'^'kk K fe!5i*^*F t?5& ig ci^X'rr'ijjr^^Jrr: 0^ c » • • Nooks & Corners of Old New YoRk Nooks & Corners of Old New YoRk Charles Hemftreet M Illustrated By E. C- Peixotto New York Charles Scribner's Sons MDCCCXCIX ccrniBBii \ . ^ •Ecown cfirv, COfVtlCHT, 1899 BV CHAILtt U-|IBSt*'| (ONt NEW ^OIK 4:J7ii ' OPIES HECEIVEO, 2.1 INTRODUCrORT NOTE THE points of interest referred to in this book are to be found in the lower part of the Island of Manhattan. Settlements having early been made in widely separated parts of the island, streets were laid out from each settlement as they were needed without regard to the city as a whole ; with the result that as the city grew the streets lengthened and those of the various sections met at every conceivable angle. This re- sulted in a tangle detrimental to the city's interests, and in i 807 a Com- mission was appointed to devise a INTRODUCTORY NOTE City Plan tluit shouKl protect the interests of the lihole community. A glance at a citv map will show the confusion of streets at the lower end of the island and the regularitv brought about under the Citv Flan above Houston Street on the east, and I'uurtccnth Street on liie west side. The plan adopted hv the Com- mission absolutelv disregarded t he- natural topographv of the island, and resulted in a citv o\ straight lines and right angles. LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS PAGE No. 7 State Street 6 Fraunces' Tavern 1 1 The "Jack Knife," Gold and Piatt Streets 23 Golden Hill Inn 24 Cell in the Prison under the Hall of Records .... 2 5 Statue of Nathan Hale, City Hall Park 38 No. 1 1 Reade Street, where Aaron Burr had an office . 40 The Tombs 41 Park Street, with Church of the Transfiguration ... 44 Hudson and Watts Streets . . ^^ Grave of Charlotte Temple . . 62 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS Tomb of Alexander Hamilton 66 Washington's Pew, St. Paul's Chapel 76 Montgomery's Tomb ... 77 A House of Other Days ... 79 " Murderers* Row" .... 97 Old Houses, \Vich;iwken Street 112 Looking South from Minetta Lane 114 Old Theological Seminary, Chelsea Square . . . 126 Church of Sea and Land . . . 135 Hone AUev 1 39 Milestone on the Bowcrv . . 143 P'.ntrance to Marble Cemeterv 152 College of the City of New "I'ork 1 S6 Gate of Old House of Refuge . 188 The Little Church Around the Corner 192 Milestone on Third Avenue . 204 NOOKS AND CORNERS OF OLD NEW YORK NOOKS AND CORNERS OF OLD NEW YORK o I N the centre building of the row Fort h. 1 /- Tt !• /-^ T-1 1 Amsterdam ich races Bowling Oreen rark on the south there is a tablet bearing the words : THE SITE OF FORT AMSTERDAM, BUILT IN 1626. WITHIN THE FORTIFICATIONS WAS ERECTED THE FIRST SUBSTANTIAL CHURCH EDIFICE ON THE ISLAND OF MANHATTAN. IN 1787 THE FORT WAS DEMOLISHED AND THE GOVERNMENT HOUSE BUILT UPON THIS SITE This was the starting-point of the 1^"^^^ ^^^^ ° ^ India Co. settlement which gradually became New York. In 16 14 a stockade, called Fort NOOKS AND CORNERS Manhattan, was built as a temporary place of shelter for representatives of the United New Netherland Co., which had been formed to trade with the Indians. This company was replaced by the Dutch West India Co., with chartered rights to trade on the American coast, and the first step towards the forming of a permanent settlement was the building of Fort Amsterdam on the site of the stockade. In 1664 New Amsterdam passed into British possession and became New York, while Fort Amsterdam became Fort James. Under Queen Anne it was Fort George, remaining so until demolished in 1787. On the Fort's site was built the Gov- ernment House, intended for Washing- ton and the Presidents who should fol- low him. But none ever occupied it as the seat of government was removed to Philadelphia before the house was completed. After 1801 it became an OF OLD NEW YORK office building, and was demolished in 1815 to make room for the present structures. The tinv patch of grass at the start- Bowling mg-pomt of Broadway, now called Bowl- ing Green Park, was originally the centre of sports for colonists, and has been the scene of many stirring events. The iron railing which now surrounds it was set up in 1771, having been imported from England to enclose a lead eques- trian statue of King George III. On the posts of the fence were representa- tions of heads of members of the Royal family. In 1776, during the Revolu- tion, the statue was dragged down and molded into bullets, and where the iron heads were knocked from the posts the fracture can still be seen. When the English took possession The r ^ ■ ■ r? i T- i • Battery of the City, m 1664, the l^ort bemg re- garded as useless, it was decided to build NOOKS AND CORNERS a Battery to protect the newlv acquired possession. Thus the idea of the Bat- tery was conceived, although the work was not actually carried out until 1684. Beyond the Fort there was a fringe of land with the water reaching to a point within a line drawn from Water and Whitehall Streets to Greenwich Street. Sixty vears after the Battery was built fifty guns were added, it having been lightly armed up to that time. The Battery was demolished about the same time as the Fort. The land on which it stood became a small park, retaining the name of the Battery, and was gradually added to until it became the Battery Park of to-day. C^^^\c A small island, two hundred feet off the Battery, to which it was connected by a drawbridge, was fortified in 181 1 and called Fort Clinton. The arma- ment was twenty-eight j2-pounders, 4 OF OLD NEW YORK none of which was ever fired at an en- emy. In 1822 the island was ceded back to the city by the Federal Govern- ment — when the military headquarters were transferred to Governor's Island — and became a place of amusement under the name of Castle Garden. It was the first real home of opera in America. General Lafayette was received there in 1824, and there Samuel F. B. Morse first demonstrated the possibility of con- trolling an electric current in 1835. Jenny Lind, under the management of P. T. Barnum, appeared there in 1850. In 1855 it became a depot for the re- ception of immigrants; in 1890 the offices were removed to Ellis Island, and in i 896, after many postponements, Castle Garden was opened as a public aquarium. State Street, facing the Battery, dur- State ing the latter part of the eighteenth and the early part of the nineteenth century, NOOKS AND CORNERS was the fashionable quarter of the city, and on it were the homes of the wealthy. Several of the old houses still survive. No. 7, now a home for immigrant Irish girls, was the most conspicuous on the street, and is in about its original state. At No. 9 lived John Morton, called the " rebel banker " by the British, because he loaned large sums to the Continental Congress. His son. General Jacob N° 7 S[at( St rat OF OLD NEW YORK Morton, occupied the mansion after his marriage in 1791, and commanded the mihtia. Long after he became too in- firm to actually command, from the balcony of his home he reviewed on the Battery parade grounds the Tompkins Blues and the Light Guards. The veterans of these commands, by legis- lative enactment in 1868, were incorpo- rated as the " Old Guard." On the building at 4 and 6 Pearl The ° . , , "Stadhuis Street, corner State Street, is a tablet which reads : 1636 1897 ON THIS SITE STOOD THE "STADHUIS" OF NEW AMSTERDAM ERECTED 1636 THIS TABLET IS PLACED HERE IN LOVING MEMORY OF THE FIRST DUTCH SETTLERS BY THE HOLLAND DAMES OF THE NEW NETHERLANDS AND THE KNIGHTS OF THE LEGION OF THE CROWN LAVINIA KONIGIN It was set up October 7, 1897, and marks the supposed site of the first City . *^ > K. S AND CORNERS Hall. What is claimed by most au- thorities to be the real site is at Pearl Street, opposite Coenties Slip. Whitehall Street was one of the ear- liest thoroughfares of the citv, and was originally the open space left on the land side of the Fort. The Beaver Street was first called the Bea- Bcaver'i • ii i i i- i Path ^^''■^ lath. It was a ditch, on either side of which was a path. When houses were built along these paths they were improved by a rough pavement. At the end of the Beaver's Path, close to where Broad Street is now, was a swamp, which, before the pavements were made, had been reclaimed and was known as the Sheep Pasture. F'cttlcoa! Lane Marketfield Street, whose length is less than a block, opens into Broad Street at No. 72, a few feet from Bea- ver Street. 'I'his is one of the lost OF OLD NEW YORK. thoroughfares of the city. Almost as old as the city itself, it once extended past the Fort and continued to the river in what is now Battery Place. It was then called Petticoat Lane. The first French Huguenot church was built on it in 1688. Now the Produce Exchange cuts the street off short and covers the site of the church. Through Broad Street, when the town Broad was New Amsterdam, a narrow, ill- smelling inlet extended to about the present Beaver Street, then narrowed to a ditch close to Wall Street. The water- front was then at Pearl Street. Several bridges crossed the inlet, the largest at the point where Stone Street is. An- other gave Bridge Street its name. In 1660 the ways on either side were paved, and soon became a market-place for citizens who traded with farmers for their products, and with the Indians who navigated the inlet in their canoes. NOOKS AND CORNERS 1 he locality has ever since been a cen- tre of exchange. When the inlet was finally filled in it left the present " Broad " Street. Where Beaver Street crosses this thoroughfiire, on the northwest corner, is a tablet : TO COMMtMORATi: THE GALLANT AND PATRIOTIC ACT OK MARINL'S WILLtlT IN HlRt StlZING JUNE 6, 1775, FROM THt BRITISH FORCES THE MUSKETS WITH WHICH HE ARMED HIS TROOPS. THIS TABLET IS ERECTED BV THE SOCIETV OF THE SONS OF THE REVOLUTION, NEW YORK, NOV. 12, 189Z On one side ot the tablet is a bas-relief of the scene showing the patriots stop- ping the ammunition wagons. Kraunccs" Fraunccs* Tavern, standing at the Tavern , - ti 11111 southeast corner of Broad and 1 c.irl Streets, is much the same outwardly as it was when built in 1700, except that it has two added stories. Etienne De n.T^ P i. - ^ r Lancey, a Huguenot nobleman, built it as his homestead and occupied it for a quarter of a century. It became a tav- ern under the direction of Samuel Fraunces in 1762, It was Washing- ton's headquarters in 1776, and in 1783 he delivered there his farewell address to his generals. Pearl Street was one of the two early Pearl Street roads leading from the Fort. It lay along the water front, and extended to NOOKS AND CORNERS a ferry where Peck Slip is now. The road afterwards became Great ^ueen Street, and was lined with shops of store-keepers who sought the Long Island trade. The other road in time became Broadwav. On a building at 7 j Pearl Street, fac- ing Coenties Slip, is a tablet which reads : THE SITE OF THE FIRST DUTCH HOLiEOF ENTERTAINMENT ON THE ISLAND OF MANHATIAN LATER I HE SITE OF THE OLD "STAUT HUYS" OR CIIY HALL THIS TABLET IS PLACED HERE BY THE HOLLAND SOCIETY OF NEW YORK SEPTEMBER, 1890 The First This is the site of the first City Hall of City Hall XT \ 1 iNew Amsterdam, built 1642. It stood by the waterside, for beyond Water Street all the land has been reclaimed. There was a court room and a prison in the building. Before it, where the pil- lars of the elevated roail are now, was a OF OLD NEW YORK cage and a whipping-post. There was also the public " Well of William Cox." Beside the house ran a lane. It is there yet, still called Coenties Lane as in the days of old. But it is no longer green. Now it is narrow, paved, and almost lost between tall buildings. Opposite Coenties Lane is Coenties Slip, which was an inlet in the days of the Stadt Huys. The land about was owned by Conraet Ten Eyck, who was nicknamed Coentje. This in time be- came Coonchy and was finally vulgar- ized to "Quincy." The filling in of this waterway began in 1835 and the slip is now buried beneath Jeanette Park. The filled-in slip accounts for the width of the street. For the same reason there is considerable width at Wall, Maiden Lane and other streets leading to the water front. At 81 Pearl Street, close by Coenties First Priming cr ^u £ ^ • ^* Press in the blip, the first prmtmg-press was set up Colony 13 NOOKS AND CORNERS by William Bradford, after he was ap- pointed Public Printer in 169^ A tablet marks the site, with the inscrip- tion : OS THIS SITE WILLIAM BRADFORD APPOISTED Pl'BLIC PRINTER APRIL 10, A. D. 1693 ESTABLISHED THE FIRST PRINTING PRESS IN THE COLONY OF NEW YORK ERECTED BY THE NEW YORK HISTORICAL SOCIETY APRIL 10, A. D. 1893 IN COMMEMORATION OF THE 200TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE INTRODICTION OF PRINTING IN NEW YORK Fire of 1835 Across the way, on a warehouse at 88 Pearl Street, is a marble tablet of unique design, to commemorate the great fire of i8;{5, which started in Merchant Street, burned for nineteen hours, ex- «4 OF OLD NEW YORK tended over fifty acres and consumed 402 buildings. Directly through the block from this point is Cuyler's Alley, a narrow way between the houses running off Water Street. Although it is a hundred years old the only incident connected with its existence that has crept into the city's history, is a murder. In 1823, a Bos- ton merchant was waylaid and murdered for his money, and was dragged through this street for final disposition in the river, but the murderer made so much noise in his work that the constable heard him and came upon the abandoned corpse. Through a pretty garden at the back Stone of the Stadt Huys, Stone Street was reached. It was the first street to be laid with cobble-stones (1657), and so came by its name, which originally had been Brouwer Street. 15 NOOKS A N' I) CORNERS Delmonico's establishment at Beaver and William Streets is on the site of the second of the Dclmonico restaurants. (See Fulton and William Streets.) Flat and Exchange Place took its name from Hill the Merchants' Exchange, which was completed in William Street, fronting on Wall, in 1827 (the present Custom House). Before that date it had been called Garden Street. From Hanover to Broad Street was a famous place for bovs to coast in winter, and the grade was called " Flat and Barrack Hill." Scarcely more than an alley now, the street was even narrower once and was given its present width in i8j2. Wall Wall Street came bv its name nat- urally, for it was a walled street once. When war broke out between England and Holland in 165J, Governor Peter Stuvvesant built the wall along the line of the present street, from river to river. 16 OF OLD NEW YORK His object was to form a barrier that should enclose the city. It was a wall of wood, twelve feet high, with a sloping breastwork inside. After the wall was removed in 1699, ^^e street came to be a chief business thoroughfare. A new City Hall, to replace the Stadt Federal Huys, was built in 1699, at Nassau Street, on the site of the present Sub- Treasury building. In front of the building was the cage for criminals, stocks and whipping-post. When independence was declared, this build- ing was converted into a capitol and was called Federal Hall. The Declaration of Independence was read from the steps in 1776. President Washington was inaugurated there in 1789. The wide strip of pavement on the west side of Nassau Street at Wall Street bears evidence of the former existence of Federal Hall. The latter extended across to the western house line of the 17 NOOKS A S D CORNERS present Nassau Street, and so closed the thoroughfare that a passage-wav led around the building to Nassau Street. When the Sub-Treasury was built in 1836, on the site of Federal Hall, Nassau Street was opened to Wall, and the little passage-way was left to form the wide pavement of to-day. Where Alexander Hamilton, in i~89, lived Alexander • , • l ■ j r \x' 11 Hamilton '" ^ house on the south side or Wall Lived Street at Broad. His slaver, Aaron Burr, then lived back of Federal Hall in Nassau Street. The Custom House at William Street and Wall was completed in 1842. At this same corner once stood a statue ot William Pitt, Karl of Chatham. In 1776, during the Revolution, the statue was pulled down by British soldiers, the head cut otf and the remainder dragged in the mud. Fhe people petitioned the Assembly in 1766 to erect the statue to 18 OF OLD NEW YORK Pitt, as a recognition of his zealous de- fence of the American colonies and his efforts in securing the repeal of the Stamp Act. At the same time provi- sion was made for the erection of the equestrian statue of George III in Bowling Green. The statue of Pitt was of marble, and was erected in 1770. The Tontine Building at the north- Tontine west corner of Wall and Water Streets House marks the site of the Tontine Coffee House, a celebrated house for the inter- change of goods and of ideas, and a po- litical centre. It was a prominent insti- tution in the city, resorted to by the wealthy and influential. The building was erected in 1794, and conducted by the Tontine Society of two hundred and three members, each holding a |2oo share. Under their plan all property was to revert to seven survivors of the original subscribers. The division was made in i 876. *9 NOOKS AND CORNERS ^"' Close to where the coffee house was Market , •, , , • , built later, a market was set up in the middle of Wall Street in 1709, and be- ing the public market for the sale of corn and meal was called the " Meal Market." Cut meat was not sold there until 1740. In I - J 1 this market be- camt- the only public place tor the sale and hiring ot slaves. Trinity Church has stood at the head of Wall Street since 1697. Before 1779 the street was filled with tall trees, but during the intensely cold winter of that year most of them were cut down and used for kindling. The ferrv wharf has been at the foot of the street since 1694, when the water came up as far as Pearl Street. It was here that Washington landed, coming from Elizabethport after his journey from Virginia, April 2j, 1789, to be in- augurated. The United States Hotel, Fulton, be- OF OLD NEW YORK tween Water and Pearl Streets, was built in 1823 as Holt's Hotel. It was the headquarters for captains of whaling ships and merchants. A semaphore, or marine telegraph, was on the cupola, the windmill-like arms of which served to indicate the arrival of vessels. Middle On the building at the northeast cor- J^i"i<\_ " . Dutch ner of Nassau and Cedar Streets is a church tablet reading : HERE STOOD THE MIDDLE DUTCH CHURCH DEDICATED A. D. I 7^9 MADE A BRITISH MILITARY PRISON I 776 RESTORED I79O OCCUPIED AS THE UNITED STATES POST-OFFICE 1845 1875 TAKEN DOWN I 882 This church was a notable place of worship ; the last in the city to repre- sent strict simplicity of religious service as contrasted with modern ease and ele- gance. The post-office occupied the building until its removal to the struct- NOOKS AND CORNERS ure it now occupies. The second home of the Middle Dutch Church was in Lafayette Place. Pie Woman's Nassau Street was opened in 1696, when Teunis de Kay was given the right to make a cartway from the wall to the commons (now City Hall Park). At first the street was known as Pie Woman's Lane. The Where Maiden Lane is there was Maiden's ^ r ' Lane ^"^^ ^ Harrow Stream or sprmg water, which flowed from about the present Nassau Street. Women went there to wash their clothing, so that it came to be called the X'irgin's Path, and from that the Maiden's Lane. A blacksmith having set up a shop at the edge of the stream near the river, the locality took the name of Smit's V'lei, or the Smith's Valley, afterwards shortened to the V'lei, and then readily corrupted to " Fly." It was natural, then, when a OF OLD NEW YORK. market was built on the Maiden's Lane, from Pearl to South Streets, to call it the Fly Market. This was pulled down in 1823. On Gold Street, northwest corner of The T-»i o • J 1 J 1 r Jack-Knife rlatt Street, is a wedge-snaped house or curious appearance. It is best seen from the Piatt Street side. When this street was opened in 1834 by Jacob S. Piatt, who owned much of the neighboring land and wanted a street of his own, the house was large and square and had been a tavern for a great many years. The new street cut the house to its present strange shape, and it came to be called the " Jack-knife." Golden Hill, cele- brated since the time Gold &£ PU» st». NOOKS AND CORNERS Golden Hill of the Dutch, IS Still to be seen in the high ground around Chff and Gold Streets. Pearl Street near John shows a sweeping curve where it circled around the hill's base, and the same sort of j-^ curve is seen in ^^-^ ' Maiden Lane on the vji^^..^/^, ' south and Fulton ^-;^t.i;^ ^ I Street on the north. f'vV^.d^ x! The hrst blood uf '•'■. /C"^^>v ^'^^ Revolution was shed on this hill in January, 1770, after the British sol- diers had cut down a liberty pole set up by the Liberty Boys. 1 he ht^ht occurred on open ground back. ot an inn which still stands at 122 Wil- liam Street, and is commemorated in a tablet on the wall of Golden Hill Inn OF OLD NEW YORK a building at the corner of John and William Streets. It reads : " GOLDEN HILL HERE, JAN. l8, 1770 THE FIGHT TOOK PLACE BETWEEN THE "SONS OF liberty" AND THE BRITISH REGULARS, I 6TH FOOT FIRST BLOODSHED IN THE WAR OF THE REVOLUTION The inn is much the same as in early days, except that many buildings crowd about it now, and modern paint has made it hideous to antiquarian eyes. On the east side of William Street, a Delmonko's few doors south of Fulton, John Del- monico opened a dingy little bake shop in 1823, acted as chef and waiter, and built up the name and business which to-day is synonymous with good eating. In 1832 he removed to 23 William Street. Burned out there in 1835, he soon opened on a larger scale with his ^5 NOOKS AND CORNERS brother at William and Beaver Streets, on which site is still an establishment under the Delmonico name. In time he set up various places — at Chambers Street and Broadway ; Fourteenth Street and Fifth Avenue; Twenty-sixth Street and Broadway, and finally at Forty- fourth Street and Fifth Avenue. John Street John Street Church, between Nassau Church 1 xi'ii- ■-. \ ,- ^ T I and \\ illiam Streets, was the nrst Meth- odist Church in America. In 1767 it was organized in a loft at 120 William Street, then locally known as Horse and Cart Street. In 1768 the church was built in John Street. It was rebuilt in 1817 and again in 1841. John Street perpetuates the name ot John Harpendingh, uHd owned most ot the land thereabout. John Street At whut is now 17, 19 and 21 John Street, in 1767 \yas built the old John Street Theatre, a wooden structure, 26 OF OLD NEW YORK painted red, standing sixty feet back from the street and readied by a cov- ered way. An arcade through the house at No. 17 still bears evidence of the theatre. The house was closed in 1774, when the Continental Congress recom- mended suspension of amusements. Throughout the Revolutionary War, however, performances were given, the places of the players being filled by British officers. Washington frequently attended the performances at this thea- tre after he became President. The house was torn down in 1798. The site of the Shakespeare Tavern is marked by a tablet at the southwest corner of Nassau and Fulton Streets. The words of the tablet are: ON THIS SITE IN THE OLD SHAKESPEARE TAVERN WAS ORGANIZED THE SEVENTH REGIMENT NATIONAL GUARD, S. N. Y. AUG. 25, 1824 *7 NOOKS AND CORNERS Shakespeare xj^js tavern, low, old-fashioned, built of Tavern small yellow bricks with dormer win- dows in the roof, was constructed before the Rcxolution. In 1808 it was bought by Thomas Hodgkinson, an actor, and was henceforth a meeting- place tor Thes- pians. It was resorted to — in contrast to the business men guests of the Ton- tine Coffee House — bv the wits ut' the day, the poets and the writers. In 1824 Hodgkinson died, and the house was kept up for a time by his son-in-law; Mr. Stoneall. ^"^='' At the southwest corner of Beekman t'linton 1 XT Hall and Nassau Streets was built, in i8jo, the first home of the Mercantile Li- brary, called Clinton Hall. In 1820 the first steps were taken by the mer- chants of the city to establish a reading room for their clerks. 1 he library was opened the following year with ~oo vol- umes. In iS:; the association was in- corporated. It was located first in a 16 OF OLD NEW YORK building in Nassau Street, but in 1826 was moved to Cliff Street, and in 1830 occupied its new building in Beekman Street. De Witt Clinton, Governor of the State, had presented a History of England as the first volume for the li- brary. The new building was called Clinton Hall in his honor. In 1850, the building being crowded, the Astor Place Opera House was bought for ;?250,ooo, and remodeled in 1854 into the second Clinton Hall. The third building of that name is now on the site at the head of Lafayette Place. The St. George Building, on the St. George's , . , /- r. , o • Church north side of Beekman Street, just west of Cliff Street, stands on the site of St. George's Episcopal Church, a stately stone structure which was erected in 181 1. In 1 8 14 it was burned ; in 1 8 16 rebuilt, and in 1845 removed to Ruth- erford Place and Sixteenth Street, where it still is. Next to the St. George Build- 29 NOOKS AND CORNERS ing is the tall shot-tower which may be so promincntlv seen from the windows of tail buildings in the lower part of the citv, but is so difficult to find when search is made tor it. Barnum's Barnum's Museum, opened in 1S42, was on the site of the St. Paul Build- ing, at Broadway and Ann Street. There P. T. Barnum brought out Tom Thumb, the Woolly Horse and many other curiosities that became celebrated. On the stage of a dingy little amphi- theatre in the house many actors played who afterwards won national recogni- tion. Original The original Park Theatre was built Parle Theatre '" *79^» ^"^^ Stood on Park Row, be- tween Ann and Bcekman Streets, facing what was then Citv Hall Park and what is now the Post Office. It was 200 feet from Ann Street, and extended back to the alley which has ever since been 30 OF OLD NEW YORK called Theatre Alley. John Howard Payne, author of " Home, Sweet Home," appeared there for the first time on any stage, in 1809, as the "Young American Roscius." In 1842 a ball in honor of Charles Dickens was given there. Many noted actors played at this theatre, which was the most im- portant m the city at that period. It was rebuilt in 1820 and burned in 1848. At the junction of Park Row and First Brick Nassau Street, where the T'imes Build- church ing is, the Brick Presbyterian Church was erected in 1768. There was a small burying-ground within the shadow of its walls, and green fields stretched from it in all directions. It was sold in 1854, and a new church was built at Fifth Avenue and Thirty-seventh Street. Within a few steps of where the statue Where of Benjamin Franklin is in Printing ^ ^ ^^^ , House Square, Jacob Leisler was hanged 31 NOOKS AND CORNERS in his own garden in 1 691, the citv's first martyr to constitutional Hberty. A wealthy merchant, after James III fled and William III ascended the throne, Leisler was called bv the Com- mittee of Safety to act as Governor, He assembled a Continental Congress, whose deliberations were cut short bv the arrival of Col. Henrv Sloughter as Governor. I-,nemies of Leisler decided on his death. The new Governor re- fused to sign the warrant, but being made drunk signed it unknowingly and Leisler was hanged and his bodv buried at the foot of the scaffold. A few years later, a royal proclamation wiped the taint of treason from Leisler's memory and his body was removed to a more honored resting-place. Tammany The walls of the Su?i building at Hall Park Row and Frankfort Street, are those of the first permanent home of Tammany Hall. Besides the hall it 32 OF OLD NEW YORK contained the second leading hotel in the city, where board was ^7 a week. Tam- many Hall, organized in 1789 by Wil- liam Mooney, an upholsterer, occupied quarters in Borden's tavern in lower Broadway. In 1798 it removed to Martling's tavern, at the southeast cor- ner of Nassau and Spruce, until its permanent home was erected in 181 1. There is a tablet on the wall of the ^ Liberty south corridor of the post-office build- ing, which bears the inscription : ON THE COMMON OF THE CITY OF NEW YORK, NEAR WHERE THIS BUILDING NOW STANDS, THERE STOOD FROM 1 766 TO I 776 A LIBERTY POLE ERECTED TO COMMEMORATE THE REPEAL OF THE STAMP ACT. IT WAS REPEATEDLY DESTROYED BY THE VIOLENCE OF THE TORIES AND AS REPEATEDLY REPLACED BY THE SONS OF LIBERTY, WHO ORGAN- IZED A CONSTANT WATCH AND GUARD. IN ITS DEFENCE THE FIRST MARTYR BLOOD OT' THE AMER- ICAN REVOLUTION WAS SHED ON JAN. 1 8, I770. The cutting down of this pole led to the battle of Golden Hill. 33 NOOKS AND CORNERS City Hall yi^^j post-office building was erected on :i portion of the City Hall Park. This park, like all of the Island of Manhattan, was a wilderness a few hun- dred years ago. Bv 1 66 1, where the park is there was a clearing in which cattle were herded. In time the clear- ing was called The Fields ; later The Commons. On The Commons, in Dutch colonial days, criminals were Potter's Field executed. Still later a Potter's Field In City Hall Park occupied what is now the upper end of the Park ; above it, and extending over the present Chambers Street was a negro burying-ground. On these com- mons, in 1735, ^ poor-house was built, the site of which is covered by the pre- sent City Hall. From time to time other buildings were erected. The new Jail was finished in 1763, and, having undergone but few altera- tions, is now known as the Hall of Re- cords. It was a military prison during the Revolution, and afterwards a Debt- 34 OF OLD NEW YORK ors' Prison. In 1830 it became the Register's Office. It was long consid- ered the most beautiful building in the city, being patterned after the temple of Diana of Ephesus. The Bridewell, or City Prison, was built on The Commons in 1775, close by Broadway, on a line with the Debt- ors' Prison. It was torn down in 1838. The present City Hall was finished „, . in 18 12. About that time The Com- city Hall mons were fenced in and became a park, taking in be- sides the present space, that now occupied by the post- office building. The con- structors of the City Hall deemed it unnecessary to use marble for the rear wall as they had for the sides and front, and built this wall of freestone, it being then al- most inconceivable that traf- fic could ever extend so far .jLi-isio/' v>Ai- - - 35 'H ■>/ \ > Cell in thj^nson under the HoU 0/ Records in thj^ri NOOKS AND CORNERS Governor's up-town as to permit a view of the rear of the building. The most noted spot in the Citv Hall is the Governor's Room, an apartment originally intended for the use of the Governor when in the city. In time it became the municipal portrait gallery, and a reception room tor the distinguished guests of the city. The bodies of Abraham Lincoln and of John Howard Payne lay in state in this room. With it is also associated the visit of Lafavette when he returned to this coun- try in 1S24 and made the room his re- ception headquarters. The room was also the scene of the celebration after the capture of the " Guerriere " by the " Constitution" ; the reception to Com- modore Perry after his Lake P-rie vic- tory ; the celebration in connection with the laying of the Atlantic cable ; and at the completion of the Krie Canal. It contains a large gilt punch-bowl, show- ing scenes in New York a hundred years ago. This was presented to the city by -,6 OF OLD NEW YORK General Jacob Morton, Secretary of the Committee of Defense, at the opening of the City Hall. At the western end of the front wall of City Hall is a tablet reading : NEAR THIS SPOT IN THE PRESENCE OF GEN. GEORGE WASHINGTON THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE WAS READ AND PUBLISHED TO THE AMERICAN ARMY JULY 9TH, 1776 Other buildings erected in the Park First were The Rotunda, 18 16, on the site of gank the brown stone building afterwards oc- cupied by the Court of General Sessions, where works of art were exhibited ; and the New York Institute on the site of the Court House, occupied in 18 17 by the American, or Scudder's Museum, the first in the city. The Chambers Street Bank, the first bank for savings 37 NOOKS AND CORNERS in the city, opened in the basement of the Institute building in 1818. In 1841 PhiHp Hone was president of this bank. It afterwards moved to the north side of Bleecker Street, between Broadway and Crosby, and became the Bleecker Street Bank. Now it is at IWentv- second Street and Fourth Avenue, and is called The Bank tor Savings. The statue of Nathan Hale was erected in City Hall Park by the Sons of the Revolution. Some authori- ties still insist that the Martyr Spy was hanged in this park. Until 1 821 there were fences of wooden pickets about the park. In that year iron rail- ings, which had been imported trom Eng- land, were set up, with four marble pil- lars at the southern entrance. I he next StAtu* 0/ NATHAN HALE C.tj Hdll Park- -h=>. I « .*' ^*" 5« OF OLD NEW YORK year trees were set out within the en- pf""u°[ closure, and just within the raiHng were park planted a number of rose-bushes which had been supplied by two ladies who had an eye to landscape gardening. Frosts and vandals did not allow the bushes more than a year of life. Four granite balls, said to have been dug from the ruins of Troy, were placed on the pillars at the southern entrance. May 8, 1827. They were given to the city by Captain John B. Nicholson, U. S. N. The building 39 and 41 Chambers Street, opposite the Court House, stands on the site of the pretty little Palmo Opera House, built in 1844 for the production of Italian opera, by F. Palmo, the wealthy proprietor of the Cafe des Mille Colonnes on Broadway at Duane Street. He lost his fortune in the operatic venture and became a bartender. In 1848 the house became Burton's Theatre. About 1800, this site was 39 NOOKS AND CORNERS occupied bv the First Reformed Presby- terian Church, a frame building which was replaced by a brick structure in 1818. The church was moved to Prince and Marion Streets in 1834. Office of Aaron Burr At No. 1 1 Reade Street is a dingy little house, now covered with signs and given over to half a dozen small busi- ness concerns, about which hover memo- ries of Aaron Burr. It was here he had a law office in i8j2, and here when he was seventy-eight years old he first met Mme. Jumel whom he afterwards married. I he house is to be torn down to make wav tor new municipal buildings. At Rose and Duane Streets stands the Rhinelander build- ing, and on the Rose Street side close by the main en- trance is a small gratcii window. This is the last trace of a sugar- 40 '-if- OF OLD NEW YORK house, which, during; the Revolutionary -^" Historic Ti • • 1 •!• Window War, was used as a British mihtary prison. The building was not demol- ished until 1892, and the window, re- taining its original position in the old house, was built into the new. Where the Tombs prison stands was '^^^ Tombs once the Collect, or Fresh Water Pond, prison This deep body of water took up, ap- proximately, the space between the present Baxter, Elm, Canal and Pearl Streets. When the Island of Manhat- tan was first inhabited, a swamp stretched in a wide belt across it from where Roosevelt Slip is now to the end of Canal Street on the west side. The Collect was the centre of this stretch, with a stream called the Wreck Brook flowing from it across a marsh to the East River. At a time near the close of the eighteenth century a drain was cut from 'The Tomb} NOOKS A N: D CORNERS the Collect to the North River, on a line with the present Canal Street. With the progress of the city to the north, The the pond was drained, and the swamp Collect / . , ' / made inro nrm ground. In 1816, the Corporation Yards occupied the block of Kim, Centre, Leonard and Franklin Streets, on the ground which had filled in the pond. The Tombs, or Citv Prison, was built on this block in i8j8. '^^^ The Five Points still exists where Five Points .,,,,, i n i ^ W orth, Baxter and Park Streets mter- sect, but it IS no lont^er the centre of a community of crime that gained inter- national notoriety. It was once the gathering-point tor criminals and de- graded persons of both sexes and of all nationalities, a rookcrv for thieves and murderers. Its history began more than a century and a half ago. During the so-called Negro I nsurrection of 1 74 1 , when miiny negroes were handed, the severest punishment was the burning at 4a OF OLD NEW YORK the Stake of fourteen negroes in this locality. One of the five " Points " is now formed by a pleasant park which a few years ago took the place of the last remnant of the old-time locality. In no single block of the city was there ever such a record for crime as in this old "Mulberry Bend" block. Set low in a hollow, it was a refuge for the out- casts of the city and of half a dozen countries. The slum took its name, as the park does now, from Mulberry Mulberry Street, which on one side of it makes a slum deep and sudden bend. In this slum block the houses were three deep in places, with scarcely the suggestion of a courtyard between them. Narrow alleys, hardly wide enough to permit the passage of a man, led between houses to beer cellars, stables and time- blackened, tumbledown tenements. Obscure ways honeycombed the entire block — ways that led beneath houses, 43 NOOKS AND CORNERS over low sheds, through fragments of wall — w;ivs that were known only to the thief and the tramp. There " Bottle Alley," "Bandit's Roost" and "Rag- picker's Row " were the scenes of many wild fights, and nuinv a time the ready stiletto ended the lives of men, or the heavy club dashed out brains. The Five Points House ot Industry's work was begun in 1850, and has been successful in ameliorating the moral and physical condition of the people of the vicinity. The institution devoted to this work stands on the site of the "Old Brewery," the most notorious criminal resort ut the locality. An Ancient Church At Mott and Park Streets is now the Church of the Transfiguration A (Catholic). On a hill, the *^ suggestion of which is still to be seen in steep Park Street, the Zion Lutheran Church was erected OF OLD NEW YORK in 1797. In 1 8 10 it was changed to Zion Episcopal Church. It was burned in 1 8 15; rebuilt 1 8 19, and sold in 1853 to the Church of the Transfiguration, which has occupied it since. This last church had previously been in Cham- bers Street, and before that it had occu- pied several quarters. It was founded in 1827, and is the fourth oldest church in the diocese. Zion Episcopal Church moved in 1853 to Thirty-eighth Street and Madison Avenue, and in 1891 consolidated with St. Timothy's Church at No. 332 West Fifty-seventh Street. The Madison Avenue building was sold to the South (Reformed) Dutch Church. Chatham Square has been the open Chatham • • • ,1 ,• 1 Square space It IS now ever smce the time when a few houses clustered about Fort Amster- dam. The road that stretched the length of the island in 1647 formed the only connecting link between the fort and six large bouweries or farms on the east side. 45 NOOKS AND CORNERS The bouwerie settlers in the early days were harassed bv Indians, and spent as much time defending them- selves and skurrying off to the protec- tion of the I'ort as they did in improv- ing the land. The earliest settlement in the direction of these bouweries, which had even a suggestion ot perma- nency, was on a hill which had once been an Iruiian outlook, close bv the present Chatham Square, b.manucl de Groot,a giant negro, with ten superannu- ated slaves, were permitted to settle here upon agreeing to pay each a fat hog and 12]4 bushels of grain a year, their chil- dren to remain slaves. North of this settlement stretched a primeval forest through which cattle wandered and were lost. Then the future Chatham Square was fenced in as a place of protection for the cattle. Bouwerie The lane leading from this enclosure to the outlying bouweries, during the Revolution was used for the passage of 46 La II OF OLD NEW YORK both armies. At that period the high- way changed from the Bouwerie Lane of the Dutch to the EngHsh Bowery Road. In 1807 it became "The Bowery." The earHest " Kissing Bridge " was K:iss'ng over a small creek, on the Post Road, " ^^ close by the present Chatham Square. Travelers who left the city by this road parted with their friends on this bridge, it being the custom to accompany the traveler thus far from the city on his way. What is now Park Row, from City Hall Park to Chatham Square, was for many years called Chatham Street, in honor of William Pitt, Earl of Chatham. In 1886 the aldermen of the city changed the name to Park Row, and in so doing seemed to stamp approval of an event just one hundred years before which had stirred American manhood to acts of 47 NOOKS AND CORNERS valor. This was the dragging down by British soldiers in 1776 of a statue of the Karl of Chatham which had stood in Wall Street. Tea Water The most Celebrated pump in the city ""^*' was the Tea Water Pump, on Chatham Street (now Park Row) near (Jueen (now Pearl) Street, The water was supplied from the Collect and was con- sidered of the rarest quality for the making of tea. Up to 1789 it was the chief water-works of the city, and the water was carted about the city in casks and sold from carts. Home of Within a few steps of the Bowerv, on icmplc ^^^ north side of Pell Street, in a frame house, Charlotte Temple died. The heroine of Mrs. Rowson's "Tale of Truth," whose sorrowful Hfe was held up as a moral lesson a generation ago, had lived first in a house on what is now the south side ot Astor Place close to OF OLD NEW YORK Fourth Avenue. Her tomb is in Trinity churchyard. The Bull's Head Tavern was built Bull's Head on the site of the present Thalia Theatre, ^^"^ formerly the Bowery Theatre, just above Chatham Square, some years before 1763. It was frequented by drovers and butchers, and was the most popular tavern of its kind in the city for many years. Washington and his staff occu- pied it on the day the British evacuated the city in 1783. It was pulled down in 1826, making way for the Bowery TheatrCo The Bowery Theatre was opened First 1 1 • I r ■ Bowery m 1826, and durmg the course or its Theatre existence was the home of broad melo- drama, that had such a large following that the theatre obtained a national rep- utation. Many celebrated actors ap- peared in the house. It was burned in 1828, rebuilt and burned again in 49 \ O O K S A N' D CORNERS 1836, again in i8j8, in 1845 and in 1 S48. New Bowerv Street was opened from the south side of Chatham Square in 1856. The street carried away a part of a Jewish burying-ground, a portion ot which, crowded between tenement- houses and shut off from the street by a wall and iron fence, is still to be seen a few steps from Chatham Square. The first synagogue of the Jews was in Mill Street (now South William). The graveyard mentioned was the first one used bv this congregation, and was opened in 16H1, so tar from the city that it did not seem probable that the latter could ever reach it. Earlv in the nineteenth century the graveyard was moved to a site which is now Sixth Avenue and Kleventh Street. Washington's The Franklin House was the first Cherry Hill p'^cc of residence of Cieorge Washing- ton in the cirv, whcti he became Presi- 50 OF OLD NEW YORK dent in 1789. It stood at the corner of Franklin Square (then St. George Square) and Cherry Street. A portion of the East River Bridge structure rests on the site. Pearl Street, passing the house, was a main thoroughfare in those days. The house was built in 1770 by Walter Franklin, an importing mer- chant. It was torn down in 1856, The site is marked by a tablet on the Bridge abutment, which reads : THE FIRST PRESIDENTIAL MANSION NO. 1 CHERRY STREET OCCUPIED BY GEORGE WASHINGTON FROM APRIL 23, 1789 TO FEBRUARY 23, I79O ERECTED BY THE MARY WASHINGTON COLONIAL CHAPTER, D.A. R. APRIL 30, 1899 At No. 7 Cherry Street gas was first introduced into the city in 1825. This is the Cherry Hill district, sadly deteri- 51 NOOKS AND CORNERS orated from the merrv davs of its in- fancy. Its name is still preserved in Cherry Street, which is hemmed in by tenement-houses which the Italian population crowd in almost inconceiv- able numbers. At the top of the hill, where these Italians drag out a crowded existence, Richard Sackett, an English- man, established a pleasure garden be- yond the city in 1670, and because its chief attraction was an orchard of cherry trees, called it the Cherry Garden — a name that has since clung to the locality. II Hud3o/> j. Wdt(> 5ti II FROM New Amsterdam, which cen- The tered about the Fort, the only road Brcmdvvay which led through the island branched out from Bowling Green. It took the line of what is now Broadway, and dur- ing a period of one hundred years was the only road which extended the length of the island. That Broadway, beyond St. Paul's Chapel, ever became a greatly traveled thoroughfare, was due more to accident than design, for to all appearances the road which turned to the east was to be the main artery for the city's travel, and all calculations were made to that end. Broadway really ended at St. Paul's. 55 The First Graveyard NOOKS AND CORNERS Morris Street was called Beaver Lane before the name was changed in 1829. On this street, near Broadway, the first graveyard of the city was situated. It was removed and the ground sold at auction in i6~6, when a plot was ac- quired opposite Wall Street. This last was used in conjunction with Trinity Church until city interment was pro- hibited. On the office building at 41 Broad- The First Built way there is fixed a tablet which bears the inscription : THIS TABLET MARKS THE SITE OF THE FIRST HABITATIONS OF WHITE MEN ON THE ISLAND OF MANHATTAN ADRIAN BLOCK COMMANDER OF THE •*TICER" ERECTED HERE FOUR HOUSES OR HUTS AFTER HIS VESSEL WAS BURNED NOVEMBER, 1613 HE BUILT THE RESTLESS, THE FIRST VESSEL MADE BY EUROPEANS IN THIS COUNTRY THE RESTLESS WAS LAUNCHED IN THE SPRING OF 1614 56 OF OLD NEW YORK Adrian Block was one of the earliest fur traders to visit the island after Henry Hudson returned to Hol- land with the news of his discovery. The " Tiger " took fire in the night while anchored in the bay, and Block and his crew reached the shore with difficulty. They were the only white men on the island. Immediately they set about building a new vessel, which was named the " Restless." Next door, at No. 39, President Washington lived in the Macomb's Mansion, moving there from the Frank- lin House in 1790. Subsequently the house became a hotel. There is a rift in the walls between Tin Pot T..T r> ^ Alley the tall buildings at No. 55 Broadway, near Rector Street, a cemented way that is neither alley nor street. It was a green lane before New Amsterdam became New York, and for a hundred years has 57 NOOKS AND CORNERS been called Tin Pot Alley. With the growth of the citv the little lane came near being crowded out, and the name, not being of proper dignity, would be forgotten but for a terra cotta tablet fixed in a building at its entrance. This was placed there by Rev. Morgan Dix, the pastor of Trinity Church. At the southwest corner of Broadway and Rector Street, where a sky-scraper is now, Grace Church once stood with a graveyard about it. The church was completed in 1808, and was there until 1846, when the present structure was erected at Broadway and Tenth Street. Upon the Rector Street site, the Trin- ity Lutheran Church, a log structure, was built in 1671. It was rebuilt in 1741, and was burned in the great hre of 1776. Trinity Trinity churchyard is part of a large Churchyard r i i i !'!-'•• tract or land, granted to the 1 rmity S8 OF OLD NEW YORK Corporation in 1705, that was once the Queen's Farm. In 1635 there were a number of bouweries or farms above the Fort. The nearest — one extending about to where Warren Street is — was set apart for the Dutch West India Company, and called the Company's Farm. Above this was another, bounded approxi- mately by what are now Warren and Charlton Streets, west of Broadway. This last was given by the company, in 1635, t^ Roelof Jansz (contraction of Jannsen), a Dutch colonist. He died the following year, and the farm became the property of his wife, Annetje Jans. (In the feminine, the z being omitted, the form became Jans.) The farm was sold to Francis Lovelace, the English Governor, in 1 670, and he added it to the company's farm, and it became thereafter the Duke's Farm. In 1674 it became the King's Farm. When Queen Anne began her reign it became the Queen's 59 NOOKS AND CORNERS Annctjc Farm, and it was she who granted it to Farm* Trinitv, making it the Church Farm. In 173 1, which was sixty-one years after the Annetje Jans's farm was sold to Governor Lovelace, the descendants of Annetje Jans for the first time de- cided that they had yet some interest in the farm, and made an unsuccessful pro- test. From time to time since protests in the form of lawsuits have been made, but no court has sustained the claims. The city's growth was retarded by church ownership of land, as no one wanted to build on leasehold property. It was not until the greater part of avail- able land on the east side of the island was built upon that the church property was made use of on the only terms it could be had. Not until 1803 were the streets from Warren to Canal laid out. Trinity Church was built in 1697. I'or years before, however, there had been a burving-ground bevond the city 60 OF OLD NEW YORK and the city's wall that became the Trinity graveyard of to-day. The wav- ing grass extended to a bold bluff over- looking Hudson River, which was about where Greenwich Street now is. Through the bluff a street was cut, its passage being still plainly to be seen in the high wall on the Trinity Place side of the graveyard. The oldest grave of which there is a oldest Grave record is in the northern section of the churchyard churchyard, on the left of the first path. It is that of a child, and is marked with a sandstone slab, with a skull, cross- bones and winged hour-glass cut in re- lief on the back, the inscription on the front reading : w. c. HEAR . LYES . THE . BODY OF . RICHARD . CHVRCH ER . SON . OF . WILLIA M. CHVRCHER . WHO . DIED . THE . 5 OF . APRIL 1 68 1 . OF . AGE 5 YEARS AND . 5 . MONTHS 6i NOOKS AND CORNERS The records tell nothing of the Churchcr family. Within a few feet of this stone is an- other that countless eyes have looked at through the iron fence from Broad- way, which savs : HA, SYDNEY, SYDNEY I LYEST THOU HERE ? I HERE LYE, 'til time IS FLOWN TO ITS EXTREMITY. It is the grave of a merchant — once an officer of the British army — Sydney Breese, who wrote his epitaph and di- rected that it he placed on his tombstone. He died in 1767. On the opposite side of the path, nearer to Broad- wav, is a marble slab Ivintr flat on the ground and 6a f OF OLD NEW YORK each year sinking deeper into the earth. Grave of It was placed there by one of the sex- Temple^ tons of Trinity more than a century ago, in memory of Charlotte Temple. Close by the porch of the north en- trance to the church is the stone that marks the grave of William Bradford, who set up the first printing-press in the colony and was printer to the Col- onial Government for fifty years. He was ninety-two years old when he died in 1752. The original stone was crum- bling to decay when, in 1 863, the Vestry of Trinity Church replaced it by the present stone, renewing the original inscription (see page 14). The tall freestone Gothic shaft, the Martyrs' I I -1 • I 1 Monument only monumental pile m the northern section of the churchyard, serves to commemorate the unknown dead of the Revolution. Trinity Church with all its records, together with a large section 63 NOOKS AND CORNERS of the western part of the city, was burned in 1776 when the British army occupied the city. During the next seven years the only burials in the grave- yard were the American prisoners from the Provost Jail in The Commons and the other crowded prisons of the city, who were interred at night and without ceremony. No record was kept of who the dead were. ^ Close to the Martyrs' Monument is a Churchyard i r i • • Cryptograph stone SO near the fence that its mscrip- tion can be read from Broadway : HERE LIES DEPOSITED THE BODY OF JAMES LEESON, WHO DEPARTED THIS LIFE ON THE 28TH DAY OF SEPTEMBER, I 794, AGED 38 YEARS. And above the inscription arc cut these curious characters : 64 OF OLD NEW YORK It is a cryptograph, but a simple one, familiar to school children. Jn its solu- tion three diagrams are drawn and let- tered thus : A B C D E F T u V W X Y Z Q. R The lines which enclose the letters are separated from the design, and each section used instead of the letters. For example, the letters A, B, C, become : JUL The second series begins with K, be- cause the I sign is also used for J. The letters of the three series are distin- guished by dots ; one dot being placed with the lines of the first series ; two dots with the second, but none with the third. If this be tried, any one can readily decipher the meaning of the 65 NOOKS AND CORNERS cryptograph, and read " REMEMBER DEATH." Close to the north door of the church are interred the remains of Lady Corn- bury, who could call England's Oueen Anne cousin. She was the wife of Edward Hyde, Lord Cornbury, who was Governor of New York in 1702. He was a grandson of the Earl of Clar- endon, Prime Minister of Charles II ; and son of that Earl of Clarendon who was brother-in-law of James II. So Lady Cornbury was first cousin of Queen Anne. She was Baroness of Clifton in her own right, and a gracious lady. She died in 1706. The tomb of Alexan- der Hamilton, patriot, and statesman, stands conspic- uously in the southern half Tool of Alexaweh Uamu-Ton OF OLD NEW YORK of the churchyard, about forty feet from Alexander Bj J r r ^ • Hamilton's roadway and ten reet rrom the iron Tomb raihng on Rector Street. In the same part of the churchyard are interred the remains of Philip, eldest son of Alexander Hamilton. The son in 1 80 1 fell in a duel with George L. Eacker, a young lawyer, when the two disagreed over a political matter. Three years later Eacker died and was buried in St. Paul's churchyard, and the same year Alexander Hamilton fell before the duelling pistol of Aaron Burr. Close bv Hamilton's tomb, a slab Last Friend '. . .Of almost buried in the earth bears the in- Aaron Burr scription *' Matthew L. Davis' Sepul- chre." Strange that this "last friend that Aaron Burr possessed on earth " should rest in death so close to his friend's great enemy. He went to the Jersey shore in a row-boat with Burr on the day the duel was fought with Ham- ilton, and stood not far away with Dr 67 NOOKS AND CORNERS Hosack to await the outcome. He was imprisoned for refusing to testify before the Coroner. Afterwards he wrote a life of Burr. He was a merchant, with a store at 49 Stone Street, and was highly respected. Tomb of Within a few steps of Broadway, at Capt. James f • ' Lawrence the southem entrance to the church, is the tomb of Captain James Lawrence, U. S. N., who was killed on board the frigate Chesapeake during the engage- ment with H. H. M. frigate " Shannon." His dying words, " Don't give up the ship ! " are now known to every school- boy. The handsome mausoleum close by the church door, and the surrounding eight cannon, first attract the eye. These cannon, selected from arms captured from the English in the War of 1812, are buried deep, according to the di- rections of the Vestry of Trinity, in or- der that the national insignia, and the inscription telling of the place and time 68 OF OLD NEW YORK of capture, might be hidden and no evidence of triumph paraded in that place — where all are equal, where peace reigns and enmity is unknown. The monument was erected August 22, 1 844. Before that the remains of Captain Lawrence had been interred in the south- west corner of the churchyard, beneath a shaft of white marble. This first rest- ing-place was selected in September, 1 8 13, when the body was brought to the city and interred, after being carried in funeral procession from the Battery. " D. Contant " is the inscription on the first vault at the south entrance, one of the first victims of the revocation of the Edict of Nantes to be buried in the city. There are many Huguenot me- morials in the churchyard, the oddest being a tombstone with a Latin inscrip- tion telling that Withamus de Marisco, who died in 1765, was " most noble on the side of his father's mother." 69 NOOKS AND CORNERS Crcsap, the y\(- f^e ^ear of the church, to the Figlittrr noTth, is a small headstone : IN MEMORY OF MICHAEL CKESAP FIRST CAPTAIN OF THE RIFLE BATTALIONS AND SON OF COLONEL THOMAS CRESAP WHO DEPARTED THIS LIFE OCT. l8, A, D. I 775. His father had been a friend and neigh- bor ot Washington in Virginia, and he himself was a brilliant Indian fighter on the frontier of his native State. It was the men under his command who, un- ordered, exterminated the family of Logan, the Indian chief, "the friend of the white man." Manv a bov, who in school declaimed, unthinkingly, " Who is there to mourn for Logan ? Not one ! " grown to manhood, cannot but look with interest on the grave of Logan's foe. Tradition has been kind to Cresap's memory, insisting that his 70 OF OLD NEW YORK heart broke over the accusation of re- sponsibility for the death of Logan's family. There is another slab, close by the grave of Captain Cresap, which tells : " HERE LIETH YE BODY OF SUSAN- NAH NEAN, WIFE OF ELIAS NEAN, BORN IN YE CITY OF ROCHELLE, IN FRANCE, IN YE YEAR 1660, WHO DEPARTED THIS LIFE 25 DAY OF DECEMBER, 1720, AGE 60 YEARS." "HERE LIETH ENTERRED YE BODY OF ELIAS NEAN, CATECHIST IN NEW YORK, BORN IN SOUBISE, IN YE PROVINCE OF CAEN- TONGE IN FRANCE IN YE YEAR 1 662, WHO DEPARTED THIS LIFE 8 DAY OF SEPTEMBER 1 7 22 AGED 60 YEARS." "THIS INSCRIPTION WAS RESTORED BY ORDER OF THEIR DESCENDANT OF THE 6th GENERATION, ELIZABETH CHAMP- LIN PERRY, WIDOW OF THE LATE COM'R O. H. perry, of THE U. S. NAVY, MAY, ANNO DOMINI, 1 846." But the stone does not tell that the Huguenot refugee was for many years 71 NOOKS AND CORNERS a vestryman of Trinity Church, and that among his descendants are the Behnonts and a dozen distinguished families. Before coming to America, Elias Nean was condemned to the galleys in France because he refused to renounce the re- formed religion. Where Beneath the middle aisle in the church CioV. Dc Lancey He the bones of the eldest son of Stephen Was buried ^fcltienne) De Lancey— James De Lan- cey. He was Chief Justice of the Colony of New "^'ork in lyjj, and Lieutenant- Governor in i~53. He died suddenly in 1 760 at his country house which was at the present northwest corner of De- lancey and Chrystie Streets. A lane led from the house to the Bowerv. Hume of Thames Street is as narrow now as it Dc Lanreys ^'^^ O"^ hundred and fifty years ago, when it was a carriageway that led to the stables of Ltienne De Lancey. The Huguenot nobleman left his Broad OF OLD NEW YORK Street house for the new home he had built at Broadway and Cedar Street in 1730. In 1741, at his death, it became the property of his son, James, the Lieu- tenant-Governor. It was the most im- posing house in the town, elegantly decorated, encircled by broad balconies, with an uninterrupted garden extending to the river at the back. After the death of Lieutenant-Gover- nor De Lancey in 1760, the house be- came a hotel, and was known under many names. It was a favorite place for British officers during the Revolution, and in 1789 was the scene of the first " inauguration ball " in honor of Presi- dent Washington. The house was torn down in 1793. In 1806 the City Hotel was erected on its site and became the most fashionable in town. It was removed in 1850 and a line of shops set up. In 1889 ^^^ present buildings were erected. A tablet on the building at 1 13 Broad- 73 NOOKS AND CORNERS way, corner of Cedar Street, marks the site, reading : THt Sn I OK LIEUT. COVE. DE LASCEY'S HOUSE, LATER THE CITV HOTEL. IT WAS HERE THAT THE NO.N-IMPORTATION AC;REEMENT, in opposition to THE STAMP ACT, WAS SIGNED, OCT. 1 5TH, I 766. THE TAVERN HAD MANY PROPRIETORS BY WHOSE NAMES IT WAS SUCCESSIVELY CALLED. IT WAS ALSO KNOWN AS THE PROVINCE ARMS, THE CITY ARMS AND BURNS COFFEE HOUSE OR TAVERN. Opposite Liberty (then Crown) Street, in the centre of Broadway, there stood in 1789 a detached building 42x25 feet. It was the ' * up-town market," patronized bv the wealthy, who did their own marketing in those days, their black slaves carrying the purchases home. Washington Washington Market, at the foot of Market .-, , , .... ,_, rulton Street, was built in i 8 j ^ I he water washed the western side of it then, and ships sailed to it to deliver their 74 OF OLD NEW YORK freight. Since then the water has been crowded back year by year with the growing demand for land. In its early days it was variously called Country Market, Fish Market and Exterior Market. At the outskirts of the city, in a field ^}- P^"^'' •' . Chapel that the same year had been sown with wheat, the cornerstone of St. Paul's Chapel was laid on May 14, 1764. The church was opened two years later, and the steeple added in 1794. It fronted the river which came up then as far as to where Greenwich Street is now, and a grassy lawn sloped down to a beach of pebbles. During the days of Eng- lish occupancy. Major Andre, Lord Howe and Sir Guy Carleton worshipped there. Another who attended services there was the English midshipman who afterwards became William IV. President Washington, on the day of his inauguration, marched at the head of 75 NOOKS AND CORNERS The Washington Pew in St. Pauls the representative men of the new nation to attend service in St. Paul's, and there- after attended regularly. The pew he occupied has been preserved and is still to be seen next the north wall, midwav between the chancel and the vestrv room. Directly opposite is the pew occupied at the same period bv Gov- ernor George Clinton. Back of the chancel is the monument to Major-General Richard Monteomerv, who tell before Ouebec in i 775, crving;, " Men of New York, you will not fail to follow where your general leads ! " Congress decided on the monument, and Benjamin Frank- lin bought it in !•" ranee for joo guineas. A pri- vateer bringint^ it to this country was captured by a British gunboat ""^ which in turn was W4(hit>2ton Pew $' TaCL^ CHATU. OF OLD NEW YORK taken, and the monument, arriving safe here, was set in place. The body was removed from its first resting-place in Quebec, and interred close beside the monument in i8i 8. In the burying-ground, which has been beside the church since it was built, are the monuments of men whose names are associated with the city's his- tory : Dr. William James Macneven, who raised chemistry to a science ; Thomas Addis Emmet, an eminent jurist and brother of Robert Emmet ; Christopher Collis, who established the first water works in the city, and who first conceived the idea of constructing the Erie Canal ; and a host of others. The tomb of George Frederick Cooke, the tragedian, is conspicu- ous in the centre of the yard, facing the main door of the church. 77 ,r~Monl^onierir 5 TjCJpb '/ -/ NOOKS AND CORNERS The Actor Cooke was born in England in 1756, Grave and died in New York in 1812. Early in life he was a printer's apprentice. By 1800 he had taken high rank among tragic actors. The grave of George L. Eacker, who killed the eldest son of Alexander Hamilton in a duel, is near the Vesey Street railing. Astor The Astor House, occupying the Broadway block between \'esey and Barclay Streets, was opened in 1836 by Boyden, a hotel keeper of Boston. This site had been part of the Church Farm, and as earlv as 1729, when there were only a few scattered farm houses on the island above what is now Eiberty Street, there was a farm house on the Astor House site ; and from there ex- tended, on the Broadway line, a rope- walk. Prior to the erection of the hotel in I 830, the site for the most part had been occupied by the homes of John 78 OF OLD NEW YORK Jacob Astor, John G. Coster and David Lydig. On a part of the site, at 221 Broadway, in 1817, M. PafF, popu- larly known as " Old Paff," kept a bric- a-brac store. He dealt especially in paintings, having the reputation of buy- ing worthless and old ones and " restor- ing" them into masterpieces. His was the noted curiosity-shop of the period. Where Vesev and Greenwich Streets ^ House of Other Days and West Broadway come together is a low, rough-hewn rock house. It has been used as a shoe store since the early NOOKS A N' II CORNERS part of the centur\ . On Its roof is a monster boot bearing the date of i8j2, which took part in the Croton water parade and a dozen other celebrations. In pre-revolutionary days, when the ground where the building stands was all Hudson River, and the water ex- tended as far as the present Greenwich Street, according to tradition, this was a lighthouse. There have been manv changes in the outward appearance, but the foundation of solid rock is the same as when the waters swept around it. The Road Greenwich Street follow-s the line of a c.rcenwich road which led from the city to Green- wich Village. This road was on the waterside. It was called Greenwich Road. South of Canal Street, west of Broadway, was a marshy tract known as Lispenard's Meadows. Over this swamp Greenwich Road crossed on a raised causeway. When the weather was bad for any length of time, the road became So OF OLD NEW YORK heavy and in places was covered by the strong tide from the river. At such times travel took an inland route, along the Post Road (now the Bowery) and by Obelisk Lane (now Astor Place and Greenwich Avenue). St. Peter's Church, at the southeast St. Peter's corner of Barclay and Church Streets, the home of the oldest Roman Catholic congregation in the city, was built in 1786, and rebuilt in 1838. The con- gregation was formed in 1783, although mass was celebrated in private houses before that for the few scattered Catholic families. The two blocks included between Columbia College Barclay and Murray Streets, West Broadway and Church Street, were oc- cupied until 1857 by the buildings and grounds of Columbia College, That part of the Queen's Farrn lying west of Broadway between the present Barclay 81 NOOKS AND CORNERS and Murray Streets — a strip of land then in the outskirts of the citv — in 1754 was given to the governors of King's College. During the Revolu- tion the college suspended exercises, re- suming in 1784 as Columbia College under an act passed by the Legislature of the State. In 18 14, in consideration of lands before granted to the college which had been ceded to New Hamp- shire in settlement of the boundary, the college was granted by the State a tract of farming land known as the Hosack Botanical Garden. This is the twenty acres lying between Forty-seventh and Forty-ninth Streets, Fifth and Sixth Avenues. At that time the city ex- tended but little above the City Hall Park, and this land was unprofitable and for many years of considerable expense to the college. By 1839 ^^^ ^^^^' ^^'^ crept past the college and the locality being built up the college grounds were cramped between the limits of two 82 OF OLD NEW YORK blocks. In 1854, Park Place was opened through the grounds of the college from Church Street to West Broadway (then called College Place). Until about 1 816 the section of Park Place west of the college grounds was called Robinson Street. In 1857 the college was moved to Madison Avenue, between Forty- ninth and Fiftieth Streets, and in 1890 it was re-organized on a university basis. West Broadway was originally a lane chapel which wound from far away Canal Street to the Chapel of Columbia College, and was called Chapel Place. Later it be- came College Place. In 1892 the street was widened south of Chambers Street, in order to relieve the great traffic from the north, and extended through the block from Barclay to Greenwich Street. Evidence of the former existence of the old street can be seen in the pillars of the elevated road on the west side of West Broadway at Murray Street, for 83 NOOKS A N' D CORNERS these pillars, once on the sidewalk, are now several feet from it in the street. Bowling In the vicinity of what is now Green- Garden ^^ich and Warren Streets, the Bowling And First (j^een Garden was established in the Vaiixhall - i • i i early part ot the eighteenth century. It was a primitive forest, for there were no streets above Crown ( now Liberty ) Street on the west side, and none above Frank- fort on the cast. The land on which the Garden stood was a leasehold on the Church Farm. The place was given the name ot the \'auxhall Ciarden before the middle ot the same centurv, and tor forty years thereafter was a fashionable resort and sought to be a copy of the Vauxhall in London. There was danc- ing and music, and groves dimly lighted where visitors could stroll, and where they might sit at tables and eat. Bv the time the city stretched past the locality, all that was left of the resort was what would now be called a low saloon, and 84 OF OLD NEW YORK its pretty garden had been sold for building lots. The second Vauxhall was off the Bowery, south of Astor Place. The Stewart Building;, on the east side " Stewart's A. T Stewt of Broadway, between Chambers and store Reade Streets, has undergone few exter- nal changes since it was the dry goods store of Alexander T. Stewart. On this site stood Washington Hall, which was erected in 1809. It was a hotel of the first class, and contained the fashionable ball room and banqueting-hall of the city. The building was destroyed by fire July 5, 1844. The next year Stew- art, having purchased the site from the heirs of John G. Coster, began the con- struction of his store. Stewart came from Ireland in 1823, at the age of twenty. For a time after his arrival he was an assistant teacher in a public school. He opened a small dry goods store, and was successful. The Broad- way store was opened in 1846. Four 8s NOOKS AND CORNERS years later Stewart extended his building; so that it reached Reade Street. All along Broadway by this year business houses were taking the place of residen- ces. The Stewart residence at the north- west corner of Thirty-fourth Street and Fitth Avenue, was, at the time it was built, considered the finest house in America. Mr, Stewart died in 1876, leaving a fortune of fiftv millions. His body was afterwards stolen from St. Mark's Churchyard at Tenth Street and Second Avenue. At Broadway and Duane Street, roasted chestnuts were first sold in the street. A Frenchman stationed himself at this corner in 182S, and sold chest- nuts there for so many years that he came to be reckoned as a living land- mark. At the same corner was the popular Cafe des Mille Colonnes, the proprietor of which, I'\ Palmo, afterwards built and OFOLDNEWYORK conducted Palmo's Opera House in Chambers Street. In a store window on Broadway, close ^'''^^ Sewing 1 r • 1 • Machine to Duane Street, the first sewing-machine was exhibited, A young woman sat in the window to exhibit the working of the invention to passers-by. It was regarded as an impracticable toy, and was looked at daily by many persons who considered it a curiosity unworthy of serious attention. At Nos. 314 and 316 Broadway, on ^^^1°"'*" the east side of the street just south of Pearl Street, stood Masonic Hall, the cornerstone of v/hich was laid June 24, 1826. It looked imposing among the structures of the street, over which it towered, and was of the Gothic style of architecture. While it was in course of erection, William Morgan published his book which claimed to reveal the secrets of masonry. His mysterious disappear- ance followed, and shortly after, the rise 87 K O O K. S AND CORNERS of the anti-Masonic party and popular excitement put masonrv under such a ban that the house was sold by the Order, and the name of the building was changed to Gothic Hall. On the second floor was a room looked upon as the most elegant in the United States: an imitation of the Chapel of Henry \'III, it was of Gothic architecture, furnished in richness of detail and appropriateness of design, and was one hundred feet long, fifty wide and twenty-five high. In it were held public gatherings of social and political nature. New York Vhc two blocks now enclosed bv Duane, Worth, Broadway and Church Streets, were occupied bv the buildings and grounds of the New York Hospital, ThomasStreetwas atterwardscut through the grounds. As the City Hospital, the institution had been projected before the War of the Revolution. The build- ing was completed about 1775. During 88 OF OLD NEW YORK the war it was used as a barrack. In 1 79 1 it was opened for the admission of patients. On the lawn, which extended to Broadway, various societies gathered on occasions of annual parades and cele- brations. The hospital buildings were in the centre of the big enclosure. At the northern end of the lawn, the present corner of Broadway and Worth Street, was the New Jerusalem Church. On the corner of West Broadway and Riley's Fifth Franklin Street was Riley's Fifth Ward Hotel, which was a celebrated place in its day. It was the prototype of the modern elaborately fitted saloon, but was then a place of instruction and a moral resort. In a large room, reached by wide stairs from the street, were objects of interest and art in glass cases — pictures of statesmen, uniforms of the soldiers of all nations, Indian war implements, famous belongings of cele- brated men, as well as such simple NOOKS AND CORNERS curiosities as a two-headed calf. On Franklin Street, before Riley's door, was a marble statue minus a head, one arm and sundry other parts. It was all that remained of the statue of the Earl of Chatham, William Pitt, which had stood in Wall Street until dragged down by British soldiers. For twenty- five years the battered wreck had lain in the corporation yard, until found and honored with a place before his door by Riley. At the hitter's death the His- torical Society took the remains of the statue, and it is in its rooms vet. The passage of W\ashington through the island is commemorated by a tablet on a warehouse at 255 West Street, near Laight, which is inscribed : TO MARtC THE LANDING PLACE OF GENERAL GEORGE WA.'^HINGTON, JUNE 25, 1775, ON HIS WAY TO CAMBRIDGE TO COMMAND THE AMERICAN ARMV. 90 OF OLD NEW YORK St. John's Church of Trinity Parish, St. John's '' 1 1 -1 Church in Varick Street close to Beach, was built in 1807. When the church was fin- ished St. John's Park, occupying the entire block opposite — between Varick and Hudson, Laightand Beach Streets — was established for the exclusive use of residents whose houses faced it. Before it was established, the place had been a sandy beach that stretched to the river. The locality became the most fashion- able of the city in 1825. By 1 8 50 there had begun a gradual decline, for per- sons of wealth were moving uptown, and it degenerated to a tenement-house level after 1869, when the park disap- peared beneath the foundations of the big freight depot which now occu- pies the site. Around the corner from the church, a block away in Beach Street, is a tiny park, one of the last remnants of the Annetje Jans Farm. The bit of farm is carefully guarded now, much more so 91 NOOKS A N' D CORNERS than was the entire beautiful tract. It forms a triangle and is fenced in bv an iron railing, with one gate, that is fast barred and never opened. There is one struG;gling tree, wrapped close in winter with burlap, but it seems to teel its loneliness and does not thrive. The Red From the centre of St. John's Park on the west, Hubert Street extends to the river. This street, now given over to manufacturers, was, in 1824, the chief promenade of the city next to the Battery Walk. It led directly to the Red Fort at the river. The fort was some distance from the shore. It was built early in the century, was round and of brick, and a bridge led to it. It was never of anv practical use, but, like Castle Garden, was used as a pleasure resort. Lispcnard's Farlv in the eighteenth centurv, An- thony Rutgers held under lease from OF OLD NEW YORK Trinity a section of the Church Farm which took in the Dominie's Bouwerie, a property lying between where Broad- way is and the Hudson River. The southern and northern Hnes were ap- proximately the present Reade and Canal Streets. It was a wild spot, re- maining in a primitive condition — part marsh, part swamp — covered with dwarf trees and tangled underbrush. Cattle wandered into this region and were lost. It was a dangerous place, too, for men who wandered into it. To live near it was unhealthy, because of the foul gases which abounded. It seemed to be a worthless tract. About the year 1730, Anthony Rutgers suggested to the King in Council that he would have this land drained and made wholesome and useful provided it was given to him. His argument was so strong and sensi- ble that the land — seventy acres, now in the business section of the city — was given him and he improved it. At the 93 NOOKS AND CORNERS Cows on Broadway northern edge of the improved waste hvcd Leonard Lispenard, in a farm house which was then in a northern suburb of the city, bounded bv what is Hudson, Canal and \'estrv Streets. Lispenard married the daughter of Rutgers, and the land falling to him it became Lispenard's Meadows. In Lis- penard's time Broadway ended where White Street is now and a set of bars closed the thoroughfare against cows that wandered along it. The one bit of the meadows that remains is the tinv park at the foot of Canal Street on the west side. Anthony Rutgers' home- stead was close by what is Broadway and Thomas Street. After his death in 1750 it became a public house, and, with the surrounding grounds, was called Ranelagh Garden, a popular place in its time. Canal Street On a line with the present Canal Street, a stream ran from the Fresh 94 OF OLD NEW YORK Water Pond to the Hudson River, at the upper edge of Lispenard's Mead- ows. A project, widely and favorably considered in 1825, but which came to nothing, advocated the extension of Canal Street, as a canal, from river to river. The street took its name natur- ally from the little stream which was called a canal. When the street was filled in and improved, the stream was continued through a sewer leading from Centre Street. The locality at the foot of the street has received the local title of " Suicide Slip " because of the num- ber of persons in recent years who have ended their lives by jumping into Hud- son River at that point. In Broadway, between Grand and Howard Streets, in 18 19, West's circus was opened. In 1827 this was con- verted into a theatre called the Broad- way. Later it was occupied by Tatter- sail's horse market. 95 NOOKS AND CORNERS Original Ncxt door to Tattcrsall's, at Xo. 444 Olympic r> i • • i ai • t"! Theatre Broadway, the onixinal Olympic Thea- tre was built in iSj-. W. R. Blake and Henrv E. Willard built and man- aged the house. It was quite small and their aim had been to present plays of a high order of merit by an exceptionally good compain . The latter included besides Blake, Mrs. Maederand (leorge Barrett. Atrer a tew months of struggle against unprofitable business, prices were lowered. Little success was met with, the performances being of too ar- tistic a nature to be popular, and Blake gave up the effort and the house. In December, 18J59, Win. Mitchell leased the house and gave performances at low prices. At No. 45^^ Broadway, between Grand and Howard Streets, in iS44john Little- field, a corn doctor, set up a place, desig- natinii; himself as a chiropodist — an occu- pation before unknown under that title. 96 OF OLD NEW YORK At No. 485 Broadway, near Broome Street, Brougham's Lyceum was built in 1850, and opened in December with an '' occasional rigmarole " and a farce. In 1852 the house was opened, Sep- tember 8, as Wallack's Lyceum, hav- ing been acquired by James W. Wal- lack. Wallack ended his career as an actor in this house. In 1861 he re- moved to his new theatre, corner Thir- teenth Street and Broadway. Still \ later the Lyceum was called the ^ Broadway Theatre. *' Murderers' Row" has its start where Watts Street ends at Sullivan, midway of the block between Grand and Broome Streets. It could not be identified by its name, for it is not a' "row" at all, merely an ill- smelling alley, an arcade extend- .'-i ing through a block of battered .^/i. tenements. After running half its course through the block, the 97 J- NOOKS AND CORNERS alley is broken by an intersecting space between houses — a space that is taken up by push carts, barrels, tumble-down wooden balconies and lines of drying clothes. "Murderers' Row" is cele- brated in police annals as a crime centre. But the evil doers were driven out long years aG;o and the houses given over to Italians. These people are excessivelv poor, and have such a hard struggle for life as to have no desire to regard the laws of the Health Board. Constant complaints are made that the houses are hovels and the alley a breeding-place for disease. Greenwich (jreenwich Village sprang from the oldest known settlement on the Island of Manhattan. It was an Indian vil- lage, clustering about the site of the present West Washington Market, at the foot of Gansevoort Street, when Hendrick Hudson reached the island, in 1609. 98 OF OLD NEW YORK The region was a fertile one, and its natural drainage afforded it sanitary ad- vantages which even to this day make it a desirable place of residence. There was abundance of wild fowl and the waters were alive with half a hundred varieties of fish. There were sand hills, sometimes rising to a height of a hun- dred feet, while to the south was a marsh tenanted by wild fowl and crossed by a brook flowing from the north. It was this Manetta brook which was to mark the boundary of Greenwich Village when Governor Kieft set aside the land as a bouwerie for the Dutch West India Company. The brook arose about where Twenty-first Street now crosses Fifth Avenue, flowed to the southwest edge of Union Square, thence to Fifth Avenue and Eighth Street, across where Washington Square is, along the line of Minetta Street, and then to Hudson River, between Houston and Charlton Streets. 99 NOOKS AND CORNERS Sir Peter The interests of the little settlement \N arrcn were greatly advanced in 1744, when Sir Peter Warren, later the hero of Louisburg, married Susannah De Lan- cey and went to live there, purchasing three hundred acres of land. Kpidemics in the citv from time to time drove many persons to Greenwich as a place of refuse. But it remained for the fatal yellow-fever epidemic of 1822, when 384 persons died in the citv, to make Greenwich a thriving sub- urb instead of a struggling village. Twentv thousand persons fled the city, the greater number settling in Green- wich. Banks, public offices, stores of every sort were hurriedlv opened, and whole blocks of buildings sprang up in a few days. Streets were left where lanes had been, and corn-fields were transformed into business and dwelling blocks. Evolution of The sudden influx of people and con- (irccnwich , • , n • i Streets sequent trade into the village brought OF OLD NEW YORK about the immediate need for street im- provements. Existing streets were lengthened, footpaths and alleys were widened, but all was done without any regard to regularity. The result was the jumble of streets still to be met with in that region, where the thoroughfares are often short and often end in a cul- de-sac. In time the streets of the City Plan crept up to those of Greenwich Village, and the village was swallowed up by the city. But it was not swallowed up so completely but that the irregular lines of the village streets are plainly to be seen on any city map. Near where Spring Street crosses Hudson there was established, about 1765, Brannan's Garden, on the north- ern edge of Lispenard's Meadows. It was like the modern road-house. Green- wich Road was close to it, and pleasure- seekers, who thronged the road on the NOOKS AND CORNERS way from the citv to Greenwich Village, were the chief guests of the house. Duanc Street Crowded closc between dwellings on the east side of Hudson Street, fifty feet south of Spring, is the Duane M. E. Church, a quaint-looking structure, half church, half business building. This is the successor of the North Church, the North River Church and the Duane Street Church, founded in 1797, which, before it moved to Hudson Street, in 1863, was in Barley (now Duane) Street, between Hudson and Greenwich Streets. In Spring Street, near Varick, is the Spring Street Presbyterian Church, which was built in 1825. Before its erection the "old" Spring Street Pres- byterian Church stood on the site, hav- ing been built in 1811. Richmond Alrhouo;h the leveling vandalism of a great city has removed every trace ot OF OLD NEW YORK Richmond Hill, the block encircled by Macdougal, Charlton, Varick and Van- dam Streets, is crowded thick with memories of men and events of a past generation. Long before there was a thought of the city getting beyond the wall that hemmed in a few scattering houses, and when the Indian settlement, which after- wards became Greenwich Village, kept close to the water's edge, a line of low sand hills called the Zandtberg, stretched their curved way from where now Eighth Street crosses Broadway, ending where Varick Street meets Vandam. At the base of the hill to the north was Ma- netta Creek. The final elevation became known as Richmond Hill, and that, with a con- siderable tract of land, was purchased by Abraham Mortier, commissioner of the forces of George III. of England. In 1760 he built his home on the hill and called it also Richmond Hill. 103 NOOKS AND C O 1<. N E R S The house was occupied hv General Washington as his headquarters in 1776, and by \'ice-President Adams in 1788. Aaron Burr obtained it in 1797, enter- tained lavishly there, improved the grounds, constructed an artificial lake Pond^ long known as Burr's Pond, and set up a beautiful entrance gateway at what is now Macdougal and Spring Streets, which he passed through in 1804 when he went to fight his duel with Alexander Hamilton. Burr gave up the house in 180", and, the hill being cut awav in the opening of streets in i 817, the house was low- ered and rested on the north side of Charlton Street just east of V'arick. It became a theatre later and remained such until it was torn down in 1849. A quiet row of brick houses occupies the site now. St. John's What is now a pleasant little park Burying- i t i i /^i Ground encloscd by Hudson, Leroy and Clark- 104 OF OLD NEW YORK son Streets, was part of a plot set aside for a graveyard when St. John's Chapel was built. It was called St. John's Burying-Ground. Its early Hmits ex- tended to Carmine Street on one side and to Morton Street on the other. Under the law burials ceased there about 1850. There were 10,000 burials in the grounds, which, unlike the other Trinity graveyards, came to be neg- lected. The tombstones crumbled to decay, the weeds grew rank about them and the trees remained untrimmed and neglected. About 1890 property owners in the vicinity began steps to have the burying- ground made into a park. Conservative Trinity resisted the project until the city won a victory in the courts and the property was bought. Relatives of the dead were notified and some of the bodies were removed. In September, 1 897, the actual work of transforming the graveyard into a park was begun. 105 NOOKS A N' D CORNERS Laborers with crowbars knocked over the tombstones that still remained and putting the fragments in a pit at the eastern end of the grounds covered them with earth to make a plav-spot for children. Bedford At Morton and Bedford Streets is Street T» 1 - 1 ' » * f A^i I Churcli the Bedford Street M. h. Church, The original structure was built in 1810 in a green pasture. Beside it was a quiet graveyard, reduced somewhat in i8jo when the church was enlarged, and wiped out when the land became valuable and the present structure was set up in 1 S40. The church was built for the first congregation of Methodists in Greenwich V^illatre, formed in i 808 at the house of Samuel Walgrove at the north side of Morton Street close to Bleecker. Where Ihomas Thouias Paine — famous for his con- 1 ainc Lived Ami Died nection with the American and French revolutions, but chiefly for his works, 106 OF OLD NEW YORK " The Age of Reason," favoring Deism against Atheism and Christianity ; and " Common Sense," maintaining the cause of the American colonies — died in Greenwich Village June 8,1809, hav- ing retired there in 1802. The final years of his life were passed in a small house in Herring (now Bleecker) Street. On the site is a double tenement numbered No. 293 Bleecker Street, southeast corner Barrow. This last named street was not opened until shortly after Paine's death. It was first called Reason Street, a compliment to the author of " The Age of Reason." This was corrupted to Raisin Street. In 1828 it was given its present name. Shortly before his death Paine moved to a frame building set in the centre of a nearby field. Grove Street now passes over the site which is between Bleecker and West Fourth Streets, the back of the building having been where No. 59 Grove Street is now. 107 NOOKS AND CORNERS About the time that Barrow Street was opened Grove Street was cut through. It was called Cozine Street, then Columbia, then Burrows, and finally, in i82cy, was changed to Grove. When the street was widened in i8j6, the house in which Paine had died, until tlicn left standing, was demolished. Admiral yj-j^. homcstcad of Admiral Sir Peter \N'arrcn ami • i i His Family \> arren occupied the ground now taken up in the solidlv built block bounded by Charles, Fourth, Bleecker and Perry Streets. The house was built in 1744, in the midst of green fields, and for more than a centurv it was the most important dwelling in Greenwich. Ad- miral Warren of the British Xavv was, next to the Governor, the most import- ant person in the Province. His house was the favorite resort of social and influential New York. The Admiral's influence and popularitv had a marked effect on the village, which, by his 108 OF OLD NEW YORK coming, was given an impetus that made it a thriving place. Of the three daughters of Admiral Warren, Charlotte, the eldest, mar- ried Willoughby, Earl of Abingdon ; the second, Ann, married Charles Fitz- roy, afterwards Baron Southampton, and Susannah, the youngest, married William Skinner, a Colonel of Foot. These marriages had their effect also on Greenwich Village, serving to continue the prosperity of the place. Roads which led through the district, of which the Warren family controlled a great part, were named in honor of the differ- ent family branches. The only name now surviving is that of Abingdon Square. In the later years of his life. Sir Peter Warren represented the City of West- minster in Parliament. He was buried in Westminster Abbey. In 1796 the State Prison was built on 109 NOOKS A N' D CORNERS s«»«c about tour acres of ground, surrounded bv high walls, and taking in the territory now enclosed by Washington, West, Christopher and Perry Streets. The site is now, for the most part, occupied by a brewery, but traces of the prison walls are yet to be seen in those of the brewerv. There was a wharf at the foot of Christopher Street. In 1826 the prison was purchased bv the Cor- poration of the State. The construction of a new State Prison had begun at Sing Sing in 1825. Ini828 the male prison- ers were transferred to Sing Sing, and the female prisoners the next year. The yard of the earlv prison extended down to the river , there were fields Convict about and a wide stretch ot beach. It was here that the first svstem ot prison manufactures was organized. A convict named Noah Gardner, who was a shoe- maker, induced the prison officials to per- mit him the use ot his tools. In a short time he had trained most of the con- Labor OF OLD NEW YORK victs into a skilled body of shoemakers. The gathering together of a number of convicts in a workroom was at first productive of some disorder, owing to the difficulty of keeping them under proper discipline under the new con- ditions. In 1799 came the first riot. The keepers fired upon and killed sev- eral convicts. There was another re- volt in 1803. Gardner had been found guilty of forgery, but was reprieved on the gal- lows through the influence of the Society of Friends, of which he was a member, and sentenced to life imprisonment. Because of his services in organizing the prison work, he was liberated after serv- ing seven years. Becoming then a shoe manufacturer, he was successful for sev- eral years, when he absconded, taking with him a pretty Quakeress, and was never heard of again. Although the prison has been swept Qiiaint Houses in \Vieha\%ltcn Street NOOKS AND CORNERS awav, an idea of its locality can he had from the low huildings at the west side of nearby Wiehawken Street. These buildin2;s have stood for more than a hundred years, having been erected before the prison. That part of Greenwich Village that was transformed from fields into a town in a few davs, during the vellow fever scare of 1822, centered at the point where West Eleventh Street crosses West Fourth Street. At this juncture was a cornfield on which, in two days, a hotel capable of accommodating three hundred guests was built. At the same fr Old Houic) Wicb*wken Si- OF OLD NEW YORK time a hundred other houses sprang up, as if by magic, on all sides. Bank Street was named in 1799. Bank street The year previous a clerk in the Bank of New York on Wall Street was one of the earliest victims of yellow fever, and the officials decided to take precautions in case of the bank being quarantined at a future time. Eight lots were pur- chased on a then nameless lane in Green- wich Village. The bank was erected there, and gave the lane the name of Bank Street. Washington Square was once a Pot- Washington 01 Square ter's Field. A meadow was purchased by the city for this purpose in 1789, and the pauper graveyard was estab- lished about where the Washington Arch is now. Manetta Creek, coming from the north, flowed to the west of the arch site, crossed to what is now the western 113 NOOKS AND CORNERS portion of the Square, ran through the present Minetta Street and on to the river. In 1795, during a yellow fever epidemic, the field was used as a com- mon graveyard. In 1797 the pauper graveyard which had been in the present Madison Square, was abandoned in favor of this one. There was a gallows on the ground and criminals were executed and interred on the spot as late as 1822. In 1823 the Potter's Field was aban- doned and removed to the present Bryant Park at Fortv-second Street and Sixth Avenue. In 1S2"", three and one - i Looking South from .Minetta Lane OF OLD NEW YORK half acres of ground were added to the plot and the present Washington Square was opened. Past the pauper graveyard ran an Obelisk Lane inland road to Greenwich Village. This extended from the Post Road (now the Bowery) at the present Astor Place near Cooper Union, continued in a direct line to about the position of the Wash- ington Arch, and from that point to the present Eighth Avenue just above Fif- teenth Street. This road, established through the fields in 1768, was called Greenwich Lane. It was also known as Monument Lane and Obelisk Lane. A small section of it still exists in Astor Place from Bowery to Broadway. A larger section is Greenwich Avenue from Eighth to Fourteenth Streets. Monu- ment Lane took its name from a monu- ment at Fifteenth Street where the road ended, which had been erected to the memory of General Wolfe, the hero of "5 NOOKS AND CORNERS Quebec. rhe monument disappeared in a mysterious way during the British occupation. It is thought to have been destroyed by soldiers. Graveyard \ fg^y fgef g^St of Sixth AvcnuC, On Street the south side of I'.leventh Street, is a brick wall and railing, behind which can be seen several battered tombstones in a triangular plot of ground. This is all that is lett of a Jewish graveyard established almost a century ago. Millicran's Lane was the continuation of Amos (now West Tenth) Street, from Greenwich Avenue to Twelfth Street where it joined the Union Road. I'his lane struck the line of Sixth Avenue where Kleventh Street is now. At the southwest corner of this junction the course of the lane can be seen yet in the peculiar angle of the side wall of a building there, and in a similar angle of other houses near by. Close by this corner the second graveyard of Shearith OF OLD NEW YORK Israel Synagogue was established early in this century. It took the place of the Beth Haim, or Place of Rest, down town, a remnant of which is to be seen in New Bowery off Chatham Square. The Eleventh Street graveyard, es- Milligan's tablished in the midst of green fields, fronted on Milligan's Lane and extended back no feet. When Eleventh Street was cut through under the conditions of the City Plan, in 1830, it passed directly through the graveyard, cutting it away so that only the tiny portion now there was left. At that time a new place of burial was opened in Twenty- first Street west of Sixth Avenue. At a point just behind the house Union numbered ;^2 Eleventh Street, midway of the block between Fifth and Sixth Avenues, Union Road had its starting- point. It was a short road, forming a direct communicating line between Skinner and Southampton Roads. Skin- ny NOOKS AND CORNERS ner Road, running from Hudson River alon^ the line of the present Christopher Street, ended where Union Road began ; and Union Road met Southampton at what is now the corner of Fifteenth Street and Seventh Avenue. This point was also the junction of South- ampton and Great Kiln Roads. Kvidences of the Union Road are still to be seen in Twelfth Street, at the projecting angle of the houses num- bered 43 and 45. It was just at this point that Milligan's Lane ended. On 1 hirteenth Street, the course of Union Road is shown by the slanting wall of a big business building, numbered 36. First In Twelfth Street, between Sixth and r^MP^K^"^" Seventh Avenues, is the First Reformed Presbvterian Church. The congregation was started as a praying society in 1790 at the house of John Agnew at No. 9 Peck Slip. In 1798 the congregation worshipped in a school house in Cedar church OF OLD NEW YORK Street. They soon after built their first church at Nos. 39 and 41 Chambers Street, where the American News Com- pany building is now. It was a frame building, and was succeeded in 181 8 by a brick building on the same site. In 1 834 a new church was erected at Prince and Marion Streets. The foundation for the present church was laid in 1848, and the church occupied it in the follow- ing year. The New York Society Library, at Society 107 University Place, near Fourteenth Street, claims to be the oldest institu- tion of its kind in America. It is cer- tainly the most interesting in historical associations, richness of old literature and art works. It is the direct outcome of the library established in 1700, with quarters in the City Hall, in Wall Street, by Richard, Earl of Bellomont, the Governor of New York. In 1754 an association was incorpo- 119 NOOKS AND CORNERS rated for carrying on a library, and their collection, added to the library already in existence, was called the City Li- brary. The Board of Trustees con- sisted of the most prominent men in the city. In 1772 a charter was granted by George III, under the name of the New York Society Library. Durin^T the Revolutionary War the books became spoil for British soldiers. M;inv were destroyed and many sold. After the war the remains of the library were gathered from various parts of the citv and again collected in the Citv Hall. In 1784 the members ot the I'cdcral Coni2;ress deliberated in the library rooms. In 1795 the library was moved to Nassau Street, opposite the Middle Dutch Church; in i8j6 to Chambers Street; in 1H41 to Broadway and Leon- ard Street ; in 185J to the Bible House, and in 1S56 to the present building. At the point that is now Seventh ISO OF OLD NEW YORK Avenue and Fifteenth Street, then in- ^^^^^ KLiln Road tersected by the Union Road, the Great Kiln Road ended. Its continuation was called Southampton Road. From that point it continued to Nineteenth Street, east of Sixth Avenue, and then parallel with Sixth Avenue to Love Lane, the present Twenty-first Street. The line of this road, where it joined the Great Kiln Road, is still clearly shown in the oblique side wall of the house at the northwest corner of Sev- enth Avenue and Fifteenth Street. Here, also, it has a marked effect on the east wall of St. Joseph's Home for the Aged. The first-mentioned house, with the cutting through of the streets, has been left one of those queer trian- gular buildings, with full front and run- ning to a point in the rear. When the road reached what is now Sixteenth Street, a third of a block east of Seventh Avenue, it passed through the block in a sweeping curve to the N O O K. S AND CORNERS present corner of Seventeenth Street and Sixth Avenue. The evidence ot its passage is still to be seen in the tiny wooden houses buried in the centre of the block, which are remnants of a row Wfiivcrs' called Paisley Place, or Weavers* Row. This row was built during the vellow- fever agitation of 1822, and was occu- pied by Scotch weavers who operated their hand machines there. The road took its name from Sir Peter Warren's second daughter, who married Charles Fitzrov, who later be- came the Baron Southampton. Gravcyaril In Twentv-first Street, a little west Storc""^ "^ of Sixth Avenue, is the unused though not uncared-for graveyard of the Shear- ith Israel Synagogue. The graveyard cannot be seen from the street, but from the rear windows of a near-by dry-goods store a glimpse can be had of the ivy- covered receiving-vault and the time- grayed tombstones. OF OLD NEW YORK When this *' Place of Rest " was es- tablished the locality was all green fields. The graveyard had been forced from further down town by the cutting through of Eleventh Street in 1830. Interments were made in this spot until 1852, when the cemetery was removed to Cypress Hills, L. I., the Common Council having in that year prohibited burials within the city limits. But though there were no burials, the con- gregation have persistently refused to sell this plot, just as they have the ear- lier plots, the remains of which are off Chatham Square and in Eleventh Street, near Sixth Avenue. Abingdon Road in the latter years Love Lane of its existence was commonly called Love Lane, and more than a century ago followed close on the line of the present Twenty-first Street from what is now Broadway to Eighth Avenue. It was the northern limit of a tract of land 123 NOOKS AND CORNERS given bv the citv to Admiral Sir Peter Warren in recognition o\ his services at the capture of Louisburg. From this road, when the Warren estate was divided among the daughters of the Admiral, two roads, the South- ampton and the Warren, were opened through this upper part of the estate. The name Love Lane was given to the road in the latter part of the eigh- teenth centurv, and was retained until it was swallowed up in Twentv-first Street. This last was ordered opened in i 827, but was not actually opened until some years later. There is no record to show where the name came from. The generally accepted idea is that being a quiet and little traveled spot, it was looked upon as a lane where happy couples might drive, tar from the city, and amid green fields and stately trees confide the story of their loves. It was the longest drive from the town, bv wav of the Post Road, Bloomingdale Road and so across the «»4 OF OLD NEW YORK west to Southampton, Great Kiln roads, through Greenwich Village and by the river road back to town. The road originally took its name from the oldest daughter of Admiral Warren, who married the Earl of Ab- ingdon. There are still traces ot Love Lane in Twenty-first Street. The two houses numbered 25 and 27 stood on the road. The houses 51, 53 and 55, small and odd appearing, are more closely identi- fied with the lane. When built, these houses were conspicuous and alone, at the junction where Southampton Road from Greenwich Village ran into Love Lane. They are thought to have been a single house serving as a tavern. Close by, at the northeast corner of Twenty-first Street and Sixth Avenue, the house with the gable roof is one that also stood on the old road, though built at a later date than the three next to it. 125 N (J CJ K S A N D CORNER S The road ended for many years about on the line with the present Kighth Ave- nue, where it ran into the Fitzroy Road. Some years previous to the lay- in£T out of the streets under the City Plan in i8i i, Love Lane was continued to Hudson River. Before it reached the river it was crossed, a little east of Seventh Avenue, hv the Warren Road, although there is no trace of the crossing now. Chelsea Village Although Chelsea Villac;e was long ago swallowed up by the city, and its boundaries blotted out by the rectane;u- lar lines of the plan under which the streets were mapped out in iSi i, there is still a sugt^estion of it in the green lawns and gray buildings of the Gen- eral Theolo- gical Semi- nary of the Protestant V^nart OF OLD NEW YORK Episcopal Church, which occupies the block between Twentieth and Twenty- first Streets, Ninth and Tenth Avenues. Chelsea got its name in 1750, when Captain Thomas Clarke, an old soldier, gave the name to his country seat, in remembrance of the English home for invalided soldiers. It was between two and three miles from the city, a stretch of country land along the Hudson River with not another house anywhere near it. The house stood, as streets are now, at the south side of Twenty-third Street, about two hundred feet west of Ninth Avenue, on a hill that sloped to the river. The captain had hoped to die in his retreat, but his home was burned to the ground during his severe illness, and he died in the home of his nearest neigh- bor. Soon after his death the house was rebuilt by his widow, Mrs. Mollie Clarke. The latter dying in 1802, a portion of the estate with the house went to Bishop Benjamin Moore, who 127 NOOKS A N I) CORNERS had married Mrs. Clarke's daughter, Charity. It passed from him in 1813 to his son, Clement C. Moore. The latter reconstructed the house, and it stood until 1 850. Clement C. Moore's estate was in- cluded within the present lines of Eighth Avenue, Nineteenth to Twenty-fourth Streets and Hudson River. These are approximatelv the bounds ot Chelsea Village which grew up around the old Chelsea homestead. It came to be a thriving village, conveniently reached bv the road to (ireenwich and then bv Fitzroy Road ; or by the Bowerv Road, Bloomingdale, and then along Love Lane. In I 8 J I the streets were cut through and the village thereafter grew up on the projected lines of the City Plan. It was for this reason that Chelsea, when the city reached it, was merged into it so perfectly that there is not an imper- fect street line to tell where the village OF OLD NEW YORK had been and where the city joined it. There are houses of the old village still standing ; notably those still called the Chelsea Cottages in Twenty-fourth Street west of Ninth Avenue, and the row called the London Terrace in Twenty- third Street between Ninth and Tenth Terrace Avenues. The block on which the General Theological Seminary stands was given to the institution by Clement C. Moore, and was long called Chelsea Square. The cornerstone of the East Building was laid in 1825, and of the West Build- ing, which still stands, in 1835. It was this Clement C. Moore, living quietly in the village that had grown up around him, who wrote the child's poem which will be remembered longer than its writer — " 'Twas the Night before Christmas." 129 '1 c- n f: Ill Ill THE Oliver Street Baptist Church Oliver Street was built on the northwest corner church of OHver and Henry Streets in 1795. It was rebuilt in 1800, and again in 1 8 19. Later it was burned, and finally restored in 1843. The structure is now occupied by the Mariners' Temple, and the record of its burning is to be seen on a marble tablet on the front wall. Oliver Street — that is, the two blocks from Chatham Square to Madison Street — was called Fayette Street before the name was changed to Oliver in 1825. James Street was once St. James 133 NOOKS AND CORNERS Street. The change was made prior to 1816. Mariners' Church, at 46 Catherine Street, was erected in 1854, on the southeast corner of Madison Street. Prior to that, and as far back as 1819, it had been at 76 Roosevelt Street. Madison Banker Street having become a bv- word, because of the objectionable char- acter of its inhabitants, the name was changed to Madison Street in 1826. Between Jefferson and Clinton Streets, and south of Henry, was a pond, the only bit o\ water which, in early days, emptied into the East River between what afterward became Roosevelt Street and Houston Street. A wet meadow, rather than a distinct stream, ex- tended from this pond to the river as an outlet. This became later the region ot ship\ ards. '34 OF OLD NEW YORK On what is now Cherry Street, be- where ^,. i T rr ' o Nathan Hale tween Clinton and Jerrerson btreets, was Hanged was the house of Col. Henry Rutgers, the Revolutionary patriot, and his farm extended from that point in all direc- tions. On a tree of this farm Nathan Hale, the martyr spy of the Revolution, was hanged, September 22, 1776. On this same farm the Church of the Sea and Land, still standing with its three-foot walls, at Market and Henry Streets, was built in 18 17. * Church of Sea & Land NOOKS AND CORNERS In 182S, at the corner of Henrv and Scammel Streets, was erected All Saints' Church (Episcopal). It still stands, now hemmed in hv dwelling-houses. It is a low rock structure. A bit of green, a stunted tree and some shrubs still struL^L!:le throu[ih the bricks at the rear of the church, and can be seen through a tall iron railing from narrow Scammel Street. In 1S25 the church occupied a chapel on Grand Street at the corner of Columbia. First Tenement The first house designed especially House for many tenants was built in iSjj, in Water Street just east of Jackson, on which site is now included Corlears Hook Park. It was four stories in height, and arranged for one family on each fioor. It was built bv Thomas Price, and owned bv James P. Allaire, whose noted engine works were close by in Cherry Street, between Walnut (now jnckson) and Corlears Street. OF OLD NEW YORK Where Grand and Pitt Streets cross is the top of a hill formerly known as Mount Pitt. On this hill the building occupied by the Mount Pitt Circus was built in 1826. It was burned in 1828. At Grand, corner of Ridge Street, is the St. Mary's Church (Catholic), which was built in 1833, a rough stone struc- ture with brick front and back. In 1826 it was in Sheriff, between Broome and Delancey Streets. It had the first Roman Catholic bell in the city. In 1 83 1 the church was burned by a burg- lar, and the new structure was built in Grand Street. Actual work on the pier for the new East River Bridge, at the foot of Delancey Street, was begun in the spring of 1897. Much confusion has arisen, and still Manhattan ... . ^ , . Island exists, in the designation or the territory 137 NOOKS AND CORNERS under the names of Manhattan Island and Island of Manhattan. The two islands a hundred \ ears ago were widely different bodies. They are joined now. Manhattan Island was the name given to a little knoll of land which lav with- in the limits of what is now Third, Houston and Lewis Streets and the East River. At high tide the place was a veritable island. There seems to be still a suggestion of it in the low build- ings which occupv the ground of the former island. About the ancient boundary, as though closing it in, are tall tenements and factory buildings. On the grounds of this old island the first recreation pier was built, in 1S97, at the foot of Third Street. The Island of Manhattan has always been the name applied to the land oc- cupied bv the old Citv of \ew York, now the Borough of Manhattan. In the heart of the block surrounded OF OLD NEW YORK by Rivington, Stanton, Goerck and Mangln Streets, there is still to be seen the remains of a slanting-roofed .;. . market, closed in by the houses ;;? which have been built about I r; -^ it. It was setup in 1827, iIn A and named Manhattan Mar- V: J ket after the nearby island. V ^•M s- Work on the Hamilton Bone Fish Park was begun in 1896, Done All e 7 NOOKS AND CORNERS in the space hounded by Stanton, Houston, Pitt and Sheriff Streets, then divided into two blocks by Willett Street. This was a congested, tene- ment-house vicinity, where misery and poverty pervaded most of the dingy dwellings. In wiping out the two sol- idly built-up blocks, Bone Alley, well known in police history for a genera- tion, was effaced. On the west side of Willett Street, midway of the block. Bone Alley had its start and extended sixty feet into the block — a twentv-five- foot space between tall tenements, run- ning plump into a row of houses ex- tending horizontal with it. When these houses were erected they each had long gardens, which were built upon when the land became too valuable to be spared for Hower-beds or breathing- spots. In time they became the homes of rag- and bone-pickers, and thus the alley which led to them got its name, which it kept even after the rag- 140 OF OLD NEW YORK pickers and the law-breakers who suc- ceeded them had been driven away by the poHce. There was, forty years ago, a well of good, drinkable water at the point where Rivington and Columbia Streets now cross. The little frame house at the north- "Mother" ^ T-, . . 1 i^i- Mandelbaum west corner or Kivmgton and Clmton Streets was the home of " Mother " Frederica Mandelbaum for many years, until she was driven from the city in 1884. This "Queen of the Crooks," receiver of stolen goods and friend of all the criminal class, compelled, in a sense, the admiration of the police, who for years battled in vain to outwit her cleverness. When the play, " The Two Orphans," was first produced, Mrs. Wilkins, as the " Frochard," copied the character of " Mother " Mandelbaum and gave a representation of the woman 141 N () () K S A N I) CORNERS that all who knew the original recog- nized. Other plays were written, and also many stories, having her as a cen- tral figure. She died at Hamilton, On- tario, in I 894. At the crossing of Rivington and Suffolk Streets was the source of Stuy- vesant's Creek. From there, as the streets exist now, it crossed Stanton Street, near Clinton ; Houston, at Sheriff; Second, near Houston ; then wound around to the north of Manhattan Isl- and, and emptied into the I'.ast River at Third Street. Allen I PI Rivington Street, between Ludlow Memorial and Orchard, is the Allen Street Mem- Church ^^-^^i Church (M. E.), built in 18.S8. The original Church, which was built in 1810, istwo blocks awav, in Allen Street, between Delancey and Rivington Streets. It was rebuilt in i8j6, and when the new RivinL^ton Street struc- 141 OF OLD NEW YORK ture was erected the old house was sold to a Jewish congregation, who still oc- cupy it as a synagogue. In Grand Street, between Essex and Ludlow Streets, the Essex Market was built in 1818. The court next to it, in Essex Street, was built in 1856. le Stone On the Bowery, opposite Rivington ^^ Street, is a milestone (one or three that Bowery yet remain) which formerly marked the distance from the City Hall, in Wall Street, on the Post Road. The land to the east of the Bowery belonged to James De Lancey, who was Chief Jus- tice of the Colony in 1733, and in 1753 became Lieuten- ant-Governor. A lane led from the Bowery, close by the milestone, to his country house, which was at the NOOKS AND CORNERS present northwest corner of Delancey and Chrystie Streets. It was in this house that he died suddenly in 1760. James De Lancey was the eldest son of Ktienne (Stephen) De Lancey, who built the house which afterwards was known as Kraunces' Tavern, and which still stands at Broad and Pearl Streets. He later built the homestead at Broad- way and Cedar Street. Originally the name was " de Lanci." It became " de Lancy " in the seventeenth century, and was Anclici/.cd in the eighteenth century to '* De Lancey." Where Grand Street crosses Mul- berrv was, until 1802, the family burial- vault of the Bayard family, it having been the custom of early settlers to bury their dead near their homesteads. The localitv was called Bunker Hill. ^'- St. Patrick's Church, enclosed now Patrick's Church by the high wall at Mott and Prince •44 OF OLD NEW YORK Streets, was completed in 1 8 1 5, the cor- nerstone having been laid in 1809. ^^ was surrounded by meadows and great primitive trees. This region was so wild that in 1820 a fox was killed in the churchyard. In 1866 the interior of the church was destroyed by fire. It was at once reconstructed in its pres- ent form. Amongst others buried in the vaults are "Boss" John Kelly, Vicar-General Starr and Bishop Con- nelly, first resident bishop of New York. At Prince and Marion Streets, north- west corner, the house in which President James Monroe lived while in the city still stands. The St. Nicholas Hotel was at Broad- A" , p, . ^ , , Unsolved way and Sprmg Street, and on the crime ground floor John Anderson kept a tobacco store, to which the attention of the entire country was directed in July, 1842, because of the murder of Mary 145 NOOKS AND CORNERS Rogers. This tragedy gave Kdgar Allan Poe material for his story '' I he Mys- tery of Marie Roget," into which he introduced every detail of the actual happening. Mary Rogers was a sales- woman in the tobacco store, and being young and pretty she attracted consid- erable attention. She disappeared one July day, and, soon after, her body was found drowned near the Sibyl's Cave at Hoboken. The deepest mystery sur- rounded her evident murder, and much interest was taken in attempts at a solu- tion, but it remained an unsolved crime. On the east side of Broadway, between Prince and Houston Streets, on Julv 4, I 828, William Niblo opened his Garden, Hotel and I heatre, to be known for many years thereafter as Niblo's Garden. Prior to that, he had kept the Bank Coffee House, at William and Pine Streets. 146 OF OLD NEW YORK The Metropolitan Hotel was built in Niblo's Niblo's Garden, on the corner that is ^^"^''" now Broadway and Prince Street, in 1852, at a cost of a million dollars. The theatre in the hotel building was called Niblo's Garden. The building was demolished in 1894, and a business block was put up on the site. Across the street from Niblo's, on Broadway, in a modest brick house, lived, at one time, James Fenimore Cooper, the novelist. At No. 624 Broadway, between Houston and Bleecker Streets, was Laura Keene's theatre. On March i, 1858, Polly Marshall made her first appear- ance on any stage at that theatre. Later it became the Olympic Theatre. At Broadway and Bleecker Streets, a well was drilled, in 1832, which was four hundred and forty-eight feet deep, and 147 NOOKS AND (. O R N E R S which yielded forty-four thousand gal- lons of water a dav. J"P'" Trinicr Hall was at No. 677 Broad- Hall * ' [ ^ way, near Bond Street. Adelina I^atti appeared there on September 22, 1852, when ten years old, giving evidence of her future greatness. She sang there for some time, usuallv accompanied bv the bov violinist, Paul Julien. Tripler Hall had been renamed the Metropolitan Hall, when it was de- stroyed by fire in 1 S54. l.afarge House, which stood next it, was also burned. The house was rebuilt on the site, and opened in September, 1S54, under the name of the New \ Ork Theatre and Metropolitan Opera House. Rachel the great was first seen in America at this house, September ^, 1855. Later the house became the Winter Garden. The first marble-tronted houses in 14« OF OLD NEW YORK the city were built on Broadway, oppo- ^'"^^ site Bond Street, in 1825. They were Fronted called the Marble Houses, and attracted houses much attention. Being far out of the city, excursions were made to view them. Afterwards they became the Tremont House, and are still in use as a hotel. A pipe for a well was sunk in Broad- way, opposite Bond Street, in April, 1827, it being thought that enough water for the supply of the immediate neighborhood could be obtained there- from. The water was not found, how- ever. No. 3 1 Bond Street was the scene of Burdell a celebrated murder. The house is torn down now, but it was identical with the one which now stands at No. 29. On January 3, 1857, Dr. Harvey Bur- dell, a dentist, was literally butchered there, being stabbed fifteen times. A portion of the house had been occupied 149 N (3 O K. S AND CORNERS by a widow named Cunningham, and her two daughters. After the murder, Mrs. Cunningham claimed a widow's share of the Doctor's estate, on the ground that she had been married to him some months before. This claim started an investigation, which resulted in Mrs. Cunningham's being suspected ot the crime, arrested, tried and acquitted. Soon after her acquittal, she attempted to secure control of the entire Burdell estate, by claiming that she had given birth to an heir to the propertv. The scheme failed, tor the phvsician through whom she obtained a new-born child from Bellevue Hospital, disclosed the plot to District Attornev A. Oakev Hall. The woman and her daughters left the city suddenly, and were not heard of again. The mystery of the murder was nc\er solved. The part of Houston Street east of the Bowerv was, prior to No\ember, OF OLD NEW YORK 1833, called North Street. At the time the change in names was made the street was raised. Between Broadway and the Bowery had been a wet tract of land many feet below the grade. In 1844 the street was extended from Lewis Street to the East River. The Bleecker Street Bank, which was just east of Broadway, on the north side of Bleecker Street, was moved in October, 1897, to Twenty-first Street and Fourth Avenue, and called The Bank for Savings. It had originally been in the New York Institute Build- ing in City Hall Park. In the heart of the block inclosed by Marble the Bowery, Second Avenue, Second and Third Streets, is a hidden grave- yard. It is the New York Marble Cemetery, and so completely has it been forgotten that its name no longer appears in the City Directory. On four 151 N (J (> K S A N I) C () R N E R S sides it is hemmed about by tenements and business buildings, so that one could walk past it for a lifetime without knowing that it was there. On the Second Avenue side, the entrance is formed by a narrow passage between houses, which is closed by an iron gate- way. But tile Lj:ate is always locked, and at the opposite end of the passage r^^ ■•:■.:• v.; -Mll:|,^;, ^i. .& JT-' ■k.vi' Enlr4ftcc \o Miiole Crnttery OF OLD NEW YORK is another gate of wood set in a brick wall, so high that nothing but the tops of trees can be seen beyond it. From the upper rear windows of the neigh- boring tenements a view of the place can be had. It is a wild spot, four hundred feet by one hundred, covered by a tangled growth of bushes and weeds, crossed by neglected paths, and enclosed by a wall seventeen feet high There is no sign of a tombstone. In the southwest corner is a deadhouse of rough hewn stone. On the south wall the names of vault owners are chiseled. Among these were some of the best known New Yorkers fifty years ago. The records of the city show that this land was owned by Henry Eckford and Marion, his wife. They deeded it to Anthony Dey and George W. Strong when the cemetery corporation was or- ganized, July 30, 1830. There were one hundred and fifty-six vaults, and fifteen hundred persons were buried 153 NOOKS AN'D CORNERS there. I'his cemetery is forgotten almost as completelv as its own dead, and its memories do not molest the dwellers in the surrounding tenements who overlook it from their rear win- dows, and use it as a sort ot dumping- ground for all useless things that can readilv he thrown into it. The Second There is another Marble Cemetery Marble ,.,,.. . ^ . '. Cemetery wllich hlStOrUUlS SOHlCtimCS COntuSC With this hidden gravevard, namely, one on Second Street, between First and Sec- ond Avenues. Some oi the larger merchants of the city bought the ground in i8j2, and created the New York Citv Marble Cemetery. Among the oric;inal owners was Robert Lenox. When he died, in 1839, his body was placed in a vault of the Pirst Presbyte- rian Church at 16 Wall Street. When that church was removed to I'ltrh Avenue and Twelfth Street the remains of Lenox with others were removed to «S4 OF OLD NEW YORK this Marble Cemetery. The body of President James Monroe was first in- terred here, but was removed in 1859 to Virginia. Thomas Addis Emmet, the famous jurist, is also buried here. One of the most conspicuous monu- ments in St. Paul's churchyard, the shaft at the right of the church, was erected to the memory of Emmet. A large column on the other side of the church preserves the memory of another man whose body does not lie in the churchyard, for William James Mac- neven was interred in the burying- ground of the Riker family at Bowery Bay, L. I. In Second Street, between Avenue A and First Avenue, stood a Metho- dist church, and beside it a grave- yard, until 1840; when the building was turned into a public school. There were fifteen hundred bodies in the yard, but they were not removed to 155 NOOKS AND CORNERS Evergreen Cemetery until i860. Only fifteen bodies were claimed bv relatives. One man who applied for his father's body refused that offered him, claiming that the skull was too small, and that some mistake had been made in disin- terment. Second Street Methodist Episcopal Church, between Avenues C and 1), was built in i8j2, the congregation having previously worshipped in private houses in the vicinity. At one time this was the most prominent and wealthiest church on the eastern side of the city. Bouwtric The Bouwerie Village was another of ^^'^ the little settlements — once a busv spot, but now so ert'aced that every outline of its existence is blotted out. It centred about the site of the present St. Mark's Church, Second Avenue and Tenth Street. In 1 651, when Peter Stuvve- OF OLD NEW YORK sant, the last of the Dutch Governors, had ruled four years, he purchased the Great Bouwerie, a tract of land extend- ing two miles along the river north of what is now Grand Street, taking in a section of the present Bowery and Third Avenue. As there was, from time to time, trouble with the Indians, the Governor ordered the dwellers on his bouwerie, as well as those on adjoining bouweries, to form a village and gather there for mutual protection at the first sign of an outbreak. Very soon the settlement included a blacksmith's shop, a tavern and a dozen houses. In this way the Bouwerie Village was started. Peter Stuyvesant in time built a chapel, and in it Hermanus Van Hoboken, the schoolmaster, after whom the city of Hoboken is named, preached. Years after the founding of the village, when New Amsterdam had become New York, and when the old Governor had returned from Holland, where he had, 157 Grave of Ptter Stuyvesant NOOKS AN'D CORNERS before the States-General, fought for vindication in so readily giving up the province to the English, Stuyvesant returned to end his days in the Bouwerie Village. He died there at the age of eighty, and was buried in the graveyard of the Bouwerie Church. St. Mark's Church, at Tenth Street and Second Avenue, stands on the site of the old church, and a memorial stone to Peter Stuyvesant is still to be seen under the porch. It reads : IN THIS VAULT LIES BURIED PETRUS STUYVESANT, LATE CAPTAIN-GENERAL AND GOVERNOR IN CHIEF OF AMSTERDAM IN NEW NETHERLAND NOW CALLED NEW YORK AND THE DUTCH WEST INDIES, DIED IN A. D. I 67!',' AGED 80 YEARS. When Judith, the widow of Peter Stuvvesant, died, in 1692, she left the church in which the old Governor had worshipped to the Dutch Reformed Church. A condition was that the 158 OF OLD NEW YORK Stuyvesant vault should be forever pro- tected. By 1793 the church had fallen into decay. Then another Peter Stuy- vesant, great-grandson of the Dutch Governor, who was a vestryman of Trinity Church, gave the site and sur- rounding lots, together with $2,000, and the Trinity Corporation added $12,500, and erected the present St. Mark's Church. The cornerstone was laid in 1795 and the building com- pleted in 1799. It had no steeple until 1829, when that portion was added. In 1858 the porch was added. In the churchyard were buried the remains of Mayor Philip Hone and of Governor Daniel D. Tompkins. It was here that the body of Alexander T. Stewart rested until stolen. Close by the church wa^ the mansion of Governor Stuyve- sant. It was an imposing structure for those days, built of tiny bricks brought from Holland. A fire destroyed the house at the time of the Revolution. 159 NOOKS AND CORNERS When Peter Stuyvesant returned from Holland he brought with him a pear tree, which he planted in a garden near his Bouwerie Village house. This tree flourished for more than two hun- dred years. At Thirteenth Street and Third Avenue, on the house at the northeast corner, is a tablet inscribed : ON THIS CORNER GREW PETRUS STUYVESANT's PEAR TREE RECALLED TO HOLLAND IN I 664, ON HIS RETURN HE BROUGHT THE PEAR TREE AND PLANTED IT AS HIS MEMORIAL, " BY WHICH," SAID HE, "MY NAME MAY BE REMEMBERED." THE PEAR TREE FLOURISHED AND BORE FRUIT FOR OVER TWO HUNDRED YEARS. THIS TABLET IS PLACED HERE BY THE HOLLAND SOCIETY OF NEW YORK. SEPTEMBER, 189O. 160 OF OLD NEW YORK In 1785 half a dozen persons in the ^'■'s^ Bouwerie Village, then scattering to the schoof east from the site of Cooper Union, met at the "Two Mile Stone" — so called from being two miles from Fed- eral Hall — in the upper room of John Coutant's house, on the site where Cooper Institute stands now. The room was used as a shoe store during the week. Here, on Sundays, ministers from the John Street Church instructed converts. Peter Cooper, who was a member of the church, a few years later conceived the idea of connecting the school with the church. The organi- zation was perfected, and he was chosen Superintendent of this, the first Sunday School of New York. The quarters becoming cramped, in 1795 the congregation moved to a two- story building a block away, on Nicho- las William Street. This street, long since blotted out, extended from what is now Fourth Avenue and Seventh 161 NOOKS AND CORNERS Street, across the Cooper Institute site and part of the adjoining block, to Eighth (now St. Mark's Place), midway of the block between Third and Second Avenues. The street was named after Nicholas William Stuyvesant. When the old John Street Church was taken down, in 1817, the timber from it was used to erect a church next to the Sun- day School (called the Academy). This church was called the Bowery Village Village Church. In 1830, the Bowery Village Church Church having been wiped out by the ad- vancing streets of the City Plan, Nicho- las William Street went with it, and a church was then established a short dis- tance to the east, on the lineof what is now Seventh Street, north side, and this be- came the Seventh Street Church. In 1837 persons living near by who ob- jected to the church revivals presented the trustees with two lots, nearer Third Avenue. There a new church was built, which still stands. 162 OF OLD NEW YORK Vauxhall Garden occupied (according Second to the present designation of the streets) Garden the space south of Astor Place, between Fourth Avenue and Broadway, to the Hne of Fifth Street. Fourth Avenue was then Bowery Road, and the main entrance to the Garden was on that side, opposite the present Sixth Street. At Broadway the Garden narrowed down to a V shape. On this ground, for many years, John Sperry, a Swiss, cultivated fruits and flowers, and when he had grown old he sold his estate, in 1799, to John Jacob Astor. The latter leased it to a Frenchman named Delacroix, who had previously conducted the Vaux- hall Garden on the Bayard Estate, close by the present Warren and Greenwich Streets. During the next eight years Delacroix transformed his newly-ac- quired possession into a pleasure garden, by erecting a small theatre and sum- mer-house, and by setting out tables and seats under the trees on the 163 NOOKS AND CORNERS grounds, and booths with benches around the inside close up to the high board fence that enclosed the Garden. He called the place Vauxhall, thereby causing some confusion to historians, who often confound this Garden with the earlier one of the same name. This last Vauxhall was situated a mile out of town on the Bowery Road. It was an attrac- tive retreat, and the tableaux were so fine, the ballets so ingenius and the sing- ing of such excellence, that the resort became immensely popular, and re- mained so continuously until the Garden was swept out of existence in 1855. Admission to the grounds was free, and to the theatre two shillings. In its last years it was a favorite place for the holding of large public meetings. Cooper Cooper Union, at the upper end of Union , r. , •, . o the rJowery, was built m 1854. reter Cooper, merchant and philanthropist, made the object of his life the establish- 164 OF OLD NEW YORK ment of an institution designed espe- cially to give the working classes oppor- tunity for self-education better than the existing institutions afforded. His store was on the site of the present building, which he founded. By a deed executed in 1859 the institution, with its incomes, he devoted to the instruction and im- provement of the people of the United States forever. The institution has been taxed to its full capacity since its inception. From time to time it has been enriched by gifts from Mr. Cooper's heirs and friends. The statue of Peter Cooper, in the little park in front of the building, was unveiled May 28th, 1897. It is the work of Augustus St. Gaudens, once a pupil in the Institute. On a part of the site of Cooper Union, at the east side of what was then the Bowery, and what is now Fourth Ave- nue, stood a house which was said to have been haunted. It was demol- 165 NOOKS AND CORNERS ished to make way for Cooper Union. No permanent tenant, it is said, had oc- cupied it for sixty years. It was a peaked- roofed brick structure, two stories high. The house of Peter Cooper was on the site of the present Bible House, at Eighth Street and Third Avenue. He removed in 1820 to Twenty-eighth Street and Fourth Avenue, and his dwelling may still be seen there. Astor Astor Place is part of old Greenwich Lane, which led from the Bowery Lane past the pauper cemetery, where Wash- ington Square is now, over the sand hills where University Place now is, and took the line of the present Green- wich Avenue. This was also called Monument Lane, because of a monu- ment to the memorv of General Wolfe erected on the spot where the road ended, at the junction of Eighth Avenue and Fifteenth Street. 166 Place OF OLD NEW YORK Astor Place, as flir as Fifth Avenue, was called Art Street when it was changed from a road to a street. The continu- ation of Astor Place to the east, now Stuyvesant Street, was originally Stuy- vesant Road, and extended to the river at about Fifteenth Street. It was also called Art when it became a street. On the south side of this thoroughfare, just west of Fourth Avenue, Charlotte Temple lived in a small stone house. At the head of Lafayette Place, fronting on Astor Place, is a building used at this time as a German Theatre. It was built for Dr. Schroeder, once the favorite preacher of the city, of whom it was said that if anyone desired to know where Schroeder preached, he had only to follow the crowds on Sunday. But he became dissatisfied and left Trinity for a church of his own. He very soon gave up this church, and for a time the building was occupied by St. Ann's 167 NOOKS AND CORNERS Roman Catholic congregation. After- ward it became a theatre and failed to succeed. The ground at the junction of Astor Place and Eighth Street was made a public square in 1836. In the midst of it may now be seen a statue of Samuel S. Cox. Scene of Astor Place Opera House, at the iunc- Forrest- . Macready tion of Eighth Street and Astor Place, ^'°^^ where Clinton Hall stands now, was built in 1847. It was a handsome theatre for those days, and contained eighteen hundred seats. It was opened on November 22nd with " Ernani." On May 7th, 1849, at this house oc- curred the first of the Macready riots. The bitter jealousy existing between William Charles Macready, the English actor, and Edwin Forrest, which had assumed the proportions of an inter- national quarrel, so far as the two actors 168 OF OLD NEW YORK and their friends were concerned, was the cause. The admirers of Forrest sought, on this night, to prevent the performance of " Macbeth," and a riot ensued in which no particular damage was done. On May loth, in response to a petition signed by many prominent citizens, Macready again sought to play " Macbeth." An effort was made to keep all Forrest sympathizers from the house. Many, however, gained ad- mission, and the performance was again frustrated. The ringleaders were ar- rested. A great crowd blocked Astor Place, and an assault upon the theatre was attempted. Macready escaped by a rear door. The Seventh Regiment and a troop of cavalry cleared Eighth Street and reached Astor Place. The mob resisted. The Riot Act was read. That producing no effect, and the assault upon the building and the soldiers de- fending it becoming more violent each moment, the mob was fired upon. 169 NOOKS AND CORNERS Three volleys were fired. Thirty-four persons were killed and some hundred injured. Over one hundred soldiers and many policemen were also hurt. On August 30th, 1852, the name of the house was changed to the New York Theatre, under the direction of Charles R. Thorne. In a month's time he gave up the venture and Frank Chanfrau took it up. He also aban- doned it after a few weeks. Clinton Jn 1 8 C4. the Opera House was re- Hall ^^ 1 . 1 , 1 A/r constructed and occupied by the Mer- cantile Library. It was given the name of Clinton Hall, which had been the name of the library's first home in Beek- man Street. This building in time gave way to the present Clinton Hall on the same site. Lafayette Lafayette Place was opened through the Vauxhall Garden in 1826. The Astor Library, in Lafayette Place, was completed in 1853, and 170 OF OLD NEW YORK was opened in 1854. The site cost 125,000. The Middle Dutch Reformed Church was built in Lafayette Place in 1839, ^^ the northwest corner of Fourth Street af- ter its removal from Nassau and Cedar Streets. A new church was built at Seventh Street and Second Avenue in 1844. In the Lafayette Place building was a bell which had been cast in Hol- land in 1 73 I, and which had first been used when the church was in Nassau Street. It was the gift of Abraham de Peyster, and now hangs in the Reformed Church at Fifth Avenue and Forty- eighth Street. Next to this church, for many years, lived Madam Canda, who kept the most fashionable school for ladies of a generation ago. Her beautiful daugh- ter was dashed from a carriage, and killed on her eighteenth birthday — the age at which she was to make her debut into so- ciety. The entire city mourned her loss. 171 La Grange Terrace NOOKS AND CORNERS Soon after Lafayette Place was opened, La Grange Terrace was built. It was named after General Lafayette's home In France. The row is still prominent on the west side of the thor- oughfare, and is known as Colonnade Row. A riot occurred at the time it was built, the masons of the city being aroused because the stone used in the structure was cut by the prisoners in Sing Sing prison. John Jacob Astor lived on this street. He died March 29th, 1848, and was buried from the home of his son, Wil- liam B. Astor, just south of the library building. Sailors' Snug Harbor A line drawn through Astor Place and continued to the Washington Arch in Washington Square, through Fifth Avenue to the neighborhood of Tenth Street, with Fourth Avenue as an eastern boundary, would roughly en- close what used to be the Eliot estate OF OLD NEW YORK in the latter part of the eighteenth cen- tury. It was a farm of about twenty- one acres in T790, when it was pur- chased for five thousand pounds from " Baron " Poelnitz, by Captain Robert Richard Randall, who had been a ship- master and a merchant. Randall dy- ing in 1 801, bequeathed the farm for the founding of an asylum for superan- nuated sailors, together with the man- sion house in which he had lived. The house stood, approximately, at the pres- ent northwest corner of Ninth Street and Broadway. It was the intention of Captain Randall that the Sailors' Snug Harbor should be built on the property, and the farming land used to raise all vegetables, fruit and grain necessary for the inmates. There were long years of litigation, however, for relatives con- tested the will. When the case was settled in 1831, the trustees had decided to lease the land, and to purchase the Staten Island property where the Asy- 173 NOOKS AND CORNERS lum is now located. The estate, at the time of Captain Randall's death, yielded an annual income of ^4,000. At pres- ent the income is about $400,000 a year. It is conceded that the property would have increased more rapidly in value had it been sold outright, instead of becoming leasehold property in per- petuity. Many efforts have been made to cut through Eleventh Street from Fourth Avenue to Broadway. The first was in 1830, when the street was open on the lines of the City Plan. Hendrick Bre- voort, whose farm adjoined the Sailors' Snug Harbor property, had a home- stead directly in the line of the proposed street, between Fourth Avenue and Broadway. He resisted the attempted encroachment on his home so success- fully that the street was not opened through that block. He was again sim- ilarly successful in 1849, when ^^ ordi- 174 OF OLD NEW YORK nance was passed for the removal of his house and the opening of the street. Grace Church, at Tenth Street and ^""^^^ , ^ T-» Church Broadway, was completed in 1846. Pre- vious to that date it had been on the southwest corner of Broadway and Rec- tor Street, opposite Trinity Church. There is a reason for the sudden bend in Broadway at Tenth Street, close by Grace Church. The Bowery Lane, which is now Fourth Avenue, curved in passing through what is now Union Square until, at the line of the present Seventeenth Street it turned and took a direct course north and was from there- on called the Bloomingdale Road. This road to Bloomingdale was opened long before Broadway, and it was in order to let the latter connect as directly as possible with the straight road north that the direction of Broadway was changed about 1806 by the Tenth 175 NOOKS AND CORNERS Street bend and a junction effected with the other road at the Seventeenth Street line. At Thirteenth Street and Fourth Avenue there was constructed in 1834 a tank which was intended to turnish water for extinguishing fires. It had a capacity of 230,000 gallons, and was one hundred feet above tide water. Water was forced into it by a i 2-horse power engine from a well and conduct- ing galleries at the present Tenth Street and Sixth Avenue, on the site of the Jefferson Market Prison. Wallack's In I 86 1 James W. Wallack moved from Wallack's Lyceum at Broome Street, and occupied the new Wallack's, now the Star Theatre, at Thirteenth Street and Broadway. His last appear- ance was when he made a little speech at the close of the season of 1862. He died in i 864. 176 OF OLD NEW YORK Union Square was provided for in Union the City Plan, under the name of Union ^'^"'"'' Place. The Commissioners decided that the Place was necessary, as an opening for fresh air would be needed when the city should be built up. Furthermore, the union of so many roads intersecting at that point required space for convenience ; and if the roads were continued without interruption the land would be divided into such small portions as to be valueless for building purposes. The fountain in the square was oper- ated for the first time in 1842, on the occasion of the great Croton Water celebration. The bronze equestrian statue of Washington was erected in the square close by where the citizens had received the Commander of the Army when he entered the city on Evacuation Day, November 25, 1783. The statue is the work of Henry K. Brown. The 177 NOOKS AND CORNERS dedication occurred on July 4, 1856, and was an imposing ceremony. Rev. George W. Bethune delivered an ora- tion, and there was a military parade. Academy fhe Acadcmv of Music, at Four- of Music 10 ' J T • ni teenth Street and Irving rlace, was built in 1854 by a number of citi- zens who desired a permanent home for opera. On October 2nd of that year, Hackett took his company, headed by Grisi and Matio, there, the weather be- ing too cold to continue the season at Castle Garden. The building was burned in 1866 and rebuilt in 1868. In Third Avenue, between Sixteenth and Seventeenth Streets, is an old mile- stone which marked the third mile from Federal Hall on the Post Road. The Friends' Meeting House, at East Sixteenth Street and Rutherford Place, has existed since i860. In 1775 178 OF OLD NEW YORK it was in Pearl Street, near Franklin Square. In 1824 it was taken down and rebuilt in 1826 in Rose Street, near Pearl, St. George's (Episcopal) Church, at ^t. George's Rutherford Place and Sixteenth Street, was built in 1 845. The church was or- ganized in 1752, and before occupying the present site was in Beekman Street. Early in the century a stream of water ran from Stuy vesant's Pond, close by what is now Fourteenth Street and Second Avenue, to First Avenue and Nineteenth Street, having an outlet into the East River at about Sixteenth Street. In winter this furnished an ex- cellent skating-ground. Gramercy Park, at Twentieth and Gramercy Twenty-first Streets and Lexington Avenue, was originally part of the Gramercy Farm. In 1831 it was given 179 Park NOOKS AND CORNERS by Samuel B. Ruggles to be used exclusively by the owners of lots front- ing on it. It was laid out and im- proved in 1840. In the pavement, in front of the park gate on the west side, is a stone bearing this inscription : GRAMERCY PARK FOUNDED BY SAMUEL B. RUGGLES 183I COMMEMORATED BY THIS TABLET IMBEDDED IN THE GRAMERCY FARM BY JOHN RUGGLES STRONG. 1875. Madison Square There was no evidence during the last part of the eighteenth century that the town would ever creep up to and beyond the point where Twenty-third Street crosses Broadway. This point was the junction of the Post Road to Boston and the Bloomingdale Road The latter was the fashionable out-of- OF OLD NEW YORK town driveway, and it followed the course that Broadway and the Boule- vard take now. The Post Road ex- tended to the northeast. At this point, in 1794, a Potter's Field was established. There were many complaints at its be- ing located there, where pauper funerals clashed with the vehicles of the well-to- do, and there was much rejoicing three years later, when the burying-ground was removed to the spot that is now Washington Square. In 1707 was built, where the bury- ^''^"^' "' ing-ground had been, an arsenal which Square extended from Twenty-fourth Street and over the site of the Worth Monu- ment. In the City Plan, completed in 1811, provision was made for a parade-ground to extend from Twenty-third to Thirty- fourth Streets, and Seventh to Third Avenue. The Commissioners decided that such a space was needed for mili- tary exercises, and where, in case of House of Refuge NOOKS AND CORNERS necessity, there could be assembled a force to defend the city. In 1814, the limits of the parade-ground were re- duced to the space between Twenty- third and Thirty-first Streets, Sixth and Fourth Avenues, and given the name of Madison Square. The Arsenal in Madison Square was turned into a House of Refuge in 1824, and opened January i, 1825. This was the result of the work of an association of citizens who formed a societv to im- prove the condition of juvenile delin- quents. The House of Refuge was burned in 1839, and another institution built at the foot of Twenty-third Street the same year. A portion of the old outer wall of this last structure is still to be seen on the north side of Twenty- third Street, between First Avenue and Avenue A. In 1845, ^^ ^^^ suggestion of Mayor i8i OF OLD NEW YORK James Harper, Madison Square was re- duced to its present limits and laid out as a public park. Up to this time a stream of water had crossed the square, fed by springs in the district about Sixth Avenue, between Twenty-first and Twenty-seventh Streets. It spread out into a pond in Madison Square, and emptied into the East River at Seven- teenth Street. It was suggested that a street be created over its bed from Mad- ison Avenue to the river. This was not carried out, and the stream was simply buried. The road which branched out of the Post Road Bloomingdale Road at Twenty-third Street, sometimes called the Boston Post Road, sometimes the Post Road, some- times the Boston Turnpike, ran across the present Madison Square, strik- ing Fourth Avenue at Twenty-ninth Street; went through Kipsborough which hugged the river between Thirty-third 183 NOOKS AND CORNERS and Thirty-seventh Streets, swept past Turtle Bay at Forty-seventh Street and the East River, crossed Second Avenue at Fifty-second Street, recrossed at Sixty-third Street, reached the Third Avenue hne at Sixty-fifth Street, and at Seventy-seventh Street crossed a small stream over the Kissing Bridge. Then proceeded irregularly on this line to One Hundred and Thirtieth Street, where it struck the bridge over the Harlem River at Third Avenue. The road was closed in 1839. The monument to Major-General William J. Worth, standing to the west of Madison Square, was dedicated No- vember 25, 1857. General Worth was the main support of General Scott in the campaign of Mexico. His body was first interred in Greenwood Cemetery. On November 23rd the remains were taken to City Hall, where they lay in state for two days, then were taken, un- 1S4 OF OLD NEW YORK der military escort, and deposited beside the monument. For twenty years, or more, prior to ^'^^^ • r 1 r^-ri A Avenue 1853, the site or the present i^irth Ave- Hotel nue Hotel, at Twenty-third Street and Broadway, was occupied by a frame cot- tage with a peaked roof, and covered veranda reached by a flight of wooden stairs. This was the inn of Corporal Thompson, and a favorite stopping-place on the Bloomingdale Road. An en- closed lot, extending as far as the present Twenty-fourth Street, was used at certain times of the year for cattle exhibitions. In 1853 the cottage made way tor Fran- coni's Hippodrome,a brick structure, two stories high, enclosing an open space two hundred and twenty-five feet in diam- eter. The performances given here were considered of great merit and received with much favor. In 1856 the Hippo- drome was removed, and in 1858 the present Fifth Avenue Hotel was opened. i8s NOOKS AND CORNERS The Madison Square Presbyterian Church, at Madison Avenue and Twenty-fourth Street, was commenced in 1853, the earlier church of the con- gregation having been in Broome Street. It was opened December, 1854, with Rev. Dr. William Adams as pastor. r « College of At the southeast corner of Twenty- New York third Street and Lexington Avenue, the College of the City of ^ New York has stood since 1848, the opening exer- cises having taken place in 1849. In 1847 the Legislature passed an Act authorizing the es- tablishment of a free acad- emy for the benefit of pupils who had been edu- cated in the public schools of this city. The name Free Academy was given to the institution, and un- 186 Collc^f of (ht City oI NewYouk OF OLD NEW YORK der that name it was incorporated. It had the power to confer degrees and diplomas. In 1866 the name was changed to its present title, and all the privileges and powers of a college were conferred upon it. In 1882 the college was thrown open to all young men, whether edu- cated in the public schools of this city or not. In 1898 ground was set aside in the northern part of the city, over- looking the Hudson River, for the erection of modern buildings suitable to meet the growth of the college. The House of Refuge in Madison o\d House o r 1 r • o ^^ Refuge Square was, after the hre m 1839, re- Wall built on the block bounded by Twenty- third and Twenty-fourth Streets, First Avenue and the East River. It was surrounded by a high wall, a section of which is still standing on the north side of Twenty-third Street, between First Avenue and Avenue A. The river at that time extended west to beyond the 1S7 -•i-' Bellevue Hospital Gate of Old HoV5B °( RSFVCE Avenue A line. The old gateway is there yet, and is used now as the en- trance to a coal-yard. Some of the barred windows of the wall can still be seen. In 1854 the inmates were re- moved to Randall's Island, and were placed in charge of the State. Bellevue Hospital has occupied its present site, at the foot of East Twenty- sixth Street, since about 18 10. The hospital really had its beginning in 1736, 1S8 OF OLD NEW YORK in the buildings of the PubHc Work- house and House of Correction in City Hall Park. There were six beds there, in charge of the medical officer, Dr. John Van Beuren. About the begin- ning of the nineteenth century, yellow fever patients were sent to a building known as Belle Vue, on the Belle Vue Farm, close by the present hospital buildings. In about 1810 it was de- cided to establish a new almshouse, penitentiary and hospital on the Belle Vue Farm. Work on this was com- pleted in I 8 16. The almshouse build- ing was three stories high, surmounted by a cupola, and having a north and south wing each one hundred feet long. This original structure stands to-day, and is part of the present hospital build- ing, other branches having been added to it from time to time. The water line, at that time, was within half a block of where First Avenue is now. In 1848 the Almshouse section of 189 NOOKS AND CORNERS the institution was transferred to Black- well's Island. The ambulance service was started in 1869, and was the first service of its kind in the world. ^^^^ Bull's Head Village was located in Village the district now included within Twenty- third and Twenty-seventh Streets, Fourth and Second Avenues. It be- came a centre of importance in 1826, when the old Bull's Head Tavern was moved from its early home on the Bowery, near Bayard Street, to the point which is now marked by Twenty- sixth Street and Third Avenue. It continued to be the headquarters of drovers and stockmen. As at that time there was no bank north of the City Hall Park, the Bull's Head Tavern served as inn, bank and general busi- ness emporium for the locality. For more than twenty years this district was the great cattle market of the city. As business increased, stores and business 190 OF OLD NEW YORK houses were erected, until, toward the year 1850, the cattle mart, which was the source of all business, was crowded out. It was moved up-town to the neighborhood of Forty-second Street ; later to Ninety-fourth Street, and in the early 8o's to the Jersey shore. The most celebrated person connected with the management of the Bull's Head Tavern was Daniel Drew. He after- wards operated in Wall Street, became a director of the New York and Erie Railroad upon its completion in 1851, and accumulated a fortune by specula- tion. At Twenty-eighth Street and Fourth Peter 11 I Cooper's Avenue, on the southeast corner, the House house numbered 399-401, stands the old " Cooper Mansion," in which Petei Cooper lived. It was formerly on the site where the Bible House is now, at the corner of Eighth Street and Fourth Avenue. Peter Cooper himself super- 191 NOOKS AND CORNERS intended the removal of the house in 1820, and directed its establishment on the new site so that it should be recon- structed in a manner that should abso- lutely preserve its original form. Now it presents an insignificant appearance crowded about by modern structures, and it is occupied by a restaurant. This corner of Twenty-eighth Street and Fourth Avenue was directly on the line of the Boston Post Road. Just at that point the Middle Road ran from it, and extended in a direct line to Fifth Avenue and Forty-second Street. The Little Church Around the Cor- ner, a low, rambling struc- ture, seemingly all angles and corners, is on the north side of Twenty- ninth Street, mid- way of the block between Fifth \lj , and Madison Little Chi'ro) OF OLD NEW YORK Avenues. It is the Episcopal Church Little church n~>i '~n r • t • Around the or 1 he 1 ransnguration. Its picturesque Comer title was bestowed upon it in 1871, when Joseph Holland, an English actor, the father of E. M. and Joseph Hol- land, the players known to the present generation, died. Joseph Jefferson, when arranging for the funeral, went to a church which stood then at Madi- son Avenue and Twenty-eighth Street, to arrange for the services. The min- ister said that his congregation would object to an actor being buried from their church, adding : " But there is a little church around the corner where they have such funerals." Mr. Jeffer- son, astonished that such petty and unjust distinctions should be persisted in even in the face of death, exclaimed : " All honor to that Little Church Around the Corner ! " From that time until the present day, " The Little Church Around the Corner" has been the re- ligious refuge of theatrical folk. For NOOKS AND CORNERS twenty-six years of that time, and until his death, the Rev. Dr. George H. Houghton, who conducted the services over the remains of actor Holland, was the firm friend of the people of the stage in times of trouble, of sickness and of death. Lich xhe lich gate at the entrance of the church is unique in this country, and is considered the most elaborate now in existence anywhere. It was erected in 1895, at a cost of $4,000. The congregation worshipped first in a house at No. 48 East Twenty-fourth Street, in 1850. The present building was opened in 1856. Lester Wallack was buried from this church, as were Dion Boucicault, Edwin Booth, and a host of others. In the church is a memorial window to the memory of Edwin Booth, which was unveiled in 1898. It repre- sents a mediaeval histrionic student, his gaze fixed on a mask in his hand. Be- low the figure is the favorite quotation 194 OF OLD NEW YORK of Booth, from " Henry 11": " As one, in suffering all, that suffers nothing ; a man that fortune's buffets and rewards has taken with equal thanks." And the further inscription : " To the glory of God and in loving memory of Edwin Booth this window has been placed here by ' The Players.' " At Lexington Avenue and Thirtieth Street is the First Moravian Church, which has occupied the building since 1869. This congregation was estab- lished in 1749. In 1751 their first church was built at No. 108 Fair (now Fulton) Street. In 1829a second house was erected on the same site. In 1849 a new building was erected at the south- west corner of Houston and Mott Streets. This property was sold in 1865, and the congregation then wor- shipped in the Medical College Hall, at the northwest corner of Twenty-third Street and Fourth Avenue, until the >95 NOOKS AND CORNERS purchase of the present building from the EpiscopaHans. It was erected by the Baptists in 1825. Brick At Fifth Avenue and Thirty-seventh Church Street is the Brick Presbyterian Church, which stood at the junction of Park Row and Nassau Street until 1858, when the present structure was erected. The locality was a very different one then, and the square quaintness of the church looks out of place amid its pres- ent modern surroundings. There is an air of solitude about it, as though it mourned faithfully for the green fields that shed peace and quietness about its walls when it was first built there. It is related of William C. H. Wad- dell, who, in 1845, built a residence on the same site, that when he went to look at the plot, with a view to purchase, his wife waited for him near by, under the shade of an apple tree. The ground there was high above the city grade. 196 OF OLD NEW YORK The eround between Fifth and Sixth Bryant o Park Avenues, Fortieth and Forty-second Streets, now occupied by Bryant Park and the old reservoir, was purchased by the city in 1822, and in 1823 a Potter's Field was established there, the one in Washington Square having been aban- doned in its favor. The reservoir, of Egyptian architecture, was finished in 1842. Its cost was about $500,000. On July 5th water was introduced into it through the new Croton aqueduct, with appropriate ceremonies. The water is brought from the Croton lakes, forty- five miles above the city, through con- duits of solid masonry. The first con- duit, which was begun in 1 835, is carried across the Harlem River through the High Bridge, which was erected espe- cially to accommodate it. At the time the reservoir was put in use the locality was at the northern limits of the city. On Sundays and holidays people went on journeys to the reservoir, and from 197 NOOKS AND CORNERS the promenades at the top of the struc- ture had a good view from river to river, and of the city to the south. The res- ervoir has not been in use for many years. The park was called Reservoir Square until 1884, when the name was changed to Bryant Park. AWorld's On July 4, 1853, a World's Fair, in imitation of the Crystal Palace, near London, was opened in Reservoir Square, when President Pierce made an address. The fair was intended to set forth the products of the world, but it attracted but little attention outside the city. It was opened as a permanent exposition on May 14, 1854, but proved a failure. One of the attractions was a tower 280 feet high, which stood just north of the present line of Forty- second Street and Fifth Avenue. In August, 1856, it was burned, and as a great pillar of flame it attracted more 198 OF OLD NEW YORK attention than ever before. The expo- sition buildings and their contents were in the hands of a receiver when they were destroyed by fire October 5, 1858. Bryant Park has been selected as the site for the future home of the consoli- dated Tilden, Astor and Lenox Libra- ries. Murray Hill derives its name from Murray Hill the possessions of Robert Murray, whose house, I nclenberg,stood at the cor- ner of what is now Thirty-sixth Street and Park Avenue, on a farm which lay between the present Thirty-third and Thirty-seventh Streets, Bloomingdale Road (now Broadway) and the Boston Post Road (the present Third Avenue). The house was destroyed by fire in 1834. On September 15, 1776, after the defeat on Long Island, the Ameri- cans were marching northward from the lower end ot the island, when the Brit- 199 NOOK-S AND CORNERS ish, marching toward the west, reached the Murrav House. Fhere the officers were well entertained by the Murrays, who, at the same time, managed to get word to the American Armv : the latter hurried on and joined Washint^ton at about Forty-third Street and Broadway, before the Knglish suspected that they were anvwhere within reach. The Murrav l^\irm extended down to Kip's Bay at Thirty-sixth Street. The Kip mansion was the oldest house on the Island of Manhattan when it was torn down in 1851. Where it stood, at the crossing of Thirty-fifth Street and Second Avenue, there is now not a trace. Jacob Kip built the house in 1655, of brick which he imported from Holland. The locality between the Murray Hill Farm and the river, that is, east of what is now Third Avenue between Thirtv-third and Thirty-seventh Streets, was called Kipsborough in Revolutionarv times. OF OLD NEW YORK The British forces landed, on the day Turtle of the stop at the Murray House, in Turtle Bay, that portion of the East River between Forty-sixth and Forty- seventh Streets. It was a safe harbor and a convenient one. Overlooking the bay, on a great bluff at the present Forty-first Street, was the summer home of Francis Bayard Winthrop. He owned the Turtle Bay Farm. The bluff is there yet, and subsequent cut- ting through of the streets has left it in appearance like a small mountain peak. Winthrop's house is gone, and in its place is Corcoran's Roost, far up on the height, whose grim wall of stone on the Fortieth Street side at First Avenue became in modern times the trysting- place for members of the " Rag Gang." Forty-seventh and Forty-ninth The Elgin •; Garden Streets, between Fifth and Sixth Ave- nues, enclose the tract formerly known as the Elgin Garden. This was a NOOKS AND CORNERS botanical garden founded hy David Hosack, M, D., in i 801, when he was Professor of Botanv in Columbia Col- lege. In 1814 the land was purchased bv the State from Dr. Hosack and given to Columbia College, in consider- ation of lands which had been owned by the College but ceded to New Hampshire after the settlement of the boundary dispute. The ground is still owned bv Columbia Universitv. The block east of Madison Avenue, between bortv- ninth and Fiftieth Streets, was occupied in 1857 by Co- lumbia College, when the latter moved from its down-town site at Church and Murray Streets. The College occupied the building which had been erected in 1 8 17 by the founders of the Institute for the Instruction of the Deaf and Dumb — the first asvlum tor mutes in the United States. The original in- tention had been to erect the college OF OLD NEW YORK buildings on a portion of the Elgin Garden property, but the expense in- volved was found to be too great. The asylum property, consisting of twenty lots and the buildings, was purchased in 1856. Subsequently the remainder of the block was also bought up. At Fiftieth Street and Fifth Avenue St. Patrick's is St. Patrick's Cathedral, the corner- stone of which was laid in 1858. The entire block on which it stands was, the preceding year, given to the Roman Catholics for a nominal sum — one dol- lar — by the city. The Roman Catholic Orphan Asy- lum in the adjoining block, on Fifth Avenue, between Fifty-first and Fifty- second Streets, was organized in 1825, but not incorporated until 1852, when the present buildings were erected. There is still standing, in Third 203 NOOKS A S D CORNERS Four Mile Avenue, just above Fittv-seventh Street, Stone ' 1 T1 a milestone. It was once on the lost Road, four miles from Federal Hall in Wall Street. Close bv Fiftieth Street and Third Avenue, a I^otter's Field was estab- lished about iS^5. Near it was a spring of exceptionallv pure water. "" This water was carried away in carts and supplied to the city. Even after the introduction ot Croton water the water from this spring commamled a price ot two cents a pail trom manv who were strongly prejudiced at^ainst water that had been supplied throui^h pipes. Memories ot Nathan Hale, the Martyr Spy of the Revo- lution, hover 3'* AvenCdf f/'^it OF OLD NEW YORK about the neighborhood of Fifty-first Beekman Street and First Avenue. The Beek- man House stood just west of the Avenue, between Fifty-first and Fifty- second Streets, on the site where Gram- mar School No. 135 is now. It was in a room of this house that Major Andre slept, and in the morning passed out to dishonor ; and it was in a greenhouse on these grounds that Nathan Hale passed the last of his nights upon earth. The house was built in 1763 by a de- scendant of the William Beekman who came from Holland in 1647 ^^^^ Peter Stuyvesant. During the Revolution it was the headquarters of General Charles Clinton and Sir William Howe. It stood until 1874, by which time it had degenerated into a crumbling tenement, and was demolished when it threatened to fall of natural decay. A very few steps from the East River, at Fifty-third Street, stands an 205 NOOKS AND CORNERS An oi.l q\^\ hrick shot tower; :i lonclv aiul Tower Hcglected Sentinel now, hut still proudly looking skvward and hearing witness to its former usefulness. It was built in 1 82 1 hy a Mr. Youle. On October 9th it was nearing completion when it collapsed. It was at once re- huih, ami, as has been said, still stands. In 1S27 Mr. Voule advertised the sale of the lots near the tower, and desig- nated the location as bein^ " close bv the ( )ld Post Road near the four mile stone." Within half a dozen steps of the old tower, in the same lumber yanl, is a house said to he the oldest in the citv. It is of Dutch architecture, with sloping roof and a wide jnirch. I'he cuttinu; through and grading of Piftv-third Street have forced it higher above the grouiul than its builders intenileil it to be. Ihe outer walls, in {xirt, have been boarded over, ami some " modern improvements " have made it somewhat Z06 OF OLD NEW YORK unsightly ; but inside, no vandal's art has been sufficient to hide its solid oak beams and its stone foundations that have withstood the shocks of time successfully. It was a farm-house, and its site was the Spring Valley Farm of the Revolution. It is thought to have been built by some member of the De ^^^ Voor family, who, after 1677, had a Farm grant of sixty acres of land along the river, and gave their name to a mill- stream long since forgotten, save for allusion in the pages of history. A block away in Fifty-fourth Street, between First Avenue and the river, is another Dutch house, though doubt- less of much later origin. It stands back from the street and has become part of a brewery, being literally sur- rounded by buildings. The first suggestion of a Central Central Park was made in the fall of 1 850, when Andrew J. Downing, writing to the 207 NOOKS AND CORNERS Horticulturist, advocated the establish- ment of a large park because ot the lack of recrpRtion-grounds in the citv. On April 5, 1851, Mavor Ambrose C. Kingsland, in a special message to the Common Council, suggested the neces- sity for the new park, pointing; out the limited extent and inadequacy of the ex- isting ones. The Common Council, approving of the idea, asked the I-eg- islature for authority to secure the necessary land. The ground suggested for the new park was the property known as "Jones' Woods," which lav between Sixty-sixth and Seventy- fifth Streets, Third Avenue and the East River. At an extra session of the Legislature in July, 1851, an Act known as the " Jones' Woods Park Bill " was passed, under which the city was given the right to acquire the land. The passage of this Act opened a dis- cussion as to whether there was no other location better adapted for a public park 208 OF OLD NEW YORK than Jones' Woods. In August a com- mittee was appointed by the Board of Aldermen to examine the proposed plot and others. This committee reported in favor of what they considered a more central site, namely, the ground lying between Fifty-ninth and One Hundred and Sixth Streets, Fifth and Eighth Avenues. On July 23, 1853, the Legislature passed an Act giving au- thority for the acquirement of the land, afterward occupied by Central Park, to Commissioners appointed by the Supreme Court. The previous Jones' Woods Act was repealed. These Com- missioners awarded for damages $5,169,- 369.69, and for benefits 11,657,- 590.00, which report was confirmed by the court in February, 1856. In May, 1856, the Common Council appointed a commission which took charge of the work of construction. On this commission were William C. Bryant, Washington Irving and 209 NOOKS A K D CORNERS George Bancroft. In 1857, however, a new Board was appointed by the Leg- islature, because of the inactivity of the first one. Under the new Board, in April of the year in which they were appointed, the designs of Calvert Vaux and Frederick L. Olmsted were ac- cepted and actual work was begun. The plans for the improvement of the park, which hav^e been consistentlv adhered to, were based upon the natural configuration of the land. As nearly as possible the hills, valleys and streams were preserved undisturbed. Trees, shrubs and vines were arranged with a view to an harmonious blending of size, shape and color — all that would attract the eye and make the park as beautiful in every detail as in its en- tirety. The year 1857 was one of much dis- tress to the poor, and work on the park being well under way, the Com- mon Council created employment for OF OLD NEW YORK many laborers by putting them to work grading the new park. The original limits were extended from One Hundred and Sixth to One Hundred and Tenth Street in 1859. As it exists to-day, Central Park con- tains eight hundred and sixty-two acres, of which one hundred and eighty-five and one-quarter are water. It is two and a half miles long and half a mile wide. Five hundred thousand trees have been set out since the acquisition of the land. There are nine miles of carriageway, five and a half miles of bridle-path, twenty-eight and one half miles of walk, thirty buildings, forty-eight bridges, tunnels and archways, and out-of-door seats for ten thousand persons. It is as- sessed at $87,000,000 and worth twice that amount. More than $14,000,-000 have been spent on improvements. INDEX INDEX PAGE Abingdon, Earl of.. 109, 125 Abingdon Road. .. 123, 124 Abingdon Square 109 Academy of Music. . . . 178 All Saints' Church .... 136 Allen Street Memorial Church 142 American Museum. ... 37 Andre, Major 205 Aquarium, Public 5 Arsenal in Madison Square 182 Art Street 167 Aster House 78 Astor, John Jacob 163, 172 Astor Library 1 70, 1 7 1 Astor Place 172 Astor Place Opera House. . . . 168, 169, 170 Astor, William B 172 P.AGE Bank Cotfee House. .. . 146 Bank Street 113 Banker Street 134 Bank for Savings,The. 38,151 Barnum, P. T 5, 30 Barnum's Museum. ... 30 Barrow Street 108 Battery 4 Battery Park 4 Battery Place 9 Bayard Family Vault. . . 144 Beaver Lane 56 Beaver's Path 8 Beaver Street 8, 9, 10 Bedford Street M. E. Church 106 Beekman House 205 Belle Vue Farm 189 Bellevue Hospital. .188, 189, 190 ais INDEX PAGE Bible House i66, 191 Bleecker Street Bank.. 151 Block, Adrian 56, 57 Bloomingdale Road 124, 128, 175, 180, 185,199 Bond Street 149 Bone Alley 139, 140 Booth, Edwin 194 Boston Post Road.. 1 8 3, 192, 199 Boston Turnpike 183 Boulevard 181 Bouwerie Lane 46 Bouwerie Village. .156, 157, 158. 159. 160, 161 Bowery, The 47 Bowery Lane 166, 175 Bowery Road 47, 128, 163, 164 Bowery Theatre 49 Bowery Village Church 162 Bowling Green 3, 55 Bowling Green Garden. 84 Bradford, William 14 Grave of 63 Brannan's Garden loi Breese, Sydney, grave of 62 Brevoort, Hendrick. . . 174 Brick Presbyterian Church 31, 196 Bridewell 35 Bridge Street 9 Broad Street 8, 9, 10 PAGE Broadway 12, 55, 175, 180, 181 Broadway Theatre 97 Brougham's Lyceum. . . 97 Brouwer Street 15 Bryant Park 114, 197, 198, 199 Bull's Head Tavern. 49, 190 Bull's Head Village 190, 191 Bunker Hill 144 Burdell Murder,The. 149, i 50 Burr, Aaron, home of. 18, 104 Office of. 40 Last Friend of . . . . 67 Burton's Theatre 39 Cafe des Mille Col- onnes 39, 86 Canal Street. 41, 42, 94, 95 Canda, Madam 1 71 Castle Garden 5, 178 Cedar Street 21 Cemetery, New York City Marble. . ..154, 155 Cemetery, New York Marble . . 151, 152, •53. »54 Central Park. . . . 207, 208, 209, 210, 21 1 Chambers Street 34 Chambers Street Bank.. 37 Chanfrau, Frank 170 216 I N D PAGE Chapel Place 83 Chatham,Earl of. 18,47, 90 Chatham Square. . .45, 46 Chatham Street 47 Chelsea Cottages 129 Chelsea Village.. .126, 127, 128, 129 Cherry Hill 5'. 5^ Cherry Street 5^ Church, All Saints'. ..136 " Allen Street Mem- orial 14^ " Bedford Street Mem- orial 106 " Bowery Village .. . 162 *< Brick Presbyterian 31, 196 «« Dr. Schroeder's. . . 167 " Duane M. E 102 " First French Hu- guenot 9 ♦' First Moravian... 195 " First Presbyterian. 154 " First Reformed Pres- byterian 40, 118 «« Friends' Meeting House 178 «' Grace 5^. '75 «♦ John Street. . .26, 161, 162 «« Little, Around the Corner. . ..192, 193, 194, 195 E X PAGE Church, Madison Square Presbyterian.. . . 186 " Mariners'. ... 133, 134 " Dutch Middle Re- formed. .21, 22, 171 '* New Jerusalem ... 89 " Oliver Street Baptist 133 «' St. Ann's 167 " St. George's. . .29, 179 " St. John's 91 " St. Mark's. . . .86, 156, 157, 158, 159 " St. Mary's 137 " St. Patrick's. 144, 145 '< St. Patrick's Ca- thedral 203 «' St. Paul's 75, 76, 77. 78 «< St. Peter's 81 «< Sea and Land, of.. 135 << Second Street Methodist 156 " Spring Street Pres- byterian 102 '• Transfiguration, of the (Episcopal) 192, 193, 194, 195 «< Transfiguration, of the (Catholic) 44. 45 " Trinity. . .20, 56, 58, 60, 61 Church Farm 59 217 I N D PAGE Churchyard, St. Paul's. 155 " Trinity. .58, 59, 60, 61, 62, 63, 64, 65, 66, 67, 68,69,70,71, 72 Churcher, Richard, Grave of 61 City Hall 35 City HaU (first) Site of, 7, 8, li City Hall in Wall Street, 17 City Hall Park. 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39 City Hospital 88, 89 City Hotel 73, 74 City Library 120 City Prison in City Hall Park 35 Clarke, Capt. Thomas. 127 Cliff Street 24 Clinton, Gen. Charles.. 205 Clinton Hall. .28, 168, 169 Coenties Lane 13 Coenties Slip 12, 13 Collect, The 41 College of the City of New York 186, 187 College Place 83 CoUis, Christopher, Tomb of 77 Colonnade Row 172 Columbia College ..81, 82, 83, 202 21 E X PAGE Commons, The 34 Company's Farm 59 Cooke, George Fred- erick, Grave of. .77, 78 Cooper, James Fenimore, House of 147 Cooper Mansion 191 Cooper, Peter. 164, 165, 166 House of. ... 191, 192 Statue of 165 Cooper Union. 161, 164, 165 Corcoran' s Roost ... . 201 Cornbury, Lady 66 Corlears Hook Park.. . 136 Country Market 75 Coutant, John, House of 161 Cox, Samuel S., Statue of 168 Cresap, Michael, Grave of 70 Croton Water Celebra- tion 177, 197 Cryptograph in Trinity Churchyard.. .64, 65, 66 Crystal Palace 198 Custom House 16, 18 Cuyler's Alley 15 Debtors' Prison .... 34, 3 5 Delacroix 163 De Lancey, Etienne. 10, 72, 73. 74 I N PAGE De Lancey, James ..72, 73. 143. 144 De Lancey, Susannah . . 100 Delmonico's . 16, 2S De Voor House . . 207 Dickens, Charles . 31 Drew, Daniel. . . . 191 Duane M. E. Church.. 102 Duke's Farm .... 59 Dutch West India ( Com- Pany 2 Backer, George, Grave of. 78 East River Bridge (sec- ond) 137 Eleventh Street 174 Elgin Garden. 201, 202, 203 Eliot Estate 172 Emmet, Thomas Addis 77, 155 Essex Market 143 Exterior Market 75 Fayette Street 133 Federal Hall 17, 18 Fields, The 34 Fifth Avenue Hotel. .. . 185 Fire of 1835 14 First French Huguenot Church 9 First G-raveyard 56 First House Built 56 D E X PAGE First Moravian Church.. 195 First Presbyterian Church 154 First Prison Labor no First Reformed Presby- terian Church .... 40, 1 1 8 First Savings Bank. ... 37 First Sunday School. ... 161 First Tenement House. . 136 Fish, Hamilton, Park. . 139 Fish Market 75 Fitzroy Road 126, 128 Five Points 42, 43 Five Points House of Industry 44 "Flat and Barrack Hill" 16 Fly Market 23 Forrest, Edwin. ... 168, 169 Forrest-Macready Riots. 168, 169, 170 Fort Amsterdam. . . . i, 2 Fort Clinton 4 Fort George 2 Fort James 2 Fort Manhattan 2 Fountain in Union Square 177 Franconi's Hippodrome. 185 Franklin House 50 Franklin Square 51 Fraunces' Tavern... 10, 11 Free Academy. ... 186, 187 Fresh Water Pond. ... 41 219 Friends' Meeting House Fulton Street Garden, Bowling Green. " Brannan's . . . . " Castle 5, *' Elgin. 201,202, " Niblo's. ..146, " Ranelagh " Vauxhall (first) 84, " Vauxhall (last) 163, 164, " Winter Garden Street Gardner, Noah. ... 1 10, General Theological Seminary .. 126, 127, George III, Statue of'.. 3) Gold Street Golden Hill Golden Hill, Battle of. . Golden Hill Inn. . ..24, Government House. . I, Governor's Room, City Hall Grace Church 58, Gramercy Park Graveyard, Jewish . . 50, 116, 11^, 122, ♦' Paupers'. 34, 1 14, 115, 181, 197, INDEX PACE PAGE 178 Graveyard, St. John's.. . 105 20 " St. Paul's 155 " Trinity. .59, 60, 84 61, 62, 63, 64, loi 65, 66, 67, 68 178 " New York City 203 Marble. . .154, 155 147 " New York Mar- 94 ble..i5i, 152, 153. '54 163 Great Bouwerie 157 Great Kiln Road. .118, 170 121, 122, 125 148 Great Queen Street. ... 12 16 Greenwich Avenue. ... 116 III " Lane. .116, 166 " Road... 80, 81 129 " Street . .80, 81 " Village .98, 19 99, 100, lOI 23 Grove Street 108 ^3 24 Hale, Nathan. 38, 135, 204 25 Hall of Records 34 2 Hamilton, Alexander, Grave of 66 36 Hamilton, Alexander, 175 Home of 18 179 Hamilton, Philip 67 Haunted House.. .165, 166 123 Holland, Joseph 193 Holt's Hotel 21 204 Hone, Philip 159 zzo I N PAGE Horse and Cart Street. . 26 Hosack Botanical Gar- den 82 Hosack, David 202 Hotel, Astor 78 " City 73, 74 *' Fifth Avenue . . 185 " Holt's 21 '* Metropolitan... 147 " Riley's Fifth Ward 89, 90 " St. Nicholas. ... 145 " Tremont 149 ♦' United States. . . 20 Houghton, Rev. Dr. George H 1 94 House of Aaron Burr. . 18, 104 House, First, of White Men 56 House of James Feni- more Cooper 147 House of Peter Cooper. 191, 192 House of John Coutant. 161 House of the De Lan- ceys 10, 72, 73, 74 House o f Alexander Hamilton 18 House of Thomas Paine 107, 108 House of President Monroe 145 D E X PAGE H ouse of Refuge 182 House o f Charlotte Temple 48, 167 House of Francis Bay- ard Winthrop 201 Houston Street 150 Howe, Sir William.. . . 205 Huguenot Memorials in Trinity Churchyard . . 69, 71 Inclenberg 199 Institution for the In- struction of the Deaf and Dumb 202 Island of Manhattan ... 138 "Jack-knife," The... 23 Jail in City Hall Park.. 34 James Street 133 Jans' Farm 59, 60 Jeanette Park 13 Jefferson, Joseph 193 Jewish Graveyard in New Bowery 50 Jewish Graveyard in Eleventh Street .116, 1 1 7 Jewish Graveyard in Twenty-first Street. . 117, 122, 123 John Street i6 John Street Church . 26, 161, 162 INDEX PACE John Street Theatre. ... 26 Jones' Woods 208 Jumel, Mme 40 Keene, Laura, Theatre of 147 King's College 82 King's Farm 59 Kip's Bay 200 Kip, Jacob 200 Kipsbcrough 183, 200 Kissing Bridge 47, 184 Lawrence, Capt., Grave of 68 Lafarge House 148 Lafayette, General .... 172 Lafayette Place. . . . 1 67, 170, 171, 172 La Grange Terrace. ... 172 Leeson, James, Grave of 64 Leisler, Jacob, Where Hanged 31, 32 Lich Gate of Little Church Around the Corner 194 Light Guards 7 Lind, Jenny 5 Lispenard's Meadows. . ^o. 93. 94. 95 Little Church Around the Corner 192, >93. >94. >95 PAGE Logan, the Friend of the White Man 70 London Terrace 129 Love Lane. .121, 124, 125, 126, 128 Macneven, William James 77 Macomb's Mansion... Mac ready -Forrest Riots 168, 169 Macready, William Charles 168 Madison Square. . . 182 Madison Square Presby terian Church Madison Street Maiden Lane 13, Mandelbaum, "Moth- er" ..141, Manetta Brook 99 Manetta Creek ...113, 114 Manhattan Island. I 3-, 138, 142 Manhattan Market ... . 139 Marble Houses on Broadway 148, 149 Mariners' Church. 133, 134 Mariners' Temple 133 Market, Country 75 "■ Esse.x 143 " E.xterior 75 " Fish 7 s >55 57 169 183 186 134 142 I N PAGE Market, Fly 23 '* Manhattan. . . 139 " Meal 20 '* Uptown 74 " Washington . . 74 Marketfield Street 8 Martyrs' Monument. .. 63, 64 Masonic Hall 87, 88 Meal Market 20 Medical College Hall. . 195 Mercantile Library.. 28, 29, 170 Merchants' Exchange.. i6 Metropolitan Hall 148 Metropolitan Hotel. ... 147 Middle Dutch Reformed Church 21, 22, 171 Middle Road 192 Mile Stone. . 143, 178, 204 Military Prison Win- dow 41 Milligan's Lane. . . 1 17, 118 Minetta Street.99, 1 13, 114 Monroe, President James 145, 155 Montgomery, General. 76 Monument Lane. . 1 1 5, 166 Moore, Bishop Benjamin 127, 128 Moore, Clement C. 128, 129 Morris Street 56 Morse, Samuel F. B. .. 5 D E X PAGE Morton, General Jacob. 7, 37 Morton, John 6 Mount Pitt 137 Mount Pitt Circus .... 137 Mulberry Bend 43 Murder of Dr. Burdell. 149, 150 Murder of Mary Rogers 145, 146 Murderers' Row 97 Murray Family. 199,200,201 Murray Farm 200 Murray Hill i 99, 200 Nassau Street. 17, 18, 21, 22 Nean, Elias, Grave of . . 71 Nean, Susannah, Grave of 71 Negro Insurrection .... 42 New Jerusalem Church . 89 New York City Marble Cemetery 1 54, 155 New York Hospital. 88, 89 New York Institute. . . 37 New York Marble Cem- etery.isi, 152, 153, 154 New York Society Li- brary 119, 120 New York Theatre. ... 170 New York Theatre and Metropolitan Opera House 148 Niblo's Garden. . . . 146, 147 223 PAGE Niblo's Theatre 146 Nicholas William Street 161 North Street 150, I 51 Obelisk Lane 115 "Old Brewery" 44 Oldest Grave in Trinity Churchyard 61 Old Guard 7 Oliver Street 133 Oliver Street Baptist Church 133 Orphan Asylum, Ro- man Catholic 203 Olympic Theatre. . .96, 147 Paine, Thomas, Home of. 107, 108 Paisley Place 122 Palmo Opera House. 39, 87 Parade-Ground 181 Park, Battery 4 '« Bryant 1 14, 197, 198, 199 ♦» Central. . . .207, 208, 209, 210, 211 «' City Hall . . . 34, 35. 36, 37, 38, 39 " Corlears Hook. . 136 " Gramercy 179 " Hamilton Fish. . I 39 " Jeanettc 13 '« St. John's. . .91, 92 INDEX PAGE Park Row 47 Park Theatre (first). ... 30 Patti, Adelina 148 Payne, John Howard. . 36 Pauper Graveyard... 34, 114, 115, 181, 197, 204 Pearl Street 9, 11, 12, 13. '4 Peck Slip 12 Petticoat Lane 8, 9 Pie Woman's Lane ... 22 Pitt, William, Statue of, 18, 47, 90 Piatt Street 23 Poelnitz, •' Baron ".. . 173 Poor House in City Hall Park 34 Post Office 21, 33 Post Road.. . .47, 124, 125, 180, i8i, 182, 204 Potter's Field, Bryant Park 1 14, 197 Potter's Field, City Hall Park 34 Potter's Field, Madison Square 181 Potter's Field, Third Avenue 204 Potter's Field, Wash- ington Square. .. 1 14, 115 Printing-Press, First in Colony 13 Prison Manufactures. .. no 224 INDEX PAGE PAGE Prison Riots ill Road, Southampton. . . Prison, State 109, 117, 120, 125 no, III, 112 " Union 117, 118, 119, 120 Queen's Farm 59, 81 " Warren 126 Rogers, Mary, Murder Rachel, the Actress. . . 148 of. 145, 146 "Rag Gang" 201 Rotunda in City Hall Randall, Robert Richard Park 37 173, 174 Ruggles, Samuel B. .. . 180 Ranelagh Garden 94 Rutgers, Anthony. .92, Red Fort <)Z 93, 94 Reservoir Square 198 Rutgers, Col. Henry . . 135 Revolutionary House . . 79 Rutgers Farm 135 Revolutionary War, First Blood of 24 Sailors' Snug Harbor. . Richmond Hill. .. 103, 173, 174 104, 105 St. Ann's Church .... 167 Riley's Fifth Ward Ho- St. Gaudens, Augustus. 165 tel 89, 90 St. George's Church. 29, 179 Road, Abingdon 123 St. George Square. ... 51 " Boston Post. ... St. James Street 133 183, 192, 199 St. John's Burying- " Bowery 47, Ground 105 128,163, 164 St. John's Church ... . 91 '« Fitzroy. . . .126, 128 St. John's Park 91, 92 " Great Kiln. 1 18, St. Mark'sChurch. .86, 121, 122 156, 158, 159 " Greenwich. .80, 81 St. Mary's Church. .. . 137 '« Middle 191 St. Nicholas Hotel. .. . 145 " Post. 47, 124, 125, St. Patrick's Cathedral. 203 180, 181, 182, 204 Sf Patrick's Church. . " Skinner 117 I44> '45 225 I N D E X PACE PAr.F. St. Paul's Chapel. .75, State Street :;, 6 76, 77, 78 Stewart, Alexander T.. St. Paul's Churchyard. ^'^S 85, 86, '59 St. Peter's Church. . . . 81 Stewart Mansion 86 Savings Bank, the First. >"' Stone Street >5 Schroeder, Rev. Dr.... 167 Stuyvesant's Creek. . . . 142 Scudder's Museum. . . . 37 Stuyvesant's Pear Tree. 160 Second East River Stuyvesant, Peter. ..16, Bridge '37 156, 157, 158, 159, 160 Second Street Methodist Stuyvesant's Pond 179 Church 156 Stuyvesant Street 167 Sewing Machine Ex- Sub-Treasury Building . . 18 hibited 87 " Suicide Slip " 95 Shakespeare Tavern. 27, 28 Sunday School, the First 161 Shearith Israel Grave- yard 50, 116, 122 Tammany Hall. . . .32, 33 Sheep Pasture 8 Tattersairs 95, 96 Shot Tower 206 '34 Tea Water Pump Temple, Charlotte, 48 Shipyards Skinner Road "7 Tomb of. 62, 63 Smit's V'lei 'Z'Z Temple, Charlotte, Southampton, Baron. . . Home of 48, 167 109, 122 Tenement House, the Southampton Road .... First 136 I 17, 120, J25 Ten Eyck, Conraet. . . . 1 3 Sperry, John 163 Tompkins, Daniel D. . 159 Spring Street Presby- Thames Street 71 terian Church 102 Theatre Alley 3' Spring Valley Farm. . . . 207 Theatre, Academy of Stadhuis Site 7 Music 178 Stidt Huys 12, '5 " Astor Place State Prison 109, Opera House I I 0, III, 112 168, 169, 170 Z2 .6 Theatre, Bowery " Broadway. . . . " Brougham's. . " Burton's " Laura Keene's '* Jo^in Street . . " Metropolitan Hall " New York. .. " New York Theatre and Metropolitan Opera House " Niblo's " Olympic. . .96, " Palmo's . . 39, " Park «' Tripler Hall.. «' Wallack's.97, <' Winter Garden Thompson's Inn, Cor- poral Thorne, Charles R. . .. Tilden, Astorand Lenox Libraries Tin Pot Alley 57, Tombs Tompkins Blues Tontine Coffee House.. Tontine Society Tremont House Trinity Church. . . . 20, 56, 58, 60, INDEX PAGE PAGE 49 Trinity Churchyard .... 97 58, 59» 60, 61, 62, 97 63, 64, 65, 66, 67, 39 68, 69, 70, 71, 72 147 Tripler Hall 148 26 Turtle Bay 184, 201 Turtle Bay Farm 201 148 Twenty-first Street. ... 124 170 Union Place 177 Union Road 117, 118, 119, 120 148 Union Square .... 175, 177 146 United New Netherland 147 Company 2 87 United States Hotel. . . 20 30 Uptown Market 74 148 176 Van Hoboken, Her- 148 manus 157 Vauxhall Garden (first) 185 84, 163 170 Vauxhall Garden (last) 163, 164, 170 199 Virgin's Path 22 58 41 Wall, City's 16 7 Wall Street. . . .9, 13, 19 16, 17, 19, 20 19 Wall Street, Trees in. . 20 149 Wallack, James W . . . 176 Wallack's Lyceum.. 97, 176 61 Warren, Ann 109 227 INDEX PACE Warren, Charlotte. ... 109 Warren Road 126 Warren, Sir Peter 100, 108, 109, i;4. Warren, Susannah. . . . 109 Washington Inaugurated 17 Washington Inaugura- tion Ball 73 Washington's Broadway Home 57 Washington Hall ..... 85 Washington's Headquar- ters II Washington's Headquar- ters at Richmond Hill 104 Washington's Home in Franklin House. ... 50 Washington's Pew in St. I'aul's Chapel. . . 76 Washington Market. . . 74 Washington Statue in Union Square 177 Washington Tablet. 37, 90 Washington Square. . .. 113, 115, 1-2, 181, 19- Water Tank 176 Weavers' Row 122 Well in Broadway 149 Well in Rivington Street 141 Wellof William Cox. . 13 West Broadway 83 West's Circus 95 West India Co 2 Whitehall Street 8 Wiehawken Street. ... 112 William Street 16 Window of Military Prison 40 Winter Garden 148 Winthrop, Francis Bay- ard 201 Wolfe, Gen., Statue of 115 World's Fair Grounds.. 198 Worth Monument. . . . 184, 18,- Wreck Brook 41 c m 89 ^^ //^^^-^ ^°^:^^'> /^'^'^ HECKMAN BINDERY INC. €. NOV 89 W N. MANCHESTER, ^ INDIANA 46962 V— vy . - o • » * y> "^