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 9
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A strongly marked educational advancement occurred some years later at Hallett's Cove. Probably rather as an attractive agency for the development of the community than as a response to local need, the progressive residents of that locality encouraged the founding of a school for instruction in the classics and other advanced branches. They sought patronage beyond their own limits, by inserting in the New York Mercury, of April 26, 1762, the following advertisement:
THE LONG ISLAND CITY HIGH SCHOOL (FORMERLY THE OLD MONSON MANSION).
" TO THE PUBLIC-This is to give notice to all whom it may concern, That William Rudge, late of the city of Gloucester, in Old England, still continues his school at Hallett's Cove, where he teaches Writing in the different hands, Arithmetic in its different branches, the Italian method of Book-keeping by way of Double Entry, Latin and Greek. Those who choose to favor him may depend upon having proper care taken of their children, and he returns thanks to those who have already obliged him. The school is healthy and pleasantly situated and at a very convenient distance from New York, from where there is an opportunity of sending letters and parcels, and of having remittances almost every day by the periaugers. Letters will be duly answered, directed to the said William Rudge, at Hallett's Cove.
"We, who have subscribed our names, being willing to continue the schoolmaster, as we have hitherto found him a man of close application, are ready to take in boarders at £18 per annum: Jacob Blackwell, Jacob Hallett, Jr., Thomas Hallett, Jacob Hallett, Jacob Rapelye, John Greenoak, Sammel Hallett, Jr., William Hallett, Richard Hallett, Richard Berrian, Richard Penfold, William Ilallett, John MeDonough."
In 1849, Stephen A. Halsey, with several others, bought several farms, surveyed and plotted them into lots, and opened through them Broadway, The Crescent, Emerald, Academy and Grand Streets, together with First, Second and THIRD WARD SCHOOL. Jamaica Avenues. At that time he donated a plot of ground 100 feet by 200 feet on Academy street and was instrumental in the erection the building now used by the Fourth Ward School. This school at the time of the incorporation of
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HISTORY OF LONG ISLAND CITY.
the city was known as No. 3 of the schools of Newtown. In 1850 it was made a free school by the Legislature and up to the date of this writing has had an uninterrupted record as one of the most successful schools in the western section of Long Island.
GERMAN SETTLEMENT SCHOOL.
At the beginning of this century was built No. 4 of the schools of New- town. It stood on Skillman avenue, near School street, on the farm of Richard Bragaw. At that time the district represented by this school included Hunter's Point, Ravens- wood to Webster avenue, eastward to and including Woodside. The plain frame structure 20x60 feet, shingled on all sides, was in use till 1863, when it was destroyed by fire. This school and its primitive methods of instruction is intimately interwoven with the memories of many of those residents of the city who still survive in advanced years. It was never a free school but cost, as stated by Gco. McA. Gosman,
Esq., district collector at one time, $1475 per annum. Two weeks in July was the longest respite of the year from the exactions of the four R's (including the rod).
Two years after the demolition of No. 4 the present building at Sunnyside was ereeted, which is still in use as the Primary School of the Second Ward.
In 1861 the extensive district, covered by No. 4, was divided by the setting off of the Hunter's Point District. In April of that year H. S. Anable, representing Union College, leased a brick building on Sixth street, whereupon School No. fr was at once organized, with Freeman Hiscox as President of the Board of Trustees and Isaac Sterns as principal. This school, by its excellent record, justified the wisdom and generosity of those who were instrumental in its origin.
Upon the consolidation of the several sections into the one municipality of Long Island City and, especially upon the adoption of the revised charter, all school and educational matters were relegated to the custody and direction of the Board of Education. To systematize methods and courses of study and to carry forward the several schools of the city in harmony, under a common regime, advancing the standard and providing facilities for attendance as warranted by progressive conditions, was the task to which the Board at once addressed its energies. In 1873 a school was organized in Ravenswood. In 1877 the needs of the Fifth Ward and Blissville were met in like manner. A superb building was erected at Steinway, mainly by the generous aid of William Steinway, Esq., as elsewhere more fully stated.
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FIRST WARD SCHOOL ..
From 1887 to 1892 the present commodious structures in the First, Second, Third and Fifth Wards
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HISTORY OF LONG ISLAND CITY.
were erected to meet the demands of a school population, which had increased more than two hundred per cent. since the date of incorporation. The present cost of maintaining the educational system of the city is about $150,000 per annum.
A unique feature of practical methods of instruction throughout the schools of the city is the system of school banking, by which all pupils are encouraged to save their pennies for deposit in the Savings Bank. This system was introduced by John H. Thiry, Esq., school commissioner at various times and widely known in educational circles throughout the nation, because of his intelligent interest in whatever relates to the welfare of public schools. This city enjoys the distinction of being the first in the nation to recognize the value of school banks.
THE SURVEY COMMISSION.
In May, 1871, George B. Mcclellan, William B. Franklin and Stephenson Towle were constituted, by act of the Legislature, "Survey Commissioners" for the purpose of laying out the streets, avenues, roads and parks, and determining the grades of Long Island City. These Commissioners appeared before the Mayor at the Clerk's office, Hunter's Point, on May 4, and took the oath of office. In the prosecution of its work, the Commission confined itself chiefly to the newer sections of the city, adjusting the already mapped portions of Astoria and Hunter's Point thereto without material change, plotted the city as it now stands, naming its streets and avenues and filing its completed survey with the clerks of both city and county.
THE PUBLIC LIBRARY.
Carlyle once observed that "The true University of these days is a collection of books." Every wise voice beside his own has also celebrated the value of books. . Say what is best, something better still remains to be said in their praise. Few greater privileges, therefore, can a community confer upon its citizens than the use of a public library. That Long Island City is able to offer the advantages of such an institution to the public, without money or price on the part of its people, is owing to the munificent gift of William Nelson, of New York City. Upon the acceptance of the gift by the city, in pursuance of the accompanying FIFTH WARD SCHOOL. condition that the city should maintain the library at its own expense, the following trustees were appointed, December 28, 1895, by Mayor Sandford and confirmed by the Common Council: Dr. W. G. Frey, F. W. Bleekwenn, Rev. W. H. Weeks, Winthrop Turney and George E. Clay.
The Library was duly opened August 14, 1896, and its six thousand volumes were placed at the command of the public.
An excellent Reading Room is also connected with the Library, which was opened to public use August 7, 1896. Twenty-seven publications, embracing leading dailies and magazines, were upon its racks, with the probability that the number will be largely increased.
The Library is accessibly located at 26 and 28 Jackson avenue, between Third and Fourth streets, and is opened daily from 8 A. M. to 8 P.M., except Sunday.
THE STREET RAILWAYS OF LONG ISLAND CITY.
The first street railway construeted in this city, was that of the Cavalry Cemetery line, leading from Thirty-fourth street ferry. Early in the seventies, a charter was obtained from the legislature, the track laid, and the road went into operation. This was succeeded in 1876 by the Dutch Kills line,
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HISTORY OF LONG ISLAND CITY.
which was organized aud carried to completion mainly by the energy of William Radde, who owned extensive interests in land in the Third Ward. The present route is as originally surveyed. This line, under the management of the late Josiah M. Whitney, responded to a public need, and was successfully operated for a number of years as the nucleus of that larger system which it anticipated. Increased facilities of transportation and intercourse between the various sections of the city being required by an advancing population, the city railways soon engaged the attention of that public spirited citizen, William Steinway. Amendments to the charter having been obtained from the legislature, the Dutch Kills line having been transferred to the hands of the Steinway Company, was extended through Jackson and Steinway avenues to the village of Steinway, through Vernon avenue and the Boulevard to Ninety-second street ferry, Astoria, and up Flushing avenue to Steinway. The mechanical features of the entire new system were improved, and public convenience promoted. The introduction of electric power and the accession of a new management in 1893, inaugurated a new era in the development of the system. It is now one of the great corporations of Greater New York. Two years ago it had twenty-six miles of track. It now has more than sixty miles.
In place of a score or two of motor cars there will be 139 summer cars this season (1896) equipped with motors, and the company will have altogether 240 motor cars. A new power house is just being completed, and a storage house covering acres of ground is in course of construction. Formerly the purchase of a dozen or more cars at one time would have been considered a great addition to the equipment. This year they have just bought 100, which are being delivered as rapidly as they can be transported from St. Louis.
LONG ISLAND RAILROAD STATION.
They have ten seats and a seating capacity of fifty persons. Finished in oak and ash, with brass trimmings, they are as comfortable and ornamental as any cars running in the Greater New York district. Each is lighted by eleven incandescent electric lights and equipped with the latest style of weather curtains, which afford the best protection against a storm. The ornamented glass in the front of the roof is vari-colored, so that the line on which the ear runs can be readily seen in the night time. The glass in the Jackson avenue ears is red, in the Flushing cars, white; in the Dutch Kills ears, blue; in the Ravenswood cars, yellow, and in the Calvary and Lutheran cemetery lines, green. This will enable a person to know the destination of a car at night when it is difficult to distinguish the painted dashboard signs.
Besides the new cars several of the old summer ones are being equipped with motors. They were used for trailers and were formerly horse cars. They have been strengthened so that they are now as serviceable as the other cars used. The intention of the company is to have a sufficient number of trolley cars so that it will not be necessary to use trailers. Besides the 100 new cars, they have thirty- nine old summer cars. These 139, they believe, will be sufficient to meet the demands of the public on all the lines, unless the increase of traffic is far beyond the anticipation of the company.
MILES OF IMPROVED TRACK.
In the laying of the new tracks, and in extensions, the improvements have been on the same scale as in the addition of new cars. Thirteen miles of new track have been laid with the ninety-pound rail manufactured by the Cambria Iron Works, of Cambria, Penn. These rails are the best that are made, and are forty or fifty pounds heavier than the rails used on steam railroads. The special rails used on curves and crossings were manufactured by the Pennsylvania Steel Works.
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HISTORY OF LONG ISLAND CITY.
In 1895 the new rails were laid on Borden avenue up as far as Jackson and Vernon avenues, to replace the duplex rails, which, although laid only two years ago, had proven to be unsatisfactory and inadequate for the heavy travel. The new rails are laid on ties and the bed is as solid as a steam rail- road line. The replacing of the duplex rails on Jackson avenue, with the new rails, was commenced about a month ago and the work was completed inside of a month by employing a large force of men and tearing up long distances of street.
New rails had been previously laid from Jackson avenue to Steinway avenue, and from Steinway avenue to Flushing avenue. The laying of this connection made two of the lines complete to North Beach. The facilities for reaching that popular resort have been completed. A line of tracks to St. Michael's Cemetery, thence to Ehret avenue, thence to Silver Spring Lake, where a loop has been made around the lake, forms a double track extension from St. Michael's Cemetery, a mile in length. Another improvement is the running of the line up the Grand Boulevard to a point opposite Silver Spring Lake turning in a southerly direction and making a loop at the Spring. This line is but twenty feet at its terminal from the Flushing avenue line, so that a cross over enables the cars to pass from one line to the other in case of accident or blockade. Over one of these extensions the Jackson avenue cars now run, while the Flushing avenue line runs over the other. Other projects of the company relate to the reconstruction and extension of the old Long Island City and Newtown Railway Company.
THE NEW STORAGE BUILDING.
The new storage house at Woodside, just outside the city limits, is one of the most perfectly equipped
LONG ISLAND RAILROAD FERRIES AND SLIPS.
railroad storage houses in the country, and there are few larger. It has a frontage on Jackson avenue of 22 1 feet and extends back to Anderson avenue, a distance of 350 feet. 1
The building is erected in three sections, making practically three separate structures. Two thick partition walls of brick will run the whole length of the building and rise three feet above the roof. These walls are built for protection against fire by direction of the insurance companies. The first section of the building-the section nearest Woodside avenue-is used for the repair shop; next to this the second section, about fifty feet, is used for storage purposes with a place on the Jackson avenne end for washing cars. The other section, 103 feet in width; is used exclusively for storage purposes.
The repair shop is divided transversely into three parts. The end next to Jackson avenue is the machine shop. In the rear of this is the carpenter shop, and in the rear of that the paint shop. Tracks run through the repair shop from Jackson avenue to Anderson avenue so that ears are run from one to the other with the greatest facility. Traveling cranes are so arranged that a car on entering the machine shop can be picked up from the track and transferred to any other track or any other part of the machine or carpenter shop with perfect ease. It is not necessary that it should extend back to the paint shop. Both carpenter and paint shops are fitted up with the latest machinery, and the equipment is so complete that new cars can be constructed at the shops if desired. One corner of the repair shop, next to Jackson avenue, is partitioned off for a winding room; that is for the winding of armatures which often have to be done on account of the burning out of the wires.
In addition to these three main sections of the building there is a small annex built on the slightly irregular piece of ground on the Woodside side of the building which could not have been covered had
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HISTORY OF LONG ISLAND CITY.
the building been constructed on strictly straight lines. In the annex, which is as much a part of the building as any one of the three sections named, there are the offices, a waiting room, store rooms for materials for the carpenter, paint and machine shops, all separate, and a blacksmith shop which opens into both the carpenter and machine shop.
THE POWER HOUSES.
Down on the East river another immense electric plant is nearing completion with a capacity of 2200 horse-power for immediate use, which can be ultimately increased to 5000 horse-power. This plant is located close up to the old one. The boilers of the two houses have a capacity of 6000 horse- power, which is sufficient to give an engine capacity of 10,000 horse-power. Four engines are placed in the engine room, which is 80x92 feet. On a raised platform, extending along the entire front of the building, are placed fourteen dynamos. Two of the engines are Corliss make and two are vertical. One of the Corliss engines has already been hoisted on to its bed, and its parts adjusted.
Another bed, for a second Corliss engine has been completed, and the engine is used for furnishing electrical power for mechanical purposes and for incandescent lights. The plant has a capacity for furnishing power for 800 are lights and 1500 incandescent lights. The two additional engines, which will be put in later, will increase the capacity of the plant seventy-five per cent.
These are the great enterprises undertaken by the Steinway Railroad Company, largely contrib- uting to the material prosperity and advancement of Long Island City and the adjacent territory. A more perfect idea of the magnitude of the undertaking can be obtained by mentioning their approx- imate cost. That of the new power house on Mills street was $175,000. The storage house at Wood- side cost upwards of $150,000. The new track cost about $12, 000 per mile, or for the thirteen miles, $156,000. The value of the new summer cars was $1800 each, enough to ereet a small cottage. The cost of the 100 cars aggregated $180, 000; a total of $661,000.
THE LONG ISLAND RAILROAD.
The Long Island Railroad, which, with the many branches embraced in its system, covers Long Island as with a web, has its principal terminal in this city. It is a vast corporation, which, from a humble beginning, has grown with the population and wealth of the territory it covers. It was chartered in 1832, which was a famous year in the history of railroads. Already had Gridley Bryant constructed the "Quincy Railroad " (1825) in Massachusetts, for the carrying of granite from the quarries to the sea. The Lehigh River in Pennsylvania for five years had received from Mauch Chunk, thirteen miles away, its heavy freightage of coal over the second railroad built on this continent. Both of these were oper- ated, however, by horse-power or gravity.
But in 1829 Horatio Allen had returned from Europe, whither he had been sent two years before by the Delaware and Hudson Canal Company, and landed upon the wharf in New York, two locomo- tives which were put into actual use. The State of Maryland had also wakened up several years before, and chartered the first railroad stock company on this continent for purposes of general traffic and transportation. A highway was opened (now known as the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad), over which horses and mules tugged the cars for weary miles. Steam power was not much thought of.
But a certain Baltimorean had new visions of the utility of the new motive power. The engine upon which he had expended some original ideas had been in operation for two years. It weighed scarcely more than a ton, but Peter Cooper made it pull the railroad directors from Baltimore to Ellicott's Mills, at the rate of eighteen miles an hour. This odd little engine was the first ever built in America for railroad purposes, and the first specially used in transportation of passengers.
Well nigh the whole Atlantic Coast had been swept with the wave of Railroad enthusiasmn. From Massachusetts to South Carolina the preparation or granting of railroad charters had been the demand of commerce and the business of legislatures. The year 1832 found sixty-seven railroads in operation in Pennsylvania alone. The great systems of Massachusetts and New Jersey had been begun. In New York State, the Mohawk and Hudson Railroad had carried hundreds of passengers daily from Albany to Schenectady at a rate of speed, which in 1832 was thirty miles an hour. Though George Stephenson had built his first engine in 1814, with a capacity of six miles an hour, the genius of inven- tors had so rapidly adapted mechanical means to required conditions, that the rate of speed in England had been increased, in 1829, to thirty-five miles an hour by Stephenson himself. This exhibition of progress gave glimpses to intelligent men of the possibilities characterizing the question of railroading,
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and fast was carrying the whole movement beyond the stage of experiment. For this reason the year 1832, which marked the birth of the Long Island Railroad, was unusually eventful. The great advance was then begun which has marked every subsequent year with an increase of railroad mileage. In five years afterward, that is, from 1832 to 1837, the mileage of the United States exceeded that of any other country in the world. This prestige has never been sacrificed, nor has railroad development in this country ceased asserting its commanding importance in the fields of wealth, commerce, and the thousand other economic conditions of society, save when war and financial panies have occasioned temporary interruptions.
The Long Island Railroad, like other American roads, grew up, was planned, built and maintained by the region which it sought to cover. The east and west extremities of Long Island were settled nearly at the same time, the difference being in favor of the eastern extremity. Within a hundred years Suffolk County to its western limits had passed into the possession of the English, who had settled at Southhold and the Hamptons in the thirties of the seventeenth century. From the west, population went eastward to meet the English wave. Thus the entire island rapidly became a scene of homes and farms, and a promising field for railroad enterprise, upon which, in the early years of which we write, capital and pluck were strongly bent.
While the Long Island Railroad, unlike many other systems, operates within a territory, wherein competition is geographically forbidden, and one wholly within the limits of one state, yet it also resembles other railroad systems in that it is a corporation of consolidated interests. Originally states granted charters to railroads to operate only in certain proposed regions. As increased facilities brought separated towns and regions nearer to each other, and the growth of great cities made connec- tion therewith increasingly necessary, the longer roads leased the shorter, or the more prosperous leased the less fortunate, or connecting roads for mutual benefit corporated for the extension of their respective advantages, and began systems which cover states, and even the whole national territory itself.
Likewise various railroads have been chartered on Long' Island, as will be presently mentioned. These now consolidated represent the Long Island Railroad system.
In 1833 the charter of the Long Island Railroad was extended for fifty years. Beginning active operations at once, the year 1834 saw a completed line of rails laid to Jamaica. Thence on to and through the grassy plains of Hempstead to Hicksville, to which place trains began to run August, 1837, thence on through pines and serub oaks to Suffolk Station, 1841, till finally the last spike was driven at Greenport, and that sleepy old town, on July 25, 1844, amid much jubilation, hailed the coming of the first train which ran the length of Long Island. The terminals of the railroad were now established at Greenport on the east, and South Ferry, at the foot of Atlantic avenue, Brooklyn, on the west.
In 1854 the Flushing Railroad went into operation between Hunter's Point and Flushing. At first it ran down Flushing avenue to West avenue, thence on to a long pier built out into the East River where the steamers, Island City and Enoch Dean, were accustomed to stop and receive passengers for Fulton Market. There were at that time no ferries at Hunter's Point, nor was there any other part of Manhattan Island to which the publie demanded transportation facilities save to what is now called the lower part of the city. In 1868 a new station was built several blocks to the north, which was reached by the road which is now used exclusively for freight traffic by the Long Island Railroad.
Owing to the negative conditions which had been developed by the rapid growth of Brooklyn in business and population, the Long Island Railroad, in 1861, removed its western terminal from South Ferry to Hunter's Point. Shortly after its machine and repair shops were removed also from Jamaica to the same place.
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