May had been unseasonably moist and June unreasonably cool, but this week New York City's 7,795,471 residents finally read unmistakable signposts of an impending weather change and with it a threat of sociological change. Shortened were Manhattan's winter skyscraper shadows; the tall towers of stone, glass and burnished metal reached upward nearly shadowless under the hazy midday sun.
Tenements, still the city's drab cincture to its towers, menaced a thousand rubbish-strewn, treeless streets. Subway passengers broiled; Broadway theaters and side-street restaurants hung "Delightfully Air Conditioned" banners or closed for the...