Wauwatosa news. [volume] (Wauwatosa, Wis.) 1900-1948, 1908-12-11
GREATEST STREET
IN The WORLD
NEW YoRK's BROADWAY BEATS
ANY TWO FOREIGN STREETS
PUT TOGETHER.
WHERE THE MILLION WALK.
r.o~onghfare Which Always Holds Its
AIlnrement for the New Yorker, No
Matter Where He May Be.
x1oEG aTHE GREAT WHITE Way"

logne ana Champs nlAy SEES, anu beIllh
- Inter den Linden; but, viewed from
aov aspect except that of mere age,
I,roadwny-New York's Broadway-is
,bcad of any two of them put together"
81 said the man who had just returned
fran trip of several months through
Eprnpp TO Il representative of the New
york Evening Post He was typical of
those who have had the opportunity of
comparing the most celebrated thorough
fare in the United States with others
more or less known 30 fame in foreign
countries. Even the New Yorker, who
fakes for granted almost all the good
and bad qualities of his city, grows en-
tbusiastic when Broadway is mentioned
Reason for this is easily understood by
those who know the long, irregular thor
cughfare which runs from tip to tip of
Manhattan island. 1t is not merely that
broadway is the most important street
in town. Other streets and sections have
made more or less feeting bids for popu-
arity. hut as the growth of the city has
continued northward the famous old
street has maintained its supremacy.
Ii is significant that one never hears
VII actor singing, Take Me Back to
Fifth Avenue 1t is always Broad
way, Despite all that has been written
y
Even in its palmiest days Fifth avenue
represented nothing characteristic except
wealth. Now business is rapidly driving
ont the costly residences, forcing them
into side streets and to the newer fash
ionable sections further uptown. Almost
the entire length of the thoroughfare be-
low Central park is already given over
to business, the kind that keeps daylight
hOurs-ofice buildings, wholesale sales
unor,u upd rpfail chpnS flor mic faI
it is comparatively silent and deserted
When Electrics Begin to Glow.
Broadway, on the other hand, lives
every moment of every twenty four
hours. When daylight fades, the cleo
tries begin to glow. Nowhere else in the
world are so many millions of lights out
doors, as aiGng that two-mile stretch of
Broadway between Madison Square and
Columbus Circle, which has come to be
known as the Great White Way" And
before the last lamp has winked itself
out; as the stragglers of the all-night
crowd turn their steps homeward-or
more likely hotelward-dawn is bright
again in the east.
1t is long street, extending from the
sOuthernmoSt tip of Manhattan to its
extreme northern point, when the Har-
LEM and the Hudson join to shut it off
from the mainland, fourteen or fifteen
miles, As matter of fact, the street
retains its name and identity all the
way along the eastern bank of the Hud-
son to Albany, 40 miles away. Along
its course, within the boundaries of the
island, it exemplfies every activity Of
the city and nation of which it forms
part More than 100000 people live
along it and 10,000,000 trips Il day are
made on foot and in vehicles along and
below its surface.
Thirty million business transactions,
involving amounts from a penny to many
dollars are effected along it in each
tWenty-four hours. 1t is n business, shop
ping, theater. hotel, and residence street,
and, as many a confirmed BrOadwayite
has discovered it is possible to find al
most every conceivable means of making
and spending money within its limits
Beginning at Bowling Green, where
the Dutch burghers of New Amsterdam
smoked evening pipes and shifted salt
meezes from the bay, for the first half
mile Of its length, Broadway is the
street IF big business. the home of the
trusts. Almost at its lower end, No. 20,
Is the Standard Oil building, its twenty
HoorS devoted entirely to the activities
Of the great oil combination and its sub
Sldlarles Near are the offices of the big
steamship companies, the steel corpora
uon the rubber trust and scores OF other
great aggregations of capital represent
ing hundreds of millions of invested CAPT
tal. lnterspersed with these are banks,
insurance companies, lawyers and brok-
eFS offices, and all the varied machinery
required in the operation of great tinan-
cai undertakings
In the Wholesale.
Further up. between City Hall park
and Union Square, the thoroughfare
runs through the heart of the wholesale
district For two miles it is lined with
great merchandising establishments, in
winch are gathered the manufactured
products of every part of the world.
Above this is the retail district. The
crowds which, further down, consisted
t9ehy Of men, show as great majority
VI women as soon as Fourteenth street
IS passed. The department stores, which
nave succeeded the wholesale establish
4ehlS, are thr0nged with smartly dressed
shoppers.
The shopping section of Broadway has
Oeen moving rapidly uptown, and has
crowded out a number of hotels and
4ealerS. Its northern limit now is Her
asd SQuare-at least this is the location
Vi the furthest uptown big department
Slore. here at Thirty-fourth street, too,
d The most crowded spot in the world.
1Ss careful computation, more than J..
vU"NVU persons pass here every day. and
ms number viii be still greater when
nle new Pennsylvania terminal is com
PteIeI: and the tunnels under the North
aug East rivers meet near by.
.,, above ThirJy-fourth street extends
me Rialto," 1.-The Great White Way,
- Nhampagne Alley''-to quote a few OF
ule pet names New Workers have given
N. thelr favorite stretch of Broadway
IuiS IS the region of hotels, restaurants
t aHd heaters. Times square is the CAPT
al "a, % This gay principality. Less than d
sIll.y ago the cows pasturing on the
EsaefiuI acres of the old Astor farm
we're almost it's only tenants. Now the
fSteat mass of brick and stone which
tIIL"S the new Hotel Aston stands OF
t Ge SHE Of the old farmhouse; twenty
faga'erS are within stones throw. and
about. ants "io 7iout0
:, wore money is spent every day. with
"a ne space of these half-dozen blocks
s@ it'd, drink and amusement than il
sa S i1Se area in the universe. The ole
faai4 is the core of the evening life o.
~ metropolis, where the lights fasl
sse-4test, where the crowds of pleasur,
IL s..> are thickeSt. and where all tina