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THE OLEAN EVENING TIMES, TIDr. Frank Crane’s Daily EditorialRIVERFRONTSJune Mansfield writes that the riverfront 13 the last too* awful street of a great city. “It is the jumping-off place. Pay no heed to the saloons. Their day of splendor has flown. See the boarded windows and the envious rents. All sounds long since dissipated in thin air. Thirteen saloons and a few cafes, end on end, down a canyoned street. That’s a waterfront. And a waterfront is nothing more than a back yard, a place where refuse is thrown, where the shards coagulate.”It is a fact that has often been observed that a waterfront of an American city is about the least inviting part of the town.The city seems to back up its rear quarters to the riveror lake or sea. , ,You find huts there, or dives, or low stores, railroads,and possibly vacant lots with tin cans.The waterfront is always a hard place to get to. Theroads are unkempt. . . ,, , .A peculiar class of people seem to inhabit the water- j ^ front. They are not of the best variety. In fact, you speak of them as “water rats.”Why does the waterfront seem to attract this kind ofmen and this kind of stores?It ought to be 'the best part of the city. It ought to be covered with greensward and adorned with the most beauti- ^ ful residences. On the contrary, you find the good-looking j lt;residences back from the river, in an inland part of the town.For some reason Park Avenue, over the New York Central Railroad, has outdistanced Riverside Drive as a residential center. Yet the Riverside is far more attractive thanPark Avenue.Perhaps the reason lies in the fact that living along the waterfront is too easy. People can lie around all day and catch a few fish and manage to eke out an existence.Back in the land the struggle is fiercer and develops asturdier quality of human being.It is the same reason that a more lanquid type of hu-_ _ . * « ■« j 1 .1i4i4manity is found in the tropics than in the temperate and lt;northern zones. ■ -nern zones. _ ..IIMankind seems to require some obstacles. If it cannot jget them it becomes flabby.If the wind never tore at the young tree the oak would not grow strong and sturdy. -One should not go to look for obstacles and not volun- j t tarily place them on the road of anyone else, but they should e be welcome when they are presented to us by fate. ^ iiCopyright. 1925, by The McClure Newspaper Syndicate
Newspaper Details
Olean Times
Olean, New York, US
Tue, Apr 21, 1925
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CA, USA 08 Mar 2020
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