The Peter Cooper Institute!
In front of this sham Institute is painted, in blazing letters: “These Stores, and the Story above to Let. Enquire in office, 2d story.” And Peter might have advertised a portion of the stories above the two lower stories, as he has rooms to let in every story of the building. Even around the lecture room, in the second and third stories, he has constructed small rooms to let to any adventurer who comes along. Such was his avarice, and so greedy was he to gouge all the area he possibly could from earth and Heaven, that he dug as far towards China as he dared, and approached Heaven’s dome, until his architect warned him to stop, lest the whole edifice tumble into one common ruin, so feeble was the building’s foundation. And now, Peter Cooper! I demand you to instantly surrender your right and that of your heirs, (including Mayor Tiemann and Edward Cooper,) to the building known as the Cooper Institute. You have made a great noise, for half a dozen years, about your extraordinary philanthropy, and you have publicly proclaimed, a thousand times, that you intended to give your “Art and Science” edifice to the city, entirely for educational purposes. And you have got its tax of $8,000 reduced with this plea. And you have also got the Croton water tax removed, although you have got a steam engine in the building. And yet you still hold the property, in the name of yourself and heirs, and from what I know of your penurious propensities, I could almost swear that you never meant to give it to the city. Was not the building publicly dedicated long since? And where are the three thousand pupils, with green satchels, with whom we all expected to see the building teem? There is more cheerfulness and utility in the deserts of Arabia, and the classic ruins and crumbling desolations of the Ancient States, than in the dismal and Shylock echoes of your bogus and uncomely structure. And why do you still clutch it to your heart, like an expiring miser, his miserable dross? And why did you so construct the building, as to render it utterly inappropriate for students? You have told beggars, high and low, for half a dozen years, that you could not give them a crum of bread, because you were devoting all your surplus means to the construction of the Cooper Institute. And now that it is erected, and you have got all you desired, (and have toiled thirty years to achieve,) in the election of Tiemann, your son-in-law, as Mayor, through your specious and fallacious Philanthropy, and in the appointment of Edward Cooper, your own son, as Street Commissioner, by Tiemann,—after you have reached the goal of your miserly and ungodly ambition, and have got all New York in your breeches pocket, I find you apply your fingers to your infernal nose, and hurl defiance at the people, whom you have bamboozled, and evince a disposition to forever hold the building over which you have raised such a clatter for half a dozen years, and now actually advertise the stores and rooms of nearly the entire edifice, and of course, will put the rents in your yawning pockets, in the name of the President and Board of Trustees of the immortal Cooper Institute, which illustrious Chartered Body only comprises Peter Cooper! O Peter! Peter! you are a consummate impostor, and all the people will soon conceive you to be so, unless you instantly disgorge the property you long promised to give them for educational purposes. And now, Peter, go to the City Hall at once, and record the Institute in the name of the people, who will ever bless you for your noble philanthropy.