USA > New York > New York City > Leslie's history of the greater New York, Volume II > Part 32
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When the time for the exercises to begin arrived, the venerable Mr. Stranahan introduced Bishop Littlejohn, who read specially prepared selections from the Scriptures, and a prayer also composed for the occasion. Thereupon followed the presentation address by the Vice- President (but now President by the death of Mr. Murphy) of the Board of Trustees, Mr. William C. Kingsley, from which we have already quoted. Next came the address of acceptance on the part of Brooklyn by its youthful and popular Mayor, Seth Low. Among other things he said: " The importance of this bridge in its far- reaching effects at once entices and baffles the imagination. It is as though the population of these cities had been brought to the river side, year after year, there to be taught patience; and as though, in this bridge, after these many years, patience had had her perfect
work. Courage, enterprise, skill, faith, endurance,-these are the qualities which have made the great bridge, and these are the qualities which will make our city great and our people great." The Mayor of New York then made the address of acceptance for his city. Mr. Edson was induced to forecast a possible future from the suggestive and promising circumstances of that day. " But to look forward twenty-five years," he said, "and attempt to discern the condition of things in this metropolis, if they shall continue to move
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forward on the same scale of progress, is an undertaking that few can grasp. No one dares accept the possibilities that are forced up- on the mind in the course of its contemplation. Will these two cities ere then have been consolidated into one great municipality, num- bering within its limits more than five millions of people? Will the right of self-government have been accorded to the great city thus united, and will her people have learned how best to exercise that right?" These are interesting questions to read in the light of what
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BROOKLYN BRIDGE-WINTER SCENE ON PROMENADE.
fifteen of these twenty-five years have brought around. The vast united municipality has come, placing the bridge not between two cities, but in the very heart of one. As to self-government and the lesson of its exercise, we may leave that for subsequent years to answer.
Those were the days when the cornet of Levy was still a power in the land. One would go far and often to hear the strains that used to thrill the auditors at Manhattan Beach in the summer, and various
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public halls of New York during the winter. Often, too, did those in middle age see him walk with not altogether comfortable steps in his place with the splendid band Fisk's money procured for the Ninth Regiment. The immense andience at the Brooklyn terminus, to re- lieve their minds before the two orations now to follow, were re- galed with a cornet solo by Mr. Levy. After this came the oration by the Hon. Abram S. Hewitt. He dwelt upon the fact that " in no pre- vious period of the world's history could this bridge have been built." Speaking of the amount of wages for which this great work stood, he observed aptly that " the effect of the discoveries of new methods, tools, and laws of force, has been to raise the wages of labor more than a hundredfold, in the interval which has elapsed since the Pyra- mids were built." But it is impossible further to summarize so elaborate and lengthy an effort. Neither can justice be done to the eloquent and scholarly oration of Dr. Storrs. He was at a great disadvantage in the delivery of it at the end of such extended exer- cises. Besides, the exigencies of the occasion seemed to demand a written discourse to be read as written, and the speaker was not at his best under such restraints. While the actual anditors, however, may have been prevented by these circumstances from enjoying to the full the elegant language and elevated thought of the discourse, its preservation in print has afforded that delight to succeeding genera- tions. The opening sentence is already replete with grace of diction and poetry of expression : " It can surprise no one that we celebrate the completion of this great work, in which lines of delicate and aerial grace are combined with a strength more enduring than that of mar- ble, and the woven wires prolong to these heights the metropolitan
avenues." After appropriate tributes to many names made illustrious by their connection with this noble enterprise, a happy turn of the thought was made when he added: " But, after all, the real builder of this surpassing and significant structure has been the people, whose watchfulness of its progress has been constant, whose desire for its benefits has been the incentive behind its plans, by whom its treasury has been supplied, whose exultant gladness now welcomes its success." At the close of this oration music was rendered by the Seventh Regiment Band, to the strains of which the vast gathering dispersed.
But the functions of the day were not yet over for the distinguished guests. After the ceremonies, President Arthur, Governor Cleveland, the speakers of the occasion, and the Bridge Trustees, were driven to the residence of Engineer Roebling on Columbia Heights, where a reception was held, and all had the pleasure of conveying their per- sonal congratulations to the real hero of the day, so sadly deprived of the opportunity of receiving his deserved recognition in any other public manner. The next move of the distinguished party was to Mayor Low's residence, where they were given a banquet. Then, in
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the evening, they attended a grand reception at the Academy of Music, given by the city authorities to the President and Governor, where a great multitude assembled and passed by the two men for a shake of the hand. As night descended the throngs wended their way to points of vantage along the water front, the streets and roofs of houses presenting a solid mass of humanity. The East River, too, was blocked with craft of every kind and description, private and public, bearing sightseers, to behold the wonderful display of fire- works upon the center of the bridgeway and the tops of the two tow- ers. Pyrotechnical skill was induced to do its utmost, and did it, so that the exhibition actually beggars description, unless we should tear out of its connection and apply to the present event the language of the journalist who attempted to do justice to the fireworks at the City Hall in 1825, in honor of the opening of the Erie Canal, and which the long-suffering reader may find in our previous volume (p. 273). And so the day ended in a burst of glory, as well it might. Brooklyn was happy and Brooklyn was proud. The jostling crowds that surged in solid phalanx up and down her streets from house-line to house-line, were too happy to be ill-natured, and the best of order prevailed. The records tell us that the casualities that occurred were few and unimportant, so that " the auspicious day ended with- out the intrusion of anything that would carry with it other than pleasant memories of the significant event which it commemorated." It was reserved for the next week to mark the beginning of the bridge with an event of gloom, when, on May 30, the panic occurred, resulting in the death of some and the injury of many. But this belongs rather to New York than to Brooklyn history, and has been duly noted in its proper place ( Vol. I., p. 472 ).
The bridge was now open to the public if they wished to walk across, or to ride in their carriages, if they had any. In either case, they had to pay something, for the $15,000,000 had to be met in some way. And now came to the test the crucial question put by historian Prime in 1845. Exulting in the conveniences of his five ferries, " on all of these," he proudly asserts, " steamboats are constantly plying. so that the intervals of their departure, at least on Fulton Ferry, rarely exceed three minutes, and the passage is made in three or five minutes. Under these circumstances, who would think of crossing on a bridge, if one stood in his way?" Notice the subtle irony of that last shot, " if one stood in his way." A walk of a mile and more might indeed be something of an obstacle compared with the conveniences of a ferryboat, although teams and trucks and carriages might find it easier to keep on driving. So the bridge did not indeed fully be- come a rival to the ferries until provision was made to carry pas- sengers across its mile of length. This was done by means of a cable- railway and the cars to run upon it, which were opened to the use of the public exactly four months later, or on September 24, 1883.
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REAL ESTATE EXCHANGE-BROOKLYN.
The various steps since in the extension of bridge conveniences are familiar to all. The promenade was made free to pedestrians in due course of time, and later the fare on the cars was reduced to only five cents for two rides. And thus Mr. Prime's contemptuous question of
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half a century ago, has been getting a pretty loud answer during the last few years. The last annual report rendered, for the year ending November 30, 1897, informs us that 45,542,627 passengers were safely transported between the two cities during that twelvemonth, yield- ing a toll of $1,240,861.24! A bridge is not much of an obstacle if forty- five millions of people find it so little in their way as to persistently cross it to that number every year. Nor does the cost seem to have been excessive if a revenue can be counted on yielding eight per cent. of the original cost. Apropos of the figures given above, it is interest- ing to read a prediction by Dr. Stiles in 1869, when the project was still largely a conjecture : " It is believed," he writes, " that the bridge can furnish transportation for forty millions of people per annum, and this is the number that now travel across the various ferries of the Union Ferry Company. Before the bridge is built the traffic be- tween the two cities will have doubled, so that if the ferries retained all their present custom, there will fall to the bridge a patronage equal to that now received by the ferry companies." We have just seen how nearly correct this forecast has proved, after the bridge and its use had thoroughly settled itself down as a part of Brooklyn life.
The problem of bridging the East River had now been solved, and a magnificent solution it was, patent to all eyes. There remained as yet the problem of conveying Brooklyn's rapidly growing population (and now bound to grow ever so much faster) as expeditiously and in as large numbers as possible to this waiting bridge. We can hardly conceive of it now, but it is perfectly true that on the day the bridge was opened and for almost precisely to the day two years later, Brooklyn people had no means of getting to it except by horse cars. It seems radically un-American that something better was not ready when the bridge was ready. New York had had its elevated roads for five years before that; it was not till two years after that Brook- lyn had hers. Yet the work was under way even then, and its inception dates from the same year that the first caisson was sunk for the bridge towers. This occurred, as we saw, on January 3, 1870. On February 26, there was a meeting of consulting engineers held in Brooklyn to discuss this very vital subject of transportation. Gen- eral McClellan was invited to preside at it, and the question definitely treated was, " the best means of traveling through, under, or over Brook- lyn streets by steam power." Of these three alternatives, the through seems to have been the problem first attacked, for, as we saw, rapid transit, so called, was initiated on Atlantic Avenue in 1877. The under was still far behind, and has not even yet caught up with the others. But the orer must have engaged active organized effort very soon, for in the same year that the inadequate " rapid transits " were running to East New York, the Union Elevated Railway (as it was later called) was already building the foundations for its pillars in that same section. Indeed, the work commenced on a day destined
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to become famous, May 24, 1876, thus antedating the bridge opening by exactly seven years. This beginning, however, was far removed from its ending, and for several years before the bridge opening, as well as for two years after it, nothing was seen of an elevated road in East New York but those portions of it which were necessarily beneath the surface of the ground, except for an inch or so of granite stone above it. Companies were organized and plans and routes for- mulated, but somehow little was accomplished, the few, as usual, blocking the way of the benefit to the many by property considera- tions, fears of damages, suits for damages, or a general infatuation for " objecting " which possesses some people. By an act of the Leg- islature, passed May 21, 1874, and by another act amendatory thereof, passed May -22, 1875, a " body corporate and politic " was created, entitled " The Brooklyn Elevated Railway Company." This company was empowered to construct and operate an elevated railroad from the eastern (i.e., Brooklyn ) terminus of the bridge to Woodhaven. Thus we find that the Kings County " L" was incorporated by these acts. It resulted mainly in trouble for the city fathers. The route was defined carefully in the charter, streets and avenues and turns all put down in black and white. But it was desired to make some change in the route, and then came the trouble. The Aldermen granted the change, the Mayor vetoed it. Then as the Aldermen were preparing to pass the measure, certain citizens invoked an injune- tion from the courts forbidding the Aldermen to override their May- or's veto, which, to a lay mind not going deeply into particulars, seems like carrying " government by injunctions " rather far. The Aldermen thought so too, voted again for the vetoed ordinance and passed it with a sufficient majority. This was done on December 31, 1881, and of the twenty-one Aldermen, seventeen voted for the objectionable, or rather forbidden, measure. However spirited this action may appear, it was somewhat hazardous nevertheless. Prompt- ly on January 14, 1882, they were compelled to appear before the court to make answer for their disregard of its injunction. Naturally they pleaded not guilty of contempt, because they regarded the in- junction as improperly restraining them in the exercise of their legis- lative powers. The plea did not avail, and they were condemned to pay a fine of $250 each, and to spend from ten to thirty days in jail, from which decision, of course, they appealed to a higher court. The sentence, however, was finally executed upon them, and the proposed change of route, whatever it was, was never made. But the case illus- trates how necessarily slow was the process of procuring " L " roads for Brooklyn.
A multiplicity of plans without an earnest pursuit of any because of the confusion produced, was another block in the wheels of prog- ress. In 1881 there were four projects in various stages of construction or contemplation. First, there was the " Bruff " Road, later the
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"Brooklyn Union." This was partially constructed, for the foundations were down very nearly all along the route, making a not very pretty showing, or very safe driving, along many of the Brooklyn streets. It had suffered calamity at the fountain head also, the place where the funds were to come from, for, alas! it was even then in the hands of a receiver. A second route was one devised by a second commission appointed to procure rapid transit, and was planned to run through Adams, Fulton, and Myrtle avennes. We do not exactly see where Fulton Street would have come in on that line, except at the end or beginning, at Fulton Ferry. But evidently this is now part of the " Union " Road, the " Bruff " having first run, and later abol- ished, their route through Park and Grand avenues, as far as Myrtle, this union giving origin to the title. The third and fourth projects have completely failed to materialize-an elevated road from South Ferry, through Atlantic and Fourth avenues; and an underground road parallel to Fulton Street. A practical measure would have been to make some kind of connection between the "rapid transit," that was doing its best to vindicate its name, and the bridge after it was con- structed. It made the passage to New York from East New York, or Bedford, very little more expeditious to have to take a horse car from the one to the other. On June 11, 1883, Austin Corbin was before the Common Council with a request for permission to build an elevated road from the Flatbush Avenue Station to the bridge; but the petition was not acceded to. The completion of the bridge, however, had a stimulating effect upon the heretofore lagging operations on the Brooklyn Union enterprise. The work was pushed with increasing dil- igenceand dispatch. A change of ronte was permitted through Lexing- ton instead of Jefferson Avenue, striking Broadway further down, and on May 15, 1885, a portion of the road was opened for traffic. It ran from Fulton Ferry, through York Street to Hudson Avenue, so to Park Avenue, through Park to Grand, through Grand to Lexington, and so to Broadway. The portion from Hudson to Grand along Park Ave- nue, and from Park to Myrtle along Grand, was abandoned after- ward, and the structure entirely removed, so that no one would now suspect there ever had been an elevated railroad here. Meantime, while the completed portion was procuring a revenue for the com- pany, work was steadily pushed along Broadway to East New York In the autumn of 1885 trains were running to Alabama Avenne, and rapid transit to the bridge was finally realized for East New York. It was only a little while before the next station was reached-Van Siclen Avenne,-which remained the terminus for some years. It is needless to remind those familiar with Brooklyn what develop- ments of this system have since followed: the extension from Van Siclen Avenue to Cypress Hills; the construction of the line all the way down Broadway, thus reaching the Williamsburgh section with its ferries; the line on Myrtle Avenne, running out toward Ridge-
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wood; the Hudson Avenne extension to Myrtle; the branch from Myrtle through Hudson and Flatbush to Fifth Avenue, and along the latter as far as Thirty-sixth Street, inviting the traffic to Greenwood Cemetery, and connecting at Thirty-sixth Street with the Brooklyn, Bath and Coney Island Railroad, where a handsome station was built. This portion of the system was ready for the public somewhere abont 1889. But later the road was carried upon a lofty curve down toward Third Avenue, and old Gowanus was connected with the modern bridge as far as Sixty-fifth Street. But Brooklyn Union did not have the city all to itself; another enterprise was in the field. On December 25, 1883, there was a special meeting of the Common Council to take action on the report of its railroad committee. The Council was deal- ing with a daugerons subject, which had proved disastrous to the city fathers in previous months. It had, therefore, been fain to proceed cantiously, and had appointed a committee to see that all was right. The matter investigated was the expedieney of granting a franchise to the Kings County Elevated, which had succeeded the com- pany to whom a charter was given in 1874, and whose change of ronte had been disputed in 1881. The franchise was granted, stipu- lating that the work must be begun by September 1, 1884, and that the road must be in operation two years after that. The second con- dition was doubtless added in view of the dilatory proceedings on the other system. Other stipulations were that the company should pay two per cent. of its gross receipts to the city after its road had been in operation five years; and in order to protect the city from any pos- sible damage one million dollars of its first mortgage was to be de- posited in a Brooklyn or New York trust company. The work was promptly begun, and on a somewhat more expensive scale than that of the other road, the trusses and pillars being of steel instead of iron. The route was a simple one, following Fulton Street and Fulton Avenne as far as East New York, there running southward for several blocks, aud turning eastward again, making its terminus also at Van Siclen Avenne. Its intention was to reach Woodhaven and Jamaica eventually, but connection with the latter is made now by trolley cars. The road was not fully in operation till nearly 1890. Its course is en- tirely conterminons with the old historic road from the Ferry through Breuckelen, passing over the spot where the church stood in the mid- dle of the road. Then past Bedford it runs close to the former winding highway to Jamaica, along which the British stealthily crept into the Americans' rear in 1776. The only portion of the old road still exist- ing, that going directly into the pass which should have been so care- fully guarded, is to be seen at the point where the structure curves away from Fulton Avenue. From this point, too; can be seen the site of the old Howard Half-way Inn, part of which was still standing ten years ago.
We have strongly emphasized the absence of two persons from the
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ceremonies at the opening of the Brooklyn Bridge-Hon. Henry C. Murphy and Engineer Washington A. Roebling. It can not be denied there was another conspicuous absence. Why was not Henry Ward Beecher there? . Some one in power must have had a feeling of hos- tility to satisfy, and indulged it by excluding from the occasion of Brooklyn's chiefest glory one who alone could have done justice to it with the power of human eloquence. And his place in Brooklyn history-or rather the place he had made for Brooklyn in the eyes of the world-made a demand as loud as human ears ever heard that this son of Brooklyn should stand forth on such a day as that and speak for her as he alone could do it. But he was not there, and if some hostile soul was pleased with its doing in suppressing him, the pity of it may abide for the opportunity lost to the city to have had an effort of human speech to ring down the grooves of time and enhance the glory of the achievement celebrated. If it were meant to make the public forget Beecher, it was a pitiable failure, for he was brought more conspicuously forward to men's minds by the query forcing itself to every lip, why Beecher had not been asked to speak? than if he had spoken. No one could have given a more scholarly and elegant oration than Dr. Storrs; but no one would listen to it, read as it was, and at the end of a long service. On the other hand, no one would have failed to wait through even more prolonged exer- cises, and no one would then have listened with any abatement of in- terest or delight, if Beecher had been down on the program. But his turn for special honor came the next month. On June 24, 1883, he was 70 years of age,-70 years " young " as some one might have said,- and the citizens of Brooklyn determined to celebrate the occasion. The Academy of Music was engaged, and on the evening of June 25 (the 24th being Sunday), an immense throng filled that spacious au- ditorium to show their love and respect for this remarkable man. Certainly, Mayor Low was not the person who had done Brooklyn the bad turn of omitting Beecher at the bridge opening, for he graced this present occasion with his presence, and spoke in a very happy manner. There were addresses of congratulation and appreciation by prominent citizens of Brooklyn, and letters of like import from Dr. O. W. Holmes, John G. Whittier, Wendell Phillips, George W. Curtis, and other eminent men in every part of the land. Mayor Low, in a striking yet tasteful way, impressed upon the audience the length of the term that Beecher had served his church, during nearly all of which period he had been a famous man and bruited the name of Brooklyn as his own grew greater. "Mr. Beecher," he said, " came to Brooklyn in 1847, and I came in 1850," which was the year of his birth. Beecher, of course, was expected to make an address, and he did so, but it speaks well for his modesty and good feeling, that if ever he was placed at a disadvantage, or failed to master a situation, it was now. Of course he could not but speak well, and fluently, but it
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was difficult to keep up the tone of the meeting and to continue to emphasize himself. At the beginning he naïvely remarked that he would rather be back again " in Manchester with the mob than here in Brooklyn now." At the close of the meeting the Rev. Dr. George E. Reed offered some resolutions, which were enthusiastically adopted, part of which read as follows: " As a man, by the integrity of his life and the purity of his character, he has vanquished misrep- resentation and abuse, corrected and connteracted misunderstanding, and converted public admiration into personal affection."
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