The European traveler will give praise to the sky-line of New York as he sees it from the steamer's deck. "It is the City of the Towers," he will say. * * * * * In this, your Day of Days in New York, come with us and see the making of a skyscraper. This skyscraper is the new Municipal Building. It is just behind the tree-filled park in which stands New York's oldest bit of successful architecture--its venerable City Hall. A long time before New York dreamed that she might become the City of the Towers they builded this old City Hall--upon what was then the northerly edge of the town. So sure were those old fellows that New York would never grow north of their fine town hall that they grew suddenly economical--the spirit of their Dutch forbears still dominated them--and builded the north wall of Virginia freestone instead of the white marble that was used for the facings of the other walls. "No one will ever see that side of the building," they argued. "We might as well use cheap stone for that wall." Today more than ninety-nine per cent. of the population of the immensely populated island of Manhattan lives north of the City Hall. That cheap north wall, hidden under countless coats of white paint, is the one acute reminder of the days that were when the Hall was new--when the gentle square in which it stood was surrounded by the suburban residences of prosperous New Yorkers and when the waters of the Collect Pond--where the New York boys use to skate in the bitterness of old-fashioned winters--lapped its northerly edge. There was no ugly Court House or even uglier Post Office to block the view from the Mayor's office up and down Broadway. New Yorkers were proud of their City Hall then--and good cause had they for their pride. It is one of the best bits of architecture in all America. And an even century of hard usage and countless "restorations" has only brought to it the charm of serene old age.