USA > New York > New York City > Leslie's history of the greater New York, Volume I > Part 41
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Popular music had already become a very much loved pastime with the citizens of New York. That fine corps of military gentlemen, the Light Guards, who horrified Kossuth with their Austrian uniforms, deserve the credit of having organized the first brass band in the city, and of starting the Dodworths upon their long and delightful career. It was only after 1850 that martial music assimned this melodious and heart-stirring as well as ear-pleasing form. We might call it multi- melodious, as compared with the duet of fife and drum which contented our patriotic soldiers through the Revolution and the " War of '12." After what New York has had since 1850 it is wellnigh impossible to imagine how a fife and drum could put a soul under the ribs of death, like our splendid regimental bands can do it. Architecture had not as yet many specimens to boast of. The Cathedral on Fifth Avenue had its cornerstone laid in 1858, and for many years only a few feet of the walls stood waiting prudently for funds to realize the splen-
CRYSTAL PALACE IN 1853.
did structure that now ornaments the city. The churches at 37th Street, and 29th Street were good to look upon, and if the steeple was taken off before 1860 (perhaps it was) the church on Lafay- ette Place near the Astor Library furnished a fine reproduction of the Parthenon, or the Madeleine of Paris. The Library itself gave a satisfactory idea of the Florentine style. It is notorious, however, that none of the United States Government buildings were up to the mark. Its Postoffice was the old Nassan Street Church, rising amid a straggling collection of nondescript buildings. The Custom House was taken from the corner of Nassau and Wall to the resuscitated Merchant's Exchange, a heavy, gloomy structure, of no grace and no sunshine. The former Custom House became the Sub-Treasury still in the same spot, and at that time the best of the government build- ings in this city.
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The climax of interest in art, science, and industry, as felt by the people of New York, was doubtless expressed in the World's Fair held in 1853. England had gone before us under the intelligent guid- ance of the Prince Consort, in 1851, and the Crystal Palace at Syden- ham still remains. . New York too had its Crystal Palace, but it was consumed by flames five years after its construction. What had been done in England under the anspices and with the backing of the treas- ures of the Government. was undertaken here by an association of citizens " for the Exhibition of the Industry of all Nations." It con- stituted a stock company, in which persons from all over the nation shared, and to which the Government also lent substantial aid and encouragement. New York was naturally chosen for the place. and the ground back of the Reservoir, or the entire block on Sixth Avenue between 40th and 42d Streets, running nearly to Fifth Aveme. was granted by the city (now Bryant Park). Here was erected a magnificent structure of glass and iron, somewhat in the shape of a Greek cross, surmounted at its intersection by a splendid dome. The spring of the arch inside the dome was sixty-eight feet above the floor. Each diameter of the cross was three hundred and sixty-five feet long, each arm of the cross one hundred and forty-nine feet broad on the ground plan. The diameter of the dome was one hundred feet, and its exterior height one hundred and twenty-three. The exterior angles were closed up with triangular lean-to's, giving the ground plan an octagonal shape. At each angle of the four façades was a small octagonal tower eight feet in diameter and seventy-five feet high. The building contained on the ground floor 111.000 square feet of space, and in the galleries 62,000 square feet, making a total area of abont four acres. But even this vast area was soon seen to be too small to accommodate the exhibitors applying for space, and a large additional building or annex was constructed, occupying the entire distance from the main building to the Reservoir. It was two stories high in the middle, its length four hundred and fifty feet, and its breadth on the ground floor seventy-five. The first story of this annex was devoted to machinery in motion. to cabinets of mining and min- eralogy and to restaurant purposes. The second story in its entire length of four hundred and tifty feet and with a width of twenty-one feet, was set apart as a gallery of paintings and statuary.
It was intended to have the building ready and exhibits placed in time to open in May, the regulation month for world's fairs over since. But not even the glorious Fourth could be utilized for the ceremonies. These fell on July 14, 1853. Franklin Pieree. President of the United States at that time, and the members of his Cabinet, as well as distinguished foreigners, graced the august occasion. Prayer was read by Bishop Wainwright, and the vast assembly sang a choral written for the occasion, and beginning " Here, where all climes their offerings send." to the impressive tune of Old Hundred. After the
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proper speeches of presentation and acceptance, the organ pealed forth Handel's Hallelujah Chorus as a fit conclusion to the services. It is gratifying to learn, for the purposes of this chapter, that the Art Exhibition of Pictures and Statuary, drew quite as much attention as any other part of the great fair. There were so many German artists represented by canvases, that it created some surprise. Cer- tainly they must have thought it worth while to send their works to be viewed by a nation supposed to be rather crude and uncultured in point of art. In the department of Sculpture there was a group of colossal figures, by no less an artist than Thorwaldsen, representing Christ and his apostles. It attracted a great crowd of admirers day after day. There were also a copy of the famous " Amazon" in bronze, at Berlin, and a fine equestrian statue of Washington. The veiled statues created F a good deal of astonish- ment at the skill in sculpture displayed. In- deed. while paintings had now been exhibited in abundance in New York for several years, this exhibition of the finest productions of the sculptor's art was something that novelty, aside from intrinsic 0 merit, made all the more piquant. In the Italian department was seen a life-size statue of Colum- bus, in purest marble, from the hand of Del Medico. France contrib- INTERIOR OF CRYSTAL PALACE IN 1853. uted as works of art and industry combined, the famous Gobelin carpets excelling the Persian fabrics in softness and smoothness of texture, and in strength, while the colors and designs were unsurpassed. The exhibition was kept open the usual number of months, closing in the autumn. But it was decided to preserve the beautiful and striking edifice which had con- tained it, and to open a permanent exhibition in it. On May 14, 1854. the exercises rededicating the Crystal Palace to this more permanent use, were held, made memorable by a brilliant speech by Elihn Bur- ritt, who said among other things: " Worthy of the grandest circum- stances which could be thrown around a human assembly. worthy of
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this occasion and a hundred like this, is that beautiful idea-the Coronation of Labor the labor of mankind as one undivided brotherhood,-Labor, as the oldest, the noblest prerogative of duty and humanity." Only a few years was this Palace of Industry per- mitted to remain an ornament and an attraction to the city. For on October 5, 1858, it caught fire while the American Institute Fair was in progress, and in half an hour the structure of iron and glass was reduced to a molten mass of ruins. As a final word on the subject of art, and the devotion to it that began to mark New York as a com- mumity, it must be mentioned that the colossal equestrian statue of Washington in Union Square, was placed there on July 4, 1856. with appropriate exercises. The orator of the day was the Rev. Dr. George W. Bethinne, one of the foremost speakers of the day, and pastor of a Dutch Reformed Church in Brooklyn. As early as 1847 a monu- ment was proposed to Washington at Fourth Avenue and 68th Street. where the Normal College is now, somewhat in the style of a memorial fane, surmounted by a statue; the project got as far as the laying of a cornerstone on October 19. but the monument never ma- terialized. On November 25 (Evacuation Day) 1857, the monument to General Worth opposite Madison Square was miveiled, and his remains conveyed from the City Hall (whither they had been brought from their temporary resting place in Greenwood Cemetery) and de- posited in this place with military honors.
The citizens of New York certainly did not suffer from the lack of opportunities for enjoying the histrionic art. In 1837 there were al- ready eight theaters. The familiar name of Wallack's Theater ap- pears in the chronicles of this decade (1852) and it is noted with satis- faction that here, in 1858. the " Vicar of Wakefield." dramatized. as well as other plays of a high literary character, won much favor from the cultured New York citizens. The Old Park Theater had had its final fire: out of that of 1820 it had arisen like the Phoenix by the ready assistance of John Jacob Astor. In 1848 the firefiend claimed it once more as a victim, withont the Phoenix incident, as the move- ment of churches as well as theaters was uptown, and it was not deemed advisable to open again in Park Row. The year and date were both noticeable: December 16 was the anniversary of the Great Fire of 1835 (the superstitions will be glad to observe this was thirteen years later); and 1848 was exactly half a century since the opening of the " Old Park " in 1798. "Brougham's Lyceum." sometimes called the Broadway Theater on Broadway and Broome Street, opened in 1850; and Wallack's in 1852. soon made up for the loss of the " Park." The Academy of Music was built on the corner of Fourteenth Street and Irving Place in 1854. designed, as its name indicates, for opera alone, but prose and speech have as often resounded from its boards. Fire claimed the original building as it did the Park twice and the Bowery a half dozen times, and in 1868 the present building was
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erected. A theater was built for Laura Keene, on Broadway near Houston, in 1856. Franconi, the King of the Circus, whose latest descendant on that throne died the other day in Paris, opened a " Hip- podrome " during the World's Fair, on Madison Square. Barnum's similar use of the spot near by, where Madison Square Garden is now, long gave that name to the block or building after it ceased to be the depot of the Harlem Railroad. When the Fair ended Franconi went back to his more congenial Paris. Barnum, by the way, was at this time upon the site of the St. Paul Building, corner of Ann Street and Broadway, with a museum and a small theater attached.
Whether these theaters and places of amusement all contributed their share toward the higher life of New York, promoting a love of pure art and thus keeping the citizens above the level of mere money- getters, may be doubted. But nothing can be more certain than that an uplift to the finer sensibili- ties and a joy and pride in hu- man art were produced by the visit of Jenny Lind to this city in the year 1850. P. T. Barmim, who had already begun his career as a showman, under- took to introduce the "Swedish Nightingale " to the American public. He made her the most munificent offer through an agent in Europe before he had ever seen or heard her, but there was little risk in the high- est terms. There are few sing- ers who have succeeded in ex- citing such enthusiasm of a personal nature as Jenny Lind; PARK THEATRE. doubtless due to the charm of her personal qualities, the sweetness of her disposition, her bound- less generosity and charity, and her irresistible modesty, which arrogated nothing but kept her in a perpetual surprise that peo- ple should admire her performances so greatly. She arrived per steamer Atlantic, on September 1, 1850. It was as if a queen had come. Thousands of persons filled wharves and shipping and streets in the vicinity. Sloops and steamers out on the river were crowded to the danger line. A bower of evergreens was erected upon the wharf where she was to land, and she was made to pass under two triumphal arches, upon one of which amid flowers and bunting was inscribed the legend " Welcome Jenny Lind," while the other bore one reading " Welcome to America." She was driven to the Irving House, one of the famous hostelries of the day, on the corner of Chambers
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Street and Broadway. That night she was serenaded at the Hotel by a band of two hundred musicians, who were escorted to the hotel by three Inmared firemen in uniform; it was thought that twenty thousand people were in the throngs filling the streets and the City Ilall Park opposite. Visitors of high social and official standing called upon her even before her first appearance upon the stage, and soon everything in the city hecame " Jenny Lind "-enterprising shop keepers taking advantage of the popular enthusiasm and dubbing gloves, bonnets, riding hats, shawls, pianos, chairs, sofas, with her magie name. It was at Castle Garden that her concerts were to be
JENNY LIND AT CASTLE GARDEN, 1850.
given. In 1855 this place of entertainment became an emigrant de- pot, and the associations of most of us connect it with that rather un- promising employment. It is somewhat better now that it has been resolved into an Aquarium. But the old Castle Clinton meant for defense in 1812 had been ceded to the city in 1822. and ever since that date had served as a place for public gatherings, receptions to distin- gnished guests, balls, plays, and concerts. Here Kossuth was received the next year (1851) and the circular space rang with his passionate appeals. Its name had been changed to Castle Garden, and only asso- ciations of pleasure or brilliancy were connected with the name to an earlier generation. It had a seating capacity of five thousand, and
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every seat was disposed of long before Jenny Lind's first night, which was set for Wednesday, September 11. On the previous Saturday and Monday, the tickets were sold at auction, and the first ticket brought $225. The arrangements for handling the immense throngs expected were perfect, so that there was no disturbance or difficulty of any kind. Before she had sung a note, as she came upon the stage, the reception accorded her was beyond description. The entire au- dience rose to their feet, the men giving her three cheers and the women waving their handkerchiefs. The Swedish Nightingale was more than usually impressed and agitated:'she had never faced so vast an audience. But the orchestra quieted her nerves and after a few notes she was quite herself. Her first piece was a selection from "Casta Diva." Although expectation had been raised to an almost inordinate pitch the beautiful singing came quite up to it and went beyond it, and the people were so wild with delight that they actually could not wait for her to finish the first number on the program, but burst into applause and cries of enthusiasm. It was Jenny Lind's practice to devote the proceeds of her first night to charitable objects, and when Barnum, who was called for at the close of the concert, and reluctantly appeared, perhaps because he did not know what else to say, announced this fact, the enthusiasm passed beyond all bounds, and people seemed to be absolutely frantic. Her benefactions to so- cieties and individuals during her tour of America amounted to no less than $50,000. A scientific description of Jenny Lind's voice calls it " a soprano, embracing a register of two and a half octaves." It was clear and powerful, the strong and passionate passages ringing full and thrilling through the largest auditory, while the soft and sub- dued notes could be heard at the greatest distance. " No difficulties appalled her; a perfect musician, she suffered herself to revel in all the roulades of which the time and occasion admitted." The effect upon the hearer of the combination of all these musical and vocal powers, as well as of her manner and feeling in the rendition, was something to which no language can do justice. To be understood it had to be experienced.
Closely allied to art, and a part and parcel of that feeling for a higher life which possessed New Yorkers, while calculated to promote and perpetuate that feeling in succeeding generations, was the public spirit which set apart a great area of city property, of incalculable value in money now if counted as real estate, for the creation of Cen- tral Park. It has been stated that some men proposed the laying out of a park around the fine bit of natural scenery afforded by the Collect Pond, in 1808. But it was deemed impracticable, as too far out of town. In 1856 the project of a park was earnestly advocated, and then the going out of town involved a far greater distance from the City Hall. Gouverneur Morris, with his city on paper laid out to 155th Street, proposed reserving a space of three hundred acres be-
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tween 23d and 34th Streets and Third and Eighth AAvenues. But noth- ing came of this scheme except that Madison Square happens to form one small corner of that larger space, containing six acres of ground instead of three hundred. This park would have been transversely laid across the city's progress upward. The space selected finally fell more into line with its length. Jones's Wood, redolent of beer, was next thought of, and a bill actually passed for its appropriation in 1851. This was done as the result of a message urging the project sent by Mayor Kingsland to the Common Council. Commissioners were appointed to consider the proposed site, and also to report upon others that might be desirable. Jones's Wood was finally condemned as too much to one side of the city, and lacking in diversity of surface, and the bill regarding it was repealed. The Commissioners thereupon selected a tract of land extending from 59th Street to 106th Street, and between Fifth and Eighth Ave- nues. This made a width of about half a mile and a length of over two miles. Their report was adopted by the Corporation, and in July, 1853, the Legislature passed an act authorizing the purchase of the land. There was a State Arsenal at 63d Street and Fifth Avenue, which still remains ; this was bought for $275,000. The value of the remainder was ascertained by a commis- sion of appraisers, and placed at $5,398,695. It required a great de- gree of devotion to the higher necessities of her citizens, and to the loftier instincts of human nature, to bring the people of New York to consent to the expenditure of so vast an amount of money for a mere pleasure ground. No wonder that bitter opposition met the warm advocacy of the measure, and the Common Council was brought at last to adopt a petition begging the Legislature to pass a bill reducing the amount of land to be set aside for the park. But the Mayor vetoed the petition, and in 1859 the territory for use of the park was extended so as to embrace also the ground from 106th Street to 110th Street, making a length of two and a half miles complete. The first Park Board in 1856 consisted of the Mayor and the Com- missioner of Streets, who invited to the membership of it three distinguished residents of the city, Washington Irving. George Bancroft, and William Cullen Bryant. They called for designs, of which several were submitted ; the one selected by the board being that of Lieutenant (now General) Egbert L. Viele. The work before him was not pleasant or safe. Five thousand squatters ocen- pied the rocks and hills in this section of the city; they were mostly of foreign birth, and their manner of living made the entire region a plague spot. They objected to being removed, and were by no means sernpulons in their modes of resistance. As General Viele himself says: "Such was the danger of the situation that the designer of the park had to go armed while making his studies, and in addition to this. to carry an ample supply of deodorizers." In 1858 a plan for laying
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out the park, submitted by Messrs. Olmstead and Vaux, landscape gardeners, was adopted, and the park became what it is now in general features, somewhat artistically, perhaps artificially, arranged in the southern portions, below the main lake; but on the east side of the lake, and north of it, left studiously and comparatively wild, the paths, almost labyrinthine, allowing the most perfect enjoyment of nature in her own moods. Here is the Ramble, containing the strik- ing feature of a cave, dark and weird, and perhaps a trifle too malo- dorous. Before the end of the decade work was well under way. In- deed even in 1857 relief was furnished to people out of employment as a result of the panic, by giving them a chance to work in the park. In this enterprise, so indicative of an unselfish and earnest regard for the higher interests of the population, New York led all the other cities of the Union. Her commercial instincts could not have been very depressing to the better side of human nature, if she were willing to expend millions of money upon an investment that gave no mate- rial returns, but was merely intended to be a " thing of beauty and a joy for ever." Philadelphia and other cities have followed the noble example. But even yet London is far behind New York; her largest park covers but 403 acres while Central Park contains nearly 863. Even the Bois de Boulogne of Paris must yield in size to our park. Besides this great garden in the upper part of the town, before 1860 there were reserved for air and rec- reation also the park at the Battery, Washing- ington, Union, Madison, and Tompkins Squares, and many others; while the space devoted to parks to-day is measured by more than five thou- sand acres.
As an evidence of no mean force of the state of things for which we are contending in this chapter-that there was prevailing among our citizens a regard for higher things than mere dollars in sight or in prospect,-there must not be forgotten the celebrated Grinnell Arctic expeditions. There seemed eminent poetic fitness in the fact that the pursuit of Arctic exploration should meet with a hearty sympathy and support from men in New York. It will be remembered that the discovery of her site was the result of an arctic expedition. The Half- moon was sent out by the Dutch East India Company to find the north- east or the northwest passage to the Indies, by way of the Arctic Ocean. When Hudson sailed up the river of his name, he was still under the impression that he might be tracing a Magellan's Strait in the Northern hemisphere from the Atlantic to the Pacific. The oc- casion for New York to manifest how she felt upon the subject, which had 'now become a scientific rather than a commercial quest. came when all the world was filled with anxiety and uncertainty as to the
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fate of the explorer Sir John Franklin, who had left England in May 1845, and after having been spoken by some whaling vessels in Baf- fin's Bay in July or August of that same year. had never been heard of or seen again. The English Government had sent out one searching expedition after another, without finding a trace of the unfortunate party. Lady Franklin, while her own country was so responsive to her appeals, called also on the citizens of the United States " as a kin- dred people, to join heart and hand in the enterprise of snatching the lost navigators from a dreary grave." The President laid the case before Congress, but the legislative machinery moved slowly and pre- cious time for beginning operations was passing away when,-as a member of the expedition, Dr. Kent Kane, remarks in his account of it .- " a noble-spirited merchant of New York of whom as an Ameri- can and a man I can hardly trust myself to speak, fitted out two of his own vessels, and proffered them gratuitously to the Government." This hastened the action of Congress who now authorized the Presi- dent to detail the requisite number of navy officers and seamen to eu- gage in the enterprise. The New York merchant referred to was Mr. Henry Grinnell, a member of the firm who in 1817 established the " Swallow Tail Line " of packet ships to Liverpool. The two vessels he placed at the disposal of the Government were the brigs Advance and Rescue, of small burden, the former a little larger than the other, but better adapted from their size to the peculiar exigencies of Arctic navigation than larger ships would have been. The Advance had been originally intended for the carrying of machinery, and her tim- bers for that reason were of a peculiarly large and solid kind, the fastenings that held them together applied with especial care and placed at less infrequent intervals than ordinary. She was thus cal- culated to resist sudden concussions while sailing amid ice-floes, or the continued pressure when caught between great fields of ice. Mr. Grinnell not only furnished the ships, but largely added to the sup- plies requisite, and Dr. Kane has left on record a gratifying account of the general interest of the people of New York in this work of com- bined benevolence and science. " I could not help being struck with the universal sympathy displayed toward our expedition. From the ladies who busied themselves sealing up air-tight packages of fruit cakes, to the managers of the Astor House, who insisted that their hotel should be the free headquarters of our party. it was one con- tinued round of proffered services. I should have a long list of citi- zens to thank if I were allowed to name them on these pages."
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