It seems to me that the gold-covered-streets “meme”, if you will, comes from Revelation. The specific quote “streets paved with gold” may have been popularized by Bunyan or ealier.
Excellent…
To turn the subject a little now, I vaguely remember --a song, a catch phrase?-- about the how the Streets of New York sparkle like diamonds.
Many of them do, in fact; they have been partially made with particles of quartzite.
Anyone know a tune with that phenomenon in it?
In the immigration museum on Ellis Island (or so I read):
I love that quote!
No, don’t stop. Seriously. Fighting ignorance and all that, it’s much appreciated, and I have learned something.
My father used to joke about the courtship between his father (who came to America from Hungary in 1907) and mother (who arrived 5 years later.)
“Come to America [my grandfather would write to my grandmother]! The streets are paved with gold! So she came, and found out none of the gold belonged to him.”
The meme wasn’t just Yiddish, and wasn’t only about New York City.