Schenectady, New York

“ So great was the terror, that at Cherry Valley and other places settlers sent their goods and valuables to Albany and Schenectady. Stone remarks that at one time it seemed "as if these settlements would be entirely depopulated." ”

“ There isn't any society; or, if there is, I don't know where it keeps itself. Do you? I suppose there is some society somewhere, but I haven't seen anything of it. I'm very fond of society, and I have always had a great deal of it. I don't mean only in Schenectady, but in New York. I used to go to New York every winter. In New York I had lots of society. Last winter I had seventeen dinners given me; and three of them were by gentlemen," added Daisy Miller. "I have more friends in New York than in Schenectady — more gentleman friends; and more young lady friends too," she resumed in a moment. ”

“ This outrageous monopoly, which meant little less than robbery and oppression of the farmers and millers of the province, so enriched New York City that its wealth during the sixteen years of the monopoly’s existence was tripled. At Albany and Schenectady this act caused men to grind their teeth in rage at such flagrant injustice, and created a state of feeling which made Leisler’s power possible. In other ways, Andros, the ultra-royalist, made himself hateful to both Puritan New England and Dutch New York. ”

“ The First Passenger Train in N.Y. State Leaving Schenectady for Albany, July 30, 1831
On its first trip this train, now preserved on the right balcony of the Grand Central Terminal, attained a speed of nine miles an hour. The route between Albany and Schenectady was practically identical with that of the present New York Central lines.
The Capitol occupies a commanding position in Capitol Square. It is built of white Maine granite, and cost about $25,000,000. Millions were spent in alteration and reconstruction, due to the use of inferior materials and to mistakes in engineering design. ”

“ I was not a little puzzled with the arrangement of the hotel tables and the printed bills of fare, but closely watched the deportment of others and came through without any serious or mortifying blunder. Next morning I left New York on the steamer Robert L. Stevens for Albany, and on the evening of the same day went to Schenectady by railroad. Some of the way cars were hauled by horses up hills and inclined planes. There were then only three short lines of railroad in the United States, and I had traveled on two of them. At Schenectady I took passage on a canal boat to Buffalo. ”

“ They make the Fire in the Middle, and cover the frozen Ground round it with the small Branches of the Fir-Trees. Thus they tell me a Man lyes much warmer, than one imagines that never tried it.
When the Information of the French came to Schenectady, an Express was sent to New-York to Coll. Fletcher then Governor there; the Express reached New-York, an hundred and fifty Miles from Albany, the 12th at ten in the Night. ”

“ That Schnitzel had important papers tied to his neck I no more believe than that he wore a shirt of chain armor, but to please him I pretended to be greatly concerned.
"Now that we're getting into New York," I said, "you must be very careful. A man who carries such important documents on his person might be murdered for them. I think you ought to disguise yourself."
A picture of my bag being carried ashore by Schnitzel in the uniform of a ship's steward rather pleased me. ”

“ We take the unknown for the magnificent sometimes, no doubt; but sometimes also we take it for the ridiculous. To us New-Yorkers, for instance, there is nothing absurd or ludicrous in the sturdy name of Schenectady ”

“ The stockholders, grey and grave, and some with watery eyes, drew up their chairs to the long table; for they were directors, too. They answered to their names, and they listened to the minutes, and waded mechanically through the routine business, always with their gaze straying to the new force which had come among them. Every man there knew all about Edward E. Allison. He had combined the traction interests of New York by methods as logical and unsympathetic as geometry, and where he appeared, no matter how pacific his avowed intentions, there were certain to be radical upheavings. ”

“ His nerves told him he would be better looking down at Brooklyn. So he returned.
The whole world had become another world in half an hour. Quincy surveyed the sky, the river, distant Manhattan. It came to him with a thrill that nothing was the same—that everything was radically something else. It was night—boldly, suddenly, entirely. If New York had a tongue of its own, would there be a word in it for evening? ”

“ To me it was no new story. I knew of the horrors of Cristobal prison; of political rivals chained to criminals loathsome with disease, of men who had raised the flag of revolution driven to suicide. But never had I supposed that my own people could reach from the city of New York and cast a fellow-man into that cellar of fever and madness.
"Schnitzel, you certainly are a magnificent liar"
As I watched the yellow wall sink into the sea, I became conscious that Schnitzel was near me, as before, leaning on the rail, with his chin sunk on his arms. ”

“ In fifty years they have crept up from the Fourth Ward slums and the Five Points the whole length of the island, and have polluted the Annexed District to the Westchester line. Crowding all the lower wards, wherever business leaves a foot of ground unclaimed; strung along both rivers, like ball and chain tied to the foot of every street, and filling up Harlem with their restless, pent-up multitudes, they hold within their clutch the wealth and business of New York, hold them at their mercy in the day of mob-rule and wrath. ”

“ Schnitzel reassured me. "They know you're just an amateur. But, as you say, with me, it's different. I got to be careful. Now, you mightn't believe it, but I never go near my uncle nor none of my friends that live where I used to hang out. If I did, the other spies would get on my track. I suppose," he went on grandly, "I never go out in New York but that at least two spies are trailing me. But I know how to throw them off. I live 'way down town in a little hotel you never heard of. You never catch me dining at Sherry's nor the Waldorf. ”

“ On the southern shore of Long Island, who has not seen the sumptuous ultramarine, with a surf as snowy as apple-blossom? After shrill and meager New York, the color of that Atlantic is drenching.
The dancing harbor of New York is a beauty that never fades, but I hate the New York skyline except at night. In the day-time those punctured walls seem imbecile to me. They look out on the river with such a lidless, such an inhuman, stare. Nothing of man clings to them. They are barren as the rocks, empty as the deserted vaults of cliff-dwellers. ”

“ At night no section of New York is more lonesome, or more inviting to the performance of deeds of darkness.
Just opposite a tumble-down pier, not far from Grand street ferry, stood, and still stands, a little shanty, built in the rudest manner, only one story in height.
Into this shanty we wish to convey the reader, at least in imagination.
There are but three rooms in the shanty, the front one being about half of the entire floor, and two smaller rooms, answering as bedrooms, took up the other half. ”

“ Snyder builds New York's schools, and he does that which no other architect before his time ever did or tried; he "builds them beautiful." In him New York has one of those rare men who open windows for the soul of their time. Literally, he found barracks where he is leaving palaces to the people. If any one thinks this is overmeasure of praise, let him look at the "Letter H" school, now become a type, and see what he thinks of it. ”

“ New York is a great State, and counts its noble and good men by hundreds of thousands; but like every large State with large towns and cities, she also counts her thousands of depraved creatures in human shape. And I speak from personal knowledge, for they were quartered for weeks near my late residence, when I say that of all the soldiers who were in this community since the commencement of this war, none have left behind them such a bad moral odor as have many of these men. ”

“ They never go back to the country. If any of the children have the energy and vigour of the father, they do not enter into business in Boston, but go out to the west, and help to build up such places as Chicago and Omaha. But if, as is generally the case, they have not energy and vigour enough for this, they go to New York, or [Pg 297] some large city, where refined society and amusements are to be had. Some travel much, and take life easily. Some occasionally enter into political life. They marry city ladies, who are possessed of great refinement, but have very bad constitutions. ”

“ Crowded out of the tenements to shift for himself, and quite ready to do it, he meets there the host of adventurous runaways from every State in the Union and from across the sea, whom New York attracts with a queer fascination, as it attracts the older emigrants from all parts of the world. A census of the population in the Newsboys’ Lodging-house on any night will show such an odd mixture of small humanity as could hardly be got together in any other spot. It is a mistake to think that they are helpless little creatures, to be pitied and cried over because they are alone in the world. ”

“ Will you please tell me what people are saying and playing in New York?” She pictured, and groaned over, the expression of Kennicott if she should say, “Why wouldn't it be reasonable for you, my soul, to ask that complete stranger in the brown jersey coat to come to supper tonight?”
She brooded, not looking back. She warned herself that she was probably exaggerating; that no young man could have all these exalted qualities. Wasn't he too obviously smart, too glossy-new? Like a movie actor. ”

“ If I could analyse what it is that lifts the heart about the lightness and clarity of such a white and wooden skeleton, I could explain what it is that is really charming about New York; in spite of its suffering from the curse of cosmopolitanism and even the provincial superstition of progress. It is partly that all this destruction and reconstruction is an unexhausted artistic energy; but it is partly also that it is an artistic energy that does not take itself too seriously. It is first because man is here a carpenter ”

“ Half the East Side swarmed over it with shrieks of delight, and carried the mayor and the city government, who had come to see the show, fairly off their feet. And now "we are seven," or will be when the one in Brooklyn has been built,—great, handsome structures, seven hundred feet long, some of them, with music every night for mother and the babies, and for papa, who can smoke his pipe there in peace. The moon shines upon the quiet river, and the steamers go by with their lights. The street is far away with its noise. The young people go sparking in all honor, as it is their right to do. ”

“ NEW YORK is not merely a melting pot for the poor and the humble of the lands of the earth. In its capacious depths, unknown and unsuspected, float atoms of an entirely different sort: human beings with the blood of the high-born and lofty in their veins, derelicts swept up by the varying winds of adversity, adventure, injustice, lawlessness, fear and independence. ”

“ Mr. Knight returned. “But what do you think about removing to New York? I am contemplating giving up my business here and establishing myself in New York city. My partner, who, as you know, is a younger man than I, wants to branch out a little more than I care to at my age, so I have sold out to him. Still, I, too, am unwilling to be idle, so I think 23I will go East and do a little quiet business on my own account.”
“It matters very little to me where I am located,” Virgie said, with a sigh. ”

“ That first breathless impression of New York! How she had feared it, that first dusky evening, when, shrinking in a doorway before the onrush of driven multitudes, she had felt the very air dragged from her nostrils, obliterating her individuality, routing her courage, stunning her senses. She had stood a long time, clinging to her meager sheltering, disheartened at the fury at her feet, awed by the flaming ladders to the impending stars—no inanimate stones, but living rocks, endlessly climbing, which must end by toppling over on her in an obliterating crash. ”

“ I hope I do not fill as much space as Saint Paul’s, but at least I am a Victorian ruin dating from the year 1874. The last time I was in New York I noticed that the landscape was always changing. When a baby is born he just has time to look at the skyscrapers a week or so before they are pulled down. Pulling down New York seems to be the local industry. A baby goes out in his perambulator and his home is pulled down before he gets back.”
“What do you think of the young people today, Mr. Chesterton?” ”

“ But before they trouble about the effect which their streets may produce as photographs, the Montevideans will, I hope, devote attention to comfort. Let the town spread freely, since there is plenty of space available. Is it not the curse of all our large European cities to be cramped and confined? New York, between two arms of the sea, has been obliged to invent its hideous "skyscrapers." ”

“ The four Murray Hill blocks are the very stronghold of respectability. The extreme corners are occupied by two private houses of millionaire families, one grocery and one bazaar; both the shops being among the oldest, richest, and most respectable of their kind in New York. Yet even the mad excitement of such an election as last year's cannot bring from this district a decent and proper complement of voters; while every qualified man in Shantytown walks up to the polls and deposits his vote. ”