USA > New York > New York County > Manhattan > Manhattan: historic and artistic; a six day tour of New York city > Part 3
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CANAL STREET, so called because a canal which formed an outlet for the waters of Col- lect Pond once ran through it to the Hudson River, is a little further north. Sidewalks and roadways were on each side of the water,- which explains the width of the street,-and a stone bridge crossed it at Broadway. When the canal was filled in this bridge was left in- tact, and still remains imbedded under the pavement.
THE BOARD OF EDUCATION occupies a building at the right of Broadway, in Grand Street, No. 146.
NIBLO'S GARDEN THEATRE, at the Prince Street corner, is very spacious and pleasing,
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the stage usually being devoted to spectacular plays. Both the theatre and the adjoining Metropolitan Hotel belong to the estate of the late A. T. Stewart.
RICHMOND HILL, the delightful country seat where General and Mrs. Washington were quartered during the eventful summer of 1776, was situated west of this, near the Hudson. Afterward, when it was the home of the first vice-president, Mrs. Adams wrote of it: “In natural beauty it might vie with the most de- licious spot I ever saw." It was the residence of Aaron Burr at the time of his duel with Hamilton, but was soon after sold to John Jacob Astor, who converted it into a public resort.
THE CENTRAL POLICE STATION is the next point of interest near which the car passes. It is situated in Mulberry Street, two blocks east of Broadway, and one-half block north of Houston Street. In it is exhibited the "Rogues' Gallery," a collection of more than a thousand photographs of notorious criminals. The police force of the city consists of three thousand, two hundred men. There are thirty- five precincts,-one of which includes the har- bor,-each under the command of a captain and sergeants. Each precinct has a building for the accommodation of policemen and homeless individuals.
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A CITY SHOP .- No visit to the city would be complete without inspecting some of the leading shops, and probably none of them have so many interesting associations as the extensive dry-goods house which occupies the entire block between 9th and Ioth Streets, in Broadway. This is now known by the firm name of Hilton, Hughes & Denning, but it was A. T. Stewart who secured for the estab- lishment its notoriety. There has been no especial change in the interior since the death of the founder, except that which is demanded by changing fashions. In the well-lighted rotunda, with its elaborate decoration of stucco work, just as rich fabrics are displayed, and each of the different departments is as com- plete as when under the rule of the merchant who made himself a prince and his place of business a palace.
Below stairs are ceramics, bric-à-brac, and household goods. The main floor is occupied with dry-goods, while the floors above contain carpets, artistic furniture, and reception rooms. The unique feature of this shop at present is its display of the statuary which formerly adorned the home of Mr. Stewart. While a promiscuous pile of dry-goods is not the best background for these gems of sculptured art, it certainly is a privilege to see them.
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The statue of Proserpine, Marshall Wood, sculptor, is near Broadway, at the 9th Street side. "The Bather," by Tantardine, is near the 9th Street elevator. An exquisite concep- tion of Sappho, by Crawford, faces the rotunda near by. A much less effective piece of Craw- ford's work is the " Flora " which stands in the 9th Street and Fourth Avenue corner. A fine bust of Washington, by Hiram Powers, faces the rotunda at the Fourth Avenue side, and near the 10th Street staircase is Harriet Hos- mer's noble rendering of "Zenobia in Chains." A most interesting study of Demosthenes, by Crawford, is placed near the 10th Street ele- vator. " Paul and Virginia," by Joseph Dun- ham, and John Randolph Rogers' "Blind Nydia Fleeing from Pompeii" are close by, completing the list, with the exception of a " Fisher Girl" by Tadolini, which stands in a reception room upstairs. The one object missing from the valuable collection is Hiram Powers' "Greek Slave."
The Studio Building in West 10th Street, near Sixth Avenue, has for many years been the home of our most celebrated artists. Near by is the Jefferson Market court and prison, an irregular but unique and handsome struct- ure, built of red brick and sandstone, in the Italian Gothic style. Adjoining this is Jeffer-
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son Market, a brick structure richly orna- mented with terra-cotta.
GRACE CHURCH .- In Broadway, north of Denning's, stands Grace Church, which, with the edifices attached, is built of white lime- stone, in chaste, fourteenth century Gothic style, forming one of the most beautiful archi- tectural effects in the city. The rectory is connected with the church by a clergy-house, which contains a library and reading-room open to church members. In the grounds is a colossal terra-cotta jar that was found forty feet below the surface in Rome. The small building at the south of the church is the chantry, in which daily services are held. This, with the chancel, and two organs con- nected by electrical machinery, are gifts from Miss Catharine Lorillard Wolfe, the chancel having been erected as a memorial to her father. The tower contains a fine set of
chimes. Back of the church, in Fourth Ave- nue, is a day-nursery for the reception of young children during the hours when their mothers are at work. This is known as Grace Memorial Home, and was erected by Vice- President Levi P. Morton as a tribute to his wife.
Grace Church was founded in 1805, its first building occupying the corner of Broadway
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and Rector Street. The present structure was built in 1846. Next to Trinity, Grace is the wealthiest Episcopal church corporation in the city.
The Star Theatre, at the corner of 13th Street, was built in 1862, and shortly afterward came under the able management of Lester Wallack, who for twenty years associated its boards with all that is best in legitimate com- edy. The management changed when Wal- lack's new theatre was opened, but the place retains its prestige, and good plays are always presented.
CHAPTER III.
THE SECOND MORNING.
"AFTER THE HUNT," by W. M. Harnett .- A remarkable painting on exhibition at No. 8 Warren Street, represents an old barn door on which hang implements of the chase and tro- phies of a hunt. Probably nothing more real- istic ever has been seen on canvas than these panels, so marvellously like wood, in which a cunningly wrought nail-hole deceives the most practised eye. The glint of brass surrounding the lock, the sheen of the mother-of-pearl on the stock of the old gun, and the metal and old cracked bone in the hilt of the sword, decoy nearly every one into emphatic assertions that the work is inlaid and not painted. The drawing in this picture is exceptionally fine. A battle scene in the Franco-Prussian war, and "The Quarrel," by Meissonier, are in the collection of paintings here exhibited. A1- though these pictures are in a saloon, ladies are frequent visitors between the hours of eight and eleven A.M.
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THE STAATS ZEITUNG BUILDING, over the portals of which stand life-size bronze statues of Franklin and Gutenberg, is across the park, at the junction of Park Row and Centre Street. This, in the old days, was the starting point of the Boston Road.
CHATHAM STREET .- From the Staats Zei- tung Building to Chatham Square, Park Row, formerly called Chatham Street, has long been inhabited by Jews who deal in cheap clothing. The Newsboys' Lodging-house is east of Park Row, in the first street which crosses it. From one room in a private house in this vicinity the first post-office distributed mail to the city. At the right, in Madison Street, near Pearl Street, the first public school opened in 1805, with forty pupils, De Witt Clinton and the Society of Friends having been instrumental in projecting a work which is now expanded until it comprises three hundred schools and a free college under a municipal Board of Educa- tion. At the northwestern corner of Park Row and Baxter Street the famous Tea-water Pump was situated,-a remarkable spring from which fourteen thousand and three hundred gallons of pure water were daily drawn, and sold about town for one penny a gallon.
CHATHAM SQUARE, which is but two blocks from Baxter Street, was formerly the burial-
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ground of the Jews. Just beyond were the British intrenchments, in which dead bodies of American prisoners were indiscriminately thrown without rites of sepulture.
THE FIVE POINTS .- At the west, Worth Street leads by Mulberry and Baxter Streets, where are teeming masses of the lowest grades of humanity. The junction which is formed by Baxter with other streets is called "The Five Points,"-a locality long celebrated for the criminal character of its population, but now reclaimed, through the efforts of devoted mis- sionaries, until its dangerous elements have nearly disappeared. Italians, Chinese, beg- gars, boot-blacks, opium-peddlers, etc., live in the vicinity now, but criminals are rare. An old brewery, which once sheltered the very worst characters and was associated with the most appalling crimes, is no more, and the low dens that still are to be found in the nar- row streets near by will rapidly be obliterated by the business houses that continually are encroaching. A visit to one of the missions at least should not be omitted.
THE FIVE POINTS "HOUSE OF INDUSTRY," founded in 1850, has since that time received over twenty thousand inmates and furnished instruction to forty thousand children. Ga- mins from the neighborhood, as well as those
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children who reside in the building, are care- fully trained in common school branches, special attention being given to the study of the physiological effects of alcohol. A daily bath also exercises its salutary influence upon the pupils. A children's song-service, com- posed of classical selections astonishingly well rendered,-and demonstrating the practicabil- ity of utilizing the best music as a means of re- fining the ignorant, -is held Sunday afternoons at half-past three o'clock, after which visitors are permitted to inspect the building. The officers of the institution, who keep themselves informed concerning the welfare of the chil- dren that have been under their care, assert that so far only two have been known to lead criminal lives. Women also are here shel- tered, and employment is found for them.
" The Five Points Mission" is opposite, and in the small space between is a band-stand, where open-air evening concerts are given to audiences composed of tramps and drunkards of both sexes, whose faces expose their hard- ened characters, making the name of the place, Paradise Park, an awful misnomer.
THE TOMBS .- In Centre Street, one block toward the west, stands an imposing granite pile, ominously called "The Tombs," and used as the city prison. This edifice, which covers
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an entire block, was erected in 1838 on ground made by filling Collect Pond. Although the foundations of the building were laid much deeper than usual, the walls settled and ap- peared to be in peril, but as they have stood for over half a century, they are now consid-
THE TOMBS
ered safe. The site chosen was unfortunate, because the hollow ground does not show the really fine building,-which is said to be the purest specimen of Egyptian architecture out of Egypt,-to advantage, and also because the necessarily damp and unwholesome condition of the soil renders the place a very poor one
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for the confinement of human beings. To further add to the pestilential condition of this swamp-land, some tanners, who previously oc- cupied the locality, left their vats open when they removed their tanneries, and for a long time these plague-spots remained unrectified.
In the portico massive and sombre pillars, well calculated to induce a hopeless state of mind, lead to the Court of Special Sessions and the Police Court, both of which may be visited without permits from 9.30 A.M. until 4 P.M. The prison entrance is in Franklin Street. Here criminals wait to be tried and convicts were executed. Permits are required in order to visit the dark and gloomy cells be- tween the hours of II A.M. and 2 P.M. These may be secured from the Commissioners of Pub- lic Charities and Correction, at their bureau, corner of Third Avenue and IIth Street.
A new building for the accommodation of the criminal courts is in process of construction at the north of the prison.
MOTT STREET .- Returning to Chatham Square by Worth Street a few moments should be devoted to Mott Street, which swarms with representatives of the Chinese nation, usually very well-behaved persons. The Joss houses are easily discoverable because of their oriental decorations, but they are not open to the pub-
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lic. The exclusively foreign aspect of the place inspires one with the feeling of the child who, when taken to visit the pano- rama of Gettysburg, asked, "Why, where is New York? "
THE BOWERY .- From Chatham Square the up-town train on the elevated road passes through a street which bears the most unique of reputations. "The Bowery " from begin- ning to end is a queer conglomeration of cheap stores, concert-saloons, variety theatres, and dime museums, while venders of all sorts of small wares impede the sidewalks. The character of this locality also has changed with time. " Bowery Boy," who terrorized the police, and made his face good for an entrance-fee to the theatre, has disappeared ; and even the "young fellow" of the period finds his paste diamonds too little appreciated by the Germans, who are rapidly taking pos- session of his old "stamping ground." The name of this street was derived from the fact that it originally was a lane passing by Dutch farms or " booweries."
THE OLD BOWERY THEATRE (now called THE THALIA), replete with traditions of the American stage, still stands below Canal Street. Malibran, Hackett, Forrest, the elder Booth, Charlotte Cushman, and many other
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great stars, have made this place luminous with their presence. Since their day the rougher class has made it a home for hetero- geneous melodrama.
Three savings banks in this street have greatly aided to promote frugal habits among residents of the vicinity. A branch of the Young Men's Christian Association is also lo- cated here. The shopping centre for country people and the smaller trades-people is east, in Grand Street, where goods are much cheaper than in the fashionable quarter. A totally different aspect characterizes this locality from that which appears about the up-town stores.
At East 3d Street it will again be necessary to become a pedestrian.
LAFAYETTE PLACE, which extends at right angles with East 3d, or Great Jones Street, one block west of the Bowery, is a quarter in which the antiquated style of the old resi- dences,-now mostly appropriated by publish- ing houses, religious newspapers, hotels, and restaurants,-has given them an air of great respectability.
THE ASTOR LIBRARY BUILDING, at the east side of the street, covering the site of the old Vauxhall Garden, is of brown-stone and brick, Romanesque in design, and in pattern similar to the royal palaces of Florence. This edifice
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was erected in 1853,-according to the will of John Jacob Astor,-who left four hundred thousand dollars for this purpose; and ap- pointed the most able scholars, with Wash- ington Irving as their president, to act as trustees. There are now about three hundred thousand books on the shelves, mainly books of reference, and the fact that annually there are about sixty thousand persons who seek exact knowledge in this classic library demon- strates the intelligence of the age. There is still capacity for about two hundred thousand volumes. In the collection are records of the effective work of the United States Sani- tary Commission during the war, rare Greek and Latin manuscripts, an illuminated manu- script volume of chants used at the coronation of French kings, and some black-letter tomes that include a copy of the first printed Bible, and a fair amount of Shakesperiana. These will be shown on application. The library is open from 9 A.M. to 5 P.M., and is accessible to any person by simply registering name and address. Since the original endowment, Wil- liam B. Astor has contributed five hundred and fifty thousand dollars, and John Jacob Astor, -the grandson of the founder,-three hundred thousand dollars.
On its departure for Washington in 1861,
THE ASTOR LIBRARY.
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the Seventh Regiment National Guard formed in line along this street, amid great excitement and a profuse display of banners and bunting. This corps was composed of the youth and flower of the city.
CHAPTER IV.
THE SECOND AFTERNOON.
THE MERCANTILE LIBRARY .- Astor Place, which diagonally crosses Lafayette Place at the north, is a quarter mostly occupied by publishing houses. A new Clinton Hall stands at the triangle formed by the junction of Astor Place and 8th Street, the old one which stood on the same site having recently been pulled down because it was too small to accommodate the Mercantile Library, for which it had long been a home. This library, founded in 182 1 for merchants' clerks, occupied a hall (called Clinton Hall because De Witt Clinton pre- sented the first book) at the corner of Beekman and Nassau Streets. Columbia College granted two free scholarships to the organization, and members secured many privileges in the way of lecture courses and class instruction. Noth- ing is more interesting than a history of the institutions founded in this city during the first half-century of our Republic, at which time the energy and insight of a few public- spirited men,-among whom none were more
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conspicuous than De Witt Clinton,-laid the foundation for broad and far-reaching educa- tional systems that are proving of incalculable benefit to the whole nation. The library was moved to its present site in 1854, and now again has required more commodious quarters. Two hundred thousand volumes, besides news- papers and periodicals, occupy its shelves, and new books are constantly being purchased. Branch libraries are at No. 62 Liberty Street, and at No. 431 Fifth Avenue. The charges for yearly membership are four dollars for clerks, and five dollars for other persons.
The Clinton Hall, which recently has been demolished, originally was the Astor Place Opera House, where in 1849, the Forrest- Macready riot occurred,-an outbreak which was occasioned by the unpopularity of Mac- ready, who was supposed to have prejudiced English opinion against Forrest, the American favorite. A poorly modelled bronze statue of Samuel S. Cox recently has been placed in the triangular space east of Clinton Hall.
COOPER UNION .- The massive brown-stone building at the right, the old portion of which is classic, and the additions of which are Gothic in design, is a monument of far-sighted phi- lanthropy, built in 1857 by the late Peter Cooper, at a cost of six hundred and thirty
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thousand dollars, and endowed by him with three hundred thousand dollars for the support of the library, free reading-room, and schools
COOPER UNION.
of art and science. The library, which is open between the hours of 8 A.M and IO P.M. on week days, and on Sundays, from October to May, from 12 M. to 9 P.M., contains a complete set of Patent-Office reports, about twenty thousand books, and the periodicals and news- papers of the day. An average of seventeen hundred persons daily patronize the reading- room, and the annual attendance at the even- ing schools is thirty-five hundred. Free pop- ular lectures are given Saturday evenings.
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A special art school is provided for women during the day, as well as classes in telegraphy, phonography, and typewriting. The large hall of this establishment, which is used for mass meetings, has been identified with almost every public movement since the erection of the building. Its walls have echoed to the clarion voices of Garrison, Beecher, Phillips, Sumner, Anna Dickinson, Lucretia Mott, and Abraham Lincoln,-on the occasion of his pres- idential campaign against Douglas, the "Little Giant of Illinois."
THE BIBLE HOUSE, just north of Cooper Union, contains the offices of the American Bible Society, an organization whose presses have printed the Bible in eighty languages.
THE SIXTY-NINTH REGIMENT ARMORY is over Tompkins Market, east of Cooper Union. The mention of this regiment still recalls to many minds one of the most harrowing sights of the Civil War, when after the battle of Bull Run, only three hundred members returned from that wholesale massacre, and these came hatless, coatless, and stockingless. The dis- tress of the women who discovered that their loved ones were missing, and the frantic eagerness with which the soldiers grasped their wives and children, is spoken of as a scene affecting in the extreme.
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TOMPKINS SQUARE .- From this point St. Mark's Place, or East 8th Street, leads to a pretty park which invites occupants of the tenement houses near by to enjoy the fresh air. Whatever may be the shortcomings of our mu- nicipal government no complaint can be made with regard to the floral display, for beautiful little patches of color, arranged with really artistic skill, adorn the public grounds in all parts of the city. In the park just mentioned a fine fountain and ample pond sustain such rare water-exotics as the lotus of Egypt and India, the Egyptian papyrus, South American pond-lilies, and many other varieties of water plants, all of which are catalogued on a sign- board. A band-stand, confectionery-booths, and plenty of benches, further indicate the com- fort given to the tired working people summer evenings.
THE WILSON INDUSTRIAL SCHOOL FOR GIRLS, which faces the park at the 8th Street corner, is an institution in which the Kitchen Garden System (little girls cooking and arrang- ing tables to a song accompaniment) is in practical operation. The matron of this estab- lishment, Miss Emily Huntington, is the founder of the system.
ST. MARK'S CHURCH .- From Cooper Union Stuyvesant Street leads the traveller past a
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quaint church edifice which was erected in 1793 by Trinity Corporation, the ground and four thousand dollars in money having been a gift from a great-grandson of Peter Stuyvesant. The remains of the Dutch governor are in- terred in a vault within the church, having been removed from the chapel which he had previously built upon the site of the present edifice. The original tablet on the outside of the eastern wall indicates his place of sepul- cher.
A graveyard surrounds St. Mark's, in which only flat stones mark the resting-place of the dead. From this place the remains of A. T. Stewart were stolen.
SECOND AVENUE .- The broad thoroughfare which cuts off Stuyvesant Street at this point is a portion of Second Avenue that was another fashionable quarter of the olden time, but is now largely occupied by medical and benevo- lent institutions.
THE NEW YORK HISTORICAL SOCIETY BUILDING at the southeastern corner of 11th Street and Second Avenue, is the receptacle of a large and valuable collection of historical curiosities. This society was organized in 1804 by prominent citizens; "For the collect- ing and preserving of whatever might relate to the natural, civil and ecclesiastical history
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of the United States in general, and the great and sovereign State of New York in particular." Material with which to form a "Museum of American Antiquities" was so rapidly secured as to necessitate several removals, until the present building was erected with accommoda- tions so spacious that the society enlarged the scope of its work and purchased valuable col- lections of foreign art, literature, and antiquity. These are now so numerous as to render the present building inadequate for their accom- modation, and it is discreditable to the city that so many old treasures should be hidden from the public for want of space, of cases to protect, custodians to exhibit, or catalogues to assist the investigator. The museum contains a large collection of rare pamphlets and manu- scripts relating to American history, news- papers, maps, autograph letters, coins, medals, a library of over two thousand volumes, the original portraits of fourteen Inca monarchs, with their names and the order of their succession, and some portraits of celebrated Indian chiefs. The original water-color pict- ures made by Audubon for his work on natural history are here; also the efforts of the early American artists, West, Allston, Stuart, Peale, Jarvis, Cole and others; and some specimens from the old masters, Raphael, Van Dyke,
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