The Black Hole of New York

Yesterday evening's papers--the less conservative of them--carried the word that General MacArthur's triumphal parade through New York had drawn an audience of 7,500,000 people. They also said that the route the general traveled was 15 miles long.

Taking these figures into account, and reckoning the average New Yorker as being two feet wide and one foot deep (height no object, we discovered the following interesting statistics:

For each city block that the general traversed, there were 12,500 people on each side of the parade. Assuming that people could pack the side-walk 20 deep, this would take care of only 20 percent of the total. Even if an equal number could crowd into the side streets along the way, that leaves 7,500 per block watching from windows, treetops, and other elevated positions.

Assuming a generous average building height of 20 stories, and 15 windows per floor per block, this means that an average of 25 people were at every window to watch general pass. Of course, while the parade was moving along the East River Drive, there were only buildings on one side, so that each window has to serve 50 spectators. As for Central Park where there are no buildings, the only possibility is that New Yorkers were crowded 100 deep and shoulder to shoulder along each side of the route.

These figures speak for themselves. We only hope that nobody was trampled in the rush.