USA > New York > New York City > History of the city of New York : its origin, rise, and progress Vol. III > Part 49
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The Museum of Natural History, which dates from 1869, occupies a new fire-proof edifice in Manhattan Square, upon the western side of Central Park, nearly opposite the Museum of Art; the corner-stone was
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laid by President Ulysses Grant, June 2, 1874, and the museum formally opened by President Hayes, December 12, 1877. The building, however, like that of the Museum of Art, is only a single wing of an immense mass of buildings to be erected in the future. The first purchase for the museum was the Veneauz collection of natural history specimens, the next the Elliot collection of the birds of North America, and the entire museum of Prince Maximilian of Neuwied. The intention is to establish a post-graduate university of Natural Science, at which students from all parts of the world may find as full collections of specimens as are to be found at Lon- don or Berlin. The first president of the museum was John David Wolfe, a gentleman of æsthetic tastes and liberal culture, who made many valu- able gifts to various institutions.1 His daughter, Miss Catharine L. Wolfe, has presented the Jay collection of shells which occupy the desk cases in the center of the hall in the lower story, besides other handsome donations.
The public-spirited citizens who have contributed individually and collectively to the development of New York are legion. The practical philanthropy of Peter Cooper, who has given the labor of a long life to the advancement and diffusion of scientific knowledge, is seen in the six-story brown stone edifice at the junction of Third and Fourth Avenues, at Seventh Street. It was built by him in 1857, at a cost of six hundred and thirty thousand dollars, and endowed with one hundred and fifty thousand dollars for the support of a free reading-room and library -which now contains about fifteen thousand miscellaneous works. The scheme of the Cooper Union includes free schools of science and art, both day and evening. The expenses of the institution are some forty-five thou-
1 John David Wolfe married Dorothea, daughter of Peter and Catharine Griswold Loril- lard, and had one daughter, Catharine Lorillard Wolfe. Elenora Lorillard, sister of Mrs. . John David Wolfe, married Captain Spencer, U. S. A., and their son, Lorillard Spencer, married Sarah I. Griswold, daughter of Charles C. Griswold, and niece of the Sarah Griswold who married John Lyon Gardiner, of the manor of Gardiner's Island ; Elenora, daughter of Lorillard and Sarah Griswold Spencer, married Virginio Cenci, Prince of Vicovaro, the Grand Chamberlain to the King of Italy. (See pp. 612, 639.)
The Lorillards have for a century occupied a high place in the business and social world of New York. There were three brothers, Peter, Jacob, and George, in partnership, and the firm is still continued by their descendants. Peter, son of Peter and Catharine Griswold Lorillard, married Catharine Griswold, daughter of Nathaniel L. Griswold, of the great " China " house of W. L. & George Griswold. Their children : 1. Catharine, married James P. Kernochan (son of Joseph Kernochan, president of Fulton Bank), and has Catharine, Perigond, and James ; 2. Mary, married Henry Barbey, of Geneva, Switzerland ; 3. Eve, married Colonel J. Lawrence Kip, son of Right Rev. Bishop William Ingraham Kip, of California ; 4. Pierre, married Emily, daughter of Dr. Isaac E. Taylor ; 5. Jacob ; 6. George L; 7. Louis L., married Katharine Livingston Beekman, daughter of Gilbert L. Beekman.
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sand dollars per annum, derived chiefly from the rental of stores and offices in the building, together with the income of the endowment fund. In the Woman's Art School two hundred and fifty receive gratuitous in- struction yearly, and are fitted for teaching, engraving, designing, illus- trating books, coloring photographs, and other congenial and remunerative employments.
The Young Men's Christian Association, established in 1852, occupies a handsome architectural structure erected in the style of the French Renaissance in Twenty-third Street, corner of Fourth Avenue, in 1869, at a cost of five hundred thousand dollars. The reading-room has some four hundred papers and magazines, and the library twelve thousand well- chosen volumes. It has also a gymnasium, bowling-alley, baths, class- rooms, parlors, musical privileges, and a concert-hall. Four branch or- ganizations each sustain religious meetings and lectures. A well-known philanthropist has recently purchased a farm in New Jersey and placed at the disposal of the officers, to provide a home for unemployed men in needy circumstances. The Young Women's Christian Association, in- corporated in 1873, to promote the temporal, social, mental, moral, and religious welfare of young women, is in successful operation upon a similar basis, with a well-appointed reading-room, a circulating library of five thousand volumes, and an employment bureau. The Mott Memo- rial Library, the Libraries of the Geographical and Genealogical Societies, and the Library at the City Hall are among the public collections of books with which the city abounds.
Among the many private picture-galleries of value are those collected by Marshall O. Roberts, August Belmont, agent of the Rothschilds, and Alexander T. Stewart, the great merchant whose colossal fortune was ac- quired by making trade a study and a science. He came to New York from Belfast, Ireland, in 1823, at the age of twenty, and having just been graduated with honors from Trinity College, readily obtained a situation to teach the modern languages and mathematics in a school in Roosevelt Street - where Fletcher Harper, of Harper Brothers, was a pupil. He soon opened a small store, and at the end of half a century died the rich- est merchant in the world. His fifty millions balanced the fifty millions of William B. Astor, who inherited a fortune and had only to invest wisely, like all great land-holders, to double and treble it. Stewart ranked next to Astor as a city real-estate owner. During the Irish famine, in 1847, he sent a ship filled with provisions as a gift to his native coun- try. After the Franco-German war he sent a steamer to Havre with flour for the sufferers in manufacturing districts ; and when Chicago was desolated by fire in 1871, he gave fifty thousand dollars.
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Cornelius Vanderbilt, whose long and dazzling career terminated in 1877, is supposed to have left at least one hundred millions. His achieve- ments are among the most romantic and extraordinary in history, and are connected with the interests of millions of human beings. He was born on Staten Island, in 1794, and while transit from one point to an- other was slow and vexatious, and the air full of the new theories about the use of steam, his brain was alive with unformed notions and scientific uncertainties. He was thirteen when Robert Fulton made his first successful experiment. The significance of the invention took deep root in his mind and grew with his growth. He went into business for himself as a steam- boat-builder in 1829. In 1857 he began to invest funds in rail- road stock. Twelve years later and one thousand miles of track were under his control. Among his great public works was the freight depot in Hudson Street, on million dollars. He steam vessels, and be- masters of the railroad tinent - his millions · Elevated Railways.
a site which cost a built a hundred came one of the system of the con- affecting every industry. He had thirteen children, and his numerous descendants reside chiefly in New York.
The latest herculean undertaking of New York has been the erection of elevated railways through the streets. The project had been in agita- tion a full dozen years before its successful issue in 1878, and neither the Erie Canal nor the Croton Aqueduct encountered more fierce and deter- mined opposition. Horse-railroad companies and property owners brought suits and laid injunctions at every step. Charters were declared uncon- stitutional, and cases were carried from tribunal to tribunal. When the
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battle was at last won, the helpless and hopeless community cried out in agony that the noise would kill business, the unsightly objects destroy the beauty of the city, and the moving of trains in the air frighten horses and endanger human life. The long and narrow conformation of the isl- and renders only few lines necessary, and obviates in a great measure the perils arising from frequent junctions and road-crossings. The success of the enterprise was much greater than the most sanguine ever thought of predicting. The noise quickly blended in the general din, the new sense of convenience displaced that of deformity, and the brute creation mildly observed and passed on, as if beyond surprise at any modern im- provement in the city of New York. The disadvantages of dwelling in Harlem were at once removed, and the increase of handsome buildings in that portion of the metropolis within the last twelve months indicates the influence of the elevated roads upon the prosperity of the city.
The great bridge across the East River between New York and Brook- lyn commenced in 1870, is still in process of construction. The whole length will be six thousand feet, and the width includes space for a com- fortable promenade, two railroad tracks, and four wagon tracks. It is so high that navigation will not be impeded. The cost has already greatly exceeded the original estimate for the entire work.
The drainage and sewerage of the metropolis have from first to last oc- cupied distinguished attention. The swiftness with which a dense popu- lation has spread over the island has prevented the execution of many projects which would have added greatly to the comfort and health of the city. But the fruits of experience are being turned to advantage in in- numerable particulars. The leading sanitarian of the country, and the only civil engineer who has ever given us a complete topographical map of Manhattan Island, showing all its original water-courses, and the neces- sity for proper drainage, is General Egbert L. Viele, a descendant of the Knickerbocker family - not that of romance, but the genuine family founded by Herman Jansen Knickerbocker, who settled in New York when the metropolis was a little fur-station, and married the daughter of Von De Bogert, surgeon of the Dutch ship Eendragt. In one of the gen- erations of this family, Herman Knickerbocker, a judge and member of Congress in the time of Madison, was a man of wit as well as fortune, and extremely fond of practical jokes. He was an intimate friend of Washington Irving, whose genius immortalized his name - and it has since become a generic term by which the descendants of the original Dutch settlers are designated. Viele was the author of the State public health measures, resulting in the organization of a Board of Health in 1866, which consists of the health officer of the port, the president of the
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police, and two commissioners, one of whom must have been for five years a practicing physician ; it is invested with extensive powers.
The Fire Department force numbers, in 1880, about eight hundred and fifty. The old volunteer department ceased to exist in 1865; at that same time steam fire-engines were universally adopted. Three commis- sioners control the department and enforce all laws in relation to the sale and storage of combustibles. About six hundred fire-alarm boxes are distributed through the city, and the keys are carried by policemen and firemen, while a key is also deposited near every alarm-box -its location designated upon the box itself. Some forty-two steam-engines, four chemical engines, and other paraphernalia for extinguishing fires afford a curious contrast to the leathern fire-buckets used prior to 1730- when the first fire department was organized, and two small fire-engines ordered from London " by the first conveniency."
The public and private markets of the city have kept pace with the demand. Washington Market occupies an almost square block, bounded by Washington, West, Fulton, and Vesey streets - and the sidewalks are roofed. The spectacle within is one of interest, particularly in the holiday season. The great produce depot and distributing center of the country - the termini of scores of inland transportation lines, and where hun- dreds of vessels are constantly discharging cargoes, are alongside. Fulton Market is famous for its fish ; and about a dozen other public markets are under the direction of the superintendent. With the establishment of the district telegraph system, and the introduction of the telephone into general use, New York seems prepared to overcome every inconven- ience in the way of magnitude. Messenger boys are ready at a moment's notice to execute any commission ; and business men converse with ease in different localities. Various landmarks have passed away ; and prop- erty has changed hands and risen in value, in a ratio, which, if fully described, would seem like the vagaries of imagination.
One of the dark passages through which New York has recently passed was in 1872, when the citizens of both political parties combined against - the public plunderers who had for years controlled the city government. A committee of seventy was chosen, and the leaders of one of the most re- markable conspiracies ever aimed at municipal integrity brought to jus- tice. The following year was marked by a severe financial panic ..
The part played by New York in the history of the country needs no eulogy. Facts speak eloquently for themselves. When our future shall be the past, it will be remembered that eight premiers of the nation have been of New York birth and ancestry, each performing his duty nobly and well in times of peculiar moment. Neither will it be forgotten that New 436
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York has furnished eight Vice-Presidents - more than one third of the number since the birth of the nation- and two Presidents. Of eminent statesmen whose services have been of national importance and whose names and fame are known of all men, no State presents a better record. The city and State are virtually one; and the world has seen few social structures with a foundation of more breadth and solidity. In tracing the origin, rise, and progress of New York we have aimed at something more than a mere recital of events. Political quarrels have their uses, and wars and tumults furnish entertainment and instruction. But when we would learn the true spirit of a community we must become intelli- gent as to the material of which it is composed. We have studied the suc- cessive steps by which a wilderness island has been transformed into a brilliant and powerful metropolis, its boundless wealth, opinions, and people flooding the whole continent; and now with a glimpse of the noisiest and busiest thoroughfare in America -built upon the site of the savage pathway - we turn the final page of this work.
MARTHA J. LAMB.
Bird's-eye Glimpse of Broadway.
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GREATER NEW YORK AND VICINITY.
1. Manhattan Island.
2. Westchester Co.
3. Brooklyn and Suburbs.
4. Staten Island.
5. Jersey City and Hoboken.
6. Newark.
7. Elizabeth.
8. Paterson.
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" THUMBNAIL" SKETCHES.
CHAPTER LI.
1880-1896.
EXTERNALS OF MODERN NEW YORK.
BY MRS. BURTON HARRISON.
CONTINUATION OF THE GENERAL HISTORY. - " THUMB-NAIL " SKETCHES. - METHOD OF TREATMENT. - " THI CAPITAL CITY OF AMERICA. " -- RESULTS OF "GREATER NEW YORK " MOVEMENT. - COMPLICATIONS. - ADVANCE IN THE ARTS. - DEVELOPMENT OF ARCHITECTURE. - CRITICISM OF STREET PAVING AND STREET LIGHTING. - DEPART- MENT OF STREET CLEANING. - BLIZZARD OF 1888. - CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION OF WASHINGTON'S INAUGURATION AS PRESIDENT. - WASHINGTON MEMORIAL ARCH. - CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION OF THE SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES. -- COLUMBIAN CELEBRATION. - NAVAL PARADE. - GRANT BIRTHDAY DINNER. - NAVAL EXHIBITION. - STREET-CAR DISTURBANCES. - INCREASED FACILITIES FOR TRAVEL. - SURFACE IMPROVEMENT. - CLEOPATRA'S NEEDLE. - COMPLETION OF THE BROOK- LYN BRIDGE. - CONTEMPLATION OF OTHER BRIDGES. - NEW YORK HARBOR. - STATUE OF LIBERTY ENLIGHTENING THE WORLD. - "THE NEW COLOSSUS. " - NEW SYSTEM OF DOCKS. - IMMIGRATION. - MARINE PASSENGER TRAFFIC. - TELEPHONE
SYSTEM. - SYSTEM OF INCANDESCENT ELECTRIC LIGHTING. - DEVELOPMENT OF ELECTRICITY. - MILITARY. - FIRE DEPARTMENT. - POLICE FORCE. - MUNICIPAL MACHINERY. - POST OFFICE DEPARTMENT. - EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTIONS. CHURCHES AND MISSION HOUSES. - DOMESTIC LIFE. - HOTELS AND RESTAURANTS. - CHARITABLE WORK. - CLUBS. - AMUSEMENTS. - ACQUISITIVENESS IN PICTORIAL ART. - COLLECTIONS OF RARE AND FINE ART. - LIBRARIES. - HOSPITALS. VALEDICTION.
Corner of Nassau and Wall Streets.
I N bringing down to date the general history of New York since 1880, at which point the able and conscientious chronicle of Mrs. Lamb came to a halt, it has been found possible to touch, within the limits of a single chapter, upon only such salient features of a great city's rapid strides in civilization as may prove interesting to the casual student of the time.
For the same obvious reason, want of space, it has been decided to tell the story of the last fifth of the century by "thumb-nail " sketches of the various departments of the city's work, and by a brief summary of progress in social
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development, rather than attempt to recite incidents chronologically and separately. We shall mention externals, chiefly, - things that catch the eye. With the deeper issues of religion and morality ; with details of the fluctuations of society attributable to reinforcements from abroad and from other quarters of our own country ; with meditations suggested by the fact that, as Guizot once said of the relation of France to the rest of Europe, all institutions of civilization must pass through New York before they are accepted elsewhere in America ; with suggestions for the future to be found in centralizing here the in- fluences of literature and art; with accounts of our struggle for great wealth, and with what is to be learned from the dropping out of public consideration of those who do not maintain it ; with the annals of political abuses and party warfare ; with the fret and fever of speculation, and financial questions of the hour ; there will be no attempt to deal. It is enough to try to outline only the most noticeable, to a looker-on, of the modal differences between the New York of fifteen or sixteen years ago, and the metropo- lis of to-day. To quote one of the final utter- ances of Mrs. Lamb's volume, "we must let facts speak for themselves," and leave inferences to be drawn by the reader.
Although still lacking in the fine proportions of a finished work of art, from which light and New Street. leading in what is best can be equally had in every quarter of our great country, New York, to-day, has taken upon herself many of what must be the final aspects of the capital city of America. Early in this year 1896 her nominate borders included nearly two millions of inhabitants ; from her haunts of commerce, finance, and the professions, many thousands of others, workers here by day, over- flowed into suburban regions to sleep, - and of these multitudes it is estimated there were more than as many again as the actual dwellers within the fringes of the town. It is claimed that, with Greater New York an accomplished fact, there will be a resident population of more than three millions, making ours the second city of the world in mag- nitude ; and that, unless an unexpected change occurs in the tendency of population to these western shores, New York will, before the Twentieth Century is well upon her shining way, surpass in numbers her only rival, London.
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Fifth Avenue at Madison Square.
Madison Cottage, an Inn Standing in 1857 on the Site of the Present Fifth Avenue Hotel.
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DEVELOPMENT OF ARCHITECTURE.
Just how the questions, sentimental, historical, financial, and geo- graphical, involved in the matter of consolidating Brooklyn and the adja- cent country towns with New York are to be adjusted, is at the present writing undecided. But the late considerable increase in variety and numbers of those who claim citizenship in the metropolis has certainly induced a corresponding animation in her intellectual progress. At no time has the curious mosaic of nationalities that make up our com- munity given such abundant evidence as now of growth in culture, and in a capacity for transmission through influence and example to the country at large of what it has acquired. This essential of a dominant city is here asserted, first, because, in looking back at the time before the sixteen years to be recorded, it seems to have been the thing most notice- ably absent. Material advance, the grosser rewards of successful efforts in business, had then already been attained. But New York, not so long ago regarded by observers as primarily and merely "a centre of com- merce, a sovereign of finance," has now a rating in the domain of the arts, beginning with architecture, that may well kindle civic pride in her inhabitants.
In earlier days, her most prosperous burgher was content to live in a brick or brown-stone barn, unlovely of exterior ; and of such dwellings, set in long welded rows, Fifth Avenue was composed, save for a few hotels and churches, the public squares and the old Reservoir, St. Patrick's Cathedral, the white marble Stewart house (now the Manhat- tan Club), the Whitney house, and some new apartment houses, afford- ing rare but pleasing breaks in the monotony. But the first revelation of the beauty of art in an individual dwelling house, one that produced a thrill of satisfaction in the observer of such things, was the French château designed by Richard M. Hunt and built of light-gray limestone, for W. K. Vanderbilt, which, taken all in all, is still the best we have yet seen here. It was to Hunt, who died in 1895, that New York and America owed their real modern advance in architecture. We experi- enced the influence of France - the only country with a school of archi- tecture - for the first time when he had completed his studies in Paris and returned to New York. Other instances of his work here are the Lenox Library, the Tribune Building, and the Astor and Gerry houses in upper Fifth Avenue ; and we shall have occasion to mention more. Most of the architects since Hunt, who have made a lasting mark upon their time, have been either his pupils or pupils of the Paris School of Fine Arts where he was their forerunner. Post, Ware, Van Brunt, and Gambrill were his pupils. McKim and White were pupils of Hunt's pupils, as well as of the School at Paris ; and the greater number of the
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men of prominence and ability now practising are of the Paris School. Ware has become the chief of the excellent Department of Architecture in Columbia University, and has there shown himself an admirable instructor, exercising an influence long to be felt.
For the imprint of George B. Post's hand upon Fifth Avenue it is natural to point to the elaborate, picturesque, and at the same time cheer- ful dwelling of Cornelius Vanderbilt, whose beautiful iron gateway opens upon the Plaza. Down town, many office buildings command admira- tion for Post's art, -among them the Mills Building, the Produce Ex- change, the Times Building, the Cotton Exchange, the World Building, and a twenty-five-story structure now in process of erection, to be called the St. Paul Building, where the New York Herald so long had its news- paper offices. It was Post who introduced here the " steel-cage construc- tion " exhibited in our much-discussed and many-storied office buildings of this end of the century. But that what he and his contemporaries have accomplished is not to be seen on the outside only, of the new structures for occupancy by men of business, appears in the fact that not only lawyers and architects enjoy to-day offices where regard is shown for comfort and health in surroundings, but even printing-offices are light and salubrious, and an editor's sanctum is attractive to all the senses that demand good treatment as a guarantee for well-being.
The work of McKim, Mead, & White, together with that of Hunt and Post, stands in the front rank of artistic achievement in America. Among the numerous examples of the genius of this firm scattered about our city and suburbs, the beginning of their best work was the block of Villard Houses in Madison Avenue, opposite the Cathedral, designed upon the simple and classic lines they have since made famous. More recent erections, several of which are mentioned in detail in the course of this chapter, are the Washington Arch, the Madison Square Garden, the Metropolitan Club, and the designs for the new quarters of the Universities of Columbia and of the City of New York. These charming conceptions, with the Boston Public Library, may be taken as the finest examples of the intention of their methods. At Sixtieth Street and Fifth Avenue the white apparition of the Metropolitan Club rests the eye and refreshes the spirit after contemplation of some of the flamboy- ant hotels and houses in that neighborhood ; and the first impression in its favor is strongly re-inforced by going through the iron grillage of its admirable colonnade, opening on a semi-circular court, to view the grand interior of the Club, notably the entrance hall, sheathed throughout with richest marbles.
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