Evening public ledger. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1914-1942, 1920-01-15
Meditations in Port
BY
William McFee


Especial Correspondent of The Chatting Dish)
Nutley, \. j., Jan. 13.
T AM awfully busy, you know, all the time
I am in New York, and l don't get about
much. I am confined principally to lower
New York. We discharge at Pier 15 in the
East river, under the shadow of the Brook
lyn bridge, and there is u very real pleasure,
after the toll of coming up river, of shutting
down and paying off, in scooting gayly up
Maiden lane cutting briskly through the
surging tide of home going stenographers
which pours along Nassau street, darting
across Broadway at the risk OF ones life in
front of those stonographers' employers cars
and diving into the Hudson tunnels for Jer
sey City and home. No one who has not
served on ships going to places like Glasgow
and Cardiff and London, where one may be
miles and miles from the heart of the city,
can understand the blessed privilege of dock
ing within stones throw of the City Hall.
One, of the miserieS of sea life is the horrible
messincss and dingy surroundings of the
average port, where one has to wander up
and down freight -cuttercd quays, round
congestcd basins and filthy coal chutes which
foul ones shore dunnage beyond the cleaners
art. Here we skip ashore and Immediately
we are in the heart of things. Beyond the
granite setts of South street roars the l.
and the trolley, and the earth tremblcs to
the rush of the subway express Here in
South street the II. c. l.. seems to have
forgotten to touch the iintels Here one can
get meal for thirty cents, a pair of boots for
eight dollars and a cigar for nickel. AS |
stand at the counter and wait for ham and,
roll and butter, cawfee and wedge of pie,
all extremely good and wholesome | wonder
whether above Forty second street is such a
fine place after all I wonder whether when
] settle down and get married | shan follow
Rs example and take an apartment over in
Brooklyn at twenty five a month aud live
in a dream of golden oak and hot air, with
a spin up Fourth avenue on summer evenings
in my fivver in my shirt sleeves. And so
to bed--or to sea, as the case may be- coming
back fatigued to the bracng air of Ninth
street, CARRYING bag of sugar over my
shoulder which / bought in Costa Rica at
eleven cents Il pound and banana for the
baby. Do babies eat bananas? | forget
Let it pass. This is my dream, you know.
D IS very happy. He is entirely subju-
~. gated by his wife, he has good job in a
good line and he has become so accustomed
to running to the store at the corner that he
never makes n mistake nowadays. | sup
pose you know he is one of those people who
are more frequent now than they used to
be- mean people who are born without
souls. I am surprised the psychologists have
not yet recognized this phenomenon. The
churches, too, seem to be blandly unconscious
of their existence. They are very common
in Brooklyn, that is why / would like to live
there. 1t is II very beautiful place, ONLY
artists have not yet been told about it, The
great open sky like a chalcc full of n
rOseate luminous glow which seems TO inform
the long lines of ruddy brick houses with n
transparent and pulsing loveness the noble
distances of the avenHes down which the
children come flying, with exquisite poise.
on one roller skating foot like Youthful
Mercuries; the statuesque beauty of the no.
licemcn directing the traffic: the magicaI
mystery Of the subway, where men and
women walk to and fro between white walls
like cloistered spirits waiting to be admitted
to the other world aud finally as one leaves
that enchanted region, the breath -stoppinp
vision of lower Manhattan, as the western
sky fades from crimson TO dusky purple, The