USA > New York > Queens County > Long Island City > History of Long Island City, New York. A record of its early settlement and corporate progress. Sketches of the villages that were absorbed in the growth of the present municipality. Its business, finance, manufactures, and form of government, with some notice of the men who built the city > Part 4
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Messrs. Crane and Ely were succeeded in 1855 by H. S. Anable, who continued in the manage- ment of the extensive interests of the College until 1884. During this period great advance was made in important directions.
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HISTORY OF LONG ISLAND CITY.
Three blocks of the territory, new-made along the river front, were given to the East River Ferry Company by the College Trustees.
The Flushing Railroad, which had been established in 1854, received from the College a gift of land, valued at $20,000, which subsequently was bought back by the College.
The tract of land occupied by the Long Island Railroad, extending from Vernon avenue to the East River, was originally procured from the College in 1860 on advantageous terms.
Every street in the First Ward to Nott avenue was opened and graded.
The erection and maintenance of a school on Sixth street has already been cited.
Two miles of bulk heads and docks along Newtown Creek and the East River to the canal were constructed.
The turnpike, now Jackson avenue, leading from the ferry to Flushing, was built largely through the instrumentality of the College. The College also contributed to the construction of the railroad between Astoria and Hunter's Point.
A block of land comprising forty-eight lots was donated by the College for a site for the present court house.
As the representative of the College, Mr. Anable was influential in aiding the passage of the Improvement Act, whereby needed improvements were further promoted in the First Ward.
The participation of Mr. Anable in the organization of Long Island City has elsewhere been noted. To his public-spirited sagacity and en- ergy Hunter's Point will long remain a debtor. During his connection with the interests of Union College more than two and a quarter millions of dollars passed through his hands. The final audit of his accounts showed a perfect balance.
Ile was succeeded in office by his son, Eliphalet Nott Anable, who acted as the representative and attor- ney of the College until 1886, when the office of College Treasurer, which had been located at Schenec- THE RAPELYE MANSION. tady, N. Y., was transferred to Long Island City, and the management of the property passed directly into the hands of the treasurer, S. E. Stimson.
In 1893, Gilbert K. Harroun, the present incumbent, succeeded to the management of the College property. Early in his administration of affairs marked evidences of energy, mature judgment, and conservatism of action were discoverable on every side. The extensive landed interests were speedily gotten well in hand and every effort put forth for bringing to the attention of manufacturers and controllers of business enterprises generally, the many magnificent water front sites and business blocks and plots, that still remained open to purchasers in one of the most accessible and desirably located sections of the Greater New York. And the result has done credit to the tact and energy of
the gentleman, while the many benefits that have accrued to the College interests, as well as to the general material interests of the entire city, have led to outspoken and deserved commendation. One achievement, above all others, that has stamped Treasurer Harroun's management with phenomenal success, particularly along lines that are most vital to the continued development of the extensive landed estates of the College, was the final adjustment of the disputed question of the regularity and justice of the local taxes For a number of years these taxes had been accumulating, based upon unfair and discriminating assessments as levied by the local Assessors, and Mr. Harroun, immediately upon assuming the duties of his charge, set to work to discover some means of unraveling the tangle with a view to bringing about a speedy and amicable settlement. After
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HISTORY OF LONG ISLAND CITY.
many months of earnest consideration, a plan was evolved that proved eminently just and satis- factory to all coneerned, in which the State, through the Legislature, gave willing and substantial aid, and in the early fall of 1895, upwards of a quarter of a million dollars was turned into the city treasury in full liquidation of all claims to date standing against Union College upon the tax books of Long Island City. This memorable and important achievement gave good evidence of the ability, the energy, and the unflagging zeal displayed by Mr. Harroun in the planning and prosecution of the momentous undertaking, which, at the outset, seemed surrounded by adverse circumstances that were well nigh insurmountable. It was a grand piece of work, and placed the College and its interests upon a solid basis and, free and clear of all elaims on the part of the city.
No one will question the fact that Union College has been a leading factor in the development and up building of the Hunter's Point seetion of the city. It has annually paid into the publie treasury from $5000 to $10, 000 in local taxes, and has always been found in the forefront of every movement looking to the development of the interests and the betterment of the condition of affairs connected with the local government. The College still eontrols large areas of unimproved lands in the lower wards of the city, and under the judicious management of its present representative, the corporation should, and no doubt will, reap a deserved and bounteous reward in the early years of tlie materializing of the Greater New York.
In Hunter's Point are now located the leading industries of the city. Over it the spirit of enterprise seems to have especially hovered. Its offices, stores, faetories and ferries represent the greater proportion of popular traffic and travel. These results necessarily follow its natural advantages of water front and facilities of immediate intercourse with business sections of New York and Brooklyn. Not so, however, was its condition in years preceding 1870 and the Incorporation of the eity. Then was the era of preparation for the greater things of to-day. The entire section had to be raised almost from the level of the sea, its marshes, lagoons and "killities" filled, and the site of a eity created at vast expenditure of time and capital before the advantages afforded by nature eould be made available. A territory so uninviting in its original state was fortunate in becoming the field of a corporate enterprise endowed with means com- mensurate with the demands of its development.
A MEMORABLE SEASON.
The winter of 1779 was one of almost unparalleled severity. Snow began to fall November 10 and continued more or less daily till the following March. "In the woods it lay four feet upon a level," says a certain ehronieler. A fuel famine was abroad. All over New York Island trees of every sort were cut down, gardens, court yards, and avenues, as well as lanes and forests, were depleted. Apple, peach, plum, cherry and pear trees fell before the woodman. The cold was extreme. The bay and harbor of New York was solid as terra firma. Likewise tlie East River and Long Island Sound nearly to New Haven.
FrangoEn.
CHAPTER III.
THE VILLAGE OF STEINWAY.
ITS EARLY HISTORY-PRESENT INDUSTRIAL IMPORTANCE-THE GREAT STEINWAY PIANO FACTORV-LIVES OF HENRY ENGLEHARD STEINWAY AND WILLIAM STEINWAY-FOUNDING OF THE WORLD-RENOWNED HOUSE OF STEINWAY & SONS -- SCIENTIFIC EXPERIMENT AND INVENTION-RISE INTO
UNRIVALED SUPREMACV -- PURCHASE OF THE VILLAGE SITE-ERECTION OF THE GREAT PLANT-INTERESTING ECONOMIC FACTS-MR. STEINWAY'S POLICV AS AN EMPLOYER -- THE STEINWAY MANSION-THE DAIMLER MOTOR COMPANY-THE ASTORIA HOMESTEAD COMPANY.
The northeastern section of Long Island City is known under the name of "Steinway.' It is the geographical center of greater New York. From the earliest historie period it has been a field of surpassing interest. It has been the scene of important geological changes. The present site of the Steinway Mansion and of the world-famed Steinway Piano Manufactory was once Luyster Island. The waters of the Sound once laved the shore in the vicinity of Winthrop avenue.
Here also was the point of one of the earliest settlements in the town of Newtown. The English had not taken Newtown Creek before the Dutch had seized upon this charming loeality.
CON
SCENE ON STEINWAY AVENUE-STEINWAY, LONG ISLAND CITY.
Here the merry cling-elang of Harmensen's anvil awakened the solitudes and tempted the approach of the savage who laid the hardy pioneer low with his tomahawk.
The action of the Dutch Governor, in granting this whole section to the Reformed Church for a Poor Farm, was equally inexplicable. The day of redemption, however, began in 1656, when Peter Luyster blazed the way to renewed settlement and was followed by the progenitors of the long line of the Rikers, Rapelyes, Moores, Lawrences, Berrians and Kouwenhovens. The fertility of the soil has yielded wealth to the industry of these families for two hundred and more years and left for the " Poor Bowery," nothing but a barren name in ancient history.
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HENRY E. STEINWAY.
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HISTORY OF LONG ISLAND CITY.
Could the acres of this picturesque settlement speak, they would also tell of the rude tramping of the Hessian soldiery in 1776, while foraging the fields or crowding the halls of the manor houses in search of fugitive patriots, or springing from ambush at midnight hours to pillage peaceful homes and drive the occupants from their insecure pillows to encounter the perils of the swift tides of the Hell Gate.
Eventful, therefore, has been the history of the olden settlement which has now developed into the prosperous community of "Steinway." Yet the greatest event which has marked its career was left for this latest day to record. It bears a name which is inscribed upon one of the greatest indus- trial triumphis of this or any other age-a name which is associated with the musical prestige of the world. It was here that the firm of Messrs. Steinway & Sons, chiefly through the individual efforts of William Steinway, in 1870 and 1871, acquired title to over four hundred acres of land with a front- age upon the East River and canal of about a mile, built a steam saw mill, iron and brass foundries, boiler and engine houses, a large building for the finishing of metal frames, storage sheds, drying kilns, docks, bulkhead wharves, a lumber basin, and in 1879, an immense structure to serve as a piano case factory, 248x60 feet, together with an additional new engine house. In 1877 the keyboard making and wood carving branches of their piano manufactory where removed thither from the New York factory.
These combined factories contain eight stcam boilers of the aggregate of 500 horse power, by which the necessary amount of steam is generated for the 60,000 feet of pipe used in heating the dry- ing rooms and workshops and driving four steam engines, aggregating 300 horse power, which in turn put in motion the various labor-saving machines. Besides this machinery in operation, the process of grand piano case manufacture is most interesting. Logs are specially selected, 18 to 23 fect long, sawed into veneers one-eighth of an inch thick, which, after a thorough course of open air and kiln drying, are glued together and bent into the proper form of parlor and concert grand piano cases, by means of immense iron presses heated to the necessary degree by steam.
About 600 workmen are employed in these works which are connected by telegraph and tele- phone with all the New York establishments of the firm.
In capacious yards are stored millions of feet of crude lumber; at busy wharves is received iron ore in vast quantities, and these materials are transformed into cases, actions, steel frames and other component parts of a piano, and then shipped to the New York factory at Fourth (Park) avenue, and Fifty-third street, where they are put together and adjusted into finished instruments, which are universally acknowledged to be the chef d'ouvre of art in musical mechanics.
Such an extensive industry, whose products have fought their way to pre-eminence solely upon their merits, necessarily represents a prolonged conflict with difficulties, profound knowledge of the musical art, intellectual ability, inventive skill and genius of a peculiarly high order, the exercise of large execute powers, and the wisest management of commercial resources.
It is requisite, therefore, that we should dwell somewhat at large upon the personal history of the men who have won celebrity, not only for themselves, but incidentally, for that section of our city which bears their name.
HENRY E. STEINWAY.
Henry Englehard Steinway, of New York City, founder of the great piano manufacturing house of Steinway & Sons, was born February 15, 1797, in Wolfshagen, a small forest hamlet of the Hartz Mountains, in the Duchy of Brunswick, North Germany, and died in New York City on the 7th of February, 1871. He was at the time of his coming to this country fifty-three years of age This was surely rather an advanced age for an immigrant, and one, too, who was to be the pioneer of a new era in an important industry, but such was the fact. He was a skilled piano maker in his native land, Brunswick, Germany, until he came to New York, June 9, 1850, with his family.
Before taking up the later and more important events of his life at this time, it may be well to review his honorable antecedents and some interesting incidents of his early life.' In the early part of the seventeenth century, one of his ancesters, a Captain Steinway (or Steinweg, as the name was originally spelled), had fought against the Austrian Army in "The Thirty Years' War," and had received serious wounds at the Battle of Lutter, on the Barenberg, in 1626. He was a native of Pomerania, where his family and ancestors were well-to-do patricians in the fortified town of Stralsund, on the Baltic Sea, and while that city belonged to the Hansa Union, even before "The
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IIISTORY OF LONG ISLAND CITY.
Thirty Years War," various members of the family had occupied important positions in the magis- tracy. One of thein, who was Burgomaster of Stralsund, became famed for his stalwart and success- ful defence of the town when it was besieged by the Austrians under General Wallenstein, in 1628. With the final fall of the fortune of the city, the family disappeared from it. This family seemed strangely fated to suffer through war. Of the immediate family of Henry E. Steinway-he was the youngest of twelve children-he was left the sole survivor at the age of fifteen years, all of the others, as well as his father, falling victims to the Franco-Prussian War of 1806, the Franco-Russian War of 1812, and a terrible disaster-a lightning stroke during a severe storm-which killed, in a collier's hut, where they had taken shelter, his father and three older brothers, and two men who had accom- panied them, Henry alone of the party of seven escaping, and he only after being prostrated and long lying in a semi-unconscious state. The lad thus orphaned and left solitary in the world suffered still further through the seizure of his father's property, consisting of several houses, which were sold by the French Westphalian officers of the crown, who made away with the proceeds. Penniless now, as well as alone, he was forced to earn his meagre living by hardest toil, from which he soon turned to the army, at the call of the Duke of Brunswick for soldiers to serve against Napolean. He was then but seventeen years old.
1823780
Young Steinway had a natural fondness for music, and beguiled the tedium of garrison life by mastering the art of playing on the cithera, having constructed during his leisure hours an excellent instrument of seasoned spruce, which was greatly admired for its superior tone. At this era the liberty-breathing and heroic songs of Korner and Schenkendorf were in great vogue among the German troops, and on many occasions the young soldier-musician accompanied on his instrument the chorus of a whole company of his stalwart companions. His musical memory was phenomenal, and he was able, without having had any special musical training, to find accompaniments to any of the simple melodies of the time after having once heard them sung, and enjoyed the reputation among his acquaintances of being a musical genius. At twenty-one years of age, having declined the post of sergeant, which was offered to him as an inducement to remain in the army, he received an honor- able discharge, and quitted a life which was daily becoming more uncongenial. He lost no time in going to Goslar, where he sought to apprentice himself to the cabinet-making trade. Contrary to his lrope, he encountered most discouraging difficulties. The trade guilds were in full sway. Five years' apprenticeship and five years' service, as a journeyman, were inexorably required, before the workman could acquire independent action. This, at Steinway's age, was too much for him, and he decided to learn the art of building church organs, which was not subject to the hampering and "red tape " of the guilds. He prepared himself for this work by devoting a year to cabinet-making under a so-called " wild boss," and was well able at the expiration of that period to turn out his " masterpiece " as a cabinet maker, according to the requirements of the times, had he been called upon to do so. He then took employment as a journeyman organ builder, although his aspirations were, to become a maker of stringed musical instruments.
After a year's apprenticeship he took employment as a journeyman organ builder in the little town of Seesen, at the foot of the Hartz Mountains, and the site of the famous "Jacobsohn's School." The chief justice of Seesen had accidentally seen a " masterpiece " of cabinet-making-an elaborate writing-desk, with secret drawers and artistic inlaid work-from the hands of young Steinway, and notwithstanding the long-established usages of the guilds, which proscribed the entry of such work into competition with that of the long-experienced workman, the magistrate purchased this production, thereby giving the young man a handsome lift in life. About the same time the town was destroyed by fire, and the suddenly increased demand for artisans, occasioned by the rebuilding and re-establishment of industries, offered the young workman an opportunity for full employment and fair remuneration.
This, too, enabled him to marry, and in February, 1825, he took as his wife a beautiful young girl, who had for some time reciprocated his love. In the same year, in November, their first child, a son, was born, who was christened C. F. Theodore. The father now bent all of his energies toward the building of a business and a home. Foremost in his thought was the idea of giving his infant son, as he came to a condition to appreciate them, the advantages which his own youth had lacked, and now began his identification with the piano which extended throughout his long life, and reached its culmination in America. He was a skilled artisan, a musical genius, fully comprehending
HISTORY OF LONG ISLAS
the desideratum to be met in an instrument, and capable as any man, he confidently believed, of supplying it.
He worked whole nights constructing the piano upon which his boy was to learn to play. Old English and new German pianos he knew, and combined their merits in an original construction. The labors of a year saw the instrument completed and witnessed the widespread attention which had been attracted by its superiority. Its purity and volume of tone soon won a purchaser; and now, before the struggling mechanic, a path opened toward the realization of his hopes. He could become a master workman and did. He devoted his entire energy and skill to piano making, and soon a thriving trade greeted his efforts at the hands of the music-loving inhabitants of the Hartz Mountains.
As early as August, 1839, Mr. Henry Steinway exhibited one grand, one three-stringed, and one two-stringed square piano at the State Fair of Brunswick, Germany, with the celebrated composer, Albert Methfessel, as chairman of the jury, who, besides granting him a first prize medal, bestowed the highest encomiums upon the tone and workmanship of the instruments. As his sons, Theodore, Charles, and Henry, grew up, they became skilful piano- makers under their father's direction, acquiring at the same time a thorough education. In time Mr. Steinway found himself the centre of a large and happy family, the owner of an extensive factory, with ample capital at his command; and with such a thriving trade that he was unable to meet the demand for his instruments, although he employed a number of workmen to assist lum in their manufacture. His was indeed a happy home. All worked in perfect harmony, and in the evening the boys might have been seen playing, oftentimes four-handed, the immortal compositions of Mozart and Beethoven, while the sweet voices of the girls sang the beautiful songs of Schubert and Schumann.
The quiet contentment of plodding prosperity, however, was broken. Political complications, the cutting off of territory tributary to Seesen in a commercial sense, the imposition of almost prohibitory , duties by the establishment of the German Customs Union, which Brunswick joined, but Hanover kept out of, in 1843, and generally changed conditions hampered the thrift of the family industry, and finally the Revolution of 1848 completely destroyed the small local retail trade that alone had remained to that time.
The idea, which had been cherished for some time, of emigrating to America, now took on new life, and one and all determined that a home in " the land of freedom " was a desideratum. In April, 1849, Charles Steinway sailed for the western world and arrived in New York the following month. His reports home were so favorable that the whole family, with the exception of the oldest son, C. F. Theodore, who remained behind to complete the unfinished work, emigrated to the New World, leaving Hamburg on the steamer Helene Sloman, in the beginning of May, 1850. This vessel was one of the first ocean propellers, and it was her first trip. Instead of a direct-acting engine the vessel had a high cogwheel, which connected with the smaller cogwheel on the shaft. On the third day out when opposite Deal and Ramsgate, England, the large cogwheel broke with a terrific crash, and the vessel came to anchor. After a delay of nine days a new eogwheel was cast at Ramsgate, and the vessel continued on its way to New York, which it reached on the 9th of June, 1850, after a passage. of twenty days from England. The trip was an unusually pleasant one, as the sea, from the time of leaving Hamburg to the arrival in New York, was as smooth as a mirror; not a wave nor a ripple was to be seen. As the sequel proved, this was extremely fortunate, for on her third trip the Helene Sloman, encountering stormy weather, foundered in mid-ocean, happily with little loss of life. On their arrival in New York the family consisted of Henry Steinway, the father, aged fifty-three years; his wife, Julia Steinway, aged forty-six years; Charles, aged twenty-one; Henry Steinway, Jr., aged nineteen ; William, aged fourteen; Albert, aged ten; and three daughters, the eldest twenty-two, the next seventeen, and the youngest eight. The eldest son, C. F. Theodore, aged twenty-four years, remained in Germany.
Henry Steinway, as we have seen, had attained prosperity in his native land not without priva- tions and struggle. These, however, had tested and strengthened his fiber and assisted that sym- metrical development which now was of splendid service and lay at the very foundation of his suc- cess in the New World. If he was a genius, he was singularly free from the weaknesses that usually accompany that order of mind, and, with a most commendable prudence and patience, he studied the commercial conditions of the country and of the piano trade before embarking his means in a venture. In the old country his progress had been slow, but comfortably sure, and while he aspired to a greater field than could be there obtained, he did not propose to enter upon its conquest hastily or ill-
C. F. THEODORE STEINWAY.
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HISTORY OF LONG ISLAND CITY.
advisedly. He therefore put his capital in a safe place, and went to work as a journeyman in a New York piano factory, his sons following his example. Nearly three years they toiled thus, adding not a little to their capital of money and useful knowledge.
Their commencement in business on their own account was made March 5th, 1853. The found- ing of the house of Steinway & Sons was an extremely modest and cautious undertaking-the plant- ing small in inverse proportion to the growth. They rented a small rear building in Varick Street, and with most solicitous care made their first piano, a "square" which, on being exhibited to a num- ber of teachers and expert musicians, created at onee a very favorable impression, and was speedily sold for a good price.
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