Manhattan, New York, USA (New York City) (New Amsterdam) (Washington Heights)
1898 - Open Air Courtship

With the coming of summer in New York the open air courtships begin. There is hardly the shadow of a friendly tree without a pair of lovers under it, and there is certainly not a bench in the park on which one or more have not found refuge. It is easy to laugh and it is more than easy for the unthinking to condemn. The well housed are able to uphold conventional rules and decry the breakers of them. But we live in a country where courtships are free, and young men and women can see and meet each other before the thrifty parent has disposed of them to desirable parties. And so long as this is so, and until we learn to build better homes for our tenement house population, young men and women will continue to do their courting in public. A hot kitchen with all the family in attendance, or a doorstep with all the tenement trying to get cool is not a great attraction to offset those of trees, fresh air, sweet smelling grass and a wide open sky. We who sit in judgement ought to consider these things. They get their privacy in publicity. We get ours behind closed doors on in the ordering of well established social laws. -- Harper's Bazar

Plain Dealer
Cleveland, Ohio
June 28, 1898

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