Hudson Street has a pleasant savour of food. It resounds with the dull
rumble of cruising drays, which bear the names of well-known brands of
groceries; it is faintly salted by an aroma of the docks. One sees great
signs announcing cocoanut and whalebone or such unusual wares; there is
a fine tang of coffee in the air round about the corner of Beach Street.
Here is that vast, massy brick edifice, the New York Central freight
station, built 1868, which gives an impression of being about to be torn
down. From a dilapidated upper window hangs a faded banner of the Irish
Republic. At noontime this region shows a mood of repose. Truckmen loll
in sunny corners, puffing pipes, with their curved freight hooks hung
round their necks. In a dark smithy half a dozen sit comfortably round a
huge wheel which rests on an anvil, using it as a lunch table. Near
Canal Street two men are loading ice into a yellow refrigerator car, and
their practiced motions are pleasant to watch. One stands in the wagon
and swings the big blocks upward with his tongs. The other, on the wagon
roof, seizes the piece deftly and drops it through a trap on top of the
car. The blocks of ice flash and shimmer as they pass through the
sunshine. In Jim O'Dea's blacksmith shop, near Broome Street, fat white
horses are waiting patiently to be shod, while a pink glow wavers
outward from the forge.
[Illustration]
At the corner of Hudson and Broome streets we fell in with our friend
Endymion, it being our purpose to point out to him the house, one of
that block of old red dwellings between Hudson and Varick, which Robert
C. Holliday has described in "Broome Street Straws," a book which we
hope is known to all lovers of New York local colour. Books which have a
strong sense of place, and are born out of particular streets--and
especially streets of an odd, rich, and well-worn flavour--are not any
too frequent. Mr. Holliday's Gissingesque appreciation of the humours of
landladies and all the queer fish that shoal through the backwaters of
New York lodging houses makes this Broome Street neighbourhood
exceedingly pleasant for the pilgrim to examine. It was in Mr.
Holliday's honour that we sallied into a Hudson Street haberdashery,
just opposite the channel of Broome Street, and adorned ourself with a
new soft collar, also having the pleasure of seeing Endymion regretfully
wave away some gorgeous mauve and pink neckwear that the agreeable
dealer laid before him with words of encouragement. We also stood
tranced by a marvellous lithograph advertising a roach powder in a
neighbouring window, and wondered whether Mr. Holliday himself could
have drawn the original in the days when he and Walter Jack Duncan lived
in garrets on Broome Street and were art students together. Certainly
this picture had the vigorous and spirited touch that one would expect
from the draughting wrist of Mr. Holliday. It showed a very terrible
scene, apparently a civil war among the roaches, for one army of these
agile insects was treasonously squirting a house with the commended
specific, and the horrified and stricken inmates were streaming forth
and being carried away in roach ambulances, attended by roach nurses, to
a neighbouring roach cemetery. All done on a large and telling scale,
with every circumstance of dismay and reproach on the faces of the dying
blattidae. Not even our candour, which is immense, permits us to reprint
the slogan the manufacturer has adopted for his poster: those who go
prowling on Hudson Street may see it for themselves.
In the old oyster and chop house just below Canal Street we enjoyed a
very agreeable lunch. To this place the Broome Street garreteers (so Mr.
Holliday has told us) used to come on days of high prosperity when some
cheque arrived from a publisher. At that time the tavern kept an open
fireplace, with a bright nest of coals in the chilly season; and there
was a fine mahogany bar. But we are no laudator of acted time; the
fireplace has been bricked up, it is true; but the sweet cider is
admirable, and as for the cheesecake, we would back it against all the
Times Square variety that Ben De Casseres rattles about. It is
delightful and surprising to find on Hudson Street an ordinary so droll
and Dickensish in atmosphere, and next door is a window bearing the sign
WALTER PETER. We feel sure that Mr. Holliday, were he still living in
those parts, would have cajoled the owner into changing that E to an A.
Our stroll led us north as far as Charlton Street, which the geographers
of Greenwich Village claim as the lower outpost of their domain.
Certainly it is a pleasing byway, running quietly through the afternoon,
and one lays an envious eye upon the demure brick houses, with their
old-fashioned doorways, pale blue shutters, and the studio windows on
the southern side. At the corner of Varick Street is a large house
showing the sign, "Christopher Columbus University of America."
Macdougal Street gives one a distant blink of the thin greenery of
Washington Square.
An unexpected impulse led us eastward on Grand Street, to revisit Max
Maisel's interesting bookshop.--We had never forgotten the thrill of
finding this place by chance one night when prowling toward Seward Park.
In bookshops of a liberal sort we always find it advisable to ask first
of all for a copy of Frank Harris's "The Man Shakespeare." It is hardly
ever to be found (unfortunately), so the inquiry is comparatively safe
for one in a frugal mood; and it is a tactful question, for the mention
of this book shows the bookseller that you are an intelligent and
understanding kind of person, and puts intercourse on good terms at
once. However, we did find one book that we felt we simply had to have,
as it is our favourite book for giving away to right-minded people--"The
Invisible Playmate," by William Canton. We fear that there are still
lovers of children who do not know this book; but if so, it is not our
fault.
Grand Street is a child at heart, and one may watch it making merry not
only along the pavement but in the shop windows. Endymion's gallant
spirit was strongly uplifted by this lively thoroughfare, and he strode
like one whose heart was hitting on all six cylinders. Max Maisel's
bookshop alone is enough to put one in a seemly humour. But then one
sees the gorgeous pink and green allurements of the pastry cooks'
windows, and who can resist those little lemon-flavoured,
saffron-coloured cakes, which are so thirst-compelling and send one
hastily to the nearest bar for another beaker of cider? And it seems
natural to find here the oldest toyshop in New York, where Endymion
dashed to the upper floor in search of juvenile baubles, and we both
greatly admired the tall, dark, and beauteous damsel who waited on us
with such patience and charity. Endymion by this time was convinced that
he was living in the very heart and climax of a poem; he became more and
more unreal as we walked along: we could see his physical outline
(tenuous enough at best) shimmer and blur as he became increasingly
alcaic.
Along the warm crowded pavement there suddenly piped a liquid, gurgling,
chirring whistle, rising and dropping with just the musical trill that
floats from clumps of creekside willows at this time of year. We had
passed several birdshops on our walk, and supposed that another was
near. A song sparrow, was our instant conclusion, and we halted to see
where the cage could be hung. And then we saw our warbler. He was little
and plump and red-faced, with a greasy hat and a drooping beer-gilded
moustache, and he wore on his coat a bright blue peddler's license
badge. He shuffled along, stooping over a pouch of tin whistles and
gurgling in one as he went. There's your poem, we said to
Endymion--"The Song-Sparrow on Grand Street."
We propose to compile a little handbook for truants, which we shall call
"How to Spend Three Hours at Lunch Time." This idea occurred to us on
looking at our watch when we got back to our kennel.