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Eleventh Avenue is full of icy dust, of grinding of wheels and scrape of hoofs on the cobblestones. Down the railroad tracks comes the clang of a locomotive bell and the clatter of shunting freightcars.
John Dos Passos, Manhattan Transfer, Harper, N.Y., 1925, p.47.
TIME: early 20th C.
PLACE: New York City
CIRCUMSTANCE: early morning
It's hot in the dining saloon, the engines throb soothingly behind the bulkhead. His head nods over a cup of hot milk just colored with coffee. Three bells. His head snaps up with a start. The dishes tinkle and the coffee spills with the trembling of the ship. Then a thud and rattle of anchorchains and gradually quiet.
John Dos Passos, Manhatten Transfer, Harper, N.Y., 1925, p. 67.
TIME: early 20th C.
PLACE: New York City
CIRCUMSTANCE: aboard a passenger ship
They were silent. He could hear himself chewing. A few rattling sounds of cabs and trolley-cars squirmed in brokenly through the closed windows. The steampipes knocked and hissed. Down the airshaft the furnaceman with grease up to his armpits was spitting words out of his wabbly mouth up at the maid in the starched cap - dirty words.
John Dos Passos, Manhattan Transfer, Harper, N.Y., 1925, p. 81.
TIME: early 20th c.
PLACE: New York City
CIRCUMSTANCE: a boy listens out the window
Millionaire Thatcher leaned out the window of the bright patchouliscented room to look at the dark-jutting city steaming with laughter, voices, tinkling and lights; behind him orchestras played among the azaleas, private wires click click click clicked dollars from Singapore, Valparaiso, Mukden, Hongkong, Chicago. Susie leaned over him in a dress made of orchids, breathed in his ear.
John Dos Passos, Manhatten Transfer, Harper, 1925, New York, p.111.
TIME: early 20th c.
PLACE: New York City
CIRCUMSTANCE: a nightclub (?)
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