The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1894-07-16
THE CITY ON THE HousErops.
A Phase of Life in the Tenement
Quarter Of New yorIs

Quarter of New York.
Then the evening comes; and in summer
this is the fashionable hour for the deni-
zens of the housetops. 1t is less sitting
up there than in the houses, or in the
streets below. Often there is a breeze,
generally from the south, with a Whit of
the ocean in its breath. Then the scene
on the housetop becomes ANNA ted. Whole
families are encamped up there; there is
singing, stories are told, sometimes there
is dancing. Musical instruments are not
at all rare, and the ACCORDION is chief
among them. Now and then the merri-
ment of separate parties becomes extinct;
all pause to listen to a single voice that
rises high and distinct above the hub
bub. Sometimes it is hymn of the syn
lagogue, caroled forth upon the night by a
boy 5 quavering voice; sometimes it is an
ar from an operetta, delivered in stento-
rlan tones by a professional man sing
er. The applause, when the performance
is over, comes from every roof in the
Ineighborhood. When there is a saloon ION
the block and what block is without its
ng-houSe?-SoundS of carouSal make
their way from time to time to the city
on the housetopS.
An impromptu orchestra, in attendance
at some wedding or birthday festivIty in
the brilliantly lighted apartments of a
family ION the block gladdens with it's
strains the hearts of tired mortals on the
roof. Sometimes a burst of mad melody
full of the weird cadence and passionate
abandon that characterize the dance music
OF the peasantry of eastern Europe, awak-
ems SAD memories of passionate longing
in some emigrant ('greenhorn," the older
immigrants call him) lately come from
some far-of country. The poor Jew who
finds his way straight from the imnigra-
ton station on Ellis Island to one of the
! innumefable ''Swea ter's'' denS of this
ineighborhood breathes for an hour, per-
haps, the air of the night. and gaZes
about him at the strange city that his
! toll leaves him no opportunity to investi-
gate. Perhaps he does not even care to
do this, the dull, hard grind deadening all
sentiment of curiosity in his soul. Wild,
unthinking gayety alone can arouse him
| from the lethargy in which his life is
wrapped. Late into the night the merri-
/ ment lasts, and then, when good-nights
| have been said, it is only about one-half
of the company that descend to take their
/ rest indoors. The others roll themselves
in sheets and blankets, and prepare for a
night under the stars.
A thunder shower coming UP in the mid
die of the night disperses them, and there
| is a great deal of scuff1ing and running
as each one awakes to take up his bed
and walk with it. Between 2 and 8 o clock
of a fine morning, the moon looks down
! upon a hlvouac of shrouded motionless
| figures, and the city on the housetops is
turned into shining metropolis. Little
children and women sleep thus in the
open air, sometimes on the roof. some
times on their own fire escape: but the
majority of the out-of-door sleepers are
young men. accustomed all their lives,
many of them, to hard hunks and I'M
easy surroundings The glow of a cigar
or a cigarette from one of these shapeless
heaps of bedding might disturb the
nights slumber of an apprehensive per-
son. Dawn comes to awaken them early,
for the most part, but it is no uncommon
sight to see their outstretched forms when
the sun already rides high in the sky:
lamong them without disturbing them,
land when they awake and open thlr
arms to the day, no complicated toilette
iawaits them; they are half clothed al
tready, and a few instructive touches do
the rest.-Atlantic for July.