Taylor's, Weller's, or Thompson's, of the present day. These are among the most luxurious and comfortable resorts for ladies and gentlemen who visit the city but for a part of a day, or who have not time or inclination to go to houses in distant parts of the town, to lunch or dine, or for those who come down Broadway to do shopping, and need a resting place, or enjoy an exchange for gossip.

PRINCIPAL SALOON AT THOMPSON'S.

The next of the Palaces of Trade recently erected in the city, for which we have now room for any description, is the great silk house of the well-known merchants, Bowen & McNamee, constituting one of the most attractive features of the lower part of Broadway. It is built of white marble, and the style of architecture is Elizabethan, and peculiarly elaborate and effective. The building is thirty-seven and a half feet wide, one hundred and forty-seven deep, and four stories high; and each story consists of a single unbroken hall, lined with the richest English, German, French, Italian and Indian goods. The architect was Mr. Joseph C. Wells, and his plans were used in all the minutest details of ornament and furniture. It is regarded, we believe, as the greatest triumph of its kind of which our commercial metropolis has to boast; indeed in magnificence of design, beauty of execution, and perfect adaptation to its purposes, there is nothing superior to it, probably, among the buildings devoted to trade in all the world.

It was said by Jefferson that the genius of Architecture would never make her abode in America; but the new edifices in New-York, of which we have described some prominent specimens, may lead others to a different conclusion. And we are of opinion that the progress of this country, in the last quarter of a century, has been less conspicuous in any thing else than in this noble art, little as it is now understood, much as it is still disregarded. In some recent speculations on the subject, the Tribune observes:

"There is no American architecture, unless the Lowell factories may be regarded as such. Our churches are small and imperfect imitations of a miscellaneous Gothic, and our exchanges, colleges, lyceums, banks and custom-houses affect the Greek, with as much propriety as our merchants, professors and clerks would indue themselves with the Athenian costume. There is no hope of the churches and banks. They are nothing if not Gothic and Grecian. We shall not discuss the probable character of our architecture. It is clear that New-York will build brick houses, and in blocks. But beauty costs no more than ugliness, and although every man has the right to build a house of that appearance which best pleases himself, yet every citizen is bound to have at heart the beauty of the city. He cannot escape it. His pride compels it; and therefore every man who builds a house ought to consult, to some extent, the general effect of his building, and as he would not paint it blue or black, he should no less consider its form than its color.

"Cheapness and convenience will, of course, be the first principles in our building, beauty and picturesqueness will be secondary. The point is to combine these without much compromising either. At present our cities are the unhandsomest in the world. The street architecture is monotonous and heavy. The houses, compared with those of other capitals, are low, but they are not light. Paris and the Italian cities have always a festal air. Vienna is brilliant. Even grim old Rome seems waiting to be gay. You do not immediately see the reason of this. The houses are high, the streets narrow, shutting out the sky, and the swarms of passengers do not explain the charm. But if you look narrowly you will see that the difference of effect produced, arises, not so much from any essential architectural superiority; because the mass of building in any city is of about the same general character—but that it is due to the "broken and various lines which every where meet the eye, relieving the heavy gravity of the smooth fronts which with us are entirely unrelieved. Sometimes, indeed, a street is built with regard to its architectural beauty, as the Rue de Rivoli, in Paris, of which the harmony is uniformity and not monotony. One side of this street is the garden of the Tuileries, and the other is like a prolonged palace front. The northern side of the Boulevards des Italiens is truly picturesque, but for directly the contrary reason—the infinite variety of line presented.

BOWEN & McNAMME'S SILK HOUSE.

"It is to these lines of gallery and balcony which break and lighten the mass of building, that we must look for a hint of very feasible improvement. If any city reader wishes an illustration of this fact, let him observe how the iron verandah upon the Collamore House redeems the otherwise bald, dead weight of that building. Then let him cast his eye up Broadway to the long front of Niblo's Hotel—unrelieved and blank—and consider the cheerful effect of a continuous gallery along each story, or separate balconies at every window, as on the beautiful Chiaja at Naples. On the other hand let him ask his Metropolitan pride how it would like a street of such edifices as the City Assembly Rooms on the site of Tattersalls? So, also, in dwelling-houses, the balcony which is now confined to the parlor floor might occasionally be carried up through the other stories, and this, in narrow streets, with a peculiarly happy effect, as is seen in such streets of foreign cities, where the style, if elaborated in lattices and bay-windows, becomes romantic and poetic.

"Greater variety in the mouldings of doors and windows, and in the designs of porticoes, might easily be obtained, with an infinite gain of grace to the city. The Broadway Theatre illustrates this, for it is certainly one of the most impressive buildings upon that street. The question, it must be remembered, is not one of art, so much as of picturesqueness and effect. The galleries and balconies, &c., are only a subterfuge. If an edifice is intrinsically beautiful and well-proportioned, it claims no such accessories, as Stewart's building, which, although a simple square mass, yet from the admirable proportion, rather than the material, is as stately and imposing as many a foreign palace. But where there is no regard—as is the usual case—to the dignity or propriety of form, there we must take advantage of an alleviation, and obtain lightness, gayety, and variety as we best can.

"There is, however, one point peculiar to American, or more properly to New-York building, which calls for the determined and constant censure of every man who values human life. We mean the flimsy style of building arising from the frenzied haste with which we do every thing. This has long been our reproach. Scarcely a year passes that we do not record some disaster of this kind, often involving a melancholy waste of life. 'Is it strong?' is a question constantly asked of a new building, and a question which, in any civilized community, it should be as unnecessary to ask, as whether the public wells are poisoned.

"We know many who will not pass under buildings now going up or recently erected. A friend walked down Broadway one morning, while a building was in course of erection on the site of the present Waverly House, and returning in the afternoon found that it had all tumbled down. Our readers have not forgotten the frightful fall of a block in Twenty-first street last spring. One is curious to