The Ordway new era., 1920-09-10
. HE greensboro bridge, New
York, is almost deserted these
summer evenings. An occa-
sional pair of strollers. en-


summer evenings. An occa-
sional pair of strollers, en-
braced in the shadows of the great
girders, solitary man whom years
have taught love of peaceful places,
group of small boys lured by the ad-
venture that beckons from boats and
moving waters, duo of schoolgirls.
giggllng over secrets. Otherwise you
may have the bridge and the quiet
grandeur of the view to yourself says
writer in the Christian Science Mon
itor.
The best time for your visit is that
indefnable quarter of an hour be
tween sunset and the beginning of
twilight. the hour of color, when com
monplace objects appear in the rich
tones that fade into dim color under
the intenser light of day.
This evening the blue of the sky
was just beginning its dissolution into
twillght's gray when | came up the
long approach to the bridge. Family
greenlsh, 1t stretched above and be-
hind the great superstructure, which
has the eccentric curves of Siamese
temple roofs. with pairs of delicate.
needle-spires shooting up from the
gables.
am on the bridge, and the city
lies before me.
How can describe what I see?
Far below is broad flowing river,
with the rich olives and yellow browns
os moss jade. To the left, as lean
on the southern parapet, is Queens,
its low-lying factories and workyards
now redeemed from their insignifi-
canoe by the rusty browns and yell
lows that they wear Nearer is the
symbolic geometry of Blackwell's Is
land. its grass plots emerald with new
grass. To the right. and curving into
the background. Is Manhattan, rich
in color and. built haphazard as it Is,
amazingly inevitable in composition.
Brick factories and brick and
brownstone houses built in the sos
line the shore in the near-foreground.
Tonight they glow with Incredible
reds and russet browns. The suns
touch fingers in them, and In the warm
grays and yellows. purple shadowed
of the city that rises behind them.
A City on Hill.
Seen from the Greensboro bridge.
New York is a city on hill. From
the low buildings that line the shore,
touched once with the green of will
lows that have been miraculously
spared by the tramping city, there is
gradual rise to the heights of
"down town" The graceful twin
bell tower of the Grand Central ter
minal. Madison Tower, the Singer
building-I can find them all, though
they are vested from my vantage
with an unaccustomed romance. They
are part of beautiful painting, har-
monious In color and composition. In
the background. the Williamsburg
bridge stretches In delicate outline,
and beyond 1t is Brooklyn bridge.
vague. graceful garland In the fading
light
The shadows are deepening now.
The towers are blue against the pale
sky. just sinking into gray, and the
buildings along the shore are losing
their identity. Evening. careful
ahopkeeper, Is laying gray-black
cover over them. Curiously, the city is
seen now in three distinct planes, the
dark shore line forming one. the group
of higher buildings few blocks back,
second. all in black and white, the
long line of Broadway, blue and pur-
pie Swallowed. the center of the third
In the Evening Shadows.
Ten minutes of tenderiy reminiscent
blues and grays. with lights appearing
one by one. Wall street is town on
n hilltop now. with hundred lighted
windows. Brooklyn bridge is neck
lace of topazes. My thoughts go a.
wandering among the street markets
nj the lower Fast side. down familiar
ways marked out by rows of lights.
And then. Puck-like, 1t is in Broadway
,ver which there hangs delicate gold
n haze. fata morganls.
The superstructure of the bridge is
10 longer merely wonderful mechan.
SIN. II has mystery. Its masses,
black and full of shadows, have taken
on subtle flavor of antiquity. They
IRE moi steel girders, erected by men
With whom one rubs shoulders In the
.iubway. They are something reared