New York panorama : a comprehensive view of the metropolis, Part 4

Author:
Publication date: 1938
Publisher: New York : Random House
Number of Pages: 630

USA > New York > New York City > New York panorama : a comprehensive view of the metropolis > Part 4

Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).

gThe bold escarpment of the Palisades, the most striking surface feature he New York area, gives the Hudson a world-wide reputation for Ineic majesty. The cliffs are formed of a volcanic rock, 350-1,000 feet orpik, and rise to 700 feet. The vertical columns, developed during the Huking stage of the rock, suggested the ridge's name. The skeleton of a ant saur that looked rather like a crocodile was uncovered at the foot of € Palisades. Jerseyite or not, he was christened Rutiodon manhat- insansis.

owith the exception of the Palisades, the New Jersey terrain near New jest City is low-lying and marshy, as motorists crossing the Pulaski Sky- exta can testify. A large lake-Lake Hackensack-occupied the region be-

30 NATURAL SETTING

low the Passaic River and west of the Hudson during the retreat of last glacier. The Newark Lowland is a plain developed on inclined w strata consisting of red sandstones and shales of Triassic rocks. Intru: sheets of resultant volcanic rock form prominent residual ridges, such the Palisades and the Watchung Mountains.

Queens is sharply divided into North Shore (on the Sound) and Sc Shore (on the ocean) by northerly hills running the length of L Island. Flushing Meadow Park, chosen for the site of the 1939 Wor Fair, is a filled-in marsh used for years as a city dump. On the south sł there is much made land. In the northeastern sector, the glacial mar; and outwash channels are particularly plain. The outermost margins, 1 fronting on the East River and the Sound, were once the shores of Atlantic Ocean. Little Neck Hill-266.48 feet in elevation-betw Alley Pond Park and the Nassau County line, is the highest point Queens. West of this point, Alley Pond Park includes, besides the A Pond, a flourishing bird sanctuary hospitable to quail, pheasants, Canal geese, pelicans and heron.

In Brooklyn, large areas of Flatlands, Greenpoint, Williamsburg Red Hook have been raised above sea level. With the exception of Brooklyn Heights bluff, and the morainic belt under parts of Greenw Cemetery, Prospect Park and the site of the Brooklyn Museum, Brool is extremely flat. Unlike the terminal moraine on Staten Island, the rainic knobs and kettle holes in Brooklyn and Queens constitute the i conspicuous topographical feature. This has largely determined, in choice of sites for parks, cemeteries and railway beds, the developmen the two boroughs. To the south is a glacial outwash visible a little al sea level. This terminal moraine, marking the southern boundary of glacier, extends in a semicircle from Cape Cod to Seattle.

The rounded hills on Staten Island, rising from the harbor and Kill Kull, extend in a northeast-southwest chain 300-380 feet high and ar serpentine rock. At Richmond, in the center of the island, they disap under the Fresh Kill Meadows. Morainic hills drop into the sea at Pril (or Princess) Bay, near Tottenville, at the southwestern corner of island. Innumerable boulders are scattered along the desolate shore of Kill van Kull; and in the southwestern part of Staten Island t are sand dunes, marshland and much loneliness. Between the moraine the flatlands the sea wind sweeps over pools of fresh water, patche cedars, deserted houses and ragged acres of weed and brush betweer. farmlands. Todt Hill, 409.239 feet above sea level, is one of the hig

HABITAT MAP

vations on the Atlantic Coast between Maine and Florida; but there is oint on Long Island-High Hill, near Huntington-approximately as h.

mate

New York's annual mean temperature is about 50 degrees Fahrenheit, ch coincides pretty closely with that of Paris, London and Berlin. But 'emes, sudden variations and strong winds make the climate a bit trying trangers. A drop of 20 degrees in a few hours is not uncommon. The ther's inconstancy is aggravated by the high average rainfall of Atlantic its in the United States-nearly double that of Europe's metropolises. thermore, one year's weather may be extremely unlike the next.

Autumn is perhaps the preferred season. Late September rains are likely e soon over, and one may reasonably count on a prolonged spell of ly settled weather, clear skies and a mellow Indian summer. Late ong, with its patches of green poignantly concentrated in the city's "mures, is lovely and poetic. For that matter, even during the bridge- anding stress of July and the muggy dog days of August, when shirt- en Bro the the Eved millions sit panting on the stoops, there are New Yorkers (not all of town either ) who will rise to assert that their city is the best summer srt in the world. Heat waves are often caused by what is termed the tmuda High"-an area of high air pressure over Bermuda which sends Lan humid air to the Atlantic seaboard. The official record is 102.3 de- mees, recorded on July 9, 1936. It was during this heat wave that the le tavbridge across the Harlem River expanded and couldn't be closed, halt- y ogtraffic for several hours. Changes in temperature cause the roadway of George Washington Bridge to flex like a bow, producing up-and-down Kuntions of as much as six feet at its midmost point. e

ad the lowest temperature ever recorded was 14 degrees below zero on disa l'uary 9, 1934. The great blizzard of 1888 is still a favorite topic among Pior New Yorkers. The blizzard's fury caught the city unprepared, for er Cher Government nor individual weather prophets (not even the man re o made predictions exclusively for the Herald ) foretold the approach of nd estorm. It began on Sunday night, March II, in the form of a heavy rain lashed by wind. Shortly before midnight the rain changed to hail and atdettemperature fell, while the bruit of the gale increased until the wind twera zooming at 60 miles an hour. Dry snow followed the hail, driven in he Hiding clouds. All day Monday the storm continued. Traffic practically

NATURAL SETTING

ceased. Many persons who braved the outdoors were later found frozen death. Monday night was the wildest and darkest the city has ever perienced. Chimneys, windows, awnings, fences were blown down. until 6 A.M. on Tuesday did the snow stop, the wind abate. In some pl drifts completely covered street lamps and street cars. A week elapsed fore the first train got through from Philadelphia. Another blizzard 1920, not quite so severe, brought great hardship and financial loss.

New York Harbor is remarkably free of fog; but during cold sp ice floes in the Hudson lodge against the piers, and in 1934 and 1935 1 interfered seriously with shipping. The average velocity of the wind the city is 15 miles an hour, stronger than in other important Amer cities. The heaviest gale ever recorded in New York whipped the city February 22, 1912: velocity 96 miles an hour. A storm which swept Atlantic coast late in 1932 brought a swarm of Arctic birds, called dovel and dashed many of them against the skyscrapers. Thousands were fo all over the city, their limp bodies draped on telephone wires, in streets, on the lakes and lawns of the parks. In 1878 a cyclone brou sooty terns-tropic birds from the West Indies and the Caribbean. S F of them were found alive at Lake Ronkonkoma, Long Island.

Animals, Trees and Flowers

Close-packed blocks of buildings and teeming mankind haven't ex minated all native plant and animal life in the metropolitan area. M species of wild birds nest in the five boroughs. In Central Park, altho the number is now declining, 168 varieties have recently been noted Prospect Park, 200 species. There are 15,148 acres of park land wi the city, for plant and animal conservation, including six bird sanctua. two of them in Central Park. Geese, pelicans and herons are among species protected. The Staten Island reservation comprises 51 hea wooded acres, a salt marsh for waterfowl, and a strip of dense underbi for quail, pheasants and similar species. Nut trees in the parks attract c munks and red and gray squirrels. A few snakes are around too, harm hog-nose and garter snakes, though occasionally a rattler or a copperł turns up along the Palisades. In the outlying districts you may start rabbit, or vice versa. Lizards are fairly common, and the ponds and stre breed salamanders, frogs and turtles.

The pollution of the Upper Bay and the North and East Rivers doe stop countless would-be fishermen from fishing; but in the waters of St:

HABITAT MAP

snd, Pelham Bay and the Sound more than 60 kinds of fresh and salt ver fish, some edible, are actually caught. Occasionally, perhaps, even a nhattan pier fisherman may catch something-more than likely a hook- y shad, once abundant in the Hudson. Ellis Island was earlier called ster Island because of the fine oysters plentiful thereabouts ; and oysters, Ins, crabs, lobsters and eels, as well as such curiosities as starfish, sea- kses and jellyfish, can still be taken inside the city limits.

Within 50 miles, more than 247 species of fish exclusive of those below h 25-fathom level have been caught. Sand and brown sharks are common nhis latitude. Females of the latter variety enter the bays in midsummer ogive birth to their young. The true tropical man eater or white shark Ha been taken in this vicinity only once. In the early years of the 18th ecury sharks so infested the East River around the Catherine Slip Market h: men were hired to catch them from the dock. Sam Way, one of the e: with a handline, often got as many as seven a day, 14 feet or more in egth (the story, no doubt, was a good deal longer than the fish).

few people would believe that there are still more trees in New York n buildings, but there are-more than a million of them, nearly all be- ging to the city. There'd be more if it were not for leaky gas mains n reckless motorists, chief causes-in Manhattan at least-of tree mortal- Horses used to kill city trees by eating the bark. In the 17th century, In, pear and cherry trees grew wild in the woods. In the middle of the et century the streets were shaded by beech, elm, locust and lime trees, nicized by visitors as offering homes for tree-toads, whose "clamorous d'es" stirred their ire. Remnants of the primitive woods survive in the gares and parks, along the streets and in outlying sections such as Forest is in Queens, the Edenwald section of the Bronx, and on Staten Island. virgin Hemlock Forest in Bronx Park, containing about 3,000 trees, articularly notable.

he majority of New York's trees, however, are foreign varieties- tly planes, and stock from earlier imports of Norwegian and Japanese les. Poplars, once so common, are forbidden now. They require plenty fvater, and to get it a poplar sometimes drives its roots into sewers and ær mains. For some reason, Chinese trees seem best able to endure New ck's soot. The ailanthus, or Chinese tree of heaven, is locally called dl: backyard tree."

Lay spice and button bush-swamp shrubs-frequently are used by Ilscape gardeners for their beautiful, fragrant blooms. Holly, not gen- ly found so far north, grows wild on a few spots of vacant land, par-

Str

n h

NATURAL SETTING

ticularly on Staten Island. Dogwood, its white blossoms made inviolat city ordinance, is common in the outskirts of town; and bayberry, gathered by housewives who perfumed linen with its leaves and mou candles from its berry wax, grows on many sandy spots. The laurel, w. bud-clusters break into pink bloom toward the end of June, is fairly ( mon. Flowers still manage to grow in vacant lots and on rooftops, not in the Gardens of the Nations at Rockefeller Center. Wooded or b; spots sometimes conceal lady slippers. Where leaf mould is thick and the Indian pipe lifts its pallid stalk and bowl. Cardinal flowers ap along a few shaded streams. Numerous other blooms may be fc throughout the warm months by watchful botanists.

There are about 19,000 horses in New York-as many as there were. The milk companies and others find it more economical to stic the hoofbeats-at-dawn tradition. (Stories about milk horses, who get al a good deal at night, crop up time and again in the city's folk hum New York has something like 300,000 dogs and 500,000 cats. The nur. of rats and mice and cockroaches must be empirically reckoned.

Some kinds of birds-pigeon, sparrow, gull and chimney swift-1 learned new habits and are much at home even downtown. (Loose: Central Park in 1863 were 14 sparrows, the first imported from Eur They increased rapidly and were so well liked that swanky dwellings built for them in the parks. Many people also kept them in their home pets. ) Bats also persist and thrive downtown. An occasional butt pirouettes through Wall Street's canyon, nor do the towers of fin. deter the ant from building his sandhill. In fact, insects-beetles and 1 bugs and caterpillars-do pretty well downtown, all things considered.

Fantastic Metropolis

IEW OF MID-MANHATTAN FROM THE 67TH FLOOR OF ROCKEFELLER

--- 3

& Đáp

-----

ENTER

---

ERECTED BY. JOHN WATTS DE PEYSTER TH GENERATION IN DIRECT DESCENT, RESIDENT OF, AND GIM BORN IN IN WARD. CITY OF NEW YORK

OLD ABRAHAM DE PEYSTER IN THE MIDST OF SKYSCRAPERS

ESTEE

+42048

-------

.....

... .....

bore: WEATHERBEATEN FISHING BOATS MOORED TO THE PIERS OF OUTH STREET, THE OLD "STREET O' SHIPS"

elow: THE ARCHITECTURAL GIANTS OF 42ND STREET RISING BEYOND T. GABRIEL'S PARK

PATTERN OF A CITY ON THE FABRIC OF NIGHT

BUSY EXECUTIVES IN ROCKEFELLER CENTER CAN ENJOY THE QUIET BEAUTY OF ROOF GARDENS, HIGH ABOVE FIFTH AVENUE TRAFFIC

DE PINNA

OLD TRINITY CHURCH AT THE HEAD OF WALL STREET

ر.

٣٢ -

٢٨AL

بتـ

FFFFFFFFFREEFR

[. HISTORY

L 482088

Trading-Post to Cosmopolis

HE HISTORY of New York has been primarily influenced by its physi- situation on a great harbor at the mouth of a great river. Linked to the ding bent and activities of the early settlers, this led almost inevitably to e creation of a commercial metropolis made up of people from every untry in the world.

New York has contributed substantially to the nation of which it is the eatest city. It has long dominated American commerce and finance; and has been the gateway through which millions of immigrants have passed other parts of the country after first receiving their baptism in American eals and opportunities.

A great number of immigrants remained, and they were joined by people om all sections of the United States. These two groups constituted and ll constitute New York. They are the brains and the brawn that have eated a commercial empire in which the cultural phases of life have not en neglected during the long struggle upward from trading post to smopolis.

fore the White Man

The builders of that cosmopolis were preceded by three groups of Al- nquian Indians. On Manhattan Island-which constituted New York ty until 1874-the Indians were neither a great nor a rich people. They isted in some 94 communities housing several thousand people, where cy lived in fear of powerful enemies who had driven them to the sea d were levying tribute from them. Huddled together for safety, their istence was precarious and primitive. They achieved no particularly out- nding qualities.

Such living conditions had apparently existed for several generations fore the appearance of even the earliest explorers, and it is not im- obable that the Indians may have welcomed the Dutch as they did be-

HISTORY

cause they were thinking of a possible alliance against brutal foes am( their own people. Whatever the motive, it is a matter of record that t. never turned on the white man until he turned on them. For years t. carried on a fairly extensive trade with the Dutch and English, this c structive phase of their relationship being marred, unfortunately, by illicit traffic in rum that developed later, particularly in the Dutch peri and taxed the ability and patience of more than one provincial administ tion.

Discovery and Exploration: 1524-1609

More than a century before that situation arose, the Indians had come contact with an early explorer of New York's magnificent harbor. In 15 85 years before Hudson's failure to find the northeast passage to Orient's riches had turned him westward along our shores, Giovanni Verrazano, an Italian explorer serving the King of France, visited lower and upper bays. In May of the following year, Estéban Gómez Portuguese navigator representing the Emperor Charles V of Spain, probably in the vicinity of New York, but his explorations, like those Verrazano, failed to result in Spanish activity here. The rest of the Id century, according to Stokes, "was a period of myth and mystery so far the neighborhood of Manhattan Island was concerned."

With the advent of the 17th century, the first of the great Dutch tres ing companies, which created in 50 years a world empire comparable to British Empire, was organized. Formation of this and similar compani in the midst of war with Spain, was the result of the need for new sour and new markets to serve Dutch trade.

On April 25, 1607, the Dutch became masters of the sea by defeatif the Spanish fleet at Gibraltar; and on January 8, 1609, the Dutch E India Company contracted with Henry Hudson, an English explorer-f hire, to find a new route to the Indies by way of the northeast, around northern coast of Russia and Siberia. Hudson failed to find that passa Instead, for reasons much too confused to be considered historically liable, he turned west and rounded what is now Sandy Hook on Septem !! 2, 1609. Nine days later, he had moved into the Upper Bay of New Yor present harbor, from which base his explorations up the river convind him that a passage to the Orient was impossible in that direction. October 4, 1609, he passed out of sight of Sandy Hook on his way hor.

TRADING-POST TO COSMOPOLIS 37

chief contribution being explorations of the harbor's lower and upper HA's and of the river named after him.

He was followed by a ship sent to the Hudson in 1610 by several sterdam merchants. Little is known about this ship, which some authori- ; believe was commanded by Hendrick Christiaensen, who, according to Dutch historian Wassenaer, was the first after Hudson to sail the river 1 is known as the most active skipper in numerous voyages to the Hud- 1 during 1610-16, his career being cut short in 1616 when he was led by an Indian at Fort Nassau on Castle Island, near what is now Al- ly. In 1612, Christiaensen entered into a partnership with Adriaen ck, and the two visited the Hudson in a ship captained by one Ryser. 1613, this partnership was apparently well established, Christiaensen ring command of the Fortune and Block being in charge of the Tiger. The Tiger burned in New Netherland early in 1614 and was replaced the Onrust or, as the word is usually translated, the Restless. One hority is of the opinion that the Tiger burned in the neighborhood of nhattan Island, and that the Restless was built on or in the vicinity of island; another maintains that both events occurred not far from Al- ly. In any event, it is known that the Restless passed through Hellegat ell Gate), and that Block made important discoveries along the New gland coast.

Block's major contribution to exploration was his map of 1614. The ginal was lost, but an anonymous Dutch copy, the so-called "Figurative sp" of 1614, is still preserved in the archives of the States-General at e Hague. On this map, the name of New Netherland appears for the t time, and Manhattan Island is also represented for the first time as an nd, thus indicating the thoroughness of Block's explorations. One rt and two maps had preceded Block's in the early 17th century; but was by far the most accurate of its time, and it contributed greatly to own and other subsequent explorations in 1614-16. E

Evidence has been offered, but no definite proof established, to support theory that the "pretended Dutch governor" seen on Manhattan Island 1613 by Samuel Argall, an English explorer, was Block. Though doubt y exist as to this claim, there can be no question that Block laid the ndations for exploration by Dutch adventurers in 1612-14 which led the granting of the United New Netherland Company's charter in 1614. During the next 12 years, several more or less unproductive voyages to New World, and the formation of other trading companies, preceded

ist

5 1

HISTORY

the first real settlement on Manhattan Island. On June 3, 1621, the Dut West India Company, formed to weaken Spain's military and commerc powers, was granted a monopoly that superseded all others in Ameri Three years later, it sent out its first colony, which arrived at the mot of the Hudson River in May 1624 and proceeded upstream to Alba No settlement was made on Manhattan Island. A second contingent, cluding cattle, arrived in April 1625. The cattle were first landed on wl is now Governors Island and then moved to Manhattan, where some of 1 colonists remained only a very short time before proceeding with the cat to Albany to join the first company. The stay of this group on Manhatt Island was merely a stop-over; there still was no real settlement on 1 island.

The Era of Dutch Control: 1626-1664

Hudson's explorations in 1609 had given the Dutch an exploratory ti to the territory, so that the Dutch period dates technically from 1609. I what was later to become New York was not established as a perman settlement until Peter Minuit, third governor-general of the Dutch W India Company, landed in New Netherland on May 4, 1626, attempt to settle on Governors Island, and then moved to Manhattan. From tl time until September 8, 1664, when the town and its fort were forma surrendered to the English, the city of New Amsterdam was under Dul control.

New Amsterdam was originally one of several trading posts in N. Netherland. This latter was a province organized and controlled by . Dutch trading company deriving its charter from the States-General of th Netherlands. Unlike various English provinces, New Netherland's bour aries were not specifically defined with respect to its field of operationget Instead, the province was composed of a rather loose association of tradi. posts. There were three on the Hudson River, three on the Delawap River, and one on the Connecticut at Fort Hope. Several of these preced the permanent settlement of New Amsterdam on the lowest point ke Manhattan Island. New Amsterdam eventually became the governmen, and commercial center of New Netherland.

The date of the settlement of New Amsterdam and the details regardi it are highly controversial. It is certain, however, that the first known sett ment on a permanent basis was not undertaken until after the arrival Peter Minuit's group. They found, according to one authority, a site p.

TRADING-POST TO COSMOPOLIS

red at the lower end of Manhattan Island, where a blockhouse was being ilt. That unfinished blockhouse was the beginning of what later became rt Amsterdam.

The history of Fort Amsterdam is a story of continual struggle on the tt of Dutch governors-general and citizens to create adequate defenses spite the glaring neglect of the settlement by the Dutch West India Com- ny and the States-General of Holland. At no time did it constitute a 1 defense. Begun in 1626, and almost completely rebuilt ten years later, was crumbling away in 1646. In 1647, Peter Stuyvesant, seventh gov- ior-general, noted that it resembled "more a mole hill than a fortress, thout gates, the walls and bastions trodden under foot by men and tle." In 1650, it did not have "one gun carriage or one piece of cannon a suitable frame or on a good platform." Fourteen years later, it was useless from a defensive standpoint that it could not resist the English n-of-war in the harbor and thus prevent surrender to the English. ithin its poorly constructed walls were the governor-general's house, a uble-roofed church with a square tower, barracks, prison, whipping st and gallows. There was no well or cistern.

In 1626, Peter Minuit bought Manhattan Island from the Indians for guilders, or about $24. This transaction was carried out according to in- uctions by the Dutch West India Company in Holland to Willem Ver- Ist, second governor-general and Minuit's predecessor. Knives, beads and kets constituted the "money" used.

This period of Dutch control falls quite naturally into two major divi- ns: pre-Stuyvesant and Stuyvesant. Before that colorful character's ap- intment as governor-general on July 28, 1646, and his arrival at New Masterdam on May II, 1647, six governors-general in succession had sluggled with the new colony's problems, the administration of William Heft (1637-46) being the longest in those first 22 years of New Nether- id's history.

Prior to Kieft, the material progress of the company's colonial venture not justified the more than $165,000 that had been poured into it. Heft did not improve matters. His administration was marked by the body and expensive Indian War of 1643-45, which occurred as a result his bellicose attitude toward the natives and his unwarranted slaughter a number of them in February 1643. Other events of his regime in- ded the granting of a large tract of land to spur tobacco growing; a itiny among the garrison at Fort Amsterdam and its suppression; the fuance on May 10, 1640, of the first militia regulations, whereby all men

Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.

New York panorama : a comprehensive view of the metropolis, Part 4

Author: Publication date: 1938 Publisher: New York : Random House Number of Pages: 630

Author:
Publication date: 1938
Publisher: New York : Random House
Number of Pages: 630