Park Street

“ With his pockets bulging with stogies and one glowing like a headlight in advance of him he wandered in a sort of coma up Tenth Avenue, crossed to the Riverside Drive, mounted Morningside Heights, descended again through the rustling alleys of Central Park, and found himself at Fifth Avenue and Fifty-ninth Street just as the dawn was paling the electric lamps to a sickly yellow and the trees were casting strange unwonted shadows in the wrong direction. ”

“ Little Park Street may be reached by Park Road, past a newly-raised memorial to the Coventry martyrs.
8 Much Park ST
Much Park Street led by Whitefriars through Newgate to the London Road; Little Park Street led but to a postern gate. In Stuart times the latter road had little traffic and much social dignity; beautiful houses stood therein with spacious gardens, where dwelt the neighbouring gentry, who were wont to enjoy the amenities of urban life for a season, a common feature of the social life of country towns at that period. ”

“ Our lamps intensify the dark Of slumbering Passaic Park. And quiet holds the weary feet That daily tramp through Prospect Street. What though we clang and clank and roar Through all Passaic's streets? ”

“ I have known of invalids who were advised to drive in the Central Park, but could not do so because they could not bear on their way to drive even up Fifth Avenue,—a street lined with the houses of millionaires. And to walk on Broadway for twenty minutes, talking to a friend, makes one as hoarse as delivering a two-hour lecture. ”

“ Now, although I saw many houses, large and small, possessing real beauty—most of them along the boulevards, in the Wade Park Allotment or on Euclid Heights, where modern taste has had its opportunity—it is nevertheless true that, for some curious reason connected with the workings of the mind, those streets which I remember best, after some months of absence, are not the streets possessed of the most charm. ”

“ Considering that both sides of the boulevard would offer most excellent house frontages, it is obvious that the whole cost of such a parkway ought not to be considered as a matter of luxury, so that even if it should prove a disappointment for many years to come in the way of increasing the value of land fronting upon it to a sufficient degree to equal or more than equal its excess of cost over that of an ordinary street, no serious loss would have been incurred. ”

“ Third Avenue is a broad street, but in the character of its houses and stores it is quite inferior to Broadway, though better than some of the avenues further east. Fifth Avenue, as most of my readers already know, is the finest street in the city, being lined with splendid private residences, occupied by the wealthier classes. Many of the cross streets also boast houses which may be considered palaces, so elegant are they externally and internally. Frank caught glimpses of some of these as he was carried towards the Park. ”

“ The average life of any smart colony is only five years. It will soon be as bad form to live on Park Avenue as it is now to live on Riverside Drive. The present pilgrimage is towards the East River around Sutton Place or Beekman Place. In ten years, First Avenue, which adjoins these localities, will probably be the Park Avenue of its decade. Then Campaspe's mind reverted to a street further up the river she had herself discovered, a delightfully quiet street facing a little park. ”

“ THE TURNPIKE AT HYDE PARK CORNER, 1706.
[Pg 29]
CHAPTER II. ST. JAMES’S STREET AND PALL MALL.
“O bear me to the paths of fair Pall Mall,
Safe are thy pavements, grateful is thy smell.”
—Gay’s “Trivia.”
Can we do better, after the surfeit of bricks and mortar which we have just undergone, than relax our jaded senses and relieve our wearied eyes by loitering for a few moments in the Green Park? See! it is just across the way, and a convenient entrance helps to tempt our steps. ”

“ Then people began to make immense fortunes and build palaces and mansions on Fifth Avenue, Central Park was opened to the public ... and Fifty-ninth Street became the book street of New York. Ever further the city expanded. Harlem grew in population and One Hundred and Twenty-fifth Street is another shopping center for lovers of books and objects of art.
Most of the book dealers kept step with the times. They moved from street to street. The grandfather had been prominent on Ann Street, the son on Fourth Avenue, and the grandson flourishes on One Hundred and Twenty-fifth. ”

“ Any time between these hours the street, from the lower end of Capitol Park down to Pearl street, is transformed into a vast market-place. Meat-wagons, vegetable carts, restaurants on wheels, and all sorts of huckstering establishments, are backed up to the sidewalk, on either side, blocking the way and so filling the wide avenue that there is barely room for the street-car in its passage up and down the hill. ”

“ In her childhood, the future poetess had a favorite walk over the bit of rolling ground to the south of Frankfort Street, the spot called Golden Hill, which a few years later was to be trampled by many soldiers, where the tall grass was to be reddened by the blood of patriots—the first blood shed in the Revolution. She strolled hand in hand with her father over the green Common, which was to become the City Hall Park. ”

“ A fine new built street, that extends from the end of Bridge street into St. James’s Park. The great uniformity observed in the buildings, their grandeur, and the length and straightness of this street, form a noble vista, terminated at the end next the park by very handsome iron gates supported on stone piers, and by the tall trees of the park, which at a distance resemble a thick grove. 2. A very noble street which extends from Hanover square into Conduit street; this is also broad and well paved, and has several very fine houses built and inhabited by noblemen and people of the first rank. ”

“ Each little suburb has its own corporation, and its own municipal government, while even its mayor and aldermen may do daily business in the large city below it.
In the city itself Pearl street is noted for its wholesale [Pg 129] trade, and for the uniform elegance of its buildings. Third street, between Main and Vine, contains the banking, brokering, and insurance offices. Fourth street is the fashionable promenade and business street. Freeman street, in the neighborhood of Lincoln Park, is also a favorite promenade. Both the East and West Ends contain many fine residences. ”

“ Eastern Parkway and Ocean Parkway, in Brooklyn, are instances of liberal and complete boulevards, in which there is a broad central drive devoted exclusively to pleasure driving and a narrower drive on each side intended for access to adjoining private properties as well as for ordinary street traffic and separated from the middle drive by double rows of trees with promenades between them. ”

“ This is not true of the shabbier avenues alone, but of the finest, and of all the streets. If you will look, for instance, at the street facing the southern limit of the Park, you will get some notion of what I mean, and I hope you will be willing to suffer by a little study of it. At the western end you will see a vacant lot, with its high board fence covered with painted signs, then a tall mass of apartment houses; then a stretch of ordinary New York dwellings of the old commonplace brownstone sort; then a stable, and a wooden liquor saloon at the corner. ”

“ Because, according to that incredibly stupid young man, Robert, Piccadilly, Bond Street and the Park will then be the back streets, in which no decent people, except out-of-date, old-fashioned fogeys like ourselves, would ever consent to be seen. ”

“ Cooper and His Friends IN that cheerless precinct of New York City to which still clings the name St. John's Park, though there has been no park there this half-century,—in Beach Street, a dozen or perhaps twenty steps from Hudson Street, there stands a house that could not fail to attract the attention of an observant passer-by. A brick building, its architectural features suggest roomy attractiveness—a condition little sought after in these days when the value of every inch of ground calls for compactness regardless of beauty of appearance. ”

“ What is now Park Row, from City Hall Park to Chatham Square, was for many years called Chatham Street, in honor of William Pitt, Earl of Chatham. In 1886 the aldermen of the city changed the name to Park Row, and in so doing seemed to stamp approval of an event just one hundred years before which had stirred American manhood to acts of valor. This [Pg 48] was the dragging down by British soldiers in 1776 of a statue of the Earl of Chatham which had stood in Wall Street. ”

“ The Poet of the Revolution IN the far down-town business section of New York, there is a street so short that you can walk its entire length in ten minutes or less time. It leads from the park where the City Hall is, straight to the river. Beginning at the tall buildings where the newspapers have their homes, it continues along between the warehouses of leather merchants and the solid stonework of the bridge that crosses from the Manhattan to the Brooklyn shore ”

“ The denizens of Friar Street and such localities, being in the habit of waking in the morning to the odour of melted tallow and boiling soap, and of going to sleep at night with the smell of burning bones under their noses, can of course have nothing of an external nature in common with the inhabitants of Park Lane and its vicinity ”

“ The walk is just the right length to take before dressing for dinner. A line drawn eastward from the park plaza at Fifty-eighth Street will almost strike an old mile-stone still standing in Third Avenue, which says, "4 miles from City Hall, New York." ”

“ As the city grew, these people followed the avenue north until at the present time the finest homes in the city are located in the neighborhood of Central Park in the upper reaches of the street. Between Fourteenth Street and Washington Square there are now a number of business houses, two fine old churches, and a portion of the city that still retains the residential quality of dignity and worth. ”

“ It was very much improved. The great open spaces were filling up. Coming back, he kept to the Park until 110th Street, and then turned into Seventh Avenue again, reaching the pretty river by one o'clock. ”

“ Park avenue commences at Thirty-fourth street, being built over the track of the Fourth avenue car line. In the centre of this avenue, over the tunnels, are little spaces inclosed by iron fences, and containing a profusion of shrubbery and flowers. The avenue abounds in elegant churches and equally fine residences. At Forty-second street is the Grand Central Depot, seven hundred feet in length, its exterior imposing, and with corner and central towers surmounted by domes. ”

“ Travel, in dreams, the streets I knew
And roam from Greenwich Park to Kew.
I love to think of bland Pall Mall
(Where Charles made love to Pretty Nell)
And rich South Audley Street, and Wapping,
And Bond Street and the Christmas shopping,
Knightsbridge, the Inner Circle train,
And Piccadilly and Park Lane; [59]
Kensington, where “nice” people live
Who give you tea (top-hat) at five ”

“ Messages were passing from the Fleet to the Admiralty.* Arlington Street and Piccadilly* seemed to chafe the very air in the Park and lift its leaves hotly, brilliantly, on waves of that divine vitality which Clarissa loved. ”

“ LONG LIVE THE EMPEROR.
Police Sergeant Hardy stood near the Boylston Street entrance to the Fens, his back toward the hundred and fifteen acres of park land which it was his duty to guard, his good-natured face overspread by a smile, as he watched a young lady taking a bicycle lesson in a secluded walk on his left. ”

“ Cook headed for the B & O bridge to see what was happening. To get a better vantage point, he climbed the craggy face of Maryland Heights where he could look directly into the center of the town. Seeing that his compatriots were “completely surrounded,” he decided to try to take some of the pressure off by firing across the river at men posted in the houses along High Street overlooking the armory. His shot was instantly answered by a volley of bullets that severed a branch he was clutching for support and sent him tumbling down the rocky cliff. ”

“ The boy fed and caressed them; and then, followed by the pair who were in a state of silent satisfaction, he sat down by his window, and resting his elbows on the window-sill, looked out across the garden into the street. It was very quiet. The Hardys had no near neighbors, and only at rare intervals did anyone pass, yet Eugene was not afraid.
“I am happy—happy,” he murmured, pressing his face against the tortoiseshell fur of one of the cats. “I cannot be lonely unless she stays a long, long time. Probably they are to remain all night. It must be a visit to the aunt. ”

“ All the annoyance died out of the sergeant’s face. “You young swaggerer,” he said with a short laugh, “you’ve got a hard row to hoe in this life. I’m sorry for you; but I guess I’d no business to run down your grandfather. Come over here now; I want to show you something. You come too,” he added, addressing the nurses and little Virgie, who had timidly retreated when Eugene began to get angry.
Eugene somewhat sulkily accepted his apology, and they all followed him; while the sergeant talked to them over his shoulder, and led the way to a path near the Boylston-street bridge. ”

“ Now this last lap of the walk—from green Madison Square and the new Martin's up the sparkling avenue to the broad, bright Plaza at the Park entrance, where the brightly polished hotels look down at the driving, with their awnings flapping and flags out straight—makes the most popular part of all the walk.
This is the land of liveried servants and jangling harness, far away, or pretending to be, from work and worry; this is where enjoyment is sought and vanity let loose—and that, with the accompanying glitter and glamour, is always more interesting to the great bulk of humanity. ”

“ 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. ”