Haymarket (23 page)

Another important matter: I hereby report that your beloved husband has
not
returned to the scenes of his “wild youth.” Being thirty-five does, alas, take a fearsome toll on energy. And I knew I had to conserve it—not for anything as trivial as politics (or our pending reunion) but, as you so firmly instructed, to view and report on the wonders and horrors of the great metropolis.

The truth is, I got to see precious little of those wonders, for reasons of time and finances. Everything costs so much! Most of what I viewed was from the outside, in the free air, avoiding entrance fees and the like. New York is a maelstrom of commercial construction, yet a great deal of the building going on is speculative; the tenants may never materialize. Signs of a renewed economic recession are already apparent here. Rumors of a general collapse are spreading, the unemployment rate already way up. Meanwhile, prices are rising, thanks to John D.
Rockefeller joining forces with his rivals to create the virtual monopoly of the Standard Oil Trust.

But I’ve slipped back to politics, I see, and I was supposed to be taking you on a sightseeing tour. Well, my love, in all essential ways New York City strikes me as very similar to Chicago, especially the sense of frenzied growth and the focus on material accumulation and display. The new buildings here, like ours, grow ever taller—the Produce Exchange, at ten stories, is as high as our Montauk Building. They’re commonly called “temples of labor”—not
to
labor, mind you!

Fashionable New Yorkers would sniffily deny the suggestion that their city has anything in common with Chicago. They consider us a barbarian outpost, without a proper (which is to say, opulent and outsized) concert hall, symphony orchestra, art museum, or opera house. Why, we do not even have, according to the
New York Times
, a proper elite. That is, an upper class capable of erecting Renaissance chateaux staffed with a small army of menials, and cognizant of the importance of retaining footmen in livery, exchanging engraved calling cards, taking afternoon brougham rides in Central Park, and taking sides in the world-shaking struggle for social primacy between Caroline Astor and Alva Vanderbilt. The Metropolitan Museum of Art is open one day a week—Sunday, when most workers are too exhausted to do more than attend church, have a pint, and fall into bed.

As for the rapid advance in electrification that seems to fascinate you—could it be connected, my dear, to your own highly charged self? The cable car has quickly become as omnipresent in New York as in Chicago. I still prefer the horsecar. At rush hour yesterday, I was nearly knocked to my feet by the horde of riders. They put such a weight on the steel pulleys that the cable of one car snapped and another got so tangled that the driver lost control and, abruptly grabbing the switch, threw the passengers to the floor. Besides, just like back home, the moving cable makes such a racket that one can hardly talk above it. And the mounting demand for electricity and telephones has meant an astounding proliferation of utility poles, with a thick network of power lines strung on top that actually darken the sky. This is known as Progress: electricity turns night into day and the network of overhead wiring turns day into night!

But I have to admit, the electrification of the streets is a stunning thing to behold. They’re a good deal ahead of Chicago in this regard. It’s been nearly three years since New York began experimenting with arc lights.
Mounted on ornamental cast-iron posts twenty feet high, they already stretch all along Fifth Avenue and across Fourteenth and Thirty-fourth Streets, and are rapidly multiplying. Where people were once fearful of leaving their homes at night, they now gather on the streets to gawk at the illuminated hotels and shops. The famous entertainment emporium, Niblo’s Garden—Spies and I couldn’t afford the entrance fee—apparently boasts chorus girls who wave electric wands as they dance, and there’s an illuminated model of the Brooklyn Bridge on display, designed by the Edison Electric Light Company.

The outdoor arc lights are far too bright for domestic use, but Edison’s incandescent lamp for the home has proven practical. Your great personal friend J. P. Morgan installed a generator in his garden some three years ago, thus becoming the first (as he wishes to be in everything) to convert a private dwelling entirely to electricity. Fashionable New York has speedily followed his lead. Nearly a thousand wealthy homes are now electrified, and several thousand commercial establishments. The city stock exchange has installed three “electroliers” of lamps above the trading floor, and the new Mills Building has its own electric generating plant. The papers have reported the claim of one architect that the use of electricity in residences is leading to an outbreak of freckles.

Onward to Coney Island. At your behest, I’ve made the obligatory journey to see the Loop-the-Loop. Spies, gracious gentleman that he is, offered to accompany me on our one afternoon free of meetings, though we agreed that we would have preferred to catch up on our sleep. But off we trudged on the Culver Line to catch a steamer for West Brighton. Once there, the astonishing variety of sights and sounds soon woke us up. The two-thousand-foot Iron Piers are an amazing engineering feat. But then there’s the Elephant Hotel! It’s more like a free-standing sculpture of the animal, a gigantic creation built of wood and covered in tin that dominates the skyline. It has thirty-four rooms scattered in its various body parts, a cigar store in one front leg and a diorama in the other, a dairy stand in its trunk, and spiral staircases in its hind legs that lead up to an observatory in the head. What next? A clothing store in the shape of a frock coat?

As for your adored Loop-the-Loop, it may satisfy the age’s fascination with speed and motion, but to Spies and me the ride’s rickety twists and turns seemed like an invitation to suicide; we declined the experiment,
though you, doubtless, would have climbed instantly aboard. As I always tell you, women are braver than men.

We expected the Coney Island beach itself would be deserted this late in the season, but thanks to unusually warm weather, it was packed with people, the women covered head to foot in interchangeable flannel suits, the men sporting straw boaters, and the children busy burying each other in the sand or disappearing into the crowd—inciting their frantic parents to race up and down the beach in search of them. At the height of the season, we’re told, the general chaos is far greater. During summer, there are hundreds of food vendors, saloons, sideshows, crayon portraitists, and fortune tellers whose tents and pavilions (many of them shuttered today) line the beachfront, plus the assorted con men, thugs, and prostitutes who prowl the side streets just beyond. Even today, late in October, there was the din of barkers shouting out the wonders of their wares, daring us to test our skill at catchpenny games, horseshoes, shooting clay ducks or—a horrifying sight that I hesitate even to tell you about—hitting a negro on the nose (the poor man’s head is stuck through a hole in a cloth and he must continuously bob and duck to avoid the rubber balls eagerly pitched at his face). Coney Island is widely hailed as a “working-class pleasure ground.” I pray that in a less barbaric future, we may come to hold a different definition of pleasure.

We set out for home day after tomorrow. I am eager to hold you in my arms and to embrace my beloved children.

Till then, my dearest,
Albert

“I can’t get a close measure, Nina, unless you stand perfectly still. The garment
must
be snug under the arms, and you keep shifting your weight. I have to get the tape line exactly right.”

“Oh, Lucy, this is all so tiresome!” Nina said, her voluptuous, almost plump face creased in a frown. “A tea gown! Why in heaven’s name do I need a tea gown. I’ll wear it once, if at all.”

“You need it because your mother says you need it. Now please try to stand still.”

“My mother also thought I needed to go to the Vanderbilts’ fancy dress ball in New York. On
that
I put my foot down.”

“Oh? I should have loved to have been there, seen that Hobby-Horse Quadrille described in the newspapers.” Lucy said. “I couldn’t figure it out—elaborately gowned guests seated on top of life-size wooden horses covered with genuine hides—how could they even move, let alone perform a quadrille?”

Nina started to giggle. “I think the horses were on wheels and the servants pushed them around.”

“So it was the servants who had to learn the quadrille?”

“Just the footwork, I suppose. I heard that for months before the ball, groups of little ninnies all over New York City were practicing the quadrille arm movements—oh, I don’t know, it makes no sense at all, does it? The entire ball, in my opinion, was a silly calamity.”

“My dear Nina, you’re beginning to sound like a socialist. And you’re waving your arms around like one, too. Please! How am I to measure?” Lucy put Nina’s arms quietly at her side.

“Well, I’m not a socialist. But Mother agrees with me that Mrs. Vanderbilt’s
‘event of the century’ is the best argument she’s ever heard for revolution. Can you imagine?—dozens of servants lining the walls in maroon livery, enough palm fronds and bougainvillea to beautify all of Fifth Avenue, and the guests—good gracious, the guests! There were so many gorgeously gowned Marie Antoinettes and Mary Stuarts that if I had decided to attend, I would have been tempted to appear in the costume of a guillotine! Do you think you could sew
that?”
Nina laughed so merrily that the braided chignon coiled at the back of her head threatened to come loose.

“My dear young lady,” Lucy said with mock solemnity, “you’ve lost all sense of propriety. How I pity your poor parents.”

“Well, don’t. They feel the same way I do. Well, almost the same way. Papa and Mama may be ‘socially acceptable,’ as the old biddies say, but they have some decidedly advanced views on social questions. Can’t you tell just by looking at this house?”

“What do you mean?”

“The way they built it.”

Lucy shook her head uncomprehendingly—managing to drop several pins onto the carpet. Exasperated, she got down on her hands and knees to retrieve them. “You can relax for a minute,” she told Nina.

“Are we nearly finished? I can’t bear standing still for very long.”

“See—you
are
a socialist,” Lucy said laughing. “Ah! Here they are,” she said, holding up the two pins triumphantly. Old sharp eyes. Come, miss, your reprieve is over.”

Nina sighed.

“I’m almost done. All I need to do now is mark the bodice. What were you saying about this house?”

“The open veranda all across the front. There isn’t another like it in the entire neighborhood.”

“So having a porch means that you have advanced political views? I don’t understand. Albert and I don’t have a porch.”

“You’re making fun of me,” Nina said, with a touch of petulance.

“What? Believe me, dear Miss Van Zandt,” Lucy said, sounding more arch still, “I know the difference in our stations and I would never presume to—”

“Now stop it, Lucy!” Nina actually stomped her foot in frustration. “I insist on being taken seriously. By you and by everyone else.”

“And quite right, too. I apologize if I offended you.”

“Now if you’ll open your mind and concentrate,” Nina said, “I’m sure you’ll be able to understand what I mean.” Lucy silently filed away Nina’s patronizing overtone. Condescension, she told herself, was second nature for rich young debutantes. This one, at least, had a supple mind and some humane sympathies.

“I’m listening carefully,” Lucy said evenly.

“It’s perfectly simple. Every other house on the street is a stone fortress, sealed off from the world. Our house is the opposite, open and welcoming. People walking down the street can see us sitting on the porch, going about our lives. Just like ordinary people.”

If they’re allowed on the street, Lucy thought to herself. Still, she wanted to acknowledge Nina’s generous-minded innocence.

“I see your point. Yes, definitely. But isn’t your family afraid?”

“Of what?”

“I don’t know. Of intruders, of people being able to see into your home …”

“We don’t even have a vestibule to keep out salesmen!” Nina said with a self-congratulatory laugh.

“Maybe your level of trust is too high.”

“Who should we be afraid of? Are you and your socialist friends planning an attack?” Nina was highly amused at her own remark.

“No,” Lucy said solemnly, “but your neighbors might be. That is, once they get wind of your advanced views.”

“Oh, they know all about us. The downstairs maid next door told me her employers—they’re a branch of the Cyrus McCormick family—were talking about us over dinner just the other night, discussing my parents’ trip to Detroit to see that five hour play,
Monopoly
. We can’t imagine how they found out.”

“Why didn’t they see the play in Chicago?”

“Oh, it’ll never be performed here, Lucy. It’s all about a strike for an eight-hour day. At one point in the play a superintendent tries to bomb a factory so he can put the blame on a radical labor agitator.” Nina paused for a second, trying to accurately recall the plot her mother had described.

“And?” Lucy asked impatiently; she was finding it hard to believe that such a play existed, let alone that it had been performed.

“And … I think I have this right … all’s well in the end because the
industrialist becomes an enlightened convert to the workers’ cause after he discovers that the labor agitator is his own long-lost son, kidnapped at birth.”

“I should have known,” Lucy snorted, “A soppy melodrama … in real life there aren’t any enlightened industrialists.”

“Well, I can’t disagree with you there. At least
we
don’t know any, my own dear papa excepted of course … But there will be. I’m sure of it …”

“Yes, I know,” Lucy said sardonically, “ ‘every day in every way we get better and better.’ Progress is inevitable. Which means we don’t have to lift a finger to work for it. Ha! If anything gets better it’ll be the result of more and more agitation.”