Lights and Shadows of New York Life: or, the Sights and Sensations of the Great CityMcCabe, James Dabney
History
Lights and Shadows of New York Life: or, the Sights and Sensations of the Great City
McCabe, James Dabney
New York (N.Y.) -- Description and travel; New York (N.Y.) -- Social life and customs -- 19th century
Perhaps the most restless, care-worn faces in the city are to be seen on
this street. Women clad in the richest attire pass you with unquiet face
and wistful eyes, and men who are envied by their fellows for their "good
luck," startle you by the stern, hard set look their features wear. The
first find little real happiness in the riches they have sold themselves
for, and the latter find that the costly pleasures they courted have been
gained at too dear a price.
[Picture: THE NEW RESIDENCE OF A. T. STEWART, ESQ.]
Families are small in the Avenue, and Madame Restelle boasts, that her
wealth has been earned in a large degree by keeping them so. Fashion has
its requirements, and before them maternity must give way. Your
fashionable lady has no time to give to children, but pets lap-dogs and
parrots.
Well, the Avenue mansions have their skeletons, as well as the east side
tenement houses. The sin of the fashionable lady is covered up, however,
and the poor girl must face the world. That is the difference. Madame
married her husband for his money, and her love is given to one who has
no right to claim it; and what between her loathing for her liege lord
and her dread of detection, she leads a life not to be envied in spite of
the luxury which surrounds her. The liege lord in his turn, never
suspecting his wife, but disheartened by her coldness to him, seeks his
"affinity" elsewhere; and, by and by, the divorce court tells some
unpleasant truths about the Avenue.
Contemplating these things, I have thought that the most wretched quarter
of the city hardly holds more unhappy hearts than dwell along the three
miles of this grand street; and I have thanked God that the Avenue does
not fairly represent the better and higher phases of social and domestic
life in the great city.
XI. STREET TRAVEL.
I. THE STREET CARS.
The peculiar shape of the island of Manhattan allows the city to grow in
one direction only. The pressure of business is steadily bringing the
mercantile district higher up the island, and compelling the residence
sections to go farther to the northward. Persons in passing from their
homes to their business go down town in the morning, and in returning
come up town in the evening. Those who live in the better quarters of
the city, or in the upper portion of the island, cannot think of walking
between their homes and their business. To say nothing of the loss of
time they would incur, the fatigue of such a walk would unfit nine out of
ten for the duties of the day. In consequence of this, street railways
and omnibuses are more necessary, and better patronized in New York than
in any city in the Union.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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