New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1898-07-31


Only the restaurants and the street booths are
fully lit up There dark stretches Of side
streets down to the sea and up to Surf-avc
Mysterious figures shambe out OF these black
avenues often.
On the Bowery the crowd Is still moving. us
procession is never ending. 1t seems to have
nothing to do. 1t is orderly enough SO far as
police order goes. but order that could on the
instant be famed into flame of riot and un-
rest. Nine out Of ten OF the men and women
outside of the habitues and the men whose
business it is to cater to this all night life are
of the genus tramp.
The laugh OF a negro rings out. re-echoins
from one wooden shed to another. gay guHaW
that the crowd takes up. This crowd surges
here and there up and down. for what 1t may
find to amuse It, 1t simply shuHles along and
Is listless visitor with money to spend is its
fair game. Yet 1t does not attempt to modest.
1t relies on the arts that Coney Island has in
| itself to make It's night along the boardwalk
pay.
THE NIGHT WEARS oN-THE CROWD STAYS.
S1rf-ave Is now altogether In shadow The
hotels along its length show dark and unprom-
isi.ig exteriors. Yet people In knots Of two.
three and four stroll along the streets One
at this hour and not meet with fraction Of the
number Of these men and women. 1t Is now
o'clock and yet not block without its prom
enaders. Every hotel is full to overlooking for
the night and yet the crowd does not seem to
lessen. 1t is the same crowd that thronged the
Bowery. its byways and Surf-ave. an hour be-
fore.
1t does not lessen. even though nowadays the
words Last train" mean very little. The
trains, indeed. have long since stopped running.
but all through the night trolleycars leave the
Island and shoot across the shadowy, level
plain. with it's waving trees and broad fields.
into old Brooklyn-a distance Of fully nine
miles. These trolley-cars between the hours or
2 and in the morning are, in fact. one Of the
new Coney Islands greatest sights.
Standing at the east end Of the West End.
some little distance from the Bowery. they are
ablaze with light spectacular, glazing features
Of the night. All about them is in shadow the
cars alone loom up brilliantly.
JADED. wILTED HUMANITY GOES HOME.
At this hour three or four cars are always on
the track waiting for the homeward trip AS
they wait here they are damned and crowded
with wilted humanity. These people have
danced and tramped the whole night long. Even
Coney Island has by this time begun to pail
upon them.
One of these cars. already filled until even
standing room would be matter of difficulty,
is not to move for half an hour yet. Another.
quite as full will not start homeward until the
best part of an entire hour has gone. If man
wants a seat he must wait half an hour more.
idly standing there. and then wait another hour
before the car goes.
Tired as these passengers are. ii is the weari-
ness of satisfaction. Coarse jokes are banded
from all Corners The Coney Island girl is at
her best here Or. rather. she will be at her
best when the car starts off and goes flying
over the country roads. Then a carload Is pam
demonium personiied.
So wears away a Coney Island Saturday
night The first streaks of dawn show the
crowd along the Bowery still on its ceaseless
parade 1t is not as haggard as one would ex-
pect for il is used to this programme. Not I'M
iii the light of the coming day is clear in the
slv and the shadows of the BOwery have all
been botted out does it melt away. Coney ISL
and then has a new life. The people that have
spent the night calmly sleeping begin to APP
pear Some start on their morning "dps.' The
advance guard Of the army Of cyclists shows II
self The whirr Of the wheel is heard along the
Cycle Path In the preparations for breakfast
and the cleaning up for a new day another
I.I