Читать книгу The Workers: An Experiment in Reality. The West онлайн

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The street was coated with a murky mire, kneaded by hoofs and wheels to the consistency of paste, and tracked by countless feet upon the pavements, where it lay as thick almost as on the cobbles. The skyline on both sides was a ragged sierra, mounting from three to five and seven stories, then leaping suddenly on the right to the appalling height of the Masonic Temple, and grotesque in all its length with rearing signs and flagstaffs that pierced the smoky vapor of the upper air, while the sagging halyards fluttered like fine threads in the icy gusts from off the lake. Whole fronts of flamboyant architecture were almost concealed behind huge bombastic signs, while other advertising devices hung suspended overhead, watches three feet in diameter, and boots and hats of a giant race.

The shop windows were draped with the scalloped fringes of idle awnings, and merely a glance at their displays was enough to disclose a commercial difference separated by only the width of the thoroughfare, a difference like that between Twenty-third Street and the Bowery.