I
know of no crossing in New York so trying to the nerves as Piccadilly
Circus or Charing Cross (Trafalgar Square). The intersection of
Broadway, Fifth Avenue and 23rd Street, at Madison Square, is the
nearest approach to these bewildering ganglia of traffic. It must be
owned, too, that the Bowery, with its two "elevated" tracks and four
lines of trolley-cars, is a place where one cannot safely let one's wits
go wool-gathering, especially on a rainy evening when the roadway is
under repair. Let me add that there is one place in New York where the
whirl of traffic ("whirl" in a literal sense) is unique and amazing. I
mean the covered area at the New York end of Brooklyn Bridge where the
transpontine electric cars, in an incessant stream, swoop down the
curves of the bridge and sweep round on their return journey. The scene
at night is indescribable. The air seems supersaturated with
electricity, flashing and crackling on every hand. One has a sense of
having strayed unwittingly into the midst of a miniature planetary
system in full swing, with the boom of the trolleys, in their mazy
courses, to represent the music of the spheres.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote D: I find the same idea (a sufficiently obvious one) finely
expressed by Mr.
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