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Helen Worden wrote The Real New York and established herself as an authority plenipotentiary and chronicler extraordinary of the quaint and unusual. She does not bother with the show places that everybody knows. She strikes out for the unfamiliar, the unique, in Bagdad-on-the-Hudson.
She wasn't born in New York, but she might as well have been, so young when she first came to Manhattan. She always wandered about and looked in. Word on the World allowed her to expand her extensive amateur knowledge. Since she joined the staff of the World-Telegram she has been writing and illustrating a daily column about New York life.
Recently she realized that her acquaintance with the waterfront was decidedly imperfect. At once she set out with her friend Mrs. Theodore Steinway, to walk literally "all around the town." It took them months to complete their jaunt. But when they had finished, they had uncovered a vast store of information, seen joy and tragedy, the haunts of crime, poverty and wealth, astrolabes, shot towers, and wooden Indians, clams, and rags and pottery, cabbages, and kings. They had made friends with river men, watchmen, and innkeepers, been welcomed royally here and amusingly thrown out there.
All these first-hand impressions of today, Helen Worden has supplemented by delving into the written lore and long-forgotten records of Manhattan's rim. There's always a boat sailing or arriving. There's always activity in the famous markets on the waterfront. Life is vigorous and colorful-and what variety there is! Into these pages, Helen Worden has crammed the romance of the people and the tang of the places that rim the edge of Manhattan Island, along the East, Harlem, and Hudson Rivers. She has explored quaint spots, revived past glories, traced amazing changes, and put them all into this charming, gossipy guide.
The past and the present are strangely mingled on Manhattan's shore. Along the thirty-three miles of waterfront linger the ghosts of old sailing ships and the slim, swift shadows of yesterday's rum-runners. Houseboats ride peacefully at anchor, little tugs rush busily about, graceful yachts, the beautiful playthings of the wealthy, bump impatiently against each other in their berths, and great liners come to dock. Houses built before the Revolution stand in dignity beside the sweeping height of modern apartments and skyscrapers. New Yorkers fish for stripped bass in their backyards. There is still one farm! The old swimming hole where generations of small boys have splashed is still patronized. There is a Patchtown, peopled by New York's new pioneers, the unemployed nestled in view of high windows on Riverside Drive. There is Itch Park, the sordid rendezvous of the upper Bowery district, and River House, the most fashionable and expensive place in Manhattan to live. Al Smith's Alma Mater, the Fulton Fish Market, and the old Speedway, India House, and Jeffrey's Hook Lighthouse are all to be found along the water's edge.
