Washington standard. [volume] (Olympia, Wash. Territory) 1860-1921, 1880-10-08
SNuatter Life in New York,

.
carried achievements. Princeliness
of space and briliiance of architecture
are confronted by dilapidation and I'M
cleanliness, and even on Murray Hill,
that pinnacle Of all earthly ambition,
disreputab!e little taverEs and tene-
ments exist in sight of the fashionable
mansions with their carved balustrades
and ample porticoes. But these con-
trasts. which have led one writer to
describe New York as Paris with touch
of the backwools, and another to say
that the city is more like savage, the
respleudence of his trinkets, war-paint,
and cAromatic blanket only half GOV.
ering his abundant dirt these anoma,
lies are nowhere so apparent as above
the southern borders of Central Park.
/ Reaching as far rs Manhattanville on
the west and to Harlem Oh the east,
the land has ntasly all been graded, and
many streets have been laid out and in
some instances paved, curbed, and IL
.umiAa;ed. Ten years ago or more,
when the imperial Tweed was seated
with apparent tirmness on the munich
pal throne, this region, with the eplen-
did Park as u center, was seized upon
/ by real estate spectators, and predic-
tons were made that in a very few
years it would be covered with hand
some dwellings. But the tide of sue.
cess turned agother way, with what eff
! feet, AS concerns Tweed and his ambi-
tions, is well known; and though on
the east side some of the vacant spaces
have become populous. and some nota.
bic churches. hospitals, armorics, and
houses have been put up, the west side
has altered so little that it has seemed
to be lifeless. The new Museum OF
Natural History, with its imposing ia
cade looking over the hill and dale OF
the Park, glancea from its rear upon d
neighNorhood which, in my experience.
is q1ite unique. 1t is not to be pre-.
cisely described as city, nor as suburb,
nor as the unsettled but broken terri
tory that ontlies most cities while wait
ing TO be absorbed in their advance.
The anticipations that led to the grad
ing and paving of the streets have had
a very limited fruition in isolated rows
of pretentious and rectangular " brown
stone fronts, which seem oddly out OF
piece. Here aud there u vestige of old
times remains in a pre-metropolitan
homestead, with an impoverished or.
chard around it, or in grand mansion
with classic front OF Doric columns,
and a genesis far antedating Fifth Ave-
nue.. Bus it is not the new buildings,
premonitory OF the city's advance, nor
the old ones rejecting the past, nor
these two in contrast, that give the re-
! Sion Its characteristics and peculiar in
terest. All down in the hollows be-
tween the graded streets, and in spaces
where, no streets having been opened,
the gray Laurentian rock stands with
but superficial layer of soil upon it,
thousands of acres are under cu,tiva
ton by squatters, and without other in.
closure to the land than the embauk
ments formed around the hOlloas by
| the trap-rock foundations of the streets
Agriculture is carried on with u primi-
tive simplicity of life and under pic
turesqueness of condition that set an
artist on the edge OF desire. Many
square miles are green with vege tables.
You See the gardeners with their wives
and mothers bending to their work; you
hear the querulous call of geese and
the contentious of pigs; and if you
could shut out from the view the i'm
mature streets and the precursory
dwellings. you would never realize that
you are within the limits of the city,
or that immense steamers are loading
with grain by the river side quarter Of
mile away, and that the buzzlng which
vibrates i'll the air comes from an ele.
waited railway.
The holdings are OF various proper
tons, sometimes being limited to an
irregular strip, and sometimes embrace
ing three or four blocks in possession
OF one man. 1t is not an occasional
load, the product of one patch, that
goes to Washington Market, but a large
proportion of all the green stuff con-
samed in the city is grown in these hol
iows-the lettuce, the parsley, the cell
cry, the cabbages, and the potatoes.
But though one man trebles the guam
tity his neighbor produces, he Is no
better Oh nor more ambitious in the
matter of architecture than the poor
est; snd in the corners, or in the center
OF the hollows, or perched high up on
the wintry gneiss, is found Il grotesq ne
variety of makeshift dwellings, mere
concessions to exigencies in many
cases, which by no means indicate the
pecuniary resources of the occupants.
Some of them are simply squalid, but
upon others the sunshine and the rain
have brought out a soft color, and the
scraps of which they are built have
borrowed quaint grace from the wealth
ering. 1t Is scarcely safe to let an artist
loose among them. They abound with
picturesque "bits." which he declares
it next to impossible to exhaust: and
not long ago, when I scared into the
, skyward region where c. has his
studio, l found him black to the wrists
with ink, with which he was printing
etchings of some things that he had
discovered among these shanties.-
WILLIAM Fl. RIDRIE0. in Harpsrs Mag.
aSine.
A Boston paper gives an account OF a