USA > New York > Bronx County > The Bronx and its people; a history, 1609-1927, Volume I > Part 34
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the first Commissioner of Street Improvements, as far back as 1890; but the preliminaries were not completed and ground broken until October 1, 1902, and the Concourse was not officially opened until November 24, 1909. There are residents of The Bronx who claim that when it is completed it will be the most magnificent boulevard in the world.
Transportation on Land-In colonial days everybody rode on horse- back and this was the usual method of getting from place to place. The women rode on a pillion behind a man, the pillion being a pad, or addi- tional saddle, behind the regular saddle, upon which the woman sat comfortably and safely, as she could hold on to the rider in front, as well as have a stirrup by which to steady herself. Many of the horses were of fine breed, and the wealthy gentlemen kept horses for hunting and racing. Some of the well-to-do had a coach and four with liveried footmen and outriders, and so traveled in great style, even if not in much comfort on account of the badness of the roads. In his tale of Satanstoe, Cooper describes the arrival in New York of Patroon Van Rensselaer of Albany, and how the whole younger popula- tion, and a good many of their elders, went out to the Bowery Lane to see the great landowner come into town in his big travelling coach. A two-wheeled, springless gig or carriage was the usual vehicle of the farmer when not riding on horseback. The country doctor made his rounds on horseback, carrying his instruments and drugs in saddlebags.
There were no regular mails before 1673, though letters were carried by travelers or by special messengers. In that year, Governor Francis Lovelace authorized the establishment of a monthly post between New York and Boston in order to increase the intercourse between the two colonies. The postman was a sworn messenger, and was required to direct travelers who might choose to accompany him to the best roads and the most commodious stopping-places; he also was to select the most convenient places for leaving letters and packets and for gathering up the same. He was obliged to make the round trip within a month. This scheme of Governor Lovelace did not succeed, and so the first mail route was abandoned after a short trial. It was revived by Gover- nor Dongan in 1685, and a charge of three pence was fixed for carrying a letter one hundred miles or less, and for a greater distance propor- tionately. In 1698 there was a regular weekly post to and from Boston. In 1704 Mrs. Sarah Knight made the journey and she has left lively impressions of her experiences and the dangers that beset her. In 1708 Lord Cornbury writes: "From Boston there is a Post by which we can hear once a week in summer, and once a fortnight in winter." In 1754 Benjamin Franklin was made Postmaster General of the colo-
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nies, and the post was established weekly, both in winter and summer, and letters which left Philadelphia on Monday morning reached Boston on Saturday night. The post-riders were reliable men, and they had to be as they often carried large sums of money.
In the early days the mails were carried on horseback and travelers followed the same method of travel, or used a private carriage; but in July, 1772, Jonathan and Nicholas Brown, of New York, established a stage-coach between New York and Boston. The trip at first was made every fortnight, but the enterprise met with so much encourage- ment that before long two and three trips were made each week. The fare was 4d New York, or 3d lawful, money per mile, and baggage was carried at a reasonable rate. A stage was also established to Rye, in Westchester County, and trips were made three times a week. The stages were of that heavy, lumbering, canvas-topped variety, known as the Conestoga wagon, which later became so famous on the western plains with its motto of "Pike's Peak, or Bust." The route from New York was by way of the Bowery Lane, McGowan's Pass, the Kingsbridge Road to Spuyten Duyvil Creek, thence by way of Williamsbridge to Eastchester, and thence by way of New Rochelle, Stamford, and other towns along the Sound to New Haven. The Connecticut River constituted a barrier between Saybrooke and Old Lyme, so that the stages were obliged to go by way of Hartford and Springfield.
Macadam had not yet revolutionized road-making; and so even the best of these old roads were quagmires in wet weather, and fetlock deep in dust in dry. Many of the streams had to be forded, or crossed by ferries, bridges coming later with increase of travel. Notwithstand- ing the establishment of post roads, and the later introduction of stage- coaches, the favorite manner of traveling long distances was either by horse or sloop, the latter especially suiting the leisurely traveler of that day. In the trip between New York and Albany, the sloops came to anchor every night, and the journey frequently lasted a week. The same is true of the trip to the east, the inlets and harbors on both sides of the Sound furnishing safe and comfortable anchorages at night ; but it has to be remembered that there were no lighthouses along these thoroughfares to guide the mariner at night. Stages were also run from the outlying villages to Morrisania and Harlem; and later, in the nineteenth century, when the steamboats began to run, these stages connected with the boats plying to the city. A hand-bill of 1830 reads as follows :
New York, West Farms, and West Chester STAGE.
Stephen Valentine Respectfully informs the inhabitants of West Chester and West Farms that he has commenced running a line of POST COACHES to the
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above places, and hopes by strict attention, together with good horses and safe Carriages, to meet with a liberal support.
Leave Westchester every day at A. M., and No. 18 Bowery, New York. at half past P. M.
Fare to West Farms, 50 Cts.
Winter Arrangement.
Westchester, 621/2Cts.
Coming of the Railways-Anterior to the days of the elevated rail- roads a favorite route was by means of the fast boats running on the East River to Peck Slip, Manhattan, from Harlem Bridge. People who have seen the "Sylvan Lake," the "Sylvan Dell," or the "Sylvan Stream," or the rival boats, "Harlem" and "Morrisania," upon the waters of the St. Lawrence, the St. John's River in Florida, or Chesa- peake Bay, have recalled also the pleasant sail through the East River, with the beautiful estates lining its banks, not then outlined against the sky with towering skyscrapers and tenements. Smaller boats used to ply upon the Harlem River as far as Kingsbridge, and this, too, within the last decade of the nineteenth century. After the rail- road was built through the borough the stages used to carry passengers from outlying sections to the stations along the railroad, a great con- venience, as about 1840 to 1850 many well-to-do New York merchants began to purchase estates in the borough and to erect fine residences ; and the railroad and the stages combined made them easily accessible.
The successful establishment of a railroad between Baltimore and Ellicott's Mills in Maryland, and of the Mohawk Valley Railroad, the ancestor of the New York Central, turned the attention of both civil and mechanical engineers and of capitalists to the possibilities of the new method of travel; and a craze for railroad building began, which, with the United States Bank troubles and some others, helped to bring on the financial panic of 1837. One of the earliest of these railroads to be incorporated was the New York and Harlem, April 25, 1831, with a capital of $350,000, increased the following year to $500,000, with the stipulation that the road should be completed to the Harlem River by 1835. This company was authorized to build a railroad upon the island of Manhattan only, by way of the Bowery and Fourth Avenue. The engineering difficulties to be overcome were too much for the engineers of that day, and notwithstanding the stipulation as to the completion of the road by 1835 it was little more than started by that date. On April 17, 1832, the New York and Albany Railroad was incorporated for the purpose of building a road from the end of Fourth Avenue, Man- hattan, to Albany. This company met with no success in raising money for its construction; and on the principle of two people who have nothing getting married to share their united poverty, the later com- pany surrendered its Westchester County rights to the earlier company,
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and the two combined in 1838 as the New York and Harlem Railroad. The Legislature of 1840 affirmed the contract between the two com- panies, and further authorized the construction of a bridge over the Harlem River, and the extension of the road to Putnam County. By this last date the country had begun to recover from the panic of 1837, so that by the time the extension had begun through Westchester County more funds were forthcoming, and the capital was increased to $1,950,000, and $1,000,000 more was needed to carry the road to the county line.
The first portion of the road above the Harlem River was to extend to White Plains. The easiest route was found to be by way of the valley of the Mill Brook to Williamsbridge, whence the valley of the Bronx River was followed to White Plains, a distance of fifty miles. By this route not much grading was necessary, nor was there required much blasting through rock. Several bridges were needed, which, however, did not give the engineers much trouble, as the spans were short. This was not the case, however, with the bridge over the Harlem River, which for a long time was a hard nut for the engineers to crack.
The road was a single-track one, and was finished to Fordham by October, 1841, to Williamsbridge by 1842, and to White Plains by the end of 1844. It thus passed through the towns of Morrisania, West Farms and Fordham, Yonkers, and Eastchester within the borough. "The first running of the trains through the country was a matter of great curiosity and crowds of people surveyed them from the surround- ing hills," said an old employee of the company. Celebrations were held to commemorate the completion of the road; and at one of them the following toast was offered : "The locomotive, the only good motive for riding a man upon a rail." The completion of the railroad gave an impetus to the section through which it passed, and the growth of the borough may be dated from 1842, the lower portions building up first as being nearer the great city. The Harlem Railroad and the New York and New Harlem, the latter being the lessee, were supposed to have equal rights in the freight station which both occupied at Centre, White, Franklin, and Elm streets, upon the site later occupied by the Criminal Courts Building, north of the Tombs prison. The New Haven Road had a regular passenger station at Broadway and Canal Street, at that time (1840-1850) near the heart of the city; while the Harlem road transported its passengers in its own street cars to Twenty-seventh Street and Fourth Avenue, where the locomotives of both roads were attached, the heavy coaches of the New Haven road being hauled from Canal Street by teams of four or six horses. In the middle of the year 1857 the block bounded by Fourth and Madison avenues and by Twenty-sixth and Twenty-seventh streets became the joint passenger
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station of the two railroads, and continued so until the erection of the Grand Central Station at Forty-second Street. For a number of years previous to the removal the use of steam locomotives was forbidden below Forty-second Street, and both roads were obliged to haul their coaches by four-horse and six-horse teams up Fourth Avenue, through the Park Avenue tunnel to its upper end, where the trains were made up and the locomotives attached.
During the session of 1869-70 the Legislature authorized the erection of the Grand Central Station and the tunnel work on Park Avenue. In the summer of 1870 the Harlem and the Hudson River railroads took possession of the new station; but, owing to differences between them and the New Haven road, the last continued to use the Twenty-seventh Street station for about a year and a half longer. Then the site was taken for the Madison Square Garden. The freight station at Franklin Street was used for several years after this, the freight cars being hauled through Fourth Avenue and the Bowery by means of horses until the lease of the premises expired, when the Harlem freight went to the old Hudson River yards at Thirtieth Street and Tenth Avenue and to St. John's Park, and that of the New Haven went to the water front on South Street and to the yards at North New York and Port Morris, both within the borough.
It is thus observed how the passenger station worked its way uptown. The congestion of trains in the Park Avenue tunnel and the enormous passenger traffic concentrated in the Grand Central Station called forth the best efforts of the engineers of the railroads, and a scheme of improvements, involving the spending of many millions of dollars, was put underway at the Grand Central Terminal, issuing in a railroad structure the grandeur of which has no equal elsewhere on earth. Not- withstanding the magnitude of the work and the outpouring of millions of dollars there are farseeing men who believe that these great improve- ments will be comparatively temporary and that the main terminal will have to be moved eventually above the Harlem. But we hardly think that this generation would see anything like that. In view of this possibility, however, the North Side Board of Trade submitted a scheme to the proper authorities in the fall of 1902, before work was begun at the terminal, for a grand union station on the Harlem River, with Third and Fourth avenues and East 138th Street as its other boun- daries. This site in the view of some would be convenient for all the existing trolley lines on Third Avenue, for the suburban branch of the New York, New Haven, and Hartford Railroad, for the Westchester and Boston electric railroad, and for the completed and proposed sub- ways, while connections could be made with the Second Avenue and . Third Avenue elevated railroads at a comparatively small expense.
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In the beginning the Harlem Railroad was a single track road, but its business increased to so great an extent that in 1852, it was double- tracked for the first seventeen miles of its length. The enormously increasing business of both the Harlem and New Haven roads below Woodlawn compelled the Harlem road to quadruple its tracks from that station to the Harlem River. This was accomplished in the fall of 1891 by the widening of the roadbed, the sinking of the tracks, and the building of retaining walls at an expense of about $2,000,000. The Port Morris branch was practically completed at the same time, though there had been a single track for upwards of forty years. The great. steel bridge over the Harlem River, carrying four tracks, the first ever so constructed, was erected at the same time at a cost of $951,398.17. The length of the bridge was made 706 feet, its width fifty-six feet, with a draw the length of 389 feet. In addition to its more than one hundred miles of track within the borough the Central road has a great yard at Melrose, containing fifty-five acres, for the storage of extra cars and motors, as well as a freight yard for Bronx freight. The maximum passenger rate under the general railroad laws of 1848 and 1850 was three cents a mile.
On May 12, 1846, the Hudson River Railroad was chartered by the State, but work did not begin until the following year. The plan was for the road to follow very closely the east bank of the Hudson River from the station at Thirtieth Street and Tenth Avenue, Manhattan, to the towns of Greenbush and East Albany, opposite the capital city. By' November, 1847, the contractors had begun work on the various sections of the roadbed; but the difficulties of waves and tides from the river and the hard cutting through the rocky promontories on the line of the road caused numerous delays. The work was pushed with energy, but the contractors could not get their men to work at night; and the enjoyment of the laborers themselves was frequently enhanced by the scrimmages which occurred between the Corkonians and the Far Downs, the lusty Gaels who constituted the gangs of workmen repeating in New York some of the frolics which grew out of the attempt of the foreigner to rule on the old sod. The directors, however, made allowances to the contractors for the unforeseen delays. As planned and built the road was double-tracked as far as Poughkeepsie. Travel began to Peekskill on September 29, 1849, and to East Albany, October 13, 1851. The New York Central Railroad was authorized on April 2, 1851, and its organization perfected on August 1, 1853. Its charter was issued for the purpose of consolidating all the roads between Albany and Buffalo and Suspension Bridge. Among these minor roads was the Mohawk and Hudson, the oldest railroad in the State, chartered in 1826 and opened on September 12, 1831. On November 1, 1869, the
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Hudson River and the New York Central railroads were consolidated under the name and title of the New York Central and Hudson River Railroad Company.
The Spuyten Duyvil and Port Morris Railroad was chartered on April 24, 1867. Its length is 6.04 miles and it connects the Harlem Railroad at the Melrose yards with the Hudson River Railroad at Spuyten Duyvil. Its cost was $989,000; and it was leased by the Central road on November 1, 1871, until December 31, 1970, at an annual rental of eight per cent on its cost. It was necessary for the lessee to have control of this road in order to get to the Grand Central Station in 1870. It was about the same time that the Central secured control of the Har- lem Railroad. For many years the passage of the railroad through Kingsbridge on the surface made several of the most dangerous road and street crossings in the State. The course of the road-bed was very tortuous. In order to overcome this the route was changed in February, 1906, so that the roadbed thereafter crossed Spuyten Duyvil Creek on a causeway and followed the ship-canal to the Hudson River, its bed being on a shelf blasted out of the northern side of the canal. Beginning in 1905, the work of changing the motive power of the Harlem road from steam to electricity was begun. The first train pro- pelled by the new power ran from New York to Wakefield on January 28, 1907. The third-rail system is used. On February 16 of the same year the White Plains and Brewster Express, while rounding the curve at 206th Street, below Williamsbridge, at a speed of over fifty miles an hour, suddenly left the tracks, owing, it is supposed to the spreading of the rails and twenty-three people were killed and over seventy badly injured.
The construction of these roads, while giving access to the western part of the Borough of The Bronx, has had no such effect in increasing population as had the building of the Harlem road through the middle of the borough. Private estates and domains of considerable size began to appear in Riverdale, Spuyten Duyvil, and Kingsbridge, which have striven to keep their rural character, though the march of improvements and the real estate operator have in large part divested them of this characteristic. The next railroad to be constructed within the borough was the New York and New Haven Railroad, which was chartered in Connecticut. Work was begun at this end of the road in 1847; and on December 25, 1848, the first train, filled with directors and their guests, passed over the road between its termini. The road comes from New Haven and joins the Harlem road at Wakefield, and then continues over the Harlem tracks to the station in New York City. Its only station within the borough is Woodlawn, so that it has not done much in the way of developing this part of the borough. It was
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consolidated with the New Haven and Hartford Railroad in 1872, under the name of the New York, New Haven, and Hartford Railroad. It is a curious fact that when this railroad began to run its trains the passengers were booked as in the days of the stage-coaches, and the conductors were obliged to report the names of the passengers to the company.
The Harlem River and Port Chester Railroad was incorporated in 1872, with a right of way from the Harlem River to Port Chester, the last village in the county of Westchester on the Sound. It was immediately leased by the New York and New Haven road and its con- struction begun. It is usually spoken of as the Suburban, or Harlem, division of the New York, New Haven, and Hartford. Speaking gener- ally, its route follows the shore of the Sound to New Rochelle on the main line. Its station and yards at the Harlem River occupy the site of the house, barns, and home farm of Jonas Bronk, and the manor- house of the Morrises ; and on the East River they occupy Oak Point, known in earlier days as Leggett's Point. Access is had to Manhattan by means of the elevated railroad. The length of the road is eleven and one-half miles, but with sidings and other tracks the entire trackage runs well over one hundred miles. The possession of this branch gives the New York, New Haven, and Hartford an outlet for its freight business, as the length of water front controlled by it on the East River gives ample space for its car floats and freight yards. In addition, several through passenger trains are run on board large steam ferry- boats, and transported to the connecting roads in New Jersey without putting travelers to the inconvenience of transfers through the city of New York. The road has been connected with the Long Island Railroad, and has thus access to the Pennsylvania Station, this being effected by means of a bridge across the East River to Queen's Borough by way of Randall's and Ward's islands. The corporation constructing the bridge and road is known as the New York Connecting Railway. It was estimated in the beginning that the work would involve an expenditure of about $20,000,000, but this has been greatly exceeded. The link with the Long Island system binds New England and the entire system of the Pennsylvania Railroad together. The corporation constructing the bridge and road was the New York Connecting Rail- way. The American Bridge Company, the contractor, began the work in the autumn of 1911.
While the construction of the Hudson River Railroad called for a good deal of blasting and cutting down, that of the Suburban branch demanded the reverse; since owing to the low lands and meadows abounding on the eastern side of the borough a great deal of the Subur- ban roadbed had to be filled in. Its construction has been one of the
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factors in the development of the eastern part of the borough. Work was begun in 1903 to increase the road to six tracks and to install electric traction. This entailed an enormous amount of work and the construction of numerous heavy steel bridges to carry streets across the tracks, but work of that kind is, of course, never quite finished.
The mutations of the Putnam division of the New York Central and the Hudson River Railroad have been very numerous. On July 3, 1877, the New York, Westchester, and Putnam Railroad Company was organized as a successor in part of the New York, Boston, and Montreal Railway, organized in 1871. On February 18, 1878, the New York City and Northern was organized, and acquired under lease the property of this road. On July 21, 1879, the West Side and Yonkers Railway was organized. On July 8, 1880, the Yonkers Rapid Transit Railway Company. was organized. On June 4, 1881, the Yonkers Rapid Transit Company, New York division, was organized. On October 11, 1887, the New York and Northern Railway was organized after the sale under foreclosure of the New York City and Northern Railway Company, and by consolidation with the two above-mentioned roads, May 1, 1890, it also acquired under lease the West Side and Yonkers Railway.
Under judgment of foreclosure against the New York and Northern Railway Company its property and franchises were sold, on December 28, 1893, and conveyed January 12, 1894, to J. Pierpoint Morgan, J. Hood Wright, and Charles H. Coster as joint tenants. The same day, they organized the New York and Putnam Railroad, under two acts of the Legislature of June 7, 1890, and May 12, 1892, and conveyed all property and franchises to the new company. On January 30, 1894, the New York and Putnam Railroad was leased by the New York Central and Hudson River Railroad at an annual rental of four per cent on first mortgage consolidated gold bonds to the sum of $5,000,000 of principal, and upon $1,200,000 to be issued to retire the five per cent bonds of the New York and Northern Railway Company. After all these vicissitudes the road became the Putnam division of the leasing company. The intent of the original projectors of the road was to connect at Brewster in Putnam County, with roads for Boston and Montreal. Its southern terminus was at High Bridge; but the West Side and Yonkers Railroad was organized to build an extension of one and one-sixteenth miles to the Harlem River to connect with the ele- vated railroads by means of a bridge at 155th Street. As early as 1871 a considerable portion of the right of way was purchased, and some grading done, but owing to financial difficulties and reorganization the road was not opened to traffic until the spring of 1881. A branch from Van Cortlandt Park connects with Yonkers by means of half-hourly
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