USA > New York > New York City > Leslie's history of the greater New York, Volume II > Part 38
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providing that these might be purchased within two years. In Derem- ber, 1890, the then Mayor, Alfred C. Chapin, agreed to purchase the works of the old New Lots Company,- calling itself the Long Island Water Supply Company .- for $1,250,000. Mr. William Ziegler, a man of great wealth and public-spirited withal, wrote to the Mayor, Comp- troller, and Auditor, on December 22. 1890, telling them that the price proposed was excessive, and that he believed the purchase would be illegal. To this Corporation Counsel Almet F. Jenks (the same who is now the assistant of the Corporation Counsel of the greater city, for the Borough of Brooklyn) replied on December 24, saying that he had examined the legal questions before the contract was made, and it was all right. Mr. Zieg- ler then took ac- tion, placing the case in the hands of his lawyer, Will- iam J. Gaynor. He presented a ffi da - vits on thestrength of which Judge Cullen granted a temporary injune- tion made perma- nent later b y Judge Bartlett, who asserted that Mr. Ziegler had made out a prima MAYOR CHARLES A. SCHIEREN. facic case upon the facts, which had
not been answered. What were these? That before the purchase was thought of the shares of the company had sold for $25; that when this event seemed likely to occur they had advanced to $70a share; but that the city had agreed to pay $300 per share, or $750,000, and had as- sumed two mortgages of $250,000 each. Thus, property worth $62,500, or at most $125,000, was about to be purchased by the city for ten tines that amount. The moment these facts came to public notice the indignation was intense; a mass meeting was spoken of, at which the people were to be asked to raise a fund to conduct the trial begun by Mr. Ziegler; but he declined aid and bore the cost himself. Pro-
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ceedings were begun in the Supreme Court on December 27, 1890, to restrain the Mayor, Comptroller, and Auditor from carrying out the contract. Shortly after, the General Term decided that the purchase could not be consummated, the two years having expired. This saved the expense of a long trial for the city, and it stopped the deal, but it prevented the trial of the case on its merits, and the possible pun- ishment of the participants. It came in quite another way, however; Chapin expected to run for Governor, but this exposure killed his chances for nomination. He then wished to be re-elected Mayor as a vindication; but the shrewd MeLaughlin knew it would be useless and ruinous to put him forward. Being then nominated to Congress for the Second District, Chapin lost half the votes nsnally cast by his party in that district, although enough obeyed the Boss to elect him. The Boss succeeded in getting his man elected Mayor, however, by putting up Mr. David A. Boody, au irreproachable candidate, from whom the people expected very different things from those which had distinguished his predecessor. But things did not much improve; could not, in fact, under such a rule as that of the Boss. Two years later the people felt compelled to rise in arms and smash the rings and bosses. MeLaughlin put forward Boody for re-election, but the reform and independent elements in all parties knew him better now. Then it was hoped the Republican Boss could nominate a nobody. But again the machines were disappointed. The water supply business had made men grim and determined. The Republicans nominated Mr. Charles A. Schieren, a leather merchant, Vice-President of the Shoe and Leather Bank of New York. He had been President of the Young Republican Club for two years; was not a politician in any sense; intended to condnet, and did conduct, as the sequel showed, the affairs of the office fairly and squarely on business principles, and for the benefit of citizens, not rings. Before nominating him a conference was held of committees from the Citizens' Union, the Committee of One Hundred, and the Young Men's Democratic Club, who all agreed that Mr. Schieren was the proper candidate, whom all the elements represented would heartily support. Election day, 1893, arrived; the events at Gravesend before that day and at its early dawn, ronsed the voters to a frenzy of enthusiasm for good government as against all bosses such as MeKane and MeLaughlin, and the next day it was known what the people had done. Some sanguine natures had ex- pected a victory, although many doubted even that. A few more hope- ful than the rest predicted a majority for Schieren of three or four thousand. But it was with inexpressible joy that good men learned that Schieren and good government had won the day by a majority of thirty thousand votes. It was a very happy angury for the work to be accomplished in New York in 1894, and doubtless the thirty thou- sand that went in to smash MeLanghlin and MeKane helped to make the victorious fifty thousand that temporarily wiped ont Tammany the next year.
CHAPTER XV.
BROOKLYN'S CULMINATING PERIOD.
N his book on " Education," first published in 1860, Herbert Spencer says, descanting on the practical utility of scien- tific study : " Daily are men induced to aid in carrying out inventions which a mere tyro in science could show to be futile. Scarcely a locality but has its history of fortunes thrown away over some impossible project." In support of this position the philosopher adduces a few instances, and caps the climax with what doubtless he considered the most triumphant illustration of all. " Nu- merous attempts have been made to construct electro-magnetic en- gines, in the hope of superseding steam; but had those who supplied the money understood the general law of the correlation and equiva- lence of forces, they might have had better balances at their bank- ers." The people of Brooklyn, with thousands of street cars flying along their thoroughfares, and hundreds of thousands of dollars drawing comfortable percentage from the investment in electro-mag- netic engines, will hardly agree with this discouraging view of the possibility of converting the force of electricity into a motive power. Thus science advances with rapid strides. What Spencer wrote in 1860, he had as yet no occasion to correct in an edition of the same book in 1878; but another score of years have made his remark obso- lete. Said a scientist lately to a librarian : " Take every textbook that is more than ten years old, and put it down in the cellar."
The history of an invention which has so vitally affected conditions in Brooklyn can not be without interest to her citizens. It seems that those ignorant of " the general law of the correlation and equivalence of forces," kept on risking their balances and depleting their bank accounts. What is worse, those who did most masterfully grasp that general law kept fooling with magneto-electric appliances, until at last they were put together in the form of engines, which could do the work of steam, and might thus supersede that faithful serv- ant. It had entered the fertile brain of Edison that such an engine could be constructed, and the result might have been foreseen when his mind went to work upon the problem. He was at that time the " Sage of Menlo Park," making world-famous that little village on the Penn- sylvania Railroad in New Jersey, between Rahway and New Bruns- wick. In 1880 he had constructed there a dynamo-electric engine. and
THE DANGEROUS TROLLEY CAR.
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P
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he ran cars with it upon a track eighty or ninety rods long. Heutil- ized the rails to conduct the electricity to the motor. This, of course, would not do for practical use upon the streets of a city. The first one to devise a safer method of conveying the electric current to the place where it must be converted into motive power was Dr. Joseph R. Finney. He provided a wire strung overhead above the railway. Upon this he caused to run a wheeled trolley, from which depended a flexible conducting cord. It was difficult to avoid obstructions to a cord or a trolley thus placed, and so the next step was the long stiff bar, or arm, pressing the trolley against the conducting wire from beneath, where the means for suspending the wire would not interfere with its progress. The first electric street railroad in actual operation in the United States was that running from Baltimore to Hampden. The electricity was conveyed by an insulated mid-rail. Brooklyn, however, was not far behind in these earlier experiments, although where the first trolley-cars ran was not Brooklyn at the time. In 1885 electric cars were put upon the tracks of the wretched horsecars plying between East New York and Jamaica, on the Jamaica Plank Road. This line was provided with an overhead wire, and the cur- rent was drawn from it by means of a flexible cord. People travel- ing in the cars invariably imagined that electric currents were pass- ing through their bodies, and they gravely asserted that their watches stopped whenever they rode in one of these cars. On January 1, 1888, there were twenty-three electric street railroads in operation in the United States and Canada. As yet none had appeared in Brooklyn, and a number of years was yet to elapse before the sights now so familiar and so conspicuous began to present themselves to her citizens.
But things were working toward the present status. On January 23, 1892, the city fathers passed an ordinance permitting the intro- duction of the system of " trolley-cars," as they were called here; that is, of course, the placing of overhead wires over the car-tracks on the streets of Brooklyn, upon which cars were to be run by means of electric motors. The invention had then been carried as far as the arm or bar, with which these cars were to be equipped. In June of the same year the Brooklyn City Railroad Company increased its capital from six to twelve millions of dollars, in order to make the change from horses to electricity. On November 7, 1892, the trolley-cars be- gan running on the Third Avenue line; on May 13 and 14, 1893, they began to run on the Flatbush line, and on the Atlantic and Fifth Ave- nue line; and on July 31. they were put for the first time on the Broad- way line. Now the change was soon effected everywhere in Brooklyn so that by the end of 1894 there was not a horsecar to be seen on any of the numerous street railroads. We know of but one horsecar line remaining to-day, that running from Hamilton Ferry to Elizabeth Street, and along the latter to the long pier of the Erie Basin. But the
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new and powerful and comparatively untried force in the hands of inexperienced men soon wronght sad havoe among the population of Brooklyn. The men who had handled two horses from the dashboard of a car did not know they had the power of fifty horses under their control, which the turn of the crank in their hands would let loose upon the light conveyance. Dangerous velocities were therefore con- stantly attained on crowded thoroughfares, and ere long the country rang with horror at the holocaust of victims sacrificed to the reign of electricity in Brooklyn. Away out in the Yellowstone Park the wag- gish keeper of a restaurant explained to his guests that he was from Brooklyn, and the reason he had gone away so far from home was that all his relatives had been killed by the trolley-cars. The list of people run down and killed by these cars up to this date is not far from one hundred and fifty. Another unhappy ontcome of the new mode of travel was the difficulty of adjusting the men's work and wages and hours of service. In October, 1894, the Brooklyn City Railroad redneed the wages of its employees one-third. For some months negotiations were attempted, and the men waited patiently for redress. But early in January, 1895, five thousand went out on strike. Publie sympathy at first was with the men, nntil they or their adherents began to commit acts of violence. It is safe to say that never before had Brooklyn presented such scenes as those that were witnessed during this strike. For the greater part of Jannary the city from one end to the other looked like a military camp. Some seven years before a serious strike on the Atlantic Avenue system of horsecars had cansed great disturbance, and had badly interfered with traffic. But the difficulty had not then been beyond the power of the city's police to handle and subdne. It was quite different now. Several militia regiments of Brooklyn and New York were called into service. They were stationed at the various " power-houses " and car-depots, doing picket duty and patroling the streets in every direc- tion in their vicinity. Cavalry Troop A was also summoned into action, and did effective service in protecting the linemen sent ont to repair the wires which the strikers had cut. The headquarters of the military occupation were established at the car-stables of the Ful- ton Avenue line. near Tompkins avenne, and here the mounted sentries kept the streets clear. When crowds of rioters would col- lect, a cavalry charge had a most astonishingly rapid effect in causing the multitude to melt away. The First Battery of Artillery was sta- tioned at the car-depots of the Fulton Avenue and Broadway lines. situated at the broad space formed by the junction of these main thoroughfares and of the Jamaica Road. in East New York. Gun-car- riages stood around in ominous array, their loaded pieces pointing suggestively into the several streets converging here, threatening the crowds that might venture to bear down upon the troops along Ja- maica Avenne, Alabama Avenue, Fulton Avenne, or Broadway. At
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the Halsey Street barns, near Broadway. a part of the Seventh Regi- ment was put on guard. There was no holiday business about this position. The strikers here were not in the least intimidated by the presence of the troops. They made repeated attacks, repelled at first by the bayonet only. But during a partienlarly formidable assault, the quiet command ran along the ranks of each company : " Load with ball-cartridges." The effect npon the men was electric; they knew that a greater danger than ever was upon them, but they met the occasion with spirit. The muskets were loaded, and soon came the command to fire. A dense mass of infuriated rioters was advancing upon the handful of soldiers, determined to sweep them out of their way in their eager onset upon the property of their hated employers. The taste of the hail of bullets sobered their rage, however, and the few that fell dead warned the rest that discretion was the better part of valor in the face of a band of trained soldiers ready to do their duty. In spite of this display of military force the trouble lasted more than three weeks, and the city's expenses in regaining order were no less than two millions of dollars. The latest feature of the trolley-car sys- tem is that added in the spring of the present year (1898), when tracks were laid on the bridge roadways. Passengers now are carried over the bridge for one fare of five cents, whether they get on at Flat- bush, Greenwood, East New York, or at the bridge entrance. In June of this year the elevated railroad tracks were connected with those of the bridge cable-cars, and trains pass right on to New York.
In the vicinity of the bridge changes in the appearance of the city continued to be made. The bridge terminal was extended, the station being moved to the east side of Sands Street. In front of it. on the street, a wide plaza was constructed by the removal of the entire blocks between Sands and High streets, and beyond. What was for- merly a narrow alley running between Fulton and Washington streets was widened to generous proportions, and where it joined Fulton, nearly opposite Clinton, a great triangular space was formed as an- other plaza. The great usefulness of the Brooklyn Bridge only taught men the necessity for more of the same kind, and indeed the develop- ment of the city cansed by the one, in itself has made others necessary. Various projects have been broached, or are being actively pushed in the initiatory steps by their advocates. One scheme contemplates building a bridge for railroad service only, almost by the side of the one now built. Another bridge is to be constructed over Blackwell's Island, resting a central pier upon that convenient base. Again, a third bridge is strenuously contended for by the inhabitants of Queens Borough, perhaps to rest in part on Ward's or Randall's Island, and furnishing direct communication with the Bronx. Of all these propo- sitions, however, only one is actually on the way toward accomplish- ment. This is the so-called East River Bridge. It is to span the river from the foot of Delancey Street in New York, to the foot of North Sec-
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ond Street in Brooklyn. Its approach on the New York side is to start eighteen blocks back from the river, and on the Brooklyn side seven blocks. The cost is estimated at from eight to ten millions of dollars. The piers above the water are to be mostly of steel; there is to be width sufficient to accommodate six railroad tracks, the bridge being intended mainly for railway traffic. The time at which it is to be com- pleted is set for January 1, 1900. On June 4, 1897, the work of sinking the caisson at the foot of Delancey Street was begun. In February, 1898, all work was stopped a while for lack of money for the under- taking.
Another project of magnificent proportions is that contemplating the construction of a tunnel to connect the two cities. On January
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THE BROOKLYN STRIKE-TROOP A PROTECTING LINEMEN.
8. 1897, a commission appointed by Mayor Wurster, laid before him a plan involving the following partienlars: A tunnel to connect the Flatbush Avenue Station of the Long Island Railroad with the foot of Cortlandt Street, New York. At Cortlandt Street there was to be a low-level station seventy feet below the surface of the ground, ele- vators running from its platform to the street and to the elevated rail- road station. Thence the tunnel was to be cut through to a station at Maiden Lane and Pearl Street, and here connection was to be made with the tracks of the Second and Third Avenne " L" roads. Thence the tunnel was to proceed under the East River, under Pino- apple Street, and Fulton, to a station near the City Hall in Brooklyn; thence under Fulton and Flatbush avenues to the Atlantic Avenue Station, reaching here a level of eighteen feet below the present grade
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of the street. There was to be a depressed station here, therefore, and a sunken track was to be constructed as far as Bedford Station. This being covered over with girders and masonry, would restore the surface of the street for general use. From Bedford Station the track was to rise in an open cut to the grade of the street at Nostrand Ave- me; thence to be carried on an elevated structure as far as Ralph Ave- nue, where again a tunnel would be necessary to cut through the hill to Stone Avenue. It was stated that the time of passage from Cort- landt Street to the Brooklyn City Hall would be four minutes; to Flatbush and Atlantic Avenue Station, six minutes, and to Jamaica twenty-one minutes. Another plan proposed a tunnel terminating at Ann Street and Park Row.
At this culminating period in the history of Brooklyn, when it had become a city of a million inhabitants, with the elamor of steam and electric cars filling the air everywhere, there still are many parts where quietude and retirement can be enjoyed by those seeking them. Along many of the thoroughfares shade trees join their ver- dant arches overhead, forming long lanes of foliage, and constituting a distinctive charm not to be found in other cities. Upon such streets homes of elegance also abound. This is true particularly of Clinton Avenue, along almost its whole extent from Myrtle Avenue to Fulton. The wealthier residents of Brooklyn have here established homes that vie in elegance with any in New York, enjoying the inestimable advantage of having their beanty set off, and their health and comfort enhanced by standing apart from each other, and being surrounded by large and handsome ornamental grounds. For a long time a beau- tiful garden was attached to the house of Editor Stone on Franklin Avenne, near Fulton, noted for enormous trees. But since his death the property has been allowed to fall into neglect, and is now in the market, to be filled up very likely with rows of prosaic flats. Drive- ways also abound in and around Brooklyn. The Ocean Parkway has been mentioned, a road two hundred and ten feet wide throughout its whole length of five or six miles. The Eastern Parkway starts from the entrance of Prospect Park and runs along the ridge that used to divide Breuckelen from Flatbush, south of Bedford village. It is com- pleted for a distance of two and a half miles to East New York, and is to follow the base of the ridge of hills from Evergreens Cemetery to Jamaica. A fine driveway is also in process of construction along the shore of the Upper Bay, through Bay Ridge and Fort Hamilton, and thus along the shore of Gravesend Bay through New Utrecht.
In deference to its sobriquet of the City of Churches, a parting glance may be devoted to these institutions as they were during the period now in hand. " At the opening of 1897," reads a careful esti- mate, " there were three hundred and fifty-four Protestant churches." Their total value amounted to sixteen and a half millions of dollars, and their seating capacity was approximately twenty-two and a half
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per cent. of the total population of the city. There were seventy-eight Roman Catholic churches, with a seating capacity for over sixty-four thousand persons, and a total value of more than ten millions of dol- lars; sixteen Jewish synagogues, with a seating capacity of twenty- seven thousand, have an aggregate vale of not quite a million and a half. " Adding together," the estimate concludes, " the member- ship, parishioners, and Sunday-school attendance of the Protestant, Roman Catholic, and Jewish persuasions, we have a total of 554,629, which gives us an accurate idea of the number of people who have church connections or affiliations. On a basis of 1,180,000 population, it will be seen that approximately 47 per cent. of our people have church associations, while 53 per cent. have none." This would not. on the whole, be an encouraging showing to the view of a churchman, although perhaps better than can be presented by most cities of the land. But it is to be remembered that a total population includes men, women, and children, even the tenderest babes in arms, while the church membership statistics usually include only the adults, and certainly no children younger than five years.
It must be admitted that even while approaching the acme of its existence as a city, with such exquisite streets as Clinton Avenue, Washington Avenue, St. Mark's Place, and those making up the Prospect Park Slope, there are several of her thoroughfares which afford interesting specimens to the antiquarian in search of cobble. stone pavements. But then these are offset by a goodly number of asphalted streets. For Brooklyn has a warm spot in her heart for bicy- clists. Thousands of her young men and women are devotees of the wheel, and on holidays (as well as the weekly Holy Day), thousands come over from New York to search out the excellent roads to be found on Long Island. Their passage through Brooklyn is made de- lightful by long continuons lines of asphalt pavement, and where the entire pavement is not thus prepared for them, strips of asphalt are laid along the curb on either side, or just outside the car-tracks. The great artery for this sort of tourists is Bedford Avenue, leading, with its smooth floor, from near Broadway in Williamsburgh, a distance of three and a half miles, to the Eastern Parkway. Thence a smooth, hard macadam invites the rider to Prospect Park, within which, of course, the riding is superb. But Brooklyn has ontdone herself in the service of wheelmen by the laying out of the famous cycle path- way along one side of Ocean Parkway. This was opened June 15, 1895, and affords a straight and smooth stretch for riding six miles long. " This cycle pathway," say the guides, " is a level road, ideally constructed for its purpose, and is a result of the efforts of the New York Division of the League of American Wheelmen. It is devoted ex- clusively to cyclers, and has at its Coney Island terminus a shelter house, where men and women can rest comfortably in bad weather as in good, and where wheels may be left under checks." One may ride on this path at a speed of ten miles.
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Although Brooklyn has now become a city of over a million people. its home-life still remains a prominent feature, and this promotes as much as ever a sociability and geniality of demeanor which takes kindly to strangers, and often drops the bars to an acquaintance un- mediated by mutual friends. The verdict of the general impartial observer, accustomed to the study of cities, and with an experience of many of them all over the world, speaks in this wise, and Brooklyn ought not to listen with impatience: " Brooklyn, unlike New York, is not cosmopolitan, but it presents itself to the beholder as a pleasant but rather quiet city. The fact that it is a great dormitory [that fact will stick in men's minds, no matter how much more than that Brook- lyn is], where thousands of men doing business in New York sleep and keep their families, renders this aspect all the more marked. In many respects, however, it is like New York. It has its political rings, its public buildings, its public parks, its Academy of Music and theaters, and it has many other things that New York boasts of-all, however, pitched in a minor key." Well, a minor key has its advantages, and helps make up the harmony of life. If in some notable features Brooklyn's imitation of New York is very minor, she may well con- gratulate herself.
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