Old Buildings of New York, With Some Notes Regarding Their Origin and Occupants

Transcriber’s Note
Cover created by Transcriber by adding a photograph from the original book to the Title Page of the original book. The result remains in the Public Domain.
OLD BUILDINGS OF NEW YORK CITY
WITH SOME NOTES REGARDING THEIR ORIGIN AND OCCUPANTS
NEW YORK BRENTANO’S MCMVII
Copyright, 1907, by Brentano’s
THE TROW PRESS, NEW YORK
Old Buildings of New York City
Recently a writer in a periodical stated that “No one was ever born in New York.” It can be safely said that this is an exaggeration. Nevertheless it showed the confidence of the writer that the statement was not likely to startle his readers very greatly.
Probably not one in a hundred of the men in the street know or care anything about the town of fifty or sixty years ago. Still the number of those who were familiar with it then is large, however small in comparison with the whole number. In fact, the number of those whose predecessors were living here when there were not more than a thousand people in the whole place is much greater than is generally supposed.
It was for people belonging to the two latter classes that these pictures were taken. They may even interest some who have known the town for only a generation.
When a man has traversed the streets of a city for fifty years, certain buildings become familiar landmarks. He first saw them perhaps on trudging to school with his books, and has seen them nearly every day since. He experiences a slight shock whenever such buildings are destroyed. There appears something wrong in the general aspect of the town. Of late years these shocks have followed one another so continuously that he may well wonder whether he is living in the same place.