USA > New York > New York City > History of the city of New York, 1609-1909 > Part 41
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One of the notable deaths of the year was that of Colonel George Edward Waring, the famous sanitary engineer, born in 1833, who died in New York, October 29, 1898. Colonel Waring had for a long time been at the head of the sanitary arrangements of New York, and under his supervision the present very thorough system of street cleaning and sanitation, which makes New York one of the cleanest of the large cities of the world, were inaugurated.
At the election in 1898, Colonel Theodore Roosevelt, of the Rough Riders, was elected governor of the State of New York.
The New York Legislature, in 1899, elected Chauncey M. Depew, Repub- lican, distinguished as a railway administrator and as an after-dinner orator, to the office of United States senator from New York, in succession to Edwin Murphy, Jr., of Troy, New York.
411
VIEW OF THE BUSINESS DISTRICT
CUPY RECHT.19CE -NY GED. PANEL, IL SON,
BROAD STREET, LOOKING NORTH
412
HISTORY OF NEW YORK
The year 1900 saw the beginning of important movements in connection with the question of rapid transit, the contract for the construction of the New York Rapid Transit tunnel being awarded to John B. McDonald, on January 6th of that year.
Governor Roosevelt, in the same year, appointed the New York Tenement Commission, which instituted important reforms in connection with the build- ing laws and sanitary arrangements that refer to the tenements in New York City.
The presidential election of 1900 was again between William McKinley, on one side, and William Jennings Bryan on the other, although the issues were somewhat different from those in 1896, and the election principally turned upon the question of the relations of the United States to its insular possessions, and the question of the future of the inhabitants of the Philippine Islands. The contest for Vice President was between Governor Theodore Roosevelt, of New York, Republican, and Adlai Stevenson, of Illinois (former Vice President), on the Democratic ticket. McKinley and Roosevelt were elected, but the assassination of President Mckinley, on September 14, 1891, while in attendance at the Pan-American Exposition at Buffalo, made Theo- dore Roosevelt, a citizen of New York, President of the United States, which office, by election to the same position in 1904, he continued to hold until March 4, 1909. One of the features of the campaign of 1900 was the Republican "Sound-Money" parade, held November 3d, three days before the election, and which was the most imposing parade ever held in New York as a part of a political campaign.
The offer of Andrew Carnegie, on May 13, 1901, to contribute $5,200,000 to build sixty-five branch libraries for New York City, provided that the city would furnish sites and maintenance for such branches, was accepted by the city. At the election in November 6, 1900, Benjamin B. Odell, Republican, was elected governor of New York for the term beginning January, 1901, and on January 2Ist, the governor transmitted to the Legislature the report of the New York City Charter Revision Commission, with a message urging municipal economy. The Legislature also passed a New York Police Com- mission Bill which, among other things, contained a clause bestowing upon the governor the power of removal of the police commissioner. This bill being sub- mitted to Mayor Van Wyck, he vetoed it on February 17, 1901, upon the ground that the clause giving to the governor the power of removal was un- constitutional; but the Legislature passed the Police Commission Bill over the mayor's veto, and it was signed by Governor Odell and became a law Feb- ruary 20, 1901.
A bill creating a bi-partisan Bureau of Elections for New York City was passed by the Legislature, March 13, 1901.
413
SETH LOW BECOMES MAYOR
The New York Charter Revision Bill, having been passed by the Legis- lature and submitted to Mayor Van Wyck, was vetoed by him, but on April 22d was passed by the Legislature over that veto and became a law, and has continued to be operative to the present time, having been passed as the result of developments which had made the original charter of Greater New York, passed in 1897, seem inadequate for the needs of this great municipality. The 1901 charter, however, is still regarded as deficient in many respects, and is now (1910) in the hands of a commission for the purpose of revision.
On May 13, 1901, was established the celebrated Hall of Fame of the New York University, which has continued to hold a prominent place in national interest.
There is no summer in New York City that there is not some day that the average citizen will declare is the hottest ever experienced, but, so far as results are concerned, July 20, 1901 was the most disastrous day in the num- ber of deaths from heat that the city ever knew, two hundred having died from the effects of the heat on that day.
The Metropolitan Museum of Art was greatly enriched by the death, on July 5, 1901, of Jacob S. Rogers, a locomotive manufacturer of Paterson, New Jersey, who bequeathed his estate, amounting to $5,000,000, to the museum.
In the municipal election which was held in November, 1901, Seth Low, the fusion candidate, was selected as mayor of New York for two years, 1902- 1903, over Edwin M. Shepard, the Democratic candidate. Mr. Low repre- sented a reform movement which had been inaugurated as the result of dis- satisfaction with the acts of the Van Wyck administration and of the domina- tion of politics by Tammany Hall; and while the majorities were small, except in Brooklyn, where Seth Low had formerly been a very popular mayor of that former city, Mr. Low received a majority in each of the boroughs, and with him were elected the other reform officials, elected on the same ticket. all of whom entered office on January 1, 1902.
The new mayor had been president of Columbia University for several years, and in his place, upon his resignation, the trustees of Columbia Uni- versity selected Professor Nicholas Murray Butler as the head of that great educational institution, on January 6, 1902. Columbia University has since made rapid strides in its importance and membership, and is now the most largely attended university of the United States.
There were numerous disasters in 1902, one of which was a collision in the New York Central Tunnel, on January 8th, in which seventeen persons were killed, and another disaster occurred in the New York Rapid Transit Tunnel, on January 27th, through an explosion, by which many were killed and injured and much property was destroyed. The disastrous Park Hotel fire, in which seventeen lives were lost, also occurred that year, on February 22d.
414
HISTORY OF NEW YORK
A notable event of the year was the visit of Prince Henry of Prussia, who had come to take part in the ceremonies connected with the launching and christening of the German Emperor's new yacht Meteor, which had been built here. The visit extended from February 2Ist to March 15th. Among the notable incidents of the visit was the christening of the yacht by Miss Alice Roosevelt, daughter of the President, on February 28th, and a dinner given in honor of Prince Henry, known as the "Captains of Industry Dinner, at which one hundred of the largest capitalists and heads of great American industries were invited to meet the Prince.
At the municipal election, in 1903, Colonel George B. McClellan, son of the Union general of the same name, was elected mayor of New York, to which office he succeeded on January 1, 1904. Mayor Low, who was again the can- didate on the Fusion ticket, had a slight majority in the borough of Richmond, but all of the other boroughs gave the preference to McClellan.
On October 5, 1904, Mayor Mcclellan caused a sensation by removing the entire board of the municipal Civil Service Commissioners from office, and also at the same time demanding the resignation of William P. Schmitt, com- missioner of parks for the Borough of the Bronx, and appointing an entirely new Civil Service Commission.
One of the tunnels under the Hudson River, between New York and New Jersey, was completed March II, 1904, although it was not open for traffic until the completion of connections on both sides.
The chief event of the year was the opening of the great subway on Octo- ber 27th. Mayor McClellan ran the first train from the City Hall station. Afterward the road was open to the public on that day and passengers to the estimated number of 150,000 rode over the rails between the hours of 7 p. m. and midnight.
The idea of an underground railroad for New York was first broached officially in 1890, when Mayor Hugh J. Grant appointed a commission, headed by August Belmont, to suggest plans for rapid transit. In 1872 the plan was reported on, and abandoned by the commission after an expenditure of $136,- 000. In 1897 the Supreme Court appointed another commission, and in 1899 the commission advertised for bids for building a subway route. On Janu- ary 16, 1900, the contract was awarded to John B. McDonald for $35,000,- 000. The time for the completion of the road was four and one-half years.
On March 25, 1900, Mayor Van Wyck turned the first shovelful of earth, with a silver shovel, in front of the City Hall, marking the commencement of all work on the subway. After that the work was continuous except as interrupted by strikes, and the completion of the road, as originally laid out, from One Hundred and Forty-seventh Street to the City Hall, was only one month and two days more than the four and one-half years stipulated from
HUDSON TERMINAL BUILDING
415
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HUDSON TERMINAL BUILDING
416
HISTORY OF NEW YORK
March 25, 1900. Extensions have since been made extending the system into the Boroughs of the Bronx and Brooklyn, and still other expansions of the lines are contemplated.
One of the events of 1905 was the blizzard which occurred on January 25th, which, though not so severe as the one that had been recorded for 1888, was sufficiently so to stop all surface travel.
One of the most notable events of 1905 was the life insurance investiga- tion of that year, which resulted in a marked change in the management of all the large life insurance companies and the discovery of much that was unsound in the methods used by the companies, and the prosecution for illegal practices of several of the principal insurance officers. Many of them were forced to resign, and the Legislature, in 1906, receiving the reports of the Armstrong Insurance Commission, enacted laws to prevent the practices which had been discovered in the course of the investigation.
The mayoralty contest of 1905 was one of the most exciting that ever occurred in the history of New York. George B. McClellan was a candidate for reelection on the Democratic ticket. William M. Ivins was the candidate on the Republican ticket, and William Randolph Hearst, proprietor of the New York Journal, the New York American, and a number of other news- papers in various parts of the country, was nominated by a party he had him- self organized, known as the "Municipal Ownership League." Mr. Hearst is a man of very great wealth, and had organized a very effective campaign machine; and being himself a man of great energy, visited every section in the city, with his speakers, in support of himself and his platform, which was very profuse in the promises of what would be accomplished in the case of Mr. Hearst's election. He drew very largely from the vote of both of the old parties, receiving a substantial majority over McClellan in the Borough of Brooklyn and a small majority also in Queens, while McClellan carried the Boroughs of Manhattan, the Bronx, and Richmond. After the election a con- test was started by Hearst, who claimed that a recount would show that he was elected, and the figures were so close that many believed that this claim was true. Even McClellan does not appear to have been any too sure about it, for he interposed many obstacles in the way of a recount. The mayoralty contest was not finally decided until June 13, 1908, when in the Supreme Court the recount was ended by an instructed verdict, finding that George B. McClellan had been elected mayor of New York by a plurality of 2791, which, however, was 863 less of a majority over Hearst than was originally shown in the official returns. This election was one of special importance, because it was the first one under the new law giving a four-year term to the mayor of New York, so that Mcclellan had secured one two-year and one four-year term, making six years in all.
417
THE PUBLIC UTILITIES COMMISSION
During the year 1906 there occurred, in June, one of the most sensa- tional murder cases in the history of New York: the shooting of Stanford White, the most famous of American architects, by Harry K. Thaw, in the Madison Square Roof Garden, in June of that year. It is not necessary to go into the details of this recent crime, which resulted in the acquittal of the de- fendant on the ground of insanity, and his incarceration in the asylum for the criminal insane at Matteawan. Vast sums of money were spent in defense of Thaw, whose family was one of the wealthiest in Pittsburgh, and numerous attempts were made to secure his release from the asylum on the plea that he is now sane, but uniformly without success.
In 1906, Mr. Hearst again appeared in politics as a candidate for gov- ernor, this time being nominated not only by his own party, which had changed its name to "Independence League," but also securing the Democratic nomi- nation. Very many of the Democratic voters of the city and State, however, would not vote for Hearst, who had the year before been actively denouncing their party and its candidates, while the Republicans had the advantage of an exceptionally strong candidate in Charles E. Hughes, one of the ablest lawyers of New York City, who had been at the head of the great insurance examination of 1904. Mr. Hughes was elected by a plurality of nearly fifty- eight thousand votes over Hearst.
The important events of 1907 included the meeting in New York, on April 14th, of the National Arbitration and Peace Congress, and the pas- sage of a bill in the Legislature, signed by the governor, June 6, 1907, creating a Public Utilities Commission, to have supervision and regulation over the various railroads. This has resulted in various reforms in con- nection with the operation of street railroads, subways and elevated rail- roads in New York City.
On June 20th, Mayor McClellan turned the first sod in the construc- tion of the Catskill Water Supply System, which, when completed, will greatly enlarge the water resources of this great metropolis.
On September 13th, the Lusitania, of the Cunard line of steamers, from Liverpool, completed her maiden trip from Queenstown in five days and fifty-four minutes, this being the largest steamship ever built, up to that time, with a gross tonnage of 32,500 tons, and 70,000 indicated H. P., with a length of 790 feet and breadth of 88 feet and a depth of 6012 feet. This vessel and her sister ship of the same dimensions, the Mauretania, have since been running regularly between New York and Liverpool, and have several times reduced the record. The fast time record is now held by the Mauretania, which left Queenstown September 26th, and arrived in New York, September 30, 1909, in four days, ten hours and fifty-one minutes.
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418
HISTORY OF NEW YORK
On October 17, 1907, the first regular wireless despatch over the Atlantic Ocean for commercial purposes, was received in New York.
On October 21, 1907, there was great financial disturbance in New York, owing to the suspension of the Knickerbocker Trust Company, which was followed between then and the 30th by the suspension of several of the banks, and caused a financial stringency in the city for several months. The suicide of Charles T. Barney, on November 14th, was one of the incidents of the troubles that followed, and several prosecutions for the violation of the banking laws were started against various officials.
On January 9, 1908, the East River tunnel, from Manhattan to Brook- lyn, was open to traffic as a part of the Interborough Rapid Transit Rail- road, and has since been in operation, and on February 25th, the first of the tunnels under the Hudson River, to New Jersey from New York, was open to traffic by the Hudson and Manhattan Railway Company, of which William G. McAdoo is president and executive.
The Knickerbocker Trust Company reopened for business on March 26, 1908, having been reorganized and strengthened, and placed under new management.
The Old Free Academy of New York, the origin of which has been heretofore mentioned, and which several years after had received col- legiate powers, and changed its name to the "College of the City of New York," had so grown that new premises were required, and the new build- ings on St. Nicholas place, at One Hundred and Thirty-eighth Street, were built, and were formally opened on May 14, 1908.
On May 30, 1908, the body of George Clinton, the first governor of the State of New York, arrived in New York, arrangements having been made for its removal from the city of Washington to Kingston, New York, where the two hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the settlement of Kingston took place on the 3Ist instant. The body was received in New York City with appropriate honors and forwarded to its final destination. .
In 1908 occurred another presidential election, William H. Taft for President, and James S. Sherman for Vice President, being the candidates upon the Republican ticket, and William Jennings Bryan for the third time was the Democratic nominee, with Jacob S. Kern, of Indiana, as his running mate. The Republican ticket was elected ; and Charles E. Hughes was also a successful candidate, reelected to the office of governor of New York, which he resigned to take effect in October, 1910, having been appointed associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States.
In 1909 occurred several centenaries, notably those of Abraham Lincoln, Edgar Allen Poe, Charles Darwin and Alfred Tennyson, all of which were celebrated in New York.
THE CITY COLLEGE
419
உணவில்
COLLEGE OF THE CITY OF NEW YORK
420
HISTORY OF NEW YORK
On March 13th, news came from Palermo, Sicily, that Lieutenant Petrosino had been assassinated in that city, presumably by the members of what is known as the "Black-hand Society." This was an association of Italian criminals, many members of which had found their way into the United States, and believed to be responsible for many murders and other atrocities. The usual method of the Black-hand was to send threatening letters to some person supposed to be wealthy, usually of their own nation- ality, threatening death, the abduction of some child, or some atrocity, in case of non-compliance with their demands for money. Lieutenant Petrosino had been untiring in the work assigned to him of the detection and punishment of members of this murderous society, and was in Italy in pursuance of his official duty, when he was assassinated. His body was returned to New York and committed to the earth with military honors.
An important event of the year was the opening, on March 13th, of the new Queensborough bridge, connecting New York, at Fifty-eighth Street, with Long Island City.
On July 6, 1908, Commander Peary, U.S.N., the arctic explorer, left New York in the steamer Roosevelt, on another polar expedition to the North, with an equipment which seemed to assure him success in reaching the North Pole. On September 1, 1909, a Danish ship touched at the Orkneys, in the North of Scotland, having on board Dr. Frederick A. Cook, an explorer who had left New York in 1907, who telegraphed from there that he had reached the North Pole on April 21, 1908, and had afterward undergone a winter of terrible privations in the frozen regions of the North. A few days afterwards he reached Copenhagen, where his announcement of the discovery of the North Pole was fully credited and honors heaped upon the explorer. On September 6th, however, Com- mander Peary, who had reached Indian Harbor, Labrador, on his return voyage, announced that he had discovered the North Pole, in April, 1909. A week later Peary sent another despatch, relating to the claim of Dr. Cook, declaring that Cook had not reached the North Pole, and imme- diately a controversy began over that subject. Dr. Cook arrived in New York City, on September 21st, and received an uproarious welcome. After that he lectured in various points of the country in regard to his dis- covery, publishing in serial form, in the New York Herald, what purported to be a narrative of his adventures in reaching the pole. Peary afterward arrived, and his accounts were so specific and so well attested, that there was practically no doubt about the fact that he had reached the North Pole. Still many, and probably a majority, of the people believed the story of Dr. Cook, on the strength of which he was awarded the freedom of the city by the Board of Aldermen, on October 15. 1909. Later dis-
421
ATTEMPTED ASSASSINATION OF MAYOR GAYNOR
coveries in regard to the doctor weakened public opinion, and his so-called records, which were sent to the University of Copenhagen, in December, were examined by that body, which found that they did not at all establish his claim. Before this decision was made, Dr. Cook and his family dis- appeared from view. So although it is undoubtedly true that Dr. Cook was somewhere in the far Arctic region at the time, his accounts of having reached the pole are thoroughly discredited. The scientific world now fully recognizes the claim of Commander Peary as the first discoverer of the North Pole.
In the municipal election, in November, 1909, the Democratic nomi- nation was given to Judge William J. Gaynor, of Brooklyn, who had a long and honorable record as a jurist and a political reformer. The Repub- licans and several independent organizations had, previous to Gaynor's nomination, united in the selection of Otto H. Bannard, president of the New York Trust Company, as the fusion candidate for mayor. William R. Hearst, who had previously expressed a desire to support Judge Gaynor if he should be nominated on an independent ticket, declared himself against that gentleman, after he had received the Tammany nomination, and himself became a candidate for the mayoralty, making many speeches, principally directed against Gaynor. Judge Gaynor received over 250,000 votes, Bannard over 177,000, and Hearst over 104,000, so that Judge Gaynor was elected mayor, while for the other municipal offices, Mr. Bannard's running mates on the Fusion ticket were elected. Mr. Gaynor began his administration so much to the city's general satisfaction, that the attempt to assassinate him, by a discharged dock employee, in August, 1910, shocked the world. Fortunately he recovered from his wound.
One of the vastly important events of 1909 was the completion of the Pennsylvania Railroad terminals, so that an inspection train was run through under the Hudson River, from Harrison, New Jersey, to New York City, over the Pennsylvania Railroad tracks. This paved the way for the opening of regular train service over the Pennsylvania lines direct to Thirty-second Street and Seventh Avenue, New York, which began on September 8, 1910, trains now running into the magnificent new terminal station of that company.
McKim, Mead & White, Architects
THE NEW PENNSYLVANIA RAILROAD STATION
422
HISTORY OF NEW YORK
** *** **
BADARWAY.
Francis H. Kimball, Architect
TRINITY BUILDING
CHAPTER THIRTY - SIX
NEW YORK HARBOR AND THE HUDSON RIVER THE HUDSON-FULTON CELEBRATION
As a harbor and commercial centre New York possesses unsurpassed advantages of situation. It is located in latitude 40° 42' north, and longitude 70° west of the Meridian of Greenwich. The rocky island of Manhattan rises abruptly from the waters of a landlocked harbor, upon whose broad surface might float the combined navies of the world.
About eighteen miles south of the Battery begin the entrance channels to the Lower Bay: the South, Main, Gedney and Ambrose Channels, the lat- ter only completed about 1907, and being the deepest of all, and used by the greatest of the modern "leviathans of the deep." The Lower Bay is connec- ted with the Upper Bay and Newark Bay by the Kills around Staten Island.
To the east of the island of Manhattan the East River connects the Upper Bay with Long Island Sound, which affords a route safely protected from the Atlantic for vessels bound from New York to the cities of Southern New England. On the north of Manhattan Island the Harlem Ship Canal connects the East and North (Hudson) Rivers.
At ebb-tide there is a depth of twenty-one feet of water on the outer bar between Sandy Hook and Long Island, and the tidal wave rises and falls but six feet. The port is open to navigation all the year round, even when the Chesapeake and Delaware Bays are frozen over.
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