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NEW YORK CITY
THE COSMOPOLITAN CITY
By JOSEPH B. GILDER
By comparison with London, New York is
a city of the second size, lacking some
millions of the population of the modern
Babylon. Even Paris, though less populous,
outranks the American metropolis in
many of the elements that go to the making
of a great city. But in drawing these comparisons
it must be remembered that only
three centuries ago, when the French and English
capitals had been places of importance
for over a thousand years, New York was a
wooded island, criss-crossed by innumerable
streams, indented by morasses and infested
by Indians and wild beasts. European civilization
was wrinkled with age long before a
permanent roof was erected on the island of
Manhattan; and three lives such as that of
