NEW YORK, _May 24, '79_.--Perhaps no quarters of this city (I have
return'd again for awhile,) make more brilliant, animated, crowded,
spectacular human presentations these fine May afternoons than the two
I am now going to describe from personal observation. First: that
area comprising Fourteenth street (especially the short range between
Broadway and Fifth avenue) with Union square, its adjacencies, and so
retrostretching down Broadway for half a mile. All the walks here are
wide, and the spaces ample and free--now flooded with liquid gold from
the last two hours of powerful sunshine. The whole area at 5 o'clock,
the days of my observations, must have contain'd from thirty to
forty thousand finely-dress'd people, all in motion, plenty of them
good-looking, many beautiful women, often youths and children,
the latter in groups with their nurses--the trottoirs everywhere
close-spread, thick-tangled, (yet no collision, no trouble,) with masses
of bright color, action, and tasty toilets; (surely the women dress
better than ever before, and the men do too.) As if New York would show
these afternoons what it can do in its humanity, its choicest physique
and physiognomy, and its countless prodigality of locomotion, dry goods,
glitter, magnetism, and happiness.
Second: also from 5 to 7 P.M. the stretch of Fifth avenue, all the way
from the Central Park exits at Fifty-ninth street, down to Fourteenth,
especially along the high grade by Fortieth street, and down the hill.
A Mississippi of horses and rich vehicles, not by dozens and scores, but
hundreds and thousands--the broad avenue filled and cramm'd with them--a
moving, sparkling, hurrying crush, for more than two miles. (I wonder
they don't get block'd, but I believe they never do.) Altogether it is
to me the marvel sight of New York. I like to get in one of the Fifth
avenue stages and ride up, stemming the swift-moving procession. I doubt
if London or Paris or any city in the world can show such a carriage
carnival as I have seen here five or six times these beautiful May
afternoons.