26 



THE NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC MAGAZINE 



Photograph by Paul Thompson 



AN ICE-CREAM PARLOR ON WHEELS 



With no rent to pay and axle grease in very small quantities required, the ice-cream 

 sandwich man is able to make of his pocket a reservoir for pennies in such quantities that 

 frequently he push-carts his way into the ranks of dairy-lunch owners. 



pie who have to be shown at every step 

 of the way, fighting against disease dis- 

 semination in crowded factories, crowded 

 cars, crowded streets. New York has tri- 

 umphed over all its health handicaps. 



ALWAYS OUTGROWING ITS UTILITIES 



In every phase of its development New 

 York City is like an adolescent boy who 

 is always outgrowing his clothes ; the city 

 fathers are kept on tenter hooks to meet 

 its expansion. Its schools are always 

 overcrowded because, rich as it is, the 

 municipality cannot buy sites and build 

 schools fast enough to keep up with the 

 ever-growing child army. Its transpor- 

 tation lines are always choked with pas- 

 sengers because one subway cannot be 

 completed before another is needed. Its 

 bridges and tunnels are always pressed 

 to capacity because the interval between 

 the realization of a new need and the 



opening of facilities to meet it is long 

 enough in New York's rate of expansion 

 for a succeeding need to be born. 



Everywhere one hears the roar of 

 dynamite — the growing pains of a great 

 city. Months there are as years else- 

 where and years as decades. The ultra- 

 modern of yesterday is the commonplace 

 of tomorrow and the obsolescent of a 

 decade hence ; for New York adds a 

 Maine - New Hampshire - Vermont pop- 

 ulation to its own every ten years, and 

 facilities must ever march at double-quick 

 to keep pace with such growth. 



But at last the city has found one place 

 where engineering construction is able 

 to outstrip human expansion and prepare 

 for decades ahead. It has built a water 

 system that will take care of half a cen- 

 tury of growth and form a unit in the 

 bigger system that may lie beyond that 

 period. 



