th
streets, and now in course of erection, will be located the Central Park
Hotel, which is to be one of the most imposing structures in New York;
and just opposite is the main entrance to the Central Park.

From Seventh to Fifty-ninth streets, the avenue presents a continuous
line of magnificent mansions. There are a few marble, yellow stone, and
brick buildings, but the prevailing material is brown stone. The general
appearance of the street is magnificent, but sombre, owing to the dark
color of the stone. Nearly all the houses are built on the same design,
which gives to it an air of sameness and tameness that is not pleasing.
But it is a magnificent street, nevertheless, and has not its equal in
the great and unbroken extent of its splendor in the world. It is a
street of palaces. Madison and Park avenues, and portions of Lexington
avenue, are nearly as handsome, as are the cross streets connecting them
with the Fifth avenue, and many of the streets leading to the Sixth
avenue are similarly built. The great defect of the avenue is the
poverty of resource in the designs of the buildings, but this is the only
species of poverty present here.

If the houses are palatial without, they are even more so within. Some
of them are models of elegance and taste; others are miracles of flashy
and reckless adornment. The walls and ceilings are covered with
exquisite frescoes. The floors are rich in the finest and thickest of
carpets, on whose luxurious pile no footfall ever sounds. The light of
the sun comes struggling in through the richest of curtains, and at night
the brilliancy of the gas is softened by the warmest tinted porcelain
shades, or heightened by the dazzling reflection of crystal chandeliers.
The drawing rooms are filled with the costliest and the richest furniture
which is the perfection of comfort, and with works of art worth a fortune
in themselves. Back of these, or across the hall, through the half
opened doors, you see the sumptuously furnished library, with its long
rows of daintily bound books in their rosewood shelves. The library is a
"feature" in most houses of the very wealthy, and in the majority of
instances is more for ornament than for use. In the rear of all is the
conservatory with its wealth of flowers and rare plants, which send their
odors through the rooms beyond. The upper and lower stories are
furnished on a corresponding scale of magnificence. Everything that
money can proc