Theodore Roosevelt (1858–1919). New York. 1906.
Page 204
| of holding twelve hundred persons, and always thronged when there was a good play on the boards. Large sleighing-parties were among the favorite pastimes, dinner being taken at some one of the half-dozen noted taverns a few miles without the city, while the drive back was made by torchlight if there was no moon. Marriages were scenes of great festivity. In summer the fashionable promenade was the Battery Park, with its rows and clumps of shade-trees, and broad walk by the water; and on still nights there was music played in boats on the water. The “gardens”—such as Columbia Gardens, and Mt. Vernon Gardens 1 on Broadway—were also meeting-places in hot weather. They were enclosed pieces of open ground, covered with trees, from which colored lanterns hung in festoons. There were fountains in the middle, and little tables at which icecream was served. Round the edges were boxes and stalls, sometimes in tiers; and there was usually a fine orchestra. When the hot months approached, the custom was to go to some fashionable watering-place, such as Ballston Springs, where the gaiety went on unchecked. |
| The houses of the well-to-do were generally of brick, and those of the poorer people of wood. There were thirty-odd churches; and the two principal streets or roads were Broadway and the |