USA > New York > New York City > History of the city of New York : its origin, rise, and progress Vol. III > Part 54
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And as an example of what can be done by a woman of aptitude and training, in even the most difficult of the sciences, we must speak here of Mrs. Draper, of New York, widow of the late Dr. Henry Draper whose death in 1882 left this lady to devote herself and her fortune to prosecution of his efforts to their final and remarkable fruits now attained. She had been her husband's faithful and skilful co-adjutor in astronomical research, and in the arts that record and preserve the results of the observations he made a specialty. He was the first to photograph the lines of a stellar spectrum, a feat he achieved in 1872; and before he died he had carried his work so far as to photograph the stars of the first magnitude. After his death, telescopes and other instruments and apparatus they had used at their observatory at Hast- ings-on-Hudson were removed by her to the Harvard Observatory at Cambridge; some of them, with additions, went thence to California, and by another journey to Arequipa in Peru, where she now maintains a station at a great altitude in the clear atmosphere of the mountains, under charge of an efficient staff sent there from Harvard University to complete the undertaking Dr. Draper had begun of photographing all the stars and classifying them according to their spectra. A cata- logue of ten thousand stars, including those of the tenth magnitude, has been already published ; and others are in preparation. She is still pursuing the work with unabated zeal. And, conceding to Professor Pickering and his accomplished assistants all the praise they well deserve for such additions to the world's knowledge of the heavens, the fact remains that to Mrs. Draper and to her devotion to the memory of her distinguished husband these astonishing results are chiefly due.
Among other changes, Columbia in 1890 reorganized the Law School
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and established a School of Philosophy ; two years later there was added a school for Pure Science. But perhaps the most valuable group of recent manifestations of the spirit of this rapidly increasing university has been made in connection with the medical department, as shown by the three Vanderbilt buildings, - the College of Physicians and Sur- geons, the Sloane Maternity Hospital, and the Vanderbilt Clinic and Dispensary. And in the near future the array of new buildings on the Morningside Plateau, near the Cathedral, to be erected under direction of McKim the architect, will place New York in enjoyment of enduring examples of the best academic architecture.1
In 1890 a meeting of gentlemen interested in transferring the site of the University of the City of New York from Washington Square sub- scribed three hundred thousand dollars for that purpose, representing fifty-four contributors; the amount was applied to the purchase of twenty acres of ground on an eminence to be known henceforth as University Heights, beyond the Harlem River, between Fordham and Morris Heights. The student of Mrs. Lamb's History will recall her record of the establishment of the first seat of this institution, in 1833- 1835, in Washington Square, " at what was then a considerable distance from the city." The same phrase applies now to the locality chosen for the present site, where temporary quarters are already in occupancy and some permanent structures have been erected. The general plan of the buildings is in especial charge of Stanford White, a graduate; and the dominating edifice of a quadrangle lined with stately halls will be a library with classic portico and a dome, into which the architect will breathe the living spirit of his art. A University Residence Hall, to balance the present Hall of Languages, is to be of grayish yellow brick with pink granite and Indiana limestone, the roof of Spanish tiles. The whole eastern extremity of the plateau on the Heights is to be made into a college close. There will be a ground for athletics, to be called " the Ohio Field," the gift of members of the "Ohio Society of New York." A University Boat House, on the bank of the Harlem River near at hand, will further provide for the athletic training of the youths so fortunate as to occupy the new buildings, and who cannot but gather from them
1 It is now established that this plateau was the scene of the Battle of Harlem Heights during the Revolutionary War; and that fact gives to the new site of Columbia University an association of great historic interest. The researches of recent years have brought to light contemporary accounts of that battle not known to Mrs. Lamb when she described it on pages 127 et seq. of Volume II. of her History; they correct what had been generally accepted as authority on the subject until a date subsequent to her recital, and determine the locality of the death of Colonel Knowlton.
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something of a perception of true art, so potent a factor in the develop- ment of taste. The ægis of this institution has sheltered the Woman's League for Political Education, under whose auspices six classes of women have completed the course of study in elementary law founded by the League. Chancellor Henry W. McCracken is the present head of this university, and to his devotion, energy, and sagacity, much of recent progress is due.
A transformation pleasing to the public eye, and significant of an attempt by her people to provide the Protestant Episcopal Church in New York an equipment requisite for the agencies of civilization in these latter days, is the change in the appearance of the old General Theological Seminary at what used to be called Chelsea. A number of brick and stone buildings in the style of many English colleges, of im- posing front over which Japanese ivy has been weaving a verdant web to conceal the look of newness that generally detracts from architecture of our day, have arisen to take the place of the gloomy and uncom- fortable old structures that occupied the square until recently. Green lawns and neat railings surround Hobart Hall, with its fine space and finish, the handsome chapel and the commodious and attractive quarters for professors and students.
In 1884 Union Theological Seminary removed from University Place and took possession of new buildings in Park Avenue. The trial of Prof. Chas. A. Briggs, by the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church, for heresy, is one of the prominent and disturbing incidents of this seminary's history in later days.
The College of the City of New York, following the example of others, is also soon to move northward, to occupy new buildings upon the high ground above Harlem, a site chosen because of accessibility from all parts of both the old and the new districts of the town, and recently acquired after the passage of an Act of the Legislature author- izing the trustees to make the purchase. At no time in its history has this college been in a more prosperous condition - though the cramped quarters in Lexington Avenue on Twenty-third Street have retarded its growth. In 1896 there are between seven and eight hundred students in pursuit of the regular classical and scientific four years' courses leading to degrees ; in the different departments of the sub-freshman class there are six hundred; and the number of the faculty, professors, instructors, and tutors, exceeds fifty. This institution is the highest stage for young men of our common-school system. It is supported by a yearly appropriation of (heretofore) $150,000 from the city, and is to maintain its present character as a college. Its aim is to carry the education of a
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penniless boy from the public schools to a point where, upon graduation, he may be fitted to enter any professional or scientific school in the country, as well equipped as any youth who has paid his way through another college of first instance. The president is and for many years has been General Alexander S. Webb. The Normal College at Park and Lexington avenues, intended specially for training female teachers, provides an education for girls from the public schools quite as ad- vanced and thorough. It has in 1896 a president, Dr. Thomas D. Hunter, 44 professors and tutors, with 1,877 pupils in attendance ; a subordinate school has a superintendent and 26 teachers, with 1,039 scholars on the register.
The design made for the building for the future headquarters of the Board of Education itself is admirably appropriate; and behind its dig- nified façade will be prosecuted during another century the good work of this indispensable department of our local government.
The number of public schools supported by the city in 1880, in- cluding grammar and primary schools and those for negroes, was 120, with 2,831 teachers and an average enrolment of 125,193 scholars. In 1896 there are 147 schools, 4,183 teachers, and an average enrolment of 186,622 scholars. The appropriation of public moneys by our local authorities for the city schools in 1896 is $5,679,302.59; and in addi- tion to this astonishing sum, levied and raised here by taxation for maintenance of our local system, the city of New York will be this year (and every year) called upon and taxed by the Legislature at Albany for not less than in 1895, as a contribution by us to the support of the common schools elsewhere in the State. That State tax paid by the city in 1895 amounted to $1,818,820.26, - exclusive of all our other burdens called State taxes.
A feature of our common-school system of later days is the active interest in it displayed by women of the educated, and what are mis- takenly called the "leisure," classes of society; and women are now always to be found among the members of the Board of Education.
Among private schools of the higher grade for boys, that have won the confidence of New York by their steady maintenance of the best methods of instruction, combined with hygienic care for their pupils, are those of Arthur H. Cutler, who has contributed to the different universities here and in New England a long list of names from among the representative families of New York, - and the Berkeley School, which has a fine building in town and athletic grounds in the suburbs. Companion schools, of as high grade, for girls, are the Brearly already mentioned, occupying a fine building in Forty-fourth Street, and the school of the Misses Ely, beautifully situated on Riverside Drive.
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St. Luke's Hospital
The Cathedral of St. John the Divine.
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These have been selected for mention as examples of their kind.
The enthusiastic work accomplished by the New York Kindergarten Association among the poor children in many parts of the town is well known. Of reform schools, manual training schools, art-schools, colleges for music, industrial schools of numerous varieties, institutions for teaching the blind, schools for the deaf and dumb for mental or physi- cal culture, and commercial colleges, the ranks are many and full. Another important institution is the New York Trade School, founded and for a time conducted by the late Colonel Richard Auchmuty of New York and Lenox, which has been further and liberally endowed by J. Pierpont Morgan. And our list is not complete without reference to the widely extended and sagacious labors of Miss Grace Dodge in behalf of the working-girls she has associated together for mutual improvement, or without recalling the Young Women's Christian Association, which has this year held a mass meeting at Carnegie Hall to celebrate the twenty-fifth anniversary of its founding. Since 1873, when it began work with one room and one teacher, this beneficent society has grown until, in 1896, it has and occupies two great build- ings, supports a Bible class with an annual attendance of 5,000, and has gathered a library containing 25,000 volumes; in addition to many other enterprises, it maintains classes in which are taught, to more than 2,000 girls, stenography, typewriting, millinery, and other useful arts.
By the Margaret Louisa Home, a temporary abode for refined and self-supporting women, given to this association by Mrs. Elliot F. Shep- hard, one of its founders, as many as 5,000 women have been housed, at least 2,000 young women have been educated, and in 1895 more than 2,000 girls and women were secured situations of remunerative employment.
Some idea of the new churches scattered chiefly over the upper end of Manhattan Island, and an indication of the variety of creeds they represent, proves, if proof were needed, that New Yorkers expend their money, and freely, not alone upon their own habitations of material comfort and selfish enjoyment, or upon any of the things we have already spoken of.
Of special interest to Episcopalians, among the nearly or quite one hun- dred churches and chapels where the ministrations of that church occur, is the projected Cathedral of St. John the Divine, on Morningside Plateau, of which the corner-stone was laid on St. John's Day, December 17, 1892, by the Bishop of the Diocese. That the increase in the numbers of the
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cultured and wealthy among the members of the churches makes such a building possible here, and at a time when the old world is finding its venerable and storied shrines difficult to maintain, is certainly remark- able. The new cathedral, to be built after plans by Heins & La Farge, the architects to whom it was awarded in competition, will be an enor- mous cruciform church, set east and west, with its apse on the edge of the hill overlooking the whole city of New York, Long Island Sound, the Hudson River, the Palisades, and a large part of Westchester County beyond the Harlem. This imposing pile, to be built at an outlay of millions, and to cost more millions in the support of it and of its staff of clergy as they carry on their work, will present to the eye the effect of a cluster of seven towers, the central one dominated by a spire, the two towers flanking the main entrance on the west front being higher than the others; to the instructed there will appear symbolisms of religious sentiment and teaching in many a significant portion of the mighty structure.
Grace Episcopal Church, in Broadway, by James Renwick, architect, took upon itself in 1880 the additions of Grace Memorial House, Grace House, and Grace Chantry, thus completing an ecclesiastical assemblage of Gothic art that, with the new marble belfry seen and admired the whole length of lower Broadway, is cherished by all New Yorkers of proper sentiment, and of no matter what religious faith, as a thing of rare beauty. In 1883, when the Rev. Dr. Henry C. Potter was consecrated to be Bishop of the Diocese of New York, the Rev. Dr. Huntington became the rector of Grace Parish.
In old St. Paul's Church, of Trinity Parish, was celebrated at nine A. M. on April 29, 1889, a special religious service attended by Benjamin Harrison, President of the United States, and several members of his Cabinet, in commemoration of the service held there one hundred years before, when George Washington was present, immediately following his inauguration as the first of our Presidents. The most recent of the several off-shoots of old Trinity, under the Rev. Dr. Dix, the rector, is St. Agnes Chapel, in West Ninety-second Street. The interior, with its chancel of green-tinted marbles, communion rail of pure white marble, and windows of Tiffany glass, is very striking.
St. George's Church has added to itself St. George's Memorial House, given by J. Pierpont Morgan in memory of the late Mr. and Mrs. Charles Tracy, containing accommodations for clergy, school classes, clubs, read- ing-rooms, gymnastic exercises, and a library. With his well-selected corps of assistants the Rev. Dr. Rainsford there conducts a numerous and various list of associations continually and intelligently occupied
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with the welfare of the poor or suffering in a great part of the town the training of the young, and the general betterment of social- condi- tions, as well as with the religious instruction and support of a numerous congregation.
In like fashion St. Bartholomew's Church has widened its borders, and under direction of the rector, the Rev. Dr. Greer, has completed a commodious parish house, the gift of Mrs. William H. Vanderbilt and her son Cornelius Vanderbilt, whence are administered the many dis- criminating charities and other beneficent enterprises of a busy and populous parish.
Calvary Church, occupying for fifty years the same ground, has, with church and chapel, Galilee and East Side buildings, the equipment that enables the clergy to carry on a remarkably useful work throughout the fifty crowded city blocks that constitute their special territory. In 1896 the rector, the Rev. Dr. Satterlee, was consecrated to be Bishop of Washington.
The Church of the Ascension - surrounded by an enclosure of green turf at Fifth Avenue and Tenth Street, a pleasant sight for wayfarers in that staid and well-ordered quarter - was improved within by decora- tions of the chancel, where the art of Stanford White, St. Gaudens, and Maitland Armstrong combined to make a rich setting for La Farge's pic- ture of the Ascension presented by two parishioners, the Misses Rhine- lander. Of this church the Rev. Dr. Percy Grant is the rector in 1896.
Upon St. Thomas' Church, built in 1870 by Upjohn, have been con- ferred recent embellishments of the interior, including a golden reredos by St. Gaudens, and chancel cartoons and organ decorations by La Farge. The rector in 1896 is the Rev. Dr. Brown.
New and costly churches are the Holy Trinity, in Harlem, built after designs by William Potter; St. Michael's, in Amsterdam Avenue, by R. W. Gibson; Christ Church, in Seventy-first Street, by C. C. Haight ; All Angels, in West End Avenue; St. Zion and St. Timothy; St. James; St. Andrews ; and St. Luke's, on Washington Heights, by R. H. Robert- son, a chapel of Trinity Parish. Its rectory is the historic home of Alexander Hamilton, described on page 482, Vol. II., of Mrs. Lamb's History.
The Collegiate Reformed Dutch Protestant Church has established itself in a large new structure in the Flemish style, designed by R. W. Gibson, in West End Avenue.
The South Reformed Dutch Church is installed at Madison Avenue and Thirty-eighth Street, in a redecorated building.
Since.1883 the Rev. Henry Van Dyke, an eloquent speaker and widely
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known as a littérateur, has occupied the pulpit of the Brick Presbyterian Church in Fifth Avenue.
In the Fifth Avenue Presbyterian Church, which has for its pastor that eminent divine the Rev. Dr. John Hall, there have been no changes to record here, save those of a continuing growth in power and useful- ness. The Fourth Avenue Presbyterian Church has been called upon in late years to lament the loss of Rev. Dr. Howard Crosby. In 1880 the Rev. Dr. Charles H. Parkhurst succeeded to the charge of the Madison Square Presbyterian Church, with a mission and church house in Third Avenue. The Park Presbyterian Church has moved into its new build- ing in Amsterdam Avenue; and in that avenue also may be found the new edifice of the West End Presbyterian Church. The Rutgers River- side Presbyterian Church is established on the Boulevard, and a new Edgehill Chapel has been finished at Spuyten Duyvil.
The Methodist Episcopal Church has a new place of worship in Madi- son Avenue. Calvary Church, of that denomination, has a new and spacious edifice ; and the Park Avenue Church, after various removals, has been substantially established also in that avenue, still farther north.
Among the Baptist churches, and indeed among all the churches in New York, one of the most distinguished examples in architecture is the Judson Memorial Church, in Washington Square, after designs by McKim, Mead, & White, in memory of the heroic missionary who first carried Christianity to the wilds of Burmah, and, after imprisonment and torture for his faith, died at sea, to find a resting-place in the Indian Ocean. The style is the florid Renaissance, and the beautiful campanile suggests those belfry towers that, once seen against the sky of Italy, remain forever imprinted upon the observer's memory. Calvary Bap- tist Church, whose pastor is the Rev. Dr. MacArthur, has a new build- ing ; and other Baptist churches have been renewed and remodelled.
St. James Lutheran Church is in possession of a tasteful and artistic new building.
To the interior of All Souls Unitarian Church has been contributed a fine bas-relief in bronze, by St. Gaudens, of the late Rev. Dr. Henry W. Bellows. The Church of the Messiah, of which the Rev. Robert Collyer is still the inspiring and beloved pastor, has moved from its old quarters in Park Avenue.
Noteworthy events in the late history of the Roman Catholic Church in New York, of which the Most Rev. M. A. Corrigan is now the Arch- bishop, are the celebration by Cardinal McCloskey in 1884 of the fiftieth year of his priesthood; the death in 1885 of that revered and scholarly
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prelate ; and the opening of the new Catholic Club, of which the presi- dent is Frederic R. Coudert. The growth of this communion has kept pace with the increase of our population. During the years that elapsed between 1880 and 1896, 91 new churches and 40 schools have been erected. The number of priests has increased from 384 to 620; the number of charitable institutions, homes, hospitals, etc., from 28 to 40; the number of members, from 600,000 to 800,000. Amongst the enter- prises brought to completion during this period are the building of the Mission of the Immaculate Virgin in Lafayette Place, and its country house at Mount Loretto, Staten Island. In the two are more than 2,000 inmates. Amongst the hospitals recently built may be mentioned St. Joseph's, at Yonkers, Seton Hospital for Consumptives, at Spuyten Duyvil, and St. Joseph's Home for Incurables, at One Hundred and Forty-third Street and Brook Avenue. The Orphan Asylums on Madison Avenue and Fifty-first Street have been enlarged at an expense of more than $400,000. In remarking that the graceful towers have been added to St. Patrick's Cathedral, it is pleasant to remember that Renwick, the architect, now dead, survived to see his beautiful Gothic work thus com- pleted. The new seminary at Dunwoodie for the education of theologi- cal students has been built at an expense of nearly a million of dollars. In 1886 the Rev. Dr. McGlynn was temporarily suspended for taking part in the political canvass of Henry George as " Labor " candidate for mayor ; when he refused to obey the summons to Rome by the Sovereign Pontiff, he was punished in 1887 with excommunication. The incident attracted wide attention. On his repentance he was restored to priestly functions by Monsignor Satolli, Delegate Apostolic, in December, 1893. Shortly afterwards his reconciliation was completed in an audience given by Pope Leo XIII.
The German Hebrew Synagogue in Madison Avenue, and the new Temple Beth-El at Fifth Avenue and Seventy-sixth Street, with its great gilt-ribbed dome and many times repeated arches of gray limestone, are familiar to all.
To these new places of worship we have specified, and others to be seen, and to those already long established before the date this chapter begins with, add dispensaries, training-schools, houses of mercy, summer homes, and shelters, together with a strong array of forces of deaconesses sisterhoods, brotherhoods, preachers in many languages, volunteer nurses and visitors to the poor, all quietly and untiringly at work to do the bid- ding of their respective churches in every part of the territorial limits of the town, and, if these be evidence, religion is more in touch now with the daily life and perennial needs of humanity than at any time in the history of New York.
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Of the new mission houses, three are of imposing size and proportions, - one of them, the Church Missions House, in Fourth Avenue, built with subscriptions made throughout the country, and belonging to the Prot- estant Episcopal Church at large in America. Here are established the Board of Foreign and Domestic Missions, the offices of the Brotherhood of St. Andrew, the Church Temperance Society, the Parochial Missions Soci- ety, and the Girls Friendly Society ; and there is room for more. The others are the Methodist Mission House, in Fifth Avenue, containing offices, a bishop's room, chapel, library, printing-office, and shops for the sale of the books and pamphlets published by the Methodist Missionary Society of New York ; and the new Presbyterian Building, also in Fifth Avenue, at Twentieth Street.
In the scholastic shades of quiet Lafayette Place, opposite the Astor Library, was instituted the Diocesan or See House of the Diocese of New York. The old dwelling converted to its present uses now wears an appearance befitting its dignified function. It contains offices for the Bishop, the Arch Deacon of New York, the Presiding Bishop of the Church, the Standing Committee of the Diocese, and the Secretary of the House of Bishops, together with Hobart Hall, reception and reading rooms, and sleeping quarters for members of the Clergy Club. Few of those attentive to the march of events in latter-day New York can be unaware of how large a part has been played in the right shaping of public opinion upon important civic questions of the hour by the utter- ances that have issued from the Diocesan House whenever Bishop Potter has found the crisis such as impelled him to lift his voice.
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