USA > New York > New York City > History of the city of New York : its origin, rise, and progress Vol. III > Part 55
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In methods of domestic life, whether in flat, apartment, the modest home of the every-day citizen, or the sumptuous dwelling of plutocracy, New York is in most particulars abreast of, and in many details beyond, the standard of older civilizations abroad. The time has passed when the reproach of voluntarily abandoning our homes for the easier life of hotels to which the transient public resorts, could fairly be brought upon us as a community. The tendency of intelligent and influential people in New York, who have any choice in the matter, is all toward dwelling within one's own four walls, toward being a householder and an employer of domestic labor. Naturally, the strangers within our gates, those whose incomes will not allow considerable rentals, the soli- tary unattached individuals who prefer to live alone, seek flats, boarding- houses, and in some cases hotels. The legions of cheap "flat " houses with showy exteriors, high-sounding names, and rooms so telescoped together that progress in them is like walking through a train of Pull-
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Augusti ACCACi
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National Academy of Design.
Bank for Savings.
Tower of the Madison Square Garden.
Corner of the Church Missions House. Calvary P. E. Church.
Fourth Ave. Presbyterian Church.
FOURTH AVENUE, LOOKING NORTH FROM SOUTHEAST CORNER OF TWENTY-FIRST STREET
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DOMESTIC LIFE.
man cars, appear to fill but measurably the wants of our neighbors of those categories.
A few apartment-houses are rationally constructed with a view to the comfort of occupants ; and as numbers of our population must be tenants perforce of part only, not the whole, of a house, ingenuity is taxed to com- bine in these premises sleeping space and stowage enough for an ordinary family, with living-rooms of reasonable size, where conveniences meant to supply to the housekeeper what is lacking in her domestic service are cleverly inserted. But for the large middle class of home seekers - that majority of our dwellers who are the worthy reliance of American . civilization - the problem of comfortable housing is not yet fully solved. Of the best apartment houses, the Navarro flats in Fifty-ninth Street, the Dakota, and others of their kind, are too elaborate and costly to be considered by any but wealthy people. Architecturally, and in interior comforts, they leave little to be desired. Where the limits of a man's family and the length of his purse will admit consideration of them, very charming are the newest " family " hotels, - differing from similar accommodations of early New York as a fair etching differs from a chromo. In suites, often disconnected from the main corridors, are beautifully fur- nished bedrooms, private baths, a dining-room, a drawing-room, a library, a nursery, and servants' rooms, including all necessary provision and scope for a well-ordered home. From each suite a dumb waiter connects with the kitchen of the hotel, and electric bells bring prompt service of the bounties of the table prosperous Americans of to-day deem indispen- sable. This is indeed living made easy ; but, it must be said, the cost is quite proportionate to the privileges enjoyed.
A feature of modern New York is the transformation, at the hands of ingenious and tasteful architects of the younger school, of the common- place old houses of that recently universal pattern consisting of two or three rooms opening out of a narrow hallway, the same plan repeated to the top story of the domicile. In our days, within those uninteresting shells, by the elevation of floors and otherwise, the relations of stairways, windows, walls, chimney-places, are changed, renewed, and refitted in conformity with the demands of taste and knowledge. The result is often an agreeable variety, an exposition of different individualities of taste, that seems every year to increase in frequency.
The "great" houses of the decade are in all respects palaces, vying with those of the richest of the nobility of any capital in Europe, but in many particulars more desirable as living-places, and always adapted to the strict requirements of modern comfort and sanitation. The mode of life of their fortunate possessors has apparently touched the high-
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water mark of luxury held in check by understanding. Upon their changes of mind or mood await a large staff of servants trained in old- world methods, equipages, horses, yachts, and private cars for railway travel. Beside some of their entertainments, those recorded by Mrs. Lamb as illustrating the fashionable display of the earlier part of the half- century read like village festivals. And it is much to be regretted that this enormous increase of lavish expenditure in New York among a few is taken by the American public as a model for social practices among the many. The countless homes of New York where culture and hospi- tality go hand in hand, yet where there is no display, are lost sight of in the blaze of plutocratic magnificence. The country at large, which reads the "society column " of a metropolitan newspaper, prefers rather to be led by the few possessors of fortunes of fifty millions of dollars each, than by the large number with incomes varying from ten thousand dollars to fifty thousand dollars a year.
To cite an instance of the increase of one of the minor luxuries of living, it is claimed that at least ten millions of dollars are annually expended in New York for the flowers used in decoration of houses and churches, and at funerals. We consume here the product of scores of acres of greenhouses. The supply of vio- lets alone reaches the number of fifteen millions of blossoms yearly ; and for roses, carnations, and orchids the demand is pro- portionately large. On the occa- sion of the marriage of the Duke of Marlborough with Miss Van- derbilt, the interior of St.Thomas' Church, where the ceremony was performed, was made into a vast bower, so prodigal of smiling Commodore Vanderbilt. bloom that the ecclesiastical character of the edifice was al- most hidden from view; and this lavish example was followed by other families during the winter of 1895-1896.
Of the great hotels recently opened to the travelling public, the wonder of new comers to New York, favorable examples are the Waldorf, New Netherlands, Savoy, Plaza, Holland House, Grenoble, Majestic, Imperial,
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The Plaza Hotel.
The Metropolitan Club.
The Netherland Hotel.
The Savoy Hotel.
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and Renaissance. In these attractive structures, nothing heretofore de- vised that can dazzle the eye or tickle the imagination of their inhabi- tants with a sense of ownership has been omitted; but the new Astor Hotel, now building at Thirty-fourth Street and Fifth Avenue, may develop features as yet unexpected by outsiders, and surpassing all the rest. Since, however, there are about a thousand hostelries in New York where the traveller may choose a place to take his ease, it would be manifestly impossible to attempt any further discrimination between them in these pages. Of restaurants, Delmonico's and Sherry's, - where, alternating with the ball-rooms of the Waldorf, are held the most fash- ionable semi-public entertainments of society, - and the Café Savarin in the Equitable Building, are in the van of a long line, of every grade and standard. At most of the principal hotels, and in every style and variety of restaurants, the food fires of man are kept alight in liberal and satisfactory fashion. With the best of chefs, and an unsurpassable market to draw upon, this is not to be wondered at. A greater variety of fruits and vegetables can be found at any time in season here than anywhere else, - so wide a range of climate supplies us by swift steam- ers and quick railways. But it must be confessed that the service of our restaurants, and indeed of our hotels of the first rank, could be bettered to harmonize with the resplendent surroundings they exhibit. The waiters too often employed are an avaricious and ill-mannered class of foreigners, who treat all patrons alike by supplying the least amount of civility with almost insolent expectation of the largest possible tip, and who occupy themselves over-much with the attempt to be lavish of iced- water as the only concession they can take the trouble to make to a diner of American antecedents.
Of the methods of life of that larger, less-known class of our fellow- citizens who live upon "nothing in particular " a year, and are herded together in rooms chill during our freezing winters and hot in our tropic summers, there is a less cheerful tale to tell. By the Charity Organiza- tion Society we are informed that, during the nine or ten years past, nearly one hundred and forty thousand families have been registered as worthy of charitable help because they could find no work for wages. The efforts of this society in gathering facts concerning the actual condi- tion of the poor, and in extending intelligent aid to their necessities, is well known. It has ten local committees, covering Manhattan Island ; the central office is at Twenty-second Street and Fourth Avenue, in the United Charities Building, a hive of industry in good works, where well selected representatives conduct the several branches of registration, relief, sanitary work, fresh air work, and furnish access to public baths.
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This handsome edifice, built in 1891-1893 by John S. Kennedy at a cost of more than seven hundred thousand dollars, and by him dedicated as a gift to the uses of various charitable societies which occupy it, houses also the Children's Aid Society, the Association for Improving the Con- dition of the Poor, the New York City Mission and Tract Society, and other beneficent associations.
Among other recent enterprises for the aid of the needy in New York may be mentioned Trinity Church Association, the Down-Town Relief Bureau, the Bowery Mission and Young Men's Home, the Cremorne Mission, St. Joseph's Day Nursery, the Bartholdi Creche, the Little Mother's Aid Society, St. Christopher's Home, near Dobb's Ferry, the Working Girl's Vacation Society, the Riverside Rest Association for for- saken and degraded women, St. Joseph's Night Refuge, the Florence Crittenton Mission for Fallen Women, the Margaret Strachan Home, the House of the Holy Comforter, the Actor's Fund of America founded by A. M. Palmer, the Seaman's Christian Association, the Spanish Benevolent Society, the Norwegian Relief Society, the Hungarian Association, the Jewish Immigrant's Protection Society, the Polish Benevolent Society, and the Greek Benevolent Society.
An interesting and much talked-of work has been the University Settlement Society, established of recent years in the heart of the city for the purpose of bringing men and women of education and intellectual resource into contact with working-people, and with children of the laboring classes, upon terms of cordial intimacy and fraternal equality ; it has extended its roots in many directions, and directs a variety of well thought-out schemes for profit or entertainment to the poor of the tenement house districts.
The College Settlement, also started of recent years, has now two houses in town and one in the country, all conducted by women for bettering the condition of young working-women. Their kindergarten classes in wood-carving and designing, cooking and sewing, and for teaching other useful arts, have been signally successful.
Particular attention is challenged and deserved by plans for two well- arranged and attractive hotels intended to be soon opened especially to accommodate respectable working-people who cannot afford the prices demanded by ordinary caravansaries; one of them will shortly be built in Bleecker Street, on the site of homes of good society in New York of three or four generations ago. They will be a practical beneficence of D. O. Mills, after designs by Ernest Flagg; and, with lodgings, they are to provide baths, free reading-rooms, and a restaurant to supply good food at moderate rates.
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To our already liberal list of examples of charities established since 1880 should be added the Young Women's Home of the French Evangelical Church, the Leo House for German Catholic Immigrants, the Lutheran Pilgrim House, the Evangelical Aid Society for the Spanish work of New York and Brooklyn, St. Bartholomew's Chinese Guild, the Montefiore Home for Chronic Invalids, the Aguilar Aid Society, the Hebrew Sheltering Home, the Young Women's Hebrew Association, the Island Mission for Cheering the Lives of the Poor and Sick, the Needle Work Guild of America, the Christian Aid to Employment Society, the International
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New and Old Tenement House Contrasts.
Telegraph Christian Association, the Italian Home, the Tenement House Chapter of the King's Daughters and Sons, the New York Society for Parks and Playgrounds for Children, and the Penny Provident Fund of the Charity Organization Society, -together with the Fresh Air Funds and Free Ice Funds of various great daily newspapers. The knowledge of such institutions multiplied in every quarter of the city, and diffusing on every side their efficient influence for good, while all of the older charities are still in full career of prosperous usefulness, warms the heart
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with an admiration for this phase of New York's advance that is not to be displaced by any consideration of her more material achievements.
From among some hundreds of clubs the modern New Yorker resorts to for enjoyment of the society of his comrades, it is needful here to point out one or two only, architecturally and otherwise to be regarded as typical of recent progress. Of these the white marble palace of the Metropolitan Club at the corner of Fifth Avenue and Sixtieth Street is a distinguished example. The new Century Club House in Forty-third Street, built in the style of the Italian Renaissance, with a base of light stone and a superstructure of cream-tinted brick, its charming loggia dominating the main entrance, is, outside and in, in keeping with dignity tempered by animation, a characteristic of its distinguished assemblages. The Player's, in Gramercy Park, a club established by Edwin Booth in 1889, in a spacious residence of old New York, enlarged and refitted in most artistic fashion, accentuates in every part of it the strong individu- ality that conceived it. Expectation is now alert to admire the new home to be soon erected for the enlarged University Club at Fifth Avenue and Fifty-fourth Street. In the pleasant precincts of the Aldine, art and literature are at home in Bohemia. The scholarly little Grolier Club, with its repeated exhibitions of all that pertains to the high art of making or illustrating or binding books, is a distinct promoter of the best culture of our students of belles-lettres. The Association of the Bar of the City of New York is about to be transferred to a new and stately home in process of erection for it in West Forty-fourth Street. The Colonial Club, incorporated in 1889, has established itself in an elaborate building at Seventy-second Street and the Boulevard. Of the Union, Union League, Manhattan, Knickerbocker, St. Nicholas, Calumet, Lotos, New York, Lawyer's, Down Town, and other well-known clubs, as of the myriad minor associations for reform, culture, athletics, sport, good cheer, and the furtherance of special aims; of the college clubs, the yacht clubs, the military organizations, and political rendezvous, within the limits of New York, - an interesting chapter might be penned. The women's clubs are fewer, - Sorosis, by virtue of priority in date and in numbers, taking the lead of them. The working girls' clubs, and the boys' clubs, maintained in admirable activity by their founders and sup- porters, are growing in numbers and in usefulness.
Among others devoted to sport and recreation out of town, the Ameri- can Jockey Club, the Turf Club, the New York Riding Club, the New York Coaching Club, the Driving Club, the Tuxedo Club, the Country Club, the Meadow Brook Hunt Club, the Richmond County Club, the
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New York Athletic Club at Travers Island, the Crescent Athletic Club at Bay Ridge, and the St. Nicholas Skating Club are in vigorous existence.
The New York Yacht Club is known everywhere for many things that make it famous, but perhaps first of all as the custodian of the America's cup, won in English waters and brought here in 1851 by our renowned sloop of that name, and since then the occasion of many exciting and sometimes sharply contested races on this side of the Atlantic, in re- peated attempts to take it away from us, - the latest, in the autumn of 1895, when the English challenger " Valkyrie III." was beaten by our yacht "Defender," as her nearest predecessor, " Valkyrie II.," had been in 1893 by our " Vigilant," and as every earlier challenger was by the American champion for the occasion.1
These races have elicited the eager interest of all the world; and the great fleet of steamers of every kind and size, loaded with tens of thou- sands of spectators, accompanying the yachts to sea, even when the wind had been directly on-shore and they have disappeared below the horizon, sailing twenty miles or more to windward, not only has mani-
1 As our population has found so much pride and satisfaction in these recurring matches for the America's cup, it is not inappropriate to remind our readers here of the dates, contestants, and results, subsequent to the year 1880: -
" Mischief," centre board sloop, owned by Joseph R. Bush, representing the New York Yacht Club - and " Atalanta," centre board sloop, owned by Alex. Cuthbert, representing the Bay of Quinte Yacht Club, Canada - were matched for the best two races out of three; sailed Nov. 9th and 10th, 1881. Won by " Mischief."
" Puritan," centre board cutter rig, owned by J. Malcolm Forbes and others, representing the New York Yacht Club - and "Genesta," keel cutter rig, owned by Sir Richard Sutton, Bart., representing the Royal Yacht Squadron, Great Britain - were matched for the best two races out of three. Sailed Sept. 14th and 16th, 1885. Won by "Puritan."
" Mayflower," centre board cutter rig, owned by Gen. C. J. Paine, representing the New York Yacht Club - and "Galatea," keel cutter rig, owned by Lieut. Henn, Royal Navy, representing the Royal Northern Yacht Club, Great Britain - were matched for the best two races out of three. Sailed Sept. 9th and 11th, 1886. Won by " Mayflower."
" Volunteer," centre board cutter rig, owned by General C. J. Paine, representing the New York Yacht Club -and "Thistle," keel cutter rig, owned by James Bell and others, rep- resenting the Royal Clyde Club, Great Britain - were matched for the best two races out of three. Sailed Sept. 27th and 30th, 1887. Won by " Volunteer."
" Vigilant," centre board cutter rig, owned by C. Oliver Iselin and others, representing the New York Yacht Club - and "Valkyrie II.," keel cutter rig, owned by Lord Dunraven and Lord Wolverton, representing the Royal Yacht Squadron of Great Britain - were matched for the best three races out of five. Sailed Oct. 7th, 9th, and 13th, 1893. Won by " Vigilant."
" Defender," keel cutter rig, owned by C. Oliver Iselin, W. K. Vanderbilt, and E. D. Morgan, representing the New York Yacht Club - and " Valkyrie III.," keel cutter rig, owned by Lord Dunraven and others, representing the Royal Yacht Squadron of Great Britain, - were matched for the best three races out of five. Sailed Sept. 7th, 10th, and 12th, 1895. Won by "Defender."
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fested the American appreciation of inanly international sport, but has itself presented a wonderful spectacle never seen or possible elsewhere. Indeed, the taste for yachting has in the last ten years increased so much as to make it the favorite diversion of most of our wealthy men who have leisure for it. By them the science and art of seamanship are so thoroughly acquired that many owners of yachts are qualified to serve as regular ocean-going captains. And that something else than mere sport may be had from them is suggested by the fact that at the Navy Department in Washington is kept a careful list of such of them and of their yachts as may be useful in an emergency to the country in time of war. That they will cheerfully respond when called on for such service, we may be sure.
Yachting in the Lower Bay.
The Larchmont Yacht Club in Long Island Sound, the Seawanaka Corinthian Yacht Club at Oyster Bay, Long Island, the Columbia Yacht Club and the Audubon Yacht Club, and others, sustain interest in all things relating to life afloat. And with the houses of boating clubs the shores of the waters that clasp our city in their shining girdle are dotted at many points.
Bicycling, the enthusiasm of the day in New York ashore, has pro- vision made for it not only by the city fathers, who are prudently preparing to cover with asphalt additional avenues that extend north and south on Manhattan Island, but by clubs and club-houses and many other agencies far and near. The New York Riding Club at Durland's, the New York Athletic Club in its new and admirable building, the University Athletic Club, and the Racquet Club enjoy
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all the belongings and equipments of the best federations for athletic exercise anywhere to be found.
Significant features of the life of to-day are the marked expression of the taste for genealogical research, the study by New Yorkers of Americana and of their own forbears, and their desire to perpetuate the memory of the deeds and virtues of the founders of the Republic, which have given birth to many patriotic societies.
The Sons of the Society of the Cincinnati are first by right of histori- cal distinction ; after them the Sons of the Revolution, the Sons of the American Revolution, the Holland Society, Ohio Society, Mayflower Descendants, Daughters and Sons of 1812, New England Society, South- ern Society, Society of Colonial Wars, the Colonial Dames of New York, the Colonial Dames of America, and the Daughters of the Revolution fall into line. The ranks of such patriotic associations are crowded; in the main they are representative, and always energetic. To no single person more than to the author of the History this imperfect account of the last sixteen years is designed to supplement, does New York owe its interest in bygones statistical and heroic. During Mrs. Lamb's long editorship of the " Magazine of American History," in her participation in the work of the Colonial Dames, and in the compilation of the History of the City of New York, her zeal, unselfishness, and fidelity to the best efforts to exploit the chronicles to which her life was devoted were beyond praise.
Of amusements, we are now presented in the columns of the daily press a list that proves conclusively the scope and number of the methods of entertainment behind footlights in New York.
Of theatres professedly dedicated to legitimate drama, Abbey's, Palmer's, Daly's, the Empire, the Fifth Avenue, the Lyceum, the Standard, the Broadway, the Star, the dainty Garrick, and the Herald Square come at once to mind. Through them filter, for the benefit of the country at large, the streams of novelties, of fads, of problematic plays, of plays that depress and plays that charm, in variety continually demanded by their patrons. But of other theatres of differing grades and kinds of merit, and of music halls and pleasure palaces, the number justifies the statement that New York and its vicinity pay five mil- lions of dollars a year for the privilege of being regaled by stage performances.
Of late years, in addition to our own star and stock companies em- ploying annually the talent of several hundred men and women, New York has had the attraction upon its boards of those incomparable artists,
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Salvini, Coquelin, Duse, and Bernhardt. Irving and Terry, Mounet-Sully and Jane Hading, the Beerbohm Trees, the Kendals, John Hare and others of distinction have given frequent performances here ; and ap- parently the crossing of the sea has been robbed of its terrors to good foreign artists in general by the assurance that they will carry back on return a consolatory store of American dollars. One cannot conclude this passing mention of theatres and actors of recent times without re- marking upon the change of sentiment that has made possible the pres- ence at a public performance, in a play-house, by professional players, of some clergymen and many most scrupulous church members. All things considered, the drama in New York was never better supported by the public of taste and intelligence than at the present day ; and plays were never so well mounted and costumed, - though of the sentiment of many of them, during the last three or four years, much improvement is to be desired on the score of propriety.
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