Milligan's Lane
The Eleventh Street graveyard, established in the midst of green fields, fronted on Milligan's Lane and extended back 110 feet. When Eleventh Street was cut through under the conditions of the City Plan, in 1830, it passed directly through the graveyard, cutting it away so that only the tiny portion now there was left. At that time a new place of burial was opened in Twenty-first Street west of Sixth Avenue.
Union Road
At a point just behind the house numbered 23 Eleventh Street, midway of the block between Fifth and Sixth Avenues, Union Road had its starting-point. It was a short road, forming a direct communicating line between Skinner and Southampton Roads. Skinner Road, running from Hudson River along the line of the present Christopher Street, ended where Union Road began; and Union Road met Southampton at what is now the corner of Fifteenth Street and Seventh Avenue. This point was also the junction of Southampton and Great Kiln Roads.
Evidences of the Union Road are still to be seen in Twelfth Street, at the projecting angle of the houses numbered 43 and 45. It was just at this point that Milligan's Lane ended. On Thirteenth Street, the course of Union Road is shown by the slanting wall of a big business building, numbered 36.
First Presbyterian Church
In Twelfth Street, between Sixth and Seventh Avenues, is the First Reformed Presbyterian Church. The congregation was started as a praying society in 1790 at the house of John Agnew at No. 9 Peck Slip. In 1798 the congregation worshipped in a school house in Cedar Street. They soon after built their first church at Nos. 39 and 41 Chambers Street, where the American News Company building is now. It was a frame building, and was succeeded in 1818 by a brick building on the same site. In 1834 a new church was erected at Prince and Marion Streets. The foundation for the present church was laid in 1848, and the church occupied it in the following year.
Society Library
The New York Society Library, at 107 University Place, near Fourteenth Street, claims to be the oldest institution of its kind in America. It is certainly the most interesting in historical associations, richness of old literature and art works. It is the direct outcome of the library established in 1700, with quarters in the City Hall, in Wall Street, by Richard, Earl of Bellomont, the Governor of New York.
In 1754 an association was incorporated for carrying on a library, and their collection, added to the library already in existence, was called the City Library. The Board of Trustees consisted of the most prominent men in the city. In 1772 a charter was granted by George III, under the name of the New York Society Library.