USA > New York > New York City > History of the city of New York : its origin, rise, and progress Vol. III > Part 53
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38 | Part 39 | Part 40 | Part 41 | Part 42 | Part 43 | Part 44 | Part 45 | Part 46 | Part 47 | Part 48 | Part 49 | Part 50 | Part 51 | Part 52 | Part 53 | Part 54 | Part 55 | Part 56 | Part 57 | Part 58 | Part 59 | Part 60 | Part 61 | Part 62 | Part 63 | Part 64 | Part 65 | Part 66 | Part 67 | Part 68 | Part 69 | Part 70
Other favorite lines of swift passenger steamers of to-day are the " White Star," with the "Teutonic " and " Majestic," for England ; the " Cunard," with the "Lucania " and "Campagnia," for England ; the "Hamburg-American," with the " Fuerst Bismarck " and " Augusta Victoria," for England and Germany ; the "North German Lloyd," for England and Germany ; and the " Compagnie Générale Transatlantique," for France. Still other lines for European ports there are, abundantly supplying the necessary comforts and security for passengers, though of a somewhat slower rate of speed. But in June and July, when the exodus of holiday seekers sets out from New York, it is hard to secure so much as a single vacant berth on any of them, if arrangements have not been made weeks before.
The telephone system of New York is the largest and most complete of its kind. In the first quarter of this year 1896 it consists of 15,000 subscribers' stations; 12 central offices, the most important of them in fire-proof buildings specially constructed for the purpose ; 38,000 miles of underground wires in the streets ; and about 3,500 miles of overhead wires in the regions not yet closely built up. The entire system belongs to and is operated by the Metropolitan Telephone and Telegraph Com- pany, organized in 1880 to take over the earlier systems established by two rival corporations claiming under patentees engaged in litigations ended only by the consolidation of interests. At that time the aggregate
476
827
ELECTRIC LIGHTING.
number of telephone subscribers was only 2,800; all the wires were overhead in the streets, supported by cross-arms upon huge and un- sightly wooden posts, of great height, set in the soil at the curbstones of the pavements, where the posts were sometimes as much as two feet in diameter at the street level, obstructing not only the view along but the uses of the highways ; and the service was in many respects unsatis- factory. In the winter of 1881 the entire system of wires was wrecked by a sleet storm; again in 1888, 1889, and 1891, severe damage was wrought by like disturbances. To-day the wires, elsewhere than in the suburbs, are in subways under the streets. In changing from overhead and grounded circuit working to underground and metallic circuit working, the plant and system have been entirely reconstructed by an investment of additional capital, and with great improvement in general efficiency. The equipment of every kind is of the best; the great switch-boards, for example, in the central offices, are marvels of inven- tive and mechanical genius; and all subscribers may have "long dis- tance " connections, enabling them to converse with callers even in Chicago or farther West. The daily connections number 150,000, and are handled with an average delay, from subscriber's call to subscriber's answer, of less than 40 seconds, though seven-tenths of the connections pass through two central offices. Such a service is nowhere equalled ; nowhere in Europe are the customers so exacting, or the telephone administrations so alert in adopting improvements in appliances or methods. The New York Company has nearly 1,300 employees ; about 1,100 of them always at work in construction, maintenance, and opera- tion of the system, the others engaged in the executive and general offices. The total yearly traffic handled is 36,000,000 of messages, and is rapidly increasing because of the impetus received from the adoption of what are known as "message rates" in force since June, 1894, - rates offering a schedule, not of uniform tariff for all subscribers alike (whether one uses his telephone frequently or not) as heretofore, but of charges rising from a minimum for 600 messages per annum, in accord- ance with one's actual use of the service.
Not less remarkable is what has been accomplished by the three ex- isting New York systems of electric lighting. The Mount Morris Electric Light Company, with two stations, reaches from One Hundred and Eighty-fifth Street, on the west side, to Fourteenth Street, and pervades the entire area of the city south of there ; it supplies a high tension direct current to 1,200 arc lights and an alternating current to 25,000 incandescent lamps, but is now engaged in greatly increasing
477
828
HISTORY OF THE CITY OF NEW YORK.
the capacity. The United Electric Light and Power Company employs the Westinghouse methods, and furnishes both lighting and power; it has four stations, with a capacity of 120,000 lights, having now installed 75,000 incandescent lamps and 2,000 arc lights. The Edison system is on a much larger scale. The old Pearl Street station, where Edison was said to work twenty-five hours out of twenty-four, sleeping only during odd hours and on piles of tubing, whilst developing his ideas for lighting and his underground system of conductors, is now no more; instead of it we have the huge building of The Edison Electric Illuminating Company on Duane and Pearl streets, one block east from Broadway, where the main station and general offices are found.1
It has come to pass in the last sixteen years that our dwellings may be equipped throughout with devices for availing ourselves of electricity as the most versatile and useful of domestic servants. The bells that announce a visitor are rung by an electric button at the front door ; the rooms and halls are lighted by electricity ; seated comfortably at home we talk to our friends, the country over, by the electric telephone, and recognize their voices, as they do ours, at distances of a few feet away or of more than a thousand miles; if we need a messenger, a policeman, or the Fire Department, the summons is given by a touch that sounds an electrical signal in a central office, whence a response is
1 This is the largest electric lighting company, and this building the largest electric supply station, anywhere to be found. It has room for 28,000 horse power in steam machinery, - one-third already installed. In the operating room on the ground floor are the huge generat- ing units, the largest of their kind, each a great 2,500 horse power engine with a dynamo re- volving at either end of the shaft. Two stories above is the boiler room, extending front one street to the other ; and still above, nearly a hundred feet in the air, are the coal bunkers, containing two thousand tons or more of coal, elevated mechanically from the street, where it is first automatically weighed ; from the bunkers the coal is delivered by gravity through weighing chutes in front of the boilers below. The company's offices occupy the upper floors ; and this building, which dates only from 1891, is not only interesting within for its mechani- cal and electrical appliances, but striking without for architectural features, - all the orna- mentation appearing in forms that speak of electricity in the arts, lamps, armatures, etc., instead of ordinary decorative devices. A newer station on Twelfth Street, east of Fourth Avenue, shows even more novel details, including turbo-generators (with French steam tur- bines) of 300 horse power, and a large storage battery plant. And there are other stations in Twenty-sixth Street, near Sixth Avenue ; in Thirty-ninth Street, near Broadway ; and else- where. All feed into one common network underneath the streets, intended to supply a great part of New York with electric current for light, power, heating, and other purposes. This underground system includes more than 200 miles of Edison tubing or 600 miles of copper con- ductors, supplying continuously at present about 6,000 customers with more than 225,000 incandescent lamps, about 3,000 arc lamps, and more than 13,000 horse power in motors, - not counting some sixty or seventy large buildings to which current is furnished during a part of the time only. This is the equivalent of more than 460,000 ordinary incandescent lamps. The next largest electric installation is at Chicago, with an equivalent of about 325,000 ; and then comes Berlin with an equivalent of 250,000.
478
829
MILITARY.
promptly made by sending him we have called for ; the coal bins may be left empty, - the cooking can be done and the house may be warmed by electricity ; if an invalid requires a passenger elevator for reaching another floor of the premises, electricity will supply the motive power ; revolving electric fans furnish a cooling breeze in the most sultry weather, for whatever part of the house desired, and at any hour, day or night ; and we are told that very soon we may be able to remain at home and enjoy the lightest note of the prima donna at the opera. From basement to roof we can have the services of this all-powerful but now subjugated agency ; it will fetch to us from without many of the pleasures heretofore to be had only by going abroad for them ourselves ; and, with this one assistant in place of many, our comforts of living are such as were never before dreamed of.
The regiments of the National Guard in New York contain between seven and eight hundred officers, and between twelve and thirteen thou- sand enlisted men. The efficiency of these citizen soldiers in answer to the call of duty has, happily, not been recently put to the test, - except in the cases of the riots in Buffalo and those in Brooklyn, already de- scribed in these pages ; but their appearance and conduct upon those two occasions, as well as the general spirit of enthusiasm for and fidelity to their organizations, are worthy of all praise. In 1880 the Seventh Regiment moved into the first of the series of new and substantial armories that now ornament the town. This is a striking stone build- ing, richly decorated within, erected at Park Avenue and Sixty-sixth Street, under the direction of Col. Emmons Clark, with funds raised by the subscriptions of friends. In 1883 an Armory Commission, created with members designated by the Legislature and later extended to in- clude other public functionaries, began the work of providing armories for other regiments, and with excellent results. The Eighth Regiment Armory is at Park Avenue and Ninety-fourth Street; and on the same block a fine armory and amphitheatre for cavalry exercise has been sup- plied to Squadron A. The Ninth Regiment is soon to be appropriately housed at Fourteenth Street near Sixth Avenue; the Twelfth is already established at Sixty-first Street and Columbus Avenue; the Twenty- second at Columbus Avenue and Sixty-seventh Street; and the Seventy- first has recently gone into occupation of the imposing castellated building of gray stone that arises at Thirty-fourth Street and Park Avenue, - where the Second Battery is given the basement floor on the level of Thirty-third Street.
The Naval Battalion of New York City, mustered into service in 1891,
479
830
HISTORY OF THE CITY OF NEW YORK.
parades between three and four hundred men, - volunteers who regu- larly attend drill during the winter, and in summer enjoy practical ser- vice afloat, under naval officers upon one or more of the war ships furnished by the United States for the purpose.
A protection as important to New Yorkers in these days of piping peace as their military volunteers in time of war, is embodied in the Fire Department, long and deservedly one of the chief boasts of the Munici- pality. The changes wrought in this Department shortly after the in- coming of the year 1880 were several : the creation of the Bureau of Inspection of Buildings, to be afterwards and in 1892 expanded into an independent Department ; the introduction of the first water-tower employed in the service; the virtual discontinuance of the use of the old bell-towers, though New York was thereby robbed of one of the most thrilling accompaniments of the Fire-Fiend of old days; the stringing upon poles in the streets of eight hundred and eight miles of wire for the Fire Alarm Telegraph System; the institution of a school of instruction in the use of lines and scaling ladders applied in saving life at fires. In 1882 a new fire boat, the " Zophar Mills," was launched, to be followed in 1892 by "The New Yorker," the latter the most powerful floating fire-apparatus in the world, its water-throwing capacity being twice that of any other. In 1887 the headquarters of the Department was installed in a handsome building in East Sixty-seventh Street. Soon after this, the Fire Alarm Telegraph, yielding to the neces- sity for improvements elsewhere described, saw its line of poles cleared away from the principal thoroughfares, and its overhead conductors there replaced by wires now employed in more efficient service underground. There are now about nine hundred miles of single conductors in subways, devoted to transmission of alarm signals ; it is only in the upper and less inhabited part of the city that the wires of the Department are still carried upon poles in the highways.
The relief fund for the men of this Department appeals strongly to the hearts of citizens; it has developed latterly into a pension fund, and at the present time amounts to $641,912.88, but is inadequate to the demands upon it.
The area for the activities of the Fire Department now includes re- cently annexed towns in Westchester County. In 1895 the number of fires was 3,963; the personnel of the Department consisted of 1,366; the companies were 85 in number; the force of active firemen aggre- gated 1,153. The appropriation for the Department for 1896 is $2,345,355. Dry figures, although they constrain conviction in some
480
Police Parade.
831
POLICE FORCE.
minds as no words can, do not half tell to others the tale of service we enjoy, in all seasons and at all hours, from these ever-ready guardians. In the freezing nights of winter, when other citizens, aroused by the clangor of engine and hose carriage through the street, turn drowsily in bed, these brave and well-trained men are alert and on duty, speeding to danger as fast as their horses' gallop can carry them. Over and again the daily newspapers record acts of daring and self-sacrifice by them that are worthy of the greatest heroes of any age ; and to the admirable per- fection of the discipline, the excellent performance of their machines, and the atmosphere of watchfulness and efficiency that accompanies them, every passer's tongue can testify. A general conflagration, such as once devastated New York and recurs elsewhere at intervals not over-long, seems to be now impossible here ; great fires are very rare ; the aggregate of losses on even five thousand occasions when the men are called out is astonishingly small. Organized as it now is, our Fire Department is a model for personnel, equipment, drill, and results.
The wardens of our crossings, the conservators of law and order in our streets, the men of the Police Force of New York, deserve special consideration. Recent statistics show that, whilst our population has been increasing during recent years at an average rate of about fifty thousand per annum, the number of patrolmen added to the list has been actually at the rate of but one officer for seven hundred new citi- zens. Even with the accessions lately called for by the Chief of Police and demanded by the Commissioners, the force will be less in proportion to population than that in any of the large European cities. And yet, by night or day, except for casual beggars and a semi-occasional des- perado hazarding highway robbery or other assault upon a lonely way- farer in some unfrequented spot, who shall say the dweller in New York does not take the road and ply his avocations undisturbed ; that his home is not well guarded ? Burglaries, nearly always magnified by the press and general report, are fewer than might be looked for in a wealthy metropolis, the rendezvous of adventurers from every quarter of our own country, overrun with continually arriving immigrants from abroad without occupation or resource ; and the quiet of our chief thoroughfares after nightfall, in comparison with those of other great cities where the hum of humanity never ceases, is remarkable. For a present population of nearly two millions, we now have one chief of police, 23 captains, 154 sergeants, 37 detective sergeants, 174 rounds- men, 3,651' patrolmen, 73 doormen, 15 surgeons, and 28 matrons in charge of stations and for the care of women and children. On Broad-
481
832
HISTORY OF THE CITY OF NEW YORK.
way an officer is stationed at every street-crossing from the Battery to Forty-second Street, charged with the duty of rendering assistance across the cable-tracks, where perils are always lurking. These men - fine, stalwart fellows, generally good-humored and always efficient - are there on duty from eight A. M. to six P. M., with an hour off at midday. At what are called the special " danger points " of Broadway, additional men are in service. In 1895 Theodore Roosevelt became President of the Board of Police Commissioners, the rest of the board consisting of Avery D. Andrews, treasurer, Frederick D. Grant, and Andrew D. Parker. These gentlemen assumed the control of police affairs at a crisis of deplorable political confusion and general demoralization among the higher officers of the Department; and the past ten months bear witness to the installation of a system of rigidly honest and non- partisan appointments, promotions, reductions, and details. Under the vigorous and uncompromising sway of Mr. Roosevelt the war against crime, and against corruption in the Department itself, has been carried on effectually. And there is now nowhere to be found a police force better prepared for the duties laid out for such an establishment.
Another question vitally concerning our community may, for the con- clusion of this brief glimpse at some of the inunicipal machinery that affects our lives of every day in New York, be summed up as follows :
The total number of applications received in 1895 by the Board of Commissioners of Excise, for licenses or for transfers of licenses to sell liquor, was 12,070 ; and of such applications granted there were 11,029, from which the sum of $1,790,530 was received for excise fees. Of this total revenue for the year, $134,290.27 was applied to the expenses of the Board ; $300,000 - a fixed annual amount - went to the Police Depart- ment Pension Fund, which without this would be speedily bankrupt ; $75,000 - also a fixed yearly charge - was handed over to the Fire Department Relief Fund; $500,000 was contributed to the General Fund for extinguishing the city debt ; and more than $700,000 was distributed, as usual during many years, among benevolent or charitable institutions for the support of the city's poor or unfortunate, recruited chiefly from those addicted to the intemperate use of the liquors licensed to be sold, - to whose relief these moneys were applied somewhat upon the principle believed in by the rustic who cures his wounds by plastering them with the hair of the dog that bit him.
During the past nine years, nearly four thousand applications for licenses for new places have been rejected by the Board.
As this chapter goes to press, an Act of the Legislature, but just ap-
482
833
POST OFFICE DEPARTMENT.
proved, has made radical changes in the laws heretofore regulating ex- cises and the traffic in liquors, not only in the city of New York but throughout the State. Such things have heretofore been of local con- cern ; they all now pass under State control. One feature of the new law is a diversion to State uses of some of the funds heretofore applied only within the bounds of this municipality.
In 1895 twenty-two square miles were added to the area of New York by annexation. The postal needs of that territory had been sup- plied by six small offices ; three were abolished, and the remainder consolidated with the New York Post Office as branch stations. A comparative statement of operations of this office for the years 1880 and 1895 gives a fair idea of the increase of work there performed. Of clerks employed in 1880 there were ; 700, of letter carriers, 470. In 1895 there were 1,796 clerks, and 1,360 letter car- riers. Of branch stations there were 14 in 1880; we have now 24. In 1880 there were no sub-stations ; to-day of these con- venient stopping-places, where the citizen may buy a money order, receive money on an order, register letters and parcels, and transact other business, there are 49. Of the 200 postage stamp agencies, where stamps and envelopes are to-day sold in quantities sufficient for the needs of the purchaser, there were none in 1880. The gross annual receipts of our Post Office in 1880 were $3,584,785.73 ; in 1895 they were $7,254,974.19, and the net revenue Postman. was nearly double what it had been fifteen years earlier. Letters and postal cards delivered daily by carriers in 1880 were 196,807; in 1895 they reached the daily aggregate of 953,850. Of regular newspapers and periodicals mailed at the New York Post Office as second-class matter, there were, in 1880, 17,326,455 lbs. ; in 1895, 59,193,174 lbs. Letters sent to and received from foreign countries in 1880 were 24,317,541; in 1895, 52,100,830. In the latter part of 1885 the special delivery system was established in New York, and in 1886 the number of special delivery letters sent or received
483
834
HISTORY OF THE CITY OF NEW YORK.
amounted to 60,124; in 1895 such letters numbered 544,486. These figures illustrate the rapid growth of the postal needs and service of the city. They do not limit or express the unfailing satisfaction of our citizens in the executive ability of the officers of this agency of govern- ment, or in the fidelity and promptness, in all weathers, of the gray- coated messengers who speed from house to house in the local service of the Department. Whatever else halts in the forward movement of life, the postal service goes on with the regularity and efficiency of a mighty machine, of special adaptation to the work it must do.
In 1889 Columbia College sustained the loss, by death, of Dr. F. A. P. Barnard, at a good old age, who for twenty-five years had been presi- dent, - a man of brilliant mind, accomplished in many branches of science and learning, a devoted, experienced, and successful educator. In 1890 Dr. Barnard's place was filled by President Seth Low, who had already been mayor of Brooklyn, and there had made an excellent repu- tation as an executive and administrator, - a young and enlightened and public-spirited citizen, by education and tradition and by singular special aptitudes eminently fitted for his position. This was the beginning of an era of prosperity and growth, which, with the co-operation of many others, and President Low's recent large contribution from his own well furnished and liberal purse for the erection of buildings upon the new and extensive site selected to the northwest of Central Park, promises to see Columbia become one of the greatest of universities. In 1889 the novel and important departure was here made of admitting women to an opportunity to secure an education of scope equal to what had been long afforded to men; and Barnard College, named in honor of the late president, who had always fostered the idea of bringing such an institution within the periphery of Columbia's direction, was founded. A temporary building for college purposes was secured in Madison Ave- nue, and a board of trustees soon commenced an active campaign to provide for their students - young women of refinement, intelligence, and ambition, residing most of them in their own homes in New York - the privileges of education on the same lines with their brothers. The entrance examination, the course of studies, and the degrees awarded, are substantially the same for either sex ; and although entirely distinct from Columbia, Barnard is now officially enrolled as an additional cohort under the same flag. With the guidance of Dean Smith, it is growing in numbers, strength, and repute among kindred institutions. Before very long the faculty and scholars will be transferred to a new build- ing on Barnard grounds, contributed by Mrs. A. A. Anderson, a faithful worker and director in the cause.
484
835
EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTIONS.
In the matter of such education for women, it is here appropriate to mention what has been accomplished by Mrs. Joseph H. Choate, one of the founders and the president of the little group of earnest workers who formed the Association here for the Higher Education of Women. The first achievement of her modest but well directed and persistent efforts for the intellectual equipment and advancement of her sex was the Brearly School for girls; the establishment of Barnard College has been the logical sequence.
One of the associates with Mrs. Choate in most of her work in this direction has been Mrs. Francis P. Kinnicutt, to whom it was reserved to be distinguished by successful efforts for the reform of local methods of street cleaning, which finally opened the way, first to legislation for, and afterwards to organization of, much-needed improvements we have mentioned as now conducted by Colonel Waring.
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.