East River. Welfare Island, with its hospitals, lies under Queensboro
Bridge to the northeast, and past the river stretches the borough of Queens,
the World's Fair Grounds lying near the north shore. Directly east, the
most conspicuous landmark is Bellevue Hospital on the west bank of the
river. Initiates visit the tower in the late afternoon, dine in the cafe on
the eighty-sixth floor, and stay until the lights of the city come on.

Metropolitan Opera House

Broadway, 39th to 40th St. IRT Broadway-7th Ave. subway to Times Square;
or 8th Ave. (Independent) subway to 42d St.; or BMT subway to Times Square;
or Broadway bus to 40th St. Season: November to March. Admission: $1 to $7.

Efforts to provide a new building for the Metropolitan Opera House are
made perennially—indeed, Rockefeller Center is a by-product of this move-
ment. Yet, the warehouse-like yellow-brick structure that occupies an entire
block on the edge of the garment district, remains the home of the world's
foremost opera company: and within its original domicile the opera con-
tinues to expand its activities and enlarge its functions.

The opening of the Metropolitan Opera House in 1883 was part of the
great wave of artistic endeavor which arose in America in post-Civil War
days. The new moneyed aristocracy, assuming in the last decades of the
nineteenth century the role of art patron, depended for its aesthetic tute-
lage on the taste of contemporary European capitals. Immense numbers of
paintings, sculptures, and architectural models, both good and bad, were
imported. New museums appeared in American cities, and great private
collections were initiated.

With all this grandiose expansion of artistic enterprise, there were, how-
ever, certain misgivings when the ambitious plans for opera in America
were announced. The New York Times wrote that the auditorium en-
visioned for the presentation of Italian opera was "on a scale of possibly
too great magnitude." Its interior would "dazzle the eyes" of an assem-
blage accustomed to "the primitive surroundings" of the old Academy of
Music, its predecessor on Fourteenth Street.

The opera house was designed by J. C. Cady, a prominent architect of
the day. That Mr. Cady was without experience in theater construction
seemed to matter little; audiences ever since have paid for his mistakes, as
but half the stage can be seen from the side seats of the balcony and fam-
ily circle. What did matter at the time, especially to the press and to readers
of its society columns, was that the opera house had a "Golden Horse-