JOSEPH PENNELL

FTEN as I come back to NewYork-often as I look from ahigh place down on the cityoftenas from the narrow streetsI look up to the climbing buildingsround which the clouds gather and overwhich the steam plume waves-I see newsubjects, new motives, new combinations.New York is endless in subject. A noble pileof one year is dwarfed by a formless mass thenext ; a great arrangement grows from amean-looking mass.Always I love to get the composition comingup the bay. This year, however, there is nocomposition for me, for with the great newsquare boxes on either side, the silhouette ofBroadway is hidden, though the canyon of astreet grows finer and finer. The SingerBuilding has disappeared and the WoolworthBuilding lost its towering majesty. In thesesubjects you must, or I must, see buildingsas masses that lord it over the rest."Whose smile makes glad,Whose frown is terrible."But this is a time of levelling up or down,a time of the contractor, and a time forthe town planner, the commonplace jerrybuilder,the vulgar machine-made architectwho would reduce everything to his ownoffice space ideal, which is that of his patron.So this year from the bay New York is uninteresting: it is all big-all a level line-it doesnot climb and soar as it did a couple of yearsago. I have been drawing and etching thesesubjects, coming back again and again with afresh eye-and I know.

But New York does strike the foreigner. Icrossed with two professors, one English andthe other Belgian. The Englishman foregatheredwith others of his countrymen, butgrudgingly did admit that the lower city was"interestin'." The Belgian stared amazedand only said: "You Americans are not men,you are titans.'' And truly New York is TheUnbelievable City as I have called it. DownBroadway there are endless new subjects.Stand, for instance, at the upper side of CityHall Square on Broadway and look south, andyou will see, or you can see, my design of theWoolworth Building~ Now I know all·of OldEurope, the parts that are left and the partsthat are gone, and there is nothing, there wasnothing, to compare in grandeur and majestywith this vista down Broadway. Were itsomewhere in Europe every one would bestaring at it-ogling it-patronizing it-sayingthe correct things in the guide book about itthingsthat ought to be said. Here, the guidebook says nothing, and save for John VanDyck, and a few others who have imitatedhim, no authors have dared to say anything.The cultured tell me I have made Broadwaylook very fine. Broadway, to those who cansee, is the finest street in the world.And from the bridges one can find endlessarrangements. I have only had time to etchtwo. And nothing in this world was somarvelous as to watch, day by day, last summer,the great arch of the Hell Gate bridgegrowing from each side of the river till thetwo arms met in the middle and the subjectceased to exist. Others may have drawn oretched or painted it ; I have not seen theirwork if they did. The drawings and etchingI made were not wanted by editors; they were

not pretty I suppose. But I have etched it,and I am glad I did so; it is a record to beproud of. It was so amazing to see thatbridge in the building.A~d then I have found places where thecity piles up in a fashion that would havedelighted Claude and Piranesi and Turner.They would have let themselves go, for theywould have known that there are points ofview from which New York composes andcomes together far more finely than any cityin Europe, any city of the past or present.New York is the city of the future. I havetried to show it from Brooklyn and fromWeehawken, and from under the trees ofGovernor's Island. I can find the places soeasily-it is so difficult to put down what Ifind-and time is so short-and the subjects somany. New York is the great city of themodern world, and if I can do something inmy work to record its greatness I shall beglad. Some of us have seen its grandeur, itsglory, and tried to render it. Sorne of thepeople of the world have been good enough toacknowledge our work and to care for it.But the great thing is to see New York-seethat the architects are carrying on the traditionsof the past-some of them-and makinga new city more glorious than any thatever existed. Having seen the city-theunbelievable city-the city beautiful-themighty city-to show what we have seen oncopper, stone, paper, or canvas, that is indeedsomething to try to achieve.JOSEPH PENNELL.

CATALOGUEZ No.1 Park Row, New York 1662 The "L" and Trinity Building 1673 The Four Story House 1684 The Golden Cornice 1695 Forty-second Street 1726 Lower Broadway 173(Kindly lent for the exhibition.)7 Trinity Church from the River 1748 Canyon No.1 1759 Canyon No.2 17610 The Tribune and the Sun 17811 The Statue of Liberty 18112 The Times Building 19013 The Stock Exchange 19314 The Admiralty 20015 Big Tree, Cheyne Walk 20416 The British Museum 20617 Classic London, St. Martin's in the Fields 212(Kindly lent for the exhibition.)18 Cannon Street Station 21819 Church of St. Mary le Strand 22220 Clifford's Inn Hall 222a21 The Dock Head 22322 Entrance to Henry VIII. Chapel 22523 Great College Street 23524 Great Gate, Lincoln's Inn 23625 The Gothic Cross 23826 The Guild Hall 240

ZNo.27 The Gate of the Temple 24228 The House Where Whistler Died 24729 The Hall, Lincoln's Inn 248(Kindly lent for the exhibition.)30 Haymarket Theatre 25031 Hampton Court 25132 Hampstead Ponds 25733 Lindsay Row 26234 Lincoln's Inn Fields 263(Kindly lent for the exhibition.)35 Ludgate Hill, showing Holborne Viaduct 26536 London Bridge Stairs 266(Kindly lent for the exhibition.)37 Leadenhall Market 267(Kindly lent for the exhibition.)38 Lambeth Palace 26939 No. 230 Strand 27740 On Clapham Common 27941 Old Court, Lincoln's Inn 28042 Rossetti's House 288(Kindly lent for the exhibition.)43 Rainy Night, Charing Cross Shops 29044 St. Bartholomew's Gate 29445 St. Bartholomew's, The Founder's Tomb 29546 St. Clement Dane's 29647 St. James' Palace 29948 St. Paul's 302(Kindly lent for the exh!bition.)49 St. Paul's Pavements 30350 St. Paul's, West Door 304(Kindly lent for the exhibition.)51 St. Paul's, South Porch 30652 Thames from Richmond HHI 315

ZNo.53 Trafalgar Square 32054 Whitehall Court 32955 Waterloo Bridge and Somerset House 330(Kindly lent for the exhibition.)56 Westminster Abbey 33157 West Front, Amiens 337(Kindly lent for the exhibition.)58 Amiens from the River 338(Kindly lent for the exhibition.)59 The Transept, Beauvais 33960 The Towers of the Bishop's Palace 34061 La Place, Beauvais 34162 West Front, Rouen 344(Kindly lent for the exhibition.)63 Flower Market and Butter Tower, Rouen 346(Kindly lent for the exhibition.)64 Rouen from Bon Secours 352(Kindly lent for the exhibition.)65 The Porch, San Maclou 35366 Palisades and Palaces 36067 In the Mists of the Morning 36468 Hail America! 364a69 Pittsburgh No. 1 37970 Pittsburgh No. 2 38071 On the Way to Bessemer 38772 Homestead 38973 London from My Window, mezzotint 39874 Under the Bridges, Chicago 40275 The Elevators, Chicago 40576 The Stock Yards, Chicago 40777 Cafe Orientale, Venice 41078 Rebuilding the Campanile, Venice 41179 Venice at Work 412

ZNo.80 Old and New Rome 41481 The Brussels Canal, a Modern Hobbema 41682 The Dump, Seraing 42083 The Grip, Seraing 42184 The A venue, Valenciennes 42485 Old and New Mills 42686 Cranes, Duisberg 43287 The Tracks, The Hut of the Cape of GoodHope . 43388 Building the Wooden Pier, Dover 43889 The Great Chimney, Bradford 46390 The Cut from Culebra 46691 Gatun Lock 46892 The Bishop's Walk, Panama 47093 The Way Up to the Fairmount, San Francisco 47994 The Acropolis from the Observatory 49295 Aero-Corinth from Corinth 49796 Aetna from Taormina 50697 The Woolworth Building 51298 Up to the Woolworth 51399 Sunset from Williamsburgh Bridge 514100 The Bridge at Hell Gate 515101_ St. Paul's, New York 516102 New York from Brooklyn 517103 The City in 1915 518104 New York from Hamilton Ferry 519105 New York from Governor's Island 520106 New York from New Jersey 521