The Color Of A Great City - free ebook by Theodore Dreiser

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The Color Of A Great City

Theodore Dreiser

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40 chapters

Books by THEODORE DREISER

Books by THEODORE DREISER

THE COLOR OF A GREAT CITY THEODORE DREISER Illustrations by C. B. FALLS BONI AND LIVERIGHT Publishers :: :: New York Copyright, 1923, by Boni and Liveright, Inc. PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA First Printing, December, 1923 Second Printing, May, 1924...

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FOREWORD

FOREWORD

My only excuse for offering these very brief pictures of the City of New York as it was between 1900 and 1914 or ’15, or thereabout, is that they are of the very substance of the city I knew in my early adventurings in it. Also, and more particularly, they represent in part, at least, certain phases which at that time most arrested and appealed to me, and which now are fast vanishing or are no more. I refer more particularly to such studies as The Bread-line , The Push-cart Man , The Toilers of

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THE CITY OF MY DREAMS

THE CITY OF MY DREAMS

It was silent, the city of my dreams, marble and serene, due perhaps to the fact that in reality I knew nothing of crowds, poverty, the winds and storms of the inadequate that blow like dust along the paths of life. It was an amazing city, so far-flung, so beautiful, so dead. There were tracks of iron stalking through the air, and streets that were as cañons, and stairways that mounted in vast flights to noble plazas, and steps that led down into deep places where were, strangely enough, underwo

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THE CITY AWAKES

THE CITY AWAKES

Have you ever arisen at dawn or earlier in New York and watched the outpouring in the meaner side-streets or avenues? It is a wondrous thing. It seems to have so little to do with the later, showier, brisker life of the day, and yet it has so very much. It is in the main so drab or shabby-smart at best, poor copies of what you see done more efficiently later in the day. Typewriter girls in almost stage or society costumes entering shabby offices; boys and men made up to look like actors and mill

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THE WATERFRONT

THE WATERFRONT

Were I asked to choose a subject which would most gratify my own fancy I believe I would choose the docks and piers of New York. Nowhere may you find a more pleasingly encouraging picture-life going on at a leisurely gait, but going, nor one withal set in a lovelier framework. And, personally, I have always foolishly imagined that the laborers and men of affairs connected with them must be the happier for that connection. It is more than probable that that is not true, but what can be more inter

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THE LOG OF A HARBOR PILOT

THE LOG OF A HARBOR PILOT

An ocean pilot-boat lay off Tompkinsville of an early spring afternoon, in the stillest water. The sun was bright, and only the lightest wind was stirring. When we reached the end of the old cotton dock, an illustrator and myself, commissioned by a then but now no more popular magazine, there she was, a small, two-masted schooner of about fifty tons burden, rocking gently upon the water. We accepted the services of a hawking urchin, who had a canoe to rent, and who had followed us down the main

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BUMS

BUMS

Whenever I think of them I think of the spectacle that genius of the burlesque world of my day, Nat Wills, used to present when, in fluttering rags and tatters, his vestless shirt open at the breast, revealing no underwear, his shoes three times too big, and torn and cracked, a small battered straw hat, from a hole in which his hair protruded, his trousers upheld by a string, and that indefinable smirk of satisfaction of which he was capable flickering over his dirty and unshaven face he was won

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THE MICHAEL J. POWERS ASSOCIATION

THE MICHAEL J. POWERS ASSOCIATION

In an area of territory including something like forty thousand residents of the crowded East Side of New York there dwells and rules an individual whose political significance might well be a lesson to the world. Stout, heavy-headed and comfortably constituted, except in the matter of agility, he walks; and where he is not a personal arbiter he is at least a familiar figure. Not a saloon-keeper (and there is one to every half-block) but knows him perfectly and would be glad to take off his hat

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THE FIRE

THE FIRE

It is two o’clock of a sultry summer afternoon in one of those amazingly crowded blocks on the East Side south of Fourteenth Street, which is drowsing out its commonplace existence through the long and wearisome summer. The men of the community, for it may as well be called a community since it involves all that makes a community, and that in a very small space, are away at work or in their small stores, which take up all of the ground floors everywhere. The housewives are doing their shopping i

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THE CAR YARD

THE CAR YARD

If I were a painter one of the first things I would paint would be one or another of the great railroad yards that abound in every city, those in New York and Chicago being as interesting as any. Only I fear that my brush would never rest with one portrait. There would be pictures of it in sunshine and cloud, in rain and snow, in light and dark, and when heat caused the rails and the cars to bake and shimmer, and the bitter cold the mixture of smoke and steam to ascend in tall, graceful, rhythmi

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THE FLIGHT OF PIGEONS

THE FLIGHT OF PIGEONS

In all the city there is no more beautiful sight than that which is contributed by the flight of pigeons. You may see them flying in one place and another, here over the towering stacks of some tall factory, there over the low roofs of some workaday neighborhood; the yard of a laborer, the roof of some immense office building, the eaves of a shed or barn furnishing them shelter and a point of rendezvous from which they sail. I have seen them at morning, when the sky was like silver, turning in j

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ON BEING POOR

ON BEING POOR

Poverty is so relative. I have lived to be thirty-two now, and am just beginning to find that out. Hitherto, in no vague way, poverty to me seemed to be indivisibly united with the lack of money. And this in the face of a long series of experiences which should have proved to any sane person that this was only relatively true. Without money, or at times with so little that an ordinary day laborer would have scoffed at my supply, I still found myself meditating gloomily and with much show of reas

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SIX O’CLOCK

SIX O’CLOCK

The hours in which the world is working are numerous and always fascinating. It is not the night-time or the Sabbath or the day of pleasure that counts, but the day’s work. Whether it be as statesman or soldier, poet or laborer, the day’s work is the thing. And at the end of the day’s work, in its commoner forms at least, comes the signal of its accomplishment, the whistle, the bell, the fading light, the arresting face of the clock. To me, personally, there is no hour which quite equals that wh

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THE TOILERS OF THE TENEMENTS

THE TOILERS OF THE TENEMENTS

New York City has one hundred thousand people who, under unfavorable conditions, work with their fingers for so little money that they are understood, even by the uninitiated general public, to form a class by themselves. These are by some called sewing-machine workers, by others tenement toilers, and by still others sweatshop employees; but, in a general sense, the term, tenement workers, includes them all. They form a great section in one place, and in others little patches, ministered to by s

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THE END OF A VACATION

THE END OF A VACATION

It was the close of summer. The great mountain and lake areas to the north of New York were pouring down their thousands into the hot, sun-parched city. Vast throngs were coming back on the steamboats of the Hudson. Vaster throngs were crowding the hourly trains which whirled and thundered past the long lane of villages which stretches between Albany and New York City. The great station at Albany was packed with a perspiring mass. The several fast expresses running without stop to New York City

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THE TRACK WALKER

THE TRACK WALKER

If you have nothing else to do some day when you are passing through the vast network of subway or railway tracks of any of the great railways running northward or westward or eastward out of New York, give a thought to the man who walks them for you, the man on whom your safety, in this particular place, so much depends. He is a peculiar individual. His work is so very exceptional, so very different from your own. While you are sitting in your seat placidly wondering whether you are going to ha

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THE REALIZATION OF AN IDEAL

THE REALIZATION OF AN IDEAL

Any quality to which the heart of man aspires it may attain. Would you have virtue in the world, establish it yourself. Would you have tenderness, be tender. It is only by acting in the name of that which you deem to be an ideal that its realization is brought to pass. In the crowded section of the lower East Side of New York, where poverty reigns most distressingly, there stands a church which is a true representative of the religion of the poor. It is an humble building, crowded in among the f

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THE PUSHCART MAN

THE PUSHCART MAN

One of the most appealing and interesting elements in city life, particularly that metropolitan city life which characterizes New York, is the pushcart man. This curious creature of modest intellect and varying nationality infests all the highways of the great city without actually dominating any of them except a few streets on the East Side. He is as hard-working, in the main, as he is ubiquitous. His cart is so shabby, his stock in trade so small. If he actually earns a reasonable wage it is b

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A VANISHED SEASIDE RESORT

A VANISHED SEASIDE RESORT

At Broadway and Twenty-third Street, where later, on this and some other ground, the once famed Flatiron Building was placed, there stood at one time a smaller building, not more than six stories high, the northward looking blank wall of which was completely covered with a huge electric sign which read: SWEPT BY OCEAN BREEZES THE GREAT HOTELS PAIN’S FIREWORKS SOUSA’S BAND SEIDL’S GREAT ORCHESTRA THE RACES NOW—MANHATTAN BEACH—NOW Each line was done in a different color of lights, light green for

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THE BREAD-LINE

THE BREAD-LINE

It is such an old subject in New York. It has been here so long. For thirty-five or forty years newspapers and magazines have discussed the bread-line, and yet there it is, as healthy and vigorous a feature of the city as though it were something to be desired. And it has grown from a few applicants to many, from a small line to a large one. And now it is a sight, an institution, like a cathedral or a monument. A curious thing, when you come to think of it. Poverty is not desirable. Its dramatic

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OUR RED SLAYER

OUR RED SLAYER

If you wish to see an exemplification of the law of life, the survival of one by the failure and death of another, go some day to any one of the great abattoirs which to-day on the East River, or in Jersey City, or elsewhere near the great metropolis receive and slay annually the thousands and hundreds of thousands of animals that make up a part of the city’s meat supply. And there be sure and see, also, the individual who, as your agent and mine, is vicariously responsible for the awful slaught

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WHENCE THE SONG

WHENCE THE SONG

Along Broadway in the height of the theatrical season, but more particularly in that laggard time from June to September, when the great city is given over to those who may not travel, and to actors seeking engagements, there is ever to be seen a certain representative figure, now one individual and now another, of a world so singular that it might well engage the pen of a Balzac or that of a Cervantes. I have in mind an individual whose high hat and smooth Prince Albert coat are still a delicio

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CHARACTERS

CHARACTERS

The glory of the city is its variety. The drama of it lies in its extremes. I have been thinking to-day of all the interesting characters that have passed before me in times past on the streets of this city: generals, statesmen, artists, politicians, a most interesting company, and then of another company by no means so distinguished or so comfortable—the creatures at the other end of the ladder who, far from having brains, or executive ability, or wealth, or fame, have nothing save a weird asto

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THE BEAUTY OF LIFE

THE BEAUTY OF LIFE

The beauty of life is involved very largely with the outline of its scenery. There are many other things which make up the joy of our world for us, but this is one of the most salient of its charms. The stretch of a level valley, the graceful rise of a hill, water running, a clump or a forest of trees—these add to the majesty of our being and show us how great a thing our world really is. The significance of scenes in general which hold and bind our lives for us, making them sweet or grim accord

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A WAYPLACE OF THE FALLEN

A WAYPLACE OF THE FALLEN

In the center of what was once a fashionable section of New York, but is now a badly deteriorated tenement region, stands a hotel which to me is one of the curiosities of New York. It is really not a hotel at all, in one sense, and yet in another it is, a hybrid or cross between a hotel and a charity, one of those odd philanthropies of the early years following nineteen hundred, which were supposed to bridge with some form of relief the immense gap that existed between the rich and the poor; a g

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HELL’S KITCHEN

HELL’S KITCHEN

N. B. When I first came to New York, and for years afterward, it was a whim of the New York newspapers to dub that region on the West Side which lies between Thirty-sixth and Forty-first Streets and Ninth Avenue and the Hudson River as Hell’s Kitchen . There was assumed to be operative there, shooting and killing at will, a gang of young roughs that for savagery and brutality was not to be outrivaled by any of the various savage groups of the city. Disturbances, murders, riots, were assumed to b

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A CERTAIN OIL REFINERY

A CERTAIN OIL REFINERY

There is a section of land very near New York, lying at the extreme southern point of the peninsula known as Bayonne, which is given up to a peculiar business. The peninsula is a long neck of land lying between those two large bays which extend a goodly distance on either hand, one toward the city of Newark, the other toward the vast and restless ocean beyond Brooklyn. Stormy winds sweep over it at many periods of the year. The seagull and the tern fly high over its darksome roof-tops. Tall stac

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THE BOWERY MISSION

THE BOWERY MISSION

In the lower stretches of the Bowery, in New York, that street once famous for a tawdry sprightliness but now run to humdrum and commonplace, stands the Bowery Mission. It is really a pretentious affair of its kind, the most showy and successful of any religious effort directed toward reclaiming the bum, the sot, the crook and the failure. As a matter of fact, the three former, and not always the latter, are not easily reclaimed by religion or anything else. It is only when the three former dege

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THE WONDER OF THE WATER

THE WONDER OF THE WATER

I cross, each morning, a bridge that spans a river of running water. It is not a wide river, but one populous with boats and teeming with all the mercantile life of a great city. Its current is swift, its bottom deep; it carries on its glassy bosom the freight of a thousand—of ten thousand merchants. Only the conception of something supernally wonderful haunts me as I cross it, and I gaze at the picture of its boats and barges, its spars and sails, spellbound by their beauty. The boats on this l

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THE MAN ON THE BENCH

THE MAN ON THE BENCH

It is nine o’clock of a summer’s night. The great city all about is still astir, active, interested, apparently comfortable. Lights gleam out from stores lazily. The cars go rumbling by only partially filled, as is usual at this time of night. People stroll in parks in a score of places throughout the city, enjoying the cool of the night, such as it is. In any one of these, as the evening wanes, may be witnessed one of the characteristic spectacles of the town: the gathering of the “benchers.” H

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THE MEN IN THE DARK

THE MEN IN THE DARK

It is not really dark in the accepted sense of the word, for a great, yellow, electric lamp sputtering overhead casts a wide circle of gold, but it is one-fifteen of a cold January morning, and this light is all the immediate light there is. The offices of the great newspaper center, the sidewalk in front of one of which constitutes the stage of this scene, are dark and silent. The great presses in every newspaper building hereabouts are getting ready to whir mightily, and if only the passers-by

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THE MEN IN THE STORM

THE MEN IN THE STORM

It is a winter evening. Already, at four o’clock, the somber hues of night are over all. A heavy snow is falling, a fine, picking, whipping snow, borne forward by a swift wind in long, thin lines. The street is bedded with it, six inches of cold, soft carpet, churned brown by the crush of teams and the feet of men. Along the Bowery men slouch through it with collars up and hats pulled over their ears. Before a dirty, four-story building gathers a crowd of men. It begins with the approach of two

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THE MEN IN THE SNOW

THE MEN IN THE SNOW

Winter days in a great city bring some peculiar sights. If it snows, the streets are at once a slushy mess, and the transaction of business is, to a certain extent, a hardship. In its first flakes it is picturesque; the air is filled with flying feathers and the sky lowery with somber clouds. Later comes the slush and dirt, and not infrequently bitter cold. The city rings with the grind and squeak of cold-bitten vehicles, and men and women, the vast tide of humanity which fills its streets, hurr

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THE FRESHNESS OF THE UNIVERSE

THE FRESHNESS OF THE UNIVERSE

The freshness of the world’s original forces is one of the wonders which binds me in perpetual fascination. My own strength is a little thing. I am sometimes sick and sometimes well; some days I am bounding with enthusiastic life, at other times I am drooping with weariness and ill feeling. But these things, the great currents of original power which make the world, are fresh and forever renewing themselves. Every morning I rise from my sleep restored and go out of doors, and there they are. At

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THE CRADLE OF TEARS

THE CRADLE OF TEARS

There is a cradle within the door of one of the great institutions of New York before which a constant recurring tragedy is being enacted. It is a plain cradle, quite simply draped in white, but with such a look of cozy comfort about it that one would scarcely suspect it to be a cradle of sorrow. A little white bed, with a neatly turned-back coverlet, is made up within it. A long strip of white muslin, tied in a tasteful bow at the top, drapes its rounded sides. About it, but within the precinct

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WHEN THE SAILS ARE FURLED

WHEN THE SAILS ARE FURLED

The waters of the open sea as they rush past Sandy Hook strike upon the northeasterly shore of Staten Island, a low-lying beach overshadowed by abruptly terminating cliffs. Northeastward, separated by this channel known as The Narrows, lies Long Island. As the waters flow onward, following the trend of the shoreline of Staten Island, they become less and less exposed to the winds of the sea, and soon, as they pass the northernmost end of the island, they make a sharp bend to the west, passing be

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THE SANDWICH MAN

THE SANDWICH MAN

I would not feel myself justified mentally if at some time or other I had not paused in thought over the picture of the sandwich man. These shabby figures of decayed or broken manhood, how they have always appealed to me. I know what they stand for. I have felt with them. I am sure I have felt beyond them, over and over again, the misery and pathos of their state. And yet, what a bit of color they add to the life of any city, what a foil to its prosperity, its ease—what a fillip to the imaginati

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THE LOVE AFFAIRS OF LITTLE ITALY

THE LOVE AFFAIRS OF LITTLE ITALY

One of the things that has always interested me about the several Italian sections of New York City is their love feuds. Every day and every hour, in all these sections, is being enacted those peculiarly temperamental and emotional things which we attribute more to dispositions that sensate rather than think. How often have I myself been an eye-witness to some climacteric conclusion, to some dreadful blood feud or opposition or contention—a swarthy Italian stabbing a lone woman in a dark street

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CHRISTMAS IN THE TENEMENTS

CHRISTMAS IN THE TENEMENTS

They are infatuated with the rush and roar of a great metropolis. They are fascinated by the illusion of pleasure. Broadway, Fifth Avenue, the mansions, the lights, the beauty. A fever of living is in their blood. An unnatural hunger and thirst for excitement is burning them up. For this they labor. For this they endure a hard, unnatural existence. For this they crowd themselves in stifling, inhuman quarters, and for this they die. The joys of the Christmas tide are no illusion with most of us,

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THE RIVERS OF THE NAMELESS DEAD

THE RIVERS OF THE NAMELESS DEAD

The body of a man was found yesterday in the North River at Twenty-fifth Street. A brass check, No. 21,600, of the New York Registry Company, was found on the body.—N. Y. Daily Paper. There is an island surrounded by rivers, and about it the tide scurries fast and deep. It is a beautiful island, long, narrow, magnificently populated, and with such a wealth of life and interest as no island in the whole world before has ever possessed. Long lines of vessels of every description nose its banks. En

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