CHAPTER II
THE JOYS OF NEW YORK LIFE
"Oh, oh, but this is a bee-autiful station!" gasped George, when thetourists came from the train and entered the great domed concourse.
"Isn't it lovely? Look at the ceiling--all painted and lighted so fine!"sighed Martha, with satisfaction at art thus expressed.
"I should think everybody would get lost in this great place. Do youknow where you are going, uncle?" said Jack, gazing first at thehurrying mobs going every way across the main hall to reach the numerousoutlets.
"No, I am lost already! I shall have to ask a policeman to take us tothe station-house for the night, so we can find ourselves again,"replied Mr. Parke with a worried air, as he went over to speak to a manin uniform.
"Did he mean it?" whispered John to his mother.
She smiled and shook her head, as she replied: "He is going to ordertaxicabs to convey us to the hotel."
"What hotel are we going to?" wondered Martha.
"Well, seeing there are scores of fine hotels in New York, it isdifficult to tell which one Mr. Parke will select," said Mrs. Parke.
Shortly after this the party was snugly seated in cabs and whirled away.There was no signboard over the door of the hotel so the children couldnot tell the name of it. At home, the hotel in the village where thestore was, had a swinging sign to say that it was "The Washington ArmsHotel." But the uniformed men standing ready to open the doors, and thecrowds of people sitting about reading or chatting were very interestingto the children. Palms, great easy chairs, clusters of electriclights--lights everywhere--made the scene one to be remembered.
"Must be something like the fine balls given Washington after the war,"whispered Martha to her companions.
"If they only had on silk dresses and powdered wigs," returned John.
It was late in the afternoon when the party arrived at the hotel. Mr.Parke decided it would be useless to try and see any of the sights thatday. Besides, they expected Mr. Davis every moment, as he said he wouldbe waiting for them. But the train had been late, and he probably hadbecome tired of waiting in the hotel lobby.
"I don't see how any one could tire of sitting down there and watchingthe fine folks," said Martha.
"If you saw things like that every day you'd soon weary of them,"remarked Mrs. Davis.
And Martha wondered if Philadelphia were anything like New York, to makeaunty speak of seeing such sights every day.
Before she had time to question about this interesting information,however, a cheery voice sounded outside of the large parlor they hadwith the suite of six rooms, and in came Mr. Davis.
After greetings were all over, Jack began: "Daddy, are we going to doanything to-day? We must not lose time, you know."
"Indeed no! Time is one of the things we can never find if it is oncelost!" laughed Mr. Davis, patting Jack on the head.
"Well--then----" ventured Anne eagerly.
"I procured tickets for the 'Blue Bird' at the opera house to-night,"replied Mr. Davis, showing the tickets to prove the wonderful news.
"Oo-oh! I've never been in a real live theatre before! We've gone tomovies in the village--that's all!" cried John eagerly.
"Well, this is a real live one all right!" bragged Jack.
And so it was. It was an entrancing play, and the gowns of the audience,and the wonderful velvet curtains, and the gold boxes and trimmings ofthe opera house, all presented a dazzling sight. The visiting party hada large box quite near the stage, so that everything could be seen andheard.
The next morning Mrs. Graham left the others and started for her visitto her aunt, leaving John with his friends to accompany them on theirhistorical tour of the city.
"The first thing I have on my program is a visit to the Statue ofLiberty. As we will be near Governor's Island, we can have a look at theold fort there, and then on our way back to Battery Park, visit theAquarium," said Mrs. Parke.
So they left the hotel to walk to a car.
"Is anything going on in New York to-day?" asked John.
"Not unusual.--Why?" wondered Mrs. Davis.
"Why, I see such a lot of people all running as if they were afraid ofmissing some big event," explained John.
The elders laughed. "That is the way New Yorkers always rush about. Onewould think their very lives depended upon the saving of a moment'stime. And then they stand and stare at a silly advertisement, or listento a street-corner peddler trying to sell his wares, and not only loseten times the moments saved, but block the way for other sensiblepedestrians, so that every one loses time," said Mr. Parke, who wasescorting the ladies to the car.
At the head of a flight of steps, he started down.
"Where are you going, father?" cried Martha, aghast at her father'sgoing down the cellar steps of some big house.
"To the train! Aren't you coming?"
"Train? I thought we were going to take one of these cars," exclaimedGeorge, looking at a crosstown trolley.
"No, the subway takes us right down to South Ferry, where the boatleaves for Liberty Island," replied Mr. Parke.
This was a new experience. The children stared at the ceiled archoverhead, and wondered if it would cave in while they had to wait for atrain. Then the roar and rush of a long, snake-like string of cars swungaround the bend and came to a sudden jerky halt opposite them. It wasthe northbound train.
Then it rushed and roared out again, but before any one could catch hisbreath, another roar and rush sounded right before their very noses, anda brilliantly-lighted train of cars stopped beside the platform, and theguard shoved open the doors that had no handles or hinges.
They all hurried in, crowds behind pushing wildly to get in first.Inside, the long rows of seats on both sides of the cars were filledwith all sorts of people, and our travellers were compelled to stand upin the aisle.
As the train went further downtown, the crowds increased until Georgesaid: "Every New Yorker must be travelling to South Ferry this morning."
At Brooklyn Bridge many of the passengers got out, and Mr. Parke pushedhis party into seats--one here, one there, some down the aisle invacancies. Before he could get back to a seat himself an entirely newmob of passengers rushed on, and violently struggled to crowd in betweenother seated fellow-beings.
"Say, Jack, I've been trying to figure up all the money this companymade since we got on the cars at Grand Central," said George to hiscousin.
"Yes, and I think it would be a good thing for you and me to plan aboutour future business careers. S'pose we open a subway line like this andrun opposition. Besides making a lot of money easy, we will help thepublic, 'cause there won't be such a fearful crowd going on two lines asthere is on one," said Jack with good logic.
"You're right! And what's more, we'll make our guards act politely tofolks. I saw that horrid man slam the door right in an old man's face,as he was going to step inside! And those side doors were only openedonce since we started, yet crowds of people waited outside and got leftwhen the train pulled out of the station, and the guard leaned over theplatform and laughed!" declared George, who, although on his first trip,saw conditions that make New Yorkers fume and fret, without redressanywhere.
At this moment the guard shouted, "South Ferry! All out!" Mr. Parke andthe ladies caught hold of the children's hands to save them from beingcrushed between doors and passengers, and after climbing another flightof concrete steps, they all breathed the sweet, fresh air once more, andMartha said:
"Don't let us ever travel that way again! It's awful!"
"But think of the millions who _have_ to travel that way, up to theBronx or Washington Heights, or over to Brooklyn. There is no other wayto get there except by foot, or paying several car-fares for changes ofline," said Mr. Davis, who seemed thoroughly acquainted with conditionsin New York.
However, the children forgot the annoyance of travel the moment theyfound the small steamer "Liberty Island" at the wharf. They all hurriedon board, and were danced over the choppy waves of New York bay. On
thesail over to the statue, they saw Ellis Island where the immigrantslanded, Governor's Island of Revolutionary fame, the heights of Brooklynjust on the edge of the water, and then were landed at Liberty Island.
Troops were quartered here, and everything was under militarydiscipline. Visitors were still permitted to the tower, but no one wasallowed to go about the camps, or to question the men.
The elevator landed the children high up where the balcony encircles thestatue, but Mrs. Parke declared that they were not going to mount thesteep and winding stairs, as nothing was to be gained by climbing up thehundreds of steps. The view from the balcony was the same as up in thehead.
As they walked around the outside of the figure, Mr. Parke told thechildren some interesting items about the statue.
"Bartholdi's statue named 'Liberty' was presented by the French peopleto the United States in 1885. It is the largest statue ever built. Itwas conceived by the famous French sculptor whose name it bears. It issaid that the face is a likeness of his mother, who was his model forthis renowned figure.
"It took eight years to construct the statue, and it weighed, whencompleted, 440,000 pounds. Of this, 146,000 pounds is copper and thebalance iron and steel. The latter two metals were used to construct theskeleton framework of the inside.
"The mammoth electric light held aloft in the hand of this giantess is305 feet above tide-water. The height of the figure is 152-1/2 feet; thepedestal is 91 feet, and the foundation 52 feet, 10 inches. Fortypersons can stand at the same time in the top of the mighty head, whichis 14-1/2 feet in diameter. The index finger of the hand is eight feetlong, and the nose three and three-fourth feet. The colossus ofRhodes--once regarded as a world-wonder for its great size--is a pigmyin comparison with this figure."
The children listened to these stupendous figures, that gave them a goodidea of the great work done on Liberty Statue, and were all the moreinterested in seeing the giant steel beams and bolts that held up theskeleton of the figure.
After they had gone down again and were walking about the base, whilewaiting for the return of the steamer to convey them back to New York,they listened to Mr. Parke describing the method of lighting at night,so that the entire statue seemed bathed in light. They looked at thegreat globes of electric lights grouped at various points of the stoneparapet, and wondered at the unseen power that would reflect suchbrilliant illumination up at the figure as to make it plainly visiblefor miles across the sea.
On the sail back, the children saw the old fort where prisoners werekept herded together in great masses when the British took possessionof New York and Long Island.
The Aquarium was visited, and after admiring the strange and beautifulfish in the glass tanks, the children found great sport waiting for thesea-lion to utter his fearful roar, as he flopped into the large tank ofwater, scattering water in every direction and thoroughly sprinkling theunwary who stood too near the railing.
Then Mr. Parke led his party across Battery Park to a triangular green.
"Who knows what this is?" asked he.
"Why, it's another stairway to the subway cellar," said Martha, whospied the sign over the entrance.
The ladies laughed, for they knew the right answer to the question; butthe children had not the slightest clue to it.
"This is Old Bowling Green. Here the Dutch used to meet daily and playbowls, while the wives and children sat on the rude wooden benchesplaced on the outside and chatted or watched the game."
"Are there any more old places like this in New York?" asked John.
"Yes, I thought we might go over and visit the place called 'Ye OldeTaverne,' that has been carefully kept from mercenary realty investorsall these years. There you will find the quaint old style of building invogue during the time of Howe's victory over the American forces in NewYork. If the old beams and wood could but talk, what interesting talesof treason, patriotism, plotting and celebrating, it could tell us.
"As we will be right near the Stock Exchange after we leave Fraunces'Tavern, I will see if it is possible to have you visit and watch thebuying and selling that goes on in the 'pit' every day. The Exchangecloses at three, so we must not delay, if we would visit this scene."
The children followed eagerly as Mr. Parke led the way across Broadwayand down lower Pearl Street to the quaint old gable-roofed buildingstill intact after all these years. They gazed wide-eyed at this relicof Washington's period, and felt that the hero of their readings andplay was very real indeed.
Coming out on Broad Street, they then went to the Stock Exchangebuilding, but Mr. Parke discovered that no visitors were admitted theresince war was declared. Only those known to be in business on the stockmarket were permitted to enter.