Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1906-04-28
WORLDS VA|NEST CITY
A Few Truths About Little Old
New York." ~
BOASTS OF ITS ENTERPRISE
Yet Retains Many Relics of Bygone
Times.
ITS ANTIQUE HORSE CARS
Combination Freight and Passenger
Ferries-The Venerable Fifth
Avenue Stage.
Written for The Sta

Written for The Star.
The vainest city in the world is the city
of New York. So declare many people
who know the metropolis well
And why is she vain?
Simply like affat boy. She is vain on
account of her size.
New York is the greatest habitual self
describer on record. and every few minutes
she announces 10 the world that she is
the most wonderful town that was ever
put together.
Yet absolutely the only thing In which
she is truly modern and remarkable is her
unique and unequaled collection of sky
scrapers.
New York's systems of urban and in
terurban transportation are VIGOROUSLY
wretched. Her streets are so unsafe that
her own statistics show that every day in
the year at least one person is killed by
vehicles. One express company alone has
record of having killed or injured at
least one citizen a day. Her cars can't
carry the passengers, and the stations and
platforms are not big enough to hold the
passengers, even If the cars could accom-
modate them.
Her streets are Illuminated only partly
by electricity, and her gas supply is a
feeble Joke. Even famous Broadway-the
thing that the vain New Workers love to
can the great white way would be most
ly a great dim way if 1t were not for the
huge and hideous Illuminating devices in
stated by private capital for advertising
purposes.
Her water supply is always on the verge
OF being inadequate for living purposes,
ana she actually has not enough water to
nsht a really big fire in the great business
S gus she knows 1t and has known it
ior many years, but she shuts her eyes to
IL ara pltles other cities when they have
a big fire.
More uhan five years ago she began to
put up signs on the corners with the names
OF the streets on them. Since then there
nave been three mayoral Administered lions
and great part of the streets of New
York stu lack signs while most of those
mat nave been put up on old street
lamps That were abandoned when electric
lty came in. Lots of these signs are nut
on wrong, that they cheerfuIlv direct
the stranger to the wrong place Nobody
has ever thought enough of the annaar
ance OF the town to take away the old
rickety lamp posts and put the signs on
less archaic fixtures.
Miles OF her busiest streets are still naved
with cobblestones Where they have ReI
gan DOCKS the paving usually is laid so
badly that the business men work ali day
In an incessant, Grazing hell Of noise
In the last few years New York has
managed after immense mental trouble to
lay GOWN enough modern smooth having
so that she cannot be Justly called the
worst paved city in the world, which was
a perfectly true statement not long ago
but she is as far from being a weli-paVed
city as Mars is from the moon
Your real New Yorker loves 10 hrae
about his town in other places and his
favorite remark. made in his oudest voice
is that he would rather be a lamp most on
the Bowery than anybody or anything
however glorious, in any other city. how
ever beautiful.
Its Absurd Ferries.
The stranger hurries to see this marvel
Gus town that fills Its citizens with such
super-Roman pride. Great railroad lines
carry him across a continent hurrying him
breathlessly, spending thousands of dollars
to prevent a delay of even minutes
Everything is haste, haste, haste. Thus
they hurl him at last to the end of the
road-and that end is on the west bank
of great river. Vain, modern won
derful New York is on the other side
The stranger gets out of his train, hustles
through a throng of steaming horses and
pounding trucks and wagons, and finds
himself aboard pot-bellied ferryboat. In
a few minutes il is filed with people who