Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1911-07-26
BOSTON PLAIN CITY
Not Much Demand for 0rna-
mental in Architecture.
SKYSCRAPERS ARE SCARCE
Business Buildings Do Not Average
Much Over Six Stories.
PEOPLE PREFER HOME LIFE
No Fashionable Restaurants, and
Hotels Are Mainly of the Old
Fashioned Kind.
SKYSCRAPERS ARE SCARCE
PEOPLE PREFER HOME LIFE
BY WILLIAM r. RTIS.

Special Correspondence OF The Star and the
Chicago Record Herald.
BOSTON, July "a, 1911.
When Yankee Doodle visited Boston
more than century ago he complained
that he not able to see the town
because there were so many houses. He
would find the same difficulty today. al
though Boston has never acquired the
Ekyscraper habit. and the roofs of her
business blocks, hotels and other build
ings are not SO near heaven as those of
other cities of similar population
In the business section the architecture
Is solid and severe There are some adj
mirable buildings but a rule investors
have not gone in for lofty structures. and
their height will average six or perhaps
seven stories. The banks. the corpora
tions, the lawyers, the insurance and
commission men are grouped in sections.
You will find one narrow, crooked street
given UP to boots and shoes, another to
paper and stationery, another to cotton
goods and other lines of manufacture or
trade flock together. The business sec
fion does not seem to be very much con-
gested, but II is remarka BILE how many
great industries are housed in a few
small blocks.
Washington street. which got its name
because the father of his country entered
Boston by this highway on the 18th of
March. 1916. when Gen. Howe and his
English troops evacuated it. is the princi-
pal shopping street. the home of the
newspaper offices and railway ticket
agents And several of the largest retail
stores in the country can be found here
The department store originated on
Washington street in Boston.
Little of Ostentation
There is no great display of architec
ture anywhere in the city. In the resi-
dence district there Is little ostentation,
and more home life than in other cities.
Apartment houses are unpopular and
there are few of them. The people of
Boston do not live in restaurants as in
New York and San Francisco. They
seem to have solved or evaded the serv
ant problem without abandoning their
hearthstOnes or crowdng their lares and
penates into hotel suite or seven-rooin
FIAT. There are several residential hotels
Of high class, but no fashionable restau-
rants.
The hotels, however, with one or two
exceptions, are old-faShioned and are in
the hottest of the business section.
Young's Hotel is the MONDAY resort of
the business men of the city, great and
small. Directors of the biggest corpora
tions hold their meetings around the
lunch table. The Arkwright Club, COM
posed of the heaviest cotton manufac-
turers in the country, meets there daily
IL
ferent lines of business have private
rooms in which lunch is served regularly
at certain hour every day. The sec
ond floor of the hotel is given up almost
entirely 10 private dining rooms. each OF
which is rented to some syndicate or in
dvidual. Thomas w. Lawson, the apostle
OF frenzied finance, has a suite of rooms
where he entertains his customers and
organizes his raids upon the stock mar
ket. From ~ to or o'clock in the
afternoon almost every man of business
consequence may be found at Youngs,
but after or ) o'clock the hotel is
deserted and lonely country meeting
house on "A week day.
The Parker House. which was the ideal
hotel of America in your grandfatheTS
time. is still considered such by all New
England and is famous for its kitchen,
but is closed in by other buildings and
narrow streets and is purely a CONNER
:ial hotel. You seldom see woman at
the Parker House.
Boston Like London.
Two blocks UP the street. stones
throw from the statehouse, surrounded
BY the headquarters of various religious
denominations and the Boston Atheneum,
where knowledge of every subject is kept
On tap. is a quiet little hotel the Belle
yue patronized by old-fas hioned, con-
sentative people who cali for Goldfish balls
and burberry cake more than for terra
pin or canvasback ducks. Boston has
The reputation OF being more like London
than any other town in the United States,
which is true, and nowhere is the re-
semblance so close as at this little hotel.
II an Englishman should he landed there
from an aeroplane. blindfolded he would
feel perfectly at home. The imitation
ls carried SO far that the walters and
bell boys are required to drop their n :.
The Touraine a fashionable and
pensve hotel on Boylston street. oppo-
DdtrODlZed
the nobility and aristocracy and appeals
TO the intellectual and esthetic. providing
programs of classical music and library
of 400 volumes There are many other
hotels having their own individuality, but
no fashionable restaurants such as Del
monico's and Sherry's in New York, and
the clubs are not patronized in otner
cities.
Clubs Awfully Respectable.
In the clubs one can find another
very strong resemblance to London
they are so solemn and exclusive and
30 awfully respectable. Members are
permitted to smile gently and in mod
Grafton. but if member of some of
the Boston clubs were to laugh out
loud IN the smoking room or the read
ing room he would be subject to dis
cipline.
II is more difficult for a multi
millionaire to pass through the eye Of
needle than for any one who does
not have pedigree stamped with the
approval OF the aristocracy of Boston
to secure admission To the principal
clubs Thomas W. Lawson. who has
been trying to break into the Somer-
set Algonquin, St Botolph's, the Puri-
tan and other high-class clubs. is said