Synopses & Reviews
U IK. A . A IMPRESSIONS OF A FIRST VISIT i BY ARNOLD BENNETT ILLUSTRATED BY FRANK CRAIG 1 HARPER BROTHERS PUBLISHERS NEW YORK AND LONDON MCMXII Ijljj YA See page 28 THE GLORY OF FIFTH AVENUE INSPIRES EVEN THOSE ON FOOT CONTENTS CHAP. PAGE I. THE FIRST NIGHT 3 II. STREETS 27 III. THE CAPITOL AND OTHER SITES 49 IV. SOME ORGANIZATIONS 73 V. TRANSIT AND HOTELS 99 VI. SPORT AND THE THEATER 123 VII. EDUCATION AND ART 147 VIII. CITIZENS 171 6602421 f 2 1966 ILLUSTRATIONS THE GLORY OF FIFTH AVENUE INSPIRES EVEN THOSE ON FOOT Frontispiece DISEMBARKING AT NEW YORK Facing p. 10 THE DOWN-TOWN BROADWAY OF CROWDED SKY-SCRAPERS . 1 6 BROADWAY ON ELECTION NIGHT 20 A BUSY DAY ON THE CURB MARKET 34 A WELL-KNOWN WALL STREET CHARACTER 3 THE SKY-SCRAPERS OF LOWER NEW YORK AT NIGHT ... 38 A WINTER MORNING IN LINCOLN PARK, CHICAGO .... 42 A RIVER-FRONT HARMONY IN BLACK AND WHITE CHICAGO c 44 THE APPROACH TO THE CAPITOL 5 ON PENNSYLVANIA AVENUE 5 2 ON THE STEPS OF THE PORTICO THE CAPITOL 54 UNDER THE GREAT DOME OF THE CAPITOL 5 THE PROMENADE CITY POINT, BOSTON 60 THE BOSTON YACHT CLUB OVERLOOKING THE HARBOR . . 64 AT MORN POURING CONFIDENCES INTO HER TELEPHONE 74 LUNCHEON IN A DOWN-TOWN CLUB 86 A YOUNG WOMAN WAS JUST FINISHING A FLORID SONG . . QO ABSORBED IN THAT WONDROUS SATISFYING HOBBY .... 94 IN THE PARLOR-CAR 100 BREAKFAST EN ROUTE 108 IN THE SUBWAY ONE ENCOUNTERS AN INSISTENT, HURRYING STREAM 112 THE STRAP-HANGERS 1 14 THE PASSENGERS ON THE ELEVATED AT NIGHT ARE ODDLY ASSORTED II 5 ILLUSTRATIONS THE RESTAURANT OF A GREAT HOTEL IS BUT ONE FEATURE OF ITS SPLENDOR Facing p. I IS THE HORSE-SHOWS ARE WONDROUS DISPLAYS OF FASHION . 124 THE SENSE OF A MIGHTY AND CULMINATING EVENT SHARPENED THE AIR u I3O THEVICTORS LEAVING THE FIELD 134 UNIVERSITY BUILDINGS UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA, . 156 MITCHELL TOWER AND HUTCHINSON COMMONS UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO 164 PART OF THE DAILY ROUND OF THE INDOMITABLE NEW YORK WOMAN 172 THE ASTOUNDING POPULOUSNESS OF THE EAST SIDE ... 1 86 i THE FIRST NIGHT YOUR UNITED STATES THE FIRST NIGHT 1SAT with a melting ice on my plate, and my gaze on a very distant swinging door, through which came and went every figure except the familiar figure I de sired. The figure of a woman came. She wore a pale blue dress and a white apron and cap, and carried a dish in uplifted hands, with the gesture of an acolyte. On the bib of the apron were two red marks, and as she approached, tripping, scornful, unheeding, along the interminable carpeted aisle, between serried tables of correct diners, the vague blur of her face gradually de veloped into features, and the two red marks on her stomacher grew into two rampant lions, each holding a globe in its ferocious paws and she passed on, bearing away the dish and these mysterious symbols, and lessened into a puppet on the horizon of the enormous hall, and finally vanished through another door. She was suc ceeded by men, all bearing dishes, but none of them so inexorably scornful as she, and none of them disappear ing where she had disappeared every man relented and stopped at some table or other. But the figure I 3 YOUR UNITED STATES desired remained invisible, and my ice continued to melt, in accordance with chemical law. The orchestra in the gallery leaped suddenly into the rag-time without whose accompaniment it was impossible, anywhere in the civilized world, to dine correctly. That rag-time, committed, I suppose, originally bysome well-inten tioned if banal composer in the privacy of his study one night, had spread over the whole universe of restaurants like a pest, to the exasperation of the sensitive, but evidently to the joy of correct diners. Joy shone in the elated eyes of the four hundred persons correctly dining together in this high refectory, and at the end there was honest applause . . And yet you never encountered a person who, questioned singly, did not agree and even assert of his own accord that music at meals is an out rageous nuisance . . ...