Peculiarities of American Cities

by Willard W. Glazier

The more ancient portion of New York, from Fourteenth street to the Battery, is laid out somewhat irregularly. As far north as Central Park, five miles from the Battery, it is quite compactly built. Various localities in the more northern and less densely built-up part of the island are known by different names; as Yorkville, near Eighty-sixth street; and Harlem, in the vicinity of One-hundred-and-twenty-fifth street, on the eastern side; and Bloomingdale and Manhattanville, opposite them, on the western. North of Manhattanville, near One-hundred-and-fiftieth street, is Carmansville, and a mile and a half further north are Washington Heights; while Inwood lies at the extreme northwestern point of the island. All these are places of interest, and offer numerous attractions to the visitor.

That part of New York lying on the mainland, comprising the twenty-third and twenty-fourth wards, was added to it in 1874, and contains many thriving towns and villages. Prominent among them is Morrisania, with avenues running north and south, and streets crossing them at right angles, and numbered in continuation of those of Manhattan Island. Numerous other towns, with a host of beautiful country residences, are scattered over the high and rolling land of which this late addition to the area of the city is composed; but with the exception of Morrisania it has not yet been regularly laid out for building purposes. The whole country in this section of the city, with a romantic natural beauty, to which wealth and artistic taste have largely contributed, is a perfect paradise of picturesqueness.

The foreigner who visits New York usually approaches it from the lower bay, through the "Narrows," a strait lying between Staten Island on the left and Long Island on the right. From the heights of the former, a beautiful island, rising green and bold from the water's edge, frown the massive battlements of Fort Wadsworth and Fort Tompkins; while on the latter is Fort Hamilton; and in the midst of the water, gloomy and barren, is Fort Lafayette, famous as a political prison during the late war. New York Bay is one of the most beautiful, if not the most beautiful, in the world. Staten Island rises abruptly on one shore, with hills and valleys, green fields and trees, villages and villas; and on the other shore are the wood-crowned bluffs of Long Island. Within the bay Ellis' Island is near the Jersey shore; Bedloe's Island is not far from its centre, and is the selected site of the colossal statue of Liberty which France has presented to New York; while Governor's Island, the largest of the three, lies to the right, between New York and Brooklyn. Each island is fortified, the latter containing Castle William and old Fort Columbus.

The bay is dotted with the shipping of every nation. Ocean steamers are setting out on their long journeys, or just returning from foreign shores. The finest steamboats and ferry boats in the world dart hither and thither, like water spiders on the surface of a glassy pool. Tugs, oyster boats, and sailing vessels of every size and description, are all represented. It is a moving panorama of water craft. As the city is approached, gradually, from the distant haze which broods over it, is evolved the forms of towers, spires, and roofs, and all its varied and picturesque outlines. The city presents a beautiful view from the bay. It rises gradually from the water's edge, some portions of it to a considerable elevation. A prominent feature in its outline is the graceful, tapering spire of Trinity Church, while higher still rises the clock-tower of the Tribune building. Other towers, spires and domes, break the monotony of roofs and walls. Approaching the mouth of the East River, the most striking objects are the massive towers of the Suspension Bridge, one on either shore, while between them is the bridge, swung upon what seem at a distance like the merest cobwebs.

At the extreme southern end of Manhattan Island is the Battery, already referred to, a park of several acres, protected by a granite sea wall. It presents a beautiful stretch of green turf, fine trees and wide pathways. On its southwest border is Castle Garden, a circular brick structure, which has a history of its own. It was originally constructed for a fort, and was afterwards converted into a summer garden. A great ball, to Marquis Lafayette, was given in it in 1824; and General Jackson in 1832, and President Tyler in 1843, held public receptions there. Then it was turned into a concert hall, and is chiefly famous, as such, as being the place where Jenny Lind made her first appearance in America. It is now an emigrant depot, and on days of the arrival of emigrant ships, it is very entertaining to watch the troops of emigrants, with their quaint gait, unfamiliar language, and strange, un-American faces, passing out of its portals, and making their first entrance into their new life on the western continent.

Just east of the Battery is Whitehall, the terminus of numerous omnibus and car lines, and the location of the Staten Island, South and Hamilton ferries. There, too, is the depot of the elevated railways, which extend in four lines, two on the eastern side and two on the western, the entire length of the city. The Corn Exchange, an imposing building, is at the upper end of Whitehall. At the junction of Whitehall with Broadway is a pretty, old-fashioned square, shaded with trees, and surrounded by an iron fence, called Bowling Green. This was the aristocratic quarter of the city in its early days. No. 1 Broadway, known as the "old Kennedy House," was built in 1760, and has been, successively, the residence and headquarters of Lords Conwallis and Howe, General Sir Henry Clinton and General Washington, while Talleyrand lived there during his stay in America. Benedict Arnold concocted his treasonable projects at No. 5 Broadway. At No. 11 General Gates had his headquarters. A few of the old buildings still remain, but they have many of them already given way to more modern and more pretentious structures. The posts of the iron fence around Bowling Green were once surmounted by balls, but they were knocked off and used for cannon balls during the Revolution. An equestrian statue of King George III, which once ornamented the Square, was melted up during the same period, and furnished material for forty-two thousand bullets.

The stranger in New York sometimes wonders why its principal business street is called Broadway, since there are many others which are quite as broad, some of them even broader. But if he will visit the extreme southern portion of the city, he will quickly comprehend. The old streets are narrow, being scarcely more than mere alleys, with pavements barely broad enough for two to walk abreast, so that Broadway, when originally laid out, seemed a magnificent thoroughfare.

As already described, Wall street formed the northern boundary of the young colonial city. In that early day, as now, wealth and fashion sought to avoid the more plebeian business streets, and so withdrew to the neighborhood of this northern boundary, and established, first their residences, and then their commercial houses. Wall street then became what it has since remained, the monetary centre of the city, only that now it is more than that; it is the great monetary centre of the entire country. On it and the blocks leading from it, all embraced in comparatively a few acres, are probably stored more gold and silver than in all the rest of the United States put together, while the business interests represented extend to every section, not only of the continent, but of the world.

Nowhere else in America are there such and so many magnificent buildings as in this section of the city. The streets are narrow, and overshadowed as they are by edifices six or more stories in height, seem to be dwarfed into mere alley-ways. Nearly every building is worthy of being called a temple or a palace. White marble and brown stone, with every style of architecture, abound. The United States Sub-Treasury Building, at the corner of Wall and Nassau streets, is a stately white marble structure in the Doric style, occupying the site of the old Federal Hall, in which Washington delivered his first inaugural address. Opposite is the white marble palace, in the style of the Renaissance, known as the Drexel Building. A little further down the street, at the corner of William, is the United States Custom House, formerly the Merchants' Exchange, built of granite. It has a portico supported by twelve massive columns, and its rotunda in the interior is supported by eight columns of Italian marble, the Corinthian capitals of which were carved in Italy. Opposite this building is the handsome structure of the Bank of New York. Banks, and bankers' and brokers' offices fill the street, and are crowded into the side streets.

On Broad street, a short distance below Wall, is the Stock Exchange, a handsome, but not large building, which in point of interest towers over all others in the locality. Here are daily exacted the comedies and tragedies of financial life, and here fortunes are made and fortunes lost by that system of gigantic gambling which has come to be known as "dealing in stocks." The operations of the Stock Exchange and Gold Room concern the whole country, both financially and industrially. Here is the true governmental centre, rather than at Washington. Wall and Broad streets dictate to Congress what the laws of the country concerning finance shall be, and Congress obeys. The Bankers' Association holds the menace over the government that if their interests are not consulted, they will bring ruin upon the country; and it is in their power to execute the threat. This power was illustrated on the twenty-fourth of. September, 1869, a day memorable as Black Friday in the history of Wall street. By a small but strong combination of bears, gold was made to fall in seventeen minutes, from 1.60 to 1.30, after a sale of $50,000,000 had been effected, and thousands of men, from the Atlantic to the Pacific, were ruined. Money was locked up, and could not be obtained even at a premium of one hundred per cent. This was the forerunner of the panic which came four years later, in 1873. Then the Union Trust Company failed, carrying with it Jay Cooke, Fisk and Hatch, Henry Clews, Howe and Macy, and other houses. For the first time during its existence the Stock Exchange was closed. Without its closing, not a merchant or banker could have survived. With its doors shut no contract could be completed nor stocks transferred, and it gave people time, which was absolutely needed, to do what they could; or else universal and overwhelming ruin would have swept over the country. As it was, not less than twenty thousand firms went under, and the stringency of the times was felt throughout the nation, depressing business and checking industry, until Congress took measures for its relief.