Avenue

“ You would reduce the glorious variety of Fifth Avenue to the deadly uniformity of the Avenue de l'Opéra, where each block of buildings reproduces its neighbour, as though they had all been stamped by one gigantic die! ”

“ I am walking along Fifth Avenue, making these reflections and beginning to fear lest a spice of vexation at not possessing, a more traveled soul may creep into them, when it suddenly occurs to me that this avenue is very long. ”

“ The grass grows in this avenue, and only a few wheel-tracks can be seen along its double width of way. The great age of the trees, the breadth of the avenue, the venerable construction of the lodges, the brown tints of their stone courses, all bespeak an approach to some half-regal residence. ”

“ Imagine a long avenue of unusual width, along which fifty carriages might pass abreast, flanked by other smaller avenues, along which run rows of measureless trees, which at a noble height form an immense green arch, so dense that not a sunbeam can penetrate it, and at the two ends of the central avenue two monumental fountains throwing up the water in two great streams which fall again in the finest vaporous spray, and between the many avenues crystal streams, and in the middle a garden all roses and myrtle and jessamine and delicate fountains ”

“ As one passes along the magnificent avenue, or allée, of trees, through flower-bedecked fields, and with the fresh air from off the river and mountains perfumed by the carpet of blossoms which lies stretched on either side of the road, one is able to realize to the full the rural charm which surrounds the historic and busy town just left behind. ”

“ This Nancy trudged for hours through straight and terrible streets called avenues, with a dismal husband and a tired baby at her side. Third Avenue, Fourth Avenue, then quickly across Fifth Avenue, which had nothing to do with us, and again across to Sixth Avenue ... and everywhere dirty shops, screaming children, jostling girls, rude men, trains rushing overhead, street-cars screeching and clanging. Then, at last, Seventh Avenue, where there were streets full of quiet, squalid boarding-houses, fewer screaming children, fewer dirty shops, and no trains. ”

“ When I say one avenue, I mean one continuous avenue twenty-five miles long, the trees so close to each other throughout that their roots interlace and form a wall of wood on either side of the sunken road. ”

“ Returning from the Holy Sepulchre, we commence our wanderings through Cleveland's Avenue—an avenue three miles long, seventy feet wide, and twelve or fifteen feet high—an avenue more rich and gorgeous than any ever revealed to man—an avenue abounding in formations such as are no where else to be seen, and which the most stupid observer could not behold without feelings of wonder and admiration. ”

“ The form of the building is unlike any order of architecture with which I had been acquainted. The avenue by which it was approached was decorated alternately with statues of representative Americans, and a peculiar flowering tree, whose green leaves and yellow blossoms, of gossamer texture, resembled the fine mist of a summer morning. Terminating, this avenue was the main entrance, surmounted by the grand dome of the edifice. ”

“ Descending from the arch, we will take a stroll down the Avenue des Champs Elysées—the broad, beautiful avenue which appears to be the favorite promenade of Parisians. Upon either side of this avenue are open grounds, and groves of trees, in and amid which is every species of cheap amusement for the people—open booths in which are little games of chance for cheap prizes of glass ware and toys, merry-go-rounds, Punch and Judy shows, elegant cafés with their throngs of patrons sitting in front and watching the passers by, or the gay equipages on their way to the Bois de Boulogne. ”

“ The avenue and the shops were brilliantly lighted, the street swarmed with vehicles, and the walkways at the level of the second stories were crowded with pedestrians.
We drove twice the full length of the avenue, enjoying the life and beauty of the scene; then we drove into one of the parking places, to which all of the ground floors on the main arteries are devoted, and were lifted by an escalator to the walkway on the level above. ”

“ Roger said, “I like you in brown.”
I love going down Fifth Avenue in the dark of a winter evening. The traffic of business is over. Motors and carriages go spinning by, carrying people [Pg 61] to dinners. The big glistening street is like an artery with the joyous blood of the city racing through it, coursing along with the throb, throb, throb of a deathless vitality. ”

“ But the effect of wild is intense and makes the contrast of the over-cultivated avenue borders greater. Once inside the gates, the winding avenue begins, covered like all the avenues we have seen with fine granite gravel. ”

“ Nature sets her velvety willows a waving near, and lower than their airy tops plans a vista of trees arching above the track, which is as wild and pretty and illusive a vista as the sunset ever cared to look through and gild a board fence beyond.
Most of our people come from Boston on the horse-cars, and it is only the dwellers on the Avenue and the neighboring streets whom hurrying homeward I follow away from the steam-car station. The Avenue is our handsomest street; and if it were in the cosmopolitan citizen of Charlesbridge to feel any local interest, I should be proud of it. ”

“ Along Fifth avenue, from the Fifty-ninth street corner to the upper end of Central Park, there is not a single house that looks reposeful and habitable. Along Park avenue—but Park avenue, for all its flash of creamy brick, is surely one of the most hideous streets in all the world! ”

“ I asked my way of an old woman who sat by the roadside, complacently smoking a cigarette, and soon found myself within the gates of the Botanical Garden, and in the celebrated waringin avenue, one of the glories of the place. The first impression, I confess, is somewhat disappointing. The avenue is not very long, so that it lacks the depths of green darkness, the prospect along apparently converging parallels of pillar-like trunks, and the bluish shimmer of light afar off, which are the characteristic charms of woodland glades. ”

“ The commonness of effect in the street crowds is not absent from Fifth Avenue or from Madison Avenue any more than it is from First Avenue or Tenth Avenue; and the tide of wealth and fashion, that rolls up and down the better avenues in the splendid carriages, makes the shabbiness of the foot-passenger, when he is shabby, as he often is, the more apparent. ”

“ Fifth Avenue had become a nightly torrent of carriages surging upward to the fashionable quarters about the Park, where illuminated windows and outspread awnings betokened the usual routine of hospitality. ”

“ In the stirring times in which we are living, it seems as if every day is a great day on the Avenue. Take a single example: The morning broke dark and threatening. Heavy clouds presaged showers. But after an hour or two they passed from the heavens, and warmth and golden sunshine came. In the course of various activities the writer made his way to points between the Battery and Fifty-ninth Street, and the means of travel employed included three journeys on top of Fifth Avenue buses. If one of the early settlers could only have seen the proud and amazing thoroughfare! ”

“ The centre walk or avenue, leading from the palace, is terminated by an extensive sheet of water, where is placed a fine group of sculpture, as well as another at the commencement of the avenue, at the end of the grass, next to the circular piece of ground, where the orange trees are arranged. On each side of this principal avenue is situated an oblong piece of ground, laid out in the French style of gardening, with numerous straight walks, and circular spaces at their junctions. ”

“ Grand avenue, an extension of the main business thoroughfare of the city, runs out into the country some two miles, broad, with a solid road, a stately avenue, lined with fine dwellings, many of them palaces in size and elegant in design. ”

“ But where the broad avenue, at midway, spreads still wider, forming a spacious square, are thickly clustered the public buildings of the town and county,—together with the meeting-houses, the taverns, the bank, the shops, and a few handsome dwellings, whose large dimensions and ornate style show them to be the abodes of people of wealth and consideration. ”

“ The very dignity of an avenue seems to demand that there shall be something worthy of this procession of trees at its end, and if the house to which this feature is applied be unworthy, a sense of disappointment ensues. Provided, however, that the house be worthy of this dignity, and that its introduction does not mar the view, or dismember the ground, an avenue is both an artistic and convenient approach. ”

“ The principal avenue, a regularly built, grandly proportioned street, with a railway running through its centre, climbs directly up the hill, and is terminated by a well-kept public square, or Grande Place, as the French would call it, about which the State House, City Hall, and other public buildings are ranged. ”

“ There is no dignity of effect to be produced by driving through an avenue a quarter of a mile long, unless it leads to, and becomes an accessory of, some grand architectural structure, which itself, and not the avenue, is the ultimatum of interest. ”

“ But for the purposes of fiction there has never been one just like the establishment that occupied a corner at the junction of the Avenue and Fourteenth Street. It was a more limited town in those days. ”

“ The avenue, which should never be less than one hundred yards long, is essentially associated with a house and estate of considerable size and some measure of importance, and to attach it to a small residence is merely to cast ridicule on the owner. ”

“ Thousands of people come here from London and the surrounding country on that day, that they may drive through this long avenue that leads directly through the park to the palace and admire the display of blossoms on the great trees that line the avenue on both sides. ”

“ There is no end to the apartment-houses for multitude, and there is no street or avenue free from them. Of course, the better sort are to be found on the fashionable avenues and the finer cross-streets, but others follow the course of the horse-car lines on the eastern and western avenues, and the elevated roads on the avenues which these have invaded. ”

“ Avenue, which are streets of dwellings, solidly built up, like the cross streets. But it is undoubtedly the effect on all the other avenues, in great part of their extent. They vary but little in appearance otherwise, from east to west, except so far as the elevated railroads disfigure them, if thoroughfares so shabby and repulsive as they mostly are, can be said to be disfigured, and not beautified by whatever can be done to hide any part of their ugliness. ”

“ A main avenue leads up the centre: what may be called a boulevard sweeps, in similar breadth, along the outer walls; the streets and lanes intersect the plots of dwellings as ordinary streets and lanes, but with symmetrical regularity. These passages are nameless, it is true; but each bears at its corner a low numbered post, the especial mark of which is a sufficient direction to the dwelling to which a mourner may be bound. A city it is, once more, in its variety and distribution of building. The noblest monuments stand upon the broadest thoroughfares ”

“ The Inspector of the Seventeenth Ward writes: “The two following localities present the appearance of dung-hills rather than the thoroughfares in a civilized city, viz.: Sixth Street, between Bowery and Second Avenue, and Eleventh Street, between First and Second Avenues.” ”

“ An avenue for driving in should be two or three miles long, or it will be petite and disappointing. We have therefore thought it most desirable to identify the idea of the avenue with the promenade, for which purpose a quarter of a mile is not insufficient, and we can find no better place for such a grand mall, or open air hall of reception, as we desire to have, than the ground before us. ”

“ The trees in the avenues are kept cut, which is very formal-looking. We passed before the King's stables. They are in the form of a half moon; before the court is a railing with gilt tops. The great and the little stable are separated by the Avenue de Paris. Nearly opposite is the palace. Higher up the avenue, [Pg 51] on the side of the Grande Ecurie, is the kennel. ”

“ The house is not large, as great houses go, and it sits, as I have said, upon the grass without even a flagging or a foot-path to conduct you from the point where the avenue stops to the beautiful sculptured doorway which admits you into the small, quaint inner court. ”

“ The length, breadth, straightness, regularity, and beauty of these avenues strike the American visitor with astonishment. Fancy a street twice as wide as Broadway or Washington Street, with a sidewalk as wide as some of our ordinary streets, and shaded by a double line of trees, the street itself paved or laid in concrete or smooth hard asphalte; the houses tall, elegant, and of uniform style; brilliant, with elegant stores, cafés with their crowds at the tables set in front of them; the gay, merry throngs ”

“ The avenue is wide, and the tracks will be in a grass plot in the centre. For the sake of keeping tracks off that avenue he would deprive people of attractive homes at a small cost, of the good air they can get beyond the heights ”

“ We drove over to Fifth Avenue, so warm and soft, almost pastoral, on the summer Sunday afternoon that I wouldn’t have been surprised to see a great flock of white sheep turn the corner. ”