New York ... appeared to us ... a lovely and a noble city.... I think New York one of the finest cities I ever saw, and as much su...perior to every other in the Union, (Philadelphia not excepted), as London to Liverpool, or Paris to Rouen. Its advantages of position are, perhaps, unequalled any where. Situated on an island, which I think it will one day cover, it rises, like Venice, from the sea, and like that fairest of cities in the days of her glory, receives into its lap tribute of all the riches of the earth.... I think it covers nearly as much ground as Paris, but is much less thickly peopled. The extreme point is fortified towards the sea by a battery, and forms an admirable point of defence; but in these piping days of peace, it is converted into a public promenade, and one more beautiful, I should suppose, no city could boast.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
It used to be said that, socially speaking, Philadelphia asked who a person is, New York how much is he worth, and Boston what doe...s he know. Nationally it has now become generally recognized that Boston Society has long cared even more than Philadelphia about the first point and has refined the asking of who a person is to the point of demanding to know who he was. Philadelphia asks about a man's parents; Boston wants to know about his grandparents.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Those whose goal it is to sell domestic dwellings hope to persuade their patsies that a house and a home are identical, and thus a...dvertise "a lovely quarter-of-a-million-dollar home." But since a housewrecker differs significantly from a homewrecker, the inference is clear that house and home mean different things, although the new gentility and sentimentality, issuing in the new euphemism, labor constantly to efface the difference. The Philadelphia Inquirer has spoken recently of boarding homes, and it will probably not be long before we hear of whorehomes, homes of prostitution, and bawdy homes.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Teasing is universal. Anthropologists have found the same fundamental patterns of teasing among New Zealand aborigine children and... inner-city kids on the playgrounds of Philadelphia.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
New York is one of the capitals of the world and Los Angeles is a constellation of plastic, San Francisco is a lady, Boston has be...come Urban Renewal, Philadelphia and Baltimore and Washington blink like dull diamonds in the smog of Eastern Megalopolis, and New Orleans is unremarkable past the French Quarter. Detroit is a one-trade town, Pittsburgh has lost its golden triangle, St Louis has become the golden arch of the corporation, and nights in Kansas City close early. The oil depletion allowance makes Houston and Dallas naught but checkerboards for this sort of game. But Chicago is a great American city. Perhaps it is the last of the great American cities.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Being blunt with your feelings is very American. In this big country, I can be as brash as New York, as hedonistic as Los Angeles,... as sensuous as San Francisco, as brainy as Boston, as proper as Philadelphia, as brawny as Chicago, as warm as Palm Springs, as friendly as my adopted home town of Dallas, Fort Worth, and as peaceful as the inland waterway that rubs up against my former home in Virginia Beach.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
People on the East Coast regard people west of, say, Philadelphia as either slightly cute or slightly repugnant, alien life forms.... Any show that comes from out of town to New York invariably gets a review which says in effect, "They might like this stuff in Hicksville, but this is the Apple, Kids. This is the eye of God." Californians don't have that kind of arrogance, luckily, because they can't pay attention long enough to finish anything. That's why so many Californians are consultants or producers, and so many people in the East are writers or directors. Never mind that most writers on the best-seller lists couldn't put a well-formed sentence together if you gave them the glue, or that the so-called "serious" writers only write about writers writing stories about writers writing stories, the two coasts are still the cultural power centers of America: books, theater, and art in the East; movies, music, and TV in the West.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Charleston, New Orleans, and the rest, are the names of wharves projecting into the sea (surrounde...d by the shops and dwellings of the merchants), good places to take in and to discharge a cargo (to land the products of other climes and load the exports of our own). I see a great many barrels and fig-drums,--piles of wood for umbrella- sticks,--blocks of granite and ice,--great heaps of goods, and the means of packing and conveying them,--much wrapping-paper and twine,--many crates and hogsheads and trucks,--and that is Boston. The more barrels, the more Boston. The museums and scientific societies and libraries are accidental. They gather around the sands to save carting.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
I was surprised to hear him say that he liked to go to Boston, New York, Philadelphia, etc., etc.; that he would like to live ther...e. But then, as if relenting a little, when he thought what a poor figure he would make there, he added, "I suppose, I live in New York, I be poorest hunter, I expect." He understood very well both his superiority and his inferiority to the whites. He criticized the people of the United States as compared with other nations, but the only distinct idea with which he labored was, that they were "very strong," but, like some individuals, "too fast." He must have the credit of saying this just before the general breakdown of railroads and banks.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »