The daily morning journal and courier., 1904-11-21
CITY OF STRANGERS.
ANoTHER NICKNAME SUGGEST ED FOR NEW FORK.

Different Atmosphere in Manhattan
 From That of Any Other Big Ameri-
 caE City-Few People Really Have
 @Homes"
 T have read at varous times that New York, the greatest city of this country, has no distinctive nickname" said Playwright William c. de Mile at the Players club the other evening.
 Boston is called the Hub; Brook lyn, the City Of Churches; New Haven, the City of Films; Chicago, the Windy City, and so on through the whole list, each city being nicknamed because of some more or less pleasant attribute. It has been claimed that New York is too cosmopolitan. to have any one dis tinctive trait sufficiently salient to form a sobriquet for the whole city. I do not agree with this claim.
 If I might, in all modesty, make suggestion as to a distinctive title for little old New York, I should name it the City of Strangers. Not only be- cause there are daily more Gut-of town people and more foreigners passing through Manhattan than through any other city in America; nor because so many persons merely speEl brief hol- iday or business season here and then depart, without having had time or op- portunity for forming acquaintances.
 T have my suggested nickname on a far lrore self-evident phase of New York fife than either of the foregoing; a phase that seems for some reason to have been neglected by writers and so- ciologists alike. It is tact, however, that we are a ciGyful ot strangers; strangers to the occupants of the flats above and below us strangers (practi- cally) to most of the people with whom we arc thrown into daily contact; and. most of all, strangers to the very city which we are proud to call our Home
 "Take, for instance, the smaller cit ies: occIaants. of iaast of tno houses were either born in them or have lived in them for many years. h either case they are acquainted with at least half the other people on thelc block and know the rest by sigh and name. They a!so knew as boys ,hs townsfolk they now know as men. They went to kin dergarten with the girls they later marry
 How about New Workers? How many of us have been able to keep in touch with our boyhood friends? How many of us can say to-day what has become of most of the boys and girls with whom we went to school? Yet in ta histories of three-fourths of them and would have continued our acquaintance with more than half of them. We would also know the business, trade or profession of nearly every one living on the same street with us, Yet we scarcley know the names, to say noth- ing of the employment of the people who live in the same apartment house with us.
 We meet pleasant people. We see them several times during tho season. But we know nothing of their doings between times and as rule they soon- CT or later drop out of our lives. In other cities people keep in closer touch with thei, acquaintance.
 .qThere is another reason why say New York is a city of strangers The fundamental home element is largely lacking because the average New Yorker was not born in New York True, home love can only be felt foI one's birthplace. How many of your New Yorl: friendt were born herei Not many, I'll wager. People come tc New York to make money, to carve out careers, to see life for its amusement None of those aims tend to foster the love of home or the forming of clost