USA > New York > New York City > History of the city of New York : its origin, rise, and progress Vol. III > Part 51
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presence of the soldiery. On the 24th the leaders of the affray called the strike " off," confessing defeat for the switchmen.
In January, 1895, occurred a memorable strike by employees of the trolley street railway lines in Brooklyn, for which the police were soon found inadequate. On the 18th the Second Brigade of the National Guard, made up of Brooklyn regiments, more than two thousand men, was put in motion. On the 20th (Sunday) the First Brigade, from the city of New York, was called out. General Fitzgerald's order was given at 7.30 P. M., and by midnight only one regiment had not reported for ser- vice. All were speedily marched to the scene of disturbance. On the 21st, 4,261 men of the First Brigade, out of a total of 4,624 on the rolls, were on duty, - including a nearly full array of the young gallants of Troop A of cavalry. That day there were several firings in the streets of Brooklyn, and many conflicts with the rioters. On the 22d serious fighting occurred at the corner of Halsey Street and Broadway, where the Seventh Regiment was repeatedly engaged, and, exasperated by the showers of stones and bricks from the roofs, delivered three volleys at the mob. At 11 o'clock that night Colonel Appleton, at the head of Company K, made a determined charge, and a number of the crowd were wounded with the bayonet. Again at midnight there was another charge. On the two days next following, like demonstrations were neces- sary. On the 25th the strike was on the wane. Much property had been destroyed ; among the strikers some lives had been lost, and wounds were many. The casualties to the troops were few, except that there. was much suffering from the cold and inclement weather. The strikers had failed of success ; the railway companies had yielded nothing. On the 28th the commotion had ended, and the First Brigade was ordered home, with great praise from all observers of their excellent conduct throughout.
In 1880 was opened the West Shore Railway, which, following the west bank of the Hudson River nearly as far as Albany, extends to Buffalo, and has gone into the control of the New York Central and Hudson River Railroad Company.
In 1886 the Rapid Transit Company of Staten Island made that beautiful suburb of New York more easily accessible by boat to New Brighton and trains connecting Arrochar and Bowmans.
Throughout the annexed district, north of the city, trolley-cars and elevated trains flash incessantly. Since 1891 the Suburban Rapid Tran- sit Company, crossing at the northern end of Second Avenue, carries passengers swiftly and comfortably far beyond the Harlem River. Street-
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car lines also intersect this now much settled region, which even the impedimenta of building materials and machinery encumbering the thoroughfares have not been able to divest of its old attraction. In the neighborhood of Port Morris the deserted mansion of Morrisania, rebuilt by Gouverneur Morris in 1799 and until recently occupied by his grand- children, now rears its solitary tower above verandas overgrown with unpruned roses and honeysuckle. The old elms that shaded its lawn remain ; but the lawn itself is cut in two on the water front facing Ran- dall's Island by the long black railway bridges, over which speed noisy trains belching smoke and cinders, to and from the station of the New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad at Mott Haven. This ancient dwelling, that in the days following the Revolution gave hospitality to so many foreign visitors of distinction, and to Americans who helped in the shaping of the nation, has shared the fate of other landmarks of its kind, and is overtaken by the encroachment of a growing city which the barrier of a river could not keep in check.
Cable-cars, at first disapproved of by New Yorkers upon their intro- duction in Broadway in 1894, and afterwards in Third Avenue, are now found to be an indispensable addition to the city's comfort. Looking up Broadway the curious spectacle is presented of an apparently continuous line of roofs of cars occupying the centre of the thoroughfare, - so close together do they run to supply the needs of traffic. A branch line of the cable-cars, diverging from Broadway at Twenty-third Street to run along Lexington Avenue to the upper part of the island, has proved a boon to thousands of passengers otherwise unprovided for, and has come to be accepted as a necessary outgrowth of the development of New York, despite the continuous roar of the as yet imperfect machinery. A new line of horse-cars, running along Thirty-fourth Street from river to river, has just passed through the ordeal of bitter opposition encoun- tered by all such enterprises from householders disturbed by its advent ; and, like all such additions to our facilities for travel in the streets, is found a thing of necessity. But when the most is said for the various modes of conveyance for the public in the streets of New York to-day, the trains of the elevated roads are still overcrowded, the cable-cars are jammed, the horse-cars jog along packed with people inside and out ; and the shabby old omnibuses that survive in Fifth Avenue only, - and are not an example of " survival of the fittest," - to be a blot upon the moving traffic of the street, are at times filled to repletion with crumpled people. We have not yet reached the period when the able-bodied citi- zen who, not commanding the services of a carriage of his own, and being economically inclined, designs to get from point to point of his city, and
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objects to be jostled by his fellows huddled together like pigs on their way by rail to market, can do better than make the journey afoot. The high rates charged for public cabs and carriages are a virtual prohibition upon their use for most people; the well equipped hansoms, attractive in appearance, now multiplied in Fifth Avenue and about the uptown parks, are still too dear for the conveyance of persons of moderate means ; and even those two-wheeled vehicles, unless furnished with rubber tires,
Vanderbilt Dwellings and Fifth Avenue Stage.
afford, on our roughly paved thoroughfares, not the most restful experi- ence for weary and nervous humanity.
Few aspects of surface improvement in New York of late years present a more picturesque and gratifying result than the work accom- plished by the Department of Public Parks. The total area over which the jurisdiction of this department extended in 1881 was 1.194 acres. In 1896 it covers almost five times as much space. Of the parks added to the city in this time, we have Jeannette Park, so called in honor of the heroic sufferers of the ship of that name in the storied Arctic expedition. This occupies the site of old Coenties Slip, and comprises nearly an acre. Rutgers Park, formerly Rutgers Slip, is another water-
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side garden, redeemed from the squalor of down-town, and about half an acre in extent. At Mulberry Bend, near the region historic in crime and degradation once known as the Five Points of New York, an expanse of grass and shrubs and sunlight will soon supplant rookeries of tenement- houses already torn down to give it place ; around it are gathered chapels, mission-schools, manufactories, and the homes of decent working folk, who will enjoy with their children the privileges of its precincts. At Corlear's Hook, with a water front on the East River, south of Grand Street, 8 acres have been taken over for park purposes. The East River Park at Eighty-fourth Street has been enlarged by the addition of more than 8 acres. About 20 acres have been condemned for a park along that river, between One Hundred and Eleventh and One Hundred and Fourteenth streets ; still on the east side, another but smaller park has been established in a crowded locality between Pitt and Sheriff streets on Stanton; and yet another is located on Hester and Norfolk streets to give new life to a like region of squalor and misery ; a small park of the same intention is about to change the character of much such a neighborhood on the west side of the town, between Twenty-seventh and Twenty-eighth streets, Ninth and Tenth avenues ; and at Seventy- second Street and the Boulevard a little wedged-shaped bit of green- sward lends its cheerful note to the surroundings of macadam and brick and mortar. Washington Bridge Park, of 20 acres, will be a fitting set- ting for the beautiful structure that gives it a name.
Of the New Parks acquired by the city in 1888, the possession is one upon which not only the lover of rus in urbe, but every intelligent citi- zen, must heartily congratulate himself. They are of inestimable value to the appearance and health of the annexed district; and when, one day, the pleasure-seeker of the future shall speed on his wheel or in his electric carriage along the miles of perfect driveway that connect them, he will lift up his voice in praise of the wisdom and foresight that placed these covetable suburbs at his disposal.
Van Cortlandt Park, where 120 acres have been set aside as a parade ground for military exercise, covers 1,132 acres in all, of which, from most of the drives, all the visible area seems forest-clad. It is full of nooks of sylvan beauty, and still enshrines the Van Cortlandt dwelling- house, an interesting relic of old aristocratic New York.1
1 This house was built in 1748 by Frederick Van Cortlandt, the great-great-grandfather of its last owner, Augustus Van Cortlandt. The property was bought, in about 1690, by Frederick's' father, Jacobus, from his father-in-law, Frederick Philipse, Lord of the Manor of Philipseburg, now Yonkers. The country all about the house having been debatable ground during the Revolution, the generals on both sides, including Washington and the French generals, were there at different times. An interesting fact in connection with the house is
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Bronx Park, taking its name from the little river whose course for many a mile is shaded by trees of the virgin forest, has 662 acres. Pel- ham Bay Park, beautifully situated, abundantly wooded, its shores laved by the sparkling waters of the Sound, and still adorned with picturesque villas, many of them abandoned by their former owners who found them- selves called upon to surrender their dwellings for civic necessity, con- tains 1,756 acres. A point of special attraction to this vicinity is found in the building and grounds of the Country Club, within and near whose trimly kept enclosure a number of wealthy and fashionable New Yorkers have elected to make their homes for all the year round, in villas and cottages built and equipped with all the taste of modern art and all the nicety of modern fittings. The club-house, a centre of reunion for these and remoter neighbors, as well as for members who live in New York, is charmingly designed and placed. Winter and summer sees it fre- quented by parties arriving by coach or drag or train. With golf-links, tennis-courts, and other opportunities for the sports men and women share in, its maintenance is a good illustration of the increased habit of country life among the classes of our community to-day.
Crotona, having 141} acres; Claremont, 38 acres; St. Mary's, 12 acres, - are smaller parks north of the Harlem River. Bronx and Pelham Parkway; a strip 600 feet wide, connecting the two parks most easterly and containing 95 acres ; Mosholu Parkway, connecting Bronx and Van Cortlandt Parks and covering 80 acres ; and Crotona Parkway, connecting Crotona and Bronx Parks and covering 12 acres, - are destined, at some future day, to be broad, magnificent avenues, linking together the localities indicated by one continuous chain of perfect roadways and walks.
In 1880 the Riverside Drive was completed. This superb addition extending for nearly three miles along the east bank of the Hudson River, beginning at Seventy-second Street, and commanding views of the river below and the Palisades beyond, is a conspicuous ornament of New York; and the Riverside Park will be more attractive when the re- cently authorized widening shall have been made, by filling in the land under water to provide a broad stretch of greenery between the railroad
that William IV. of England was a visitor in his early youth, when serving as a midshipman under Admiral Sir Robert Digby, who was an admirer of one of the Miss Van Cortlandts of that day, and used to bring the young midshipman with him occasionally. Two wooden eagles presented to their ancestor by Admiral Digby, who had captured them from a Spanish privateer, are still in possession of the Van Cortlandt family. By vote of the Park Commis- sioners the care of this mansion has been given to the Colonial Dames of New York, who are to preserve the rooms in, as far as possible, the original condition, - using some of them as a museum for Colonial relics.
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The Dome of the World Building. The City Hall.
The Tribune Building.
The American Tract Society Building. The Times Building.
VIEW IN CITY HALL PARK.
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tracks and the river. Farther north, beginning at One Hundred and Seventy-first Street and extending to One Hundred and Eighty-fourth, another and beautiful section of the river front has been appropriated for Fort Washington Park, to include about 40 acres of hillsides admir- ably adapted to park uses and already well supplied with a growth of large trees. On the more elevated stretches, in the middle space between the Hudson and the Harlem, title has but now been acquired for St. Nicholas Park, between One Hundred and Thirtieth and One Hundred and Forty-first streets, of an area of 30 acres; and for Colonial Park, nearly half as large, between One Hundred and Forty-fifth and One
The Mall, Central Park.
Hundred and Fifty-fifth streets, east of Bradhurst Avenue. In 1894 work, now nearly finished, was begun upon the Harlem River Drive- way, 150 feet wide, running along the water's edge from One Hun- dred and Fifty-fifth Street to Fort George. Morningside Park is a beautiful area of high commanding ground north of One Hundred and Tenth Street; near it are to arise, for the glory of the city in all time, the new Cathedral of St. John the Divine, the new buildings of Columbia University, Barnard College, and the new St. Luke's Hospital.
Of the minor improvements and additions to Central Park, continu- ally going on, the sum is considerable; and New York's chief pleasure-
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ground is to-day, in its perfected beauty of driveways, lawns, and bosky woodlands, shrubbery, flowers, and gleaming bits of water, more finished to the eye than the celebrated public parks of any European capital. Great trees it may never possess, owing to the thin soil and abundant rock near the surface; but even now there are pleasing illusions to be had of sylvan solitudes that shut out the encompassing brick and stone and marble of the streets and avenues on either side, and every year adds perceptibly to the umbrageous effects without which no sense of rural joy is possible in a landscape.
Costly additions to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and to the Museum of Natural History, have been made from time to time, and are still in progress.
The most important single incident of the decoration of Central Park was the erection with appropriate ceremonial, on a knoll facing the Metropolitan Museum of Art, of the Egyptian monolith commonly called " Cleopatra's Needle," sixty-nine feet high and weighing two hun- dred and twenty tons, made of the rose-red granite of Nubia, and pre- sented to the city through the Department of State at Washington, by Ismail Pacha, the late Khedive. The history of the obelisk is epito- mized in the inscription upon the medals struck to signalize the occa- sion and then awarded to the best one hundred of the scholars of the public schools : " Presented to the United States by Ismail Pacha, Khedive of Egypt, 1881 ; quarried at Syrene, and erected at Heliopolis by Thotmes III .; re-erected at Alexandria, under Augustus; removed to New York through the liberality of W. H. Vanderbilt, by the skill of Lieut .- Commander Gorringe, U. S. N."
The official presentation of this splendid relic from the cradle of old- world civilization took place on February 22, 1881, when the monolith was unveiled in the presence of a large gathering of enthusiastic people. John Taylor Johnston presided; there was prayer by the Rev. Dr. Howard Crosby ; a hymn written by Richard Watson Gilder was sung; and an address, offering Egypt's gift to the New World, and made by Senator Wm. M. Evarts, was responded to on the part of the city by Mayor Grace. Mr. Vanderbilt was unfortunately absent because of an illness. Algernon Sydney Sullivan presented, in behalf of the Numis- matic and Archæological Society, to Lieutenant-Commander Gorringe, a silver medal commemorative of his achievement.
At Battery Park, in what was formerly the emigrant's landing-place upon his arrival on the shores of America, the Park Department has now in process of completion a valuable and interesting aquarium, at an outlay of between $200,000 and $300,000 already expended, which, when finished, will rival the famous Aquarium at Brighton in England.
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In the summer of 1895, under authority of an act of the Legislature, the Commissioners of Public Parks set aside and appropriated for the uses of a Botanical Garden, 250 acres near Williamsbridge, embracing the most lovely portion of Bronx Park, and extending to and across the Bronx River. Although many years must necessarily elapse before this enterprise can be considered complete, to have it undertaken under such auspices is a step to be heartily applauded by New Yorkers.1
Brooklyn Bridge, crossing the East River.
The 24th of May, 1883, saw the completion, and the formal opening to general use and traffic, of one of the noblest achievements in all the world of engineering skill, - an enterprise begun fourteen years before, - the great work of the suspension bridge over the East River, con- necting Brooklyn with New York. Upon this occasion a cortège - including the President of the United States and Secretaries Folger and Frelinghuysen, with Mayor Edson of New York, and accompanied by Governor Grover Cleveland and Lieutenant-Governor Hill - went on
1 It is estimated that the cost to the city of the land for the new parks acquired in 1888 has been $9,969,603.04 ; and in this connection it is interesting that the original cost of the Central Park (now, according to Mayor Gilroy's estimate, to be valued as mere real estate at $200,000,000) was only $5,000,000. In 1856 the valuation for taxation of the 12th, 19th, and 22d wards, where Central Park lies, was $21,875,230 ; in 1894 the valuation for taxation of the same area was $660, 968,516.
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foot across the beautiful struc- ture that hangs, like a spider's thread for lightness, across the river, high enough to permit the passage beneath of the loftiest masts of ships. These dignitaries were met at the New York tower by Acting- President Kingsley of the Bridge Trustees, and by Gen- eral Jourdan with his staff ; conducted thence to the en- trance of the Brooklyn tower, they were there received by Mayor Seth Low of Brooklyn. A full holiday on that side, with parades of the military and a half-holiday in New York, gave opportunity and inclination for public expres-
sion of satisfaction in an event generally esteemed the pre- cursor of an ultimate union of the two cities under one mu- nicipal organization. Speeches of presentation and acceptance, of felicitation and good fellow- ship, were exchanged between all the officials ; a reception to the President, with a dinner and fireworks, followed in the evening ; and a great day thus closed, pleasurable to all con- cerned.
The largest scheme of en- gineering enterprise and genius New York is likely to see at- tempted during the next de- cade, is, now that questions as to powers and rights have been adjudicated in the Su-
Proposed North River Bridge at Twenty-Second Street. (From Engineer's Drawing.)
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preme Court of the United States, apparently assured of accomplishment, - the North River Bridge, projected to cross the Hudson River from Twelfth and Bloomfield streets in Hoboken, above the houses and at right angles to and over the river to Tenth Avenue and Twenty-second Street in New York. Railway trains crossing it are to land passengers within a few hundred feet of Madison Square. The approach in New York will be connected on a level with the Sixth Avenue Elevated Rail- road at Twenty-second Street, and thence rise as it nears the river. Connections in New York will also be made with the New York Central and Hudson River Railroad at Thirtieth Street and Ninth Avenue, and through it with the railway system of New England. Connections in New Jersey will bring it into relation with the entire railroad system of the remainder of the continent to the westward. The, at first sight insurmountable, obstacle to any bridge in this quarter was the long supposed necessity for piers in the river, requiring three hundred feet or more of foundation, and not only prohibitive in cost but creating an insufferable impediment to navigation. The bridge, as now designed, will be built by a corporation under an Act of Congress, supplemented by State legislation; it has been designed with great boldness, but has received deliberate sanction of engineers of the greatest repute, and is possible because of recent improvements in the subservient arts. It will be of a single span of nearly or quite thirty-two hundred feet in length, with two decks and a capacity for fourteen railway tracks, in addition to promenades. It is expected to afford accommodation for local electric cars; for suburban trains to enable residents of the hill- country of New Jersey to cross to New York for theatre or opera, for example, and to return the same evening without inconvenience ; for freight-trains, and for express trains for general travel. This gigantic structure, one thousand to thirteen hundred feet longer than the present Brooklyn Bridge, is not to be, like that, a suspension bridge. The plan is for something of the nature of a braced arch; but, instead of being erect and in compression, the arch is to be inverted or suspended from the towers, and in tension. It will be swung, of course, high above the shipping in the river below; and no pier will obstruct any of the uses of the water. There will be no re- strictions as to the working speed over the bridge; all traffic may be as rapid as over an ordinary solid road-bed. The architectural features will make it as attractive to the eye as the Brooklyn Bridge; and the importance of this addition to the facilities of life in New York is not to be measured by the scant space devoted to it here in these few brief sentences.
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Another scheme is for a bridge of a somewhat different kind, authorized by an Act of Congress to cross the Hudson River from at or near the westerly end of West Sixty - fifth Street; and the engineer's plans for that enterprise, also, have recently received official approval.
Actual construction of a bridge for railways and for general traffic is now about to be commenced by a company under a charter granted by the State, at or near East Sixty-fifth Street and Lexington Avenue in New York, to be extended across Blackwell's Island and the East River to Brooklyn, as an outlet to neighboring territory and to the system of railways on Long Island. After years of litigation, the Court of Appeals has recently finally affirmed the authority for that enter- prise; and, as capital has been already enlisted, there should be no further considerable delay in completion of the structure.
To relieve the embarrassing congestion already experienced, at certain hours every day when the crowds are greatest, in travel on the present Brooklyn Bridge, and to be built and, like the one now in use, to be controlled, by the two (then probably united) municipalities, a second public bridge has been authorized, and is to be very soon realized, be- tween New York and Brooklyn, from Corlear's Hook at right angles to the East River. The engineers are now engaged in the preliminary work of preparation for the foundations.
In 1882 the shafts on the New York side of the projected tunnel to run under the Hudson River, and to debouch in or near Washington Square, were begun; but this work is still among the mysteries of Mother Earth; the public is afforded no information with regard to it.
Crossing the Harlem River from One Hundred and Eighty-first Street and Manhattan Avenue to Aqueduct Avenue, the most beautiful link of our island with the mainland is Washington Bridge, completed in 1889. The lovely curves of the central spans rising a hundred and thirty-five feet above high-water mark of the silver shining stream, the substantial effect of the granite abutments and parapets, and its total length of 2,384 feet, make of this structure a sight imposing and memorable to him who looks upon it, - a notable work of art.
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