Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1931-03-28
THIS AND THAT
BY CHARLES E. TRAcEWELL.

| doing the thing on such q scale. Surely
! this is one VI the best uses of money
for the public veal.
Here the Egyptian relics come down
to earth, as it were. No matter how
much one may have read about them
and surely every one read q great deal
at the time-one, at best, had little
idea Of their varied interest and beauty
Here these statuettes and paintings
and carvings and vessels and articles OF
varied description fairly breathe. They
| live again in our eyes and minds. Some
how time is annihilated, space Is for
got, as our eyes see what those eyes
saw; our living eyes see what dead
eyes see no longer. The thrill Of the
ness of the tomb. Egypt walks side by
side with Jimmy Walker-and you.
y y *
That view from the observation room
of the ChrySler Building is an unfor-
| gettable experience for one who was
brought up to regard the Cairo Build
ing, on Q street, as the height oil
cloud-piercing.
Up you go for an unknown number
of floors, at speed which you cannot
gauge. because there is nothing to meas
ure with. The doors are solid, the lift
moves without tremor.
Then at last an indicator begins %
check of the fioors-36, 81, SO, etc.
The car stops. But you are not there.
You are changing elevators This is a
great thrill. Changing elevators, Ell?
Surely, no hick frora Podunk could be
more pleased. Changing elevators
What do you know about thSS, Mar
garet?
You come out at last into the obser-
Walton room. with its safety devices, the
setback, the bars, the great windows
and you see the grand panorama OF
Manhattan.
You regret that old Walt Whitman.
who loved this city as few men have.
could not be here with you to look
down upon the curiously distinct. vet
hazy, relief map, this checkerboard of
blended hues, these shaped masses of
land, long familiar from pictures, vet
now distinctly transcending all photo
graphs.
This is bigger than Jimmy Walker,
Tammany, Pulitzer, all Of them, you
keep telling yourself: This Is New
| York; This is the city itself, q vast
aggregation of Americans, which made
old York take second place within the
memory Of men.
1t is stupendous You look and look
and cannot get enough of looking
Something of pride in man, as man,
wells up within you. You are proud to
belong to the tribe which could create
and keep going this superhuddle of
buildings, this amazing trafIls of hui
man beings.
And-if you are from the provinces
| it becomes too much for you. Sus-
piciously you hnd yourself telling that
most interesting person. Yourself, that
all this, after all. is only q piling OF
more Of the same thing on top Of still
more.
1t is just your own city, you tell
Yourself, multiplied seven, or ten, or a
hundred fold. Instead of delivering
mail to 10000 homes. as they do 'at
home" here they deliver to half q
million.
Instead Of 5000 ash-collecting wag-
ons starting out early In the morning
as at home, here q crew Of So ,472 wag-
onS goes through the same motions.
1t is great, you tell Yourself, but it Is
Just mans amazing multiplying instinct
busy at work. that is all. You are glad
to turn away from 1t, all lying spread
out and up there, glad to slide down
in those elevators, one after the other
You are happy to get away from 1t all
the gigantic, suffocating, roaring all OF
little old New York" For the best
part Of going there, some Of us will
continue 70 think, Is the getting back
home again.