The Address(83)
“Your speech.” She pointed to the half-full piece of paper on his desk. “Why don’t you make it about exactly that? The city of the future.”
“Unfortunately, tonight’s audience doesn’t care much about that. They all want to know how to make the most money snatching up land on the West Side.”
“Then make them care. You speak so passionately about it.” She pulled the paper and inkwell to her. “Go on, you talk and I’ll write.”
“It’s no use.”
She disliked this version of Theo. He seemed determined to fail. In the past, she might have agreed with him, assumed that he knew better on most things. But after Blackwell’s, she no longer accepted another’s authority so easily. “First off, what are today’s architects doing wrong?”
He paced up the room, and back down. His long legs took only ten strides each way, his footsteps sure and even. “The center of the island is currently located at the southern tip. The courts, the post office, the Exchange. Even with elevated railways, the congestion is terrible, everyone struggling south in the morning and back north at the end of the workday. The business district should be moved up to the Forties, near Broadway.”
“Very forward thinking. What else?”
His shoulders straightened and he looked up at the ceiling, lost in thought. “There’s no point in having each plot of land owned by a separate person. Instead, we should continue in the mold of the apartment house and create large buildings, vertical ones, that house dozens of businesses. We need to add an entirely new dimension to our thinking, and that’s upward. Imagine a city of buildings that soar into the sky, with fast elevators that take workers up to their offices.”
Sara scribbled as fast as he was speaking. She loved this side of him, the dashing, daring man with strong opinions. How she wished she could be part of him again. The thought made her feel slightly dizzy. Mrs. Camden would be back soon enough with the children, and they might never be this close again. If this was what life offered her, she wanted to drink it all in, even if there were proprieties to obey. She would respect them but take her fill of her intellectual partnership with Theo while she could. She added her own line, and spoke what she had written out loud, to see if he approved. “We’re on an island, there’s no way north, south, east, or west. Instead, we rise.”
He snapped his fingers. “Perfectly put.”
She thought of Daisy’s family, in their miserable tenement building. “If you’re going to think in such a grand way, what about addressing the issue of class? How do we help the poor, since we must live side by side on this cramped island?”
He clapped his hands together. “Yes. Of course. This is where the economics work in everyone’s favor. The model dwelling should take up an entire block, with every room providing air and light. We did it in the Dakota, with cross ventilation. Because we’re discussing large numbers of tenants within one building, it can be as cheap, if not cheaper, than the miserable tenements we have now, which are dark and dingy and prone to spreading disease.”
“We marry economics with a grand structure that’s solid and permanent.”
“Yes!” Theo made a fist. “Write that down. Brilliant.”
Sara did, beaming with pride.
Theo put a hand on her shoulder and squeezed it. “Here is a speech that I was dreading, and now I can’t wait to deliver it. Will you go with me? I want you to be there to see it.”
“I’d love to.”
She wore a polonaise dress in an olive green that Nellie had given her and felt like a proper lady alighting from the brougham with Theo. There were a number of women in the audience, either accompanying their husbands or present as concerned citizens. Everyone had an opinion on what the West Side of Manhattan should look like, and this was sure to be a lively forum.
Theo took a seat up on the stage with four other architects, all of whom had at least twenty years on him, with wizened features and gray beards. In comparison, he looked like a schoolboy. The fact that he had been invited up there at all was astonishing.
On the hour, the speeches began. Most hailed the status quo, pointing to the grand design of the millionaires’ houses along Fifth Avenue as a way of showcasing the affluence of New York City. One insisted that Riverside Drive would be the next grand avenue for the city, due to its prime location on the river and wide plots of land. Many listening nodded their heads.
Then Theo rose. He began by comparing the current state of New York architecture to a masquerade, with architects ransacking all eras and countries and turning buildings into caricatures. The audience members sat a little straighter in their chairs, attentive. “We are like children in a toy shop, dazed with the multitude of opportunities and incapable of fixing our choice.”
The man sitting next to Sara grunted out loud at this and murmured something disagreeable to the man on his other side.
But as Theo began speaking of the city of the future, the mood slowly changed. Their argument was sound and succinct, and as he spoke of the coming era, where rich and poor would have the same opportunities to live in a clean, healthy environment, someone near the front called out a resounding “Yes!”
After he finished, the audience burst into applause, several people standing up to do so. Theo’s eyes searched the room until he met Sara’s gaze, and a thrill of longing and pride ran through her. They’d done it.