The Press., 1922-10-05
FALL ONE BY ONE
How Time Brings Changes in a
 City's Landmarks.
Famous Old Washington Square, In New York. Ia a Good Example
 Once Place Of Execution.

It is sweet to dance to violtnS
 When love and life are fair
 To dance to flutes, to dance to lutSS
 Is delicate and rare;
 But it is not sweet with ntmble feet
 To dance upon-the air.
 Oscar Wilde. Ballad of Reading Gaol |"
 A city grows. Landmarks which have defied time fall before wreckers and landmarks of the future take their places. The tales whispered about them are lost in the crush of riVeting hammers, in the rumble of subway trains, in the roar of truck engines and the shouts of truck drivers.
 Often time works to change com pletely not only the physical aspect Ot a locality, but also its spirit.
 Washington square, says a New York Sun writer, is a name to cOnjuro with, more, of course, in cities and towns far from New York than within the limits of the greater city. Wher- ever aspiring and hopefully artistic youth cOngregate, 1n every city ln every state, eyes are turned toward the radical artistic groups with which the square and its envirOns are lnevl- tably associated. And feet have 6 way of following eyes.
 Countless thousands come every year from Iowa and Missouri, from Arkansas and Texas, to spend few weeks in the metropolis; perhaps to stay, if the city is welcoming.
 They go, after the WOOlworth tower straight to Greenwich Village. They drink bohemian tea in eagerly artistic places; they dance to the strains o1 ViOiins in the hands of unpublished poets. They dance and are thrilled.
 Most of them-perhaps even some New YOrkers-WhO dance to violins' not, 1t Is to be feared Ito flutes, to lutes"-are missing a thrill justifably theirs.
 On a gray morning a hundred years ago a trembling negro girl was led up the steps of a gibbet. Whether the girl, Rose Butler, had committed the murder for which she died cannot be said. Probably, not to do our ances tors injustice, she deserved her fate At any rate she paid the penalty. "It Is not sweet with nimble feet to dance upon the air"
 The gibbet upon which Rose Butler and others died was set up at the point where now the Fifth avenue ; busses sweep into Washington square to discharge their loads of sightseers many of them to dance in the more cOmmOdiOus of the village tea shops
 But there was no Washington square in those days. Instead, tho space it. now covers was part of tht 1 pauper field in which those too pool to be given the luxury of tombstone! were buried. Hundreds of pauper flu nerals passed through lanes that ar' now famous streets of New York; "Quartier Latin," vending their way to the public burying ground.
 Even in those days the district wal taking on a more fashionable aspect however. Monument lane Cor Green wich lane) passed on one side of tn of. those who rode over the fashion able drive in still more fashionabl carriages that the field was abandOnet as a cemetery in 1923, after 20 year of service to the city.
 Washington arch has replaced thu gibbet as the laughter of gayety hR replaced the silence of the paupGl field; as polished wood has replaced the air as a dance floor. And timt changes thrills as 1t changes land scapes.