Oases in Gotham 
 
 BY PHILIP VERRILL MIGHELS 
 
 HER parks are the pleasant oases 
 that redeem New York, the great 
 American desert! With its ugly 
 cliff - dwellings, rock - paved trails, and 
 canons of iron and adamant, barren, un- 
 lovely, shimmering dizzily with summer 
 heat and back-flung glare of the naked 
 sun, and all of it rendered daily more 
 desolate by added population, the on- 
 creep of asphalt, more brick caverns and 
 concrete sidewalks, gray and harsh as 
 lava, New York is a region of mu- 
 nicipal aridness, alleviated, like the 
 stark Sahara, only where the soul of 
 creation breaks through. 
 
 Man has ceased to marvel that the 
 Afric sands yield wells and greenery in 
 all their bare austerity, and now he com- 
 mences to marvel more that the city 
 should achieve a like relief. Moreover, 
 for every lone caravan of men and brutes 
 that cruises Sahara, glad to crawl to the 
 coolness and fragrance of the emerald 
 havens, there are all the innumerable 
 caravans of an empire to hasten, famish- 
 ing for nature's benediction, to the parks 
 and oases of Manhattan. 
 
 And these are caravans of the sorely 
 tried, the city-bound who may not escape 
 the burning precincts of the city desola- 
 tion, the homeless, the comfortless, and 
 the children who are otherwise denied a 
 contact with the bosom of the earth. 
 To what extent the city parks are oases 
 to these many wayfarers may be appre- 
 ciated only by those who have felt and 
 understood the mighty thirst and in- 
 stinct for physical intimacy with the sod 
 that is in us all, or have sometimes seen 
 the tens of thousands of otherwise hope- 
 less human beings strewn upon the grass 
 and earth mercifully left unoccupied by 
 the appalling growth of America's lar- 
 gest metropolis. 
 
 By great good fortune they are fairly 
 numerous and tolerably hospitable, these 
 products of man's noble alliance with 
 creation, despite the reversal of processes 
 
 whereby man with his town has desertized 
 an island once all oasis, leaving here and 
 there a speck or lake of greenery un- 
 blanketed by paving-stones and houses. 
 
 New York begins with a park and 
 ends with its teeth in nature's open 
 country. Walled in by the most tower- 
 ing buildings in the world, the old- 
 time Battery affords first relief in the 
 man-made desert, at the city's seaward 
 end, or southern extremity, while far to 
 the north Van Cortland Bark and the 
 Bronx behold the steady advance of wall 
 and macadam that tread down the trees 
 and grass and hillocks of natural rock 
 between themselves and the scattered 
 green acres of the town. 
 
 Manhattan Island is restricted as to 
 space, and may not, like London, for 
 instance, afford vast spaces such as Hyde 
 and Regent parks, Kensington Gardens, 
 and prodigious heaths and commons. 
 Nevertheless it is doubtful if any large 
 city of the world has been more pic- 
 turesquely or nobly abetted in the crea- 
 tion of her parks than Manhattan by 
 the splendid handicraft of nature. 
 
 The entire surface of the island was 
 formerly a broken succession of hills, 
 slopes, meadowed hollows, and massive 
 ledges of rock. With all manner of trees 
 and its buttresses of granite, it was all 
 originally a park of alternating glade 
 and rugged eminence. To-day, in a num- 
 ber of the parks, both dell and cliff, 
 with all their stately brotherhood of trees, 
 remain almost as the world - heaving 
 forces of ci'eation left them, with here 
 and there a hollow filled to make a lake, 
 and here and there a stream of water re- 
 supplied to a channel, by way of addi- 
 tional charm. 
 
 To the lover of beauty the least ap- 
 pealing of the parks of New York are 
 those reduced by necessity to mere con- 
 ventional form — the open spaces, like 
 Battery Bark, and Union, Madison, and * 
 Washington squares, such as cities 
 
F 
 
 778 • 1 
 
 throughout the world invariably support. 
 The four ineomparaliles are Central 
 Park, Morningsido, Riverside, and the 
 Bronx. Nevertheless it must be ad- 
 mitted that for sheer comfort to the 
 weary and relief to homeless pilgrims 
 of the desert the open squares, with their 
 fountains, shade, and benches, though 
 ceaselessly assaulted by the roar, grind, 
 and rumble of the vast metropolitan 
 machine, are far in the lead of their 
 calmer, more splendid prototypes beyond. 
 
 It must not be supposed that these 
 lesser oases are unattractive. Battery 
 Park is a level field of grass and flourish- 
 ing trees that, bathed in the sunlight of 
 a spring or autumn day, calls thousands 
 to its benches. Its sea-wall fronts the 
 harbor, where the white-winged gull, the 
 surging tug. and the greyhound of the 
 wide Atlantic pass ceaselessly in the traf- 
 fic and pageant ry of life. When the 
 bay is a sparkling mirror of gold and 
 the leaves contentedly murmur in a lan- 
 guid breeze from Cuba, there are thou- 
 sands of foot-sore, heart-sore wanderers 
 who find the old Battery as welcome as a 
 bit of heaven immeasurably detached 
 from its source. 
 
 Considerably farther up the island, 
 where noisy trade, close crowding of in- 
 habitants, and haunting smells of man 
 and his devices devastate vast areas, I 
 found a representative oasis of this 
 humbler type, worn nude by the frantic 
 enjoyment of its charms indulged in by 
 its daily visitors. It is little Hudson 
 Park, by its size and functions a ju- 
 venile well in the desert. It is just a 
 mere postage-stamp of greenery, embossed 
 on a corner of the town. It is charming 
 nevertheless, and unexpected, with its 
 granite pagoda fountain, its large limpid 
 pool in a sunken garden, its trees and 
 playground, and all too prodigal meed 
 of hospitality. For the greater part its 
 wayfaring desert travellers are youngsters. 
 It is they who have flung themselves, 
 as it were, on its lap till its grasses have 
 all been worn away. It is they who 
 breathe a fresher elixir from the cool- 
 ness and plash of its waters. And their 
 cries of delight arise on the clangor of 
 iron-laden wagons, hoof-beat of horses, 
 and train roar thundering by incessantly 
 on the elevated structure, as they romp 
 in the swings, soar skyward on the see- 
 
 IIARPER'S MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 
 
 saws, and shoot down the polished flumes 
 that an Indulgent city parent has pro- 
 vided. Fancy a desert oasis with a 
 slippery chute, made and installed for 
 children to use in wearing out their 
 nether garments! What wonder the 
 grasses have succumbed! Yet why an 
 oasis that does not serve its uses? And 
 this one, I repeat, is for tiny waifs, 
 otherwise famished in the desert. 
 
 Judged by the standard of every-day 
 utility and comfort, the mere conven- 
 tional oases are the most indispensable 
 of all. Judged as one is wont to judge 
 his mother, they are probably the loveliest 
 89 well. They fulfil, as it were, a mater- 
 nal function, impossible to parks more 
 distant from the scenes of city strife and 
 desert weariness. Washington Square is 
 barely removed from, and Union and 
 Madison squares are fairly upon, the 
 great main highway through the desert — 
 Broadway — the trail of ceaseless cara- 
 vans, burdened with riches and poverty, 
 prodieral joys and fathomless woes, trag- 
 edy, hope, and despair. 
 
 Hundreds of thousands of exhausted 
 travellers occupy these resting - spots 
 throughout the year, from babies half 
 stifled by the desert heats and aridness, 
 to feeble old men, fast nearing the end 
 of their journey. Save for the trees and 
 grass, however, there is nothing natural 
 in any of these three, jiothing to single 
 them out for particular beauty or the 
 characteristics of Manhattan's nobler 
 oases. There is nothing in any one, for 
 instance, comparable to the slender, pre- 
 cipitous beauty of Riverside Park, on 
 the Hudson's edge, beginning at the seat 
 of commercial war, by coal and railway 
 yards or dingy wharves, half-way up the 
 city's length, and practically terminating 
 at the tomb of Grant, with its legend, 
 " Let us have Peace." 
 
 For sheer cultured loveliness, situa- 
 tion, and variety of contour, texture 
 and foliage, this exquisite strip has 
 no rival in the land. Not only is 
 all the natural growth augmented by 
 quadrupled rows of elms in the famous 
 drive along its crest, and not only are 
 its walls, its granite stairways, and its 
 natural rock masses all masterpieces of 
 harmony and appropriateness, but the 
 mile-wide Hudson laves its sloping edge, 
 and across the tides the Jersey heights 
 
OASES IN GOTHAM. 
 
 779 
 
 and Palisades are 
 reared in ever- 
 changing aspects of 
 magnificence. 
 
 From a thousand 
 view-points along its 
 rim this park pre- 
 sents enchanting vis- 
 tas. Tall poplars, 
 gnarled old oaks, 
 beeches, birches, and 
 willows supply the 
 charm inseparable 
 fro m varied leaf- 
 ages. Glimpses of 
 sunlit river, over the 
 trees and through the 
 trees, succeed one an- 
 other for two or 
 three miles of its 
 length. Great, wide- 
 spreading lawns are 
 laid obliquely from 
 its top retaining-wall 
 along its undulating 
 acclivities, none of 
 them level, and all of 
 them rendered more 
 inviting by their 
 slanting inequalities 
 and intimate associa- 
 tion with colossal 
 mounds of rock. The 
 city's finest viaducts 
 are built above and 
 somewhat incorpo- 
 rated with the walls, 
 hills, and chasms of 
 Riverside, particular- 
 ly on the newly com- 
 pleted extension 
 
 above Grant's tomb, where granite in 
 arched magnificence has been employed. 
 
 It is more these hillside features than 
 anything else that render New York's 
 oases distinct from those of other great 
 commercial centres. Thus Morningside 
 Park, like a flawless gem spilled out of 
 great Central Park itself, and impaled 
 upon a rugged upheaval of adamant, 
 hangs half on hillside and half in a val- 
 ley at least one hundred feet below. 
 
 In something less than a mile of 
 length it exemplifies a series of natural 
 and artificial beauties unequalled else- 
 where on the continent. It has ledges 
 of rock as huge as a castle that nature 
 
 Vol. CXX.-No. 719.-97 
 
 The cool Seclusions of Central Park 
 
 alone has been bold enough to sculpture. 
 It has basins of lawn and acres of trees 
 to hold or to filter the sunlight. Its 
 upper edge is topped by a drive hugely 
 buttressed by a wall of granite, railed 
 with bronze, surpassing for splendid 
 solidity and architectural perfection any 
 masonry in all the town. 
 
 The walk and drive above this bril- 
 liant little jewel of a park overlook all 
 its slopes and abrupt descent of rocks, 
 lingo parapets, impressive in their bulk 
 and symmetry, rise level with the drive, 
 their bases set on ledges far below, their 
 grim, dark masses overcrept with ivies 
 that ripple in the breeze. 
 
Such stairways as imagination builds to 
 ascend to palaces of kings, like ancient 
 Solomon's, rise to terrace on terrace, 
 and warm up goldenly in the morning's 
 sun as the first rays fall upon the park. 
 They, too, are granite, railed with bronze, 
 their posts, steps, and structure excep- 
 tionally massive, and overtwined with 
 clinging vines that, when the autumn 
 burnishes their garnet and their gold, 
 flame upward on the clean gray bulk with 
 a splendor only possible to nature. 
 
 More than any of the city's parks this 
 same little Morningside flourishes in 
 poplars. Their tall minuet in the sum- 
 mer breeze is graceful beyond expression. 
 They render the scene peculiarly Italian, 
 rising on successive terraces and domi- 
 nating all the other trees. Indeed, there 
 is nothing in Gotham quite so Italian 
 as this perfected bit of landscape. 
 Shrubbery, trees that bloom and fling out 
 redolence from petalled chalices, and 
 groves that sift a dappled gold upon the 
 
Morningside Park, hanging half on a Hillside, is a perfected Bit of Landscape 
 
 slopes and cool expanses of grass, com- 
 plete the enchantment that the small 
 oasis exerts on the hundreds of children 
 and adults who, during the summer, 
 practically live within its borders. 
 
 It has nooks of shade for the hotter 
 seasons of the year, and niches of sun- 
 shine and protection from the winds of 
 spring and failing autumn. Certain old 
 cronies, veterans of our Civil War, and 
 veterans also of the battle to survive, 
 I have frequently found pre-empting 
 favorite haunts of sun or shade in this 
 poetically christened bit of Creation's 
 art, content to pass their declining days 
 
 in the narrow confines of the little oasis, 
 beyond which stretches the desert. But 
 here as elsewhere the babies comprise 
 the endless caravans, halting on the 
 march of life for the needful intimacy 
 with earth and grass and trees that such 
 a spot makes possible. 
 
 Central Park, unlike the others, sup- 
 plies an oasis for rich and poor alike. 
 The wealthy, famishing in Saharas of 
 gold for opportunities for basking in the 
 curiosity of their neighbors and less 
 wealthy kind, flee to this vast green place 
 of nature's kindliness by thousands, to 
 drive, ride, and motor through its avenues 
 
7W 
 
 HARPER'S MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 
 
 of Bbade and parade, no matter what the 
 season. The poor seek it no less eagerly 
 for its benches, its lakes, and its cahn, 
 wide holms of grass. 
 
 Every feature embodied in the smaller 
 parks. is exemplified here in a magnified 
 or modified degree, with many other at- 
 
 The Loveliness of Bronx Park is that of lncitied Nature 
 
 tractions exclusive to itself. In its 
 ridges, masses, and ledges of rock, and 
 its unmolested groves and tangles of 
 trees and vines, it is incredibly " wild " 
 and natural. Four dainty lakes and sev- 
 eral bickering streams, the former filling 
 dimples in the folded hills of rock, the 
 latter following small ravines and rill- 
 ways, encourage many animals also to 
 seek a refuge from a harsher world and 
 bide a while at peace. 
 
 Contented ducks from polar inclemen- 
 cies make yearly homes among the water- 
 fowl domesticated in the park, while 
 thousands of unalarmed squirrels live, 
 
 breed, and flourish in its trees, feeding 
 mi the bounty of admiring friends. 
 These frisky and confident little rogues 
 are rapidly becoming famous for their 
 friendliness with man. How much they 
 contribute to i lie enjoyment of I he chil- 
 dren can never be estimated, except per- 
 haps hy a wise Record- 
 ing Angel of things 
 divine and eternal. 
 
 Aside from the 
 splendid driveways, the 
 saddle-path for equine 
 travellers, the boat-, 
 lovers' pathways, and 
 basins for children to 
 use in sailing boats 
 and dabbling, there are 
 many portions of the 
 park devoted to other 
 oasean comforts. Per- 
 haps the most charm- 
 ing example of its 
 hospitality is that ac- 
 corded to hundreds of 
 tiny May-queens, in 
 the spring and early 
 s\immer. I have seen 
 no less than fifty at a 
 time of these dainty 
 little monarchs, each 
 with her court about 
 her on the grass and 
 in the shade, where the 
 park's great bosom is 
 levelled in maternal 
 amplitude. All through 
 the month of May and 
 into June they reign. 
 If the first of May is 
 cold or peevish, what 
 matter? There are 
 four or five Saturdays remaining, some 
 of which are certain to be bright. 
 
 On these occasions the grass is the 
 children's for tournament and romp; 
 and if with gauze and cheese-cloth in- 
 stead of silk and cloth-of-gold they 
 pitch their pavilions on the field, they 
 are none the less royal, none the less 
 happy for the day of their mimic splendor 
 and the sceptre of love they wield. I 
 have seen the little May-queens often 
 regalized with pink mosquito-net, in lieu 
 of costly lace and satins. They march 
 to the park not infrequently from many 
 blocks away, for few of the poor abide 
 
Drawn by G. ti. Shorty 
 
 FROM A THOUSAND VIEW-POINTS RIVERSIDE PARK PRESENTS ENCHANTING VISTAS 
 
Drawn by 0. H. Shorey 
 
 HUDSON SQUARE 
 
OASES IN GOTHAM. 
 
 785 
 
 very close to these favored vales of 
 Elysium. 
 
 From squalid tenements and bawling 
 streets, insufferably noisy, fetid, and 
 arid, they issue, togged out in holiday 
 attire and urged to the rhythm of a 
 martial step by valiantly beaten drums. 
 There in the cool 
 and fragrance of 
 the shaded or sun- 
 gilded oasis they 
 remain all day to 
 play ; and then, 
 at dusk, to the 
 beat of the some- 
 what wearied in- 
 strument, and in 
 laggard, broken 
 order, go back 
 once again to the 
 desert, to resume 
 the long pilgrim- 
 age of life. 
 
 East River 
 Park, at the brink 
 of the ceaseless 
 water traffic that 
 plies Long Island 
 Sound, is another 
 of the small oases 
 that municipal 
 paternity has 
 halted to supply. 
 Like Hudson 
 Park and the Bat- 
 tery, it is almost 
 exclusively em- 
 ployed by t h e 
 humbler beings of 
 the city. From 
 its cool seclusion 
 by the water's 
 edge are visible 
 the huge steel 
 spans that link 
 Long Island and 
 Manhattan. It is 
 
 merely the regular, conventional oasis, 
 spared from a greedy city's needs. 
 
 Equally detached, but far more pic- 
 turesque and startling as a bit of nature, 
 set in the midst of the town, is little 
 Mount Morris Park, up at the eastern 
 edge of Harlem. As the earth once 
 Hung off a satellite, so Central Park, or 
 Morningside, might almost have flung 
 off this rock-saddled island of greenery, 
 
 to land it in the midst of busy streets. 
 It is clearly the offspring of one or the 
 other in its natural characteristics, but 
 the " Mount " from which it derives its 
 name is more astonishing than anything 
 like it in either of the other parks by 
 reason of the abruptness with which it 
 
 Scaling the Cliff in Mount Morris Park 
 
 rises from the valley of streets in all 
 that neighborhood. Such a cliff of rock 
 as it presents in the miles of human 
 habitations seems almost incredible, even 
 here in Gotham, that was once all oasia 
 and hills. 
 
 In sharp contrast with the small, con- 
 ventional parks of the city are the two 
 great domains of grass and calm com- 
 prised in the Bronx and Van Cortland 
 
78G 
 
 HARPER'S MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 
 
 parks, at the city's northern limits. The 
 Bronx is sufficiently large to accommo- 
 date a river — or a stream that is so 
 described. It is said, indeed, that a 
 British admiral, during the war of the 
 Revolution, commanded his captains to 
 sail up the Bronx and destroy the camp 
 of Washington, adjacent to its hanks. 
 The captains made the effort, discovered 
 the Bronx to be a pocket-sized hrook, and 
 reported that they would (|tiite as readily 
 undertake! to sail up the spout of a kettle. 
 It is large enough, however, for the uses 
 of lovers and for heauty and charm, in 
 their annual autumn armada, to navi- 
 gate with exquisite argosies, scattering 
 gold and crimson as they go. 
 
 The loveliness here, as in portions of 
 Van Cortland Park, is that of un- 
 citied nature. These are such oases as 
 Manhattan was, before man came with 
 streets and houses. Bird-song has lin- 
 gered and wild flowers have nested here 
 always, in confidence that man and his 
 desert were halted far beyond. They are 
 pimply open world of joyous creation, 
 merged on their farther borders with 
 the vast, unexampled oasis, stretching 
 
 with a heauty and hospitality that have 
 been the refuge and marvel of the world 
 — the acres and States of the continent, 
 three thousand miles in width. 
 
 Like Regent's Park in London, the 
 Bronx oasis has extended its welcome 
 to the somewhat reluctant animals of 
 the globe. Its zoological gardens are 
 destined to surpass in completeness and 
 heauty every institution of their type 
 in the world. Van Cortland, like some 
 of London's heaths and commons, pro- 
 vides vast opens for golf and other out- 
 door diversions. It and the Bronx are 
 playgrounds for grown-up children. 
 
 A frozen oasis may perhaps be an 
 anomaly, yet I have seen the parks of 
 .Manhattan no less inspiring and spirit- 
 gratifving in the winter, under hlankets 
 of snow, than in their most delectable 
 raiment. And he whose joy it is to be- 
 hold a thousand youngsters sledding 
 down the icy inclines of Morningside 
 and Riverside parks will hesitate, as I 
 do now, to pronounce which season of 
 the year is least charming for the little 
 desert wayfarers most in need of these 
 camps of nature. 
 
 Daisy Time 
 
 BY SARA TEASDALE 
 
 T PLUCKED a daisy in the fields, 
 1 And there beneath the sun 
 I let its silver petals fall 
 One after one. 
 
 I said. " He loves me, loves me not," 
 And oh, my heart beat fast, 
 
 The flower was kind, it let me say 
 " He loves me," last. 
 
 I kissed the little leafless stem, 
 But oh, my poor heart knew 
 
 The words the flower had said to me, 
 Thev were not true. 
 
 AVER" 
 DURST