Books: Musty Amusement

BROWN STONE FRONTS AND SARATOGA TRUNKS—Henry Collins Brown—Dutton ($3.75).

In the great fire of 1835, New York City was saved from annihilation only because numerous buildings were dynamited. As a result, one of the first acts of reconstruction was the Croton Aqueduct, financed by the sale of lottery tickets. Even after the Aqueduct was finished, fire-fighting remained in the hands of private companies whose rivalries frequently threatened the city, since partisans of one company or another would seize the hydrant near a blaze, prevent its use until friends arrived. Such colorful items of dubious historical importance Henry Collins Brown includes in a volume on Victorian New York, succeeds in writing an amusing if somewhat musty book characterized by an old-fashioned respect for old-fashioned things.

Brownstone Fronts and Saratoga Trunks includes accounts of the Draft Riots, the Gold Corner, the opening of the Atlantic Cable, the bloody street-war between the Fenians and Orangemen. But it is principally memorable for its items of unessential information which throw an oblique light on the times. Thus, Author Brown records that William Cullen Bryant introduced one speaker at Cooper Union as “a lawyer well known in the West, Mr. A. Lincoln.” Lincoln’s principal problem at that moment was to straighten out the affairs of his son, Robert, who had just flunked his examinations at Harvard. When Lincoln left the hall the committee assigned to escort him to his hotel paid his five-cent carfare and let him ride back alone.

There is nothing patronizing in Author Brown’s account of mid-century interior decorating, when a Turkish Cozy Corner stood in every up-to-date parlor, when piano legs had wide, baby-blue sashes tied to them. Although he occasionally apologizes for the crudities of the day, his book gives the impression that he found the folding bed an impressive contribution to progress, horse cars an entirely satisfactory means of transportation.