from the fact that the handsomest part of New York is the center of New
York, whereas the center of Chicago is disappointing. It does not
impress. I was shown, in the center of Chicago, the first sky-scraper
that the world had ever seen. I visited with admiration what was said to
be the largest department store in the world. I visited with a natural
rapture the largest book-store in the world. I was informed (but
respectfully doubt) that Chicago is the greatest port in the world. I
could easily credit, from the evidence of my own eyes, that it is the
greatest railway center in the world. But still my imagination was not
fired, as it has been fired again and again by far lesser and far less
interesting places. Nobody could call Wabash Avenue spectacular, and
nobody surely would assert that State Street is on a plane with the
collective achievements of the city of which it is the principal
thoroughfare. The truth is that Chicago lacks at present a
rallying-point--some Place de la Concorde or Arc de Triomphe--something
for its biggest streets to try to live up to. A convocation of elevated
railroads is not enough. It seemed to me that Jackson Boulevard or Van
Buren Street, with fine crescents abutting opposite Grant Park and
Garfield Park, and a magnificent square at the intersection of Ashland
Avenue, might ultimately be the chief sight and exemplar of Chicago. Why
not? Should not the leading thoroughfare lead boldly to the lake instead
of shunning it? I anticipate the time when the municipal soul of Chicago
will have found in its streets as adequate expression as it has already
found in its boulevards.

Perhaps if I had not made the "grand tour" of those boulevards, I might
have been better satisfied with the streets of Chicago. The excursion,
in an automobile, occupied something like half of a frosty day that
ended in torrents of rain--apparently a typical autumn day in Chicago!
Before it had proceeded very far I knew that there was a sufficient