USA > New York > New York City > History of New York City : embracing an outline sketch of events from 1609 to 1830, and a full account of its development from 1830 to 1884 Volume II > Part 49
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Among the commercial structures are many of enormous dimensions, such as the Mills building on Broad Street, Temple Court on Nassau and Beekman streets, the Mutual Life Insurance Company on Nassau,
* See " The Transval of the City of New York," by General Egbert L. Viele.
{ Among the more spacious, costly, and richly furnished houses abounding in works of art are those of Mrs. A. T. Stewart and of the Vanderbilts. For the use of less wealthy citizens, apartment-houses known as French flats have been built. They promised to be a boon to persons of moderate income, but extravagance has frustrated the designs of the originators, and now none but comparatively rich families can afford to occupy them. Of this chiss of dr ellings the Dakota. apartment-house on Eighth Avenue, oppo. site Central Park. furnishes a conspicuous example. Great bright is now a marked feature of these houses. One on Fifty-seventh Street and Seventh Avenue is ten stories in height in front and fifteen stories in the rear, and will accommodate thirty-eight families.
The first Tren h flat was built in the city in 1800, as an experiment. There was very little demail for them for suine years. After the panic of 2873 they were sought after. In that year 112 were built. Fully 700 were built in 1853.
It is estimated that a mejority of the people in New York City now live in tenement- houses, which term includes the apartment-houses of flats for the well-to-do citizen. Only about one seventh of the dwellings in the city are " first class," occupied by a single family.
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tastro - in !. 0 2. now common.
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FIFTH DECADE, 1870 1880.
Cedar, and Liberty streets, the Produce Exchange," fronting Bowling Green ; the Welles, Post, United Bank, and the Equitable Insurance buildings, the Union Dime Savings Bank on Sixth Avenue and Thirty- second street. Those of the Methodist Book Concern, the American News Company, t and of many retail dry-goods merchants up town
* The New York Produce Exchange, the largest establishment of its kind in the world, probably, was organized in 1861, and was incorporated in 1862 under the title of New York Commercial Association. This name was changed in 1868 to New York Produce Exchange. Previous to 1861 there was no institution of the kind in the city. Its meni- bership is limited to 3000, and it is now (1883) full. This exchange is the resort of all the principal merchants dealing in agricultural productions, and most of all the larger ยท transactions in these articles are effected on its floors. A magnificent new building for the exchange was completed in the autumn of 1853, covering the whole square bounded by Whitehall, Beaver, New, and Stone streets, and fronting on the Bowling Green. The structure is of brick with granite trimmings. It forms a grand architectural feature of New York. The general style of its architecture is a modified Italian Renaissance, with strongly developed horizontal cornices. The ground floor is occupied by large offices and the room of the Maritime Exchange. On the second floor are the main Exchange Hall, 215 by 134 feet in size and 60 feet in height, and the offices of the exchange, com- mittee rooms, etc. The stories above are divided into 300 offices.
+ Early in the first decade of our history the Sun newspaper created the newsboy. Before 1850 he developed into the proprietor of a news-stand, which in time expanded into the newspaper and periodical agency. Finally, in 1864, there appeared an associa- tion known as the American News Company, composed of seven members-Sinclair Tousey, Henry and George Dexter, S. W. Johnson, John Hamilton, Patrick Farrelly, and John J. Tousey. These were the original stockholders ; now (1883) the number is seventy-five. At first the company confined their business to the distribution of news- papers and magazines ; now they distribute books, stationery, fancy goods, etc. Since the advent of this company, less than twenty years ago, news agencies have been estab- lished in all part of the Republic. They now number about thirteen thousand, in most of which the American News Company has a controlling or a prominent interest. Its business has grown to enormous proportions. Its home employes, men and boys, number nearly two thousand. In the city of New York alone, between forty and fifty horses are employed in carrying newspapers, magazines, and books from the offices of publication to the various railroad stations. The company handies an average of sixty tons of paper each day. The entire trade of the company amounts to about $15,000,000 a year. Sin- clair Tousey is its president.
The newspaper advertising agency is akin to the news company. It was begun in New York about 1828, by Orlando Bourne. V. B. Palmer established such an agency in Boston and Philadelphia about 1840. With him, in Boston, was Sammel MI. Pettengill, an enterprising young man, who in 1849 established a newspaper agency in Boston on his own account ; and now the firm of S. M. Pettengill & Co., of New York and Boston, is the most conspicnous in the business. It has a house in Boston and another in New York, and these are active agents in procuring advertisements from merchants and others for nearly ten thousand newspapers in the United States and the British provinces, and Have paid them many million dollars for advertising. The amount of advertising by New York merchants alone is not less than $10, 000,000 yearly, and is constantly iner asing. There' are business men who expend yearly $100,000 in advertising, to the profit of themselves
. 858
HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY.
are fine structures. The Chemical Bank and the Bleecker Street Bank of Savings occupy their old buildings. The stock of the former was quoted, in 1883, at over two thousand per cent above par. The assets of the Bleecker Street Savings Bank, as we have said in a pre- ceding notice of it, are the largest of any similar institution in the country. There are about one hundred and forty reputable hotels in the city, some of which present to the eve elegant and imposing edi- fices, such as the Fifth Avenue and the Windsor.
The population within the limits of the city of New York in 1880 was 1.206,577, an increase in ten years of 393,000. Since that time its growth has been more rapid than ever before. At the close of 1853 the city proper contained probably fully 1,450,000 inhabitants. But this number by no means indicates the extent of the real population of the city. for the surrounding municipalities within fifteen or twenty miles of New York are largely peopled by New Yorkers-men doing business in the metropolis. Even Brooklyn, distinct in many social aspects from New York, with its 700,000 inhabitants, is in a large degree but the stalwart child of the great city on Manhattan, slightly separated hitherto from its mother's embrace by the waters of the East River. It is no longer thus separated, for the great Suspension Bridge which spans the East River, completed in May, 1883, has firmly united the two cities as one in fact, if not one in legal form and name. In- cluding what may be called the suburban population of New York, its citizens numbered probably, at the close of 1883, at least 2,000,000. This growth had been gradual until 1880, when the enormous sudden increase began .*
The East River Suspension Bridge, alluded to above, is regarded as the grandest monument of engineering skill in the world. A structure for connecting New York and Brooklyn, consisting of a single arch, was projected more than seventy years ago. + The project was revived and the newspapers. Mr. Pettengill is a native of Naugatuck, Conn., where he was born in March, 1823.
# The population of the city of New York has doubled six times in a century-doub- ling on an average once in seventeen years. New York City in 1883 was sixty-five times 'as large as the New York City one hundred years ago. The rate of increase in the popu- lation of the country at large (doubling once in twenty-five years) is insignificant in com- parison with that of New York. At the rate of increase shown by the enumeration during the last twenty-five years-a rate made less by the influence of the Civil War and other causes-there may be now children in their nurses' arms who may see a metropolis here having 10,000,000 inhabitants.
+ In 1811 Thomas Pope, an architect and landscape gardener. proposed to erect a " flying pendant lever bridge" across the East River between New York and Brooklyn .. a single are, of which the chord was to be 1800 feet and its altitude above high water 223
859
FIFTHI DECADE, 1870-1SS0.
by Thomas McElrath, in the New York Tribune, more than forty years ago, and John A. Roebling, an eminent engineer. suggested a structure of the general plan of the one under consideration so early as 1857, estimating the cost at $2,000,000.
The necessity for such an inter-municipal connection became more and more apparent, and the Legislature of New York chartered a bridge company for the purpose, fixing the capital at $5.000,000, with power to increase, and giving authority to the cities of New York and Brooklyn in their corporate capacity to subscribe for the stock of the company, which was organized in May, 1867. Mr. Roebling was ap- pointed chief engineer. He submitted plans in September.
In the spring of 1869 a board of consulting engineers, at the request of Mr. Roebling, examined his plans. Soon afterward the War De- partment appointed a commission of three United States engineers to report upon the feasibility of the plan and its relations to navigation. The plans were fully approved by both commissions, and the construc- tion of the bridge was bagun on January 3, 1870. Before a stone of the great structure had been laid Mr. Roebling died, from the effects of an accident. His son, Colonel Washington A. Roebling, who had long been associated with his father in bridge building, and had taken a conspicuous part in making the plans of the East River Bridge, was chosen as his fit successor.
We will not attempt to trace the history of the building of the bridge, nor to give a description of it. The event of its construction is ,so recent and the newspapers of the day and other publications have given such minute details of the whole affair that the story of its formal opening to the public use, on the 24th of May, 1883, told in brief outline, must suffice .*
feet. The abutments were to be built in the form of warehouses. Pope's invention was pronounced excellent and the project feasible by seventeen leading shipbuilders of New York, among them Henry Eckford. Christian Bergh. Adam and Noah Brown, and JJoseph Webb. More than twenty years earlier a bridge between the two cities was contemplated. * The cost of the bridge was nearly $20,000,000. It was thirteen years a-building. Its entire length from its New York terminus, opposite the City Hall, to Sands Street, Brooklyn, is 5989 feet, or a little over a mile. The width is 85 feet. There is room for a train of cars and two lines of vehicles to pass on each side of the foot promenade. The space under the promenade is used for telegraph and telephone wires, and the whole structure is illuminated at night by electric lights. The length of the river and land spans combined is 1800 feet, the same as that projected by Pope in Isil. The bridge is suspended on four cables, the first wire of which was run out in May, 1877. The length of wire in the four cables, exclusive of the wrapping wire, is 14.361 miles, the length of each single wire being 3579 feet. The weight of the four caldes is 3535 tons ; di imeter of each, 15 inches. Ultimate strength of each cable, 12,200 tons. Depth of the tower.
860
HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY.
The day was most auspicious. The weather was all that could be desired. Both cities were radiant with thousands of American flags fluttering in the breeze. The President of the United States and his Cabinet ministers were the most distinguished guests on the occasion. Governors of States and many other eminent men were also guests. and a vast multitude were admitted to the bridge by tickets. Several vessels of the North Atlantic Squadron, under the command of Admiral Cooper, conspicuously participated in the ceremonies of the day and evening. All the water-craft in the harbor were gay with flags and bunting.
The famous Seventh Regiment National Guard, commanded by Colonel Emmons Clark,* was the chosen escort for the President of
foundation on the New York side below high water, 78 feet, and on the Brooklyn side, 45 feet. The total height of the towers above high water is 278 feet. Clear height of bridge at the centre of the river span (which is 1595 feet) above high water, 135 feet. The mass of masonry in the towers and land approaches has no parallel in history since the pyramids of Egypt were built. The two towers contain 82,150 cubic yards of masonry. Nearly 600 men were employed upon the great structure at one time.
This bridge will ever remain a grand monument to the engineering skill of the Roeblings, father and son. The former was a native of Muhlhausen, a city of Thuringia. The authorities of that city have honored him by changing the name of the street in which he was born to Roebling Street.
* Emmons Clark, the present colonel commanding the Seventh Regiment National Guard, was born at Port Bay (now Huron), Wayne County, N. Y., October 14, 1827. He is of New England parentage, and descended from one of the earlier Puritan settlers of Massachusetts Bay. His father, the Rev. William Clark, was a Presbyterian clergyman. widely known and respected in Western New York during the first half of the present century. His son, the subject of this sketch, received his education at Hamilton College, where he was graduated in 1847. He began the study of medicine, but his active tem- perament gave him a stronger inclination for a business rather than a professional life. and at the age of twenty-three he went to New York and entered upon an active and suc- cessfal mercantile career. In this pursuit he continued about sixteen years, when, in 1866, he retired from business and accepted the position of secretary of the New York Board of Health. That office he has held until now -- 1883.
In January, 1857, Mr. Clark enlisted, as a private, in the Second Company of the Seventh Regiment National Guard, then commanded by Captain Alexander Shaler. He was promoted to first sergeant in 1858, to second lieutenant in 1859, first lieutenant in 1860, and to captain in December of the same year. Captain Clark commanded the Second Company at Washington in the spring of 1861, at Baltimore in 1862, at Frederick in 1863, and during the Draft Riot in New York in July of the same year. In June, 1864. he was elected colonel of the Seventh Regiment, and has now held that exalted position over nineteen years, with honor to that famous military organization, which, as we have seen, has ever been the trustworthy guardian and preserver of the peace of the city. Colonel Clark is possessed of commanding personal appearance and dignified and courtly manners. He is a thorough, courteous, and considerate disciplinarian, is master of the profession of a soldier, and is honored and beloved by all who know him. He is the author of a " History of the Second Company, Seventh Regiment."
7.7 ler. Bruce
861
FIFTH DECADE, 1870-18S0.
the United States and the other notables, who occupied twenty-four carriages. The procession, led by Cappa's band of seventy pieces and a drum corps of twenty-two, moved down Broadway from the Fifth Avenue Hotel. The windows, balconies, roofs, and sidewalks were crowded with spectators. When the procession reached the New York end of the bridge, the vicinity was packed with human beings, fully 50,000 having come into the city by the railways alone. All the ves- sels moored at the wharves were also crowded with men, women, and children. The war-vessels, gayly decorated with flags and bunting, were anchored in a line below the bridge, and at a signal given the flagship Tennessee opened a general salute of twenty-one guns which was fired from the squadron, the Navy-Yard, and from Castle William on Governor's Island.
The municipal authorities of the two cities met, with cordial greet- ings, on the bridge, while the band played " Hail to the Chief " and the vast multitude cheered. Under the arched roof of the Brooklyn station a dense throng of ladies and gentlemen had gathered. To that shelter the guests were conducted, where appropriate ceremonies were opened with prayer by Bishop Littlejohn. An oration was delivered by the Hon. Abram S. Hewitt, and the Rev. Dr. Storrs pronounced an address. There was a grand reception at the house of Chief-Engineer Roebling, in Brooklyn, at which the distinguished guests assembled. The evening witnessed a grand display of fireworks and illuminations at the bridge and elsewhere. At midnight the pageant and its acces- sories had disappeared-the events at the opening of the great East River Bridge had passed into history, and the first toll of one cent was taken on the New York side when the City Hall clock struck the hour of twelve at midnight.
What the bridge may effect toward a union of the two cities is an unsolved problem. It is practically a new street, closely built up excepting over the water, and extending from the Harlem River down Third Avenue and Chatham Street in New York, across the bridge and along Fulton Street in Brooklyn to East New York, a distance of fully fourteen miles. But Brooklyn, the grown-up child of New York, has so firmly set up in life for itself that it is almost as independent of the latter, in its industrial pursuits and its social organizations and aspects, as any other city. Rapid transit may be the philosopher that will solve the problem.
The increase in legitimate trade," foreign commerce, and mechanical
" This term is applied to all business transactions not purely speculative, for New
HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY.
and manufacturing pursuits at the port and in the city of New York, as shown by the last emunneration in 1850, has been equally great with that of the population. The total foreign commerce of the port, exports and imports, including coin and bullion, for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1550, was 8944,229,124. The number of vessels of every kind belonging to the port at that time was 4123. This number has decreased, for the carrying trade of New York has rapidly dimin- ished. It is stated that during 1882, of the more than 46,000,000 bushels of grain exported from this port, not a single bushel was shipped to Europe in a vessel under the American flag. Nearly sixty per cent of the grain was carried in British vessels. Various causes are assigned for this state of things. Among them unwise legislation appears most prominent.#
New York had become, before 1870, the most extensive manufactur- ing city in the Republic. According to the census of 1ss0, the number of its mechanical and manufacturing industries was 11, 162, and their manufactured products were valued at $445,209.245. They employed $164,917, 856 capital and 217,977 persons. Of the latter, 77,866 were women, youth, and children. The largest industries, measured by the value of their products, were clothing, 879,629,250 ; meat-packing, 820.297.527 ; printing and publishing. 821.696.851 ; tobacco and cigars. $15.347,108 ; refined lard, $14, 755, 715 : sugar and molasses, $11.330. 53 : furniture, $9,605, 779 ; bakery products, 89,415,424, and machinery. 89.216.713. These eight industries aggre- gate only 8194.050.198, leaving 8254, 025, 235 to be divided up among about 150 minor industries, of which only 66 run up into the millions.
York is conspicnous now for its enormous speculations or gambling in agricultural pro- ductions as well as in stocks. For example : in the year 1852 the reported sales of wheat at the port of New York were more than 650,000,000 bushels, while the actual quantity received was less than 45.000.000, showing that nineteen twentieths were mere gambling transactions. The sales of Indian corn were reported to be nearly $50,000,000 bushels. or thirty times the quantity received : of oats, exceeding 150,000,000 basnels, about one tenth of which amount was actually receivedl. There were 30.000.000 bales of cotton reported sold, when the whole amount actually delivered, both on the spot and future sales, was less than half a million bales. More than once the reported sales of petroleum in a single day exceeded the entire product for the whole year! Other large cities, notably Chicago, are centres of such gambling.
# Thirty or forty years ago the Americans took the lead in shipbailling. Then their vessels were chiefly propelled by wind. Fully one hundred ships were annually built in the shipyards of New York, many of them of 2000 tons burden : in 1832 the shipvards of the city turned ont only a few yachts or a ferryboat. Steam has supersedeil wind as a means for the promil-ion of vessels, and Great Britain now tab. s the land of all the world in the construction of this class of ships.
low
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FIFTH DECADE, 1870-1880.
It is no doubt due to the character of these industries and the nature of the manufactures that they have so little effect upon public opinion concerning tariffs and other economic influences upon labor.
At the-beginning of this decade (the sixth) William R. Grace # was mayor of the city, wielding executive power under the amended charter of 1873. New York was then almost peerless in every quality of greatness among the cities of the Republic. In population it was pre-eminent. In the extent of its commercial operations it was mar- vellous, it being computed that, including relevant financial operations, seven eighths of the foreign commerce of the United States is trans- acted through New York with its vortex in Wall Street. It exceeded all others in manufactures and the mechanic arts. It was unrivalled in literary, scientific, and art associations and culture, in religious and benevolent institutions, in its various aspects of social life, and in its magnificent charities, public and private.+
* William Russell Grace was born in Ireland, and received an academic education in Dublin. His father was James Grace, and his mother was Eleanor Mary (Russell) Grace. At the age of fourteen young Grace came to New York, became a merchant's clerk, and subsequently a shipping and commission merchant on his own account. He has prose- cated business with energy and success between this and foreign countries, residing a portion of the time abroad. Since 1865 he has made the city of New York his permanent residence. His commercial firm is W. R. Grace & Co., at No. 142 Pearl Street. In 1550 Mr. Grace was elected mayor of the city, and performed the important duties of that office with wistlom, fidelity, and a fearless regar.l for the public gool, which made his administration a notable cne. Mr. Grace married Miss Lillius Gilchrist. They have six children-four daughters and two sons.
+ In 1533 there were in the city of New York 33 benevolent associations for the benefit of the poor, and 43 for mutual benefit : 18 asylums for the aged, 3 for women, 3 for the blind, 3 for the deaf and dumb, 2 for lanaties, 3 for inebriates, and 1 for soldiers ; 8 Bible societies, 3 charity organizations, 5 Christian associations for young men an 1 ? for young women, 11 city missionary societies, 12 dispensaries, 32 " homes, " 37 hospitals, 20 in Instrial daily schools, and several church weebly sewing schools : 6 ladies missions (flower, fruit, etc.) for the sick and convalescent ; 51 institutions for children, 4 lodging. houses for boys, 12 for girls and women, and 1 for sailors ; 15 orphan asylums, 18 reform societies, 11 semmen's societies, and a number of free reading rooms and libraries. Among the most neefni of the last-mentioned institutions is the New York I'ree Circulat- ing Library, incorporate l in Isso for the purpose of furnishing free reading to the people of the city at their homes. The office of this association is at No. 36 Bond Street, and it is proposed to establish branches in different parts of the city.# B-siles the institutions above named, there are about 500 denominational institutions and the several public charities so called, under the charge of the commissioners of charities and correction, in which nearly 40,000 persons were cared for in 1883.
There is a Charity Organization Society for cooperating with all other charitable asso-
* The officer+ for 19-2 93 were : Henry E Pellet, po - Mler: : Ber 'am'n H F.l. Tmucis (' Parlor. Frederick WSmeat | Smel P.B ... ... W. Greenough, secretary, and Me- LI'n. M. Cve. Marian.
IA
864
HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY.
In this city is concentrated the greatest puissance of the press of the country in every form-newspapers, magazines, and books. There were no less than 540 different newspapers and periodicals published in the city in 1883. Several of these were in foreign languages, one of them in Chinese. There were 29 daily morning and 9 daily evening papers. There were 10 semi-weekly, 254 weekly, 11 bi-weekly, 25 .semi-monthly, 185 monthly, three bi-monthly, and 11 quarterly publi- cations. Of the weekly papers, between forty and fifty were classed as " religious," though most of them are both religious and secular in character .* The extent of its book publishing is enormous. Indeed,
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