IV

In this decade of rapid changes, 1840–1850, Bryant began to reap the fruits of his courage, persistency, tact, and industry. The hostility of the mercantile community had lessened as the Bank question receded and the correctness of the Post’s warnings against inflation and speculation was proved by the great panic. On March 30, 1840, Bryant editorially rejoiced that “the prejudices against it, with which its enemies had labored so vehemently to poison the minds of men of business, have been gradually overcome.” The pressure of advertisements forced the enlargement of the sheet in this year. The weekly edition which it began issuing at New Year’s, 1842, was the only Democratic weekly in New York, and at $2 a year rapidly obtained an extensive circulation. In competition with sixpenny evening papers like the Journal of Commerce and penny papers like the Daily News, the Post held its own. It took its share in all the business enterprises of the press, as when in 1849–50, at the height of the gold fever, it published a special “Evening Post for California, Oregon, and the Sandwich Islands” just before every important sailing for the Pacific. Bryant’s sagacity kept the expenses low, and his ability kept the editorial page easily the best, save for Greeley’s, in the city.

It was a reflection of the new Evening Post prosperity when Bryant wrote his brother early in 1843: “Congratulate me! There is a probability of my becoming a landholder in New York! I have made a bargain for about forty acres of solid earth at Hempstead Harbor, on the north shore of Long Island.” He referred to the Roslyn homestead at which thereafter he was to spend so much of his time. Between 1839 and 1840 the gross earnings of the journal rose from $28,355.29 to $44,194.93, and they never thereafter dropped to the danger point. In 1850 it was calculated that for the preceding ten years the average annual gross receipts had been $37,360, and that the average annual dividends had been $9,776.44. Of this Bryant’s share until 1848 was one-half, and thereafter two-fifths, so that he enjoyed an ample income; while towards the end of the decade the profits of the job printing office were a tidy sum.

Nor was there so much drudgery in the office as when he had first returned in 1836. Parke Godwin draws an interesting picture of the editor’s life at this period. He liked to take a week of fine summer weather from the office and spend it in excursions to the Palisades, the Delaware Water Gap, the Catskills, or the Berkshires, sometimes alone, sometimes with another good walker. Bryant’s appreciative descriptions of these scenes did much to raise the public esteem of them. At the office there were many entertaining visitors. Cooper always called when he was in town, and the contrast between the novelist and the poet was striking: “Cooper, burly, brusque, and boisterous, like a bluff sailor, always bringing a breeze of quarrel with him; Mr. Bryant, shy, modest, and delicate as a woman—they seemed little fitted for friendship.” Yet warm friends they were. John L. Stephens, who had won a reputation by his travels in Arabia, Nubia, and Central America, and whose books were in considerable vogue, frequently came, “a small, sharp, nervous man,” and talked of his adventures. A more magnetic personality was that of Audubon, whose tall, athletic figure, Indian-bronzed face, bright eyes, eagle nose, and long white hair attracted the eyes of every worker. He, too, loved to tell of his exploits in the wilds, and his experiences in the salons of Europe. Bancroft, who liked Bryant’s Jacksonian zeal as much as he did his poetry, and William Gilmore Simms, author of “The Yemassee,” occasionally paid a visit, while Godwin believed he remembered seeing Edgar Allan Poe “once or twice, to utter nothing, but to look his reverence out of wonderful lustrous eyes.”

CHAPTER EIGHT
NEW YORK BECOMES A METROPOLIS; CENTRAL PARK

Ten years before the Civil War, New York city had 515,000 people, the population having risen by more than 200,000 in the forties. The northward march of buildings had passed Twenty-third Street, and the extreme northern boundary could now be placed at Thirty-fourth, though there were many empty districts south of that line. Madison Square had just been laid out. The nineteenth and twentieth wards were added within a twelvemonth. Broadway was now more than four miles long from the Battery to the open country, and along its course as far as Bleecker Street old residences were being ripped apart in clouds of dust to make way for stores. The year 1850 was that in which the time-worn City Hotel disappeared, and in which the Astor Place Opera House was remodeled for business uses. Canal Street was extended, and Dey Street widened. Almost before men realized it the old transportation facilities had become inadequate, and in 1852–3 the Third Avenue and Sixth Avenue horse railways began to carry passengers. With the whole lower part of town engrossed by trade, with more well-to-do New Yorkers fleeing northward year by year for light and air, the city in 1852 undertook the grading of Fifth Avenue from Thirty-fourth Street to Forty-fifth. The New York which thrilled to Jenny Lind’s singing and turned out a quarter of a million people to watch the military procession marking President Taylor’s funeral, was a New York that had suddenly bloomed into a metropolis.

In this thriving city, larger than Buffalo to-day, there was not a single open-air recreation ground worthy of the name. Dickens had remarked in 1842 that New York’s summer climate was such that it would throw a man into a fever merely to think what the streets would be but for the daily breezes from the bay. It was a smoky city—Bryant had written in the Evening Post of 1832 a striking description of its unwonted brightness when the cholera stopped nearly all industry—and it was ill-cleaned. The city directories, indeed, listed nineteen parks. But a number, as Five Points Park, Duane Park, and Abingdon Square, were merely places where the street intersections were a little wider than usual. Others, like Hudson Square and Gramercy Park, were private property, and still others, like the Bowling Green, were padlocked. The whole park area was only about one hundred and seventy acres, and the grounds open to the public did not exceed one hundred acres; while the largest single park, the Battery, contained only twenty-one.

The first proposal for a large uptown park was made by Bryant in the Evening Post, and that journal was the sturdiest of the fighters for what eventually became Central Park. It was a bold proposal, for which public sentiment could only slowly be aroused. In Edward H. Hall’s scholarly history of Central Park, published by the American Scenic and Historic Preservation Society in 1911, the plan is said to have originated with Andrew J. Downing, editor of the monthly Horticulturist, in a letter contributed to that magazine in 1849. Charles H. Haswell, in his “Reminiscences of an Octogenarian,” also gives Downing the credit, saying that he merits a statue from the city. But the real originator was the poet-editor. In 1836, Parke Godwin, taking frequent rambles with him, found him emphatically expressing the opinion that the city should reserve as a park the finest area of woodland remaining there, since in a few years it would be too late. Five full years before Downing’s letter, on a hot July day in 1844, Bryant made a walking trip over the middle of Manhattan to examine the adaptability of a certain large tract for park purposes. Upon his return, he wrote for the issue of July 3, 1844, his proposal, heading it “A New Park.”

The city the afternoon this article appeared was streaming out to spend the Fourth at neighboring points. Some, wrote Bryant, would go to shady retreats in the country; some would refresh themselves by excursions to the seashore on Staten Island or the river front at Hoboken. “If the public authorities, who expend so much of our money in laying out the city, would do what is in their power, they might give our vast population an extensive pleasure ground for shade and recreation in these sultry afternoons, which we might reach without going out of town.” Where? He answered:

On the road to Harlem, between Sixty-eighth Street on the south, and Seventy-seventh on the north, and extending from Third Avenue to the East River, is a tract of beautiful woodland, comprising sixty or seventy acres, thickly covered with old trees, intermingled with a variety of shrubs. The surface is varied in a very striking and picturesque manner, with craggy eminences, and hollows, and a little stream runs through the midst. The swift tides of the East River sweep its rocky shores, and the fresh breeze of the bay comes in, on every warm summer afternoon, over the restless waters. The trees are of almost every species that grows in our woods—the different varieties of ash, the birch, the beech, the linden, the mulberry, the tulip tree, and others; the azalea, the kalmia, and other flowering shrubs are in bloom here in their season, and the ground in spring is gay with flowers. There never was a finer situation for the public garden of a great city. Nothing is wanting but to cut winding paths through it, leaving the woods as they now are, and introducing here and there a jet from the Croton aqueduct, the streams from which would make their own waterfalls over the rocks, and keep the brooks running through the place always fresh and full....

If any of our brethren of the public press should see fit to support this project, we are ready to resign in their favor any claim to the credit of originally suggesting it.

Bryant referred to the beauty and utility of Regent’s Park in London, the Alameda in Madrid, the Champs Elysées in Paris, and the Prater in Vienna. By the official plan for New York, drawn up in 1807, an area of two hundred and forty acres had been reserved between Twenty-third and Thirty-fourth Streets, and Third and Seventh Avenues, to be called the Parade; this, however, had been reduced by degrees to the six or seven acres of Madison Square. At the beginning of the century any one had been able to walk in a half hour from his home to the open fields, but it now seemed that all Manhattan would soon be covered with brick and mortar.

The editor’s proposal was not for the area now included in Central Park, and was for a comparatively small tract, though Bryant had understated its size—it contained about one hundred and sixty acres, against eight hundred and forty-three in Central Park to-day. But it would be a magnificent park compared with any then existing, and the suggestion was sufficient to open a discussion. Jones’s Wood, as the tract was called, was the last remnant of the primeval forest on the East River, as wild as when the Dutch had settled on the island. It was the subject of many a tale and tradition connected with the infant days of the colony, and was reputed to have been the favorite resort of pirates who descended through Hell Gate and landed there to bury their treasure and hold their revels. The first John Jones purchased it when it was called the “Louvre Farm,” in 1803, and a son by the same name succeeded him. In time it became a favorite nutting and fishing ground. Anglers would sit in the shade of its rocky bluffs and overhanging elms and cast their lines into the deep waters of the East River, while in autumn boys would wander through its recesses clubbing the branches above. “What a place of delight Jones’s Wood used to be in the olden days!” exclaimed “Felix Oldboy” in the eighties.

Nor was it long until Bryant himself suggested the alternative scheme for a central park. From time to time he recurred editorially to the subject, now expatiating upon the ever-increasing need for a city breathing place, now pointing to what European cities had done. In 1845 he was in England. From London he wrote (June 24) a glowing description of the fresh and verdurous expanse of Hyde Park, St. James’ Park, Kensington Gardens, and Regent’s Park, and in this letter he spoke of a “central” reservation in New York:

These parks have been called the lungs of London, and so important are they regarded to the public health and the happiness of the people, that I believe a proposal to dispense with some part of their extent, and cover it with streets and houses, would be regarded in much the same manner as a proposal to hang every tenth man in London....

The population of your city, increasing with such prodigious rapidity; your sultry summers, and the corrupt atmosphere generated in hot and crowded streets, make it a cause of regret that in laying out New York, no preparation was made, while it was yet practicable, for a range of parks and public gardens along the central part of the island or elsewhere, to remain perpetually for the refreshment and recreation of the citizens during the torrid heats of the warm season. There are yet unoccupied lands on the island which might, I suppose, be procured for the purpose, and which, on account of their rocky and uneven surface, might be laid out into surpassingly beautiful pleasure-grounds; but while we are discussing the subject the advancing population of the city is sweeping over them and covering them from our reach.

The Evening Post repeatedly pressed the park project. Its editors had the more faith in it, they said, because while New Yorkers were somewhat slow in adopting plain and homely reforms, they were likely to engage eagerly in any scheme which wore an air of magnificence. They wouldn’t take the trouble to keep the streets clean, but they would spend millions to bring a river into the city through the Croton aqueduct, forty miles long. They wouldn’t sweep Broadway, but they would cover Blackwell’s Island with stately buildings, some of them not needed. Bryant had in this way prepared the ground when Downing, in 1849, also writing from London and using many of Bryant’s arguments, published his appeal in the Horticulturist. Downing, like the poet, had no clear or fixed idea of the limits that should be assigned the new park. The fundamental requirements, he said, were that it should be just above the limits of building, should be spacious, and should be reserved while the land was yet easily obtainable. Downing’s letter, followed in 1850 by an admirable series of articles, attracted much attention. But thanks chiefly to Bryant, the subject was now familiar to all interested in city improvement. In 1850 Fernando Wood ran for Mayor against Ambrose C. Kingsland, and both warmly advocated the establishment of a park. Kingsland, who was supported by the Evening Post, was elected, and on May 5, 1851, sent the Common Council a message recommending “the purchase and laying out of a park on a scale which will be worthy of the city,” but not indicating a definite site.

The fight was now well begun; and when opposition appeared to the park project in toto, the Evening Post naturally felt that upon it lay the chief responsibility for defending the campaign. The Journal of Commerce attacked the scheme, declaring that the cost to the taxpayer would be tremendous, that New York city already owned park lands worth $8,386,000, and that the cool waters and green country surrounding the city made more unnecessary. The Post’s answer was contemptuous. As for the cost, the money spent would, like that laid out upon the Croton water system, be an economy in the end. “Every investment of capital that renders the city more healthy, convenient, and beautiful, attracts both strangers and residents, and leads to a liberal patronage of every department of trade.” The fact that the city already had eight million dollars worth of park area had nothing to do with the question. The argument was as absurd as it would be to compute the area covered by the city streets, estimate their value, and make that a reason for narrowing the Bowery or Broadway. London and Paris, like New York, had waters and a green surrounding country within easy reach, but no Londoner or Parisian would dispense with his parks.

Mayor Kingsland’s message was referred to a committee of the Council, which recommended that Jones’s Wood be selected, and the Council, adopting this recommendation, applied to the Legislature for a law to authorize the establishment of the park. In July, 1851, the Legislature responded by passing a measure to allow the city to take possession of Jones’s Wood.

But by this time it was believed by many citizens that the 160-acre stretch upon the East River would be insufficient, and that the “range of parks and public gardens along the central part of the island” which Bryant had suggested in 1845 would be preferable. Downing deserves great credit for his insistence that Jones’s Wood would be “only a child’s playground.” London, he pointed out, already possessed parks aggregating 6,000 acres, and New York should now acquire at least 500. Such a tract “may be selected between Thirty-ninth street and the Harlem River, including a varied surface of land, a good deal of which is yet waste area.... In that area there would be space enough to have broad reaches of park and pleasure-ground, with a real feeling of the beauty and breadth of green fields, the perfume and freshness of nature.” The Common Council was impressed, and in August appointed a committee to ascertain whether “some other site” was best.

By the autumn of 1851 three main parties had taken shape upon the question. A large and influential body of business men wanted no park whatever; a considerable group of citizens would be satisfied with Jones’s Wood alone; and a growing number wished a great central park. The Evening Post was for taking both sites. “There is now ample room and verge enough upon the island for two parks,” wrote Bryant, “whereas, if the matter is delayed for a few years, there will hardly be a space left for one.” Having again and again expressed its hopes with regard to Jones’s Woods, it now published glowing descriptions of the Central Park area. There was no part of the island, it said, better adapted to the purpose. “The elevation in some parts rising to the height of one hundred and forty feet above tidewater, and the valleys in other parts being some forty feet below the grading of the streets, a richly diversified surface is presented, to which a great variety of ornamental and picturesque effects may easily be given.” The valleys abounded in springs and streams, which could quickly be converted into artificial lakes, while the Croton aqueduct could supply water for fountains.

By the efforts of leading citizens, City Hall, and the friendly part of the press, the Legislature in the summer of 1853 was induced to sanction the creation of both parks, passing two separate bills. This filled those who opposed any park at all with rage. Admit the possibility of two huge pleasure grounds, aggregating perhaps more than a thousand acres? “What is it, in effect,” demanded the Journal of Commerce, “but a law or laws to drive our population more and more over to Brooklyn, Williamsburgh, Staten Island, Jersey City, etc., by creating a barrier half a mile to two miles wide, north and south, and occupying half the island east and west, over which population cannot conveniently pass? If ever these projects should be carried into effect, they will cost our citizens millions of dollars.... Small parks would be a public blessing; and might be as numerous as the health and comfort of our citizens would require, but a perpetual edict of desolation against two and one half square miles of this small island, might better come from the bitterest enemies of our city than from its friends.” On the contrary, replied the Evening Post, the park would dissuade residents of Manhattan, made desperate by the congestion, dirt, and noise of the streets, from removing to greener and more spacious districts like Brooklyn and New Brighton. Even after the parks were created, the island would offer room for four or five million people. The same sort of skeptics had assailed the Croton project.

Nor did the Journal of Commerce lack help. In 1854 Mayor Jacob Westervelt spoke with hostility in his annual message of the two park projects. The Central Park enactment, he said, reserved six hundred acres in the center of the island, “toward which the flood of population is rapidly pouring”; while its limits embraced “an area vastly more extensive than is required for the purpose, and deprives the citizens of the use of land for building purposes, much of which cannot be judiciously spared.” As for Jones’s Wood, it ought not to be taken at all. “The shore on the margin of this park is generally bold, affording a depth of water invaluable for commercial purposes.” The Evening Post denied that the tide of population was setting toward the center of the island, saying that it moved fastest up the Hudson and East Rivers—an historical fact. The waterfront of Jones’s Wood was probably not more than one two-hundredth of the island’s whole margin. “Can we have no fresh air, no green trees, no agreeable walks and drives, that Smith may have more houses to let, and Brown and Co. have less distance to go to their warehouses and ships?”

The endeavor to save Jones’s Wood failed in 1854, and for a time it seemed likely that the proposed area of Central Park would be decidedly reduced. A member of the State Senate that year introduced a bill for slicing one-sixth off each side of the park on Fifth Avenue and Eighth Avenue, for shortening it at both ends, and for “interspersing the park into suitable squares connecting with each other but on which, or parts of which, family edifices may be erected.” This, as the Evening Post said, was simply a scheme to destroy the park. It could understand “that the eye accustomed to look upon the dollar as the only attractive object in this world, would not find the beauty of a park ‘materially lessened’ when beholding it covered with rent-paying brick and mortar; but the idea of ‘public recreation’ among dwelling houses, in open spaces like Union and Washington Squares ... is too absurd.” When hearings were held this same month (January, 1854), upon Mayor Westervelt’s proposals for curtailing Central Park, the advocates of the original limits seemed to be weakening. The Mayor’s supporters desired a park of about one-third the area originally proposed, and presented a petition with several thousand signatures. The chief spokesman for the opposite side, Samuel B. Ruggles, indicated his willingness to consent to a less drastic reduction, making the park extend from Sixth Avenue to Eighth, or from Fifth to Seventh, instead of from Fifth to Eighth. But against any weakening whatever of the plan as it stood the Evening Post protested energetically. In the heart of London were more than 1,500 acres of park, it said, which would command high prices for building lots, yet New York jobbers grumbled over sparing 700. The people owed it “to the thousands coming after them, who will before many years make this city the first in the world in point of size, to bequeath them pleasure grounds commensurate with its greatness.”

The struggle continued until, in February, 1856, following a favorable court decision, Bryant could congratulate the city that it had been won, and that the landscaping of Central Park might begin within a few months. This was eleven years after his original proposal. He, more than any one else, deserves to be called the father of the idea; though Downing’s labors in promoting it were quite as great as his.