The Savannah morning news., 1902-12-28
NEW YORK TOPICS
CROWDS sPRINKLED WITH STRAIN
GERS AT HOLIDAY SEASON.
STUDENTS ON VACATION
PASS THROUGH BIG CITY ON THEIR
WAY HOME.

|
the Big Trunk Line Terminals
VIII Keep the City's streets Dug
Up for some Years Yet-The Woes
of the COntractOrs-The BehnbiIi-
tation of Frances HOdgsOn Bur-
nett.
New York, Dec. 27.-Nowhere in the
United States can the student of the
rising generation find so fine a field
for his observations as in the city of
New York at holiday time.
Beginning on the Saturday before
Christmas and lasting until day or
two before the day itself. the great
towns enormous crowds are fairly
sprinkled with young folks of both
sexes, who are so clearly not New
Workers, as everywhere to draw the
attention of the passing throng.
Bright eyed and red checked are
the girls in the main; broad shoulder
ed and sturdy the boys, all alike pros
porous in appearance, and surely not
| lacking in the self-poise that marks
the New York youngster. But listen
to their talk for a moment. This
group betrays it's unmistakable South
ern origin by it's soft and almost
r-less speech. The members of that
! group yonder speak with the accent
that marks the Hoosier. Another is
clearly made up of boys and girls
from New England. Why are they
all here at such time?
They are students hurrying to their
homes for the holidays. This bunch
of Westerners is being educated in
New England; these Yankee boys
are being trained at one of the mill
| tary schools for which Pennsylvania
and New Jersey are famous. That
bevy of girls with the speech Of Cen
trail New Yorks prosperous towns
are being polished up at a Baltimore
school. and these lads and lassies
from Dixie land bound South for the
vacation are being schooled on the
bleak shores of the Hudson. They
will all pass through the metropolis
again just before the Monday after
New Years Day.
1t is because of the primitive tran
sit facilities afforded by the metropo-
lis that these boys and girls from all
parts of the land are to be seen IN
such numbers on the streets, in the
trolley cars, on the "L" trains, and
| at the hotels at this time.
For whoever. hurrying eastward or
westward, to the north or to the
south, is obliged to pass through New
York, has also to change cars and
to travel miles through the town
| crowded streets in order to resume
his pilgrimage. Worse yet, there is
absolutely no relation between the
arrival and departure of trains from
and for the north and east and those
from and for the west and south
| Almost invariably the "breaking OF
the journey" here means the loss oil
time by the hour, to the great ad-
vantage of the hotels and restaurants
the cab drivers and the local express
people.
All this will be changed, we are told
by and by, since the terminal plans
of the greatest railroads centering here
will undoubtedly include ultimate I'M
derground connections and the har-
monizing of time tables so that trav-
elers passing through New York car
do so without change" or at worst
can step from one train to another
This will take an element of holiday
and vacation and variety from the
New York streets, but the change will
not be sudden one, by any means
for at best the new terminals will not
be completed and in order within foul
or five years.
Undoubtedly New York is in ire,
mendous hurry forf the completion o.
| these terminals and the subway For
to use the vernacular, the big town /.
up against it" in the matter of tran.
| sit
From time to time the dispatche;
have given some indication, no doubt
of the almost insufferable present con
gestion of the trolley lines and the ele
waited railroads. But no one who hal
not suffered daily delays therefrom car
form more than a faint notion of tn,
real situation. The truth is that tn,
city has suddenly grown up to anC
beyond it's transit facilities. and thu
worst of it is that nothing at all car
be done to mend matters until tn,
subway is completed. That will be
full year from now at the earliest, ant
: it's dollars to doughnuts that by tina
time the added demand will quit
equal the added facilities. Looking a
: 1t from the most hopeful viewpoint
New York is bound to remain, perhap
indefinitely, the most difficult city il
, | america TO get about in.
Even by the elevated railroad, un
less you travel on a Ninth avenue ex
! press train-and only a few compare
, lively can do this in the nature O
) things-it takes from an hour to al
hour and fifty minutes to get over tn
six or eight miles between the finan
cial, and newspaper districts and Har
$ lem in the rush hours of the after
| noon.
! 1t is going on three years now sine
, the first stroke of work was done o.
/ the subway, and while the main sec
n ton of that great hole in the groun,
- viii probably be in use as railroai
I a twelve-month from now. the Who'll
f structure will not be completed thel
= by good deal.
Lower broadway hasn't been touch
e ed as yet. to say nothing of the tunne
: under the East river to Brooklyn
e Consequently that part of Broadwa,
from the postoffice to the Battery, onl
I mile in length, but a thoroughfare O
e enormous traffic, is pretty sure to b
n torn up through all of next year. Jus
!: how the excavation will be made with
out blocking traffic is a problem 70
u which the layman can see no possib!
J, solution, but IL seems likely that tn
y seemingly impossible will be accom-
/" plished after "a fashion there. as IL ha
!. been OF other parts OF the subway. AL
> ready lower broadway is beginning 1
: protest about the prospective annoy
= ance, and the contractors are lookin
for strenuous times from the beRinnln