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15 The exterior appearance of New York is at first disappointing. We are accustomed to find in every Capital we visit large & stately buildings which, as in the case of Royal or Imperial Palaces, Public offices, & the Hotels of a territorial Nobility, are the results of our own existing Institutions; or, as in the case of Cathedrals, Churches, Town Halls & castles are the result of a state of things belonging to the past History of Europe. And so when we walk through the streets of a city larger than most European Capitals, & find none of the buildings we are in the? habit of seeing everywhere else, we condemn it as architecturally poor. This feeling is increased in New York by the fact that there is nothing very striking in Broadway, its main Street, except its length. The shops, or stores as they are called, are rendered externally quite ineffective by the narrowness of their frontage, & by the way in which they are converted into an advertizing frame for names, & announcements of various kinds. When you get inside the door you find as extensive & rich an assortment of goods as can be seen in the best shops of London or Paris: there is however little indication of this from the outside. But a better acquaintance with the City qualifies to a great extent this first feeling of disappointment. It is irrational to condemn a place for not having what it is impossible cd ever have been there. New York cannot have Imperial Palaces, or medieval Cathedrals, not even great public offices, but in the part of the Fifth Avenue, & of? the contiguous streets which is occupied with the residences of private citizens, it is not surpassed by any thing of the same kind in any city of