Such is the constant process. As
private residences give way to stores and offices, the upper portion of
the island is crowded with their enlarged dimensions and elaborate
luxury; churches are in the same manner sacrificed, until St. Paul's and
Trinity alone remain of the old sacred landmarks; and the suburban
feature--those "fields" where burgomasters foregathered, the militia
drilled, and Hamilton's youthful eloquence roused the people to arms--is
transferred to the other and distant end of Manhattan, and expanded into
a vast, variegated, and beautiful rural domain,--that "the Park" may
coincide in extent and attraction with the increase of the population
and growth of the city's area. Thus a perpetual tide of emigration, and
the pressure of the business on the resident section,--involving change
of domicile, substitution of uses, the alternate destruction and
erection of buildings, each being larger and more costly in material
than its predecessor,--make the metropolis of the New World appear, to
the visitor from the Old, a shifting bivouac rather than a stable city,
where hereditary homes are impossible, and nomadic instincts prevalent,
and where local associations, such as endear or identify the streets
abroad, seem as incongruous as in the Eastern desert or Western woods,
whose dwellers "fold their tents like the Arabs, and as silently steal
away.
Pages:
176
177
178
179
180
181
182
183
184
185
186
187
188
189
190
191
192
193
194
195
196
197
198
199
200