The Savannah morning news. (Savannah, Ga.) 1900-current, 1902-12-14
CHRIST'S BIRTHDAY
IN THE TENEMENTS.

An Intensely Human Feast of JOY in
the Most Crowded Section of the
World.
To most people the thought of Christ
mas in New York brings pictures of
roaring streets; long rows of carriages
before jewelers. windows that shine
like treasure houses of Oriental tales;
garlanded Broadway a-fiood with eager
men and women; turmoil of magnifi-
cence where women walk with fortunes
on their backs and other fortunes in
their purses to spend; a city that dis
plays, in every one of it's riotous show
streets the tribute of two hemispheses,
poured almost wantonly to overflow in
every shop and to make every window
a bewildered maze-a festival world
that is album from the dark bay to the
far-off nights where the white Acropo-
lis of America stands shining from a
serene sky as it, too, were set high
among the steadfast stars.
Yet he who knows New York S
Christmas only thus, does not know 1t
at all. To know it where it really
comes home in its old simplicity, strip
ped of all the show, a true feast of
good will, one must pass east and west
of the glowing thoroughfares where the
holiday season is celebrated with mon
ey. Where the tenements make a
black, sinister frame around New York
-robbing the city of it's sunrise on the
east in the morning and plotting Its
sunset fires on the west with hideous
lines that cut into the crimson sky like
.llN, ~ ht1r nd
blasted towers,--there, in the pits of
streets, in the mine shafts of Railways,
and the cells of rooms, is Christmas.
In these last afternoons before the
day, it's spirit fills the dim and I'M
lovely streets till one almost forgets
their ugliness. Long before it is even
ing in the wider avenues of more fav-
ored city districts, the tenement house
world has lost the sunlight; for the
sun sets behind the river frontiers of
barracks before its time. 1t is as if
these hideous structures, not content
with stunning the little children and
making the adults pale and unhealth-
full, were actually engaged in unholy
conspiracy to cheat the swinging world
itself of its share of light and warmth
There is more of a chill in the air
there than elsewhere; the wird has in
it touch of the atmosphere of sunless
cellars. The river breathes a blended
odor never to be forgotten, always to
be associated with the tenement river
districts ever afterward; a blend of the
chlorine of exposed mud bottoms, of
keen, good salt water, of insistent spice
smells from the wharves and, through
it all, the ever present smell of kero-
sene and petroleum from the refineries,
whose tall chimneys pierce every dis
wfN~ tNf.vsd a-t,
cliffs.
Conquered by the German Christmas
The ordinary every day odors of the
houses themselves are conquered by
new, true Christmas doors. From the
doors of the bakeries rush warm.
sweet breaths of sugary doughs, "jeb-
kuchen" and "marzipan." German del
icacies are these. which one will find
everywhere through the tenement
house colonies, universal, Of course. In
the German East Side. prevalent
enough IN the Ghetto TO stamp the
city Of the Jew with their character,
plentiful even in the colonies OF the
exclusive Irish. For the German
Christmas conquered the greater part
OF the tenement world long ago.
The very Christmas tree Is a Ger
man importation into the tenement
house world Wine merchants thrive az
tlis time ~ the year on the east and
west sides Long, slender German
Rhine wine bottles are 20 be seen
everywhere peorinE from the half
open lids ~ market baskets, pr0fFud-
ing from the pockets % shabby over
coafs, and standing on rusty hre es-
capcs, the wine coolers ~ the teno-
Ufuf
The delloatessen shops. bright With