descend in absolutely straight lines from the northern, and at
present unsettled, extremity of the new town, making their way
southward till they lose themselves among the old streets. These
are called First Avenue, Second Avenue, and so on. The town had
already progressed two miles up northward from the Battery before
it had caught the parallelogramic fever from Philadelphia, for at
about that distance we find "First Street". First Street runs
across the avenues from water to water, and then Second Street. I
will not name them all, seeing that they go up to 154th Street!
They do so at least on the map and I believe on the lamp-posts.
But the houses are not yet built in order beyond 50th or 60th
Street. The other hundred streets, each of two miles long, with
the avenues, which are mostly unoccupied for four or five miles, is
the ground over which the young New Yorkers are to spread
themselves. I do not in the least doubt that they will occupy it
all, and that 154th Street will find itself too narrow a boundary
for the population.

I have said that there was some good architectural effect in New
York, and I alluded chiefly to that of the Fifth Avenue. The Fifth
Avenue is the Belgrave Square, the Park Lane, and the Pall Mall of
New York. It is certainly a very fine street. The houses in it
are magnificent--not having that aristocratic look which some of
our detached London residences enjoy, or the palatial appearance of
an old-fashioned hotel in Paris, but an air of comfortable luxury
and commercial wealth which is not excelled by the best houses of
any other town that I know. They are houses, not hotels or
palaces; but they are very roomy houses, with every luxury that
complete finish can give them. Many of them cover large spaces of
the ground, and their rent will sometimes go up as high as 800