This is a quote from Fitzgerald's story, A New Leaf:
New York, with its quality of many independent ladders set side by side, is unkind to even the meetings of close friends; so, in the case of strained relations, meetings are easy to avoid.
What's the idea behind the "independent ladders"? That people tend not to borrow from or lend things to each other, and are therefore not intimate? Â
I think the idea is vertical apartment buildings. By looking through windows, you can see intimate details of someone's life, but the trouble of going down several floors, across the street or alley, and up a similar number of floors is too much work to really learn about your 'neighbor' and become intimate friends.
The idea may be similar to silos in business that prevent communication between functional (vertically-integrated) entities. It is exasperated there because silos have no windows.
Emmett
Yeah, thought of that for a moment, but couldn't relate it.
That must be what F had in mind, though many will argue (against F) , what with high density, big place. Thanks for the story, better than the main fair Gatsby, I think.
Oh, The Great Gatsby is still on my list. I should have read it till now, but changed my plan.