The daily morning journal and courier., 1901-09-03
A WINDOW IN NEW YORK
WHIT IT REVEALS OF 4 QUIET
 STREET
On the BorderIand Between Opulence
 and Poverty.

It may be desirable, from purely worldly point of view, to live in a neigh borhood strictly aristocratic, but 1t is rather dull. Where is the interest in a carriage when the street is lined with them? What excitement can foot man in livery create when there is more than one on a block? On the other hand, it is not well to live amid the very poor for there ugliness crushes out most of the romance of life. Tn medic tutissimus ibis," said the Sun god to Phaeton when he care lessly let that young man drive his chariot for him-the golden mean is best Life is most interesting in a quiet street, beautiful in itself, on the borderland between wealth and pover- ty. There are few such streets in this city, more perhaps than in most large towns, for the lines are not drawn hard and fast in New York. Once under the charm of such a neighborhood the vic tim is fixed there, not unhappily for life, but until the street has changed, for it is always changing for better or for worse.
 From the window of house in such
 
 On the next block great carriage stands every afternoon, and a footman, who fiutters the hearts of the working girls on their way home, two streets further down, assists a woman to enter 1t at o'clock every afternoon and to alight exactly at 6 o'clock. She is a very old woman. She wears a coal scut- tie bonnet with a wreath of flowers over the hrim, and white stockings and slippers. Her dress is the dress of years ago, but she wears 1t with a dig nifty which keeps the girls from smiling even at the stocking She belongs to the old aristocraoy, that will not move from the street because they love it. They can not keep up the dignity of the old place much longer, but they die fighting for it. Like the Old Guard, they never surrender. There are few of the old womans contemporaries left now, and real estate speculators are waiting for their final journey from their stately homes to tear the walls down and put up apartment houses.
 In front of the house on the kindly asphalt the children of the neighbor- ing tenements play. They watch the old woman taking her daily drive and stare curiously at the dainty grandchil- dren Cor are they grea grandchildren who come to visit her oeca sionaly. There are no children in the grand houses. Their little ones grew up years ago and said goodby to the declining street, and took unto themselves hous- es uptown. But there are a goodly number of children among the upper class poor who are pushing their way in, waiting their chance to seize the whole neighborhood.
 The tenement house children fra ternize in the friendliest manner with their wealthier neighbors. The chill dren have two clubs which play at base ball In cheerful defiance of the law. The sons of the moderately well to do wear caps bearing the letters "Y. A." which, being interpreted, mean Young Amer icans.'' The tenement children have no caps and few pairs of shoes among them, so people who look on them call them Ragamuffin club. They are lively youths, and can beat the Young Amer jeans out of hand at any time. The Ragamuffin Club is friendly much more so than the Young Ameri- cans. Once captivate the fancy of a Ragamuffin and you have the whole gang at your heels, together with their