The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1892-01-11
THE NEW YORK BATTERY.
DIFFERENT FROM WHAT IT WAS
% YEARS AGO.

One OF It's Earlier Glories-
! Copyright. 1922. By the United PressJ
NEW York, Jan. 9.-The Battery has
always been marked feature Of New YORK,
but the Battery OF to-day, delightful as it
/ is in some respects, is no more ike tue
Battery of twenty-five years ego than it
was then ike its predecessor Of a hundred
years before. The first Battery was great
area covered with grasses and shaded by
/ trees. There our great-gTandfathers
walked in stately reserve with the coy
/ maidens destined to become our great
/ grandmothers. There they played ball, at
! tended reviews, watched the garrison in the
| castle mount guard, and listened to the bells
as they announced the gong down of the
sun from the towers of the old time Trim
! ity. the old Dutch churches and the fewiun-
orthodox meeting houses of the day. Later
on came tie days Of Marie. the long-haired
| tenor; Grsi, the matchless Norma; Jenny
/ Lind, the sweet "heartbird," and best adj
vertisiug card the Snowman ever had. JUL
lien, with his superb band, his lace frills,
his huge armchair and his lshsde-daddy
manner; kOenig, the prince OF cornetists,
whose ''Prima Donna Waltz" drove all the
| young girls "crazy," and the Mollenhauer
brothers, with their deep-toned violens.
All these were of the long ago.
The Battery Of to-day is different sort
of thing altogether.
Let us approach it from the bay. At first
we see a small forest of shade trees. Gradu-
ally the outlines Of park appear. Cas-
tie Garden, rickety. dirty and implanted,
has none of the fortress look. The stone
wall that marks the limit beyond which old
| ocean may not go, is substantial
here, broken there and sunk out OF sight
elsewhere. Bath houses, gay with flags
aud married by signs, lazily swing
1 H., r-fth 81 A.
new United States barge office, built of
granite and iron-a combination found
| most disastrous in the great fires Of Chi
| cago and Boston-is an ornament to the
| place, which is moro than can be said of the
| ferry houses and the general appurtenances
| of the Staten Island and Union Ferry COM
panies, the Starin dock and the Manhattan
| Beach pier.
The first thing which attracts attention
after landing near the stone barge office is a
street cut through tue Battery from White
hall street to q curve beyond the barge
building. 1t ia called Battery place and is
chiefly noticeable by reason of its dirty and
unkempt condition, number Of policemen
| and tramps who congregate there and the
| apparent uselessness of such waste Of land.
! The Battery has many "bign trees. Lovers
| of trees can find much on this busy yet
| neglected place TO admire and study. Some
| are very old, others are the planting OF re-
| cent years. but all are beautiful and add
greatly to the picturesqueness Of the place,
while their shade is most grateful in the
| heat of the day.
A walk around the Battery will repay
the busiest New Yorker. OF the million
and half citizens of Gotham probably q
| million and a quarter have never seen the
| Battery except from the deck Of a steam
boat or the windows Of an al" car. Pass
ing the barge office, the windows of which
are generally ornRmented by men in shirt
| sleeves and boots, you come suddenly upon
| a view Of the entire harbor, with its mag
niticent outstretches of sea and mountain.
1t is superb in the daytime, because the vast
expa nse appears to be filled with great
steamers, sauoy tugs, jaunty sailboats
numbering ferryboats, odd looking annexes,
government barges, and excursion steam
boats, for which this city is famed. And it
| is magnificent at night, when every boat
displays its parti-colored lights, and the
dancing waters reflect them, blending with
| the soft light Of the moon, and utilizing
them in a weird panorama, into which
enter shadows, great aud small, from cloud
and boat and stars On the crest Of little
hill is a historic fiagpole, from which every
Fourth of July the few remaining veterans
Of 1912 fiaunt the national flag, and, after
endangering their aged existence by firing
a salute, march uptown to breakfast.
The Battery is we'll supplied with drink
ing fountains, a thoughtfulness which
argues we'll for our city farthers. All that
is needed to make the fountains delightful
is water. Some of them have it, some have
not. Drawing near the gate to the outer
entrance OF Castle Garden, the visitor meets
at all times, numerous groups of newly ar
rived immigrants. A noticeable feature
was the oherriness Of several hundred
or them who were resting as best
they could upon the benches,
upon the iron chains and Upon curbstones,
the gross not being as much at their sery-
ice AS 1t is at the service OF the cinders and
ashes Of the elevated road. Nearly all of
them wore caps and carried pipes in their
mouths. the women were arrayed in huge
shawls Some OF the men carried their
coats upon their arms, Those who did not
looked strange enough to our eyes, as theil
long tails almost touched the ground. Al
least 500 hoys were on the Battery one after
noon. Some of them were bootplacks many
were embryo peddlers. Some pitched pennies
some romped and tumbled roughly with
each other, scms played tricks upon the
eUigrants All ran upon the approach of 6
policeman, with the exception of half 6
dozen "beggar girls" there were not twenty
little girls on the Battery unaccompanied
by one or more babies. The nominal atti.
tude of the little girl on the Battery is that
of nurse, and it is pitiful indeed to see tbs
wan faces, the hungry eyes, the pinched
noses and the compressed lips of these baby
old women as they promenade slowly the
walSs or rest YEARLY upon the benches
never forgetful of the little charges In theii
arms or sleeping upon their lips.
AT least fifth of what in other days was
a most interesting aud cheerful portion Of
the Battery is now made almost entirely
useless by the posts of the elevated road
aud the damage done by the falling cinders
before alluded to. The magnificent resi-
denceS which hued the street fronting upon
it are things Of the past, and to-day the
Jew buildings remaining untouched by the
hand Of the Ioouoclast are occupied by rum
shops, ginmills or steamship runners
With the exception of the trees, which
sturdily defy the AK of the intruder, and
wave magnihcently their graceful branches
overhead there is nut little about this old
time promenade TO remind one of its early
glorieS. In the daytime it Is a loating place
ct night it is the resort Of the low, the vils
and the outcaSt. A photograph OF Us &C ~
pants by day would make O philanthropisl
S ludder, and a picture of its occupants by
night would reveal to the uninitiated scenes
Of debauChery aud reveiry of the lowest kind
calculated to upset ones previous concen
ton Of the possibilities Of human nature
Capitol begins to find that not only the
Battery itself can be stolen and bought, b It
} that its near approaches can be profitably
utilized. \ row OF residences, in other times
, occupied by the wealthiest and most re-
spected New Workers, is now entirely givcu
over to foreign consuiates and the ayencie.
! nf cfn alNtF