•

only in the 19th century do the cities we now live in begin to be built

•

19th cities for the first time become larger and more populated than any person can easily know

•

vast grids of streets

•

where many thousands of people live pressed in together

•

the first buildings with 4,5, and 6 stories were beginning to be constructed

•

how to fireproof them, make them accomodate unprecedented numbers of workers and residents

•

so large that modes of mass transportation have to be developed

•

Walt Whitman

•

son of carpenter

•

in his youth, he built these buildings

•

came of age during one of the building booms in New York

•

he watches a city come into being, his self-consciousness enhanced by the change he sees all around him

•

like Dickens and Dostoevsky, describing people move from mode of transportation to mode of transportation daily

•

before the 19th century, no one took a ferry daily in order to go to work

•

commerce is exploding, goods from all over the world

•

the explosion of print is making it possible for goods to be advertised

•

material objects for sale

•

city is crowded and colorful

•

the poets Lowell and Longfellow still writing about mythological characters

•

reflections on objects of nature, trees, sunsets

•

Whitman wrote about ferries, omnibuses, horse carts, half-completed buildings

•

Whitman's city

•

work and leisure flow into each other on every block, something we are used to now

•

buskers entertaining, children playing

•

workmen return to work sites

•

the interpenetration of labor, commerce and leisure, no division between workplace and recreation place

•

very stimulating to him, turning every workday into an event

•

you are on your way to printing office and what a feast of images, what a concert of sounds

•

your world is a show with hundreds of extras on hand

•

fountains sparkle in sun, a mixture of spectacle and function