The New York herald. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1840-1920, 1852-10-28
REHABILITATION.

These Improvements are of much higher order,
IN every quarter than those Of any previous season
The outlay of capital upon new buildings in many
instances, at first glance appears indeed lavish and
extravaganza, almost TO wastefulness But when
we consider that the first result of this prodigaty
is the increased employment which it gives to our
worthy and industrious mechanics and laborers and
that the improvements themselves generally gca-
duated to the increased rents which they will YIELD
we can only say, and we respond heartily, go
on with your marble palaces, and brown stone
fronts, and Roman and Greek styles, and Roman
esqne, and Arabesque, and burlesque; let the cash
circulate, and let the city wosper.
Broadway, our great and swarming thoroughfare,
stands most conspicuous in the heavy business Of
tearing down and building up. Fine, substantial
houses, some Of four and FIVE stories in height, have
been RACED TO their foundations brick by brick; and
where they stood, we have first seen immense exca
vations, like Of those in the California gold
mines, down into the bowels of the earth; then
there have steadily emerged the heavy structures OF
Elk stories above the basement. which have
superseded their more unpretending and old
fashioned predecessors The new buildings Of
Broadway are costly-their fronts being generally
Of brown stone, of which the vast pile of the
Metropolitan Hotel is the most splendid spe-
cimen and occasionally Of marble, Of which the
ST. Nicholas is the most beautiful example
The splendid fashionable stores of this street
are held sacred, as by a sort u common consent, to
the Goldfish and mackerel aristocracy of upper ten
dom. Still, there are many eye sores remaining on
Broadway, the most prominent of which is that old
combustiole box next to Barnums museum which
seems to be specially preserved for setting on some
starlight night, the whole square in blaze.
On the Fifth avenue, where the buildings are al
residences or churches-where the smell Of Goldfish
is confined to the kitchen; on the Fifth avenue,
sacred to the men Of trade, who have :" made their
pile expect to make it, the new houses are of
the heightened aristocratic ORDER regardless gene.
rally, Of all architectural rules but absolutely
startling to the houseless pedestrian, fro their cost
ness Not 20, in the good old Bowery, where the
store and the family residence sometimes of seve-
raj families, under the same roof and where one
may make his purchases of dry goods, clothes or
millinery, and inhale from the back room the aro-
ma of good dinner at the same time. Blu. even
the Bowery has been invaded by aristocratc notions
as is betrayed by the various brown stone fronts
which are creeping in there to destroy the other.
wise perfect equilibrium Of the sturdy democracy
The First ward stands pre-eminent for Wall street.
and the heavy commercial streets by which it Is sur
rounded. Banks and brokers, stock jobbers and
thavers, bulls and bears, goslings and lame ducks,
the lords Of Gotham. Not much room in this
ward for new buildings, except by first tearing
down good old ones. Consequently, the improve
ments here are limited as they also in the Sc
cond ward The Third ward tells different story
The various lines Of ocean steamers, whose docks
are along the North river, the vast incoming and
outgoing traffic by the Hudson and the Erie canal,
and she Ese r@Iiroad ea lor ltorss stores, sLores
On that SIDE Of the city; and The pressure hss fallen