These are typical New Yorkers. So are a family over in the next block--theirs is frankly a flat in every sense of that despised word. They have not been in the theater in a dozen years, never in one of the big modern restaurants or hotels. Yet the head of that family is a man whose name is known and spoken reverently through little homes all the way across America. He is a worker in the church, although not a clergyman, a militant friend of education, although not an educator, and he believes that New York is the most thoughtful and benevolent city in the world. And if you attempt to argue with him, he will prove easily and smilingly, that he is right and you--are just mistaken. He and his know their New York--a New York of high Christian force and precept--and they, too, are New Yorkers. So, too, is Bliffkins and the little Bliffkins--although Bliffkins holds property in a bustling Ohio city and votes within its precincts. To tell the truth baldly, the Bliffkinses descend upon New York once each year and never remain more than a fortnight. But they stop at a great hotel and they are great spenders. Floor-walkers, head-waiters, head-ushers know them. Annually, and for a few golden days they are part of New York--typical New Yorkers, if you please. And when they are gone other Bliffkinses, from almost every town across the land, big and little, come to replace them. And all these are typical New Yorkers. What is the typical New Yorker? Are the sane folk right when they say that he does not exist? We do not think so. We think that Katherine in all her flippancy was right. They are all typical New Yorkers who sojourn, no matter for how little a time, within her boundaries. We will go farther still. You might almost say that all Americans are typical New Yorkers. For New York is, in no small sense, America. Other towns and cities may publicly scoff her, down in their hearts they slavishly imitate her, her store fronts, her fashions, her hotel and her theater customs, her policemen, even her white-winged street cleaners. They publicly laugh at her--down in their hearts they secretly adore her. 3 ACROSS THE EAST RIVER Physically only the East river separates Brooklyn from Manhattan island. The island of Manhattan was and still is to many folk the city of New York. Across that narrow wale of the East river--one of the busiest water-highways in all the world--men have thrust several great bridges and tunnels. Politically Brooklyn and Manhattan are one. They are the most important boroughs of that which has for the past fifteen years been known as Greater New York.