The Savannah morning news., 1904-10-16
The Finest Poor Mans
Promenade in the World
New York'S Fifteen Million Dollar Aerial BouIe
ward for the Tenement DweIIers.
BY ARTHUR S. WILLIAMS.

cradle cars run to II and past Il: but
nothing goes over it--nothing except
the great East Side tenement house
population.
The Ghetto has seized upon II as
splendid gift--joy- giving, life-giving.
The vast structure that was flung In
the sky beset with steel rails side by
side and still more steel rails hung
nigh over the rest, to drum with q
thousand car wheels at a time, to
throb with unending PROFESSIONS Of
trains carrying their live freight by
the hundred thousand. echoes only to
the cries and shouts Of the tenement
children, and the shuttle OF the patient,
plodding feet of the people Of the
Ghetto. The only wheeled traffic that
CROSSES 1t is in the shape OF baby car
riages, whose tiny occupants but for
this gift OF the Fairy Accident, would
never see anything throughout all their
infancy except the sheer walls OF black
houses. dirty streets and still more
dirty pits that are called back yards
and areas by pleasant fiction of law
The bridge builders started to build
| an approach. They have advanced so
far in their work as to carve a mighty
cash into the crowded city--a cash
that looks like deep, sore wound.
Straight through the heart of the
oARAAOs ~ EOtEs Ilknl lDiVukH Whit
once was its most crowded part, where
more than a thousand people were
crushed together in residence" on
every acre of precious ground.
The Heart of Tenement Life.
Like the surgeon, exposing the inner
sacred mysteries Of the human body
with his scaipel, the city engineers
/ with blast and crowbar have laid bare
the very heart of tenement house life.
Some day when they make bridge
out OF 1t. the sight that may be seen
on both sides OF that mile-long APP
proach will be one of the spectacles of
the world.
Looking down on the open wound
are two long. shouldering rows of
tenements, towering away to the west
ward as far as sight can reach till they
are lost In the gray dust OF streets
where still more tenements rise, bat
thing In hideous, inanimate fight for
the light and air of which there II not
half enough to go around.
The strangers who will be whisked
along the approach some day will
ride over places where two and three
hundred families lived I'm spaces ex-
actly as large ass those occupied far
Their uptown by the houses In which
Andrew Carnegie, Charles Schwab
and the various Vanderbilts find bare
~ room enough for their single fami-
lies and servants.
They will look from the car win
dows at two solid milestone on each
side-where there is not house that
Is not a tenement; not an inch of
ground that is not occupied; not a
blade OF grass; not a single undefled
watt OF air: not one room out of three
into which the sun shines full and fair.
When they have passed those two
rows OF houses. they will have passed
through street that harbors 43,315
people. In every one Of those blocks,
two and one-half acres In area, that
front on the bridge. there are from
1000 10 $500 people. In the most
crowded OF those blocks. SOB families
are herded. In the least crowded there
are 141 families, and the density OF the
population Is 33t persons TO the acre.
In the most crowded block the density
OF population is such that 1,i62 people
live. eat, and die on every acre.
A bridge of Laughter.
The bridge that is so useless Just
now for the New York for which II
was built has become priceless to this
Ghetto for which It was not built.
The Ghetto children Chamber all over
II, play on IL, live on 1t. and have
made II the antithesis OF the Old
Worlds Bridge OF Sighs-a Bridge OF
Laughter.
Laughter You can hear II half a
mile away. It rings from end to end
OF the three thousand feet OF span.
from every inch Of the iron roadway
hanging 1876 feet above the surface
OF the sea.
To one who has seen the children
OF the great cities-the children OF the
prosperous folk who promenade In
Central Park, the children OF the we'll
to-do Of Philadelphia. Chicago. Bos-
ton. etc these children Of the Ghetto.
the land Of houses unfit for human
habitation.' are a startling surprise.
No other children anywhere compare
with them for supreme. permeating.
bubbling merriment. They play every
where In throngs and everywhere
they laugh.
They are good. too. they romp and
race. and climb but they commit no
acts Of mischief. The police who dot
the great bridge have nothing 20 do
except 20 look az them idly. The
white paint work on ali the miles OF
steel, on ali the tens OF thousands Of
trussea ana girders, on all the tempt