"A boy at fourteen needs a mother or the memory of a mother as he does at no other period of his life."-Enoch's Diary. Except for its few blocks that border Washington Square, MacDougal Street is about as squalid as any on New York's west side. Once it was aristocratic enough for any one, but that was nearly a century ago. Alexander Hamilton's mansion and Minetta Brook are less than memories now. The blocks of fine brick houses that covered Richmond Hill are given over to Italian tenements. Minetta Brook, if it sings at all, sings among the sewers far below the dirty pavements.