SOUVENIR l£x ICtbrtB SEYMOUR DURST When you leave, please leave this book Because it has been said "Ever'thing comes t' him who waits Except a loaned book." Avery Architectural and Fine Arts Library Gift of Seymour B. Durst Old York Library Hendrik Hudson " ' _ w E was born — no one knows where or when. He died — no one knows when or how. He comes into our knowledge on the quarterdeck of a ship bound for the North Pole. He goes out of our knowledge in a crazy boat manned by eight sick sailors." So writes one historian of the hero who blazed his name upon America's history by discovering the mighty river and the bay that bears his name. He appears to have vanished into nothing- ness when his grand work was done. Even his portrait and autograph are not generally believed to be genuine. No one knows his age at the time he made his dis- coveries. That he was of mature years is shown by his having an eighteen-year-old son. But whether he was a hale mariner of forty or a grizzled veteran of seventy has never been guessed. He was born, it seems, in England, some time in the sixteenth century. His name was Henry Hodgson, but his Dutch employ- ers later twisted the English phraseology into "Hendrik Hudson." \r •W l to His father and grandfather are supposed to have been London merchants. Hudson first appears in history on April 19, 1607, when, with his sixteen-year-old son, John, and ten mariners he sailed from England as captain of the Muscovy Company's little sixty-ton ship Hopewell. Here is the modest object of his voyage as set forth in his own notes: "To discover the North Pole and to sail across it to China or India." Broadway, between Pearl and Duane Sts., about 1807 Sailing on the Hopewell in April, 1607, he scored a "farthest north" record, penetrating to within 10 degrees of the North Pole and discovering Spitzbergen. But the icepack and cross cur- rents at last drove him back. He returned to England without having found the long-sought Passage across the Pole to the Orient But in 1608 he was ready for another search. Again, he sought the mythical Passage. This time he sailed eastward to Nova Zembla, and again -was turned back. Here is a queer extract from Hudson's notebook for this voyage : "On this day (June 15, 1608) one of our company, looking overboard, saw a mermaid. She was close to the ship's side, looking earnestly upward." 2 Hudson's two failures to find the Northwest passage caused the company to abandon further work along this line ; and as an explorer Hudson was out of occupation. Just when it looked as if he would sink into oblivion "unwept, unhonored and unsung," came the chance of his life and the name and fame of Hendrik Hudson has gone down the centuries as one of the greatest discoverers of his or any age by his immortal voyage on the "Half Moon" to the mouth of the great river which now bears his name. For his perilous journey, in the frailest of frail crafts, Hud- son received the munificent sum of $320. In case he never came back the generous directors of the company agreed to pay his widow a further sum of $80 in cash. This may not seem much to us in these days, but it averaged well for similar work at that time. Following Hudson's great work New York was settled by the Dutch and the city was known as New Amsterdam. Descendants of these early settlers are in many instances promi- nent members of New York's best society and pride themselves not a little on their ancient lineage. Fighting Fire in 1800 — 26 Broadway, now the Standard Oil Building 3 No. 1 Broadway, in the rear of which Fulton lived (Looking up from Bowling Green) Robert Fulton, Inventor of Steam Navigation LTHOUGH Fulton is practically known to fame for his invention of navigating by steam, he was, never- theless, one of the most brilliant of men in many pur- suits and would have been distinguished in any one of them had he never touched a steamboat. It is the little-known achievements of Fulton that show the marvellous fecundity of his mind, and that are the origin of some of the most astonishing developments of the present century. For instance, who would think that the present Dreadnough, the mighty battleship of the day, is as much the child of the thought of Fulton as is the giant Lusitania on the plane of the steam- boat? Yet it is, and so are the submarines, with all their cun- ning mechanism ; so, too, are the torpedoes, submarine and aerial, guided by electricity or by wireless waves. Who would think that the Maxim silencer has straight descent from him; or that the wonderful cantilever bridges of peace found their inception in his brain? But they did. So, too, the system of canals or inland waterways that the United States is only beginning to see the necessity of were clearly mapped out by Fulton at the end of the eighteenth century, while the giant crane comes directly from his conception of various simple devices for rais- ing and lowering canal boats. So, too, the moving picture machine, with its Roosevelt hunts and Messina tragedies, is the evolution of the panorama — the first ever to be built — that he constructed in Paris in 1796. Fulton's great idea was that by his various marine inventions war by sea would become so terrible that no nation would ever engage in it. "The peace of the seas is the happiness of the earth" was a favorite saying of his. A full list of his accomplish- ments is certainly but little less than marvellous. He built the first steam battleship — and it was accepted by the United States in 1814. He invented the first submarine boat — and made it go. He invented the first submarine torpedo — and blew up a ves- sel with it. He invented a machine to cut cables of ships at anchor — for use in war. He suggested the principle of the first cantilever bridge. He painted and built the first panorama in Europe. He invented a flax-spinning contrivance which is still the basis of the most modern machine. He invented a perfect rope spinner. He designed the first scientific marble-cutting machine. He was an accomplished artist, having studied under Ben- jamin West, the leading artist of his day and a boyhood friend of Fulton's. ^ sel ever Propelled by Steam. 1807. Special Features, Routes of Parades, etc. HE route of land parades will be from One Hundred and Tenth street down Central Park West to Fifty- ninth street, east to Fifth avenue to Washington square. September 25 — Naval parade of American and foreign war- ships in New York harbor, starting from Governor's Island at 1. 15 P. M. To be repeated with illuminations at 7 P. M. Recep- tion of guests at One Hundred and Tenth street and Riverside Drive in the afternoon. Special services in synagogues. Aerial flight from New York to Albany; airships are sta- tioned at One Hundred and Nineteenth street and Riverside Drive. A member of the managing committee each day during the celebration will announce a starting hour, weather condi- tions permitting. September 26 — Religious services in all churches. September 27 — Airship flights by Wilbur Wright and Glenn H. Curtiss. Official receptions to guests and opening of exhi- bitions. September 28 — Historical parade and pageant. Procession of floats and moving tableaux representing principal events in early American history. Starts from One Hundred and Tenth street and Central Park West at 1 P. M. September 29 — Aquatic sports opposite Riverside Park and Yonkers. Commemorative exercises and dedication of memo- rials. Celebration of Bronx Borough Day. Children's festival in Richmond Borough. United States authorities' reception to guests at West Point. September 30 — Military parade in Manhattan, participated in by United States Army, Navy and Marine Corps, National Guard,, Naval Militia, veteran organizations and sailors and marines from foreign war vessels. Starts from One Hundred and Tenth street and Central Park West at 1 P. M. October 1 — Naval parade in which other craft will join. One division will start from New York and one from Albany, meet- ing at Newburg, where a reception will be held. Ceremonies on "Half Moon" and "Clermont." ' Newburg street parade and fireworks in the evening. Manhattan historical pageant will be repeated in Brooklyn. 8 October 2 — Children's festival in 50 centers of Greater New York, 500,000 school children attending. Return of naval parade from Newburg. Historical pageant repeated on Staten Island. Dedicatory exercise at Stony Point. Carnival parade in Manhat- tan in the evening. The celebration will be continued on the Hudson River north of New York City from October 3 to October 9. October 9 — Carnival parade will be repeated on Eastern Parkway in Brooklyn from 8 to 11 o'clock in the evening. Landing place foot Cortlandt Street of the daily line of steamers to Albany following Fulton's invention, 1820, and from which the "Clermont" sailed Some Things the Visitor Should See in New York. THE AQUARIUM IN BATTERY PARK. Most wonder- ful collection of denizens of the sea ever shown. Reached by all the subways, elevated and street cars. BRONX ZOOLOGICAL GARDENS. Bronx Park. Reached by subway and elevated. Largest and finest wild ani- mal exhibit in the world. METROPOLITAN MUSEUM OF ART. Central Park, opposite 78th street. Special exhibition of Old Dutch Masters in commemoration of Hudson-Fulton week. 9 CONEY ISLAND. With a little world of amusements all its own. Reached by boat and cars from Brooklyn Bridge. A thousand and one diversions. GRANT'S TOMB. On Riverside Drive. OLD TRINITY.. On Broadway, head of Wall street. Where Fulton is buried. OLD ST. PAUL'S. Broadway between Vesey and Fulton streets. Where Washington worshiped while a resident of New York. CITY HALL PARK AND PRINTING HOUSE SQUARE. The former is one of the few buildings existing since Colonial Days. The many .newspapers published in the latter make it interesting to strangers. MILLIONAIRES' ROW. East side of Central Park above 59th street. Here lives Carnegie, Rockefeller, Belmont, and hosts of others equally well known. The leading retail shopping districts are in middle Broadway between Astor Place and Tenth street. Then on Fourteenth, Twenty-third and Thirty-fourth streets, respectively. Upper Fifth avenue is also an important retail section. There are over sixty-nine theatres in New York, located mainly between Twenty-eighth and Fourty-eighth streets on or near Broadway. Nearly every possible taste can be gratified at one or the other of the various attractions now playing and at almost any price. Restaurants, Cafes and Hotels in the theatre district are mostly high priced. The side streets offer excellent service at slightly less cost. 10 Block between Liberty and Cortlandt Sts. on Broadway now occupied by City Investing Building and Hudson Terminals costing over $15,000,000. The highest building in New York is in Madison Square. The Singer Building and other notable skyscrapers are in lower Broadway. The docks of the famous "Lusitania" and "Mauretania," larg- est and fastest boats in the world, are at the foot of Fourteenth street on the West side. All the Atlantic liners dock in about the same neighborhood. The new Pennsylvania Railroad depot is at Thirty-third street and Seventh avenue, and cost fifty millions of dollars. Some idea of the immense work being done also by the New York Central can be obtained by a walk across Forty-sixth street from Madison to Lexington avenues. The pictures of Old New York given in this number are not so very old after all. Some of them date back less than forty years. By contrasting with their present buildings one gets an idea of the growth of New York, not only in population, but in wealth and business to make these costly edifices possible and profitable. At the time this book is being prepared none of the decora- tive features of the great Hudson-Fulton parade are as yet avail- able. The most notable of them will be carefully selected by us and published in a second edition of this book, which will con- tain all the features of the parades that have proven successful. 11 This is directly opposite Columbus Circle at Broadway, 8th Avenue and 59th, as appeared only 50 years ago How Some Street Names Originated in New York. Barclay — From the Rev. Henry Barclay, second rector of Trinity. Battery Place — From a place where a battery was erected in 1869. Beaver — From the beaver; originally the fur district. The animal was an important factor in the fur business in the old days. Canal street was originally a canal forty feet wide, with a promenade and trees on each side of it. It carried the water from the old Collect Pond to the Hudson River. A stone bridge crossed it at Broadway ; this is now below the pavement of that busy thoroughfare. Church street was cut through property belonging to Trinity Church. Cortlandt — From OlofT Stevenson Cortlandt, an early settler, through whose land the street was cut. Exchange Place — Where the old Merchants' Exchange was located. Fulton — From Robert Fulton, whose history is, or should be, known to every one. Greene street honors the name of General Nathaniel Greene. 12 Copyright by H. C. BROWN CO. 419 Lafayette St. N. Y.