Seeing America First, with the Berry BrothersColby, Eleanor
History
Seeing America First, with the Berry Brothers
Colby, Eleanor
Canada -- Description and travel -- Juvenile literature; United States -- Description and travel -- Juvenile literature
The most historic house in New York is the Jumel Mansion. In
Washington's time it was the handsomest house in the city, and besides,
it had a fine situation way up on Harlem Heights overlooking the river.
It was there that General Washington made his headquarters. It is
what grown-ups call "very quaint," and the glass for the windows and
the hand-painted paper for the walls came over from France. We saw
the narrow hall where the sentry paced back and forth as he guarded
Washington's slumber, and the council chamber where the general and his
staff decided so many questions. There is the cupboard where Andre,
the spy, hid, but the secret passage down to the river has been closed
because of the river rats.
After the war the Jumels, (some wealthy French people) bought the
house, and later Madame Jumel married the famous Aaron Burr. Jerome
Bonaparte, brother of the Emperor Napoleon, once visited Madame Jumel
in this house, and many other distinguished people have slept under its
roof. It is the most interesting house we have ever seen, and someway
it has made United States history seem more real than it does in the
school books.
Anyway, when at sunset we went down to the harbor and looked out at
the Statue of Liberty, she seemed to sort of belong to us and to all
American boys and girls.
[Illustration:
Dobb's Ferry
Fraunces' Tavern
THE OLD-NEW YORK
Jumel Mansion
Harbor and Statue of Liberty
Sub-Treasury-Assay Office]
An architect said to us: "New York has a wonderful skyline." He
explained that the "skyline" is the silhouette that the buildings make
against the sky. In some cities the buildings are so nearly one height
that the skyline is level and uninteresting, but in New York there
are tall sky-scrapers, low buildings, domes, towers, and smokestacks,
so that the skyline is full of variety. The picture shows the skyline
of lower New York as we saw it from Brooklyn Bridge, which is the
oldest bridge connecting Brooklyn with Manhattan. It is over a mile
long. The bridge was designed by John Roebling, but he died before it
was begun. His son took his place, but he worked so hard planning and
superintending the work that in three years he became an invalid. Then
he took a house overlooking the bridge, and from his invalid chair
he watched through a telescope and directed all the work till it was
completed ten years later.
Not far from Brooklyn Bridge is the Stock Exchange, which is the most
famous business building in New York. We never knew that tame men could
act as wild as they do there. It is where they buy and sell stocks and
of course they are all anxious to make as much money as possible and
everyone seems to be gesturing and screaming and no one seems to be
listening. It is as exciting as a football game.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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