Lights and Shadows of New York Life Part 23

The princ.i.p.al retail dry goods stores of New York are those of A. T.

Stewart & Co., Lord & Taylor, Arnold, Constable & Co., and James McCreery & Co.

The house of A. T. Stewart & Co. is the best known to persons visiting the city. Indeed there are very few Americans who have not heard of and longed to visit "Stewart's." It is, besides, the largest and most complete establishment of its kind in the world. It occupies the entire block bounded by Broadway, Fourth avenue, Ninth and Tenth streets. The princ.i.p.al front is on Broadway, and the public entrances are on that street and on the Fourth avenue. The Ninth street entrances are reserved exclusively for the employes of the house. Many persons speak of the edifice as a "marble palace," but this is incorrect. It is constructed of iron, in the style of arcade upon arcade, and its fronts are so thickly studded with windows that they may be said to consist almost entirely of gla.s.s. It is five stories in height above the street, and above the fifth story there is an interior attic not visible from the sidewalk. Below the street there is a bas.e.m.e.nt and a sub-cellar, so that the monster building is really eight stories in height. There is no attempt at outward display, the fine effect of the edifice being due to its vast size and its symmetry. The interior is as simple. The floors are uncarpeted, the shelves are plain, as are the counters and the customers' seats. The centre of the building is occupied by a large rotunda extending from the ground floor to the roof. All the upper floors are open around this rotunda. Two flights of ma.s.sive stairs lead to the upper floors, and there are three handsome elevators for the use of customers who do not care to make the journey on foot. Three other elevators on the Ninth street side are used for carrying goods. Each of the floors covers an area of about two acres, so that the whole establishment, including the cellar, occupies sixteen acres of s.p.a.ce.

The cellar contains coal bins with a capacity of 500 tons. Close by are eight Harrison boilers of fifty horse power each, used for operating the steam engines and warming the building with steam. There are in all ten steam engines located in this immense cellar. These are used for running the elevators, for working seven steam pumps, for feeding the boilers, and for forcing water up to the top floor, which is used as a laundry.

In a certain part of the cellar is located the electrical battery, by means of which the gas jets in the building are lighted. Here are also rooms for the storage of goods.

The bas.e.m.e.nt is occupied by the Carpet-making and Parcel departments. It is the largest room in the world, and is unbroken save by the light pillars which support the floors above. The Carpet-making department is interesting. The house deals largely in carpets, and one is surprised at the smallness of the force employed down here. The carpets purchased are cut, and the pieces matched as they lie on the floor by women. Then they are placed on a wide table, forty feet long, and are sewn together by a machine worked by steam. This machine moves along the edge of the table, and the man operating it rides on it. His only care is to hold the parts to be sewn perfectly even, and the machine sews a seam of forty feet in from three to five minutes.

In the centre of the bas.e.m.e.nt floor is a s.p.a.ce about thirty feet square, enclosed by counters. This is the Parcel department. All purchases to be sent to the buyer pa.s.s through this department, and these make up about ninety per cent. of the day's business. The purchases are sent here by the salesmen with a ticket affixed to each, stating the quant.i.ty and quality of the article bought, the amount paid, and the address of the buyer. The goods are then remeasured, and if an error has been made either in favor of or against the house, it is rectified. The goods are then made up in secure parcels, each of which is plainly marked with the address of the purchaser. These parcels are then turned over to the drivers of the wagons used by the house for delivering purchases. The drivers are furnished with bills for the amounts to be collected on the parcels, and they are held to a rigid accountability for the delivery of every parcel entrusted to them, and the collection of all moneys due on them.

The ground floor is the princ.i.p.al salesroom. It is a simple, but elegant apartment, and its chief ornaments are the goods for sale, which are displayed in the most attractive and tasteful manner. The room is 300 by 200 feet in size. It contains 100 counters, with an aggregate length of 5000 feet. Behind these counters are low shelves on which the goods are kept. In the centre is the immense rotunda, and at various points are the little wooden pens enclosed with lattice work used by the cashiers.

Each article for sale has its separate department, and there are thirty ushers on duty to direct purchasers where to find the articles they seek.

The display of goods is magnificent, and includes everything used for the clothing of ladies and children, either in the piece or ready made.

There is also a department in which ladies and children may have all their clothing of every description made to order.

The second floor is used for the sale of ready-made clothing, suits, upholstery, etc., and the third floor is the carpet salesroom. The other floors are closed to visitors, and are used as workshops, laundries, etc.

The convenience of having all these things, and in such great variety, under one roof is very great, and saves purchasers many a weary walk through the city. The immense capital employed by Mr. Stewart, and his great facilities of all kinds, enable him to control the markets in which he makes his purchases and to buy on terms which render it easy for him to undersell all his compet.i.tors. The smaller houses complain bitterly of this, and declare that he is ruining them. In spite of its immense trade, "Stewart's" is not the most popular place in the city with resident purchasers. The salesmen have the reputation of being rude and often insolent. There can be no doubt that, were specific complaints made, Mr. Stewart would administer the necessary punishment to the offender without delay; but as the offences complained of are chiefly a lack of civility, few care to complain.

The throng of visitors and purchasers is immense. They have been known to reach the enormous number of 50,000 in a single day; but the average is 15,000. Looking down from one of the upper floors, through the rotunda, one can witness as busy and interesting a scene as New York affords. All kinds of people come here, from the poor woman whose scanty garb tells too plainly the story of her poverty, to the wife of the millionaire whose purchases amount to a small fortune, and all cla.s.ses can be suited.

The sales of the house average about $60,000 per day, and have been known to reach $87,000. The bulk of the purchases is made between noon and five o'clock. The average daily sales of the princ.i.p.al articles are as follows: Silks $15,000; dress goods, $6000; muslins, $3000; laces, $2000; shawls, $2500; suits, $1000; calicoes, $1500; velvets, $2000; gloves, $1000; furs, $1000; hosiery, $600; boys' clothing, $700; Yankee notions, $600; embroideries, $1000; carpets, $5500.

[Picture: A. T. STEWART'S RETAIL STORE.]

As may be supposed, the business of this great house requires an army of employes. The force consists of 1 general superintendent, 19 superintendents of departments, 9 cashiers, 25 book-keepers, 30 ushers, 55 porters, 200 cash boys, 900 seamstresses, working-women, laundresses, etc., 320 salesmen and saleswomen, and 150 salesmen and others in the carpet department, making a total of 1709 persons. There are other persons employed about the establishment in various capacities, and these, with the extra help often employed, make the aggregate frequently as much as 2200 persons. The business of the house opens at seven A.M., and closes at seven P.M. All the employes have thirty minutes allowed them for dinner. One half of all are alternately dismissed at six o'clock each evening. All the employes, when leaving, must pa.s.s through a private door on Ninth street. On each side of this door is a detective of great experience, whose business it is to see that none of the employes carry away with them any of the property of the house. The discipline of the establishment is very rigid, and is enforced by a system of fines and other penalties.

The general management of the house is entrusted to Mr. Tellur, the General Superintendent, but Mr. Stewart gives it his personal supervision as well. He comes to the store every morning at ten o'clock precisely, and consults with Mr. Tellur about the business of the previous day, and the wants of that just opening. He goes through the entire establishment, and personally acquaints himself with the exact condition of the business. He knows everything connected with the retail store, and every detail of its management receives his constant supervision, and is conducted in accordance with his instructions. He remains here about an hour and a half in the morning, and returns at five o'clock in the afternoon, and spends half an hour more. The rest of his working day is pa.s.sed at his lower store.

[Picture: LORD AND TAYLOR'S DRY GOODS STORE.]

Lord & Taylor rank next to Stewart, and are a more popular firm with residents than the latter. They occupy a magnificent iron building at the corner of Broadway and Twentieth street. It is one of the finest and most picturesque edifices in the city, and is filled with a stock of goods equal in costliness and superior in taste to anything that can be bought at Stewart's. On "opening days," or days when the merchants set out their finest goods for the inspection of the public, Lord & Taylor generally carry off the palm, for the handsomest and most tasteful display. The show windows of this house are among the sights of Broadway.

Two blocks below, on the same side of Broadway, is a row of magnificent white marble stores. The upper end, comprising about one-third of the entire block, is occupied by Messrs. Arnold, Constable & Co., a popular and wealthy house. They are noted for the taste and general excellence of their goods.

James McCreery & Co., at the corner of Broadway and Eleventh street, occupy a part of the ground floor of the magnificent edifice of the Methodist Book Concern. They do not make as extensive a display as their compet.i.tors, but are well known in the city for their rich and elegant goods. The ball and wedding dresses imported and made by this house are among the richest ever seen in New York.

XXIV. BLEECKER STREET.

Perhaps very few people out of the great city know Bleecker Street at all; perhaps they have pa.s.sed it a dozen times or more without noticing it, or if they have marked it at all have regarded it only as a pa.s.sably good-looking street going to decay. But he who does not know Bleecker street does not know New York. It is of all the localities of the metropolis one of the best worth studying.

It was once the abode of wealth and fashion, as its fine old time mansions testify. Then Broadway north of it was the very centre of the aristocracy of the island, and Bond street was a primitive Fifth avenue.

Going west from the Bowery, nearly to Sixth avenue, you will find rows of stately mansions on either hand, which speak eloquently of greatness gone, and as eloquently of hard times present. They have a strange aspect too, and one may read their story at a glance. Twenty-five years ago they were homes of wealth and refinement. The most sumptuous hospitality was dispensed here, and the stately drawing rooms often welcomed brilliant a.s.semblages. Now a profusion of signs announce that hospitality is to be had at a stated price, and the old mansions are put to the viler uses of third-rate boarding houses and restaurants.

In many respects Bleecker street is more characteristic of Paris than of New York. It reminds one strongly of the Latin Quarter, and one instinctively turns to look for the _Closerie des Lilas_. It is the headquarters of Bohemianism, and Mrs. Grundy now shivers with holy horror when she thinks it was once her home. The street has not entirely lost its reputation. No one is prepared to say it is a vile neighborhood; no one would care to cla.s.s it with Houston, Mercer, Greene, or Water streets; but people shake their heads, look mysterious, and sigh ominously when you ask them about it. It is a suspicious neighborhood, to say the least, and he who frequents it must be prepared for the gossip and surmises of his friends. No one but its denizens, whose discretion can be absolutely trusted, knows anything with certainty about its doings or mode of life, but every one has his own opinion. Walk down it at almost any hour of the day or night, and you will see many things that are new to you. Strange characters meet you at every step; even the shops have a Bohemian aspect, for trade is nowhere so much the victim of chance as here. You see no breach of the public peace, no indecorous act offends you; but the people you meet have a certain air of independence, of scorn, of conventionality, a certain carelessness which mark them as very different from the throng you have just left on Broadway. They puzzle you, and set you to conjecturing who they are and what they are, and you find yourself weaving a romance about nearly every man or woman you meet.

That long-haired, queerly dressed young man, with a parcel under his arm, who pa.s.sed you just then, is an artist, and his home is in the attic of that tall house from which you saw him pa.s.s out. It is a cheerless place, indeed, and hardly the home for a devotee of the Muse; but the artist is a philosopher, and he flatters himself that if the world has not given him a share of its good things, it has at least freed him from its restraints, and so long as he has the necessaries of life and a lot of jolly good fellows to smoke and drink and chat with him in that lofty dwelling place of his, he is content to take life as he finds it.

If you look up to the second floor, you may see a pretty, but not over fresh looking young woman, gazing down into the street. She meets your glance with composure, and with an expression which is a half invitation to "come up." She is used to looking at men, and to having them look at her, and she is not averse to their admiration. Her dress is a little flashy, and the traces of rouge are rather too strong on her face, but it is not a bad face. You may see her to-night at the --- Theatre, where she is the favorite. Not much of an actress, really, but very clever at winning over the dramatic critics of the great dailies who are but men, and not proof against feminine arts. This is her home, and an honest home, too. To be sure it would be better had she a mother or a brother, or husband--some recognized protector, who could save her from the "misfortune of living alone;" but this is Bleecker street, and she may live here according to her own fancy, "and no questions asked."

On the floor above her dwells Betty Mulligan, a pretty little b.u.t.terfly well known to the lovers of the ballet as Mademoiselle Alexandrine. No one pretends to know her history. She pays her room rent, has hosts of friends, but beyond this no one knows anything. Surmises there are by the score, and people wonder how mademoiselle can live so well on her little salary; but no charges are made. People shrug their shoulders, and hint that ballet girls have resources unknown to the uninitiated.

The rule here is that every one must look after himself, and it requires such an effort to do this that there is no time left to watch a neighbor's shortcomings.

In the same house is a fine-looking woman, not young, but not old. Her "husband" has taken lodgings here for her, but he comes to see her only at intervals, and he is not counted in the landlady's bill. Business keeps him away, and he comes when he can. Bleecker street never asks madame for her marriage certificate, nor does it seek to know why her numerous friends are all gentlemen, or why they come only when the "husband" is away.

Honest, hard-working men come here with their families. Their earnings are regular, but small, and they prefer the life of this street to the misery of the tenement house. Others there are who live in the street, and occupy whole dwellings with their families, who stay here from force of habit. They are "slow" people, dull of comprehension, and to them the mysteries of their neighborhood are a sealed book. Yet all are regarded as persons whose characters are "not proven," by the dwellers outside the street.

Money is a power in Bleecker street. It will purchase anything. Much is spent by those who do not dwell here, but come here to hide their secrets. Women come here to meet other men besides their husbands, and men bring women here who are not their wives. Bleecker street asks no questions, but it has come to suspect the men and women who are seen in it.

Indeed, so long as its tenants do not violate the written law of the land to an extent sufficient to warrant the interference of the police, they may do as they please. Thus it has come to pa.s.s that the various personages who are a law unto themselves have gradually drifted into Bleecker street, unless they can afford better quarters, and even then the freedom of the locality has for them a fascination hard to be resisted. No one loses caste here for any irregularity. You may dress as you please, live as you please, do as you please in all things, and no comments will be made. There is no "society" here to worry your life with its claims and laws. You are a law unto yourself. Your acts are exclusively your own business. No complaints will be made against you.

You are absolutely your own master or mistress here. Life here is based on principles which differ from those which prevail in other parts of the city.

Yet, as I have said, no one dare call the street "bad." Let us say it is "irregular," "free," "above scandal," or "superior to criticism;" but let us not venture to term it "bad," as its neighbors Greene and Mercer are "bad." I cannot say it would be shocked by such a charge, for Bleecker street is never shocked at anything. It would, no doubt, laugh in our faces, and scornfully ask for our proofs of its badness, and proofs of this sort are hard to bring to light in this thoroughfare.

XXV. CEMETERIES.

I. GREENWOOD.

The most beautiful cemetery of the city of New York, and the place where its people most long to sleep when "life's fitful fever" is over, is Greenwood. It is situated on Gowa.n.u.s Heights, within the limits of the City of Brooklyn, and covers an area of 413 acres of land. It is two and a half miles distant from the South Ferry, and three from the Fulton Ferry, with lines of street cars from both ferries. A portion of the grounds is historic, for along the edge of the heights occurred the hardest fighting in the battle of Long Island, in 1776.

The cemetery is beautifully laid out. The heights have been graded at immense expense, and the grounds are provided with carriage roads built of stone, covered with gravel, and with foot-paths of concrete. The carriage drives are seventeen miles, and the foot-paths fifteen miles in extent. The sewerage is perfect, and the greatest care is exercised in keeping the grounds free from dirt and weeds. The cemetery was laid out under the supervision of a corps of accomplished landscape gardeners, and it abounds in the most exquisite scenery. From the higher portions the bay and the cities which border it, with the blue ocean in the distance, may all be seen. Everything that art could do to add to the attractions of a naturally beautiful spot has been done, and the place has come to be, next to the Central and Prospect Parks, one of the favorite resorts of the people of New York and Brooklyn. The entrances are all adorned with magnificent gateways of stone. The northern gateway is adorned with sculptures representing the burial of the Saviour, and the raising of the widow's son and of Lazarus. Above these are bas-relief figures, representing Faith, Hope, Memory, and Love.

The cemetery was opened for burials about twenty-seven years ago. At the close of the year 1870 the interments had reached 150,000. From fifteen to twenty interments are made here every day. The deep-toned bell of the great gateway is forever tolling its knell, and some mournful train is forever wending its slow way under the beautiful trees. Yet the sunlight falls brightly, the birds sing their sweetest over the new-made graves, the wind sighs its dirge through the tall trees, and the "sad sea waves"

blend with it all their solemn undertone from afar.

The tombs and monuments to be seen at Greenwood are very beautiful. Some of them are noted as works of art. Many of them have cost from $10,000 to $100,000. About 2000 of these tombs are scattered through the grounds. In beauty of design and costliness they surpa.s.s any similar collection in the New World, but in one respect they are like all others, for they speak nothing but good of the dead. Indeed, were one to believe their inscriptions, the conclusion would be inevitable that none but saints are buried in Greenwood. All cla.s.ses come here, but the cemetery is characteristic of the living city beyond. Wealth governs everything here as there.

II. CYPRESS HILLS.

North of the Brooklyn and Jamaica Turnpike, is an elevated ridge known as the "backbone of Long Island," and on this ridge, partly in Kings and partly in Queens counties, about five miles from the Catharine Street Ferry, is the Cemetery of Cypress Hills. It comprises an area of 400 acres, one-half of which is still covered with the native forest trees.

The other portion is handsomely adorned with shrubbery, and laid off tastefully. The entrance consists of a brick arch, surmounted by a statue of Faith. It rests on two beautiful lodges occupied by the gate-keeper and superintendent of the cemetery.

From the cemetery one may command an extensive view, embracing all the surrounding country, the cities of Brooklyn, New York, Jersey City, and Flushing, the Hudson as far as the Palisades, Long Island Sound, the distant hills of Connecticut, and the Atlantic.

Since the opening of the grounds, in 1848, upwards of 85,000 interments have been made here. Of these 4060 were officers and soldiers of the United States army, who were killed or who died during the Civil War.

They are buried in a section set apart for them. The Sons of Temperance, the Odd-Fellows, the Masons, and the Police Forces of New York and Brooklyn have sections of their own here. When the old grave-yards of New York and Brooklyn were broken up, about 35,000 bodies were removed from them to these grounds.