Evening Republican, Volume 20, Number 62, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 13 March 1916 — HOME TOWN HELPS [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

HOME TOWN HELPS

RIGHTLY PROUD OF CITY Great Metropolis of New York Worthy Admiration Accorded It by All Americans. New York, as the incoming foreigner, full of prejudice, or doubt, or Hope, and the returning American, crammed with guide book and catalogue culture, see it, or might see it, rises a vision, a mirage of the lower bay, the color by day more shimmering that Venice, by...night, more magnificent than London. In the morning the mountains of buildings hide themselves, to reveal themselves in the rosy steam clouds that chase each other across their flanks. When evening fades they are mighty cliffs glimmering with glistening lights in the magic and mystery of the night. As the steamer moves up the bay on the left the Great Goddess greets you, a composition in color and form with the city beyond, finer than any in any world that ever existed, finer than Claude ever imagined, or Turner ever dreamed. Why did not Whistler see it? Piling up higher and higher right before you is New York. And what does it remind you oft San Gimignano of the beautiful towers away off in Tuscany, only here are not eleven, but eleven times eleven; not low, mean brick piles, but noble palaces crowned with gold, with green, with rose; and over them the waving, fluttering plume of steam, the emblem of New York. To the right, filmy and lacelike by day, are the great bridges; by night a pattern of stars that Hiroshige never knew. You land in streets that are Florence glorified. You emerge in squares more noble than Seville. Golden statues are about you, triumphal arches make splendid frames -for endless vistas; and it is all new and untouched, all to be done, and save for the work of a /ew of us, and we are Americans, all undone. The Unbelievable City, the city that has been built since I grew up, the city beautiful, built by men I know, built for people I know. The city that inspires me, that I love. And all America is like this, and—all—-or nearly all. unseen, unknown, untouched —Joseph Pennell, in Scribner’s Magazine. kos