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Summary
I. Ferryslip
A nurse in a hospital sets a newborn baby down in a basket.
The first named character, Bud Korpenning, arrives in New York City on a ferry. In his first exposure to the materialism of the city, Bud is looked down upon by a ferry passenger because he is not well-dressed. Bud has heard about the city but has never been there. He inquires about getting to Broadway, which he considers the center of the city. When he arrives in the city, Bud goes to a diner for breakfast. He tells the cook that he has just come down from upstate and is looking for work. The cook offers unsolicited advice, telling Bud he needs to get a haircut and shave because people only care about looks in the city. Bud angrily insists he’s a good worker.
Ed Thatcher arrives at the hospital to visit his baby girl, referenced in the opening paragraph of the novel. His wife, Susie, is uncomfortable and dislikes the nurse. When baby Ellen is brought to the room, Ed is overjoyed, and Susie is convinced that the nurse has brought the wrong baby. The nurse asks Ed to leave so that Susie can be sedated and calmed. On his way out the hospital, Ed meets a German man who welcomed his sixth child that day, a son. He offers to buy Ed a beer, and the two men walk together to a nearby bar. As the men drink their beer, they discuss their work and the high cost of raising children. Ed says that the key is to keep saving money. The barkeep disagrees and suggests becoming active in the stock market. Ed considers buying stocks to be nothing more than gambling. The German man leaves the bar without paying the tab.
An average looking man is walking along a city street and is distracted by an advertisement for a Gillette razor. He looks at the distinguished, wealthy man pictured in the ad, and he decides he wants to look like him. The man purchases a razor, returns home, and shaves his beard and trims his mustache. His wife and children return home, shocked at the sight of the cleanshaven man.
II. Metropolis
Home alone while Susie is still in the hospital, Ed makes a plan for saving money for Ellen’s future. He hears people on the street below his apartment talking about a fire on the next block. Though he knows he should go to bed, Ed goes outside and follows the commotion to see the fire. Ed thinks that he comes face to face with the person that started the inferno.
Mr. Perry is being persuaded to buy an apartment. The real estate agent’s strategy is to sell based on the bright future of expansion and progress waiting for residents of New York City.
Taking the diner cook’s advice, Bud gets a shoeshine, a haircut, and a shave. As is common among the characters, Bud slips into a dream-like stream of consciousness. He imagines, or remembers, a dead man in a potato field. As he leaves the barbershop, he mumbles to himself about being a needle in a haystack.
Susie is always tired and sickly. Ellen is now a toddler, running around and tiring out her mother. Ed takes on a good deal of parenting. He tells Ellen as she dances on a newspaper and tears it that the world needs construction and not destruction.
A young man excitedly tells his girlfriend Emily that he’s gotten a raise. The girl acts as though she does not care.
Two French galley hands, Congo and Emile, are docked on a ship in New York harbor. Emile is committed to getting a job and making a stable living. Congo wants to do something big and exciting. He can’t understand why Emile wants to stay in one place.
Susie is sick in bed. She tells Ed that she wishes she would die so that she is no longer a burden. She has decided that she’s too sick to care for Ellen but resents Ed for taking Ellen to a show instead of staying home with her.
Bud looks for work. He believes that if he is on Broadway, he’ll find a job. He becomes discouraged as a man tells him it will be very difficult to get a good job in a trade without a union card.
The next vignette, swings suddenly to the opposite end of the societal spectrum of New York. Emile is a waiter at Delmonico’s. He listens to party guests talk about business and resolves to make money and achieve the same social standing with the people who now look down on him as a lowly waiter. He watches the evening devolve into chaos when the guest of honor, Fifi Waters, arrives and dances her way around the room. She accidently kicks another guest in the face, and he has to be brought to the hospital.
Congo waits for Emile on the back porch of the restaurant. They are joined by Marco, Emile’s co-worker. The three men bemoan their unfortunate situations. Marco, a socialist, talks about a coming reckoning for the upper classes. Congo announces he’s going out on the sea again. The city has made him feel like a failure because he doesn’t have money. Emile is committed to working and saving money.
Bud has a job washing dishes. He thinks he sees a detective and leaves, even though he loses two hours pay. He goes back to Broadway because he is preoccupied with being in what he considers the most important part of the city. He is convinced that he will advance if he spends time in the center of the city.
Susie tucks Ellen into bed one night and leaves her to go play cards. Young Ellen will be alone in the apartment until Ed returns from work. Ellen is terrified of the dark and cries for her father.
Gus McNeil is a milkman with an early morning shift. He goes to a bar when he finishes and has a beer, and he tells the barkeep he might go West. Gus feels there is a certain freedom in the possibility of the West that the city does not offer. The barkeep agrees and says he might leave the city as well. As Gus heads home, he is hit by a railroad car as he crosses the tracks.
Analysis
The constant movement between characters reflects a growing, unyielding New York City full of stories. While the fragmented style of the chapters initially seems disjointed, the characters of the novel soon become familiar and connections between them emerge. Each character represents other nameless people that inhabit New York and do not appear in the book. There is always construction going on, and the city has just been named the world’s second metropolis. As technology improves, the possibilities for the city seem endless. This is the allure that draws many of the characters to the city in the first place. But the stark differences in the financial situations of characters are a reminder of the importance placed on wealth and material things in Manhattan. The chapter titles in the first section refer to different types of infrastructure that support the city, including a later chapter titled “Dollars.” Throughout their stories, even the affluent characters learn that the city is a harsh and unforgiving place. This first section serves to introduce not only most of the characters, but also the city as an antagonist.
The ferry slip is one of many areas of the city endlessly bustling with activity, and this is where Bud Korpenning arrives in New York. His arrival brings the first example of how inhabitants of New York City are judged by their wealth and looks. Bud is always tired and is described in a way that makes him seem older than his years. Although he is only in his twenties when he arrives in New York, he immediately does not fit in. His excitement for a fresh start is tempered by a fellow ferry passenger who makes a superficial judgment about him and a diner cook who tells him that only looks matter in the city. Not yet discouraged by the city, Bud seems to think that if he can get to Broadway, great things will happen for him. He is a man looking for a new start, and he is confident that he will find it in New York. However, Bud is still fully unaware of how unrelenting the city can be.
Ed is a measured and practical man, but with the birth of his daughter, he’s thrown into financial uncertainty. An accountant averse to risk, he is used to simple, hard work. Although most of the other characters live at either end of the financial spectrum, Ed is staunchly part of the city’s middle class. He is not affected by the rampant consumerism of the city. Ed’s interaction with the German man at the pub illustrates his frugal nature. He knows he will never be wealthy, and this is why Ed is preoccupied with money. He is determined to save as much money as he can for Ellen’s future and a modest retirement. He is unwilling to take part in the stock market, as he opposes all risk. When Ed is unexpectedly left with the tab at the pub, he is subjected to the first of many dishonest actions portrayed in the book. The incident also foreshadows that life will not be fair for Ed.
Emile and Congo have different perspectives about the future as well as being immigrants in America. Emile is full of hope for what can be accomplished in America and tries to convince Congo to stay with him on shore rather than return to the ship. No personal details about either character are shared here, but neither young man has any reason to return home. In fact, Emile wants no part of his homeland, saying he will choose his own country, work hard, and save money. He is pulled in by the promise and allure of the city and of America. He wants to achieve financial success and is confident that only American capitalism makes this possible. Congo is not ready to think about his future in such a concrete way and is not drawn to the city in the same way as Emile.
Susie is the first example of a self-destructive character. Never happy, she is annoyed by everything including her neighbors, her husband, and her child. While she is genuinely ill, she uses her condition as an excuse to eschew her parenting duties. Ed is enamored with Ellen and tries to compensate for his absent wife, but even when trying to be a good father to Ellen, he is censured by Susie. She thinks Ed is selfish to leave her behind when he and Ellen go out and enjoy the city together. As she was sedated in the hospital when she thought someone had stolen her baby, Susie self-medicates to deal with her unsatisfying life. Susie often becomes over dramatic, wishing herself dead rather than being a burden. Ellen, who never has the chance for a healthy relationship with her mother, is a young and impressionable observer to all of this behavior.
Emile is focused on his financial success, but he is often torn by the rigid class structure of New York City. He wants to be part of the upper class someday, but he is equally disgusted by it at the same time. Although wealth gives people social status, Emile thinks little of the elites. He simultaneously objectifies them and is repulsed by their hedonistic behavior. Emile thinks of himself as morally superior when Marco, his fellow waiter, suggests he might be able to romance one of their wealthy patrons. He rejects this idea in a revealing moment in which he doesn’t want to pick up any of their diseases. Meanwhile, when Emile and Marco visit Congo after their shift, Emile demonstrates a lack of understanding for the fellow immigrant workers among his class. Marco, an anarchist, speaks yearningly of a future where people walk away from the slavery imposed on them by the upper class. The younger Emile ignores Marco’s words as the ravings of an older, foolish man. Emile may face the same plights as his fellow immigrant colleagues, but he remains under the thrall of monetary success in the big city.
