The quick flight to Chicago, the change of planes, the landing and take-off, scarcely attracted her notice, and the three hours flew by at faster than air speed. Peggy had finished reading and marking Sabina's role, and was deep into Miriamne's when her mother interrupted her.
"They want us to fasten our seat belts again," she said. "We're coming into New York now."
This time Peggy noticed! Spread below her, stretching out as if it would never end, was the maze of streets and avenues, rivers and islands, towers and bridges, that was the city of New York. The late afternoon sun touched the windows of skyscrapers with fire, gilded the steelwork of the bridges, cast deep, black shadows into the streets and over the rooftops of low buildings. Giant liners stood tied at docks; others steamed sedately up or down the river, pushed or pulled by tiny tugs. Even from their soaring height above the scene, New York refused to look small or toylike. It stubbornly looked only like the thing it was--the busiest, tallest, most exciting city in the world!
Turning in a great, slow arc, the plane descended until it was skimming only a few feet above the waters of a broad bay. Peggy wondered if they had flown in on a seaplane, and if they were to land in the water and have to take a boat to shore, but even as the thought occurred to her, the rocky shoreline suddenly appeared beneath her, and the plane swiftly settled down on the long, concrete runway of New York's LaGuardia Airport.
It was the rush hour, and parkways and streets were jammed with homebound cars, but their cab driver knew his way around back streets, and turned and twisted around one corner after another until Peggy lost all sense of direction. Her father, though, seemed to know exactly where they were at all times, and kept pointing out buildings and parks and bridges to Peggy and her mother, telling the name of each and how it figured in his memory. People, trucks, cars, buses, cabs, motor scooters and little foreign autos filled the streets. Mr. Lane called out the names of famous avenues as they came to and crossed them: Park Avenue ... Madison Avenue ... Fifth Avenue....
The taxi passed by store after store, their windows like so many stage sets. By the edge of Central Park, they drew up in front of their hotel. Bewildered, excited, dazzled, delighted, Peggy stepped out of the taxi and stood for the first time on the sidewalks of New York!