April sunlight on the river and the liners putting out to sea. Paris!
Florence! the Alps! the Mediterranean! I turned away and let my thoughts
run back to the time when Emmeline and I were in the habit of making,
once a year, the trip to Prospect Park South.
The Subway has brought this delightful region within the radius of
ordinary tourist travel, though I am told that the element of adventure
has not been completely eliminated, owing to the necessity of
transferring at Atlantic Avenue, where it is still the custom of the
traffic policemen to direct passengers to the wrong car. At the time of
which I am speaking, Prospect Park South lay off the beaten track, but
the difficulties of the venture were atoned for by the delight of
finding one's self, at the journey's end, in a world of new impressions,
a world untouched by the rush and clamour of our own days, and steeped
in the colour and poetry which Cook's, cotton goods, and the
cinematograph have been wiping out in Europe and the Near East.
There were no Baedekers then for travellers to Prospect Park South.
To-day I presume guide-books and maps may be purchased at the Manhattan
end of the Brooklyn Bridge if people still go by that route. We did
without guide-books or guides, because the inhabitants of Prospect Park
South were a kindly folk and as a rule would wait for visitors at the
trolley stops, with an umbrella. When this did not happen, we asked our
way from passers-by. These were always strangers who had lost their way.
The inhabitants were either peacefully at home or waiting at the trolley
stops. For that matter an inhabitant, when encountered by rare chance,
was not really of assistance. A resident always referred to streets and
avenues by the names they bore when he first moved in; and inasmuch as
the streets in Prospect Park South are renamed every year and the
street numbers altered at the same time, the settlers, who would find
their own homes by intuition, were worse than useless as guides. On the
other hand, to meet a stranger who was lost was always a help. It was a
peculiarity of strangers who were lost in Prospect Park South that they
would always be passing the street you were looking for, while you in
turn had just turned in from the street they were looking for, so that
an exchange of information was always mutually profitable.
The following hints for travellers to Prospect Park South are based upon
our experiences of some years ago. Those who go by the Interborough tube
will probably find that changed conditions have rendered many of these
rules obsolete. But for those who go by way of Brooklyn Bridge they may
still be of some value. First then as to dress. As a rule one should
dress for Prospect Park South very much as for a short run to Europe.
That is to say, woollens are always preferable, especially in the rainy
season (which in Prospect Park South is coextensive with the visiting
season), owing to the long waits between cars. It is true, as I have
said, that the inhabitants of Prospect Park South are accustomed to wait
at the trolley stations with an umbrella, and no household is without a
full assortment of old mackintoshes and rubbers to lend to improvident
visitors who believed the weather reports in the paper. But house
parties in Prospect Park South are frequently large and there may not be
enough old raincoats to go around. A light overcoat, an umbrella,
rubbers or a pair of stout shoes, and a pocket electric light for
reading names on the street lamps at night, will be found sufficient for
the ordinary traveller.
The choice of route is important. Those who, like us, live in upper
Manhattan may lay their plans (excluding the Subway) either for the
Ninth Avenue L or the Sixth Avenue L. As far south as Fifty-third Street
the two lines coincide. Below Fifty-third Street the question of route
should be determined by one's personal preferences in the matter of
scenery; though not entirely. Veteran travellers assure me that there is
also a difference in comfort. The curves are sharper on Sixth Avenue,
but there are more flat wheels on the Ninth Avenue line. According as
the tourist is susceptible to lateral or vertical disturbances he will
make his choice. The front and rear cars are to be recommended above all
others because a seat may always be obtained. I recognise, however, that
if the traveller has long been a resident of New York he will force his
way into the middle cars. Then, hanging from a strap, he may curse the
company and be in turn cursed by the quick-tempered gentleman upon whose
feet he is standing.
A phrase-book is not necessary. The English language is used on both the
Sixth and Ninth Avenue lines, and being equally incomprehensible, cannot
be looked up in a dictionary. Only legal currency of the United States
is accepted at the ticket-offices, but change is frequently given in
Canadian dimes. It is convenient, but not essential, to supply one's
self with reading matter at the beginning of the trip. Newspapers are
always to be had for the picking on the floor of the cars. The question
of fresh air, a topic of constant unpleasant controversy between
American travellers and Europeans on the Continent, need not concern the
traveller here. The matter is regulated by the company management which
keeps the windows closed in summer and open in winter. Passengers of an
independent turn of mind will be wary of opening windows on their own
account. The sudden entrance of air following upon the heavy
perspiration induced by the effort has been known to lead to pneumonia.
With these few general considerations in mind, we may proceed to give a
rapid sketch of the route the tourist traverses. As we have said, down
to Fifty-third Street the passenger on the Sixth Avenue and on the Ninth
Avenue will pass through the same landscape. As the train makes the
magnificent curve through One Hundred and Tenth Street he will have
before him on the right the towering mass of the Cathedral of St. John,
which a kindly neighbour will tell him is Columbia University, and on
the left the lovely, wooded heights of Central Park, their base skirted
by a low line of garages and French dyeing establishments. At
Ninety-eighth Street, on the right, is a water tower of red brick, which
probably has the distinction of being the tallest water tower on
Ninety-eighth Street. At Seventy-seventh Street to the left is the
Museum of Natural History, which the same kindly informant to whom we
have referred will describe as the Metropolitan Museum of Art. On every
cross street to the right one may catch a glimpse of the beautiful
Riverside Drive with the smoke from the New York Central's freight
engines rising above the trees.
At Fifty-third Street the Sixth Avenue trains diverge to the left for a
short distance and then, turning south once more, carry the traveller
through a region heavily overgrown with skeleton advertising signs of
woman's apparel and table waters. If the Ninth Avenue route is selected
the vista is one of tenement houses and factories. At Thirty-third
Street is the new Pennsylvania Station, the cost of which the same
kindly neighbour will exaggerate by several hundred millions of dollars.
Ten blocks further down are the buildings of the General Theological
Seminary, so beautiful in line and colour that no resident of New York
ever alludes to them. A few minutes further down the train rounds a
curve and the traveller, if he goes in the early morning, as every
visitor to Prospect Park South must, catches a glimpse of the fairy land
of steeples and battlements of lower New York, a Camelot wreathed with
wisps of steam. For the lover of scenery the Ninth Avenue is to be
unhesitatingly recommended, whereas the Sixth Avenue route will give
pleasure to the citizen who takes pride in the development of our
garment industries.
I have no space to describe the interesting views to be had while
crossing Brooklyn Bridge. I can only mention the harbour with the
sunlight upon it, a spectacle of loveliness for which New York will be
forgiven much. Straight under the span of the bridge is the pier from
which Colonel Roosevelt set sail for South America. On the left, close
to the edge of the river, is the beetling mass of sugar refineries
famous the world over as the scene of an epoch-making experiment in
modifying the law of gravitation, when the sugar company succeeded in
weighing in three thousand pounds of sugar to the ton and paying duty on
the smaller amount to the United States Government.
Of the trip through Brooklyn to Prospect Park South I will not attempt
to give any description. For that matter I will not pretend that on any
of our journeys I have carried away a definite idea of Brooklyn. For
that a lifetime is necessary.