Watertown republican. [volume] (Watertown, Wis.) 1860-1906, 1880-09-01
Sduatter Life in New York.

The metropolis abounds with contrasts
of splendid intentions aud miscarried
achievements. Princeliness Of space and
brilliance of architecture are confronted
by dilapidation and uncleanliness, and
even on Murray Hill, that pinnacle of all
earthly ambition, disreputable little tav-
ems and tenements exist in sight Of the
fashionable mansions with their carved
belustrades and ample port1coes. But
these contrasts, which have led one writer
to describe New York as Paris with a
touch of the back woods, and another to
say that the city is more like savage, the
resplendence of his trinkets, war paint
and chromatic blanket only half covering
this abundant dirt-these an males are
nowhere so apparent as above the south.
ern borders of Central Park.
Reaching as far as Manhattanville on
the west, and to Harlem on the east, the
land has nearly all been graded, and many
streets have been laid out and in some
instances paved, curbed and illuminated.
Ten years ago or more, when the imperial
Tweed was seated with apparent f1rmness
on the municipal throne, this region, with
| the splendid Park as a center, was seized
upon by real estate spectators, and pre-
dictiOns were made that in very few
years 1t would be covered with handsome
| dwellings. But the tide of success turned
another way, with what effect, as concerns
Tweed and his ambitions, is we'll known
and though on the east side some of the
vacant spaces have become populous, and
some notable churches, hospitals, armo-
rles and houses have been put up,
| the west side has altered so little that il
has seemed to be lifeless. The new
| Museum of Natural History, with its i'm.
| posing facade looking over the hill and
dale of the Park, chances from lis resr
upon a neighborhood which, IN my ex
perience, is quite unique. 1t is not to be
precisely described as city, Tor as su burb,
nor as the unsettled but broken territory
that outlines most cities while waiting to
be absorbed in their advance. The antici-
pations that led to the grading and paving
of the streets have had very limited
fruition In isolated rows of pretentious
aud rectangular "brown.stone fronts"
which seem oddly out Of place. Here aud
there vestige of old times remains in q
pre- metropolitan homestead, with an i'm
poverished orchard around it, or in q
grand m ansion with classic front Of
d ~ric columns, and a genesis far ante
dating Fifth Avenue. But it is not the
new buildings, premonitory of the city's
advance, nor the old ones rejecting the
|
the region its characteristics and peculiar
interest. All down in the holloWs between
the graded streets, and in spaces where, nc
streets having been opened, the gray
Laurentian rock stands with superb.
clal layer Of soil upon it, thousands of
acres are under cultivation by squatters,
and without other Enclosure to the land
than he entertainments formed around the
hollows by the trap rock foundations of
the streets. Agriculture is carried on with
a primitive simplicity of lite and under G.
picturesqueness of condition that set an
artist on the edge OF desire. Many square
, miles are green with vegetables. You see
the gardeners, with their wives and
mothers, bending to their work; you hear
the querulous call Of geese and the con-
tentions of pigs; and if you could shut
out from the view the immature streets
and the precursory dwellings, you would
never realize that you are within the linn.
its OF the city, or that immense steamers
J are loading with grain by the river side a
quarter OF mile away, and that the buzz
} Zing which vibrates in the air comes from
an elevated railway.
The holdings are of various proper
J lions, sometimes being limited to an ir
regular strip. and sometimes embracing
three or four blocks in possession of one
man. Ii is not an occasional load, the
} product of one patch, that goes to Wash
, ingtOn Market, but large proportion oil
all the green stuff consumed in the city
is grown in these hollows-the lettuce, the
J parsley, the celery, the cabbages, and the