A Strange Border [pp. 573-576]

574 A STRANGE BORDER. [MAY 20,
varying only perhaps in the build of structures or the dress and
volubility of the inevitable haunting dust-assorters. But our country
affords at least one great sample of a new element in the power of
disorder without being barren of all the rest of the catalogue. What
we allude to is the singular character of the northern outlying portions of the city of New York. It is a broken, unkempt, dismantled
area, upon which habitations appear to have been showered by an
untasteful architectural peppfr-box. It is a place of rocky asperities
and high, hard, barren, stony outcroppings, bursting out upon every
hand and at every distance, as if the great city below had, by its
weight, in some manner gradually pressed the substance of the soil to
the surface as it advanced. Its principal power seems to be the
generation of fierce heats, which are gathered up by the full breezes
from the lower grounds and are blown at the multitudinous settlers
of the vast region, scorching and embrowning them.
It is everywhere; it obstinately and suddenly chokes off streets
while in full burst for somewhere, while others it strangles at their
conceptions, and derisively bears upon its silicious, glittering front,
their numbers, much as if some thoroughfare was there buried forever, and the cliffwas its respectful, sorrowful monument, while, in
reality, it is but its hypocritical stifler.
It is forever being hacked at-shivered by blasts, pried and
battered by blows. There are numerous excavations constantly going
on, where bony horses, racked and awkward carts, load themselves
with some trivial fragments, and jolt off, and some venturer's cellar is
thus picked out piecemeal. Lofty derricks with huge swinging arms
spring out of it at all points; streets which have persevered and conquered in their efforts to get through it, transform themselves into
damp causeways, with jagged, gloomy sides. Its flinty hardness breaks
out from under some inches of deceptive soil, and checks and balks
the improvers in matters of water, gas, and pavements, with an exasperating and costly frequency. It is the mortal enemy to grades
and levels, and therefore, to the end of reducing it, you find many
groups of men perched in its crevices, upon its inclined shelves, and
upon its bald, hot surfaces, forever raining lazy, rhythmic blows upon
iron drills perpetually turned by other seated men, dressed in dusty
blue with slouched hats, and who seem to be lulled into deep apathy
by the regular muffled ring of the blows showered about them.
In some mysterious fashion soil has drifted into the many depressions in the wide acres of sterility, lying slightly in most places,
but deeply in a few, very much as a winter's snow sweeps over the
place and sinks into the same depressions. Wide, dusty avenues
strike boldly off northward, disappearing suddenly at the tops of long
hills, up which there run railways, glistening and narrowing as they
climb. Abortive structures show themselves in the wretched region;
such as sewer-mouths, piles of masonry through which water may run
at some time or another, but which with many stacks of yawning, black
pipes, and rusty, continuous lines of other pipes, stand up out of the
surrounding soil as if some great tide had suddenly swept down, and,
bearing away all but heavy matter, left them forlorn, dry, and useless.
Every thing appears to begin in dust. Long lines of tottering plants
and weeds, endless wall-barriers, gaunt telegraph-poles; some sickly,
leafless, stunted trees project feebly upward, carrying upon them a
whitish pall of the same dust, and appear to be well advanced in the
process of crumbling, and of resolving themselves back to earth again,
and also seem disgusted at ever having started from it.
By the road-sides, and also rising directly from the dust, and also
carrying mounds and drifts of it upon every trifling projection, as
well as every great one, you have some whitish decrepit two-storied
inns, tottering all awry, out of shape and coherence, as if some
earthquake had tossed them for miles, and finally allowed them to
settle, bottom up. You find wretched bars by crossing cracked floors;
some soiled, cackling geese stalking after some incessantly-screaming
children; a veil of the inevitable dust thinly spread everywhere; a
scant row of poisonous bottles, a perspective of mildewed walls, and a
general atmosphere of rankness and unclean habit. The rears of
these dismal structures sink away into muddy pools; distorted windows, which open upon bad air, look upon distorted and surprising
landscapes; rusty iron funnels break out at all corners; and useless
gutters, long since innocent of conveying water, hang broken and
swinging from impossible eaves.
They have dangerous. parodies upon porticos where tilting boards
make footholds unsafe; and staggering pillars support dismantled
roofs which are equally threatening. Whittled and well-worn seats
abound, occupied mostly by men and boys of two foul garments each,
who stare and mumble, and who only speak to curse, even among
themselves. In the winter it is fearful, in the summer it is horrible.
Back of these rows of buildings, which confront the avenues, with
rough signs giving out the fact of their publicity in uncouth flaring
letters, dusty, like all else, there lives a strange people, dwellers in
the pepper-boxed habitations before mentioned. They are the fagends of society, and live upon nothing, but are useful and amount to
much. River-sailors, bargemen, day-laborers, cartmen, chifonniers,
dust-gatherers, licensed venders, and the nameless throng of wretches
who live by inexplicable means, descend upon open spaces, wherever
found, and violently build their houses in a night, in the midst of the
clamors of those who have preceded them to neighboring sites.
Decently-clad men of the city streets turn up here; those neatlydressed, powerful women, with Indian-like faces and shrill voices,
who are merchants of berries and fruits, are here the landed proprietors of many yards and sentry-box mansions. The daily recurring
six o'clock r. M. witnesses a strange and hungry absorption of motley
crowds, who plunge from organized streets and totally disappear.
Factory-girls, proud of the ribbons of a month's savings; distillery and
nmill hands with gleaming pails; wearied teams owned by contractors
in the fetching and carrying of dirt, more or less of which still soils
them; pick-men and shovellers with their implements and outer jackets
upon their arms, and who unconsciously work into a swaying file as
they rapidly stride onward; begrimed boys, proud of a day's labor
done, and which pride shows out in their glances; swarthy women
with knotted bundles upon their erect heads, and whimpering children
at their skirts; wearied gamins, who thus acknowledge the only law
they know, that of satisfying hunger; and artful, uncouth beggars, of
both sexes, habited in rags, and, by custom, in doleful countenancesall flow into this intricate region a great deal as if some Pied Piper
of Hamelin were perched upon the high rocks, piping the same old
mysterious seductive tune which drew the happy children from everywhere, or, as if the place were a huge sponge, sopping up unclean
currents of humanity for the sake of the purity of all the rest.
It is as intricate as the Maze at Woodstock. Lanes set out, as did
certain railways at Mugby Junction, with the brave intention of going
somewhere, but only to bring up with ignominious shortness. Alleys
stretch away for forty feet, and are then blocked by a dog-kennel, the
abode of a family. Paths are tramped out over arid rocks and
through knee-high weeds, with bridges of unsafe planks spanning
greenish and purplish streams. Splinters of rock catch currents of
sewerage, and some beautiful green leaves spring from out the foulness.
All is confused, haphazard, and unintelligable. Ten seconds in one
direction will balk you to the right, where ten more seconds will
carry you through a domicile and over a precipice. Whitish houses,
seven feet high, are the common staple, and each one is planted with
an extravagant disregard of the position of the others. There is presented a wilderness of rough corners badly fitted and trimmed; bewildering half-views, with proportion and perspective gone mad; fullfront-views, with gaping leather-hinged doors and glassless sashes
which hang and tremble loosely, quite ready to drop altogether. The
buildings back up upon one another in close contact, as if room were
scarce; and then others, inconsistently with this idea, stand alone
with tottering independence in a handful of sandy gravel, or upon
bulging rocks. They are fixed upon steep descents, clinging to precarious shelves, apparently in great danger of slipping, or planted in
miniature valleys where there is as much danger of being fallen upon.
In the insufferable heat they seemingly shrink and crack, and to
emerge from the clouds of dust which sweep down upon them in a
weakened condition Seen from anywhere, the prospect is most forlorn and comfortless. Nothing stands of itself, but all is braced,
supported, wedged, and withed. Nothing is whole, but all is patched,
mended, or wanting patching and mending. Nothing is new, but. all
is old, decayed, foreign to its present use, sadly out of place, and dispiriting in its raggedness and unfitness. Roofs are made of three
times the necessary thickness by a continuous piling on of planks,
stones, and of any thing which has a surface. Walls with no foundations slip and stagger under the heaps of strengthening ignorantly
put upon them, and which makes them precarious and good for nothing. These strange habitations are multitudinous. Built of rubbish
individually, they hold a rubbishy appearance collectively. Seeing
them from above, below, and from all sides, and in all weathers, you
have a spectacle of ideal misery.
574
A ST-RANGE B OR2DEPt.
[MAY 20,