Page:Floating City (1904).djvu/225

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A FLOATING CITY.
169

of streets and confused alleys appropriated by the commercial population.

New York is built on a tongue of land, and all its activity is centred on the end of that tongue; on either side extend the Hudson and East River, arms of the sea, in fact, on which ships are seen and ferry-boats ply, connecting the town on the right hand with Brooklyn, and on the left with the shores of New Jersey.

A single artery intersects the symmetrical quarters of New York, and that is old Broadway, the Strand of London, and the Boulevard Montmatre of Paris; hardly passable at its lower end, where it is crowded with people, and almost deserted higher up; a street where sheds and marble palaces are huddled together; a stream of carriages, omnibusses, cabs, drays, and waggons, with the pavement for its banks, across which a bridge has been thrown for the traffic of foot passengers. Broadway is New York, and it was there that the Doctor and I walked until evening.

After having dined at Fifth Avenue Hotel, I ended my day's work by going to the Barnum Theatre, where they were acting a play called "New York Streets," which attracted a large audience. In the fourth Act there was a fire, and real fire-engines, worked by real firemen; hence the "great attraction."

The next morning I left the Doctor to his own affairs, and agreed to meet him at the hotel at two o'clock. My