RESTLESS NEW YORK

Greymouth Evening Star, 3 December 1929, Page 10

RESTLESS NEW YORK

A SHIFTING SCENE From the river New York’s claim to be the dipfessidn of 'a new civilisation seems riiofb than justified. But the skyline is quickly belied bn landing. It is ilbt that people are in any way disappointing. The porter on the quayside Speaks in strange oaths, which makes him romantically unreal; the taxi-driver speaks a language even stranger, compounded of East Side dialect ahd some Slavonic tongue. Inside the cab is his portrait, with a notice asking the passenger to inform the police if someone else, be driving. Bdt the roads over which we drive — long, wide, ahd dead straight, with tall buildings on either side—are full of potholes which .would disgrace a Balkan town. . (Outside the main avenues; in fact, one is constantly reminded of the Continent. Skyscrapers, .clean in line, as in fact, stand next, to: dirty tumbledown hovels which have not even the. justification of age. Repairs are going on everywhere, and, owing to the construction of the new Subway many of the main streets qre “up.” The whole city has the appearance of a shelter shoved up while waiting for better things. When the new subway is constructed, 'New Yorkers say, the city will be itself once more. But there seems to be little hope for a city which, after three centuries of, existence, has not sufficient individuality to overcome the temporary disfigurement of a subway; a'nd even when the subway is finished, there will remain the Elevated Railway, rickety and noisy, running down the finest avenues. Its ragged and unkempt outline gives a pioneer appearance, which fits ill with skyscrapers. No doubt in time the hovels will disappear, along with some things worth preserving: already the ojd houses of Washington Square are making way fbr 20-storey buildings. The. elevated may some day go. But before that happens the first skyscraper will have been torn down —40 years is their average life —and so far as one can see there is little prospect of the city ever looking finished. BLACK AND WHITE

New York is too restless ever to be cbmp'lete: restless hot'only with the. activity of 7,000,000 huihaii beings cramped into a space far too small for- them, blit with the constant jostling of people of every race and nationality. It has its Italian quarter, its Jewish quarter, and sb on. But the distinction has little meaning in a city where, at any rate during working hours, every one is brought into contact with thousands of others. Even niass-procluced clothing is not sufficient to give an effect of homogeneity.' Within one block every shade of colour is to be seen, froth fhe almost White, whose admixture is betrayed by softness of voice, to the pure black, [with woolly hair and thick lips. .... It is estimated that one niilliOn of New York’s inhabitants are Jews, and another million and a half coloured. In the early evening, when the offices and factories empty themselves, the estimate seems low. .Every uptown Subway is packed tight, and every, other person seems to be coloured. Getting into the subway down-town and getting but anywhere in the neighbourhood of 150th Street, the full force of the coloured invasion is brought lloihe. The streets in both parts of the city are exactly the same, with the same shops, cafes, and soda-fountains. The people in both wear the same clothes, with hats and cigars at the same angle. In each are to be seen types of every class of society, from street urchin to millionaire. But around’ 150th Street everyone is coloured, even‘to the foliceman. Other American cities provide the same' contrast —Chicago iS an example. But at first, and especially if one comes upon Harlem at night, it seems a giant masquerade. A more varied mixtured is to be seen in the subway. The subway is the epitome of New York. It is simple, the uniform charge of five cents makes it convenient to use, and the rectilinear plan makes it impossible to get far lost. It is efficient; it conveys New York’s millions quickly and safely. But its efficiency is of a peculiarly American kind, aimed at one object only and neglecting such side-issues as comfort and cleanliness. Politics ar© frequently offered as an explanation of the lack of comfort in the subtvay and the dis-repair of the roads. The five-cent fare is one bf Mayor Walker’s platforins, afid the subway company, not being allowed to charge more, provides the bare minimum. But one suspects that the cause is deeper than that. Accustomed to move quickly from place to place, and to sit still only at a desk, the American finds standing in a dirty and crowded subway train no more of an inconvenience than sitting bn a stool in a soda-foun-tain or sleeping in a Pullman car.

ENERGY AND NERVES A national restlessness allows no one to sit still long enough to consider what he lacks or to appreciate what he has. The restlessness is most marked in New York, but it is characteristic in some degree of every city from the Atlantic to the Pacific coast. It is to be seen in the restaurants, where the whole meal must tie ordered at once, and where coffee is served with the food; in the dining cars of trains where the perfect manners of coloured waiters, are offset by the speed with Which they reset the table for non-existent newcomers long before you have reached the conversation. Above all it is to be seek in the colleges, where boys and girlA alike shift unceasingly from course to course, fro'm idea tp idea, and from pastime to pastime. Nowhere in the student WOrld is Such abdiindirig energy to He fburid, iior such receptivity. But it is energy of a fietvbus kind, never' long directed into one channel unless the direction comes from outside. Perhaps fortunately, there is always some organisation ready'to direct the life of the American citizen. Organisation ife, indeed, the keynote of American life. It has enabled 120,000,000 people to live lives 6f at least material comfort, and it makes for efficiency. But that efficiency is sometimes of maddening slowness. • In one of the larger New York hbtels .it is possible to Wander about for.tefi minutes before discovering the office. When you dp discover it, you find organisation and division of laboui’ run mad. A reservation clerk must book your room, a mail clerk must look after your letters. The bell-hop takes you to your room; one porter must bring your suitcase, another your trtihk. When you pay yottr bill you must go first to the floor clerk, then to the reservation clerk, then to the bill clerk, th On to the cashier . While in the hotel you have 101 different servants, each of whom can

do one thing only. Lbilg before you leave you have the impression of a crazy people, trying deSp’erately to find something to do, and to make it appear worth doing. This impression is confirmed by la- ■ tbr experience. To give only o’fie example, when bookifig a ticket at an uptown railway office one is attended tb by a clerk who is not a clerk but an assistant ticket agent. The example is the more fruitful in that.the assistant ticket agent is engaged in one of the four main industries of the coun-try—-that of selling. Mass production lias made the supply of goods relatively so easy that tin altogether disproporfibnate number of people are engaged in distribution. Nowhere in the world are there so many “salesmen”; and nowhere in the world is so much “service” offered in the mad scramble to push goods upon people. Even the bootlegger has the cant of “service.” But the service is. frequently more apparent than real. The 'travel bureau attached to a New York hotel will write to each incoming visitor assuring him Of its readiness to give any information he may desire. But, if he should apply to the bureau, he may find the information he requires dispensed with such curtness as almbs't to nullify the effect of the first courtesy. But ttiat is in NewYork, which has manners all. its own, and is in no way typical of the country as a whole. Giving a telephone number to the operator in a public exchange, the traveller-new to the city will notice that the operator does not answer, -or in any way acknowledge his request. But if he should be so unwary as to repeat it he will probably be told curtly:—“l heard yer first time.” There is no time ’for a second time in New York.

RESTAURANT LIFE The haste apparent everywhere is surprising in view of the general appreciation of many of the adornments of life. New York has more theatres than liny other city in the world, and incohiparably more luxurious kinemas. Ties, shbes, and hats match the best that London or Paris can provide. Restaurants and cafes, drug stores, and fruit-drink stores are innumerable, and all seem to do a brisk business. A visit to almost any restaurant shows why this business is so brisk; but it is a long time before one gets accustomed to the sight of grown men sitting on stools in a drug store, eating crocolate sundaes.

Expenditure on education is lavish. But the results, in New York, are disappointing. New York. University, an institution much more typical of the city than Columbia, is like a series of office buildings, both inside and out. Seen at night, from the other side of Washington Square, with every window' brilliantly lighted, it is inspiring. But in the daytime it has a drab Appearance Which all its new paint and unceasing activity cannot efface. Classes go on from early morning to late evening; every room is occupied fbr 12 hours every day. In the faculty rooms there are rows on rows of desks —exactly like a bank except that it is not so well furnished. The dean of a faculty explains it as. follows:—The site of this building, midway between the uptown shopping and downtown commercial centres, is Worth millions of dollars. So that each professor, with his ten feet by four, or lecturer, with five feet by three, is being gener°nsly treated. But that is not the whole explanation. New York University, surrounded by skyscrapers and. able to extend only upwards, is interior organisation exactly like the University of California, Which looks out over San Francisco Bay and has the almost unlimited space of Berkeley at its disposal. ~T ? ,s e<s t - e flnes t expression of New Yorks civilisation, one must look neinor offices, but at the YanWay stations, in the Central Station, for instance, there is perfect organisation, and, but for a certain heaviness in style which is unlike New York, perfect form. Everything is clean, spacious, and Well lighted. Unlike our English railway stations which to have grown in hap-

hazard. fashion to meet growiiig heeds, New York stations have been carefully 'planAed down to the smallest detail. The circular information b'ureAu is rigfit iii the centre of the concourse, facihg the traveller from whichever direbti.6n he enters. All around are. ticket Offices, telephone and telegraph, post offices, restaurants, and a railway mOeum known as a “transportation exposition.” • Everything is to hand exfc'Opt the waiting-room, which one has to look for! —DOndon “Times.”