New-York tribune., 1919-09-20
Mew York, City of Adventure
By Philip Gibbs
(From Harper3 Magazine)

7 FOUND gay life" in New York i'm
mcnsely and sobcrly respectabe One
could take ones maiden aunt into the
heart of it and not get hot by her bushes.
In fact it is the American maiden aunt
who sets the pace of the fox-trot and the
one-step in dancing rooms where there are
music and afternoon tea. Several times |
supped "Englsh breakfast teal suspect
Sir Thomas Upton had something to do
with tat o'clock on bright afternoons,
watching the scene at Sherry's and Del
monicos. 1t seemed to me that this dane
ing habit was a most curious and overrated
form of social pleasure. 1t was as though
American society had said, "Let us be devil
ishly gay but started too early in the day,
with desperate sobrety.
Do,ontO,un Bepuilderment
Another side of the adventure Of life in
New York is downtown" where the sub
ways and the overhead railways pour out
tides of humanity who do not earn their
dollars without hard work and long hours
Of it. I should never have found my way
to Bowling Green and Wall Street without
a guide, because the underground world Of
the subways, Whcre electric trains go rush
ing like shuttles through the warp and
woof of monstrous network, is utterly
confusing to a stranger But with the
guide, who led me by the hand and laughed
at my chidlike bcwildermcnt, | came into
the heart of New York business life and
saw it's types in their natural environment
1t is an alarming world to the wandcrer
who comes there suddenly | confess that
when | first walked through those deep
gorges, between the mighty walls Of houses
high mountains, in a surge of hu-
manity in hurry, I felt dazed and cow
ardly. | had conviction that my nerve
power would never survive the stress and
strain of such a life in such place. I
nearly dislocated my neck by gazing up at
the heights Of the skyscrapers, rising story
on story to fifty or sixty floors. In
House of a Thousand Windows l took the
elevator to the top story and wished I
hadn't when the girl in charge of the lift
asked, "What hoor?' and w~s answered by
quiet gentleman who said, "Thirty- one
That was our first stop, and in the few
seconds we took to reach this altitude |
had Il vision of this vast human art-heap,
with scores of Offices on each floor, and
typcwrters clicking in all of them and
girl clerks taking down letters from hard
faced young men juggling with figures
which, by the rise or drop of decimal
point, mean the difference between millions
Of dollars in the markets of the world.
Each man and woman there in this House
of Thousand Windows had a human SOUL
with its own little drama of life, its loves
and hopes and Illusions; but in the vast
ness of one skyscraper, in the whirlpool of
commerce, in the machinery of money
making, the humanities Of life seemed to
be destroyed and these people to be no
more than slaves of modern civilization,
ruthless of their individual happiness
What could they know of art, beauty,
leisure. the quiet pools Of thought? .
The Broad Street Naniacs
Out in Broad Street there was pande-
monium. The outside brokers-the curb
men-wcre bidding against one another for
stocks not quoted on the New York Ex-
change the Standard Oil Company among
them-and their hoarse cries mingled in a
raucous' chorus. [ stood outside a mad
house staring at lunatcs. Surely it was
a madhouse, surrounded by other homes
lOl lICuIdDly INSANE. EIS ttlllCuiHi
house narrow, not very tall, build
ing of reddish-brown brick, like a Gcor-
gian house in London, and out Of each
window, which was barred, poked two rows
of faces one above the other, as though
tho room inside were divided by a false
floor In the small window frames sat sin
Gle figures, in crouchcd positions. with
telephone receivers on their ears and their
faces staring at the crowd in the street
below. Each one OF those human faces
belonging to young men of healthy appear
ance, was making most hideous grimaces,
and each grimace accompanied by
strange, incomprchensble gestures OF the
mans fingers. With thumb and two fin
gers. or Il thumb and three fingers they
poked through the windows with violent
efforts to attract the notice of individuals
in The street. ] saw indeed that all this
lingering had some hidden meaning and