O.O. McIntyre
Lexington Herald-Leader/July 18, 1914
NEW YORK July 18— A Sunday afternoon walk thru Wall Street and the other streets that wind off its hips is like a stroll thru a deserted village. There is no suggestion of life save in the little steam geysers that come up thru tiny openings in the man-holes.
A few messenger boys from a nearby telegraph office were shooting dice for pennies on the steps of the sub-treasury. But the game was interrupted by a gong from their office and they scampered away.
Over at the Fraunce Tavern, where Washington bade farewell to his troops, the windows were shuttered. A sleeping cat was stretched out in the sun on the stoop.
The great banks, whose vaults hoard millions, are not curtained. One may see in all parts of them. Even at night they are lighted so that the watchmen and policemen may see inside from the streets.
Wall Street is in a disorderly array just now. Scores of new buildings are going up, for Wall Street is in dire need of more space, and the only way to satisfy this demand is by building skyscrapers. Only in the clouds is there space.
Banks and brokerage houses have found that the only way they can remain in Wall Street is to buy or erect new buildings, occupy what they need, and rent the rest. The Morgans have a great new skyscraper. The Gregory building has just been completed. In one block five new skyscrapers are in the process of construction.
It is a gloomy afternoon one spends in Wall Street on Sunday. At the very entrance is Trinity with its half-hourly doleful chimes and chipped worn slabs in the cemetery. Now and then the sexton sits out on the steps to take a few pipe puffs. He seems the loneliest of men.
All the doorways are iron grated. Down in Broad Street, where the hundreds of young men gesticulate wildly in deaf and dumb code during the weekdays, pigeons had descended to the asphalt and were fluttering around. The flapping of their wings could be heard several blocks away.
Thousands of pigeons live in the eaves of Wall Street buildings. There is a superstition about driving them away. One of the greatest financial crashes in Wall Street history followed within two hours after a score of building attendants had gone to the roof and driven pigeons away.
The narrow little slits of streets like Beaver and Nassau have a few lunch rooms that remain open on Sunday, but very few patrons come. Those that eat there are building attendants, elevator operators and watchmen.
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Society is talking about the apparent happiness of Miss Edith Gould, who recently eloped to marry Carroll E. Wainwright, a young man of modest means. The couple now live in a four-room apartment on Park Avenue and the Gould heiress is doing her own cooking and housework. The former Miss Gould has never been denied any luxury. She was her father’s favorite, it is said. She was born on the palatial yacht of her father as it lay in the harbor of Oyster Bay in 1901. Her two brothers, Kingdon and George J. Jr., ignored the question of wealth in their marriages. All seem to be supremely happy. There are those who say that the elder Gould, while pretending to frown upon the sudden love matches that ended in the marriages of his children, is secretly very much pleased.
Prohibition has lifted the Sunday dance ban in Manhattan. The ultra places have never permitted Sundav dancing until the past week when simultaneously they decided to permit dancing on the roof gardens and in the smart cafes.
The re-write men on Park Row had fun with the story about Rosco the Monkey this week. The monkey was in a bird and fish store overnight. The shop is just below the Waldorf on Fifth Avenue and about 9 o’clock in the evening Rosco decided that the place was too tame. He upset 60 bowls of goldfish, released two or three hundred canaries and when a policeman came grabbed the officer’s club and whacked him over the head with it. Rosco belonged to a sailor on shore for the evening and he was left at the bird shop just for the night. He will never be permitted there again.
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It is a sight to see the thousands of motor trucks traveling west on the roads around New York. Many have huge signs saying “I am Bound for Such and Such a Place.” It is said that more than 68,000 motor trucks passed a given point near Peekskill last month. A Motor Truck Exhibition — the first — is to be held in New York the first of January to show just what part the motor truck is taking in the business life of the nation. Many of the motor trucks now have pneumatic tires which, it is said, materially lengthens their usefulness. This has been demonstrated by the U.S. government, which uses them on trucks under five tons which are operated in the army. The Merchant’s Trucking Corporation, a subsidiary of the Citizens Transportation Committee, announces that on one day recently it moved a total of 363,000 pounds of goods from pier by motor truck, in this way relieving the tie-up caused by the local strike.
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A happy city man who does not worry about the high cost of rent has been found. In fact he has no housing problems. A houseboat in the Harlem River is his home and it costs him $60 a year. There are two houseboat colonies, but also, there is no room for more. The present residents are determined not to be crowded and they declare there is no more room. The only rental is to the city and the houseboat owner pays $60 a year for the privilege of mooring in the Harlem River.
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It was a puzzling problem that faced the maître de hotel of a fashionable cafe the other night after the theatre. A well-dressed white woman in evening gown came in with a handsome mulatto — a man well known because of his profession. He too was in evening clothes. They had stepped from the woman’s limousine. The suave head waiter had many vacant tables. He bowed and flashed a signal to a captain. While the head waiter talked, the captain and his aides worked. And in a few minutes every table had a “Reserved” card on it. Then the head waiter ushered the couple around apparently looking for a table but it could not be found. The couple left.
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