Staunton spectator. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1849-1896, 1895-01-02
STILL OLD NEW YORK
QUAINT LITTLE TUCKED UP SHOPS
OF HUDSON STREET.


the New York of Today With the New
York of Ninety Years Ago.
Time has dealt less hardly with Var
ick and Hudson streets than with any
other part of New York, barring the
lanes and twisting thoroughfares of
Greenwich village. The elevated rail-
road and the march of progress have
both passed them by, and the real estate
agent and the builder and contractor
have not yet laid plans to Haussmann-
ize them out of existence or out of all
likeness to their quaint old selves. This
cannot be for long, however, and al
ready the new order of things, huge
business blocks and crowded tenements,
is pushing up Hudson street from Cham
bers to Harrison at the one end and
down it for a block or two, where it
runs into Ninth avenue at Thirteenth
street. But between Abingdon square
and Vestry street Hudson street retains
it's characteristics almost unchanged
since it was opened up, and prowl
about this part of its length will give
one an excellent idea of how people liv-
ed and traded when the century was
just able to walk alone. This seems all
the more astonishing because Hudson
street is an unusually wide thorough
fare and furnishes direct communication
between the wholesale quarter of the
south and west and the crowded living
quarter of the middle west.
Hudson street is no more like the
New York of today than an English
tavern is like the New Netherlands ho-
tel. In fact, there is q distinctly old
world atmosphere about the place, and
if sections of Hudson street were to be
photographed and labeled "Street Scene
In Bristol" Or ''In Exeter" or ''In Dun
dee" there is no one that would dis
pute the legend. So, too, it would be
out of all keeping to call the stores any
thing else than shops. They are just
plain, cozy, tucked up little old fash
ioned shops, where the stock in trade
and the customers are so crowded to-
gether that two or three people will
crowd the place, and where you can sit
at the short scrap of counter and liter
ally put your hand ON just what you
want. There is no need for a stepladder
in these shops. The salespeople Just
reach up easily and take down any
thing that is needed, while the ceilings
are SO low that you instinctively feel
like ducking when you open the door,
with its little jangling bell, and when,
in fact, you can sweep the plaster with
your outstretched hand. There is gener-
ally, too, an unnoticed step down into
the shop at the junction of the doors,
over which you plunge headlong in the
dear old fashioned breakneck way
There is no need of clerks in these
stores. The proprietor and one assistant
can look after all the customers that
can be accommodated at one time, and
sometimes all the business is transact
ed by comfortable and rotund old lady
who rolls her way slowly down the
Roury lanes between the piles of mill
truck OF, comes up slowly ON starboard
tack, and hesAto beside the open tubs Of
salt mackerel and pupgent bloaters.
Some of the progressiv6~ ~ = Eapers
and one or two of the younger p6oplgl
have put plate glass into their windows
but most of the places are still lighted
with sashes filled with many small
panes of glass Nine and twelve lights
to the window are quite common, and
there is one weather worn place on
corner where each window has Is little
panes Of glass, and where you can stand
on the sidewalk and look in through the
top row, as was the proper thing when
New York thought that French plate
for American light was as foolishly for
eign as French songs for an American
audience. These are the windows that
one sees in cuts where the passersby are
shown in scuttle bonnets and pelisses if
they are ladies, and in bell topped hats
and strapped trousers if they are men.
There is distinctly old time and old
country character about what is sold in
the shops as we'll as about the shops
themselves. In the bakers shops, for in
stance, one sees the old mansion loaf, F."
Scottish scones and English currant
cake. The candy shops sell "sweet
tuck" and ''lollicops" The 'tonsorial
artist" calls himself squarely chair
cutter" and the furniture man carries
heavy mahogany tables, high marble
topped bureaus and four post beds in
stock, not as secondhand goods, but as
the proper thing for present use.
Here one may find the real English
chophouses and grillrooms, dull little
places where you pick out your steak
and can if you choose stand and see it
broiled over an open fire of live Goals
built up i'll huge brick ranges, and
where the great brown ware teapots are
kept hot on the hob, with Rebecca and
the well both glowing in the freight.
In one place, too, is an old fashioned
dresser Oh which are ranged blue and
white crockery, as though you were
taking your meals cheerily and without
formality i'll the kitchen, which, by the
way, is where things always taste the
best.
Between the boundaries indicated
there is not tall, reeking and thronged
tenement to be seen. There is good
deal of boarding and lodging, to be sure,
but there is also a good deal Of that
rarity in New York, home life-that
is, the single family occupation Of the
whole house. This is largely possible
down here because of the remarkable
conservation of the ecozy little two
story red brick houses which are so
characteristic of the period when the
quarter was laid out. Here and thereon
Bond and Delaney and Thompon
streets these tiny Noah's ark houses
are to be met with, but they are only
the dingy and dirty indications of what
they were-house tramps, SO to speak
while on Hudson street they are to be
found by the block, still as trim and
neat and warmly red as when they
we're put up.-New York Sun.
It is hoped that many will remembe,
on New Years day that it is better ts
give than to receive, and that the relief
funds may be swelled aecordingly.-
Washington Star.
May the new year give us all good
health, good luck and plenty to do.
With health one can be happy, with luck
one can prosper and with work avoid
temptatlon. -Boston Journal.
May the new year from this morning
70 It's close be one crowded with peace.
happiness and prosperity in your ho,nau