street just at the foot of London-bridge and turn to the right, you will find your way into a set of narrow and steep streets, few only of which admit of carriage and horse traffic. The lower stories of the houses are let out as offices, and the upper as warehouse floors; the pavement is narrow and the road as bad as broken stones and long neglect can make it; dirty boys in sailors’ jackets play at leap-frog over the street posts; legions of wheel-barrows encumber the broader parts of these thoroughfares ”

“ Have you ever, as a child, looking, large-eyed and a little frightened it may be, out upon the bigness of London, wondered where the houses ended and Gods own country began, or asked where the last house of the last street looked out upon the meadows, and the final flag-stone led on to the footpath of the King's Highway? ”

“ The dwelling-houses throughout the city are mostly of brick or wood, and have large open grounds around them, ornamented with trees, shrubbery, vines and flowers. The city is [Pg 116] laid out with tolerable regularity, the streets generally crossing each other at right angles. King street, running north and south, is the fashionable promenade, containing the leading retail stores. Meeting street, nearly parallel with King, contains the jobbing and wholesale stores. Broad street, the banks, brokers' and insurance offices. ”

“ In a deed of 1650 [140] the garden is said to be “now in the occupation of the Lady Vere,” and a short time before it had been in the tenure of Sir John Cotton. [141] The street was formed before 1682, it being shown in Morden and Lea’s Map of that date, and was at first known as St. Thomas’s Street. In 1765 the name was changed to King Street, probably out of compliment to Joseph King, who took a lease of a large portion of the property in the street about that date. [142] Formerly in the flank wall of No. 166, Drury Lane, was a stone tablet bearing the inscription “King Street. ”

“ A delicacy worthy, as it is an advantage to the inhabitants, and a beauty even with regard to the square itself.
Queen’s Square street, Long Ditch, Westminster.
Queen street. Many of these streets were thus named after the restoration, in honour of the royal family. 1. Bloomsbury. 2. Opposite King street in Cheapside; this street was widened, and had its name 241changed to Queen street, by act of Parliament, after the fire of London. 3. Great Russel street, Bloomsbury. 4. Great Windmill street. 5. Hog lane, St. Giles’s. 6. Hoxton. 7. Long Ditch, Westminster. 8. In the Mint, Southwark. 9. ”

“ In honour of this event, and to do honour to the visit of some French ambassadors, the King gave orders for a tournament to be held in Cheapside. The street was decorated with tapestries and silver draperies, pendant on the walls, and banners streaming from the roofs. The bright eyes of beauteous damsels glanced in the windows of the houses, and the street was filled with a crowd of gaily dressed holiday-makers. The lists were formed between Wood Street and Queen Street, and the ground bestrewn with sand to [53] prevent the horses slipping. ”

“ From the Obelisk at the junction, or approximate junction, of the Westminster, Waterloo, Blackfriars, Borough, and London-roads, in pretty well every direction to the banks of the Thames, are a mass of private-looking streets—as far as the absence of shops constitutes the privacy of a street—old and half-ruinous, or modern and trim, in all of which perhaps may be found street-sellers, and in some of which are pickpockets, thieves, and prostitutes. ”

“ Caterham & Co., of London, where the old conduit house, mentioned in the guide-books, stood for centuries, in the High Street. The Corporation are, it is rumoured, meditating the advisability of altering the name of the High Street into the King's Parade. The sooner they make a move in this direction the better it will be for all concerned ”

“ Her own window overlooked the balcony and the street, and unable to sleep, as she told Pauline, she was lying wide awake, when she heard rapid hoof-beats on the pavement coming from Canal Street,—a horse at rapid trot, but with no sound of wheels in company, and the horse halted before their door. Unable to restrain her curiosity or anxiety, she had risen, stolen to the window, and peered out through the slats of the blind. A gas-lamp threw its light upon the street in front, and there, plainly illumined by its glare, sat Frank Amory in the saddle, gazing up at her window. ”

“ And for this fresh land, the place is ancient. Here is the bold stone house which General Sibley, the king of fur-traders, built in 1835, with plaster of river mud, and ropes of twisted grass for laths. It has an air of centuries. In its solid rooms Carol and Kennicott found prints from other days which the house had seen—tail-coats of robin's-egg blue, clumsy Red River carts laden with luxurious furs, whiskered Union soldiers in slant forage caps and rattling sabers. ”

“ And are we to forget where Andrew Jackson was entertained before and after the Battle of New Orleans—where General Beauregard, military idol of the Creoles, resided—where Paul Morphy the "chess king" lived—where General Butler took up his quarters when, in 1862, under the guns of Farragut's fleet, the city surrendered—? Shall we fail to visit the curious old tenements and stables surrounding the barnyard which once was the remise of the old Orleans Hotel? Shall we neglect old Metaire cemetery, with its graves built above ground in the days when drainage was less perfect? ”

“ A social function of some kind was going on, and a number of carriages were drawn up at the curb near a great stone house that faced the broader and more fashionable thoroughfare to the east, or else were moving slowly up and down, their coachmen thrashing vigorously with their arms to restore circulation in their numbed fingers. Forrest recognized the once familiar brougham of the Allisons', and conjectured that Florence, with her now desperately devoted Hubbard, was among the guests. At the eastward end of the street all was light and bustle, clattering hoofs and slamming carriage-doors. ”

“ She wouldn’t sit there alone and neglected. She deliberately signaled Mr. Prime. “The ladies are all busy,” she said, with a charmingly appealing smile, “but I know you can tell me. I have to dress for dinner after I get home, and must be at One Hundred and Tenth Street at 7:30. How long will it take a carriage to drive me there? Oh, is that your society pin? Why, are you still in college? Why, I thought——”
That cab was twenty-five minutes coming, and when it came Mr. Prime went with it and her, whom he had not left an instant from the 151 moment of her question. ”

“ There was to be a procession of some kind on Canal Street,—no city in the world can compete with New Orleans in the number and variety of its processions,—and as the bands were playing brilliantly over towards the St. Charles, Vinton proposed that we should stroll thither and hear the music. The judge offered his arm with his old-fashioned, courtly grace to Mrs. Amory; Vinton, of course, claimed Pauline; Harrod and I fell back together; and Amory and Kitty paired off both by force of circumstances and his own evident inclination. ”

“ To those who really understand them, every one of the great, vital streets of the world has a soul as well as a body. The social invader from the West, the merchant whose establishment still found profit in Grand Street, the banker from Broad Street, or the ship's chandler from South, the club awakening to the fact that its quarters on Broadway or in one of the side streets near Irving Place was too far downtown, or in size inadequate to its growing membership—those were the agencies that wrought the Avenue's material development. ”

“ When Carol had walked for thirty-two minutes she had completely covered the town, east and west, north and south; and she stood at the corner of Main Street and Washington Avenue and despaired.
Main Street with its two-story brick shops, its story-and-a-half wooden residences, its muddy expanse from concrete walk to walk, its huddle of Fords and lumber-wagons, was too small to absorb her. The broad, straight, unenticing gashes of the streets let in the grasping prairie on every side. She realized the vastness and the emptiness of the land. ”

“ How is the sense of all these innumerable aspects going to be squeezed into a pitiful couple of thousand words?...
One would like, for example, to distinguish street from street: to speak of Lord Street, say, with its inevitable air of well-groomed alertness, brisk and personable even under gloom, its rather superficial architecture pleasantly asnap, its traffic and its shops equally avoiding the dully commercial, equally achieving a confident glitter that only just falls short of a swagger. ”

“ These streets of London, where the poor do their marketing, are, on Saturday night, gay with light and thronged with people. Because of the next day's rest, there is, until past midnight, an open market, which invades the pavement with costers' barrows heaped with fruit, butchers' stalls, booths of incongruous articles, kitchen utensils, old tools, all the bric-à-brac of the second-hand suburban shop; vehicular traffic is suspended; all barriers are encroached upon; everyone walks in the middle of the street. ”

“ A city street that is busy and wide is ground by a thousand wheels, And a burden of traffic on its breast is all it ever feels: It is dully conscious of weight and speed and of work that never ends, But it cannot be human like Main Street, and recognise its friends. There were only about a hundred teams on Main Street in a day, And twenty or thirty people, I guess, and some children out to play. And there wasn't a wagon or buggy, or a man or a girl or a boy That Main Street didn't remember, and somehow seem to enjoy. ”

“ Foul slums there are in the East End, of course, as there are in the West; want and misery there are, as wherever a host is gathered together to fight for food. But they are not often spectacular in kind.
Of this street there are about one hundred and fifty yards—on the same pattern all. It is not pretty to look at. A dingy little brick house twenty feet high, with three square holes to carry the windows, and an oblong hole to carry the door, is not a pleasing object; and each side of this street is formed by two or three score of such houses in a row, with one front wall in common. ”