Wondering about Whitman

Walt Whitman Bridge Crosses the Delaware River at South

Philadelphia, leads to New Jersey Suburbs, September 1973

When I saw this image on NARA's Today's Document Tumblr blog, I wondered what Walt Whitman would think of having this teeming flow of smog belching cars, isolating people from each other as they traveled to work each day, named after him.

He did say, "See, in my poems, cities, solid, vast, inland, with paved streets, with iron and stone edifices, ceaseless vehicles, and commerce..."

Here's one I think he would like:

An 1869 city directory, listing Whitman, then working as a clerk in the Attorney General's office, among the butchers, tailors, painters and other masses of people in Washington DC, the capital of democracy.  Whitman and America, "Singing, with open mouths, their strong melodious songs."