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Digitized by the Internet Archive 
 in 2013 
 
 http://archive.org/details/seeingnewyorkbriOOcham 
 
Seeing New York 
 
 A BRIEF HISTORICAL GUIDE AND SOUVENIR 
 OF AMERICA'S GREATEST CITY 
 
 
 PUBLISHED BY 
 
 American Sight-Seeing Boat & Transportation Co. 
 
 American Sight-Seeing Car & Coach Co. 
 
 American Sight-Seeing Coach Co. 
 
 OPERATING 
 
 Seeing New York Coaches 
 Seeing New York Automobiles 
 Seeing New York Steam Yacht 
 Seeing Chinatown and Bowery 
 (by night) Automobiles 
 Seeing Washington Cars 
 Seeing Washington Automobiles 
 Seeing Philadelphia Automobiles 
 Seeing Denver Automobiles 
 Seeing Denver Cars 
 
 HENRY J. MAYHAM, President H. P. BLAIR, Vice-President 
 
 V. F. Le QUESNE, Treasurer and General Manager 
 
 General Offices: Flat-Iron Building, New York 
 
 Copyrighted, 1909, by American Sight-Seeing Coach Co. 
 
 SIGHT SEEING ^,f Y C . H s T N oAV, 
 LEAVES FOOT WEST 42nd ST. DAILY A SUN DAT, 
 10.30 A.M. 2.30 P.M. FARE $1.00 
 
 ENCIRCLES MANHATTAN ISLAND 
 

 ^^fe&S; 
 
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 s*r 
 
 ^ ill inn 
 
 The "Seeing New 5fork" Cars and Yacht 
 
The Famous Manhattan Sky-line 
 
 THE EARLY HISTORY OF NEW YORK 
 
 F, as Americans, you've known in your dreams a city you 
 never have seen, that city is New York! It is the typical 
 community in the Great Republic, and, at the same time, 
 the most cosmopolitan assemblage of mankind upon the 
 face of earth. Here is spoken every language of the 
 habitable globe. Most Christian of towns, here are 
 preached and practiced nearly all forms of religion: the Mohammedan has 
 his mosque, the Jew his synagogue, the Confucian his joss-house, the Buddhist 
 his shrine, the Mormon his chapel, and the Russ his Byzantine altar. Second 
 in population only to London, New York is to-day the financial and the 
 commercial mart of the human race. It is the chief gateway out of which 
 the wealth of the United States goes to all corners of the world. It owes 
 everything to the sea and to the agricultural and mineral wealth of the three 
 million square miles of marvelous territory behind it. 
 
 Here is the city you have come to see — the city of your dreams! 
 Whether the stranger enters by sea or by land, he should know, in "Seeing 
 New York," that the spinal column of the articulated system of the original 
 city is a thoroughfare that starts at "The Bowling Green" and stretches north- 
 westward, thirteen miles, to King's Bridge, over Spuyten Duyvil creek, 
 originally given several names in different localities but now known through- 
 out its length by the single word — Broadway. Practically traversing the 
 long, narrow island of Manhattan from end to end, commercial energy is 
 
radiated from this great street to the east and to the west sides of the Ameri- 
 can metropolis. Remembering that Broadway must be crossed in order to 
 pass from river to river, one need never be "lost" in New York. 
 
 Broadway is, therefore, the medial line upon which a tourist's mind should 
 be focused. 
 
 The history of New York City is invested with much truthful, as well as 
 
 apocryphal, romance. For the latter, Washington Irving, who saw only 
 
 the humorous side of the Dutch period, is chiefly to blame. "Diedrich 
 
 Knickerbocker's History of New York" was as great a joke to its author as 
 
 was his "Conquest of Granada." But much that is true has come down to 
 
 the chronicler of to-day. Wouter Van Twiller and Peter Stuyvesant, "exile 
 
 of the Bouwerie," were veritable figures. In Jacob Leisler is found the first 
 
 American martyr to popular liberty. Captain Kidd, born at Greenock, 
 
 hanged in London, protege of the Earl of Bellamonte, came to New York in 
 
 1 696. The spontaneous patriotism of the "Liberty 
 Romance of r, ,, , , . , . . , . , n . . , 
 
 boys and their skirmish with British troopers at 
 
 Golden Hill, which marks the first bloodshed of the 
 
 Revolution, antedates the Boston Massacre. One cannot cross the old 
 
 Common, now City Hall Park, without seeing in imagination the figure of 
 
 Washington, on horseback, under the trees, listening to the first reading of 
 
 the Declaration of Independence. At dead of night one may fancy he hears 
 
 the clatter of Putnam's steed and the tramp of his men up Broadway in their 
 
 flight from The Bowling Green to Spuyten Duyvil. There's a three volume 
 
 novel in the loves, jealousies and hatreds of Madame Jumel. Evacuation 
 
 Day, the Inauguration of the First President of the young Republic, "The 
 
 Great Fire," the "Visit of The Black Death" (as the cholera was described), 
 
 the incidents that occurred during four subsequent wars, the Draft Riots of 
 
 1 863, and, finally, the consolidation of the boroughs into the second city of 
 
 the world ! All are separate stories. 
 
 The Battery is the base of the brain from which the spinal cord, called 
 
 "Broadway," starts. "The Bowling Green" was a skittle ground, on the 
 
 northern end of the big breathing place. Not until 1 732 was it surrounded 
 
 by a fence; in that year, at an annual rental of one pepper corn, the Town 
 
 Council graciously permitted certain inhabitants to inclose an acre and a half 
 
 of ground, fronting the entrance to the Fort, for 
 The Origin of & • 
 
 Bowllnq Green use as a held. Long before acquiring its 
 
 present title the Dutch had found the bowling 
 green a convenient place to take the air. A statue of Abraham de Peyster, 
 a mayor of New York in 1 69 1 , faces the Custom House. 
 
 With The Battery nothing in the whole city is historically comparable. 
 It was really the cradle of the mighty metropolis of to-day. There it was 
 that Peter Minuit, a native of Rhenish Prussia, acting for the Dutch West 
 
Hanover Square 
 
 Bowling Green 
 
 India Company, made the 
 original purchase of Manhat- 
 tan Island from the Indians. 
 He paid only $24 for the 
 property, but that need not 
 be remembered to his dis- 
 credit. It was a fair bargain, 
 as prices of real estate ruled 
 in 1 626 — to-day's valuation 
 is $6,000,000,000. The 
 present area of The Battery 
 is 2 1 acres — much larger 
 than it was originally. About three-quarters of the present park is made 
 ground. The site of the first fortification, Fort Amsterdam, built in 1 626, 
 was on the spot where now stands the Custom House. That the land orig- 
 inally lay very near tide-water was proven recently when excavations for the 
 Subway unearthed a "monument stone," fixing the latitude and longitude of 
 New Amsterdam. This stone has been set up anew opposite the southwest 
 corner of the Custom House. Fort Amsterdam fronted directly upon the 
 waters of the Bay. At that particular point all the land between the stone 
 and the sea-wall is artificial. This change is of comparatively recent date. 
 
 The Aquarium, still best known as "Castle Garden," was built in 181 1, 
 its present site standing originally in the water, 300 feet from the shore, with 
 which a draw-bridge connected it. Men are living in this city who recall 
 a time when that bridge was lined with fishermen, angling for the finny 
 dwellers in the harbor waters. A large part of the material used to fill in 
 
the shallows came from the earthworks of the old fort. Therefore, nearly 
 every shovelful of the ground between the fort and Castle Garden came from 
 the ramparts of the first protection the old Dutch town enjoyed. It was not 
 the Indians the Dutch feared but the English. The Britons were "pushing/' 
 then, as they have been since that time. 
 
 The people of to-day can take the Subway at The Bowling Green sta- 
 tion for all points in the upper end of Manhattan or The Bronx, and are 
 within four minutes of Brooklyn Borough Hall by tunnel under the mouth 
 of East River. 
 
 A whole book could be written about The Battery, because of the long 
 
 succession of events in national as well as local history that have occurred 
 
 there or have been celebrated under its trees. Here the Dutch settlers laid 
 
 the foundations of a metropolis for the New World, and, although they agreed 
 
 upon a name, "New Amsterdam," they didn't settle upon the exact site until 
 
 many pipes of schnapps and countless disputes had been heard. Many of 
 
 the worthy men preferred to accept the site of "Spuyten Duyvil," sheltered 
 
 by a range of hills and backed by level meadows 
 The Canals of . ... , „ . 
 
 Dutch New York through which canals could be dug. 1 hey sought 
 
 to hide behind what we now call "the Heights of 
 Fort Washington" (so admirably comprehended during the tour upon the 
 "Seeing New York" Yacht). Of course they didn't need the canals, but 
 they were so accustomed to them in their native land that artificial waterways 
 had become a part of their existence. 
 
 The Battery site was finally chosen, and to carry out the illusion that the 
 burghers were still in Holland a canal was digged in what is now Wall street. 
 It made the colonists feel at home. Although the first dwelling house was 
 built upon the crest of the rise, at a point now No. 41 Broadway, the 
 citizens of New Amsterdam gathered at The Battery, under the whispering 
 
 leaves, with orioles and blue-birds for companions 
 
 and the rippling tides at their feet, to smoke and 
 of the Battery i . o , , i / • i 
 
 dream! out they never dreamed or a mighty 
 
 metropolis that has grown upon the place of their selection! 
 
 Later, during Colonial days, the citizens of young New York took the air 
 on the Battery Commons and exchanged gossip every pleasant afternoon. 
 
 Then came journalism. Peter Zenger's "New York Weekly Journal" 
 was first issued November 5, 1 733, and his denunciations of British rule 
 became so stinging that he was arrested for libel and thrown into jail, where 
 he was refused the use of pen, ink or paper. His dungeon was in the base- 
 ment of the City Hall, which then stood on the site of the Sub-Treasury, at 
 the head of Broad street. Zenger edited his paper through a chink in the 
 door, dictating his articles to one of his assistants on the outside. He wasn't 
 able to furnish the 400 pounds bail. The Grand Jury refused to indict 
 
Zenger; but the Attorney-General filed "an information" that kept him in 
 jail. None of the prominent lawyers in this city at the time dared to under- 
 take his defence, and Zenger's friends brought from Philadelphia the ven- 
 erable lawyer, Andrew Hamilton, then aged eighty years. 
 
 Court assembled on August 4, 1 735, in the City Hall. DeLancey was 
 Chief Justice, Philipse was second Judge, and Bradley was Attorney- 
 General. John Chambers, appointed by the Court as attorney for the pris- 
 oner, pleaded not guilty and obtained a struck jury. The first vindication 
 of the freedom of the press followed. 
 
 Hamilton boldly admitted the publication of the articles, but claimed that 
 "printing" and "libeling" were not synonymous terms. He read many 
 passages from the Bible, which, with an interpola- 
 
 r iiii The F,PSt 
 
 tion or contemporaneous names, would have been Liberty Pole 
 
 admittedly libelous. His argument was sophistical, 
 
 but it captured the jury, and a unanimous verdict in favor of Zenger was 
 rendered. A public dinner was given to Hamilton. 
 
 In Beaver's Lane, now called a street, Admiral Peter Warren had the 
 final roll-call before sailing to capture Louisburg (1 745). 
 
 When the Revolution came, The Battery was the point at which the 
 "liberty pole," flying its quaint flag, was set up. A stone marks the event, 
 but not the exact locality on which the famous flag-staff stood. Another his- 
 
 Fraunce's Tavern, restored as it was in 1776 
 
The Sub-Treasury 
 
 torical incident associated with the spot was the nailing of the British colors 
 to the top of the same staff and the greasing of the pole, when the English 
 evacuated the city on November 25, 1 783. It was an act comparable with 
 the Spaniards at Santiago sinking their ships after surrender. 
 
 America was free and the last act of the war occurred right here. The 
 evacuation of New York practically ended the Revolution, although Niagara 
 was garrisoned by the British for several years thereafter. The flag of St. 
 George was torn down from its greased pole by David Van Arsdale, aged 
 twenty-eight, born at Cornwall, Orange County (January 5, 1756). The 
 nails with which young Van Arsdale fastened cleats to the pole and ascended 
 to the top of the staff were obtained from Goelet's hardware shop in Han- 
 over Square. This Goelet was the founder of a very wealthy family. A 
 daughter of the present generation has reconquered a part of Great Britain 
 by becoming the Duchess of Roxburghe. 
 
 Always remember that the 'British Colonial and Revolutionary 
 memories are more interesting than those of the 'Dutch period. 
 
 From the Kennedy house, which stood on the site of the present Washing- 
 ton Building, No. 1 Broadway, Sir Henry Clinton made his plans to profit 
 by the treachery of Benedict Arnold, who had agreed for ten thousand 
 pounds sterling ($50,000) and the post of brigadier-general in the British 
 
army to deliver West Point, the key of the American possessions, to the 
 enemy. From this building, Sir Henry sent his instructions to the unfortunate 
 young Andre, including the commission for the traitor, Arnold, that proved 
 to be the Englishman's death warrant. Andre met the ignoble doom of a 
 spy ; but, in contrast to the treatment accorded to Nathan Hale, his last hours 
 were soothed by every attention that humanity could inspire. Arnold, hav- 
 ing received the price of his treachery, took residence in New York, branded 
 with universal scorn. He lived in desolate loneliness in the Verplanck house, 
 in Wall street, and then at No. 9 Broadway. 
 
 An earnest effort was made by the Americans to capture Arnold. A 
 soldier named Champe, staking his reputation and his life on the hazard, 
 feigned to desert to the British army. He swam 
 
 the Hudson, and was warmly welcomed by Ar- 
 
 i i tl j j • i £ Narrow Escape 
 
 nold. 1 he supposed deserter gained tree access 
 
 to Arnold's house on Broadway. An alley at one side of the garden, in the 
 
 rear of the Arnold house, was to afford the Americans access to the grounds. 
 
 Champe loosened several palings of the fence and a boat's crew was to row 
 
 across the river, seize Arnold, gag him and take him away. A mere accident 
 
 prevented the success of the conspiracy. On the day preceding that fixed 
 
 for the capture Champe was ordered to embark for the Chesapeake and 
 
 Arnold removed to a house near the point of sailing. The crew came, 
 
 penetrated to the grounds, but returned to the camp unsuccessful. Champe 
 
 deserted from the British army at the earliest opportunity and cleared the 
 
 stain that had rested upon his name. General Arnold remained in the British 
 
 service until the end of the war, then went to England, and died in 1801, 
 
 shunned by everybody. 
 
 A visit to the Aquarium, which, as "Castle Garden," sheltered the 
 
 inauguration of Grand Opera in this country, should be made before leaving 
 
 New York, more for its historical associations than for the display of fish to 
 
 be found there. When the round stone building 
 
 ceased to be a fort it was converted into a summer 
 
 j j j r • • i ^tl ..l Castle Garden 
 
 garden, and used tor civic ceremonials. 1 here the 
 
 Marquis de Lafayette was entertained with a grand ball on the occasion of 
 
 his last visit to the United States, in 1 824. Public receptions were also given 
 
 to President Andrew Jackson, in 1832; and President John Tyler, in 1843. 
 
 Then followed the memorable arrival of the immortal Jenny Lind, under the 
 
 management of P. T. Barnum, on which occasion fabulous prices were paid 
 
 for seats. The New York "Herald" of September 12, 1850, contains an 
 
 account of Jenny Lind's first concert. She gave her share of the receipts on 
 
 that occasion, declared to be $10,000, to twelve charities in this city! She 
 
 founded the Fire Department Relief Fund by a gift of $3,000. She sang 
 
 "Casta Diva"; the scene and cavatina from "Norma"; Meyerbeer's con- 
 
certante for voice and two flutes, "Camp of Silesia," composed expressly for 
 her; a Swedish "Herdsman's Song," with echo, and a prize poem by Bayard 
 Taylor. She responded to every recall, and was in girlish spirits. Tickets 
 were, nominally, $3; but the auction sales reached a total of $25,000. 
 
 The building was converted into an immigrant receiving station in 1855, 
 and so continued until the last day of 1 890, when it was transferred from 
 State control to the City of New York. The immigrant station was re- 
 moved to Ellis Island, not far from the Liberty Statue. 
 
 Proceeding to South Ferry and thence to the beginning of Broad street, 
 we plunge into a region filled with Revolutionary memories. Broad street 
 was used as a drill ground for Continental recruits. At Fraunce's Tavern, 
 recently restored, Washington took each of his generals by the hand after he 
 had delivered his historic Farewell Address. As a State Paper that speech, 
 uttered with tearful pathos, is second only to the Constitution of the Republic: 
 every suggestion of policy therein made is part of the unwritten law of our 
 land. 
 
 Washington's farewell toast, uttered with tearful eyes, is very memorable: 
 "With a heart full of love and gratitude I now take leave of you, and most 
 devoutly wish that your latter days may be as prosperous and happy as your 
 former ones have been glorious and honorable." Raising his glass to his lips, 
 the Father of His Country added: "I shall be obliged if each one of you will 
 come and take me by the hand." 
 
 The officers obeyed in silence; none could speak owing to the emotion he 
 felt. General Knox, commander of the City of New York, was first; the 
 others, in turn. Not a word was spoken. Wash- 
 ington passed from the room, walked to the foot of 
 of Washington , v/l . , „ , , . . 
 
 Whitehall, where a boat was waiting to convey him 
 
 to Paulus's Hook, whence he went to Annapolis and surrendered his com- 
 mission to Congress. Thence he proceeded to Mount Vernon and became a 
 private citizen. 
 
 The tavern of Samuel Fraunce stands, exactly as in Washington's time, at 
 the corner of Broad and Pearl streets. Before the Father of His Country 
 took farewell of his officers (December 4, 1 783), he had been living at the 
 De Peyster house on Pearl street, opposite Cedar. One can cross the sacred 
 portals of Fraunce's Tavern and stand upon the exact spot at which the chief 
 hero of the American Revolution stood. 
 
 Looking up Broad street, toward the Sub-Treasury, during the hours of 
 trading, the shouts of the curbstone brokers recall the cheers of the "Liberty 
 Boys," who had this thoroughfare for parade ground. At the corner of 
 Beaver a tablet commemorates the seizure of many muskets from British 
 guardians. Almost across the street the types of a royalist printer were 
 
The New York Stock Exchange, on Broad Street 
 
The Chamber of Commerce 
 
 "pied." Several signers 
 of the Declaration lived in 
 the neighborhood. Alex- 
 ander Hamilton had his 
 law office on the west side 
 of Broad street. 
 
 The triangle between 
 Broad, Wall and the East 
 River is the general local- 
 ity of the "Great Fire 
 of 1835," although it 
 spread to the northward in 
 ^N>w ^ N% jBt isolated places. It caused 
 
 a loss of $20,000,000, 
 and was the greatest 
 American conflagration 
 until Chicago's (1871). 
 A tablet at 88 Pearl 
 street, on the south side of 
 Hanover Square, indicates 
 where the conflagration 
 started that destroyed 650 houses. Hanover Square, at 81 Pearl street, 
 was the home of the first American newspaper, printed by William Bradford. 
 John Jacob Astor, first, subsequently lived at No. 81 Queen (now Pearl) 
 street (1786). The first City Directory (1786) was printed at 1 1 1 
 Queen street, near the "Tea Water Pump." This is the proper place to 
 say that the great Astor fortune wasn't gained by accident. New York 
 was a century old when the first Astor came here from his father's home in 
 Baden, with a settled conviction in his mind that the town of his adoption had 
 a great future and that he would link his destiny with it. Young Astor had 
 fifteen guineas ($75) and a suit of Sunday clothes when he set out. He 
 voyaged in the steerage, because he needed all his capital. On the sea he 
 made the acquaintance of a fellow-countryman who had been here and had 
 made enough money in the fur trade to revisit his native land. Astor wrote 
 down in a memorandum book (which exists in the family archives) every 
 suggestion regarding the fur business that he gathered from his unknown 
 fellow-traveler. 
 
 The ship was caught by the ice in Chesapeake Bay and its loss seemed 
 inevitable. Every other traveler put on his oldest clothes, but Astor appeared 
 in his best suit. When asked a reason for this act, he answered: "If I'm 
 saved I'll have my good clothes; if I'm drowned it will not make any differ- 
 ence how I'm dressed." 
 
 12 
 
When the young man reached New York he began as a journeyman 
 baker, being too proud to accept a clerkship under his brother Henry, who 
 was the head of the existing "Beef Trust." He was an excellent baker, and 
 "Astor rolls" are known to this day. After trying several trades he became 
 a clerk to Robert Brown, a fur dealer, at $2 per week and board. He was 
 sent up the Hudson to buy skins from the hunters and trappers. He learned 
 the languages of the Mohawks, Senecas and Oneidas. 
 
 At last he started in trade on his own account, with $500 borrowed from 
 Henry Astor and a dowry of $300 from his bride, Sarah Todd. He 
 organized his business, and within ten years had a regiment of Indians and 
 white men killing wild game for him. Then he began his explorations, 
 personally and by proxy. He became the pioneer American in the China 
 trade. One of his ships visited the Sandwich Islands and carried a cargo of 
 sandalwood to China that netted nearly a hundred thousand dollars' profit. 
 Meanwhile, his interests had been pushed to the mouth of the Columbia 
 River, to Puget Sound, and to Hudson Bay, in the far North. 
 
 He began to buy real estate; not farms, but building sites. Then it was 
 that he laid down the principle, adhered to with slight deviation, that 
 "Astor buys property, but does not sell!" And so the financial giant grew 
 until he became the wealthiest man of his century. He left to the people of 
 New York a marvellous heritage in the Astor Library, and the first good 
 hotel, opposite City Hall Park, and to his heirs $20,000,000, which has 
 grown to-day to half a billion dollars! 
 
 In the Hanover Square region lived Jacob Leisler, the first martyr to 
 
 constitutional liberty in America. He was a wealthy shipping merchant, and 
 
 because of his popularity and high character was 
 
 ii i i i • r ii r> i The First Con 
 
 called by his rellow citizens to act as Liovernor dur- tinental Congress 
 
 ing the interregnum occasioned by the accession of 
 
 William and Mary. His rule, which did not have royal sanction, lasted 
 from 1 689 to 1 69 1 . At his summons, in May, 1 690, the first Continental 
 Congress assembled in the old Stadt Huys, in Coenties Slip. The colonies 
 of New York, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Plymouth and Maryland were 
 represented. New Jersey and Philadelphia, fearful of disloyalty — the suc- 
 cessors of Penn were opposed to war — sent only their "sympathies." The 
 Congress voted to raise an army of 850 men "to drive the French from 
 Canada." When Colonel Sloughter, the new Governor, arrived from Eng- 
 land, Leisler was deposed, tried for treason, and hanged on Park Row, in 
 front of the General Post Office. 
 
 13 
 
Wall Streel 
 
 Curl) Brokers 
 on Broad Street 
 
 Nassau Streel 
 
WHERE MILLIONS ARE MADE 
 
 ODERN Broad street saw the first of the large office build- 
 ings when D. O. Mills put up the ornate structure of red 
 brick that bears his name. When completed, it was 
 thought to be so vast in its proportions that it was pointed 
 out as a wonderful creation of architectural art; now, it 
 has been excelled by a score of structures on Broadway 
 and Park Row. A handsome structure of more than twenty floors adjoins 
 it, across Exchange Place. 
 
 American finance is comprehended in the words "Wall Street," a name 
 that includes Broad, Nassau, Pine and Cedar streets, Exchange Place and 
 six blocks of Broadway. Wall street, with Gothic Trinity Church at its top, 
 is more given up to lawyers than brokers. 
 
 The new Stock Exchange is a replica of the best period of Greek archi- 
 tecture, with a facade of Corinthian columns, each 52 feet high, and it cost 
 more than three million dollars. The interior is a room of vast height; its 
 gallery for visitors is small and admission is had only by card from a member. 
 (The Board of Governors extends this courtesy to our patrons.) In this 
 maelstrom of money, called "The Stock Exchange," the trading hours last 
 from ten till three. Here is the centre of the financial world. The exchange 
 of a million and a half shares of stocks during that brief time is not unusual. 
 Its business is three times as large as that of Capel Court, in London, and 
 five times greater than on the Paris Bourse. A half hour may be profitably 
 spent watching the "bulls and bears," if the trading be brisk. Seats that 
 cost $5,000 each in 1875, now sell for $90,000. As one stands in the 
 gallery, watching the surging, noisy crowd of brokers upon the floor below, 
 and remembers what a seat in this Exchange costs, one ceases to wonder 
 that so few of the traders can afford to sit down. 
 
 The "Open Board" or "Curb," in the middle of Broad street (where 
 "unlisted securities" are dealt in), is composed of a highly interesting group 
 of frantic traders. Some of the highest priced and 
 
 most staple stocks are traded in "on the Curb," as A Stock Market 
 
 well as many shares of the "wild-cat" variety. For 
 
 instance, if you want to buy Standard Oil stock, the purchase must be made 
 "on the Curb." 
 
 In five hundred brokers' offices of this locality, capitalists, principals, 
 agents and customers stand watching "tickers" or blackboards for quotations, 
 and thousands of clerks are busy checking "margins" or "commissions," 
 and sales or purchases. They form the mechanism behind the activities the 
 visitor beholds upon the floor of the Exchange. 
 
 15 • 
 
This region may also be described as the banking district, although several 
 
 strong financial institutions are located further uptown. The private banking 
 
 offices of J. P. Morgan & Co., in a marble building facing the Sub-Treasury, 
 
 are the most famous in the Street. The National City Bank, which, with 
 
 the Bank of Commerce on Nassau street, handles most of the millions of the 
 
 Standard Oil Company, until recently, by a curious coincidence, occupied 
 
 the site of Captain Kidd's house on the north side of Wall street, but it is now 
 
 located in an imposing edifice upon the site of the old Custom House. At 
 
 the corner of William street is the Bank of New 
 
 York, which was organized by Alexander Hamilton 
 Sky-scrapers , 
 
 and, as the first bank after the Revolution, began 
 
 business at the old Walton house, on Franklin Square. The banks in the 
 
 locality are too numerous to mention. The slave market was at the foot of 
 
 Wall street in 1 709. 
 
 Before returning to Broadway, the fine Greek temple facing Broad street, 
 and standing upon the site of the second Stadt Huys or City Hall, should 
 be examined. Upon the spot indicated by J. Q. A. Ward's heroic statue 
 of Washington the First President took the oath of office. The structure 
 then standing was known as Federal Hall. The vaults of the Sub-Treasury, 
 wherein are many millions in coin and gold ingots, are shown to visitors at 
 regular hours daily. Silver ingots, cast in large sizes for safety in handling, 
 are carted through the streets upon open drays, like pig iron. While in this 
 locality a visit should be paid to the beautiful Chamber of Commerce build- 
 ing on Liberty street, near Nassau. This dainty and highly ornate structure, 
 amidst surrounding skyscrapers, is a treasure-house of historic paintings. The 
 Chamber of Commerce was founded in 1 768, and held its first meeting in 
 Fraunce's Tavern. It is a mint-mark of commercial stability to have one's 
 name upon its roll of membership. The Clearing House, nearby, is also 
 worthy of external inspection. 
 
 Back on Broadway the tall granite structure of the Standard Oil Company, 
 at No. 26, forms one of a broken series of great office buildings that stretches 
 northward for two miles. Aldrich Court was the site of the first dwelling 
 houses in New York. At No. 62 were the original offices of "Commodore" 
 Cornelius Vanderbilt. 
 
 Trinity Church has been the pride of the metropolis for more than three- 
 quarters of a century. It will remain the Protestant Episcopal Cathedral 
 Church of New York until the completion of St. John the Divine, on Morn- 
 ingside Heights, many years hence. 
 
 Trinity Parish contains nine chapels and churches. It was founded in 
 1 696, and possesses property of fabulous value. Most of its millions come 
 from Anneke Jans (see a tablet at 23 Whitehall street), a widow who 
 owned a farm of 63 acres, extending from Warren street to Canal, west of 
 
 16 
 
Tomb of 
 Alexander Hamilton 
 
 Trinity Church 
 
 Old Trinity and 
 Its Millions 
 
 Broadway. Colonel Lovelace, second English Governor, acquired this 
 farm, in 1670, "for a consideration," generally believed to have been "affec- 
 tion," and it was added to "the Queen's Farm," 
 which, thirty-five years later, Queen Anne ceded 
 to Trinity Church. A generation later some of 
 
 Anneke's descendants began lawsuits to recover all or part of the estate. 
 This litigation has continued for 200 years, but the church wardens always 
 win. The present Gothic structure of brown sandstone is the third that has 
 stood upon the spot. The superb bronze doors at the main front entrance are 
 replicas from the basilica in Florence, and are the gift of William Waldorf 
 Astor, in memory of his father, John Jacob Astor. The reredos and altar 
 are a memorial to William B. Astor, erected by his sons. The churchyard 
 contains many graves of famous men; but the single slab, lying flat upon the 
 
 T 
 
Brooklyn Bridge 
 
 earth, that marks the resting place of Charlotte Temple excites more sym- 
 pathetic interest than do the elaborate monuments to Alexander Hamilton 
 or Captain Lawrence, of the "Chesapeake," who shouted with his last 
 breath, "Don't give up the ship!" Charlotte Temple's home, according to 
 the best authorities, was in a little court off Doyers street, at the beginning 
 of the Bowery. In Trinity yard also are the graves of William Bradford, 
 printer; Robert Fulton, inventor; Bishop Hobart, a pioneer of the Cross; and 
 Gen. Phil. Kearny, a hero of the Civil War. The Martyrs' Monument, 
 
 The Queensboro Bridge, Across Blackwell's Island 
 
 18 
 
facing Pine street, commemorates the American patriots who died in British 
 prisons and prison ships during the Revolution. The vestrymen of Trinity 
 Parish are generally distinguished citizens of New York. 
 
 The red brick bank building facing Trinity Church, at the corner of Wall 
 street, was long known to the financial world as "Fort Sherman," because of 
 the close association that existed between its directors and John Sherman, 
 Secretary of the Treasury under President Hayes. 
 
 Temple street, which Trinity Parish has now closed, lay directly behind 
 that part of the west side of Broadway, and it originally was a lane that led 
 into the churchyard. It was the scene of the ludicrous "Doctors' Riot." 
 Between the evacuation by the British troops in 1 783 and the organization 
 of the Federal Government in 1 789 the most sensational local incident was 
 a riot known as "the Doctors'." Body-snatching, for the use of the dis- 
 secting-room of King's College, had been frequent. As long as these dese- 
 
 The Harlem River, between High and Washington Bridges. Showing the Seeing New York 
 
 Steam Yacht "Clifton" 
 
 crations were confined to the burying ground of the negroes, the white citi- 
 zens did not manifest resentment; but when one of the private cemeteries was 
 finally invaded by the ghouls the people manifested a violent antipathy to the 
 medical profession. The New York Hospital was regarded with superstitious 
 horror. An attack was made upon it; its doors were broken down, and a 
 costly collection of articulated skeletons imported from abroad was destroyed. 
 Several cadavers were found upon the dissecting-tables and borne out for 
 interment. Many terrified physicians hid themselves, but were dragged out 
 by the populace, and were only saved from lynching by obliging magistrates 
 who committed them to the jails. A street fight occurred the following day, 
 in which five people were killed and many wounded. The final incident was 
 
 19 
 
m 
 
 v l : •" '- fee gel 
 
 ^^me ?!&*«£ 
 
 The Singer Building, Broadway and Liberty Street, fortj seven 
 
 -•lories, 612 Feel lii^h- Buill and owned by the Singer 
 
 Manufacturing Company 
 
the attack upon the house of Sir John Temple. "While the excitement was 
 at its height," says Mrs. Booth, in her "History of New York," "a group of 
 the rioters (doubtless recruited from the waterside and very unlettered 
 men) chanced to pass the house of Sir John Temple, the resident British 
 consul, and, mistaking the words 'Sir John' upon his door-plate for 'Surgeon,' 
 the rioters almost wrecked the house before they could be stopped." The 
 street was named for the offended consul, as a balm to his lacerated feelings, 
 and the city authorities made proper apology and recompense. 
 
 Turning north on Broadway, we shall follow the historic thoroughfare 
 to Washington Place, where, turning to the westward, we shall proceed, by 
 way of Fifth avenue, to Central Park. 
 
 Broadway is the most interesting street in America. With the single 
 
 One of the Stations (if tin Hudson River Tunnel to New Jersey 
 
 exception of Broad street, Philadelphia, it is the longest. Measured from 
 the Bowling Green to the city line, its length is 1 3 miles. 
 
 The first Beef Trust in this country was created by a butcher named 
 Henry Astor, who had a shop in the Fly Market, Maiden Lane, and used 
 to ride out the Boston post road to meet the drovers coming into town with 
 cattle, which he bought at the best spot cash prices and resold at higher 
 figures to the retail tradesmen. There was a revolt against this Beef Trust 
 during the Revolution, and its chief narrowly escaped summary vengeance 
 from butchers and their patrons. At a stream that ran down the middle 
 of what is to-day Maiden Lane — now the centre of the wholesale jewelry 
 trade of the United States — the Dutch girls did the family washing. Nas- 
 sau street of to-day was then "Pie Woman's Lane" (about 1700). 
 
The Battery 
 
 At the corner of Broadway and Liberty street we see the Singer Build- 
 ing, one of the highest office structures and one of the most notable edifices 
 in the world. Forty-seven stories from the sidewalk to pinnacle, 6 1 2 feet, 
 it is a cloud-piercing point of the skyline of Manhattan. Its tower rests on 
 thirty-six caissons sunk to bed rock, 92 feet below curb, 65 feet square, 
 weighing 18,365 tons, anchored with eye-bars embedded in concrete, so 
 braced as to withstand a wind pressure of 301 pounds to the square foot, 
 or of 330 tons against any face; 5,000 tenants; sixteen Otis traction eleva- 
 tors; entire building 9 J/2 acres floor space. This building embodies the 
 ingenuity and the artistic sense of one of the leading architects of America; 
 the wisdom of experts in sanitation, ventilation, decoration and every detail 
 which makes for personal comfort; the genius of leading engineers. 
 
 Cortlandt street runs through land purchased in 1671 by Brewer Oloff 
 Stevenson Cortlandt, who had come here from Holland as secretary to 
 Governor Kieft and become commissioner of cargoes for the West India 
 Company. He soon started in business on his own account and laid the 
 foundations of an immense fortune, which his descendants have enjoyed. 
 Cortlandt means "little land." 
 
 At Cortlandt street, and at Hudson Terminal Buildings, one block 
 westward, is the downtown entrance to the Hudson River tunnel system. 
 One may take an electric train and be in Jersey City in three minutes! He 
 connects right here with the Pennsylvania, the Erie, the Lackawanna and 
 Western and the Lehigh Valley railroads. These tunnels, and two farther 
 north, near Christopher street, running under the Hudson to Hoboken, are 
 the results of the energy of one man, William G. McAdoo. He came to 
 this city a stranger in 1893, and set for himself the task of building tunnels 
 under the Hudson. He was a lawyer, not an engineer; but the fact that 
 
 22 
 
failure in such an enterprise had occurred stimulated his energy. The up- 
 town New Jersey tunnel, which will extend as far north as Grand Central 
 Station, was opened to Twenty-third street and Sixth avenue in 1 908. The 
 twin tunnels from the Hudson Terminal, at Church and Cortlandt streets, 
 were opened, with civic formalities, on July 1 9, 1 909. Each of the two 
 sets of viaducts under the Hudson consists of two parallel tunnels, built of 
 massive iron segments and concrete, of enormous strength and capable of 
 resisting any pressure. These tunnels run through soil and solid rock, and 
 river water does not touch them at any point. The four tunnels are each 
 about three miles in length. The width of the Hudson is one mile. Ven- 
 tilation is mechanical; the cars are built of steel, and a complete block sys- 
 tem renders accidents impossible. 
 
 Looking to the right, down John street, we see the locality known as 
 Golden Hill, where, on January 18, 1 770, a fight occurred between British 
 soldiers and "Liberty Boys," because the former had destroyed a liberty pole. 
 
 General Post Office 
 
 St. Paul's Chapel 
 
 23 
 
The first blood of the Revolution was shed there, some time before the 
 Boston Massacre. The old John Street Methodist Church, wherein White- 
 field thundered his anathemas against the unconverted, stands beyond the 
 first street east of Broadway. 
 
 Park Row 
 
 24 
 
HOW NEW YORK SPENDS ITS LEISURE 
 
 ARK ROW marks the divergence of the old Boston 
 turnpike. It is the busiest corner in New York — only 
 rivalled by the entrance to the Brooklyn Bridge at the 
 rush hours of the morning and afternoon. At Ann street 
 now stands the St. Paul Building, where, until recently, 
 was the office of the New York "Herald." That and the 
 Park Bank sites were occupied by Barnum's Museum, destroyed by fire in 
 1866. This "museum" contained a marvellous 
 collection of rubber whales, "woolly" horses and 
 "wild men of Borneo." Mr. Barnum possessed 
 
 the war club with which Captain Cook had been killed by South Sea 
 islanders — or one as terrifying. There it was that "General" Tom Thumb, 
 the first of the famous midgets, held court for nearly a generation. There it 
 was the "Liliputian Wedding" of Tom Thumb and Miss Lavina Warren, 
 afterward solemnized at Grace Church, was arranged by Mr. P. T. 
 Barnum. The exterior of the building was decorated with oval pictures of 
 impossible birds and beasts, forming a scenic effect that nobody, once 
 beholding it, ever forgot. The interior was described as "a temple of 
 wonder"; but the most curious was Barnum himself. He was in evidence 
 every day, and took great pride in walking upon the stage to introduce his 
 dwarfs, giants or living skeletons. 
 
 St. Paul's Chapel is as famous as Trinity, although it is only a chapel in 
 the parish. St. George's was the first offshoot of the Parish church, and 
 stood at the corner of Beekman and Cliff streets; 
 
 St. Paul's was the third. Its cornerstone was laid Th e Oldest Church 
 
 in 1 764, and it fronted upon the Hudson, the rear in New York 
 
 being on Broadway. As a matter of fact, it is the oldest religious structure 
 in New York. The tablet upon the rear wall to General Richard Mont- 
 gomery attracts the notice of the busiest pedestrians on Broadway. There 
 is a suicide's grave under the street pavement, outside the church gate. The 
 son of a rector of St. Paul's took his life and, as the wardens would not 
 permit his burial in the yard, his bones rest under the feet of the passing 
 multitude, unknown and unnamed. Inside the churchyard, south of the 
 chapel, is the monument to Thomas Addis Emmet, the Irish patriot, remark- 
 able for the fact that the exact latitude and longitude of the stone (40° 42' 
 40" N. ; 74 03' 21" W. L. G.) are inscribed thereon. The churchyard 
 surrounding St. Paul's is open every day, and is an excellent place for 
 visitors to the city to rest. It is in the heart of throbbing activities. In this 
 chapel Lord Howe worshipped during the British occupation. Washington 
 
 25 
 
City Hall 
 
 An Architec- 
 tural Blunder 
 
 came after him, and his pew is pointed out. Upon the sounding-board over 
 the pulpit is the coat of arms of the Prince of Wales. The pulpit is the 
 same as that from which the priest then addressed his congregation. 
 
 In the Astor House, several years ago, a costume ball was given, at which 
 descendants of many old families of New York appeared in the costumes of 
 their own grandparents of the early part of the nineteenth century. 
 
 The General Post Office, at the junction of Park Row and Broadway, 
 is one of several structures of similar composite architecture constructed in 
 various cities during the second term of President 
 Grant, from drawings made by an architect named 
 Mullett. This one is the least offensive of them, 
 because its splendid site hides many of its technical and architectural defects. 
 Its architecture is a combination of the Doric and the French Renaissance, 
 than which nothing could be more incongruous. Its domes are imitations 
 of those that surmount the Louvre in Paris. The five storied structure is of 
 light gray Maine granite, is fireproof, and cost $6,500,000 — the city con- 
 tributing the ground from the City Hall Park. More than one million 
 and a half letters and parcels — not including newspapers — are handled every 
 week day by its 4,000 employees. 
 
 Looking toward North River down Barclay street, St. Peter's Church is 
 noticed. It is the home of the oldest Roman Catholic congregation in the 
 city. The first church was erected in 1 786, and rebuilt as it is now in 1 839. 
 
 26 
 
The City Hall 
 and Its Setting 
 
 Notice the portrait of 
 
 Broadway, between the General Post Office and Chambers street, has 
 changed little during the past thirty years. The Underwood Typewriter 
 Company's showroom, at No. 24 1 , supplies machines for the United States 
 Navy. Therefore, we may truthfully say that, being upon our ships in all 
 parts of the world, the sun never sets where the Underwood is at work. 
 
 Many historic memories cluster about City Hall Park. The head- 
 quarters of the municipal government is in the handsome edifice known 
 as the City Hall. When finished, in 1812, at a cost of half a million dol- 
 lars, it was in the northern suburbs. It is a perfect specimen of the Italian 
 style, the front and two ends being of white marble. It is 2 1 6 feet in length, 
 1 05 feet in depth, and contains the Mayor's Offices 
 and the Aldermanic Chamber. The most interesting 
 room in the building is at the head of the winding 
 staircase, and is known as the "Governor's Room. 
 Henry Hudson. This fine apartment is the scene of official receptions. 
 There is the desk upon which Washington wrote his first Message to Con- 
 gress and the chair in which he was inaugurated President. 
 
 Directly east of the City Hall stood, until recently, the old British prison, 
 in which several hundred Continental patriots died during the Revolution. 
 It was used as a Hall of Records until the deeds were transferred to the new 
 building on Chambers street, when it was removed to make way for a station 
 of the Subway. In front 
 of the entrance to City 
 Hall, upon the pavement, 
 is a large bronze tablet, 
 marking the place at which 
 ground was broken for the 
 splendid system of under- 
 ground rapid transit. On 
 the Broadway side of the 
 Park is the fine bronze 
 statue of Nathan Hale, by 
 Macmonnies, set up by 
 the Society of the Sons 
 of the Revolution. This 
 figure is that of a youth, 
 and his pinioned arms 
 indicate that the moment 
 chosen was that in which 
 the hero-martyr exclaimed: 
 "I regret that I have only 
 one life to lose for my 
 
 ^^tfJuC.'- 
 
 27 
 
country!" Hale was executed at a point near what is now First avenue and 
 Forty-fifth street. He was the only editor ever hanged in New York. 
 
 Where Temple Court now stands, on Beekman street, was a theatre, in 
 which "Hamlet" was first produced in America (1761). Printing House 
 Square, with its newspaper offices and its statues of Benjamin Franklin and 
 Horace Greeley, is on the eastern side of the Park, in front of the Tribune 
 and Sun offices. The tall dome of the World Building was for several years 
 the loftiest structure in the city. The entrance to the original Brooklyn 
 Bridge is at the side of the World office. Upon the point of land be- 
 tween Park Row and Centre street stood Storm's Hotel, with which the 
 name of John Jacob Astor was curiously associated. A faithful clerk in his 
 employ was retired at the age of sixty, and the fur merchant asked him 
 whether he would choose free board at Storm's for the rest of his life or 
 $ 1 ,000 in cash. The clerk chose the former offer, and lived there in one of 
 the best rooms for twenty years, much to Astor's chagrin at his own liberality. 
 
 The tall Scott & Bowne Building nearby is the 
 
 . _ headquarters of Scott's "Emulsion," extensively 
 
 A Famous ^ . ... . f T 
 
 Life Preserver usec * to sustain Me in cases or consumption. Its 
 
 fame is worldwide. 
 
 Brooklyn Bridge was the first of the structures connecting Manhattan with 
 Long Island. It was begun January 3, 1870, and was opened May 24, 
 1 883, with imposing ceremonies, attended by President Arthur. It is a 
 suspension, over towers of masonry. Its length between anchorages is 
 3,455 J/2 f eet ; tne Manhattan approach is 1 ,5 7 7 J/2 an d the Brooklyn ap- 
 proach 983 feet, or a total length of 6,016 feet. Clearance, at high water, 
 133 feet. Its width, over all, is 86 feet, carrying two roadways, each 18 
 feet wide, and a footway. Average traffic, 18,000 vehicles; 437,000 people. 
 
 Cherry Hill, now the "toughest" locality in the city, and easiest reached 
 from City Hall through Frankfort street, was for more than half a century 
 the centre of wealth and fashion. Its name was derived from the fine house 
 and grounds of a wealthy English maltster, Richard Sacket, which he had 
 christened "Cherry Gardens." As such it was afterwards known as a place 
 of entertainment. The first Presidential mansion was in Franklin Square. 
 A bronze tablet upon one of the Brooklyn Bridge arches marks the site. The 
 Walton house stood across Pearl street from Harper & Brothers' establish- 
 ment until 1 88 1 , when it was demolished. A lavish dinner that William 
 Walton gave to a party of British officials had much to do with bringing on 
 the war for American Independence. Representations were made to the 
 home government that the American colonists were rolling in wealth and 
 ought to bear heavier burdens. Then followed the increased taxes that led 
 to the revolt. The first New York bank was organized at a social gathering 
 of Mr. Walton's wealthy friends. 
 
 28 
 
Reading from top — The Ghetto, Chinatown, The Bowery 
 
The first house in New York to be lighted by gas stood at No. 7 Cherry 
 street. At No. 27 the first American flag of stars and stripes was made 
 (1818). Captain Samuel C. Reid, hero of Fayal, suggested the thirteen 
 bars and a star for each State. 
 
 Turning off Broadway at Ann street, into Park Row, we must remember 
 that Chatham street is no longer in existence — the name was changed in 
 1 886. The title is found at the Square upon the hill-side, at the end of the 
 crowded thoroughfare. But the Earl of Chatham will never be forgotten 
 by New Yorkers. This Square and Pitt street show recognition of the friend 
 of the American colonists. Chatham died on April 7, 1 778, uttering a last 
 protest against the repression which the King had undertaken to inflict upon 
 the colonists. The scene is historical in which he was borne into the House 
 of Lords in order to say: "You cannot conquer the Americans! Your 
 powerful forces may ravage; they cannot conquer! As well might I talk of 
 driving them before me with this crutch. You have sent too many to make 
 peace; too few to make war. We are the aggressors. We have waged 
 war for unconditional submission; let us try what can be accomplished by 
 unconditional redress." 
 
 The earliest American Kissing Bridge spanned a small creek where Bayard 
 
 street now begins. This little thoroughfare recalls Nicholas Bayard, Peter 
 
 Stuyvesant's nephew, whose knowledge of English 
 The Eventful J K . . °. , . . 
 
 made him persona grata with the bntish when his 
 
 uncle surrendered New Amsterdam to Colonel 
 Nicholas for the King of England in 1664. Never did a man suffer more 
 vicissitudes of fortune. When the Dutch recovered the city he became Secre- 
 tary of the Province, but was thrown into jail when the English came back in 
 the following year. Subsequently he was forgiven and made mayor of the 
 city, but became a fugitive when King James abdicated; was caught by Leis- 
 ler and imprisoned. Again he rose, after Leisler's downfall, but was soon 
 charged with treason and convicted. Before sentence could be approved by 
 the home government Bayard died of illness and chagrin. All these changes 
 came to him in forty-seven years. A mound raised over his grave was used 
 after the Revolution to fill the Collect Pond, located where the City Prison 
 now stands. Therefore it is probable that his bones rest under a prison 
 instead of inside one. 
 
 Opposite No. 1 66 Park Row (formerly called Chatham street) was a 
 historic well, known as "Tea Water Pump," because the old women who 
 
 indulged in that decoction thought the water had 
 
 The Drama in • , «« , . ,, D . t j 
 
 special drawing properties, between James and 
 
 Roosevelt streets, on the east side, stood the Chatham 
 
 Theatre, at which "Uncle Tom's Cabin" had its initial performance in 1852. 
 
 The slang phrase, "Wake me when Kirby dies!" comes from this locality. 
 
 30 
 
About 1839 a 
 prodigy a p - 
 Chatham 
 wasn't 
 
 3 
 
 frfrliililllliili 
 
 Paradise Park 
 
 City Prison 
 
 young dramatic 
 peared at the 
 Theatre. He 
 actor, accord- 
 standards, but 
 crowds," be- 
 son Kirby re- 
 
 a n m 
 ing to present | 
 he ''drew 
 cause J. Hud- 
 served his strength for the climax of the tragedies in which he invariably 
 appeared, depicting death and bloodshed. He would walk through the parts 
 of Richard III or Virginius, for example, until the "killing" began; then he 
 would roar and rant, slash and parry, advance and retreat in ways that gave 
 to New Yorkers paroxysms of delight. As a very natural consequence, half 
 the audience would deliberately go to sleep during the first acts of his per- 
 formance, asking to be awakened for the death scene — always worth the 
 price of admission. 
 
 From the eastern side of Chatham Square the latest addition to the bridges 
 across East River, Manhattan, starts. It was begun February 4, 1 903, and 
 will be opened January 1,1910. It is suspended from steel towers. Length 
 of the main bridge is 2,920 feet; Manhattan approach 2,067 and Brooklyn 
 1,868 feet, or a total length of 6,855 feet. Tracks for four surface rail- 
 ways and four elevated or subway tracks will give it transportation facilities 
 for 1 20,000 passengers, each direction, per hour. A roadway for vehicles 
 35 feet wide and two foot-walks 1 1 feet each. The top of the steel piers is 
 336 feet above mean high water. There are only two suspension bridges in 
 the world with longer river spans, namely, Brooklyn, 1 ,595 ]/2, and Williams- 
 
 3* 
 
burgh, 1,600 feet. The Manhattan is 1,470 feet. The Frith of Forth 
 
 cantilever bridge has a channel span of 1,710 feet. 
 
 Chatham Square has been destroyed by the elevated railroad structure. 
 
 What is a hillside now was in early days a pasture with fine trees. Near the 
 
 point where Doyers street enters the square, on the west side, stood the house 
 
 in which Charlotte Temple died. Recent investigation shows the career of 
 
 that young lady to have been quite different from that so romantically set 
 
 forth in Mrs. Susanna Rowson's novel. 
 
 A visit to Chinatown should not be omitted by the stranger in New York. 
 
 It lies westward of Chatham Square, and is seen to admirable advantage 
 upon the automobiles of the "Seeing New York 
 Company," which make tours thereto every night 
 and, by a special arrangement, secure admission for 
 
 their patrons to the Joss Temple, and furnish a Chinese "chop-suey" supper 
 
 at the best Mongolian restaurant. 
 
 Chinatown proper comprises a triangular part of the city bounded by 
 
 Mott and Doyers streets and Paradise Square. It is teeming with life. 
 
 Natives of the Middle Kingdom, in their home garb, throng the streets. 
 
 Shops confined exclusively to the sale of Chinese goods are seen upon all sides. 
 A visit to the Joss House, on the north side of Mott street, where the 
 
 disciples of Confucius go at regular periods for reasons of prayer and incense 
 
 burning to their gods, is exceedingly interesting. Great sheets of fiery red 
 
 Curious Customs 
 of Chinatown 
 
 
 The Cooper Union 
 
 32 
 
placards are at the door. This is Chinatown's bulletin board — or, speaking 
 more exactly, newspaper. Here the Mongolians learn what is going on. 
 During the war between Japan and Russia this spot was thronged every 
 hour of the day. The Chinese recognized the importance of that contest to 
 their mighty empire. After ascending two flights of steps, the home of the 
 sacred joss is entered. The chief idol is under a canopy. Silent priests, in 
 silken robes, are tending the lamps and keeping the incense tubes aglow. One 
 lamp is never allowed to go out. 
 
 If the stranger be in New York during the week's "Feast of Lanterns," 
 Chinatown should always be visited. This is one of the most romantic of 
 all Chinese myths. Two stories exist regarding its origin: One is that a 
 beautiful girl, daughter of a great mandarin, got lost, and her father offered 
 all his fabulous wealth to those who should find her. The whole Chinese 
 world turned out with lanterns to make the search. The child never was 
 found, so the hopeful Chinese have perpetuated the custom for 3,500 years, 
 in hope of coming upon the beautiful creature in some reincarnation — and 
 getting the millions of "cash" that will now have multiplied by compound 
 interest into a sum sufficient to buy this earth and every planet in the solar 
 system. 
 
 The other version of the myth is that a great king shut himself up in his 
 palace for three weeks, illuminating every window, and, by successfully ex- 
 cluding all earthly strife, made a heaven within the castle walls. But he for- 
 got his subjects, and they grew enraged, tore down his palace and amputated 
 his head. Therefore is the Feast of Lanterns a rebuke and a warning to 
 selfishness and too much happiness. The Chinese observe it with never- 
 flagging religious fervor. 
 
 Having visited the Chinese shops and restaurants, a few hundred feet takes 
 us into the Ghetto — the home of the foreign Jewish element in this cosmo- 
 politan city. Especially notice the street lined with pushcart venders, striving 
 to sell all manner of notions to the poverty-stricken populace that swarms out 
 of the tall tenements to handle the wares upon their "bargain counters." 
 
 Williamsburg Bridge, begun November 26, 1896, opened December 19, 
 1903, has its Manhattan approach through a new boulevard, where Delan- 
 cey street used to be. It is suspended upon steel towers and its length be- 
 tween anchorages is 2,793 feet. The Manhattan approach is 2,650, Wil- 
 liamsburg approach 1,865 feet, or a total length of 7,308 feet. Its capacity 
 is such that in addition to two roadways for ve- 
 hicles and two foot-walks there are four surface 
 
 The Bowery 
 and two elevated railway tracks, capable of trans- 
 porting 60,000 passengers each way per hour. Its average traffic is 1 1,521 
 vehicles and 168,372 people per day. 
 
 Upon the region which Jan von de Laet, the Dutch traveler, who visited 
 
 33 
 
New Amsterdam in 1 626, 
 described to his country- 
 men as the "schoonste 
 landte om te bouwen" (fin- 
 est land for tilling), the 
 name of Bowery soon be- 
 came engrafted. New- 
 comers set up a bouwerie, 
 or farm, and registered as 
 a bouwer (or boer) — a 
 tiller of the land. Gov- 
 ernor Stuyvesant ultimate- 
 ly claimed 1 ,000 acres, 
 through which ran the 
 "Bowery road." 
 
 Now we are back at the 
 City Hall, and directly be- 
 hind it is the Court House 
 of New York County 
 (which is co-equal with 
 Manhattan Borough). It 
 will always be known as 
 "Tweed's Court House," 
 because it cost the tax- 
 payers about $12,000,- 
 000, or fully six times the 
 actual outlay. Begun in 
 1 86 1 , it languished during 
 
 the Civil War, and its dome is still uncompleted. The interior is finished 
 in the cheapest, shabbiest fashion. The stairways are of iron. The exterior 
 is of Massachusetts marble and the style Corinthian. The Criminal Courts 
 have recently been transferred to an ornate stone and red brick structure on 
 Centre street, adjoining the City Prison. The latter was known as "The 
 Tombs" before the Egyptian structure was replaced by a replica of the Paris 
 jail from which Marie Antoinette was driven forth to execution. These city 
 institutions stand where was a pond in early days. 
 
 Chambers street, at the northern side of City Hall Park, was the site of 
 Palmo's Opera House and Burton's Theatre. The new Hall of Records, 
 at Centre street corner, is the most imposing modern municipal edifice in 
 Greater New York. It cost $7,500,000. The columns that support the 
 cornice are handsome monoliths, and cost $20,000 each. It is separated 
 from all other buildings, and its vaults, for the preservation of copies of the 
 
 34 
 
title deeds to the billions of real estate upon Manhattan Island, are absolutely 
 fireproof. 
 
 Broadway is filled with memories. In a show window, near Duane street, 
 the first sewing machine was exhibited, with a young woman working it. 
 Curiosity was excited, but sales were not stimulated. Like the telephone at 
 the time of its introduction, the sewing machine was regarded as a toy. 
 
 On the left, opposite Pearl street, stood the old steel-blue stone structure of 
 the New York Hospital, now removed to West Fifteenth street. On Thomas 
 street, since that time opened through to Broadway, but then starting at the 
 rear of the hospital grounds, occurred the mysterious murder, never cleared 
 up, for which Edgar Allan Poe offered a logical but fanciful solution in his 
 famous tale, "The Murders in the Rue Morgue." Horace Greeley, when 
 a journeyman printer, lived there in a boarding house. 
 
 The old Broadway Theatre stood on the east side of Broadway, near 
 Pearl street, and on the next block above was the first of the series of Broad- 
 way Tabernacles, that after moving to Thirty- 
 fourth street (Herald Square) has culminated in Abolitionism 
 the ornate white structure at Fifty-sixth street. It 
 
 was the rostrum of the Abolitionists from which for two generations Ameri- 
 can slavery was constantly denounced. To the right down Worth street is 
 Paradise Park, where was the Five Points, a slum centre of crime for a 
 century and a half. During the slave insurrection fourteen negroes, suspected 
 of incendiarism, were burned at the stake on the present site of Paradise 
 Park. The Five Points House of Industry, sustained by voluntary contri- 
 butions and some city help, is seen on the north side. Looking westward 
 on Worth street, we find at the corner of the first street the mammoth dry 
 goods warehouse of the H. B. Claflin Company, the largest wholesale ware- 
 house in America. 
 
 Here, on the right, at No. 400, are the warerooms of the Herring-Hall- 
 Marvin Safe Company, the safes of which were the only ones that withstood 
 the heat of the terrible fire in Baltimore and protected from injury the valu- 
 able books they contained. 
 
 Canal street is the widest thoroughfare on Manhattan Island. An open 
 
 canal once extended from the North River to the foot of the hill beyond 
 
 Centre street. Tattersall's was on the east side of 
 
 Where "Humpty 
 Broadway, above Howard street, and the Olympic Dumpty" Played 
 
 Theatre, where George L. Fox delighted our 
 
 fathers, was adjacent; and the first of the Tiffany jewelry shops stood on 
 
 Broadway, east side, above Spring street. St. Thomas's Church was at the 
 
 corner of Houston. It is now on Fifth avenue, at Fifty-third street. Dr. 
 
 Chapin's original church was at No. 548, and Christy's Minstrels at No. 
 
 728. The Metropolitan Hotel, built by A. T. Stewart, was at the north- 
 
 35 
 
west corner of Prince street. Within it was Niblo's Garden, world-famous 
 as the home of the "Black Crook." The Ravels, Lydia Thompson and 
 other memorable names were associated with it. 
 
 At a little hotel on the corner of Eighth street, now torn down, the de- 
 fender of American prowess against Tom Sayers, champion of England, 
 John C. Heenan, the "Benicia Boy," spent his last days. He was buried 
 from a house nearby. Police Headquarters will be found in its new home 
 at Centre street, Broome and Grand streets. 
 
 Looking eastward on Bond street, at No. 3 1 , is the site of the most 
 famous murder that ever occurred in this city — that 
 of Dr. Burdell (1857), for which Mrs. Cunning- 
 ham was tried. She was defended by Henry L. 
 Clinton, and prosecuted by A. Oakey Hall, the youngest District Attorney 
 New York City ever had. In the battered old four-story dwelling at No. 47 
 Bond street, where the Shaw family lived in the forties, the poem of "The 
 
 Where Poe Wrote 
 "The Bells" 
 
 Union Square, 
 looking North 
 
 Church of the Ascension 
 
 36 
 
Bells" was written by Edgar Allan Poe. The Shaws were friends of Mrs. 
 Poe, and when the poet was kept in town too late to get to Fordham he gen- 
 erally went to the Shaws' to sleep. The inspiration for the verses was given 
 by the clanging of church bells, which awakened him there on Sunday 
 morning. 
 
 Great Jones, the next street up town, was the property of Samuel Jones, 
 grandson of Chief Justice David Jones (1 782), described for a half century 
 as "the father of the New York bar." 
 
 Astor Place, on the right, is historic ground. The large building fronting 
 the plaza is Clinton Hall, a new structure owned by the Mercantile Library 
 standing on the site of the original building, named in honor of De Witt 
 Clinton, who contributed the first library book in 1 820. This open square 
 was the scene of the Macready-Forrest riots in 1 849. To the south, on 
 Lafayette street, is the original foundation of the Astor Library, now trans- 
 ferred to the beautiful building at Fifth avenue and Forty-second street. In 
 Colonnade Row lived Washington Irving. 
 
 At a western corner of Ninth street is the establishment of Arnheim, the 
 Tailor, who has created one of the largest trades in his special branch of 
 manufacturing existing in the metropolis. 
 
 The beautiful white spire of Grace Church is not more imposing than is 
 the Fleischmann Vienna Bakery, on the opposite side of Broadway. Near 
 this corner, for twenty years, has formed at midnight, summer and winter, 
 the famous "Bread Line." This good man's practical sympathy for suffer- 
 ing human hearts has been charmingly described by John Alden, a descend- 
 ant of the young Puritan who "spoke for himself" and married Priscilla. 
 Of Fleischmann, Alden wrote: 
 
 He did not pay big salaries to investigate the poor ; 
 
 That's why his light above the rest shines like a Kohinoor — 
 
 Remembering, in simplicity, just what the Master said. 
 
 He simply found the hungry, and he simply gave them bread/' 
 
 The noble Louis Fleischmann is now dead; but his charity is continued 
 by special provision in his will and with the hearty co-operation of his two 
 sons. 
 
 Grace Church, after Trinity, is the wealthiest Protestant Episcopal con- 
 gregation in New York, and, strange to say, its first edifice stood on Broad- 
 way, where the Empire Building rises to-day — 
 cheek by jowl with Trinity. The present build- 
 ing was finished in 1845, and, until the comple- 
 tion of St. Patrick's Cathedral, was the best specimen of the pure Gothic in 
 the city. From a strategic viewpoint its position is marvellously fine. Situ- 
 ated at a deflection in Broadway, it is distinctly visible from the Bowling 
 Green, and from that point apparently closes the great thoroughfare, just as 
 
 37 
 
Tower of Madison Square Garden 
 
 Dr. Parkhurst's 
 church fronting 
 Madison Square 
 
 Metropolitan Life Building 
 
 Trinity ends Wall street's further progress. The rectory, of recent con- 
 struction, is a delightful example of the subordinated treatment of a difficult 
 architectural proposition. Do not fail to notice a colossal terra-cotta jar in 
 the front yard. It was found fifty feet below the surface of the pavements 
 of modern Rome. Miss Catherine Wolfe gave the money to build the 
 exquisite little chantry at the southern side of the main edifice. When you 
 visit the Metropolitan Museum of Art you will see her greatest thoughtful- 
 ness for the American people in the collection of paintings this charming lady 
 gave to that institution. One of the interesting practical chanties in this great 
 city is in the rear of Grace Church — the day nursery, erected by former 
 Vice-President Levi P. Morton as a memorial to his wife, where working 
 
 38 
 
women can bring their children to be cared for while they are earning a 
 living. 
 
 Union Square is worth a special visit. Its statues of Washington, Lafayette 
 and Lincoln are among the best in America. Around this oval, at one period 
 or another of the city's growth, dwelt many famous men. The park itself is 
 about three acres in extent, and, since the removal of a tall iron fence that for- 
 merly surrounded it, gives a fine vista into upper Broadway. Daniel Drew 
 lived until his death in a house at the southwest corner of Seventeenth street. 
 
 East, on Fourteenth street, beyond Union Square, is Steinway Hall, for 
 nearly forty years headquarters of the Steinway pianos. The value of a good 
 name in trade is such that its possessor does not have to move every time a 
 commercial centre shifts. The Steinway pianos are exactly what they have 
 always been. At this hall Mme. Christine Nilsson and many other world- 
 famous singers have been heard in concert. It was the seat of music in 
 America until Carnegie Hall was built. 
 
 Beyond Steinway Hall, to the eastward and on the south side of Four- 
 teenth street, is a famous restaurant, the especial pride of the German- 
 American element — "Liichow's." This New York restaurant is much fre- 
 quented by the musical element. Not long ago Paderewski thereat accom- 
 panied Jean de Reszke in a solo, and Edouard de Reszke joined in the 
 refrain. Liichow controls the American output of the famous Wiirzburger 
 and Pilsener beers. 
 
 The Washington Arch 
 
 39 
 
THE SOCIAL HEART OF NEW YORK 
 
 N order to see the social side of modern New York, let us 
 return to Broadway and turn westward at Waverley Place 
 to the historic parade-ground known as Washington 
 Square. This eight acres of land was once the Potter's 
 Field of the young city, and the bones of 1 00,000 name- 
 less citizens of a century or more ago lie there hiding their 
 griefs and disappointed ambitions. The large white building of stone and 
 brick, at the University Place corner, occupies the old site of the New York 
 University — now removed to Morris Heights, north of the Harlem — al- 
 though some departments still occupy this building. It was made famous 
 by Theodore Winthrop's posthumous novel, "Cecil Dreeme." The young 
 author, while living, suffered the same neglect and non-success as the unfor- 
 tunate Bizet, composer of "Carmen," who died of chagrin. But Winthrop 
 was vouchsafed a glorious death in battle. He was killed at Big Bethel, 
 one of the first combats of the Civil War, and his rejected manuscripts were 
 then published under the patronage of the late George William Curtis. 
 
 In this Square stands the Washington Memorial Arch, an ornate and 
 
 chaste architectural reminder of the centenary celebration, in April, 1 889, of 
 
 Washington's inauguration as First President of the 
 
 ' . Republic. The white marble structure is 70 feet 
 
 Memorial Arch 
 
 in height, and is yet to be surmounted by an eques- 
 trian statue of the Father of His Country, facing up Fifth avenue. It has 
 cost $128,000 up to date, raised by voluntary contributions. The city 
 accepted the gift in May, 1895. 
 
 From Washington Arch, Fifth avenue stretches northward six miles to 
 Mount Morris Square, where its continuity is interrupted; but, resuming its 
 course, the avenue continues to the Harlem River, at One Hundred and 
 Forty-third street. For fifty years it has been the most fashionable residence 
 street of this continent. Business is rapidly invading it. Many prominent 
 clubs are on Fifth avenue or adjacent thereto. Some of the most costly 
 residences in American will be passed between this Marble Arch and the 
 Ninetieth street entrance to the Central Park. Originally brownstone was 
 the building material employed, but exquisite variety has lately been given to 
 the avenue's architecture. The "American basement" is supplanting the 
 "high stoop" residence. Especially to be noticed during our drive are the 
 French chateau of the late Cornelius Vanderbilt, the beautiful house of 
 W. K. Vanderbilt, that of the late C. P. Huntington, the Astor dwelling, 
 that of Flbridge T. Gerry, and the palaces built by Yerkes, Whitney, Wil- 
 liam A. Clark and Andrew Carnegie. 
 
 40 
 
Lord & Taylor Building 
 
 A tour along this fa- 
 mous avenue takes the vis- 
 itor through the social 
 heart of New York. The 
 first house on the left, 
 fronting upon Washington 
 Square, is the seat of the 
 Rhinelander family; upon 
 the opposite corner is the 
 residence of William But- 
 ler Duncan, who comes 
 of a race of bankers. 
 Lispenard Stewart dwells 
 at No. 6. General Dan- 
 iel E. Sickles has his home 
 at No. 23; he has been 
 statesman, soldier, diplo- 
 mat and sheriff of New 
 York. Cyrus W. Field, 
 who laid the first Atlantic 
 cable, lived at No. 45; 
 
 Robert B. Roosevelt, an uncle of President Roosevelt, dwelt at No. 57. 
 Much property on Fifth avenue between Eighth and Tenth streets is owned 
 by "Sailors' Snug Harbor," a splendid charity 
 
 founded on Staten Island by Captain Robert Historic Wash- 
 
 Richard Randall in 1801 for aged seamen. Its '"gton Square 
 
 rent roll exceeds $500,000. 
 
 The Episcopal Church of the Ascension contains the largest ecclesiastical 
 painting in America. Upon a canvas 40 feet square John La Farge has 
 represented "The Ascension of Christ." The work occupied two years, 
 cost $30,000, and is a gift of the Misses Rhinelander. The First Pres- 
 byterian Church, standing in a full block front, on 
 the west side, is the alma mater of Calvinism in this 
 part of the world. This church was founded in the 
 
 old State House in 1717, and Rev. Dr. John Rogers, called "the Father 
 of Presbyterianism in America," was one of its early pastors. It is a hand- 
 some Gothic structure in brownstone. 
 
 West Fourteenth street is to-day the Grand street of forty years ago. Its 
 retail shops are large and crowded from opening until closing hours. At the 
 northeast corner stood the Delmonico's of thirty-five years ago. Farther 
 west, on Fourteenth street, and in the same block, still stands the Van Buren 
 house, a three story structure in large grounds, which was long ago the seat 
 
 The Famous La 
 Farge Painting 
 
 4r 
 
of New York hospitality. Directly opposite was the original location of the 
 Metropolitan Museum of Art, which stands to-day in Central Park and 
 is rapidly taking rank among the great collections of the world. On Broad- 
 way, near Nineteenth street, is a business house which has the unique attract- 
 iveness of a museum — that of Vantine & Company. It contains treasures 
 gathered from every corner of the earth, the greater part being Oriental 
 bronze, ivories, porcelains and other Eastern curios. The enormous Broad- 
 way building is supplemented by a huge warehouse at Eighteenth street and 
 Broadway, and the house has branch establishments in Boston and Phila- 
 delphia. 
 
 Lord & Taylor's great dry goods house at Twentieth street is one of 
 the institutions that have redounded to the commercial glory of the American 
 
 . _. . metropolis. The business started in Catherine street 
 
 An Old r 
 
 Business House ninety years ago, when that region was the shop- 
 
 ping centre of the city, and by progressive steps has 
 reached the florescence of success in this large structure, thronged daily with 
 the best class of purchasers. Everything purchased over those counters has 
 
 * i 
 
 The Holland House 
 
 Collegiate Church 
 
 -1-' 
 
The Tiklen-Astor-Lcnox Public Library 
 
 with it a personal guarantee of excellence from which there never is any de- 
 viation. 
 
 One of the oldest business houses in New York, which has grown up 
 from a small establishment incorporated seventy-five years ago, is the grocery 
 house of Park & Tilford, at the southwest corner of Broadway and Twenty- 
 first street. The firm has four other houses in this city, besides its warehouse. 
 After the death of the original members of the firm of Park & Tilford the 
 business was carried on by the sons of the house, and Mr. Park having 
 recently closed out his interest, the concern continues with Mr. Tilford as 
 president and Mr. J. R. Agnew as vice-president. 
 
 The business machinery of the Presbyterian and Methodist Churches is 
 managed from the two buildings on opposite sides of Fifth avenue, at 
 Twentieth street. At Twenty-first street, on the two northern corners, 
 stood the Union and Lotos clubs until they moved up town. 
 
 Upon the next block stands the architectural wonder of the New World, 
 the Flat-iron Building — so called because the plot of land covered by it 
 suggests that useful article of domestic life. It is twenty-two stories in height, 
 and is visible from the East and North rivers. 
 
 The first modern soda fountain in New York was established soon after 
 the Civil War by Alexander Hudnut, under the old Herald Building, at 
 Broadway and Ann streets. The son of this pioneer, Mr. Richard Hudnut, 
 is now America's largest importer and manufacturer of perfumes, and his 
 present store is near the Flat-iron Building, on Broadway. 
 
 4.3 
 
We are now emerging from old New York into the modern city. Here 
 is Madison Square, the social centre of fifty years ago. Its "fashionable 
 set" of that time felt the keen lash of ridicule when William Allen Butler, 
 then a young lawyer, published in an early number of "Harper's Magazine" 
 his poem, "Nothing to Wear." In those days "Miss Flora McFlimsey of 
 Madison Square" ran a close second with Longfellow's "Hiawatha." 
 
 Jewish Synagogue Up Fifth Ave. from Forty-second St. 
 
 Bryant Park 
 
 44 
 
rrri 
 
 Hotel Woodward 
 
 An afternoon can be very 
 profitably spent about Madison 
 Square. The Fifth Avenue 
 Hotel, where the late Paran 
 Stevens accumulated a large for- 
 tune, has disappeared. Upon 
 its site has risen the Fifth Ave- 
 nue Building, eighteen stories in 
 height. The widow of Mr. 
 Stevens, who insisted upon call- 
 ing herself "Mrs. Paran Ste- 
 vens," ultimately became the 
 social leader of this metropolis. 
 She it was who made the mem- 
 orable declaration that there 
 were "only Four Hundred 
 families in New York" worthy 
 to be on her visiting list. With 
 the help of the late Ward 
 McAllister the "Four Hundred" 
 families were designated. Her residence at that time was upon Fifth avenue, 
 facing Madison Square. Upon the eastern side of this pretty park, adja- 
 cent to Rev. Dr. Parkhurst's architectural gem of a church, rises the tallest 
 building in the world, fifty stories above the street level — that of the Metro- 
 politan Life Insurance Company. 
 
 Broadway crosses here at an obtuse angle. Directly in front of the Fifth 
 Avenue Building stood the Dewey Triumphal Arch, one of the most artistic 
 temporary structures ever erected in any land. Directly north of its site is 
 a fine monument over the grave of Major-General William Jenkens Worth, 
 a hero of the second war with England, the Semi- 
 nole war ( 1 84 1 ) , and of the Mexican War. His 
 body was buried here, with imposing civic and 
 military ceremonies, on November 25, 1857, and the granite obelisk was 
 erected by the municipal government. He was a native of this State, born at 
 Hudson. 
 
 Madison Square contains less than six acres. Its shade trees are of the finest 
 and its fountain is remarkable for an intermittent flow. It mildly resembles a 
 spouting geyser. Its benches have been resting places for many social re- 
 formers and modern philosophers. Here on every pleasant afternoon for a 
 quarter of a century might be found one of the most interesting and unique 
 sociologists of the nineteenth century, George Francis Train. He thought 
 himself the reincarnated Socrates, and during the last years of his life he 
 
 How the Four 
 Hundred Began 
 
 45 
 
Sherman Statue 
 
 lived at the Mills Hotel, in Bleecker street (although possessed of large for- 
 tune), among the disappointed and worried men of his day, and came here 
 to meet everybody who sought his counsel or sympathy. 
 
 The statues in this square are not remarkable. Seward's is the best; that 
 of Roscoe Conkling fair, and Admiral Farragut's uninteresting. The Peter 
 Cooper statue, in front of the Institute, is bad; but it was exactly what the 
 philanthropist wanted, and the wishes of so noble a man must be respected 
 — even though he knew less about art than glue. 
 
 The widening of Fifth avenue, from Twenty-sixth street northward to 
 Fifty-ninth street, proceeding rapidly, will give to the city a broad and 
 splendid thoroughfare; and in the section above Forty-second street, con- 
 taining many of the handsomest residences in New York, will result in the 
 removal of all high stoops and a general adoption of the American basement 
 entrances. 
 
 Now we make another start up Fifth avenue. The Cafe Martin, at which 
 
 French cooking has been domesticated to American palates, occupies the 
 
 third up-town site of Delmonico's. It will be 
 Restaurants of 1 1 1 1 c 1 1 t r\ 1 
 
 ... . . ..... ,- _ remembered that the nrst northward move ot Del- 
 
 World-Wide Fame 
 
 monico's was made to Chambers, then to Four- 
 teenth, next to Twenty-sixth street, and now this famous restaurant is at 
 Forty-fifth street and this avenue. The Cafe Martin is very popular. The 
 Collegiate Marble Church, at Twenty-ninth street, houses the oldest congre- 
 gation in New York, dating back to the church in the "Fort" (1626). 
 Notice the bell in the yard, which was the first that called to religious con- 
 ference in the young city. 
 
 46 
 

 It 
 
 
 
 St. Patrick's Cathedral 
 
The Little Church Around the Corner" 
 
 [On Twenty-ninth street, east of Fifth avenue] 
 
 The Church of the Transfiguration, the Rev. George Clarke Houghton, 
 D. D., rector, was organized in 1848 and the church was built in 1850, 
 the first church of its name in the world. The building is now five times 
 the size of the little church of those days. In the draft riots of the Civil 
 War in 1 863 a very large number of colored people were driven from their 
 tenements, and would have been killed had they not found refuge in the 
 church and the rector stood guard over them and single handed kept the 
 mob away until the soldiers dispersed the rioters. In 1870 George Holland, 
 one of the most prominent actors of his day, died, and when Joe Jefferson 
 applied to a small church on Madison avenue for Holland's burial the rector 
 of that church refused to perform the rites because Holland was an actor, 
 and told Joe Jefferson that there was "a little church around the corner 
 where it might be done," referring to this Church of the Transfiguration, 
 which seats 1,200 people. Jefferson's prompt reply was: "God bless the 
 little church around the corner," and that name has clung with affection to 
 this church ever since. Thousands of actors and others among the most 
 prominent people of this city and State have been married and buried from 
 the church. 
 
 The Holland House, at the corner of Thirtieth street, is probably the most 
 
 48 
 
Reading from top— Palace of John Jacob Astor, Havemeyer 
 
 House, Carnegie's House. 
 
Reading from top .Mrs. Cornelius Vanderbilt's House, Rockefeller House. Vanderbilt 
 Twin Mansions, the nearest one leased by 11. C. Frick 
 
exquisite hotel in the world. In its appointments nothing better can be 
 desired. Its main entrance is finished in alabaster, and no two of its rooms 
 are alike in size, shape or decoration. 
 
 At Thirty-third street, we pass over the tunnels of the Pennsylvania rail- 
 road under Manhattan Island. The new and splendid station of the Penn- 
 sylvania Company can be seen, looking west on Thirty-third street. From 
 it four tunnels lead under the Hudson to New Jersey. Two of these via- 
 ducts are for passengers and two are for freight. They cross under Man- 
 hattan Island, thence under the East River to Long Island City, where 
 direct connection is made with the Long Island railroad. It is intended to 
 run through trains to Fort Pond Bay, at the eastern end of the island, where 
 fast steamers will leave for Europe, saving more than half a day's time over 
 the Sandy Hook route. Into the development of the railroad terminal in 
 New York the Pennsylvania Company has poured $50,000,000. The 
 company intends to develop Long Island as the great residential section for 
 suburban New York. In this it will meet the rivalry of the Hudson Tun- 
 nels, built by the energy of William G. McAdoo. 
 
 Across Thirty-fourth street stands the new marble building of the Knicker- 
 bocker Trust Company. It is a Greek temple, viewed from the avenue, and 
 
 occupies the site of A. T. Stewart's famous million . .. ... 
 
 i n i i i r i • A Magnificent 
 
 dollar palace, torn down to make way tor business. Business Building 
 
 The house occupied by Henry Hilton, who got 
 
 most of the Stewart millions, at the time adjoined the merchant's dwelling on 
 
 Thirty-fourth street. The estate and the great business have been scattered. 
 
 The store at the northeast corner of Thirty-eighth street occupies the site 
 of the residence of the first James Gordon Bennett. The famous Union 
 League Club, with 2,500 members, is on the same corner at Thirty-ninth 
 street. It is a very rich corporation and the comforts of the house are many. 
 
 The building of Knox the Hatter, on the southwest corner of Fortieth 
 
 street, occupies one of the most valuable lots in this part of the avenue. He 
 
 has another store in the Singer Building and one in _, _ 
 
 . ill Tne Famous 
 
 Brooklyn. This is an American business that long Knox Hats 
 
 ago invaded England. An American can buy 
 
 Knox hats on Regent or Bond street, London, just as readily as he can 
 
 those of the best English makes. The American article competes with the 
 
 best London-made hat. 
 
 The beautiful Public Library, upon the site of the Croton Distributing 
 
 Reservoir, is the central structure of three that will comprise the Astor-Lenox- 
 
 Tilden Library foundations. The building is 366 feet long and 246 feet 
 
 deep. The principal stack-room will contain seven fire-proof floors and 
 
 accommodate 2,300,000 volumes. The Astor Library, in Lafayette Place, 
 
 will be maintained; likewise the Lenox, on upper Fifth avenue. The build- 
 
 5i 
 
ing owes its existence to the intention of the late Samuel J. Tilden, who, 
 
 dying in 1886, bequeathed his entire fortune of $7,000,000 to form 
 
 "The Tilden Trust," for the purpose of building the handsomest library 
 
 edifice in the world. After years of litigation the highest courts declared void 
 
 the clauses in the will relating to the Trust. One of the Tilden heirs, desirous 
 
 that his uncle's intentions should be carried out, surrendered his entire share 
 
 (amounting to $2,500,000), and rendered possible the creation of the 
 
 _. _ Trust. By judicious investment this amount has 
 
 The Growth of i \ i i i i • , • , , 
 
 the Library been almost doubled during the period that has 
 
 intervened. The City of New York is erecting the 
 building and the Tilden fund will be used as an endowment for the main- 
 tenance of special departments. Boston has heretofore had the best public 
 library in this country; but New York will be without a rival when these 
 three great foundations are consolidated. 
 
 Bryant Park, named after the founder of "The Evening Post," author of 
 "Thanatopsis," is directly behind the new Public Library building. There 
 stood the "Crystal Palace," in which the only World's Fair ever attempted 
 by New York was held (1856). The locality was out of town at that 
 time, and was a day's journey to visit. The building was destroyed by fire 
 several years later. 
 
 The fine brownstone residence at the corner of Fortieth street was long 
 the home of the late William H. Vanderbilt. It is now occupied by John 
 R. Drexel. 
 
 Crossing Forty-second street, under which the Subway seeks the upper 
 West Side of the city, the Grand Central Station of the Vanderbilt system 
 is seen two blocks to the eastward. Thence one can leave for Boston as well 
 as all points in the West and Southwest. About five hundred trains arrive 
 and depart daily. 
 
 The high-stoop brownstone house on the east side of the avenue, next to 
 the open corner lot, is the home of R. T. Wilson, the banker, who made a 
 fortune in cotton during the Civil War, and has since lived in New York. 
 This family is remarkable for the matrimonial alliances it has contracted. 
 A son married into the Astor family, one daughter is the wife of Cornelius 
 Vanderbilt, IV, and another is wedded to one of the Goelets. 
 
 The Jewish synagogue, Emanu-El, is the largest congregation of that faith 
 in the city. There are 750,000 Jews in the metropolis, and the journey up 
 Broadway has shown what an important part they hold in the commercial 
 life of New York. Many of the most eminent and useful members of the 
 community belong to the race of Judah. There are fifty-one temples and 
 synagogues in this city and probably forty small meeting places. The charities 
 of Jews are innumerable. Five clubs exist for their exclusive comfort. No 
 foreign race shows so clean a record as respecters of law, for, out of nearly 
 
 52 
 
IN CENTRAL PARK 
 untain and Lake Metropolitan Museum "Cleopatra's Needle' 
 
28 per cent, of the city's population, the Jews contribute less than 1 per 
 cent, to the criminal classes. 
 
 Across Fifth Avenue is Sherry's. This splendid building is part of the 
 Goelet estate. When Sherry was located lower down the avenue his restau- 
 rant acquired an unfortunate notoriety on account of a dinner given by a 
 young Seeley, one of the heirs of P. T. Barnum, the showman. The 
 "couchi-couchi," an Eastern dance, was performed by a young woman 
 known as "Little Egypt." The police, out of revenge, raided the place, and 
 a scandal involving many well-known people followed. 
 
 The tall marble building opposite is the only bank of its kind in the world, 
 and does not cease business for an instant between 1 2 o'clock Monday 
 morning and midnight of Saturday. 
 
 The house with the green marble pillars at its doorway, in the side street, 
 
 adjacent to Delmonico's, was Richard Canfield's gambling establishment, in 
 
 which a young swell is said to have lost $100,000 
 
 at roulette during one evening's play. District 
 Gambling Place . , , 
 
 Attorney Jerome entered the place by means of a 
 
 ladder, after breaking one of the front windows. Upon the marble floor of 
 the foyer, inside a circle of black stone, were three interlocking crescents — 
 a design exactly similar to the monogram upon several mysterious letters that 
 formed exhibits in the unsolved poisoning case for which Molineaux was 
 twice tried — once convicted and then acquitted. The Church of the 
 Heavenly Rest, famous as a haven for lovers who marry in haste and rarely 
 repent, is in the next block, on the avenue. John D. Rockefeller's Fifth Ave- 
 nue Baptist Church and Sunday School chapel are directly behind the south- 
 western corner of the avenue, on Forty-sixth street. 
 
 A temporary structure upon the next block, called "Windsor Arcade," 
 occupies the site of the stately Windsor Hotel, destroyed by fire on St. 
 
 Patrick's Day, 1897, with terrible loss of life. 
 
 The property belongs to Commodore Elbridge T. 
 
 Gerry. The house of Miss Helen Miller Gould 
 stands at the first corner to the northward. This was the home of the late 
 Jay Gould, "the Wizard of Wall Street," who often stood at the window 
 of his reception room, north of the entrance, watching the throng on the 
 avenue. His wonderful office was in the corner basement. Into it led wires 
 and cables from every part of the globe; "tickers" apprised Mr. Gould of 
 every change in the stock market, and private wires from Washington and 
 Albany kept him informed regarding every phase of legislation, in contempla- 
 tion or under debate. An hour's advance information was often worth a 
 round million to this remarkable man. His son George, now the head of 
 the family, lived in the first house eastward on Forty-seventh street, and a 
 passageway connected the two dwellings. "Inspector" Thomas Byrnes, 
 
 54 
 
when Chief of Police, earned the lasting gratitude of the financier by rescuing 
 him from a mob in the street between the Windsor Hotel and his home. The 
 crowd was bent upon hanging Mr. Gould to a lamp post that then stood at 
 the corner. When the hotel fire occurred Miss Gould turned her beautiful 
 home into a hospital for the injured. 
 
 PALACES OF MILLIONAIRES 
 
 NE peculiarity about the wealthy class in New York is that 
 its members frequently change their domiciles. This isn't 
 for the old reason that it is cheaper to move than pay rent, 
 but because the social centre shifts every four or five 
 years, and the "Smart Set" desires to be accurately 
 located. At this time the family of James B. Haggin, 
 the copper millionaire and patron of the turf, lives at No. 587 Fifth avenue. 
 Mrs. Robert Goelet, who inherited fifty million dollars from her late husband, 
 and whose daughter married the Duke of Roxburghe, dwells at No. 591 ; 
 Mr. Cornelius Vanderbilt, IV, at No. 608; Mrs. Ziegler, whose late 
 husband fitted out two Arctic expeditions, at No. 624; Mr. D. O. Mills, 
 practical philanthropist, at No. 634. The Democratic Club adjoins the 
 Hotel Buckingham, and is headquarters of that political party. 
 
 St. Patrick's Cathedral is an architectural pride to every citizen of New 
 York. It is the most imposing church edifice in the United States and was 
 twenty-one years in construction. The cornerstone of the cathedral was laid 
 on August 15, 1858, and it was dedicated on May 25, 1879, by the 
 first American Cardinal, McCloskey. The architecture is of the thirteenth 
 century geometric order, of which Cologne and Rheims furnish the best 
 examples. A Latin cross furnishes the ground plan, and the extreme length 
 and the height of the spires are equal — 330 feet. 
 
 The Fifth avenue front is very imposing, the central ' ' a ric 
 
 gable rising to a height of 1 56 feet. Especially to 
 
 be noticed is the great rose window of latticed marble. When the grand 
 doorway is finished statues of the twelve apostles will stand within — replicas 
 of those placed by Michael Angelo upon the facade of St. Peter's at Rome. 
 Above the base course of granite the building is of marble. The skill of the 
 architect, James Renwick, is shown in the interior. Especially observe the 
 groined ceiling, with its wealth of foliage-bosses and its spring-line of 77 feet 
 from the marble pavement below. Many of the chapels and all the beautiful 
 stained-glass windows, seventy in number, are worthy of study. 
 
 At the corner north of the beautiful cathedral stands the new home of the 
 Union Club, ranking first among the social organizations of this city. It 
 
 55 
 
dates from 1836, and has grown to be very wealthy. Its membership is 
 restricted to 1,500, and the entrance fee is $300. The waiting list runs 
 into hundreds. 
 
 Directly opposite the Union Club is the Vanderbilt block. The two 
 palaces — because no other word accurately describes the square brownstone 
 buildings — were built by the late William H. Vanderbilt. The one upon 
 the corner of Fifty-first street was intended for the occupancy of the head of 
 the family, and is double the size of the other two. Originally the entrance 
 was in the centre of the block, and all the houses could be thrown together 
 for receptions. The first house has descended through his mother to Mr. 
 George W. Vanderbilt, owner of "Biltmore" at Asheville, North Carolina. 
 He has leased it for a term of ten years to Henry C. Frick, the Pittsburg 
 multi-millionaire, at an annual rental of $50,000. Mr. Frick has expended 
 several hundred thousand dollars in altering the interior, and it is to-day one 
 of the most palatial homes in America. The vast art gallery contains a 
 Turner, several Corots, three Rousseaus, and many other valuable paintings. 
 The home of Mr. Andrew Carnegie, who gives away his income of 
 $35,000,000 every year, was for a long while directly behind the Vander- 
 bilt house in West Fifty-first street. The other two dwellings in the same 
 block on the avenue are occupied by Mr. William D. Sloane and the widow 
 of the late Elliott F. Shepard. The two ladies in these families are daughters 
 of the late W. H. Vanderbilt. 
 
 The most ornate dwelling upon Fifth avenue is that of William Kissam 
 Vanderbilt, a white stone chateau in the French style at the next corner. 
 Into its grand foyer a coach and four can be driven and turned. For this 
 
 Club 
 
 56 
 
Senator Clark's New House 
 
 exquisite structure the 
 widow of a California 
 senator recently offered 
 $2,500,000. Notice the 
 gargoyles and the fine 
 gables. The house next 
 door is the dwelling place 
 of W. K. Vanderbilt, Jr., 
 who married a daughter 
 of the late Senator Fair. 
 Mr. Vanderbilt has been 
 an automobile enthusiast, 
 and established "The 
 Vanderbilt Cup," cele- 
 brated in a comic opera, 
 as a world-trophy for 
 motor-car speed. It is 
 now held by a plucky 
 chauffeur with a record of 
 nearly two miles a minute. 
 Young Vanderbilt is a 
 
 fearless driver himself and has narrowly escaped death in his racing machine 
 on several occasions. Mr. Frederick Gallatin, the banker, lives at the corner 
 above the Vanderbilts — a descendant of the Gallatins of Revolutionary days. 
 
 St. Thomas's Episcopal Church, at Fifty-third street, is the most fashion- 
 able in New York. The interior was recently destroyed by a fire in which 
 an altar picture by La Farge perished. Two sons-in-law of the late W. H. 
 Vanderbilt occupy the houses beyond the St. Thomas parsonage. Dr. 
 William Seward Webb has the first and Hamilton McKay Twombley the 
 corner house. Across the road, in the same block, at No. 677, lived Oliver 
 H. P. Belmont; next door, former Vice-President Levi P. Morton, and 
 at the corner Mr. Charles W. Harkness, one of the Standard Oil million- 
 aires. Directly to the north of the latter, across Fifty-fourth street, dwells 
 Mr. William Rockefeller. 
 
 Looking westward on this street, the house of the richest man in the world 
 is seen — that of John D. Rockefeller. It stands in a large yard and its side 
 walls are covered with vines. It is not as pretentious 
 as one would expect a man worth a billion dollars 
 to occupy; but Mr. Rockefeller is frugal in all his 
 habits. He dresses plainly and wears ready-made shoes that rarely cost 
 over $3.50 a pair. His son and heir, John D. Rockefeller, Jr., occupies the 
 whitestone American basement house directly across the side street. When 
 
 The Richest Man 
 in the World 
 
 57 
 
Lenox Library 
 
 we remember that Mr. Rockefeller could buy every house between the 
 Washington Arch and Central Park without using more than half his funds 
 we comprehend the vastness of his resources. 
 
 The Hotel Woodward, at Broadway and West Fifty-fifth street, is an 
 exclusive hotel, appealing to the highest class of American and European 
 travelers. 
 
 Mr. Alfred Gwynne Vanderbilt, present heir of the line — not according 
 to the rule of primogeniture, but because his father, the late Cornelius 
 Vanderbilt, III, gave to him $65,000,000 by disinheriting his eldest son, 
 Cornelius, for marrying against his wishes — lives on the northeast corner of 
 Fifth avenue and Fifty-sixth street. The four corners of Fifty-seventh street 
 are occupied by famous houses. The gray granite dwelling, modeled after 
 the Pitti Palace in Florence, was the home of the 
 Where the Mil- j ate Q p Huntington. Across Fifty-seventh street 
 
 are the chaste white marble dwellings erected by the 
 Jones estate, in the corner house of which the late Mrs. Paran Stevens held 
 social sway until the day of her death. She was born a grocer's daughter 
 at Lowell, Mass., but married Paran Stevens, who kept the Parker House 
 in Boston and the Fifth Avenue Hotel. After his death, she became a 
 social dictator in New York. 
 
 One block west, on Fifty-seventh street, stands the new home of the Lotos 
 
 58 
 
Club, known throughout this country and Europe as the most hospitable 
 social organization in America. This club was organized forty years ago 
 by a group of journalists, authors, painters, playwrights and actors, to create 
 a home for literary and artistic Bohemia. It owns more than a quarter mil- 
 lion dollars' worth of paintings. Its new house, the fourth in its existence, 
 has a frontage of 75 feet, and its interior decorations are very pretty. Its 
 "Rathskeller," where "Saturday Night Smokers" are held, is a wonder-shop 
 of rare trophies. 
 
 The elder son of the late William C. Whitney, Harry Payne Whitney, 
 who married Miss Gertrude Vanderbilt, lives in the pretty red brick chateau 
 across the avenue from the Huntington house. The show house of New 
 York, before Charles M. Schwab's palace on the Riverside Drive was fin- 
 ished, was the Cornelius Vanderbilt French chateau, occupying the block front 
 and facing the Central Park Plaza. It cost $7,000,000 as it stands. Many 
 of its interior decorations were done by the most famous mural painters of 
 Europe, brought here for the purpose without 
 
 regard to expense. The "house-warming" was The Vanderbilt 
 
 signalized by the greatest fancy-dress ball ever 
 
 given on this continent. Several hundred thousand dollars were spent upon 
 costumes, decorations, music and wine. Mrs. Bradley-Martin afterward 
 vainly attempted to eclipse the memorable event. Notice the carvings upon 
 the porte-cochere at the northern or main entrance. 
 
 Cathedral of St. John the Divine 
 
 59 
 
i 1 1 1 1 1 
 
 ! 1 1 * I | 
 
 !1|M • i I I I I I 
 
 The Low Library of 
 Columbia University 
 
 St. Luke's Hospital 
 
 Queensboro Bridge, reached through East Fifty-ninth street, crossing over 
 Blackwell's Island, is a cantilever, its two channel spans being 1 , 1 82 feet 
 on the west and 984 feet on the east. Length of the main bridge is 3,724 
 feet 5 inches; Manhattan approach 1,052, Queens approach 2,672 feet 5 
 inches, or a total of 7,449 feet. It is a very imposing structure, and the 
 view of the public institutions upon Blackwell's Island gives a perfect idea of 
 their arrangement. Queens Plaza, on the Long Island side, has a length of 
 1 ,1 52 feet. Width of the bridge over all, 8 9 J/2 feet; roadway, 53 feet, and 
 two foot-walks, each 16 feet wide. Work began in 1901, and the opening 
 occurred April 3, 1909. 
 
 The Central Park, pride of America, stretches before us on the left for 
 two miles. There are many larger areas of enclosed ground in other cities 
 called parks, but nowhere upon earth is there such variety of hill, dale, lake 
 and meadow as here. Frederick Law Olmstead, a famous landscape archi- 
 tect, gave the best thought of the best years of his life to the creation of this 
 beautiful pleasure ground. Two or three days should be devoted to this 
 park by the stranger in New York. The best way is to take an automobile 
 
 6o 
 
of this company in order to visit special features, such as the Mall, the 
 
 Egyptian Obelisk, the Arsenal, the Terrace, with its superb fountain, and 
 
 to enjoy a boat ride upon the large lake. The Metropolitan Museum of Art 
 
 should be considered as a separate proposition, requiring several days. 
 
 The east side of Fifth avenue, facing the Central Park, has been called 
 
 "Millionaires' Row"; but, with perhaps three or four exceptions, the houses 
 
 are not superior to those we have passed on the avenue. After the Savoy 
 
 Hotel, with its alabaster foyer, and the New Netherlands, with its fine 
 
 "Rathskeller," the first architectural feature is the marble structure of the 
 
 Metropolitan Club, called the "Millionaires'." Its initiation fee is $1,000 
 
 and its annual dues double those of any other social organization in the city. 
 
 Its entrance is upon East Sixtieth street, reserving 
 
 the entire avenue front for windows, at which mem- 
 
 i 11 ^n n >> i • in New York 
 
 bers may sit and watch Kotten Row, as this 
 
 entrance to the Park is called — after a driveway in Hyde Park, behind 
 
 Knightsbridge Terrace. The new bronze statue of General William Tecum- 
 
 seh Sherman, on a champing charger, preceded by a female angel bearing 
 
 an olive branch, stands at the Park entrance. 
 
 The first noticeable dwelling above the Metropolitan Club is that of Mr. 
 Elbridge T. Gerry, called "Commodore" because he was for a time at the 
 head of the New York Yacht Club. The house is a fine specimen of the 
 modern French villa and has a glass-enclosed porte-cochere. 
 
 Mr. John Jacob Astor's palace stands at the upper corner of Sixty-fifth 
 street. Mrs. Astor, his wife, is the recognized leader of society in the United 
 States. Here several of the most brilliant social events in the history of this 
 metropolis have occurred. 
 
 The quaint, feudal castle, with its moat, at the upper side of Sixty-fifth 
 street, is the home of "The Sugar King," Mr. Henry O. Havemeyer. Next 
 door dwells Col. Oliver H. Payne, of the Standard Oil Company, whose 
 sister was the first wife of the late William C. Whitney; and for neighbor 
 he has his favorite nephew, Mr. Payne Whitney, who married Miss Hay, 
 daughter of the late Secretary of State, John Hay. The unpretentious 
 Gothic house of Mr. George J. Gould, who controls the Western Union 
 Telegraph Company and several thousand miles of railway, is at the next 
 corner. Mr. H. O. Armour, head of the "Beef Trust," resides at No. 856, 
 and Mr. Isaac Stern, merchant, at No. 858. 
 
 The palaces of the late Charles T. Yerkes and of the late William C. 
 Whitney occupy the lower and upper corners, respectively, of Sixty-eighth 
 street. Each of these houses cost more than $2,500,000, and both are 
 crowded with valuable paintings, rugs and works of art. By his will Mr. 
 Yerkes provided for the creation of a museum, the entrance to which is seen 
 adjoining the house, wlr. Whitney's property was sold to the late James 
 
 6i 
 
The Flat-iron Building 
 Main office and starting point of Seeing New York Automobiles 
 
Tomb of General Grant 
 
 H. Smith, known as "Silent Smith," who inherited $50,000,000 from an 
 uncle in England. Smith died in the Far East while on a yachting tour. 
 The marble stairway in this house is the handsomest in New York. Mr. 
 Whitney was Secretary of the Navy during the first Cleveland Administra- 
 tion, and had an important part in the creation of the new American navy. 
 
 The superb Lenox Library building occupies the entire front between 
 Seventieth and Seventy-first streets. It is a gift to _. G - f . f 
 
 the people of New York from the late James Lenox, James Lenox 
 
 one of the most distinguished philanthropists this 
 
 country has produced. It was incorporated in 1870, and the building as 
 now seen was opened in 1877. It is of Lockport limestone, and cost 
 $2,000,000. Herein may be found the most valuable collection of rare 
 books upon American and town histories anywhere got together. Mr. 
 Lenox's private collection of paintings, statuary and original editions of early 
 books is almost priceless. This structure is now a part of the New York 
 Public Library. 
 
 The costly, composite building at the north side of Eighty-fifth street, 
 having a tower and entrance on the side street, is the $5,000,000 palace 
 of ex-United States Senator William A. Clark, of Montana, known as the 
 richest of copper mine owners. When completed, 
 
 this house will contain many of the best examples The Palace of 
 
 of modern art in America. Senator Clark doesn't Senator Clark 
 
 care for established conventions in architecture. 
 
 The fine house of Henry B. Phipps, another of "the Carnegie million- 
 aires," is in the block above Eighty-seventh street. Mr. Phipps is a large 
 owner of real estate in New York, and has given millions to Pittsburg. 
 
 63 
 
The large, red brick and whitestone building at Ninetieth street is the 
 home of the famous philanthropist, Andrew Carnegie. It stands upon what 
 Mr. Carnegie has named "The Highlands of Manhattan," and its upper 
 windows overlook the large reservoir in the Central Park, having the pro- 
 portions of a small lake. The great house fronts upon Ninety-first street at 
 present, but an approach will be opened through the fine garden upon which 
 the salon and dining-room look. The "Ironmaster's" library is one of the 
 largest and most valuable private collections of books in America. 
 
 Entering Central Park from Fifth avenue, at the Ninetieth street gate, the 
 course leads northward, around the base of the great Croton reservoir. This 
 large lake holds 1 ,030,000,000 gallons of drink- 
 ing water, and the distributing reservoir, directly 
 south, contains 150,000,000 gallons. The total 
 storage capacity of the various dams and reservoirs is 9,500,000,000 
 gallons — enough, it is estimated, to supply Manhattan with drinking water 
 for six months. 
 
 The drive winds gracefully across a fine bridge, thence by a slight incline 
 to McGowans Pass Tavern, a restaurant built by the city on the site of a 
 skirmish during the Revolution and leased to a caterer, round a sharp turn 
 and down a steep declivity to a fine stretch leading to the Seventh avenue 
 gate at One Hundred and Tenth street. 
 
 The old stone blockhouse upon the rocky heights to the left marks an 
 incident in the War of 1812. 
 
 The site of Fort Washington is indicated by a monumental tablet erected 
 by the generosity of James Gordon Bennett, Jr., upon the land embraced 
 in the homestead given to him by his father, the founder of the New York 
 "Herald," and now dedicated to a public park. It is a marble and bronze 
 entablature, flanked by two pilasters rising from a granite base upon the 
 western side of Fort Washington avenue. Upon a bronze tablet, above a 
 wayside seat, is this inscription: 
 
 This memorial marks the site of Fort Washington, constructed by the 
 Continental troops in the summer of 1776 ; taken by the British, after 
 an heroic defence, November 16, 1776 ; repossessed by the Americans 
 upon their triumphal re-entry into the City of New York, November 25, 
 1783. Erected through the generosity of James Gordon Bennett by the 
 Empire State Society of the Sons of the American Revolution, November 
 16, 1901. 
 
 Upon a concrete platform above the top of the entablature is a cannon of 
 the Revolutionary period. 
 
 64 
 
SOME FAMOUS BOULEVARDS 
 
 ETURNING to the exit from Central Park, the broad 
 avenue leading northward is one of the most popular 
 drives in the city. It leads to McComb's Dam Bridge — 
 or Central Bridge, as it has lately been renamed for 
 the sake of euphony. The "Society of American 
 Mothers" also petitioned the Board of Aldermen in 
 behalf of the change of name. 
 
 The best sight-seeing route lies to the westward, under "the serpentine 
 bend" of the Elevated railway. The track is 73 feet above the pavement 
 at its highest point. A station upon the curve is reached by elevators. We 
 turn again to the northward at Morningside avenue, and pass the Protestant 
 Episcopal Cathedral of St. John the Divine, building upon Morningside 
 Heights, "the Acropolis of New York." Fifty years may be required for 
 its completion, and the cost is expected to exceed $25,000,000. The final 
 drawings by the architects, Heins ck La Farge, indicate that the vast edifice 
 will combine the best features of Gothic church building in the Old World. 
 The massive central spire, 425 feet in height, that will be the dominating 
 feature of the cathedral when seen from a distance, resembles Salisbury, but 
 is higher and more ornate. The imposing western front, overlooking the 
 Hudson and surmounted by two towers, will recall York and Lincoln. The 
 chevet of chapels at the eastern end — one of which (given by the Belmont 
 family) is now finished — is characteristic of the splendid cathedrals of 
 northern France, imitated at Westminster, Cologne and Toledo. Its deco- 
 ration is intended to be as rich as that of the duomo at Milan. The 
 
 pointed arch, keynote of the Gothic style, predom- 
 
 , , l i r r li i The New Protestant 
 
 mates exteriorly; the older rorm ot rounded arch _ . 
 
 •ii i j • . • tt. . Cathedral 
 
 is largely employed in the interior. 1 he great arch 
 
 now standing in relief against the western sky will be one of four supports 
 
 to the lofty central tower that will carry the spire. 
 
 This cathedral site is the most remarkable one in the Christian world — 
 and, in Pagan lands, is only equaled by the temple of the Grand Lama 
 of Buddhism, at Lhasa, Tibet. The completed structure will be visible from 
 nearly every part of town above Fifty-ninth street. 
 
 St. Luke's Hospital, standing directly north of the cathedral site, is an 
 enduring monument to the energy and heart of the late Rev. Dr. Muhlen- 
 berg, of the Protestant Episcopal Church. But the most romantic incident 
 connected with the up-building of this famous hospital is that it had its in- 
 ception in the suggestion of a very poor woman who had been treated in a 
 small retreat maintained by Dr. Muhlenberg's flock. When she was cured 
 this woman sent for the good man in order to say : 
 
 65 
 
"I have only $5 left in this world, but I wish to give that as the beginning 
 of a fund that shall be raised to build and equip a large hospital." 
 
 The money was accepted and from that small initiative the property of 
 
 St. Luke's has grown until it exceeds $3,500,000! Money was raised by 
 
 subscription and land was bought on Fifth avenue and Fifty-fourth street — 
 
 opposite the large dwelling now occupied by John D. Rockefeller. The 
 
 wisdom of a good location had been taught by the purchasers of the Catholic 
 
 Orphan Asylum block, between Fifty-first and 
 St. Luke's " / it • i i i 
 
 Hospital rirty-second streets. Hospital and asylum property 
 
 is free from taxation; but that does not prevent its 
 rapid advance in price, if it be upon a fashionable thoroughfare like Fifth 
 avenue. The result was that the Roman Catholics sold their block to the 
 Vanderbilts for $5,000,000; St. Luke's disposed of its Fifth avenue hold- 
 ings for more than $2,000,000, and in 1 896 moved to the present site on 
 Morningside Heights. It is one of the best equipped hospitals in this country. 
 
 The splendid group of buildings devoted to the various departments of 
 Columbia University stands upon the grounds of what was formerly Bloom- 
 mgdale Asylum for the Insane. The imposing library building, with its 
 magnificent approach, cost $1,000,000, and was a gift of Mr. Seth Low, 
 formerly President of the Institution and last Mayor of New York before 
 the consolidation. This educational institution was chartered in 1 754 as 
 King's College, and stood, facing the North River, almost behind St. Paul's 
 Chapel, far downtown. It was a hotbed of Toryism before and during the 
 Revolution ; and in 1 784 the Legislature reincorporated the college under the 
 name of Columbia. The sale of the old buildings on College place yielded 
 so large a sum that the college was removed to Madison avenue, above 
 Forty-ninth street, where a whole block was secured. This property, in 
 turn, became so valuable that the present site was purchased in 1 892. The 
 name was changed to Columbia University four years later. Nine colleges or 
 schools are comprised in the University scheme. The new dormitories south 
 of the library building stand upon land that cost more than $2,000,000. 
 
 Turning into the Riverside Drive, the stately and imposing tomb of 
 
 General Ulysses S. Grant looms up, half a mile to the northward. Although 
 
 _. _ incompleted, it is the finest mausoleum in the United 
 
 The Tomb of K 
 
 General Grant States. In the centre of the marble paved plaza, at 
 
 the foot of the steps leading to the tomb, will ulti- 
 mately stand an equestrian statue of the Great Commander and upon five 
 bases surrounding the open square will be placed equestrian figures of his 
 principal generals. 
 
 The mausoleum itself covers exactly 1 ,000 square feet of ground. Its 
 height is 1 60 feet from the base line, which stands I 40 feet above the Hud- 
 son. In the architectural treatment of the interior, the open crypt of the Flotel 
 
 66 
 
des Invalides, Paris — where Napoleon is buried — has been imitated. The 
 bodies of General Grant and his wife, Julia Dent Grant, repose in com- 
 panion granite sarcophagi upon a pedestal in the centre of the crypt, below 
 the main floor but visible from above. The walls of the interior are of 
 white marble. The City of New York gave the site; and the tomb, con- 
 structed by private subscriptions, cost $500,000. Upon this height the 
 late Li Hung Chang planted a tree in memory of his deceased friend, who 
 had visited him at Pekin. 
 
 The hill at Claremont, beyond Grant's tomb, has been the location of 
 several famous country houses that hold important places in the early history 
 of New York. The city now lets for a restaurant the only remaining villa. 
 One of the most pathetic features of the neighborhood is a funeral urn, 
 mounted upon a base at the roadside where it has stood for more than a 
 century, inscribed: 
 
 "To the Memory of St. Claire Pollock, an amiable child." 
 
 The broad, steel causeway that stretches northward from Claremont to 
 the beginning of the Lafayette Boulevard bridges Manhattanville gorge. 
 The viaduct of the "Subway" — which is here an elevated road — is seen 
 two blocks to the eastward. 
 
 Southward, from Grant's tomb, the splendid Riverside Drive stretches 
 to Seventy-second street, a distance of two and one-half miles. This broad 
 road is neither level nor straight; it winds along the hillside with gentle 
 undulations. Riverside Park contains 1 11 acres, upon which many of the 
 original forest trees have been preserved. Its natural beauty of location, 
 overlooking the majestic Hudson and facing the towering Palisades, and the 
 embellishments added by landscape engineers combine to render this pleasure 
 ground one of the most attractive in the world. 
 
 The Riverside Drive has been compared to the famous Cornice road that 
 runs from Marseilles along the Mediterranean coast into Italy; but attractive 
 as is the European thoroughfare, it does not combine the variety of scenery 
 to be found along this three and a half miles of parkway. Real estate facing 
 this park is held at fabulous prices. 
 
 Another view is had of Columbia University, Barnard College and 
 Teachers' College. On the river side, beyond the railroad, Columbia is 
 building an athletic field that will cost more than $1,000,000. A triangle 
 of made ground extends into the Hudson as far as the pierhead line, upon 
 which is a stadium with a seating capacity of 20,000 people. This en- 
 closes a large field, with a baseball diamond, a football "gridiron" and a 
 quarter-mile running track. 
 
 The two Queen Anne dwellings upon the corners of One Hundred and 
 Eighth street were among the earliest on the new Drive. That on the north 
 side is owned by Henry S. F. Davis; the southern one by S. G. Bayne. 
 
 1 ,8 
 
Prominent places 
 of Necu York, 
 
 Illustrating the growth 
 oi the great dry goods 
 house of 
 
 Lord & Taylor 
 
This street is the chief point at which traffic diverges to upper Broadway. 
 During the bicycle craze it was thronged with followers of that sport. At 
 One Hundred and Fourth street was the home of the late Richard Mans- 
 field, for many years a prominent figure on the American stage. Its bay 
 front extends to the height of four of the five stories of the dwelling. Peter 
 Doelger's large red-brick house, four blocks further to the south, is one of 
 the landmarks from the river. A small herd of white deer is usually to be 
 seen in a netted enclosure. John Matthews's large Swiss chalet and Mrs. 
 Mary L. Parsons's ornate stone, ivy-covered chateau are at Ninetieth street. 
 
 The Soldiers' and Sailors' Monument, erected in 1 90 1 , surmounts a rocky 
 height, opposite Eighty-ninth street. It is of Greek model and the granite 
 base stands upon a terrace, furnished with seats from which, in pleasant 
 weather, crowds of citizens watch the setting of the sun and the steamboats 
 starting upon their night trips to Albany and Troy. Here, also, is the 
 spacious Colonial mansion of the late Rev. Dr. Henry C. Potter, Bishop of 
 the Protestant Episcopal Diocese of New York. The Pompeiian villa at 
 the next corner is one of the most artistic dwellings in America. It is a rep- 
 lica of a house buried under the ashes of Vesuvius in 79 A. D., and only 
 recently found. The materials employed are different from those of Pompeii, 
 but the combination of red brick and Italian marble is highly effective. 
 
 The crowning glory of Riverside Drive is the exquisite French chateau 
 recently built by Charles M. Schwab, a protege of Andrew Carnegie and 
 only exceeded in philanthropic acts by his famous patron. A whole book 
 could be devoted to this house, upon which, with the entire square of land 
 upon which it stands, has been expended $5,000,000. Although not so 
 costly as the Cornelius Vanderbilt mansion at the Fifth avenue entrance to 
 the Central Park, its splendid site and ample lawn combine to render it one 
 of the most delightful objects that meet the eyes of a visitor to New York. 
 This house belongs to the transitional period of French architecture (1500), 
 in which the freedom, strength and boldness of the Renaissance became 
 united with the rich and delicate ornamentation of the French-Gothic. The 
 main structure is three stories in height, surmounted by red-slate roofs. Its 
 riverward facade of limestone has a frontage of I 00 feet, approached by a 
 broad terrace and embellished by a porch with fluted stone pillars; its south 
 facade, similarly composed, is 1 50 feet long and includes in its grouping 
 a grand dining hall, conservatory and art gallery. A charming Gothic 
 chapel, at the rear, completes the quadrangle. Observe the fine, white stone 
 porte-cochere, under which the driveway from Seventy-fourth street passes. 
 This is the dream house in the city of your dreams! 
 
 Turning into Seventy-second street, which has a strip of grass upon each 
 side to show that it is part of the boulevard system and leads directly to the 
 Central Park, we start southward along Broadway. This route passes 
 
 70 
 

 ? 
 
 Mil. Mi. Home of tin Famous House of Steinway & Sum 
 
Columbus Circle, with its fine monument to the Discoverer of America. 
 Looming up ahead is the home of the New York "Times." The Italian 
 palace at Thirty-fifth street, occupied by the New York "Herald," imparts 
 a picturesque effect to the locality. It is a copy of an old palace standing at 
 a similar junction of two streets in the city of Verona, built about 1 350. 
 
 A bronze statue of Horace Greeley, seated, ornaments Greeley Square. 
 
 The Imperial Hotel, at Thirty-second street, is famous for the excellence 
 of its cuisine. Its palm-room is very beautiful. No more desirable place 
 exists for a stay in New York or at which to take supper after the play. 
 
 Thence to the Flat-Iron Building, in which are the offices of the "Seeing 
 New York Company." The traveler has made a complete survey of the 
 most cosmopolitan city in the world; but the splendid collection of paintings, 
 statuary and laces at the Metropolitan Museum of Art (for which this 
 company supplies guides and automobiles at short notice) ; the beautiful 
 Central Park, with its Egyptian obelisk, its lakes, its cave and excellent 
 restaurant, should be made the subjects of subsequent visits. 
 
 When this has been done and the delightful yacht trip taken around Man- 
 hattan Island, the guest within our gates will have formed a comprehensive 
 idea of the American metropolis. 
 
 In reference to the "Seeing New York Yacht" trip around Manhattan 
 Island, I wish to say that every man, woman and child ought to take it, if 
 it prove as delightfully entertaining to them as it did to me. Although this 
 city has been my home since 1870, I have visited every town of importance 
 in Europe and Africa; I have been down the Mississippi from Elk Lake to 
 Southwest Pass; up the Nile, descended the Seine from Paris to Havre, the 
 Thames from Henley to Gravesend, the Rhone from Lyons to Avignon, the 
 Clyde from Glasgow to the Isles of Bute ; have twice passed Scylla and 
 Charybdis; have bathed in the Dead Sea and stood on Jordan's banks; have 
 seen the Tagus at Toledo, the Arno at Florence, the Tiber at Rome, and 
 spent days upon the canals of Venice. 
 
 But never did any three hours of my life pass more enjoyably than those 
 steaming over the East, Harlem and Hudson Rivers and Spuyten Duyvil 
 Creek — a region I thought I had known most of my life. 
 
 A marvelous city has developed under my eyes. Never until now have 
 I appreciated its greatness, or the charms of its environments. To see New 
 York, under the guidance of the American Sight-Seeing Yacht Company, 
 ir to comprehend the Eighth Wonder of the World! 
 
 JULIUS CHAMBERS. 
 
 | THE END. | 
 
i£x Htbrta 
 
 SEYMOUR DURST 
 
 ~t ' 'Tort ntvuw ^Am/itrdam, oj> Je M<rnh<itan$ 
 
 When you leave, please leave this hook 
 
 Because it has heen said 
 "Ever'thing comes t' him who waits 
 
 Except a loaned hook." 
 
 OLD YORK LIBRARY - OLD YORK FOUNDATION 
 
 Avery Architectural and Fine Arts Library 
 Gift of Seymour B. Durst Old York Library 
 

 K 
 
 OTR.AVEL- 
 
 $ LER. without 
 
 C observation 
 like a bird 
 
 without wings. 
 
 *! *Saadi. 
 
 IS 
 
 Unity Press, New York.