The critical European excusably expects a very great deal from Fifth
Avenue, as being the principal shopping street of the richest community
in the world. (I speak not of the residential blocks north of
Fifty-ninth Street, whose beauty and interest fall perhaps far short of
their pretensions.) And the critical European will not be disappointed,
unless his foible is to be disappointed--as, in fact, occasionally
happens. Except for the miserly splitting, here and there in the older
edifices, of an inadequate ground floor into a mezzanine and a shallow
box (a device employed more frankly and usefully with an outer flight of
steps on the East Side), there is nothing mean in the whole street from
the Plaza to Washington Square. A lot of utterly mediocre architecture
there is, of course--the same applies inevitably to every long street in
every capital--but the general effect is homogeneous and fine, and,
above, all, grandly generous. And the alternation of high and low
buildings produces not infrequently the most agreeable architectural
accidents: for example, seen from about Thirtieth Street, the
pale-pillared, squat structure of the Knickerbocker Trust against a
background of the lofty red of the Æolian Building.... And then, that
great white store on the opposite pavement! The single shops, as well as
the general stores and hotels on Fifth Avenue, are impressive in the
lavish spaciousness of their disposition. Neither stores nor shops could
have been conceived, or could be kept, by merchants without genuine
imagination and faith.

And the glory of the thoroughfare inspires even those who only walk up
and down it. It inspires particularly the mounted policeman as he reigns
over a turbulent crossing. It inspires the women, and particularly the
young women, as they pass in front of the windows, owning their contents
in thought. I sat once with an old, white-haired, and serious gentleman,