USA > New York > New York City > Leslie's history of the greater New York, Volume II > Part 29
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han. The Young Men's Christian Association of Brooklyn, organized in 1853, and at first fain to accommodate itself with a suite of rooms in the Washington Building, corner of Court and Joralemon streets, and afterward using the Brooklyn Institute Building, moved to its own building on the corner of Fulton Street and Gallatin Place in August, 1865. It will be remembered that in 1886 the Association was enabled to migrate to still more desirable quarters at 502 Fulton Street, spreading out in the rear to generous frontages on the two nearest side streets. Briek and terra cotta render the appearance ex- ceedingly pleasing. This notable change was made possible by the generosity of Mr. Frederick Marquand, who gave $200,000 for the purchase of land and the erection of buildings, and left besides an endowment fund of $150,000. In 1866, Brooklyn was visited by the Asiatie cholera, the scourge lasting from July 8 to October 1, and eight hundred and sixteen persons were attacked by it. The number of deaths was five hundred and seventy-three. The Twelfth Ward was the heaviest sufferer, and a hospital was opened there at the cor- ner of Hamilton Avenue and Van Brunt Street. With this calamity of their own in mind, the people of Brooklyn were prepared to hasten to the assistance of a sister city when that was visited by the scourge of fire five years later. On October 10, 1871, the day after the Chicago fire began to rage, and while its ravages were still in fierce progress, Brooklyn sent $100,000 to the relief of the distressed and ruined peo- ple. It was the first donation that winged its way westward from an eastern city.
The war seems to have made little difference in the advancement of Brooklyn's commerce and industry. Even in 1864, a reliable news- paper account reads as follows: " Though Brooklyn has had to bear its full share of the responsibilities and burdens of the war, its natural advantages and the enterprise of its people, have proved equal to any exigency, and the course of our city has been as prosperous and as progressive as in more auspicious times. The large manufacturing interests of our city are all highly prosperous, and are employed to their fullest capacity." On October 13, 1866, the dry docks of the Erie Basin were completed, and the event duly celebrated. It is said that they are the largest in the United States, the one at Newport News being a duplicate of the largest of the compartments. The Erie Basin is the Atlantic Basin of an earlier date on a larger scale, cover- ing one hundred acres. And by the side of it has been constructed the Brooklyn Basin, on as generous a scale, but on a somewhat different plan. An interesting feature of the Erie Basin is the annual gathering here during the winter season of hundreds of canal boats, sometimes as many as eight hundred lying at their moorings. The families owning them remain in them during these months, forming a colony of from two to three thousand persons, a good-sized village. During the same season the basin affords shelter for hundreds of
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pleasure yachts, and many a famous racer or graceful and well- known steam-yacht lies here at quiet rest, dismantled of its glories. But whether in summer or in winter, the craft engaged in the com-
YACHTS IN WINTER QUARTERS AT ERIE BASIN.
merce of the world crowd the docks and piers, or lie anchored in mid- basin, rearing to the distant view a veritable forest of masts. In April. 1866, an act was passed by the Legislature creating the Go- wanus Canal Improvement Commission, which literally did improve
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uj on the work of an earlier date. The old historic creek, with its superfinity of marsh lands, was converted into a very serviceable piece of water, such as the old denizens of Gowanus would have been delighted to see, it being made into a regular Dutch canal one Indred feet in width, twelve feet deep at low water, and six- teen at high tide. The main canal is about a mile in length, and reaches into the city as far as Baltic Street, and it has no less than five branches, with a length in the aggregate of two-thirds of a mile in addition, the width being the same for all. Again in May, 1867, the Legislature appointed a commission to do a similar work for the Wallabout region. Here the half submerged lands were dug away to form a more permanent and useful shore and a basin about fifteen feet deep at low tide; three piers and seven lines of wharves gave fine opportunities for loading and unloading vessels. There is besides the Kent Avenue, or Wallabout, Canal, reaching from the bridge at Clymer Street nearly to Hewes Street, a distance of thirteen hundred feet, so that this whole system, basin, canal, and all, presents a wharf- age of seventy-five hundred feet, or nearly a mile and a half of water- front. Along these canals, both in the Gowanus and the Wallabout sections, great lumber and coal yards have sprung up. The lumber vards of Cross, Austin & Co. are said to be the largest in the United States. Flouring, plaster, and other mills contribute to make a busy hum of industry, and brick and stone yards add to the bustle and stir continually present. Still in the spirit of their Dutch progenitors, Brooklyn's citizens seized upon the possibilities for docking and wharfage on Newtown Creek. Nearly the entire length of the right bank, or Brooklyn side, from the foot of Clay to Mill streets, Green- point, a distance of two and three-quarter miles, was provided with substantial wharves, at which may be seen lying enormous sailing vessels, full-rigged ships, with three and four masts, barks, brigs, all sea-going craft, for whose access there is ample depth of channel. And there are also two canals here to eke out the shore-line, the New- town Canal, half a mile long, in a straight line, and another, with several turns, of more than a mile, reaching into the heart of the Eighteenth Ward, at Randolph Street. Brooklyn conld now also boast of direct lines of steamers to Europe. In July, 1872, the first line of such steamers, with their docks and piers at Martin's Stores, sailed regularly between Havre and Brooklyn. In May of 1873, the State Line began its career, plying between Brooklyn and Belfast and Glasgow. Later the Holland-American Line, during the first years of its very successful service, had its pier on the Brooklyn side, between Wall and Fulton ferries, while to-day, the Wilson Line, run- ning to London, has its landing-place just south of Montague Street, and adjoining the Wall Street Ferry slip.
When the war was about a year old, Brooklyn received a new charter. This was dated March 27, 1862, and was the first modifica-
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tion the city government had received since the consolidation of 1854. In May, 1873, another charter was granted, the terms of which were that the Mayor, Auditor, and Controller should be elective of- fices; and there should be one Alderman from each Ward. The Mayor and Aldermen were to appoint the heads of departments, which were distributed as follows : Finance, Andit, Treasury, Collection, Arrears, Law, Assessment, Police and Excise ( consolidated by this charter), Health, Fire and Buildings, City Works, Parks, Public Instruction, or thirteen in all. In 1869 a paid Fire Department was substituted for the volunteer system, as had been done in New York about three years before. Its first report in 1870 showed that there were only thirteen engines and six trucks in proper condition for use. It re- quested $290,000 for its conduct during the ensuing year. In this same year (1870), Brooklyn was released from the Metropolitan Po- lice scheme, and given a separate department, under a commission consisting of the Mayor, ex officio, and two other members, each of whom to receive a salary of $3,000 per annum. On January 1, 1868, ex-Mayor Kalbfleisch again assumed the chief magistracy of the city, whose affairs he had administered several years before, and two years later he was re-elected again, serving continuously to the end of 1871. But what advantage was a good Mayor to the city, when under the baneful influence of Tweed rule, there was a gradual withdrawal of power from local authorities to the conveniently manipulated body at Albany. In 1869, Dr. Stiles writes of the change from home rule to legislative control : " For ten or twelve years previous, city affairs had been gradually getting into a chaotic condition. Formerly the City Hall authorities were substantially a local legislature. The Mayor and Board of Aldermen were in fact, as well as in name and appearance, the city government, subject only to the restrictions of the State Constitution, and of a city charter, far less strict in its limi- tations than it is to-day [i.e., 1869], and were clad with full authority over every branch of local public affairs. But with the introduction. first of metropolitan commissions, and subsequently of local commis- sions, the structure of our local government became gradnally changed, and its powers restricted, until matters were almost at a deadlock in city affairs."
CHAPTER XI.
THE " BROOKLYN IDEA " IN CITY GOVERNMENT.
HIE first taste of " Rapid Transit " that Brooklyn received was one that gave it the sound of it, at least, if not the reality. In 1877 the Long Island Railroad Company es- tablished a service of short trains of two light cars each, drawn by a small engine. These were started at the interval of twenty minutes from the terminal at Flatbush Avenne, and stopped at open platforms placed at the crossings of several prominent streets with Atlantic Avenne. Sometimes two blocks intervened, sometimes less, according to the length of the block or the populonsness of the section. The last station was at the furthest extremity of East New York as then settled, which was only a block or two beyond Schenck Avenne. Later the run was extended to Woodhaven; and still more recently the Rapid Transit trains have gone as far as Jamaica. The date on which this service began was August 13. It was actually a more rapid transit than had hitherto been furnished to the dwellers in East New York and New Brooklyn. Before one could get down town or to New York only by the deliberate progress of the horse cars on Fulton Avenne or Broadway. Fully an hour was consumed in reaching Fulton Ferry from Alabama Avenue, and those not very near the latter had to add the time taken in walking to reach the cars. The Rapid Transits could be taken at several stations on At- lantic Avenne before reaching Alabama Avenne or the " Howard House." In twenty minutes, because of the frequent stops, Flatbush Aveme was reached, and thence another fifteen or twenty, via the Atlantic Avenue or Flatbush Avenne horse cars, would bring the traveler to the City Hall or Fulton Ferry. But then it had cost him double the sum that the longer tour would have cost him, and twenty .. cents a day was a serious obstacle in the way of using the Rapid Transit to many wage-earners. It was, therefore, an awkward and only partially effective attempt to meet the pressing necessities of a growing population. It was the best the railroad could do restricted as it was to only a portion of Atlantic AAvenne, and with a terminal that left its passengers stranded half-way from everywhere. The need of real Rapid Transit was rather accentuated than satisfied, and the problem was being diligently considered; not to be solved, how- ever, for nearly a complete decade after 1877.
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Meanwhile the horse car was multiplying itself in various direc- tions. In New York the longitudinal extension of the island deter- mined without any need of studious invention what the car routes should be. Brooklyn was much more complicated in its conforma- tion and the distribution of its inhabitants. There were the great thoroughfares leading out to the suburbs or the remoter parts of the city : Fulton Avenue, Myrtle Avenue, Flatbush Avenue, Court Street. and a few such. Horse cars were therefore running earliest on these. Again out from Williamsburgh there led the principal street. Broad- way, meeting Fulton Avenue at East New York. But the great triangular space between these two approaching thor- oughfares needed to be provided with traveling facilities, and so from Fulton Avenue branched off successively lines of cars along De Kalb, Greene, and Putnam ave- nues. There was another system to be established, however, making travel easy be- tween the expand- - ing Williamsburgh that once was, and the spreading pop- ulation of the older - - Brooklyn, as it went over into the BROOKLYN STORAGE HOUSE. On Site of Talmage's Tabernacle. farms and. fields that had once been
Bedford. So Broadway sent out its branches toward Fulton at its greatest distance (Nostrand Avenue), until the two came nearer to- gether, thelast cross-avenue to be utilized being Ralph Avenue. In the interim, Tompkins (begun in 1876) and Sumner avenues, and later Reid Avenue, received their lines of cars, plodding their slow but sure way, until one or two of them made a dead stop at Fulton Avenue. Nos- trand Avenue cars went on to Flatbush, and along Franklin Avenue ran a line which had not only tapped Broadway ferries, but had drawn its traffic from Grand Street, carrying it all the way to Flat- bush and Prospect Park. But as yet there was South Brooklyn to be
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reached. The Atlantic Avenue and South Ferry system took care of that, sending ears along Fifth Avenue, and (in 1882) along Seventh. Third Avenue cars branched off from Fulton and Flatbush, proceed- ing to Gowanus almost along the route followed by the Labadist tourists in 1679; while, as we saw, Fulton Ferry had thrown out one artery of travel by way of Park and Vanderbilt avenues to Prospect Park, skirting the latter along Ninth Avenne. An interesting and nse- ful innovation in ferry-service was the running of boats from the Penn- sylvania Railroad depot and ferry slips in Jersey City direct to Brook- lyn at Fulton Ferry. This was initiated ten days after the Rapid Tran- sit trains began running, or on August 23, 1877. It was a great accom- modation to the people of Brooklyn who wished to travel in the di- rection of Philadelphia and the West. None the less did it prove a benefit to the business life of Brooklyn. When the great emporiums now so famous first began to attract attention, many people from Jersey City and vicinity came direct to Brooklyn to avail themselves of the advantages offered by these enterprising stores. For a while Pennsylvania was followed by the Erie Railway people, and steamers of a different caliber from regular ferryboats ran from the other side of the Fulton slips to the New Jersey Central and Erie Depots. But these have been abandoned long ago, while the Pennsylvania " An- nex" is still flourishing. One more attraction was made to mark the city's streets about this time. On December 14, 1878, Loeser, the celebrated merchant, introduced electric lights at his store on Fulton Street, corner of Tillary. It was a nine days' wonder for Brooklyn, but such an example was worth following, and electric lamps ere long illuminated the streets of the city, those in " darkest Brooklyn " being judiciously chosen for the display of this powerful revealer of such doings of men as are apt to be encouraged by the cover of the night.
Supplementing the good work bound to be done by the vigorous churches whose origin and snecess we noticed in the preceding chap- ter, there came to Brooklyn in the autumn and winter of 1875-76 the powerful stimulus of Moody and Sankey's revival meetings. We have mentioned their work in New York City in our previous volume (p. 476), and there stated that their labors in America, after their re- markable tour of Great Britain, were begun in Brooklyn. Doubtless the city of churches was looked upon as a hopeful field, for it was Moody's purpose as much to awaken the enthusiasm and energy of apathetic church-members as to bring to conversion the outcast and the vicious. The fame and the success the two men had achieved in Scotland and England was far beyond anything they had experi- enced in their own country, their efforts not having extended very far outside of the Western field. But now all America was on the qui rire for their return. They did not immediately address themselves to evangelistie meetings after their arrival. as doubtless they needed
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rest and recuperation from the strain of the summer. Soon it was announced that they would begin with Brooklyn, and inaugurate a series of services on October 24, 1875. The rage for being aroused by Moody's preaching and Sankey's singing became so contagious that it was evident no church in the city could hold the multitudes. Naturally the rage of the Church-people exceeded that of the sinners. although one would think that they were not so greatly wanted in the meetings, and might be crowding out those in much more desper- ate need. It was no longer a question of hearing the Gospel preached; it must be preached by Mr. Moody, or it was no good. It was no longer a question of being converted; men were bound to be converted by what Moody said or Sankey sang, and that predetermination was. of course, of great assistance to the actual event when once one came within the sound of either. Besides, when a thousand stood up to make an irrevocable and necessarily hasty and ill-considered pledge or declaration or committal, it was almost physically or psy- chically impossible not to rise with them. Hence the meetings were a great success: and the waves of enthusiasm kept stirring up the quiet and decorons church life of the city for several months, quite till the end of the winter months in 1876, when the season not so favor- able for revivals came upon the city, and the church-people's absence in country refuges left the churches as deserted as ever. The his- torie movement began on October 24, as we said, and lasted till about the middle of November. From night to night the crowds assembled in the Clermont Avenue Rink. This immense structure had been put up in the days of the roller-skate fad, and had been built strictly for the purpose of providing as much floor-space as possible. It was. therefore, nothing but a vast, smooth floor, subtended by an arching roof, supported by a lacework of iron girders. A large semi-circular dais was constructed at one end of the Rink, raising its platform a few feet above the floor. Chairs were arranged in straight lines, divided by a center and one or two side-aisles, to facilitate the movement of the vast throngs. Along the side walls there was arranged a sort of low gallery, with its railing not much more than on a level with the heads of the audience below when they stood up. In the rear what- ever space there was left was occupied by auditors who were fain to stand during the exercises. In this way some five or six thousand persons could be crowded inside the building within sound of the evangelist's voice. For nearly four weeks, night after night, these thousands filled every available corner of the Rink, and listened un- weariedly to the harangnes and anecdotes of Mr. Moody, and the somewhat forced, but very melting pathos of Mr. Sankey's songs. sometimes called hymns. It was an inspiring spectacle to the many clergymen who filled up the dais back of Moody's desk and Sankey's organ, and who occasionally assisted in the services, always with a sense, however, that they were merely tolerated, and must get
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through as quickly as possible, so as to get Moody to the front again. The signs of impatience, indeed, with their ministrations, which only kept the hungry auditors from the delights they came to enjoy, were so marked as to be unmannerly and exceedingly humiliating to the discredited and discounted clerical gentlemen. Yet. after the chief promoters of the excitement were gone its afterelap kept reverberat- ing through the churches of Brooklyn, and kept the clergy more than usually busy with extra meetings, until longer days and warmer weather brought matters again to their normal condition. In this city, as in New York, the labors of the evangelists were warmly welcomed even by men radically at variance with their methods and their doctrines. A distinguished preacher " representing the ex- treme wing of the liberal school,"-probably the Rev. John W. Chad- wick, therefore-declared in a sermon that if Moody and Sankey could reach the masses of the people " they would perform a work for which all lovers of mankind would be grateful."
The year 1876 is memorable for a calamity, the sad and mournful effects of which one would continually meet with in various homes in different parts of the city for long years afterward. This was the burning of the Brooklyn Theater on the night of December 5. Five years before, the old St. John's Protestant Episcopal Church, on the corner of Washington and Johnson streets, had been replaced by what was then the handsomest theater in Brooklyn. It was opened to the public on October 2, 1871, and the first performance was the drama entitled " Money," the admirable character comedy by Lord Lytton. On the night of the disaster the play in progress was that of " The Two Orphans," whereby Miss Kate Claxton made her great reputa- tion. There were over a thousand persons in the audience, nearly one-half of whom were seated in the upper gallery. The curtain had risen on the last act, when it became apparent to the actors that the theater was on fire, and, in fact, that the stage itself was already en- veloped in flames, making their own position the most perilous. Yet they manifested a splendid and self-devoted heroism. " Miss Claxton had already heard it whispered behind the scenes," says a contempo- rary account, " that the theater was on fire, but even though she could see the flames directly over her, with rare presence of mind and cour- age. she went on with the performance of her part, as did her com- panions, not one of them betraying by look or word the agitation felt by all." But nothing availed when the audience caught sight of the danger. The actors besought them to go out quietly, and those in the lower part of the building observed the caution and escaped, as did all the actors also, but two who foolishly lingered too long to save some of their wardrobe. But the less intelligent and therefore more ex- citable throngs in the upper gallery made a mad rush for the stairs, and here prepared for themselves a holocaust. There would have been ample time for all to pass out before the flames reached this
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portion of the theater, but the living mass of struggling men and women became immovably jammed in the passageways and on the staircase. One account tells that the police closed the doors prema- turely, thinking that all persons had left. But this seems incred- ible, as the cries and yells of the terrified multitude must have rent the air till they were all engulfed in flame or choked with the smoke. Two hundred and ninety-five persons perished, of whom one hundred could not be identified, and were buried in a common grave four days later at Greenwood. It was, perhaps, the greatest calamity in the history of theaters up to that time, for a greater loss of life occurred in a theater in Europe a few years later. It had its good consequences, however, as rigid laws were enacted and enforced, providing a large number of easily accessible and clearly indicated points of egress in
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all halls of public amusement or entertainment. In 1879 the Brook- lyn Theater, rebuilt on a still more elegant scale, on the same site, was again opened to the public. It remained in operation until 1890, when the house and ground were purchased by the Eagle newspaper, whose splendid home has since been erected upon the site.
Social life in Brooklyn was marked during this period by several events of interest and importance. On the evening of April 29, 1880. some sixty venerable gentlemen came together in the City Courtroom and organized the " Society of Old Brooklynites." They thus formed themselves into an association, as they declared, for the purpose of preserving Revolutionary, Genealogical, Civil, and Social Reminis- cences connected with the city. Ex-Mayor John W. Hunter was chosen the first President. No one could be a member who had not
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been for at least fifty years a resident of Brooklyn. As this was rather a hard condition, not likely to be fulfilled by very many in- habitants, the bars were let down to a slight degree, and a qualified membership was established for such as had lived forty years in the city; but these were to remain withont a vote, and could not hold office. Monthly meetings were held in the Surrogate's Courtroom, and annually a dinner was enjoyed. Over one hundred papers have been read at their meetings, most of them published, and all of them preserved in the archives, the topics being confined to Brooklyn, and to biographies of certain residents. An album is kept, containing the photographs of the members, and a register, in which are recorded me- mentoes of each. In the same year (1880) was organized the Hamil- ton Club. As we shall note more particularly in a later chapter, the Hamilton Literary Association, of Brooklyn, was formed in Novem- ber, 1830. Ont of this grew the Club in 1880, as club-life in America was then becoming fashionable. Ninety-two members of the old historie Association constituted themselves into the modern club, and were incorporated as the Hamilton Club in 1882. They at first hired temporary quarters on the corner of Clinton and JJoralemon streets, but in 1884 they erected a handsome building on the corner of Clinton and Remsen streets, at a cost of $100,000, in the modern Italian style. The Club inherited the library of the older institution, comprising2,200 volumes. They possess a fine art gallery, among their treasures being Huntington's famous painting of " The Republican Court," which was purchased when the A. T. Stewart collection was sold. In front of the building, facing Remsen Street, there stands a fine bronze statue of Hamilton, the " patron saint " of the Chib. 1 feature of social life now of very common occurrence was initiated at the end of 1880, when, on December 20, or Forefathers' Day, the New England Society of Brooklyn had their first annual dinner. It was held in the Assembly Rooms of the Academy of Music.
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