The Wichita daily eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1890-1906, 1891-06-27
NEW YoRk's SIX O'CLOCK.
The Streets in the Lower Part of the CITY
During the Busiest Hour.

1 4 L
During the Busiest Hour.
Look
New York's O'Clock has arrived. II be-
gins at 5. This is the. beginning The
streets were seemingly thronged before,
but now, almost before the last strokes of
the o'clock bell have died away, q fiutter
of excitement runs up and down the street
II is to be seen the length of Broadway,
Wall, Fulton, Park row, Pearl, Four
teenth-of every down town street and
court in great New York.
Here they come!
1t is the broker, the lawyer, the agent,
the clerk, the typewriter-men of every
profession, men of every trade, people Of
all degrees-leaving the Office, the counting
room, the laboratory, the workshop The
tide Of travel on the streets before was hur-
ried, but regular. Now it is broken-a
rush, seeming disorder, as if some disas-
/ ter had happened What minglingi
| What tide Of humanity What gath
ering of costumes, compilations, ages and
nationalitiesi And co-equal with the rush
of feet is the increased number of vehicles,
and the stony roadways send up roar and
clatter to almost deafen you.
A quarter past 81
The rush increases. The surface cars
have sent extra cars down town The 81"
| roads are switching on extra trains. There
| Is hardly elbow room along Broadway from
/ Bowling Green to Union square, and from
the Pulitzer building to Ann street man
without feet would be carried by the crowd.
| Half past 81
| Rush, surge, elbow-pushl The dark
columns marching lengthways of Manhat-
tan Island seem resistless, but they must
! be broken. The tide of humanity march
| ing across the island makes mighty rush
at Cortlandt street, at Barclay, at Cham
bers, at Desbrosses, at Twenty-third, at
! Thirty fourth, and it pours across to the
81" roads and surface cars and ferry
boats of the north side.
And a second tide ponrs across Broad
way headed to the east, intent on car or
| ferryboat, aud you look down as upon
men fleeing from some dreadful epidemic.
Men, women and children-old and young,
rich and poor, broadcloth' and rags, virtue
and vice. There Is a jam Of vehicles on
Broadway at Wall street, another at Park
place, third at Canal, fourth, fifth and
sixth between there and Fourteenth.
The surface cars are loaded until the
horses can hardly start them. and here and
there on every street they run into the jams
of wagons, carts and trucks and are brought
| to stop.
Six o'clocki
This is the climax. A sort of frenzy
seems to have caught the people now, and
the rush is like mighty torrent. Up and
down Manhattan, across Manhattan-a
mob which would sweep an army corps out
of its way and make no halt. Looki 1t is
the ferryboats headed to the west and the
east and the south, each one loaded down
with humanity. Harki 1t is the clatter
of ten thousand pairs of feet rushing up
the steps of the station TO take the bridge
trains. How quickly four cars are Icsded
and pushed away, to be followed in q mo-
ment by four morei
The iron gates opened, there Is a rush
they shut with bang, and 400 people speed
away. 1t is like loading and firing can
non. 1t seems as il the trarnpi tramp!
trampl would never cease-as if the multi
tude could not be diminished. Steam and
electricity aud horsefesh and human mus
Gle and ingenuity are put to their utmost
to move the crowds, but it is done with a
rapidity and system to astonish you. 1t
must be so done in city where minutes
are often counted for hours.
And yet as look down upon the streets
again after O'Clock, after the mad rush Is
over, there is still left hurrying, surging
crowd, which seems TO have only secured
elbow room by the departure of that vast
multitude.-M- Quad in New York World.