USA > New York > New York City > New York panorama : a comprehensive view of the metropolis > Part 6
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50
HISTORY
city. Finally Lieutenant-Governor Colden turned the stamps over to 1 common council and they were put in the City Hall under care of the c watch. A few days later, the new governor, Sir Henry Moore, arrived a tried to placate the people by dismantling the fort and removing artill stores placed there by Major James.
Four years later, the New York assembly met and was asked by Cold to make provision for the king's troops. The assembly did so in rett for issue to it of £120,000 in paper currency. The people, whose opp( tion to supporting the troops had previously been manifested, saw in t measure a betrayal by their own assembly; and clashes occurred betwe the people, led by Sons of Liberty groups, and the soldiers.
When the Stamp Act of 1765 was repealed by Parliament in 1766 declaratory act was passed asserting Parliament's right to tax America. the basis of this declaratory act, duties were laid in 1767 on all pa paper, glass and tea imported into the colonies. In March 1770, th taxes were repealed, with the exception of that on tea, which was ma tained as evidence of Parliament's authority to tax the colonies. It openly opposed by merchants throughout the Dominion of New Engla but only Boston was selected for punishment because of such oppositi The admiration of many New York merchants for Boston's contini defiance of the tax resulted finally in the election on May 16, 1774, of P Committee of Fifty-One at Fraunces Tavern and the adoption of a re lution to help Boston.
On July 4, 1774, the committee nominated Philip Livingston, Jolt Alsop, Isaac Low, James Duane and John Jay as representatives to fer general congress of the colonies that the committee had proposed. Ts days later, the radical faction of the committee, dissatisfied with conser gr tive action, called a public meeting in what is now City Hall Park at passed stinging resolutions that resulted in withdrawal of II memb from the committee. The general congress of the colonies, held at Ph delphia early in September 1774, adopted the "Association," an ag! ! ment pledging the colonies to non-importation of British goods. T agreement was kept to the letter only by New York. fase
News of the battles of Lexington and Concord reached New York Sunday morning, April 23, 1775. Bands of citizens marched to the ( Hall, seized the government and confiscated all arms. A Committee of (s Hundred, chosen to bring order out of the existing chaos, was forced proceed cautiously because of the many loyalists, a large party of whited planned to turn the city over to the English. Repeated clashes betw ts
5I
TRADING-POST TO COSMOPOLIS
se loyalists and the patriots marked the very severe winter of 1775-76. Washington arrived in the city on April 13, 1776, fought the Battle of 1g Island, and fell back to a fortified camp on Brooklyn Heights, from ich he moved his forces to Manhattan on August 29. The English con- tration of a superior force threatened the Americans, who now evacu- I the city proper and entrenched themselves on territory along the Hud- at Washington Heights. The opposing forces clashed finally at the tle of Harlem Heights, fought over an area lying roughly between the sent Riverside and Morningside Drives, from 120th Street southward [03d Street. The English were defeated, but Washington did not have orce sufficient to dislodge them from the city, which they had occupied September 15, 1776, and which they held, under a military govern- at, for the next seven years.
On April 20, 1777, a representative convention at Kingston, N. Y., pted a constitution giving the choice of governor to the people for the time, George Clinton being elected in June and inaugurated July 30. Four years later, Lord Cornwallis surrendered at Yorktown; and after years of battling with an obstinate king, the definitive treaty of peace signed September 3, 1783, by the American commissioners and His jesty's Government.
During the English occupation of New York, a devastating fire de- yed about one-fourth of the city, September 21-3, 1776. But this dis- er was as nothing compared to the horror of the prison ships in Walla- at Bay and the makeshift prisons on land, in which some 12,000 erican prisoners of war, including 2,637 men left to garrison Fort shington and later captured, died as a result of being deprived of food grafting commissaries. Property belonging to royalists was marked and tected; all other was confiscated by the Crown. The city became a ref- for tories from all parts of the country. One of the most dramatic epi- es of the period was Nathan Hale's execution as a spy on September 1776.
Against the pleasant fact that no taxes were levied on the citizens (ex- ises were met by revenues from wharf-dues, tavern licenses, etc.) was unpleasant and unprecedented rise in the cost of living. Landlords in- used their rents as demand rose sharply, and some of the necessities of soared 800 percent above normal prices. These factors, together with disastrous fire of 1776 and the extremely severe winter of 1777, pro- ed a steady increase in poverty, which became one of the major prob- is faced by the British commandants during the occupation. Consider-
52 HISTORY
able damage was done to the churches of Dissenters, the military seiz and using them for prisons, stables, hospitals and storehouses.
Despite such conditions, the town was gay. Beach bathing, a little t ater on John Street, band concerts, and even bull-baiting served to k the tories and British officers amused. The outstanding social event 1 2e the visit of Prince William Henry, third son of the king, in 1781. He the first person of royal lineage to visit America.
The city's physical progress was remarkable considering the handic of the period. The population increased from about 12,000 in 1763 21,863 for city and county in 1771. New streets were opened and dew oped as the city grew to the northward at a rapid pace. More churc were built, including St. Paul's, the Brick Presbyterian, and the city's f Methodist Church. The Chamber of Commerce, designed to encourage dustry and trade, and the Marine Society, founded to promote maritill knowledge and to care for widows and orphans of sea captains, w formed in 1768. Two years later, New York Hospital was chartered, i though the fire of 1776 and the war prevented its actual operation a hospital until 1791.
On December 5, 1783, not a British flag remained in the harbor. A n nation had been born, and New York stood ready to enter upon an era growth and prosperity such as it had not yet enjoyed.
Reconstruction and Consolidation: 1783-1811
City, State and nation went through a period of adjustment and receive struction that began immediately after the treaty of peace was formaBu signed with England in 1783 and continued until the War of 1812. Des. ing the intervening years, decided progress was made in several direction
State matters concerned the legislature, which met in the city from Jill - uary 1784 to November 1796 (except for five sessions, held elsewheree Governors Clinton and Jay occupied the Government House, begun nm 1790 to house State and Federal officers. Legislative acts directly concert ing the city included the incorporation in 1784 of the "Regents of fiat University of the State of New York," this act changing the name King's College to Columbia College; the altering of ward designatick from names such as Dock, East, etc., to First, Second, etc .; the act of 17fut providing for gradual abolition of slavery throughout the State; and the petition of 1802 to construct a bridge across the East River, the first ps posal of its kind and one that was heartily ridiculed.
TRADING-POST TO COSMOPOLIS 53
Federal matters concerned the Congress, which met in New York City m its first session of January II, 1785, to August 30, 1790, when it ved to Philadelphia. After the adoption of the Constitution, Congress It for the first time under the terms of that instrument on March 4, 1789, Federal Hall, which stood on the site of the present Subtreasury build- 1. There, electors chose George Washington as first President on April [789, the inauguration taking place 24 days later on the balcony of Fed- q[ Hall. Washington's stay in New York was marked by gracious enter- ment, walks "round the Battery," long drives in the family coach with s. Washington and her two children, theater parties, and even a fishing , to Sandy Hook in 1790. The President also sat for the portraits by imbull and Savage that hang today in City Hall. 3
mportant religious developments took place in the city after passage by legislature in 1784 of an act allowing all religious bodies to be in- porated-an act as important to religious equality as the Declaration Independence to political freedom. The Catholics, who had been pro- Mited from exercising their form of worship in Great Britain and the onies, laid the cornerstone of St. Peter's, the first Roman Catholic rch in New York, on October 5, 1785, at the southeast corner of ra irch and Barclay Streets. Twenty-three years later, a Roman Catholic was created in New York. The first convention of the Protestant scopal Church in the State of New York was held here on June 22, 35, and this body was later organized as an independent branch of the ther church, just 90 years after Trinity Church had been chartered by evernor Fletcher.
nal Building activity began to increase greatly. In 1800, about 100 build- Das, half of them three-story structures, were under way. Seven years later, idfre new houses were built than in any previous year, while between 600 J. 700 dwellings and shops were begun in the spring of 1810.
er Between 1783 and 1812, commerce and industry suffered a serious np, then enjoyed a recovery, and subsequently went into another decline cent resulted in panic. In February 1784, the Empress of China sailed for f tatic waters flying the American flag that had been adopted in 1777- ie first American ship to set out for the Orient with those colors. The tick of New York was organized in 1784 as the city's first financial in- In ition; and the first fire insurance company was founded ten years later Itler the name of Mutual Assurance Company. In 1792, an agreement på: effected among stock brokers that later resulted in formation of the w York Stock Exchange, Prior to 1792, outdoor trading had been con-
54 HISTORY
ducted near a buttonwood tree that stood between Nos. 68 and 70 V Street.
The energies of the people were not, however, devoted entirely to c mercial adjustment and physical reconstruction. Amusements and sp occupied no little of their time, with theaters, pleasure gardens, circ and various other diversions vying for patronage.
Pleasure gardens were numerous. Best known were those owned Joseph de Lacroix, a French restaurateur, at No. 112 Broadway, wł ice cream and open-air concerts were featured; and at the Bayard Mans between Broadway and the Bowery just below the present Astor PI where private boxes under shade trees were the "ringside tables." Circu were great favorites. From 1786 to 1808, eight of them held forth. T featured exhibitions of horsemanship, grandiose stage spectacles, b. baiting and wild animal combats.
The sporting gentry had their fill too. On August 13, 1789, they sta a yacht race off Sandy Hook that was the forerunner of the present Am ca's Cup races. Horse-racing in Greenwich Lane, fox-hunting and (in ) vember and December of 1784) buffalo hunts with hounds, in which 1 lt falo brought from Kentucky were used, rounded out the sports of the da
Various societies that continue to this day were organized. The "Socar of Tammany or Columbian Order in the City of New York," establis in 1786 as a social and philanthropic organization, was developed into present political machine by a long line of astute leaders from Aaron H down to Charlie Murphy. It was not the first Tammany Society in United States, others having preceded it in Pennsylvania, Virginia New Jersey. Two other organizations formed at this time were the Mm York Academy of Fine Arts (1802) and the New York Historical Soch (1804).
The closing year of this period, 1811, was extremely important in city's history. On March 22, commissioners appointed in 1807 to lay streets, roads and public squares submitted their report. With it they tra mitted a map drawn in triplicate by John Randel, Jr., from surveys m by him for the commissioners. One of the originals of that map, the n important of its kind in the entire history of New York, hangs today the great Public Library at Forty-Second Street and Fifth Avenue, its fat ink marking the end of little old New York and the beginning of a gta metropolis.
The plan of 1811 divided the greater part of Manhattan Island in rectangular blocks separated by north and south avenues 100 feet wide, ;die
TRADING-POST TO COSMOPOLIS 55
it and west cross streets laid out to 155th Street. Avenues that could be ended to Harlem were designated by ordinal numbers, from First at east to Twelfth at the west; with four short avenues, A, B, C and D, at of First Avenue.
Squares and other open spaces included Bloomingdale Square, from ty-Third to Fifty-Seventh Streets, between Eighth and Ninth Avenues; milton Square, from Sixty-Sixth to Sixty-Eighth Streets, between Third 1 Fifth Avenues; Manhattan Square, from Seventy-Seventh to Eighty- st Streets, between Eighth and Ninth Avenues; Harlem Marsh, from 6th to 109th Streets, between the East River and Fifth Avenue; and Har- Square, from 117th to 12Ist Streets, between Sixth and Seventh Av- Ties.
Like nearly all attempts to effect improvement, the plan of 1811 aroused customary chorus of opposition from self-appointed defenders of the people's rights." Fortunately, the courts sustained the commissioners, and haphazard community now began to develop along the lines of a nned system of thoroughfares that persists, basically, to this day.
It was in this period of adjustment and reconstruction that De Witt Anton began a distinguished public career in city and state that covered but a quarter of a century. Graduated in 1786 from Columbia College, was appointed mayor of New York in 1803 and served ten terms in out office during the ensuing years to 1815. Then, in the period from #17 to 1828, he served two terms as governor of the State. Although his ne is most prominently associated with the development of early inland ¿terways, notably the Erie Canal, Clinton was a pioneer participant in Mmerous other important activities. He was the first president of the So- ty for Establishing a Free School in the City of New York (later the blic School Society), the Literary and Philosophical Society of New rk, the American Academy of Fine Arts and the Institution for the lief of the Deaf and Dumb. He died at Albany on February 10, 1828.
e War of 1812
m
Work on the commissioners' plan of 1811 was interrupted in 1812 by declaration of war against England on June 18, various diplomatic asures employed by President Jefferson having failed to stop both the ench and English policy of search and seizure of American ships and the pressment of their crews. New York City's part in the war consisted efly in supplying men and money for the erection of fortifications to
56 HISTORY
defend the harbor. In addition, New York was prominent in fitting privateers that preyed on British commerce and naval forces, the city's tivities in this respect being second only to those of Baltimore.
Of especial interest during these years was the development of stea boat navigation. As McMaster points out, there were no steamboats c side New York at this time, "but such was the commercial importance that city that eight found employment in administering to the wants a ES COL wa conveniences of its citizens." One of those who helped to make possi that development was Cadwallader D. Colden, grandson of an Engl ke tar tic Jasi Du colonial governor and himself mayor of New York for three terms, 1818-21. It was Colden who in 1812 acted as attorney for Robert Fult and his associates before the common council, and secured an extension Fulton's contract with the city, thus assuring the success of the Steam B. Ferry Company and the subsequent expansion of steamboat navigatie"; Later, after Colden had become mayor, he evidenced his interest in bu other important public problem by presenting to the common council Rd ert Macomb's idea of bringing water to the city from Rye Pond. Aured though the Macomb plan was not carried out, it served to stimulate de cussion of this and other schemes that led to definite action some tiand decades later. Colden's Memoir of the Canal Celebration is one of the bath contemporary accounts of the ceremonies in New York in 1825 when tarte Erie Canal was completed.
Also important in this period was the establishment in 1812 of teten State's public school system and the refusal of the Free School Socie jew which controlled practically all of New York City's non-sectarian eleme en tary education, to submit to administration by the State authorities, thou; M
it accepted its share of school funds from the State. Not until many yea
thereafter did the city's public schools become a part of the State syster
Material Prosperity and Civic Lethargy: 1815-1841
The end of the War of 1812 marked the opening of a burst of corn2, mercial activity. Imports, which had been seriously curtailed for severly years, now flooded the port of New York. So huge was the total that, aftt merchants' demands were met, many cargoes of goods were sold direct bee to the consumer. This resulted in cutting off the market for the merchant let running citizens into debt for purchases far beyond their means, and tl I collapse of home industries developed during the past decade to repladig
ren
the
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ports e of AT6, But Les be ven-[
TRADING-POST TO COSMOPOLIS 57
ports from Europe. Hard times set in, and the winter of 1815-16 was se of great suffering. Soup kitchens spread rapidly, until by March I, 16, they were feeding between 6,000 and 7,000 persons.
But the depression soon passed. The famous Black Ball and other packet tes began their sailings to Europe, South America and the Indies. The ven-million-dollar canal system connecting New York with the interior is completed in 1825. Steam railroad transporation within and out of the y was initiated and expanded. Such improvements, coupled with an eager arket for imports on the one hand and home products now protected by e tariff of 1816 on the other, resulted in unprecedented business activity, rticularly as the flood of immigration was swiftly creating a shortage in using and other related fields.
Duties collected on imports ran as high as ten million dollars in one ar; merchants from all parts of the country came to New York to trans- t business; about 1,500 mercantile houses are said to have been estab- hed in the first half of 1825; and hotel and transportation revenues ared. Twelve banks with a combined capital of 13 millions and ten ma- he insurance companies capitalized at ten millions were inadequate to ndle the enormous business in their fields; and applications were made the legislature for 27 more bank charters and 31 other corporation arters, the new companies having a total capitalization of 371/2 million llars. Even the nationwide financial panic of 1837 failed to have an tended effect on the upswing. By 1841, the 185 commercial failures in ew York, the attendant riots, and the suspension by banks of specie pay- ents were fairly well in the background, and the boom was on again.
Meanwhile, civic pride was crying aloud in the wilderness of commercial enzy. Pauperism was plentiful at the lower end of the economic scale. he liquor traffic was running riot, the newly opened almshouse being xed to the limit by many who spent their relief allowances in the 1,900 ensed grog shops and 600 other sources of supply in the city. A housing ortage was created by the population increase from 96,373 in 1810 to $2,710 in 1840, facilities being so inadequate that the universal moving y of May I found people gathered with their goods in the park or lodged the jail until their unfinished houses could be made ready. Building was eedily and poorly done; sanitary measures were secondary to swift com- etion.
Deep-seated antagonisms of native or naturalized Americans toward im- igrants began to be manifested in riots and mob violence. Revision of
58
HISTORY
the charter in 1834 and consequent direct election of the mayor produ in Tammany an overnight affection for these immigrants, who soon ( covered that he who giveth on election day taketh away on all others. Tir inevitable reaction on the part of these thousands of newcomers was eitold cynicism or apathy toward municipal affairs. Thus, with those at the test of the social structure interested primarily in economic rather than ci Ch gains, and with the others antagonistic or indifferent, civic pride went war the wind.
Streets were filthy and in poor repair. The great fire that broke out an December 15, 1835, consuming more than 600 buildings at a loss of abdest 17 million dollars, demonstrated the utter inadequacy of the fire-fighti kast personnel and equipment. This fire destroyed the heart of the busin Ene section and nearly all of the old Dutch town that had survived the film of 1776 and 1778. More than 17 city blocks were laid waste in wic streets east of Broadway and south of Wall Street, and not until buildit av in the path of the fire were blown up was it checked. Nearly all of the in insurance companies were bankrupted by this disaster. Policing, performs by the unemployed, was too inefficient to cope with the riots of 1833-4cm The inadequate wells and pumps that provided the only available drinkil water were responsible for four epidemics between 1818 and 1834. initial scourge of yellow fever had scarcely died down when the dre po disease reappeared on an even wider scale in 1822. Then a third occur in 1823, thousands fleeing the city and remaining away until November Nine years later, cholera swept the city, killing 3,500 persons in 105 da In
Early in the 19th century, an English visitor to New York had p ticularly noted "the colored people, the custom of smoking segars in thut streets (even followed by some of the children), and the number als nuisance of the pigs permitted to be at large." By 1837, the scene has changed considerably.
One hundred years ago, about one-sixth of Manhattan was compacte covered with houses, stores and paved streets, the rest being given ovon to farms and gardens. Broadway, extending for three miles from the B. lo tery to the junction of Fifth Avenue and Twenty-Third Street, was stall the finest thoroughfare. Houses were mostly of brick, two to six story or high. Of the 60-odd hotels, only three were operated on the Europe fre plan, with rates ranging from $2 to $3.50 weekly, while the rest offer-n board and lodging on the American plan for from $1 to $2.50 a day. (de the five theaters, the Park, in Park Row, was the oldest, largest and mode fashionable; box seats cost $I, admission to the "pit" was 50 cents and co,
59
TRADING-POST TO COSMOPOLIS
de gallery 25 cents. Other places of fashionable resort included the Bat- y; Castle Garden, which had been ceded by the United States to the y in 1823 and had served since as a place of public entertainment; and blo's Garden, at the corner of Broadway and Pine Street, one of the st frequented spots during the summer months.
Churches numbered about 150 in 1837, the Presbyterians leading with and the Episcopalians ranking second with 29. Educational facilities re surprisingly good for the time. Columbia College, on the site unded by Murray, Barclay, Church and Chapel Streets, and the Uni- rsity of the City of New York, on the east side of Washington Square, nstituted the principal non-sectarian institutions of higher learning. The eneral Theological Seminary of the Protestant Episcopal Church, at the tner of Ninth Avenue and Twenty-First Street, and the New York Theo- gical Seminary of the Presbyterian Church, on Wooster Street above averly Place, were two of the leading sectarian schools. Labor had its n Mechanics' School, established in 1820 by the General Society of echanics and Tradesmen to educate children of deceased or unfortunate embers. Public schools maintained by the Public School Society totaled , of which eight were for Negroes; the enrollment exceeded 12,000 ite and 1,000 colored pupils. In addition, there were several private hools and seminaries. The press had expanded rapidly beyond the seven ily, five semi-weekly and five weekly newspapers of 1817. In 1837, the Ny had more than 50 newspapers.
In 1837, Philip Hone, who had been mayor in 1826-27 and was one the city's leading social and political figures, built a new house at the utheast corner of Broadway and Great Jones Street, and there continued as diary, begun in 1828 and regularly maintained until almost the day of his death in 1851. This diary constitutes a record unrivalled in its field, its ore than two million words being the most complete contemporary pic- dre of a period in which its author played a prominent role. Politically, one's real importance, as Allan Nevins has pointed out, "was as a coun- llor and agent of the great Whig leaders-of Webster, Clay, Seward, tallmadge, and Taylor. No man had a greater influence with the New bork merchants." Apart from his political activity, he served as an officer, rector, or trustee of many business, social welfare and civic organiza- ns. In these other posts, he contributed steadily to the development of de city he loved, and through his diary he recorded and often interpreted de growth of that city from about 200,000 population to more than $0,000.
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