haps this is
an indictment of adult civilization as a whole. If one strolls
thoughtfully about some of these streets--say Thompson Street--on a
hot day, and sees the children struggling to grow up, he feels like
going back to that word CRAZY and italicizing it. The tiny
triangle of park at Beach Street is carefully locked up, you will
notice--the only plot of grass in that neighbourhood--so that bare
feet cannot get at it. Superb irony of circumstance: on the near
corner stands the Castoria factory, Castoria being (if we remember
the ads) what Mr. Fletcher gave baby when she was sick.

Where Varick Street runs in there is a wide triangular spread, and
this, gentle friends, is Finn Park, named for a New York boy who was
killed in France. The name reminded us also of Elfin Finn, the
somewhat complacent stage child who poses for chic costumes in
_Vogue_. We were wondering which was a more hazardous bringing up
for a small girl, living on Thompson Street or posing for a fashion
magazine. From Finn Square there is a stirring view of the Woolworth
Tower. Also of Claflin's packing cases on their way off to Selma,
Ala., and Kalamazoo, Mich., and to Nathan Povich, Bath, Me. That
conjunction of Finn and Bath, Me., suggested to us that the empty
space there would be a good place to put in a municipal swimming
pool for the urchins of the district.

_Drawn from the wood_, which legend still stands on the pub at the
corner of Duane Street, sounds a bit ominous these wood alcohol
days. John Barleycorn may be down, but he's never out, as someone
has remarked. For near Murray Street you will find one of those
malt-and-hops places which are getting numerous. They contain all
the necessary equipment for--well, as the signs suggest, for making
malt bread and coffee cake--bottle-capping apparatus and rubber
tubing and densimeters, and all such things used in breadmaking. As
the signs say: "Malt syrup for making malt bread, coffee, cake, and
medicinal purposes."

To conclude the scenic pleasures of the Sixth Avenue L route, we
walk through the cool, dark, low-roofed tunnel of Church Street in
those interesting blocks just north of Vesey. We hark to the merry
crowing of the roosters in the Barclay Street poultry stores; and we
look past the tall gray pillars of St. Peter's Church at the flicker
of scarlet and gold lights near the altar. The black-robed nuns one
often sees along Church Street, with their pale, austere, hooded
faces, bring