USA > New York > New York City > Leslie's history of the greater New York, Volume II > Part 27
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Amid the general return to prosperity and advancement under the stimulus of peace, Brooklyn did not find herself left behind in the race.
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In 1866 her population was not quite three hundred thousand (296,- 000). In 1870 it had already grown to four hundred thousand. It had taken New York forty years to grow to that figure from sixty thousand in 1800. Brooklyn attained to it only thirty-six years after first reaching her feeble cityhood. And only three years after the war closed, in 1868, there are evidences of prosperity of so striking a na- ture that they may well give us pause. With pardonable pride one of the city's journals calls attention to these gratifying ciremmstances : " More elegant and costly public buildings have been erected since the first of January, 1868, than in any previous year, and, although the number of buildings is not as large as in 1867, yet the value far exceeds it. In 1867, three thousand five hundred and thirty-nine buildings were erected, and in 1868 but three thousand three hnn- dred and seven were put up. Of these, three hundred and seventy- five were brownstone fronts; seven hundred and seventy-five, brick; nineteen hundred and fifteen, frame dwellings; three stone, seven brick, and nine frame church edifices; one brick schoolhouse; forty- one briek and twenty-four frame buildings for manufacturing pur- poses; seven brick, ten frame stores, and one hundred and forty build- ings of a miscellaneous character." It is to be observed that this increase in habitations was realized especially in the wards on the outside of the denser unclei of population. The sections still called Greenpoint and Bushwick saw most of this phenomenal growth, and also those wards which were made up out of the earlier Gowanns re- gion. The list of " public buildings " in the mind of this newspaper writer included that of the Long Island Safe Deposit Company, on the corner of Fulton and Front streets, which cost $150,000; the large building of the Union (newspaper) Association, on the opposite cor- ner, costing much less. There was Burnham's " Gymnasis," at Smith and Schermerhorn, and also the Mercantile ( now Brooklyn ) Library, on Montagne Street, costing $181,000. That same year witnessed the erection of the Kings County Savings Bank, its " superb build- ing," as our journalist well phrases it, demanding an outlay of $195,- 000. Then, too, went up the Adelphi Academy, on Lafayette Avenne, and the Skating Rink on Clermont; while Dr. Duryea's church, on Classon Avenne, at $100,000, and the graceful pile of St. Ann's, on Clinton Street, at $200,000, fitly capped the climax.
But the writer did not confine himself for evidences of Brooklyn's wonderful leaps forward under the stimulus of peace, only to the number or cost of the houses erected. "During the year," he goes on to state, " an enormous and unprecedented amount of street im- provement was effected, in the matter of grading, paving, and laying down water and sewer pipes. Twenty-three miles of improved streets were added to the city, rendering about seven or eight thousand city lots available for building purposes, which previously were not so available. After all the thousands of new honses Brooklyn built
ICE BLOCKADE-FERRYBOAT PASSENGERS LANDING ON THE ICE.
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in 1868, she offered to the builder, at the close of the year, street ap- proaches to three or four thousand more lots than were approach- able for building at the beginning." At the same time, prepara- tions were made to render these newly-laid-out sections habitable and healthful by means of sewerage and water supply. In 1868, there were fourteen miles of water-pipes added, and sixteen miles of sewers, so that there were then two hundred and twenty-four miles of the former, and one hundred and fifty of the latter. Up to 1871 the great outlet or thoroughfare of Williamsburgh, Bedford Avenue, con- meeting the two portions of the city as by a convenient artery for the common life in both, had only been carried as far as Fulton Avenue. It was upon the line of the old Cripplebush Road, and on the other side of Fulton came in the old Clove Road from Flatbush. The latter wound its uncertain way about half way between Nostrand and Bedford avenes, south of Fulton. In the year just mentioned (1871), Bedford Avenue was carried south of Fulton, crossing the latter at right angles, and then a little beyond curving slightly to the westward, making an acute angle with Rogers, crossing the boule- vard of the Eastern Parkway, thus becoming later the popular and elegant driveway for Williamsburgh and the Bedford neighbor- hood to the Park. To reach these constantly more attractive sections of the city, a line of horse cars was established, from the Fulton Ferry, which, following the lines of Park and Vanderbilt avenues, skirted the westerly bounds of Prospect Park. In 1870, the Brooklyn City Railroad redneed its fare to five cents, and in the same year accom- modated an ever-increasing public by introducing stoves in their cars in cold weather. This was a great improvement, and made a ride of some distance in Brooklyn much preferable to a shorter one in New York. There still the cars remained umprovided with heat- ing apparatus, and the most primitive methods were resorted to to remedy the difficulty and render people comfortable. The floors of the cars were usually strewn with a thick bed of straw, particularly cal- enlated to keep one's feet damp on a wet or shishy day, and most likely to accumulate all the most unsanitary conditions. The comfortable little stove in Brooklyn cars deprived the passengers of only one seat, and yet sufficed to radiate warmth and good nature among the peo- ple. Even the longest horse-car route,-that from the City Hall to Harlem, by the Third Avenue Line,-was not provided with what we would now regard as a necessity. This doubtless determined many to live in Brooklyn rather than in New York. The ferries also con- tributed their share to induce householders to settle in Brooklyn rather than on the longitudinal island of Manhattan, which forced them to live at so great a distance from downtown. In 1870, under the terms of a new lease to the Union Ferry Company, it was pro- vided that passengers should only pay one-cent fare between the hours of five and half-past seven o'clock, both morning and evening.
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It will be seen at once that these are the hours when the great armies of the business world go over to New York and return again to. their homes in Brooklyn, and certainly it could not add much to the very much lighter burden of rent in the latter city, to have to pay two cents per diem to make one's way across the intervening river. In that same year there were five ferries running, making twelve hun- dred and fifty crossings every day. All the year round the boats ran night and day on the Fulton and Hamilton Avenue ferries, and in summer they ran all night and day also on the South Ferry. It is indeed a remarkable fact well worthy of the historian's attention that with all this busy ferrying, thousands of crossings, conveying tens of thousands of passengers, there can be recorded but three accidents for thirty years previous to the years we are now discussing, that resulted fatally. One was the case of some one hurt by the willful running of a sloop for some spiteful canse into one of the ferry- boats; a second, that of a woman who was leaning too far outside the boat as it entered the slip. The third was a collision occurring on November 14, 1868. One of the boats was just leaving the slip at New York, when the violence of the tide swung another coming loaded from Brooklyn around in such a manner as to put her beyond the control of the pilot. The two crashed together, the bow of the lighter boat passing high over that of the heavier, and plowing its way through timbers and closely massed crowds. Some twenty people were injured by the collision, only one, a boy, being instantly killed. The hour was half-past seven in the morning, and the rumor of the accident, which grossly exaggerated its proportions, created great consternation among Brooklyn homes, whence had gone forth their usnal thousands on the errand of labor. It must be said that a very fine account is given of the spirit actnating the financial management of this Union Ferry Company. It is something so seldom met with in concerns of the kind, partaking so much of the nature of a monop- oly, that it is very refreshing to contemplate and should be held up as a rebuke to the present age and an example to posterity. We do not venture in recording it for that useful purpose to depart from the precise description of it by one who doubtless knows more of it from personal acquaintance than any other authority on the affairs of Brooklyn. "The organization of this company contemplates," says Dr. Stiles, " by the voluntary agreement of its lessees and stock- holders, that it shall not be conducted with a view to speenlation. and that it shall not become an object for speculation to obtain con- trol thereof. It is distinctly provided by the certificate of incorpora- tion that the net profits over and above paying dividends of ten per cent. to stockholders, and the improvement of the ferries, shall be paid over as a free gift to the Brooklyn City Hospital! Under the various leases, neither the lessees, directors, nor stockholders were under any obligation to limit the amount of dividends or profits to
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be made or retained; and the provision above named for the payment of the surplus to the hospital was made solely for the purpose of securing a disinterested administration and operation of the ferries for the best interests of the city of Brooklyn and its citizens." How does this compare with the sentiment lately expressed on the trial of a certain concern on the score of being a trust, when it was bhmtly stated by one of the chief men in it that he would not touch any busi- ness that would not yield him at least sixteen per cent on the money invested? Or with those schemes of stock-watering which ingeniously contrive to make a scandalous profit of, say, 80 per cent. look only like the milder usury of 10 per cent. or 15 per cent .? We really ought to have deferred mentioning this unique illustration of Brooklyn business methods till we came to our chapter on that city's higher life. One does not usually look for evidences of the higher life among business concerns or stock companies; but when shareholders act with such supreme regard for a hospital in particular, and for the interests of their fellow-townsmen in particular, after the honest penny is turned at the rate of only ten per cent., we surely seem to have come upon an exceptional circumstance, where money-getting is as much set aside by the finer motives of existence as in the pursuit of art and literature, or in the founding of libraries, schools, and churches. Before leaving the subject of ferries, we must not forget to mention how nature, for the third time since steam had made ferriage so easy, took the matter of bridging the river into its own hands, and laid a floor of ice across from Manhattan Island to the Brooklyn shore. This was in January, 1867. As the frost came on apace, the ferry- boats began to find it increasingly difficult to get into their slips. At last the jam in these quiet coves was so solid that the boats had to stop at some distance from the landing bridge, and people were fain to climb down and complete the journey upon the floor prepared for them below. But the ice-bridge formed itself over a still more formidable extent of water. All the way from Corlear's Hook to a little distance south of Wall Street Ferry the ice cakes stuck together and were frozen iuto one immovable mass. For several hours this condition prevailed, and about five thousand people enjoyed the satis- faction .- sixteen years before they could do so at a higher elevation. -of walking over from Brooklyn to New York.
It was not till after the return of peace that serious efforts were made to develop the territory which had been acquired in 1860 into the handsome Park which is now the pride of Brooklyn. By various acts, running from 1861 to 1868, the limits of the Park were gradually extended to what they are now, embracing five hundred and fifty acres. While the war was raging there was not much heart to ex- pend thought or money upon the lands in possession, in order to make- them the attractive pleasure-grounds they have since become; indeed. the acquisition was the main object that needed to be pursued from
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1861 to 1865, and was not beyond a disputed title until the latter year. The shape and direction were determined largely by the.rela- tive values of property in Flatbush and Brooklyn itself. An area of 228 acres, lying in Flatbush, was valued at $543,000; one of 350 acres in Brooklyn rose to the figure of $2,710,000. Therefore, as Com- missioner Stranahan reasoned, "it was true economy to elongate and narrow the Park toward the city, and to spread it out on the cheaper land on the Flatbush side." It may be interesting to add right here, not to keep wallowing among too many statistics, that from a report made of the matter in 1880, up to that time there had been expended upon Prospect Park $3,919,- 370 for land, and $5,239,964 for construction, a total of $9,159,334. These figures, one may be sure, have been swelled to far greater propor- tions during the years that have since passed. This de- lectable spot having finally come into the undoubted pos- session of the city, the proc- esses necessary to enhance the natural charms by a skillful application of human art were diligently applied. From the first, the eminent and beloved Brooklynite, Mr. J. S. T. Stranahan, was at the head of the Commission intrusted CANDA MONUMENT, GREENWOOD CEMETERY. with the interesting task. Its composition was frequently varied, increased in numbers, and then again diminished, but Mr. Stranahan remained its President until 1882. In the laying out of Prospect Park we come across the names of those who had been em- ployed to transform Central Park from a plague-spot into a thing of beauty, Lieutenant (now General) Egbert L. Viele, as engineer, and Messrs. Olmstead and Vaux as landscape architects. They had be- fore them a much more promising field than was afforded by the territory subjected to their skill on Manhattan Island. The most con- spicuous difference was the quantity of forest land, beset with an- cient and umbrageous trees. These had to be introduced into Central Park de noro. While the latter, too, has its bold elevations and un- dulating intervals, the hills of Prospect are frequent and lofty. There were also many natural ponds of water, which have been utilized
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and expanded into lakes by the hand of art. The largest one is very much larger than the chief lake of Central Park, the circuit of the latter measuring two miles, and that of Prospect five miles. The Park, thus beautiful by nature and beantified by art, was ready for publie enjoyment in 1871. One needs not descant on the extreme favor wherewith the citizens of Brooklyn regard this veritable treas- ure. Having been so indisputably made a thing of beanty, they give increasing evidence from year to year by the myriads that flock to it for the various kinds of entertainment, exercise, and enjoyment it affords, that they regard it also as a joy forever. One charm espe- cially does it possess, which perhaps but few of these thousands ever dwell on. It is filled with memories of historic import. As we have indicated, Prospect Hill, Valley Pass, the hills overhanging it. the long stretch of meadow where the Sunday-school children have their pienics, all these were scenes of thrilling episodes in that great battle of Long Island, which brought no success to our arms, but which witnessed a brave handful of men in unequal and prolonged battle with the largest army that Great Britain ever brought into the field in our War for Independence, either before or after it.
The leap forward to prosperity and greatness after the war conld not fail to show its effects upon that portion of Brooklyn life which has given it one of its most distinctive titles. Some notable addi- tions were made to the city's churches. Holy Trinity indeed was al- ready upon its site, but in 1869 the symmetry of its noble proportions was secured by the completion of its tower and spire, rising to a height of two hundred and seventy-five feet, so that the finished prod- net of the architect's hand placed upon the streets of Brooklyn an edifice which is not an unworthy or greatly distanced rival of its name- sake in New York. In 1860, the Rev. A. N. Littlejohn became rector of the church, only to be called away from it to a place reflecting honor upon the city where he had labored. The district of Long Island had, in 1869, a sufficient number of Episcopal parishes within its bounds to warrant being erected into a diocese by itself, separate from New York. The See of Long Island thus created received as its first Bishop the rector of Brooklyn's Holy Trinity, Dr. Littlejohn. Ile severed his connection as rector on January 27, 1869, and on March 1, his successor, the Rev. Charles H. Hall, began the duties of that office. Dr. Hall remained rector until his death, in 1895. He entered heartily into the social and intellectual life of the city. His sympa- thies were broad, overrunning the boundaries of his own denomina- tion. or the mere parish work. His intimacy with Mr. Beecher was very close, and none but he must officiate at his funeral. He was for seven years President of the Associate Members of Brooklyn Institute He was an accomplished botanist, often lecturing in the Depart- ment of Botany of the Institute, and upon his death he begneathed to it a herbarium and extensive botanical collections. We are forced
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to be somewhat disproportionate in our treatment of the denomina- tions who contributed to make Brooklyn still more a city of churches than she was before the war-and that in favor of the Presbyterians. But certainly they contributed three such conspicuous enterprises and remarkable men, as to render Brooklyn more famous as a church center than ever. In 1857 an organization was effected among a number of good, true-blue men, who came to the conclusion ex- pressed in a formal resolution, " that in the Providence of God, the time has now arrived when it is not only desirable, but expedient, that a Presbyterian Church should be organized in the Eleventh Ward." Providence being on their side, there was no reason why they should not thus organize. There was a Park Congregational Church, which was not flourishing, Providence not putting His stamp of approval upon that creed in the Eleventh Ward; so the Presbyterians, whose resolution had committed Him to their service, bought that church on Carlton Avenue, near DeKalb, and made it into the Park Presby- terian Church, thus changing the tweedle-dee into the extremely dif- ferent and, therefore, vitally necessary. tweedle-dum. Yet the slight alteration in denomination and faith worked well, especially since the Presbyterian modification called the right man. This was done after a year or two, when, in 1860, the Rev. Theodore L. Cuyler became pastor. He carried the impetus of success to an irresistible velocity, so that the Carlton Avenue building would no longer do. In 1862, the congregation moved to the home so familiar to all Brooklyn, on Lafayette Avenne, corner of Oxford Street, where they had put up one of the largest and handsomest churches to be seen in all the city. Dr. Cuyler is a figure known to every one in Brooklyn not only, but famous for his preaching, his personality, and his writings, through- out all Protestant Christendom. His church, too, stands among the very first for membership and influence in his own denomination. Only some ten years ago, not quite perhaps, he retired from the active pastorate of the church he had almost founded, retaining a connec- tion as Emeritus, and thus affording another instance of the many long pastorates witnessed among the Brooklyn churches. A not less remarkable enterprise among Presbyterians was the Classon Avenue Church, and that, too, introduced to Brooklyn life a man whose abili- ties and character were such that this one city could not hold his fame. The Seventh Ward was farther away from the center of popu- lation than the Eleventh, that and the Twentieth and others having been carved out of the original ward thus numbered. In 1866, a meet- ing in Dr. Chyler's study decided that another church must be or- ganized east of Washington Avenue. The following March, 1867, after services in a private house had been commenced, lots were bought on the corner of Classon Avenue and Monroe Street. A chapel was fin- ished in June, 1867, and in July the elmirch was organized. In Decem- ber they called the Rev. JJoseph T. Duryea, and in 1868 the cornerstone
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Stary Pravo Beecher 0
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of the church building was laid. A novelty at that time was intro- duced in the placing of the pulpit at the side instead of at the end of the oblong anditorinm, and in the arrangement of the pews in semi- circular fashion. Another astonishing innovation, now so common, was the position of the organ back of the pulpit. There was a start- ling feature added to that which has not been so generally adopted, and is not now continued in this church: the manual and pedals for the organist were placed on the floor directly opposite the pulpit, so that he faced the minister as he played, and the choir standing beside him faced the audience. Again, another unusual circumstance sometimes occurring was the descent of the pastor from the pulpit and drawing heavenly strains from the instrument, as alone the hand of an accomplished master could do. The church met with instant success, and the vast audience-room was filled from Sunday to Sun- day. Brooklyn soon discovered that in this preacher lay extraordi- nary power. He was still young in years, only thirty-five. He had graduated from Princeton College at the head of his class, his per- centage for the entire course being 99 and a very large fraction. While pastor in Troy, N. Y., he received no less than thirty calls. He accepted one to the Collegiate Dutch Reformed Church of New York in 1862, but came to the more congenial Brooklyn atmosphere in 1867. After a pastorate of more than twenty years, Dr. Duryea left Brooklyn to become pastor of a Congregational Church in Boston. A few years later he went as pastor to Omaha, Neb., and then came back to Brooklyn broken in health, but yet capable of doing much of his remarkable work in the pulpit, to be the pastor of the Will- iamsburgh Reformed Church on Bedford Avenue. There he died in May, 1898. Not too high are the words of praise from the pen of a close observer: " He was one of those rare creatures of God in whom are thoroughly blended the genius of endowment with remarkable talent for work. The result of long years of such a combined mental activity was a ripe scholarship, which placed him in the very fore- most rank of contemporary thought. In his many-sided- ness he possessed not only the faculty of precise, logical thought, but the equally rare gift of clear, beautiful, vitalized statement." But the American public in general is much more familiar with a personality widely different from that of the man just named, whose advent to Brooklyn also occurred during the period now in hand, and whose name and fame became inseparably connected with the city. We mean the Rev. T. De Witt Talmage. Associated with him is the familiar title of the Brooklyn Tabernacle. The Presbyterian Church thus designated was at first the Central, on Schermerhorn Street, near Nevins, organized in 1834. While still thus known and thus located, in 1869, Dr. Talmage became the pastor. Things at once livened up in the almost defunct society. In 1870 a new church was built. rather out of the ordinary, with a seating capacity, as stated, of 3.000, and
THE ANNUAL BROOKLYN SUNDAY-SCHOOL PARADE.
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called, in faithful imitation of Spurgeon's famous house in London, the Tabernacle. Two years later it was destroyed by fire. Thereupon a new Tabernacle, with capacity for 5,000 auditors, was erected on the same spot, and dedicated in 1874. These spacious auditoriums in themselves were a phenomenon for Brooklyn, and unequaled by any- thing in New York City; but perhaps a greater wonder was that such a vast andience-room was needed to accommodate the crowds that came to hear the preacher there. Not only was Dr. Talmage popular as a preacher; he quite rivaled his neighbor, Beecher, as a lecturer, sought eagerly in every part of the land. The secret of his success lay not in his scholarship; nor was his delivery particularly pleasing, his voice being harsh and unmusical in the extreme. There was neither the profundity or originality of the thought of Beecher, nor the eloquence of expression; but vet the extraordinary popular favor pointed to genius of an undoubted nature. There was vivid imagery, striking statement, peculiarity of manner, perhaps some mannerism of an affected kind. But there was not a dull passage in any of the dis- courses, and though divines might criticise and deery Talmage's sensa- tionalism; though the press might ridicule and exaggerate peculiari- ties, foibles, or extravagances, from Sunday to Sunday there was that vast audience both morning and evening to hear and see forthemselves what Talmage said or what Talmage did. His career was an extraor- dinary one, full of episodes as sensational as the subject of them. The Tabernacle of 1874 went the way of the Tabernacle of 1870, and was consumed by fire on Sunday, October 27, 1889. A year or two later the Brooklyn public were enabled to enter another Tabernacle, but now further uptown, on the corner of Clinton and Greene avenues. It was made to seat 6,000 persons, built in a style much more ambi- tions than the former oues, with its rounded arches and square tower assimilating the Romanesque rather than the Gothic style. Yet there was much that was flimsy and hasty about the finishing tonches. Instead of plastered or hard-finished walls, something was fastened to them that seemed quite as inflammable as paper, and, remembering the two previous fires, it was irresistibly impressed upon the writer's mind, when once on a visit to the church while still building, that should another fire happen to this peculiarly fated congregation it would have an easy job getting around the building along this con- venient and inviting conductor ornamenting the walls in imitation of stucco-work. The expected did occur again; on Sunday, May 13. 1894, the third of Talmage's Tabernacles was reduced to ashes, the fire breaking ont back of the organ scarcely ten minutes after the great andience had been dismissed, Dr. Talmage himself barely escap- ing from its fatal clutch. When it struck the interior of the audito- rium, it leaped almost instantaneously about the entire room. This was the end of the Tabernacle and of Talmage in Brooklyn. The last disaster revealed a strange hollowness and weakness in the
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