322 HUDSON HONORED IN NEW YORK 



In the evening came the fireworks. 



As early as 6:30 o'clock, when the city hall and all the borough halls of 

 the great city, the big East river bridges, the skyscrapers, hotels, and every- 

 thing else sent forth their first flash of lights, all the river also was lit up. In 

 front of the big white pylons of the staff at the foot of One Hundred and 

 Tenth street lay the liner Nieuw Amsterdam, with every line studded with 

 lighted bulbs. From the water front a few yards in front of the crowd to the 

 rim of the Palisades, up and down as far as one could see, there were lights 

 and lights — and more lights. 



There was a pause for a while on every bridge of the miles of fighting 

 ships while the quartermasters waited for the "cornet" signal that would 

 cause them to give the order. "Turn on lights." The signal came promptly 

 as signals on flagships have a habit of doing, and like a burning trail of powder 

 ship after ship flashed out of the darkness, up and down the river as far as you 

 could see. A good imitation of the crack of doom accompanied the lighting up 

 of the fleet. Every siren for miles was tied down. The hoarse calls of battle- 

 ships, liners, and other boats added to the din. 



Jets of light from the clustered searchlights far up the river, which had 

 been radiating like sticks in a woman's fan in individual rays, now were 

 brought closer together, still spreading out individual shafts of light, but mak- 

 ing a lesser, therefore brighter, number of rays. 



And then up and down the river, the Jersey shore — the back drop of the 

 stage — broke loose with fireworks. Fireworks spluttered and banged and sent 

 training balloons of fire sailing southward over the warships in a strong breeze 

 for more than an hour. It undoubtedly was the biggest pyrotechnic display, in 

 quality and in quantity, that New York ever had seen. 



Up on Washington heights twenty great beams of light in twelve colors 

 made a playground of the darkness. The searchlights were there to light up 

 the curtain of steam that sizzled a few hundred feet from them to one side. 

 The steam would billow out in fat, fanlike puffs, and the searchlights would 

 illuminate these in gaudy colors, like a peacock's tail, or it would &ome out in 

 a solid sheet and the colors would play on the wall. Again it would issue 

 forth in short snaky looking wreaths, a dozen writhing in mid air at the same 

 tim*e, and the colors would come and go in red and yellow and all the other 

 tints the psychologists say represent anger and fear. 



The plant from which all the plays of light came was situated on Riverside 

 drive, between One Hundred and Fifty-fifth and One Hundred and Fifty- 



