Peculiarities of American Cities

by Willard W. Glazier

On Broadway, at the head of Wall street, is Trinity Church, whose spire was, until a recent period, the highest in the city, being two hundred and eighty-four feet in height. In the early days, when the aristocracy were seeking the select neighborhood of Wall street, this church corporation established itself upon the utmost northern confines of the city. Its original edifice was destroyed by fire, and the present one was erected in 1846. It is of brown stone, in pure gothic architecture, and one of the most beautiful in New York. In the rich carving of the exterior numerous birds have built their nests. It has stained glass windows, and the finest chime of bells in America. Within the church is a costly reredos in memory of John Jacob Astor. A venerable graveyard lies to its north, where repose the remains of Alexander Hamilton, Captain Lawrence, of the Chesapeake, Robert Fulton, and the unfortunate Charlotte Temple. Some of the headstones, brown and crumbling with age, and bearing grotesque carved effigies of angels, date back for more than a century. In the northeast corner is a stately monument erected to the memory of the patriots who died in British prisons in New York during the Revolution. Trinity Parish is the oldest in the city, and fabulously wealthy, the corporation having been granted, by Queen Anne, in 1705, a large tract of land west of Broadway, extending as far north as Christopher street, known as the "Queen's Farm." The land, at that time remote from the city, now embraces some of its most valuable business portions. It is all leased of Trinity Church by the occupants, and the church, when the leases expire, becomes possessed of the buildings and improvements upon the ground, and is thus constantly augmenting its wealth. The claims of the Jans Anneke heirs involve this vast estate. It has three chapels, one of which, St. Paul's, is a few blocks above, on the corner of Broadway and Vesey streets, and is surrounded by a graveyard almost as ancient as that of Trinity.

BIRD'S-EYE VIEW OF NEW YORK.

At the northwest corner of Vesey street and Broadway is the Astor House, which, when it was built, something more than a generation ago, was a marvel of size and splendor, though it is now thrown in the shade by more modern structures. John Jacob Astor, its builder, was born near Heidelberg, in Germany, in 1765, and came penniless to the new world, to seek his fortune. After serving as a clerk, he then engaged in a small way in the fur business, which eventually grew to the proportions of the American Fur Company, and brought to its founder a large fortune, though no one outside his family ever knew its exact amount. He settled most of his affairs before his death, selling the Astor House to his son William, for the consideration of one dollar. Much of his property was in real estate, which constantly increased in value. He died in 1848, and his senior son being an imbecile, William B. Astor, the younger brother, inherited most of his father's fortune. The son became vastly richer than his father, dying in 1875, leaving behind him a fortune of $50,000,000, which was mostly bequeathed to his eldest son, John Jacob, who is now the head of the house.

The Post Office stands opposite the Astor House, on the east side of Broadway, at the southern extremity of City Hall Park. It is a massive structure, of Doric and Renaissance architecture, four stories in height, beside a Mansard roof, costing $7,000,000.

Half a century ago the City Hall Park was the chief park of New York, and the elegance and aristocracy of the city gathered around it. The City Hall stands in the park, and back of it is the new Court House, still unfinished, a massive edifice in Corinthian style, which, when completed, will have a dome two hundred and ten feet above the sidewalk.

On the western side of Broadway, opposite St. Paul's, is the splendid building of the New York Herald. The Herald is the representative newspaper of New York, and is probably the most enterprising sheet in the world. James Gordon Bennett, its founder, was born in Scotland in 1795, and came to America in 1819. After various literary ventures, he decided to establish a paper which should embody his ideal of a metropolitan journal. On the sixth of May, 1855, the first number of the New York Herald was issued, being then a small penny sheet. Mr. Bennett was editor, reporter and correspondent. He was his own compositor and errand boy, mailed his papers and kept his accounts. His rule, from the very first, was never to run a dollar in debt. He succeeded in establishing a paper which has no parallel in history, while, since his death, his son's enterprise has still further increased its scope and popularity. Young Bennett, the present proprietor of the Herald, named after his father, was trained especially for the duties which were to devolve upon him. He is thoroughly at home in French, German, Italian and Scotch. He is a skilled engineer, and can run either the engines or presses of his establishment. He is a practical printer, and can also telegraph with skill and accuracy. He gives strict personal supervision to the affairs of his immense establishment, which yields him a yearly income equaling that of a merchant prince.

Extending from the Herald Building northward, on the eastern side of City Hall Park, is what is known as Printing House Square, including the offices of the principal daily and weekly papers. The magnificent granite structure of the Staats Zeitung faces this square on the north. The immense Tribune Building, nine stories high, with its tall clock tower, flanks it on the east, on Nassau street. The Sun modestly nestles in the shadow of the Tribune. The Times Building is found on Park Row, where also is the World office. Truth lurks in a basement on Nassau street. But a square or two below is the Evening Post Building, where the venerable poet Bryant labored at his editorial duties for so many years. A statue of Franklin occupies a small open triangular space in the midst of the square.

Horace Greeley's name is inseparably associated with that of the Tribune, which he founded. Honest and single-minded, he wielded a mighty influence, and his paper was a great political power in the country. He often made enemies by his honesty and straight-forwardness; but both enemies and friends respected him. In 1872 the Liberal Republican and Democratic parties nominated him as their choice for President. Believing that he could rally around him men of all parties who desired to see reform in political methods, he accepted the nomination; and was attacked so bitterly by those whom he had supposed to be his friends, and met such overwhelming defeat in the contest, that, taken with the death of his wife within a week of the election, he was crushed completely, his reason left him, and before the end of a month he died a broken-hearted man.

North of the City Hall Park, on the corner of Chambers street, is the old wholesale house of A. T. Stewart, now devoted to other purposes, and having two stories added to its top. Here, a generation ago, the belles of New York City came to do their shopping, it having been originally built for the retail trade, as a few years later they flocked to the new retail store on Broadway, between Ninth and Tenth. The name of A. T. Stewart is no longer heard in New York, save in connection with the past. It was a power in its day and generation. Few men had more to do with Wall street than Stewart, and his mercantile business was carried on in the Wall street style. He "cornered" goods, "sold short," "loaded the market," and "bought long." Having emigrated from the north of Ireland, he first opened business in a small way, himself and wife living in one room over their store. Beginning at the very lowest round of the ladder, he worked with the fixed resolution of becoming the first merchant in the land. He always lived within his income, and never bought a dollar's worth of merchandise that he could not pay cash for. In the days of his prosperity he built for himself and wife a marble palace, at the corner of Fifth avenue and Thirty-fourth street, the most finely-finished and elegantly-furnished residence in the country. He died in 1876, worth, probably, $50,000,000. The theft of his remains from the graveyard of St. Mark's Church, at Ninth street and Second avenue, was the nine days' wonder of the time; and the vault prepared for their reception, in the fine Cathedral at Garden City, Long Island, remains empty.