City Of Promise Part 2

"Not exactly. And I believe we have exhausted our resources here at Brannigan's. But that doesn't change the fact that since I am opposed to your being a spinster and you're too lean and too clever to be a wh.o.r.e, you must be a wife." Then, leaning forward and cupping her niece's chin with a gentle hand, "That is still what you want, isn't it, Mollie? I do not wish to force you into marriage."

"It is, Auntie Eileen. I want to be a wife and mother, but-"

"Then," Eileen said firmly, "we must find you the right sort of husband, and you have to want him, not just me. We are agreed on those basic terms, are we not?"

Mollie nodded.

"Excellent. It's settled. I am sending you away."

"Away?"

"Not very far. You will live in a boardinghouse for ladies on Twenty-Third Street. And I have secured employment for you. Not, however, as Mollie Brannigan. We must purge the a.s.sociation if we are to improve your chances. You shall be Greek."

"Greek!"

"Exactly. Mollie Popandropolos. It is a Greek name. I read it in a magazine."

"But how-"

"For heaven's sake, Mollie, people from every corner of the world arrive in New York to find their fortune. Why not a young Greek girl? One with a substantial dowry who is in need of a husband, but not about to settle for someone less than equal to her in quality."

"Popandropolos." Mollie tried out the strange word, then repeated it. "Popandropolos. I suppose I could be. But I still don't see where I'm going to find a suitor of the sort-"

"You haven't been listening to me, Mollie. I have found you a job in a place where everyone in New York turns up sooner or later. You are going to work at Macy's."

3.

THANK G.o.d FOR the ladies who shopped. They were the drivers of progress.

It was because of them the merchants who made their fortunes in retail took advantage of the latest marvels in construction and stretched their marble and cast-iron palaces wider than had been possible with buildings made of brick. Such advances allowed the aisles of their emporiums to be wide enough for feminine underskirts and overskirts, and all the silk and satin bustled behind. And to make room for all the choices the ladies demanded, the men piled floor on top of floor, these days as high as seven or eight stories; a thing made practical because of Mr. Otis and his steam-driven elevators. Still more important, it was the ladies who pulled the town up the island.

The women of New York were no longer content to live above their husband's businesses in the pattern handed down from Dutch New Amsterdam two hundred years before. Their menfolk indulged them, since there was much to be gained by separating domestic life from commerce. Besides, good use could be made of the s.p.a.ce available once residential life moved uptown and enterprise took over the s.p.a.ce left behind. Traders and bankers and manufacturers profited by having ready access to each other. Even Cornelius Vanderbilt, who made a hub for his four railroads in the impressive Grand Central Depot uptown on Forty-Second Street and Fourth Avenue, oversaw his empire from a downtown office.

By that peculiarly cold spring of 1871, six years after Lee surrendered at Appomattox, New York City was humming and thrumming its way to ever-greater profits, and the saloon and the spittoon ruled below Ca.n.a.l Street. The hitching post as well. The old streets on the southern tip of Manhattan were so narrow that carriages and horse-cars were almost always hopelessly snarled, and there wasn't a hope of adding the streetcars of the horse railway that ran along metal rails embedded in the middle of the road. Given such a Babel of traffic, many of the men preferred horseback, since getting about quickly was an advantage in the making of money. Never mind that further uptown a car drawn by four horses could move thirty-five men, each paying a nickel fare, or that the ratio of one beast per man exponentially increased the amount of manure on the streets.

The ladies were not so forgiving. Surely Mr. Constable and Mr. Best and Messrs. Lord and Taylor understood that no woman wanted to drag her skirts and her dainty laced-up boots through all that when she went to shop.

Rowland H. Macy quickly spotted the trend. He moved north, from Eighth to Fourteenth Street on Sixth Avenue, and soon B. Altman's, Best & Co., and Stern Brothers marched past him and established themselves between Union Square and Twenty-Third Street. The avenue-a broad thoroughfare well served by the streetcars threading the cobbles on their narrow tracks and the free-ranging horsecars either side-overtook Broadway as the spine of retail. It didn't take long for the stretch to be known as the Ladies' Mile. Macy did not object to company; he knew neighbors in the same line of business meant high traffic, and that meant more custom. It only mattered that the ladies tried his store first for whatever they wanted. Furnis.h.i.+ngs, furs, household goods, kitchen utensils, books-all could be had at Macy's. Departments, he called these separate areas of commerce within his always growing emporium. Other retailers developed different lines, but eventually they too were no longer dry goods stores but department stores. By the time that happened Macy was preparing to best them yet again.

It was common sense, Macy said, that a woman would prefer another women to attend her, particularly now that clothing bought off the rack was taking over the garment trade. All New York was aghast when he made his cousin Margaret Getch.e.l.l general manager of his store, and instructed her to hire females for the selling floor. "What has happened to the morality of the ladies that they would consider taking from a man the means to support his family," thundered an editorial in Mr. G.o.dkin's Nation. The women-who mostly had neither husband nor father to support them and must work or starve-paid him no mind.

Macy's clerks wore a blue-gray uniform purchased from the store and paid for by a deduction from their twenty-two-dollar weekly wage (fifteen for women). They were forbidden to talk except to their customers, and they regularly worked a twelve-hour day, longer during sales or at Christmas when the store opened at nine and closed an hour before midnight. Employees were required to be at their posts by six a.m. to set out the stock, and remain on duty an hour after closing to put it away. Men who finished these eighteen-hour stints frequently stretched out on the counters to get a few hours sleep before the next day began. Propriety demanded that the women trudge home.

Nonetheless, Mrs. Getch.e.l.l, who demanded refined speech and superior comportment, had ten female applicants for every opening. Working at Macy's was a cut above being a domestic, the store was cleaner and pleasanter than a sweatshop, and above all, Macy's was respectable. Eileen Brannigan always said it was because respectable employment for a woman was so hard to come by that the city was so well-supplied with wh.o.r.es.

Mollie Popandropolos, as she was known at Macy's, first saw Josh Turner when he was standing in the doorway of the small work s.p.a.ce that was entirely her domain.

She was unused to visitors in the little room tucked into a corner of the third floor. Her hours were less draconian than those of the salesclerks-Mollie started at eight and finished at six-and in the normal way of things she went round the floors as soon as she arrived, picking up the bits of specially ordered embroidery and lacework and the like, then carried them back to her workshop. Finished things were neatly labeled and put in a basket by the door to be picked up by a stock boy, who came after hours when no customers were about. It was rare that anyone disturbed Mollie during the working day. And certainly not a man, his bulk all but filling the open door, hat under his arm so she could see his tousled red hair. "h.e.l.lo, I take it you're Mrs. Popandropolos. They told me I'd find you here, hidden deep within the Macy's maze. I'm Josh Turner."

"Oh yes, Mr. J. Turner." She recognized the name and her glance went immediately to his right leg. You couldn't see a thing different. At least while he was standing still as he was now. The trouser hung perfectly straight, despite covering a thin, strapped-on wooden peg rather than a full-muscled, flesh-and-blood leg.

Josh saw the direction of her stare. "Works perfectly," he said. "Lining the leg with buckram does the job. I hated having the fabric flapping about as it did. I wanted to come and say thank you before this, but they never told me where you were. Until today when I finally got the gentleman who supplies my cravats to 'fess up. You're Macy's big secret, Mrs. Popandropolos. They must be afraid one of their rivals will entice you away."

"It's Miss Popandropolos," Mollie said. "And I'm very pleased that my solution works for you, Mr. Turner." It had been simple enough once the tailor explained the problem. She was surprised he hadn't thought of it himself. As it was he had not, and ever since each pair of trousers Mr. Turner purchased was sent to her to have buckram hand-sewn into the right leg below the knee. Four pairs these last two years. And she'd finished a fifth yesterday. It had taken longer than usual for her to get to the job because so many ladies were getting their finery together for the Easter Parade in a few weeks. "I'm sorry you had to wait for the gray gabardines, Mr. Turner. I finished them yesterday. They're sure to be delivered today."

It was a secure promise. Wagons blazoned with the name R. H. Macy's and driven by men wearing the same blue-gray uniform as the salesclerks traversed the city every day but Sunday. "New Yorkers want everything in a flaming hurry," Mr. Macy said. "And Macy's never disappoints."

Joshua waved aside the matter of his new trousers. "I didn't come for that. Only to say thank you, as I said. You took some finding." He nodded toward the sprawling selling floor behind him.

Mollie had a sudden vision of what he'd walked through to arrive at her little room: shelves and racks and counters full of ladies' clothing. Just outside her door were a selection of ladies' lace-trimmed pantaloons, and immediately beyond that row after row of crinolines and petticoats. Her cheeks colored simply by virtue of the mental image. She set her embroidery aside and went straight to him, boldly taking his left arm since he held a walking stick as well as his hat under his right. "Do let me show you the quickest way out, Mr. Turner. It is a bit of a maze, just as you said."

"I believe, Miss Popandropolos," Josh said, his grin widening, "you're giving me what is known as the b.u.m's rush."

"Never, Mr. Turner. Macy's values your custom far too much for that. I only wish to be helpful." They were past the crinolines by then, and while Mollie was aware of the stares of a few of the women, most were too busy with their shopping to notice.

Josh paid no attention whatever to the women around them. His attention was absorbed by the one who had attached herself to him in such a determined manner, and managed seemingly without effort to match her gait to his. The top of her dark head came somewhere below his earlobe, and she had a pleasant voice and an accent that seemed naturally cultured, not one of those exaggerated attempts to overlay an immigrant brogue or a shopgirl's slur. He particularly liked that she turned her face up to his when she spoke, with no trace of practiced artifice in the gesture.

A delightful face he realized, amazed at himself he hadn't more quickly noticed the large dark blue eyes, or the dimples on either side of her mouth when she smiled. She wasn't the sort of beauty who knocked you over first thing, but a beauty nonetheless. "Listen," he said, "it really is Miss Popandropolos, not Mrs.? That's not some Macy type of tomfoolery for his lady clerks?"

"I am mistress of special sewing, Mr. Turner. Not a salesclerk. And yes, it really is Miss Popandropolos." Now he knew she was a spinster. Well, so be it. The way things had turned out didn't suit Auntie Eileen-Mollie living these last four years in a ladies' boardinghouse and working for her living with still no husband in sight-but now that she'd accepted the fact that she was never to have children of her own, Mollie had found much to like in being independent. Of course it might not be as nice if she had to manage entirely on the seventeen dollars a week Macy's paid her (the male tailors earned twenty-four), but Auntie Eileen still paid her thirty dollars a month to keep her books, a job Mollie did on Tuesday evenings. All together, things had turned out better than Mollie expected. Including the task of getting Mr. Joshua Turner through the ladies' intimates department without causing an uproar. Perhaps it was because of the stick and his walk having a slight jerk to it that they were spared open stares. These days everyone a.s.sumed such a condition to indicate a soldier injured in the war and turned respectfully away.

In minutes they were at the bank of elevators in the third-floor vestibule. "Here we are, Mr. Turner. Thank you for coming to see me. It was most gracious."

"You hated it," he said. "Will Mrs. Getch.e.l.l give you the rough of her tongue because of me? She manages the store, doesn't she? I'm told she's a harridan."

"Mrs. Getch.e.l.l believes as we all do, Mr. Turner, that the customer is always correct. So if you wished to see me, Macy's is happy to oblige."

Those were the same words he quoted back to her three days after his first visit, on the Thursday afternoon when he again appeared at the door of her sewing room. "The customer's always correct you said. So I've come to bring you these," holding out a bunch of dark purple violets surrounded by hand-cut paper lace and tied with a pink ribbon, "and you must say, 'Yes, of course, Joshua. I will be happy to go coaching with you Sunday afternoon.' I've just purchased three new pairs of trousers, so I'm the customer and I insist."

"Thank you for the posy. It's charming. But I can't . . ." It was not his improbable arrival that tied her tongue. It was the sight of Auntie Eileen's best friend, Rosie O'Toole, looming over his shoulder. Mollie had no doubt that in a matter of hours Mrs. O'Toole and Eileen Brannigan would be sitting together over a cup of tea, and that Auntie Eileen would be aware that Mollie at last had a suitor. Then, when it didn't work out as Mollie was quite sure it would not-why should the likes of Mr. J. Turner be seriously interested in a woman well past marrying age?-her aunt would be disappointed, and say Mollie had become too independent. "Thank you again," she said. "The violets are lovely. But I'm afraid this Sunday is out of the question." Behind him Rosie O'Toole's face turned dark with disapproval.

"Why? Are you spoken for?" Joshua demanded.

"No, but-"

"I'll be happy to ask permission of your father or guardian. I'm perfectly respectable, you know."

Behind him Rosie O'Toole was nodding her head in vigorous agreement.

"I barely know you, Mr. Turner."

"Not so," he said, sounding very grave, "you've had your hand up my trouser leg for three years."

Most females would have blushed. Or been outraged at his familiarity. Mollie giggled. She couldn't help herself. And when he hoisted that trouser, displayed his peg, and said, "Nothing improper of course, since that leg's made of wood," she was undone.

"You take it so well," she said, his courage suddenly making her insides feel as soft as warm b.u.t.ter. "It must be very difficult. Do you never want to complain?"

"Not much point in it. Now tell me where you live and I'll collect you at two on Sunday afternoon."

Mollie hesitated. Nothing would come of it. Auntie Eileen would be disappointed yet again. Rosie O'Toole took a step closer and loudly cleared her throat. Joshua Turner, Mollie noted, did not appear startled. Instead he gave the definite impression he was aware of being watched and was unfazed. It struck Mollie all at once that this was not a usual sort of man. "Miss Hamilton's," she said, "Eight East Twenty-Third Street."

"Miss Hamilton's," Joshua repeated. "I'm honored, Miss Mollie Popandropolos. And I very much look forward to seeing you on Sunday."

Good thing, Mollie thought, she wasn't a regular churchgoer. The absence of devotions allowed her to spend three hours Sunday morning deciding what to wear. It was a bit warmer, fortunately. And the sun was s.h.i.+ning. She settled on her blue-and-white-striped dress, because she particularly liked the way the flounced skirt bustled behind her-she wore a padded underbustle to emphasize the effect-and made her waist look really tiny, and she could wear over it a blue short cape trimmed with ruched red velvet. The dress had a matching parasol besides, and when she twirled in front of the mirror Mollie decided the effect to be quite charming.

The outfit wasn't new, but since she'd never been coaching before, or indeed anywhere with Mr. Turner, that hardly mattered. Anyway, her bonnet was new. It was white straw trimmed with blue feathers and she'd bought it at Macy's two weeks earlier. It had been marked down to a dollar seventy-five from two, and with her employee's discount-something only Macy's offered-had cost a dollar and sixty-one cents. Good value, Mollie decided as she surveyed the full effect. And in the afternoon, based on the expression on Mr. Turner's face when he saw her, Mollie was pleased with her choices.

He drove a small straw-bodied phaeton, open to the elements and pulled by a single bay. "Glad you brought a parasol," he said when he handed her up with as much ease as might a man with both legs. "Perhaps someday I'll be rich and proper and take you coaching in an elegant black brougham."

"I shouldn't like that half so well, Mr. Turner. After all, one wouldn't be able to see as much from inside a brougham."

"Or be seen," he agreed, giving her another look Mollie thought to be approving. "Which after all is the point. And you must call me Joshua. Josh if you prefer."

"I must, must I?"

"Absolutely."

"Why is that?"

He took a moment to reply. "I can't really say, except that it would please me enormously."

"Then Josh it will be."

"And may I call you Mollie? Miss Popandropolos is a bit of a mouthful."

"Mollie is acceptable."

Josh grinned and snapped the reins and clucked the horses into action.

Fifth Avenue's procession of luxurious mansions had begun marching north from Ninth Street in the 1850s. These days, when he turned the phaeton onto Fifth at Twenty-Third and headed uptown, Josh and Mollie were in the thick of that opulent parade. "That house over there," he nodded to his left, "is said to have a picture gallery and a private theater, as well as a library and a ballroom. And solid gold banisters throughout."

"Must be terribly difficult to keep them free of fingerprints."

He laughed. "Fair enough. What about that one then?" with a nod to his right. "Has its own third-floor chapel with stained gla.s.s windows. Plus marble staircases, ebony paneling, and plaster cherubs in the bathing rooms. I'm told there are four of those."

"Cherubs or bathing rooms?"

"You are impertinent. In a charming way. Bathing rooms I suppose. Men of the type who own such places buy their statuary by the dozen. Or at least their wives do. I take it you are not impressed."

"Well I am, sort of. But . . ." But she had seen too much of what the men who built these castles got up to in the time they didn't spend making money. And all the newspapers had reported the time Mrs. Singer ran into the street from the mansion her husband's sewing machines built, screaming she'd been beaten enough for one day. "I don't think grand houses necessarily make people happy."

"A n.o.ble sentiment. Am I to take it that's the sort of thing young ladies are taught in Greece? Popandropolos is a Greek name, is it not?"

"It is, but I'm afraid I know nothing about the country." Paying close attention to the need to adjust the hem of her dress. "I was born here in New York."

"Of Greek parents, I take it."

"That's right." This time it was her parasol that required adjusting.

"Has anyone ever said you look particularly Irish?"

"No," Mollie answered, turning to him at last and speaking in her firmest tone of voice, "never."

He shot her a quick and piercing look she wasn't quite sure how to interpret, but all he said was, "End of the handsome houses. At least for now."

They had reached the crest of Murray Hill at Thirty-Seventh Street. From there on the brownstone palaces gave way to mostly open fields. Because the paved avenues and cross streets of the grid had been built a bit above grade level to make construction easier, the undeveloped countryside fell off to either side. Driving along Fifth above the Thirties it seemed they looked down into a different world. There was a good deal of rubble left over from laying out the roads, interrupted by an occasional tumbledown shack or a sprawling dwelling that housed hundreds. Rookeries everyone called them, huge barracks-like structures where landlords crammed in as many of the working poor as could pay a few dollars' rent. And everywhere half-dressed urchins who frequently stopped playing long enough to stare after the phaeton until it was out of sight. Then, at Fifty-First Street, the desolation gave way to a half-built pseudo gothic pile that since 1858 had been promising to become the Roman Catholic Cathedral of St. Patrick.

"Do you think," Mollie asked, "the city will ever come up this far? Perhaps when the Catholic Church is finished. Will all the grand mansions march up to meet it?"

"I suppose they will, but that's not what interests me. I'm in real estate as it happens, and I can a.s.sure you, what this town needs is not more grand mansions. What's required is a way to shelter the middle cla.s.ses who make New York run. There has to be something between a shack, or a rookery for the poorest of the poor, and a castle on Fifth Avenue."

"But there is," Mollie said. "Block after block of ordinary brownstones without any nonsense like gold banisters. And more being built everyday."

"True enough, but one house per family is not going to solve the problem for the future. We're an island, don't forget, and there's only so much filling along our sh.o.r.es we can do. Land is the one thing New York City can't manufacture."

"And do you have a solution to this problem?"

"I have ideas, Mollie. Or I should say, one idea with numerous variations."

She started to ask what exactly the idea was, but they had reached Fifty-Ninth Street and were entering Central Park. Joshua immediately became occupied with making his way into a close-packed string of vehicles, while for her part Mollie was lost in wonder.

Stately broughams and elegant coaches and racy landaus were making their way along a winding thoroughfare lined with trees just beginning to green. There were few coachmen. Almost everyone drove themselves, that being part of the afternoon's pleasure. A number of the gentlemen took great trouble to show off their skill at handling teams of two or even four, and bettering their rivals as they did so. This involved a lot of side-by-side maneuvering on a roadway planned for single-file traffic in each direction, and you could hear the drivers taunting one another as they managed to bob and weave their way to the front of one carriage, only to be confronted by half a dozen more.

Josh was soon in the heart of that compet.i.tion, obviously enjoying the challenge of taking on grander carriages and frequently beating them. He'd gotten to his feet-he was remarkably steady despite the peg-and though he held a whip as did the other drivers, he seemed only to crack it in the air, and to control his horse with nothing but the reins. His hat fell off as he worked the phaeton around a particularly challenging curve, and the sunlight shone on his red hair. He looked, Mollie thought, like someone from the books she'd read as a young girl: a hero from the days of old, his head circled with laurel.

Strollers, meanwhile, were thick on the ground either side, and all the women, riding or walking, wore brightly colored dresses, while the men sported cutaway coats and top hats. "Quite a sight, isn't it?" Josh asked with another of his broad grins. "Welcome to coaching, Mollie. Now tilt your parasol so everyone can see your gorgeous feathered bonnet. And don't forget to smile at the gawkers. You're exactly what they've come out to see."

There were countless boardinghouses in New York City. Rooming houses they were called, and the great majority accepted only single men. A few were willing to accommodate entire families in one or perhaps two bedrooms, though they were obliged to take their meals with other residents in the communal dining room. Most of these establishments occupied brownstones that had been deserted by the fas.h.i.+onable in the rush uptown. Never mind that every house built in the city after 1840 was equipped with running water, indoor plumbing, gas lighting, and central heating; if it was below Tenth Street it was no longer a place where a family with even modest social pretensions chose to live, and it was promptly sold and turned into a dwelling for the ma.s.ses who could afford better than a rookery or a slightly less-crowded tenement, but not a whole house.

Edith Hamilton's rooming house on Twenty-Third Street was an exception only in that it was reserved for those relatively few single ladies who did not live with their families. Mollie sometimes amused herself by thinking of the ways in which her present situation was like living at her aunt's. Here as at Brannigan's, six single women lived under another woman's care and constant observation, but nothing on G.o.d's green earth was more proper than Miss Hamilton's Residence for Ladies.

Room and board cost fifteen dollars a week (not an inconsiderable amount considering that the poor souls in the rookeries paid a few pennies a night and those in the tenements fifteen dollars a month). Meals at Miss Hamilton's were served at precise hours: breakfast at half past six and a light supper at seven-thirty. On Sundays there was as well a midday meal at one. Among the house's amenities was a single bathing room with a large porcelain tub and big bra.s.s taps. Each lady was a.s.signed a weekly half hour in which to use the facility. Apart from that she had a washstand with a large bowl in her room, and permission to fill a pitcher with hot water twice daily. The bedrooms were austere in their appointments, the greatest luxury apart from the washstand being that every room was provided with a Bible. And while it went without saying that no males were permitted above stairs, the women were also forbidden to visit each other's bedrooms. Visiting, according to Edith Hamilton, was a thing meant to be done when one was fully and appropriately clothed.

A ground-floor sitting room was provided for the purpose of social intercourse. Moreover, though at twenty-two Mollie was the youngest of the residents, not even the eldest, a seventy-year-old who had been a governess, was permitted to entertain a gentleman caller without Miss Hamilton acting as chaperone. That was true when the former governess's elderly brother came to see her, and definitely true on the two occasions when Joshua Turner, having cornered Mollie in her workroom and more or less invited himself, showed up for Sunday afternoon tea.

On the occasion of the second visit Josh put up with Edith Hamilton's restrictive oversight for no more than ten minutes, then stood up, crossed to Mollie-Miss Hamilton had arranged them in two chairs with the tea table between-and took her hand. "It is far too nice an afternoon to be cooped up in here, Miss Popandropolos. We are going for a walk." With that he pulled her up, nodded toward the chaperone, and practically pushed himself and Mollie out the front door.

He made straight for Madison Square Park across the street, and steered them toward the Twenty-Sixth Street end, though he stopped as soon as they were well inside the leafy fastness. "The old biddy won't see us here, even if she's peeking through the lace curtains. Now," gesturing at two benches with his stick, "sun or shade?"

"Sun," Mollie said, choosing the bench bathed in the soft light of the waning April afternoon. "Or we can stroll if you prefer." Then, her glance dropping to his peg leg, "I mean because you said . . ."