USA > New York > New York City > Leslie's history of the greater New York, Volume II > Part 57
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It was necessary, of course, to abolish the police departments in the other two cities embraced within the consolidation-Brooklyn and Long Island City ; as also in the County of Richmond. or Staten Island, erected in 1867; but the members of the several forces in those local- ities were by special provision of the charter transferred bodily and looked upon as members of the force of the greater municipality, re- taining the captains, sergeants, and other officers as they were. As
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before, the executive officer of the Board of Commissioners is the Chief of Police, chosen by the Board.
The next Department to be noticed is the Board of Public Improve- ments. Its title sufficiently defines its purposes, and its various de- partments indicate the different items of improvement which it aims to secure, thereby to promote the health, habitability, comfort, and safety of the city. The charter makes the Board consist of a president, appointed by the Mayor, and further, of the Mayor himself, the Corporation Counsel. the Comptroller, and after these of the Commissioners having in charge the various departments: Water Supply; Highways; Street Cleaning; Sewers; Public Buildings, Light- ing, and Supplies; Bridges; as well as the Presidents of the five Boroughs, none of the latter having a vote except upon questions per- taining particularly to his own Borough.
If this is the department of utility, seeking to promote everything that is materially necessary for the city, the Department of Parks has a bearing on that higher life of the city which we showed in our previous volume, is also abundantly realized and pursued in our midst. It is to be administered by a Board of Commissioners described as fol- lows by the charter: " The head of the Department of Parks shall be called the Park Board. Said Board shall consist of three members, who shall be known as Commissioners of Parks of the City of New York. They shall be appointed by the Mayor. One of said Commis- sioners shall be the President of the Board, and shall be so designated by the Mayor. In appointing such Commissioners the Mayor shall specify the borough or boroughs in which they are respectively to have administrative jurisdiction, to wit : one in the Boroughs of Man- hattan and Richmond; one in the Borongh of The Bronx, and one in the Boroughs of Brooklyn and Queens. The principal office of the Department of Parks shall be in the Borough of Manhattan. There shall be a branch office in the Boroughs of Brooklyn and The Bronx, and a branch office may be established in the Borough of Queens or the Borongh of Richmond, in the discretion of the Board. At any time when requested so to do by said Board, the Mayor may make a new specification of the borough or boroughs in which said Commission- ers are respectively to have administrative jurisdiction. The salary of each of said Commissioners shall be $5,000 a year." A most important provision is the attachment to the Board, as an of- ficer with considerable power, of a landscape architect. His assent is required to all plans and works or changes, respecting conformation, development, or ornamentation, not only of the great parks, but also of the squares and public places in the city. The two great works now under contemplation and partially completed-the building of the New York Public Library on the site of the Forty-second Street Reservoir, and the splendid edifice of the Brooklyn Institute, of which one wing is finished-are placed under the care of this Board of
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Commissioners, or rather under the special supervision of the Com- missioners having jurisdiction over the boroughs where they are lo- cated.
If the landscape architect is a step in advance in the managenient of parks, not too much can be said in praise of another provision, in- itiated by the charter of the greater city. This is the Art Commis- sion, which is made an integral part of the Park Department. The language of the charter in regard to it reads: " There shall be an Art Commission for the City of New York, composed as follows: (1) the Mayor of the City of New York, er-officio; (2) the President of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, ex-officio ; (3) the President of the New York Public Library (Astor, Lenox, and Tilden foundations), er-
MILITIA MANEUVERS IN VAN CORTLANDT PARK.
officio: (4) the President of the Brooklyn Institute of Arts and Sciences, ex-officio : one painter, one sculptor, and one architect, all residents of the City of New York, and three other residents of said city, none of whom shall be a painter, sculptor, or architect, or mem- ber of any other profession in the fine arts. All of the six last men- tioned shall be appointed by the Mayor from a list of not less than three times the number to be appointed, proposed by the Fine Arts Federation of New York." In such hands is to be placed for the future the duty of saving the city streets, squares, and parks from the disfigurements that now in so many lamentable instances pose as ornaments in the way of monuments or statues. For the powers of the Art Commission are delineated in no equivocal language, and the charter evidently meant to make business for them: " Hereafter no
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work of art shall become the property of the City of New York by pir- chase, gift, or otherwise, unless such work of art or design of the same, together with a statement of the proposed location of such work of art, shall first have been submitted to and approved by the Commission ; nor shall such work of art, until so approved, be erected or placed in or upon, or allowed to extend over or npon any street, avenue, square, common, park, municipal building, or other public place belonging to the city. The Commission may, when they deem proper, also require a complete model of the proposed work of art to be submitted. The term . work of art ' as used in this title shall apply to and include all paintings, mural decorations, stained glass, statues, bas-reliefs, or other senlptures, monuments, fountains, arches, or other structures of a permanent character, intended for ornament of com- memoration. No existing work of art in the possession of the city shall be removed. relocated, or altered in any way without the similar approval of the Commission. When so requested by the Mayor or the Municipal Assembly the Commission shall act in a sim- ilar capacity, with similar powers, in respect of the designs of minnici- pal buildings, bridges, approaches, gates, fences, lamps, or other structures erected or to be erected upon land belonging to the city. and in respect of the lines, grades, and plotting of public ways and grounds, and in respect of arches, bridges, structures, and approaches which are the property of any corporation or private individual, and which shall extend over or upon any street, avenue, highway, park, or public place belonging to the city. But this section shall not be construed as intended to impair the power of the Park Board to re- fuse its consent to the erection or acceptance of public monuments or memorials or other works of art of any sort within any park, square. or public place in the city." In regard to the removal of objection- able works of art now located, the Commission must approve or lis- approve of the same within forty-eight hours after notice of such de- sire to remove has been given by the Mayor. If they fail to act within the time specified, it will be taken to mean approval; which is a very wise provision, as in this way abortions and eyesores can be quietly consigned to oblivion, withont any direct action on the part of the Commission, and thus they can perform a painful duty withont actnal- ly assaulting the sensitive nerves of some unsuccessful artist, whose works fell in former times npon a less critical community or city mag- istrates. This creation of the charter deserves the encomiums of Mr. De Witt, in the often-quoted lecture drawing attention to its fine points. He says of it: " Among the minor gems of the charter I may mention the Art Commission, which, emanating with the Society of Arts and Sciences in the City of New York, was finally, with the aid of Mr. Elihn Root, put into legal form agreeable to the Constitution of the State. In this section we have, with something of the Athenian spirit, cared for public works of art, and seen to it that no public
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building, memorial, statuary, or work of art can be erected in any of the public places of the city without the approbation of expert and distinguished artists." We are quite prepared to share his enthu- siasm, and recognize with him with pride something of the Athenian spirit in this commercial metropolis. We would even venture to go beyond him a little and regard the Art Commission as something more than a " minor gem." Let us call it a gem, without further qualifi- cation of the lessening sort. It is a distinct triumph of the higher life of the city, educated to an appreciation of the requirements of a re- fined taste by the ministrations thereto of parks and art societies, and splendid museums, long familiar to the people and increasingly loved and utilized by them.
The Department of Buildings need not detain us with a detailed description, as it can easily be surmised what its province is and that such responsibilities as naturally fall to it must be placed somewhere, or upon somebody, in every city. The Department of Public Charities is one too that now belongs to the administration of every city in civilized and Christian countries. Yet it seems as if it were pecul- iarly at home in New York City, remembering that its earliest name was New Amsterdam. Even Louis XIV., with his hand upon the throat of the hated Republic, with his invincible armies encamped in the very heart of Holland, occupying Utrecht, threatening The Hague, within a few miles of Amsterdam, and kept from reducing the latter only because the citizens had let in the ever-pressing sea upon the land-Louis XIV. himself even then said that Amsterdam would be safe from calamity and proof against his attack because of its abundant and world-renowned charities. The greater city simply car- ries on the traditions of the lesser, and of its former namesake, and therefore no detailed account of its work in this direction is in place here. Even before the consolidation a very desirable separation had been made of the Department of Correction from that of Charities, which is of course continued under the new régime. Likewise is there no novelty about the Fire Department for the three cities involved in the expansion into the greater city. As in the case of the Police Department, firemen of the formerly separate municipalities are sim- ply incorporated as a part of the larger commonalty, officers and com- panies being transferred bodily. For the rural districts the extension of the operations of this department are particularly reassuring and beneficial.
The Department of Docks and Ferries naturally finds its work im- mensely increased by the great extent of water front, hitherto, indeed, all a part of the harbor or port of New York, but not all before sub- jeet to the actual official management of the city itself. Parts of the Sound, all the river front along the entire line of banks from Hell Gate to Coney Island, the whole circuit of Staten Island, the shores of Rockaway Bay, and the lonely stretch of beach on which the wild
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Atlantic beats its restless breakers,-all this must now come within the supervision of this Doek Board, as well as both sides of Manhat- tan Island and the two banks of the unnecessary Harlem River. And by virtue of the consolidation there is wiped out forever occasion for dispute between Brooklyn and New York as to the right to lands on the Long Island shore of the East River. The corporation which in 1708 wanted so much more of the earth in advance, has now come over upon this territory itself, and has its hold upon land quite beyond high-water mark. Again there is nothing new excepting in the exten- sion of its business, in the Department of Taxes and Assessments. The lesser city, or cities and counties, or townships, needed to inflict this ever unpopular but indispensable burden upon their inhabitants. The great city resulting from their combination certainly can not well dispense with a revenue; which mighty wheel can only be turned by many shoulders being put to it. After a happy allusion to the brave knight in Charles Reade's " The Cloister and the Hearth," who ex- plains after the successful defense of his city that the reason the peo- ple had risen in arms was, " Tuta-tuta-tuta too much taxes," which was the best his stammering tongue could utter, Professor John Fiske in his " Civil Goverment," goes on to say : " . Too much taxes ': those three little words furnish us with a clew wherewith to under- stand and explain a great deal of history. A great many sieges of towns, so horrid to have endured though so picturesque to read about, hundreds of weary marches and deadly battles, thousands of romantic plots that have led their inventors to the scaffold, have owed their origin to questions of taxation. The question as to how much the taxes shall be, and who is to decide how much they shall be, are always and in every stage of society questions of most funda- mental importance. The French Revolution of 1789, the most terrible political convulsion of modern times, was caused chiefly by . too much taxes,' and by the fact that the people who paid the taxes were not the people who decided what the taxes were to be. On own Revolution, which made the United States a uation inde- pendent of Great Britain, was brought on by the disputed question, as to who was to decide what taxes American citizens must pay." We can not but wish the Department of Taxes, therefore, good Inek in its unpopular work, for its work must be done whether men like it or not, if they want to live in a civilized community; and none would sooner find fault if the work were not done, and its results, therefore, failed to become apparent, than those who grumble most habitually DOW.
The Department of Education again furnishes ns with many points of necessarily novel arrangement under the charter for the consoli- dated city. Here was a problem indeed before the Commission! Each of the great cities of New York and Brooklyn had its own elaborate system of public schools, carried to the highest pitch of excellence
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and efficiency, to whose ever increasing superiority were devoted Boards of Education composed of the most eminent and intelligent citizens. Brooklyn's common schools had a reputation of which she might be justly proud, crowned by two high schools,-one for boys and one for girls,-where the young people of the city were given satisfactory instruction in some of the more liberal branches, and fitting them within her own borders to take np the work of teaching in the schools whose excellence she guarded with such jealous care. And there was New York, thinking not a whit less of its own common schools, and pointing with pardonable exultation to its College of the City of New York for young men, and its Normal College for young women, so that a free education here embraced opportunities for boys and girls otherwise extended only to families who could afford to send their children to Harvard or Vassar, or some of the less noted colleges
VAN CORTLANDT PARK-FIRST BATTERY WAITING FOR ACTION.
for either sex. Then as for the other boroughs, there were excellent schools in Newtown; high schools of good repute at Flushing and Jamaica; and Staten Island fell not far short of the highest aim. It wonld never do to disregard this element of local interest or local pride, and concentrate all school direction into one general Board of Education for the whole municipality, where would be sunk to the lowest levels of potency that keen individual jealousy to excel and improve, which had made the system in every part so signal a success. There is indeed created a Board of Education for the whole consoli- dated city. But none the less was there left to each section that which was practically the same governing institution or commission it had had before. The device was simple enough ; we can see now how easy it is to make the egg stand on its small end after Columbus has shown ns the way. Each former Board of Education was virtually kept in- tact-was merely given another name-and centralization secured by
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proportionate representation in a general body having the oversight of the entire city, to secure unity of interest or uniformity of policy where such were needed for the better advancement of the cause of education. Thus for the varions Boroughs we have School Boards, and for the whole city a Board of Education.
The School Boards are thus organized by provision of the charter (1) A School Board for the Boroughs of Manhattan and The Bronx. This is simply the old Board of Education of New York, which exer- cised jurisdiction over all the wards of the city, on both sides of the Harlem River. Being sneh, the members of that former board became members of the new board per se, their terms counting as if no change had been made, and their number fixed at twenty-one as before. (2) A School Board for the Borough of Brooklyn, constituted on exactly the same principles. The forty-five members of the Brook- lyn Board of Education became those composing this School Board, the terms of service being determined by the rule applicable under the former system: the Mayor being directed in the case of either of these School Boards to appoint successors as their terms of original appointment expire. (3) A School Board for the Borongh of Queens; and (4) a School Board for the Borough of Richmond. Each of these is composed of nine members. This being an entirely new arrangement for these localities the appointments had to be de noro. There was a Long Island City, and it had a Board of Education; but as this partook very much of the farcical nature that characterized other municipal functions in this picturesque city. it was entirely and fortunately ig- nored, and its members became as if they had not been. To constitute these really new Boards, therefore, the Mayor, on the third Wednesday of January, 1898, appointed nine persons for each of these two Bor- oughs. The terms are to be for one, two, and three years, respectively, in classes of three; and when these terms expire their successors are to be appointed thenceforth for three years.
These school interests and the school management having been thus localized, so to speak, for efficient action at these four vital points, the charter proceeds to concentrate their practical labors. and to broaden that otherwise too localized interest by gathering up from these boards a membership for the city's Board of Education. Each School Board furnishes a quota, the smaller Manhattan and Bronx Board having twice the number that the large Brook- lyn Board delegates, in consideration not so much of the number of the members of either Board, which is mainly an accident of usage in either city, as of the extent of population, and, therefore. subjects for education, in these Boronghs. And now we are ready for the charter's own definition of this Board of Education: " There shall be in the City of New York as constituted by this act, a Board of Education, which shall have the management and control of the public schools and of the public-school system of the city, subject only
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to the general statutes of the State relating to public schools and public-school instruction, and to the provisions of this act. The Board of Education of the City of New York shall consist of nineteen members, and shall be composed as follows: Of the Chair- man of each of the School Boards provided for by the last preceding section, by virtue of his office, and of ten delegates elected by the School Board of the Boroughs of Manhattan and The Bronx, and of five delegates elected by the School Board of the Borough of Brook- lyn, to be chosen from the membership of said School Boards, respec- tively. The members of the Board of Education so elected shall serve for one year and until their successors are chosen. On the third Mon- day of February, in the year 1898, and in every year thereafter, the said Board of Education shall organize by electing one of its mem- bers as President of the Board, who shall preside at its meetings, and shall have the same power to vote thereat as any other member, but who shall not have the power of veto. Any vacancy in the office of members of the Board of Education, caused by death, resignation, or otherwise, shall be filled for the unexpired term in the same manner as the officer whose office is vacated was chosen or elected. Members of the Board of Education and of the several School Boards shall serve without pay." It then proceeds to express its raison d'etre, its position before the city, and in behalf of its subsidiaries. "The Board of Edu- cation shall represent the schools and the school system of the City of New York before the Board of Estimate and Apportionment, and before the Municipal Assembly in all matters of appropriations in the budget of the city for educational purposes, and in all other matters, and shall, in general, be the representative of the school system of the city in its entirety. The said Board shall require from each School Board estimates in detail of the moneys needed for the administration of the Department of Education in its Borough, and it shall be the duty of each School Board, whenever required by the Board of Education, to transmit such estimates to the said Board. The Board of Education shall, thereupon, restate, rearrange, revise, and verify such estimates so as to form an estimate for the entire school system of the city, which it shall submit, properly divided into items under the general school fund and the special school fund, to the Board of Estimate and Apportionment for its action." The general Board appoints certain officers, such as its own Secretary; a Superintendent of Buildings, who must be an experienced architect; a Superintendent of School Supplies.
But the Board comes most directly in contact with the work of education in the various sections of the city, where otherwise it is left so fully to local bodies-through one most important officer- its City Superintendent of Schools. The Board looked abroad for the mnost distinguished educators in the land to fill this position, and men in the most prominent places in college or university halls deemed
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it an honor to be considered available as incumbents. It is greatly to the credit of Brooklyn that finally the choice fell upon its Super- intendent of Schools when it was still a city; while it was also a gentleman much identified with educational work in Brooklyn and a resident thereof, who was selected for the responsible office of Sec- retary of the Board. It will not be out of place to read in its own lan- gnage how the charter detines the nature of the duties of the City Superintendent : " The City Superintendent of Schools shall have the right of visitation and inquiry in all of the schools of the City of New York as constituted under this act, and he shall report to the Board of Education on the educational system of the city, and upon the condition of any and all of the schools thereof, but he shall have no right of interference with the actual conduct of any school in the City of New York. He shall have a seat in the Board of Education and the right to speak on all matters before the Board, but not to vote. As often as he can consistently with his other duties [he] shall visit the schools of the city as he shall see fit, and inquire
into their courses of instruction, management, and discipline, and shall advise and encourage the pupils and teachers and officers there- of; subject to the by-laws of the Board of Education, he shall prescribe suitable registers, blanks, forms, and regulations for the making of all reports, and for conducting all necessary business connected with the school system not devolved upon the Borough Superintendent by this act, and he shall cause the same, with such information and instruc- tions as he shall deem conducive to the proper organization and gov- ernment of the schools, and the due execution of their duties by school officers, to be transmitted to the officers or persons intrusted with the execution of the same. He shall submit to the Board of Education an annual report containing a statement of the condition of the schools of the city, and all such matters relating to his office and such plans and suggestions for the improvement of the schools in the serool system, and for the advancement of public instruction in the City of New York as he shall deem expedient, and as the by-laws of the Board of Education may direct. He may appoint such clerks as he may deem necessary and as are authorized by the Board of Education, but the compensation of such clerks shall not exceed in the aggregate the amount appropriated therefor. He shall assign his clerks to their various duties, and may suspend or discharge them for cause, but in such case the clerks shall have a right of appeal to the Board of Education. He shall report as often as the Board of Education shall direct upon any matter, or matters, intrusted to his charge, in such detail as shall be required of him. He shall maintain his main office in the Borough of Manhattan, and in such building as the Board of Education shall direct. He shall have power, at any time, to call together all of the Borough Superintendents and Associate Superin- tendents for consultation. It shall further be his duty to report any
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case of gross misconduct, insubordination, neglect of duty, or general inefficiency on the part of any Borough Superintendent or Associate Superintendent first to the School Board of the Borough concerned, and, failing of remedy, then to the Board of Education."
It need hardly be added that each School Board may appoint a Secretary, and also its own Superintendent of Schools. They also appoint one Associate Superintendent for every seven hundred teach- ers, and when thus there are more than one or two Superintendents and Associates, they constitute a Borough Board of Superintendents. Again to keep up in good working order the articulation which makes these bodies serve one purpose while they act separately, they must report to the general Board regularly every year, and at any time between upon any subject the central body may by resolution require. An important function of the Board of Education as such, wherein it takes the place of the former Board of the lesser city, is to act as a Board of Trustees of the College of the City of New York, and of the Normal College. These institutions, of course, are now thrown open for the admission of students from every part of the consolidated city. As in some of the Boronghs, notably in that section of Queens where was in operation that ever lamentable experiment in municipal exist- ence, the reading of the Bible was excluded from the schools abso- lutely, it will be of interest to notice that this custom is restored under the jurisdiction of the greater city. The charter, upon the subject of sectarianism and the Bible, declares itself as follows: " No school shall be entitled to or receive any portion of the school moneys in which the religious doctrines or tenets of any particular Christian or other religions seet shall be taught, inculcated, or practiced, or in which any book or books, containing compositions favorable or preju- dicial to the particular doctrines or tenets of any particular Christian or other religions sect shall be used, or which shall teach the doctrines or tenets of any other religious seet, or which shall refuse to permit the visits and examinations provided for in this chapter. But noth- ing herein contained shall authorize the Board of Education or the School Board of any Borough to exclude the Holy Scriptures, without note or comment, or any selections therefrom, from any of the schools provided for by this chapter, but it shall not be competent for the said Board of Education to decide what version, if any, of the Holy Scriptures, without note or comment, shall be used in any of the schools; provided that nothing herein contained shall be so construed as to violate the rights of conscience, as secured by the Constitution of this State and of the United States."
Last of all the Departments on the list appears that of Health, in which there is nothing essentially new introduced by the augmenta- tion of the city to its larger dimensions, except again that a wider sphere is marked ont for it, and sections of the city hitherto left to the tender mercies of local arrangements (or no arrangements) are now
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CONNECTING NEW YORK AND BROOKLYN BY THE ELECTRIC TROLLEY. FINISHING THE GREAT WORK AT THE NEW YORK TERMINUS OF THE BROOKLYN BRIDGE.
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to derive the benefits of the science and practical experience of the City's Board.
Thus then we have presented a rapid review of the machinery of government that has been set in operation by consolidating into one great city the thickly inhabited regions clustering about the waters of the port of New York, and filled with population as the results of its commerce. It presents in many ways a picture of municipal administration that is perfectly niqne. London's is a much more awkward and unintelligible government. Paris has twenty-two arron- dissements, with a Mayor in each. By the side of these municipalities em's has an administration which is simplicity itself, and yet reaches a firm hand out to its remotest bounds of more than three hundred square miles. The Mayor, with his great powers and clearly defined responsibilities; the two honses of legislation; the ramification of work vital to the revenne, material comfort, personal safety, ednea- tion, higher life, health, and prosperity of the great corporation, into numerous departments, commanding for their service by generons compensation the highest talents of the specialist,-all this sets forth the City of New York, as now constituted, a model of municipal gov- ernment for all the world. It ministers, too, to the patriotism that should expand to a wider communion of interest than laudable civic pride, to reflect that the city's government is made so efficient in its simplicity combined with strength, because it has taken as its pattern the Constitution of the Federal Union, under whose happy anspices and successful operation the Republic has taken its place among the great powers of the earth. It will be dne largely to her excellent and wise system of municipal government that New York will pass from a position second to London only, to that of the first city of the world.
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