She saw me, and even in this fractional moment I had time to wonder: Would a young woman of the 1880s wave back? No, she surely would not. Or a young woman of the latter part of the twentieth century—would she wave from the window of a bus on this very same street? No, she wouldn’t risk being misunderstood. But the girl of this New York here on a fine evening in this early year of this fresh new century saw my little wave, smiled immediately, and without thought or pause waved back. Just a little flutter of the fingers as she rolled on by, but it told me I was visible, told me I was truly here standing on this sidewalk in this moment of her passing. And to me it said—this immediate, unconsidered, open response—that I had come into a time worth protecting.
The little island of light, slowing for Fifth Avenue just ahead, rolled on by, and I’d had enough for this night. All around me in the darkness the new city and whatever it might hold for me lay waiting. But for the moment I was content, and an almost welcome tiredness liberated itself to move through my mind and body. And I turned back to the hotel, to register and go up to my room and a room service dinner. And finally to bed and—I’d brought no wardrobe—to sleep in my funny new underwear.
15
THIS IS MY ROOM, the photo from a hotel brochure I picked up at the desk when I registered—the room I dressed in next morning looking down at Central Park to take my mind off the soiled linen I had to put on. I hate putting on dirty clothes, socks especially, so after a fast breakfast, out to a Sixth Avenue haberdashery. And at a shop next door, on impulse, bought a red leather box Kodak. Thought about a topcoat, but gambled it would warm up. Back for a shower, then a leisurely walk down Fifth Avenue with my new camera.
I snapped this first, the Plaza Hotel there at the right. And at the left, the Savoy. Both would be new to Julia, and astonishingly tall. Directly ahead, the peaked roof of an old friend, the Vanderbilt mansion. But what were the two tall buildings up ahead there? I snapped this scene, then stood a moment or so longer looking down Fifth. Was this the look of 1912 New York? If so, I liked it. There’s no escaping that nineteenth-century New York is—well, ugly. The buildings have a squeezed-down, huddled look; cramped—I like it for reasons other than its look. But this—tall buildings but not inhumanely tall, and well separated—this was an open, airy, sunny city; it occurred to me that this was how Paris still looked in the years up ahead.
I set out to walk down Fifth for a way; too early to go down Broadway hunting for what I hoped and was afraid to find. My new camera, like the city around me, was a novelty, so for a time it was clickety-click, snap, snap, snap. I crossed Fifty-ninth to head on down Fifth, turned to glance back, and saw a double-decker bus rumbling toward me. I’d heard of them but never seen one, and had to snap this. Watching the bus roll toward me in the little viewfinder, I was surprised to see that it was green; I’d always thought they were red. There at the right, the Netherland. This whole new corner would amaze Julia.
I snapped the bus as I stood beside the Vanderbilt mansion, and now I walked across Fifth Avenue for a better look, then quickly raised my camera in time to snap the girl watcher—see him there on the walk? Hoping, I suppose, for a glimpse of ankle. And I accidentally caught something else I’d see a lot of in this New York—the street-corner loafer there by the lamppost. A moment later, he leaned his shoulder against it. Julia would be pleased when I told her the Vanderbilt mansion still looked just as we so often saw it walking up Fifth Avenue toward the Park of a Sunday—Julia never failing to wonder what it looked like inside, and I never failing to suggest that we drop in and see, explaining to the Vanderbilts that we were just passing by.
A car came rolling into the mansion grounds through the Fifty-eighth Street gate, and I strolled over and tried to sneak this, but got caught, as you see. It was a fairly big camera, hard to hide, and at Fifty-seventh Street as I stood waiting to cross, an open car came chugging along toward Fifth. I could easily have skipped across in front of it, but instead I raised my camera, pretending to take something up ahead. And I snapped this as it rolled past, the beauty inside giving me the haughty eye. The young guy at the wheel was singing “Turkey Trot,” and as I walked on behind their car I sang softly: “Everybody’s doin’ it, doin’ it!” This was fun, walking—strolling, really—along this sunny, leisurely street. Some kids were playing up ahead on the walk, and when I stopped to take this, I got caught once more, by the towhead there, and as I passed he said, “Juh take my pitcha, Mista?” I said, “No, you broke the camera.” There’s a first time for everyone to hear this ancient joke, and he stared, then grinned and whirled to inflict it on the girl playing behind him. “D’man says you broke duh camera!”
I’d suddenly recognized the building up ahead with the awning, the St. Regis Hotel. I walked on a block, and near the corner I took this. From under the awning and behind the hedge I heard voices and the cheerful clink of china. Lunch? I pulled out my watch; only a bit after eleven—they were serving breakfast and I wished I’d known and sat here too, under that awning watching the easy leisurely traffic move by.
Onward, watching, happy, I saw this approaching, turned and caught the bride inside smiling out at me, at my camera, and at the world.
Then I stood winding my film, and a couple strolled by me, her face merry and beautiful. She was young, not more than thirty, and it occurred to me that she’d been born about the time I met Julia. And that by my own time far ahead she’d be . . . but that wasn’t a thought I wanted.
They’d gone by, but I took their picture anyway, here beside a formidable building I didn’t know. Took it because they were young here in 1912; took it for the twin spires of St. Pat’s Cathedral up there ahead alone on the sky—it would have pleased Julia that at last both spires were finished. And I took this picture for the fire hydrant there at the curb, the lamppost on the corner, and to capture this quiet instant of this fine vanished day. A dozen more steps, and the couple turned into the building beside them. A moment or so later when I passed the entrance and saw the polished brass plaque reading Gotham Hotel, I wondered what my young couple were doing in there; then wondered if they were married, sort of hoping, too, they weren’t. And walked on then, wondering why I should hope that.
Up ahead, the southwest corner at Fifty-third Street meant Allen Dodsworth’s School for Dancing. But no longer. His sign was gone, though the building still stood. I wasn’t surprised: the dancing I’d seen last night wasn’t what Allen Dodsworth had taught. Was he still alive? And what stood on that corner far ahead in my own time? The Tishman Building? I wasn’t quite sure.
On past one of the great old Fifth Avenue mansions I knew so well, from the outside. I turned to look back, then moved to one side, composing this view, which I’m a little bit proud of. See how the old Fifth Avenue of the foreground sort of frames the new twentieth-century Fifth Avenue of great fasionable hotels rising behind it? Must be giving the owners of the house beside it fits.
Click-click, snap, snap. Just ahead lay a stretch of the street, this one, looking almost unchanged, one of the great old mansions serenely taking up half the sidewalk, St. Pat’s over there at the left and on ahead, across the street to the south of it, an old friend (Howdy!), the Buckingham Hotel, looking as permanent as St. Pat’s, but I knew I was seeing a ghost. Because as I framed this scene in the little window of my viewfinder, I could also see, standing in the Buckingham’s place far ahead of time, Saks Fifth Avenue looking just as permanent. Well, Saks became an old friend too.