The Vast Reach Of Plank Wharves Remained Unchanged, And There Were As
Many Ships As Ever:
But the long array of steamboats had vanished; not
altogether, of course, but not much of it was left.
The city itself had not changed - to the eye. It had greatly increased
in spread and population, but the look of the town was not altered. The
dust, waste-paper-littered, was still deep in the streets; the deep,
trough-like gutters alongside the curbstones were still half full of
reposeful water with a dusty surface; the sidewalks were still - in the
sugar and bacon region - encumbered by casks and barrels and hogsheads;
the great blocks of austerely plain commercial houses were as dusty-
looking as ever.
Canal Street was finer, and more attractive and stirring than formerly,
with its drifting crowds of people, its several processions of hurrying
street-cars, and - toward evening - its broad second-story verandas
crowded with gentlemen and ladies clothed according to the latest mode.
Not that there is any 'architecture' in Canal Street: to speak in
broad, general terms, there is no architecture in New Orleans, except in
the cemeteries. It seems a strange thing to say of a wealthy, far-
seeing, and energetic city of a quarter of a million inhabitants, but it
is true. There is a huge granite U.S. Custom-house - costly enough,
genuine enough, but as a decoration it is inferior to a gasometer. It
looks like a state prison. But it was built before the war.
Architecture in America may be said to have been born since the war. New
Orleans, I believe, has had the good luck - and in a sense the bad luck -
to have had no great fire in late years. It must be so. If the
opposite had been the case, I think one would be able to tell the 'burnt
district' by the radical improvement in its architecture over the old
forms. One can do this in Boston and Chicago. The 'burnt district' of
Boston was commonplace before the fire; but now there is no commercial
district in any city in the world that can surpass it - or perhaps even
rival it - in beauty, elegance, and tastefulness.
However, New Orleans has begun - just this moment, as one may say. When
completed, the new Cotton Exchange will be a stately and beautiful
building; massive, substantial, full of architectural graces; no shams
or false pretenses or uglinesses about it anywhere. To the city, it will
be worth many times its cost, for it will breed its species. What has
been lacking hitherto, was a model to build toward; something to educate
eye and taste; a SUGGESTER, so to speak.
The city is well outfitted with progressive men - thinking, sagacious,
long-headed men. The contrast between the spirit of the city and the
city's architecture is like the contrast between waking and sleep.
Apparently there is a 'boom' in everything but that one dead feature.
The water in the gutters used to be stagnant and slimy, and a potent
disease-breeder; but the gutters are flushed now, two or three times a
day, by powerful machinery; in many of the gutters the water never
stands still, but has a steady current.
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