Scribner's Magazine, Volume 26, October 1899 — John Shaqi
Scribner's Magazine, Volume 26, October 1899Various
History
Scribner's Magazine, Volume 26, October 1899
Various
American periodicals
The sky-line and its constant change can be watched to best advantage
from the point of view of the Jersey commuter on the ferry; he also has
some wonderful coloring to look at and some uncommon, weird effects,
such as that of a late autumn afternoon (when he has missed the 5.16
and has to go out on the 6.26) and it is already quite dark, but the
city is still at work and the towering office-buildings are lighted—are
brilliant indeed with many perfectly even rows of light dots. The dark
plays tricks with the distance, and the water is black and snaky and
smells of the night. All sorts of strange flares of light and puffs of
shadow come from somewhere, and altogether the commuter, if he were not
so accustomed to the scene, ought not to mind being late for dinner.
However, the commuter is used to this, too.
That scene is spectacular. There is another from the water that
is dramatic. Possibly the pilots on the Fall River steamers become
hardened, but to most of us there is an exciting delight in creeping
up under that great bridge of ours and dramatically slipping through
without having it fall down this time; and then looking rather
boastfully back at it, swooping silently, confidently across from one
city to the other, as graceful and lean and characteristically American
in its line as our cup defenders, and as overwhelmingly powerful and
fearless as Niagara Falls. However, much like the Thames embankment is
the bit of East Fifty-ninth Street in a yellow fog, and however skilful
you may be in making an occasional acre of the Bronx resemble the
upper Seine, this big bridge of ours cannot very well remind anyone of
anything abroad, because there aren't any others.
[Illustration: Even in sky-line he could find something new almost
every week or two.—Page 394.
The end of the day—looking back at Manhattan from the Brooklyn
Bridge.]
[Illustration: This is the tired city's playground.—Page 399.
Washington Bridge and the Speedway—Harlem River looking south.]
For the little scenes that are not inspiring or awful, but simply quaint
and lovable, one goes down along the South Street water-front. Fulton
Market with its memorable smells and the marketeers and 'longshoremen;
and behind it the slip where clean-cut American-model smacks put in,
and sway excitedly to the wash from the Brooklyn ferry-boats, which is
not noticed by the sturdy New Haven line steamers nearby. On the edge
of the street and the water are the oyster-floats, half house and half
boat, which look like solid shops, with front doors, from the street
side until the seas hitting them they, too, begin to sway awkwardly and
startle the unaccustomed passer-by.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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