As our
colleague Endymion suggested, it would make a fine subject for
Walter Jack Duncan. In the eastern end of this strip of fine old
masonry resides the seafaring tavern we spoke of above; formerly
known as Sweet's, and a great place of resort (we are told) for
Brooklynites in the palmy days before the Bridge was opened, when
they used to stop there for supper before taking the Fulton Ferry
across the perilous tideway.
The Fulton Ferry--dingy and deserted now--is full of fine memories.
The old waiting room, with its ornate carved ceiling and fine,
massive gas brackets, peoples itself, in one's imagination, with the
lively and busy throngs of fifty and sixty years ago. "My life then
(1850-60) was curiously identified with Fulton Ferry, already
becoming the greatest in the world for general importance, volume,
variety, rapidity, and picturesqueness." So said Walt Whitman. It is
a curious experience to step aboard one of the boats in the drowsy
heat of a summer afternoon and take the short voyage over to the
Brooklyn slip, underneath one of the huge piers of the Bridge. A few
heavy wagons and heat-oppressed horses are almost the only other
passengers. Not far away from the ferry, on the Brooklyn side, are
the three charmingly named streets--Cranberry, Orange, and
Pineapple--which are also so lastingly associated with Walt
Whitman's life. It strikes us as odd, incidentally, that Walt, who
loved Brooklyn so much, should have written a phrase so capable of
humorous interpretation as the following: "Human appearances and
manners--endless humanity in all its phases--Brooklyn also.
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