Street could not seem other than grotesque. It is now the filthy and
swarming centre of a very low population. The Jewish pedlar _par
éminence_ lives there and thereabouts. Signs painted in the
characters of his race, not of his accidental nationality, abound on
every side. Here a synagogue occupies the story above a shop; there
Masonic symbols are exhibited between the windows in a similar
location. Jewish faces of the least prepossessing type look askance
into eyes which they recognize as both unfamiliar and observant.
Women, unkempt and slouchy, or else arrayed in dubious finery, brush
against one. At intervals fast growing greater the remains of an
extinct domesticity and privacy still show themselves in the shape of
old-fashioned brick or wooden houses with Dutch gables or Queen Anne
fronts, but for the most part tall tenement-houses, their lower
stories uniformly given up to some small traffic, claim exclusive
right of possession. The sidewalks are crowded with the stalls of a
yet more petty trade; the neighborhood is full of unpleasant sights,
unwholesome odors, and revolting sounds.

But the Hester Street of seventy years ago and more was another
matter. When a canal flowed through Canal Street, and tall trees
growing on either side of it sheltered the solid and roomy houses of
retired merchants and professional men, Hester Street was a long way
up town. Seven years before the subject of the present biography was
born, that elegantly proportioned structure, the City Hall, which had
then been nine years a-building, was finished in material much less
expensive than had been intended when it was begun. Marble was very
dear, reasoned the thrifty and far-sighted City Fathers of the day,
and as the population of New York were never likely to settle to any
extent above Chambers Street, the rear of the hall would be seen so
seldom that this economy would not be noticeable. What is now