Nooks and Corners of Old New York Part 2

The inn is much the same as in early days, except that many buildings crowd about it now, and modern paint has made it hideous to antiquarian eyes.

[Sidenote: Delmonico's]

On the east side of William Street, a few doors south of Fulton, John Delmonico opened a dingy little bake shop in 1823, acted as chef and waiter, and built up the name and business which to-day is synonymous with good eating. In 1832 he removed to 23 William Street. Burned out there in 1835, he soon opened on a larger scale with his brother at William and Beaver Streets, on which site is still an establishment under the Delmonico name. In time he set up various places--at Chambers Street and Broadway; Fourteenth Street and Fifth Avenue; Twenty-sixth Street and Broadway, and finally at Forty-fourth Street and Fifth Avenue.

[Sidenote: John Street Church]

John Street Church, between Na.s.sau and William Streets, was the first Methodist Church in America. In 1767 it was organized in a loft at 120 William Street, then locally known as Horse and Cart Street. In 1768 the church was built in John Street. It was rebuilt in 1817 and again in 1841. John Street perpetuates the name of John Harpendingh, who owned most of the land thereabout.

[Sidenote: John Street Theatre]

At what is now 17, 19 and 21 John Street, in 1767 was built the old John Street Theatre, a wooden structure, painted red, standing sixty feet back from the street and reached by a covered way. An arcade through the house at No. 17 still bears evidence of the theatre. The house was closed in 1774, when the Continental Congress recommended suspension of amus.e.m.e.nts. Throughout the Revolutionary War, however, performances were given, the places of the players being filled by British officers.

Washington frequently attended the performances at this theatre after he became President. The house was torn down in 1798.

The site of the Shakespeare Tavern is marked by a tablet at the southwest corner of Na.s.sau and Fulton Streets. The words of the tablet are:

ON THIS SITE IN THE OLD SHAKESPEARE TAVERN WAS ORGANIZED THE SEVENTH REGIMENT NATIONAL GUARD, S. N. Y.

AUG. 25, 1824

[Sidenote: Shakespeare Tavern]

This tavern, low, old-fashioned, built of small yellow bricks with dormer windows in the roof, was constructed before the Revolution. In 1808 it was bought by Thomas Hodgkinson, an actor, and was henceforth a meeting-place for Thespians. It was resorted to--in contrast to the business men guests of the Tontine Coffee House--by the wits of the day, the poets and the writers. In 1824 Hodgkinson died, and the house was kept up for a time by his son-in-law, Mr. Stoneall.

[Sidenote: First Clinton Hall]

At the southwest corner of Beekman and Na.s.sau Streets was built, in 1830, the first home of the Mercantile Library, called Clinton Hall. In 1820 the first steps were taken by the merchants of the city to establish a reading room for their clerks. The library was opened the following year with 700 volumes. In 1823 the a.s.sociation was incorporated. It was located first in a building in Na.s.sau Street, but in 1826 was moved to Cliff Street, and in 1830 occupied its new building in Beekman Street. De Witt Clinton, Governor of the State, had presented a History of England as the first volume for the library. The new building was called Clinton Hall in his honor. In 1850, the building being crowded, the Astor Place Opera House was bought for $250,000, and remodeled in 1854 into the second Clinton Hall. The third building of that name is now on the site at the head of Lafayette Place.

[Sidenote: St. George's Church]

The St. George Building, on the north side of Beekman Street, just west of Cliff Street, stands on the site of St. George's Episcopal Church, a stately stone structure which was erected in 1811. In 1814 it was burned; in 1816 rebuilt, and in 1845 removed to Rutherford Place and Sixteenth Street, where it still is. Next to the St. George Building is the tall shot-tower which may be so prominently seen from the windows of tall buildings in the lower part of the city, but is so difficult to find when search is made for it.

[Sidenote: Barnum's Museum]

Barnum's Museum, opened in 1842, was on the site of the St. Paul Building, at Broadway and Ann Street. There P. T. Barnum brought out Tom Thumb, the Woolly Horse and many other curiosities that became celebrated. On the stage of a dingy little amphitheatre in the house many actors played who afterwards won national recognition.

[Sidenote: Original Park Theatre]

The original Park Theatre was built in 1798, and stood on Park Row, between Ann and Beekman Streets, facing what was then City Hall Park and what is now the Post Office. It was 200 feet from Ann Street, and extended back to the alley which has ever since been called Theatre Alley. John Howard Payne, author of "Home, Sweet Home," appeared there for the first time on any stage, in 1809, as the "Young American Roscius." In 1842 a ball in honor of Charles d.i.c.kens was given there.

Many noted actors played at this theatre, which was the most important in the city at that period. It was rebuilt in 1820 and burned in 1848.

[Sidenote: First Brick Presbyterian Church]

At the junction of Park Row and Na.s.sau Street, where the _Times_ Building is, the Brick Presbyterian Church was erected in 1768. There was a small burying-ground within the shadow of its walls, and green fields stretched from it in all directions. It was sold in 1854, and a new church was built at Fifth Avenue and Thirty-seventh Street.

[Sidenote: Where Leisler Was Hanged]

Within a few steps of where the statue of Benjamin Franklin is in Printing House Square, Jacob Leisler was hanged in his own garden in 1691, the city's first martyr to const.i.tutional liberty. A wealthy merchant, after James III fled and William III ascended the throne, Leisler was called by the Committee of Safety to act as Governor. He a.s.sembled a Continental Congress, whose deliberations were cut short by the arrival of Col. Henry Sloughter as Governor. Enemies of Leisler decided on his death. The new Governor refused to sign the warrant, but being made drunk signed it unknowingly and Leisler was hanged and his body buried at the foot of the scaffold. A few years later, a royal proclamation wiped the taint of treason from Leisler's memory and his body was removed to a more honored resting-place.

[Sidenote: Tammany Hall]

The walls of the _Sun_ building at Park Row and Frankfort Street, are those of the first permanent home of Tammany Hall. Besides the hall it contained the second leading hotel in the city, where board was $7 a week. Tammany Hall, organized in 1789 by William Mooney, an upholsterer, occupied quarters in Borden's tavern in lower Broadway. In 1798 it removed to Martling's tavern, at the southeast corner of Na.s.sau and Spruce, until its permanent home was erected in 1811.

[Sidenote: A Liberty Pole]

There is a tablet on the wall of the south corridor of the post-office building, which bears the inscription:

ON THE COMMON OF THE CITY OF NEW YORK, NEAR WHERE THIS BUILDING NOW STANDS, THERE STOOD FROM 1766 TO 1776 A LIBERTY POLE ERECTED TO COMMEMORATE THE REPEAL OF THE STAMP ACT. IT WAS REPEATEDLY DESTROYED BY THE VIOLENCE OF THE TORIES AND AS REPEATEDLY REPLACED BY THE SONS OF LIBERTY, WHO ORGANIZED A CONSTANT WATCH AND GUARD. IN ITS DEFENCE THE FIRST MARTYR BLOOD OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION WAS SHED ON JAN. 18, 1770.

The cutting down of this pole led to the battle of Golden Hill.

[Sidenote: City Hall Park]

[Sidenote: Potter's Field In City Hall Park]

The post-office building was erected on a portion of the City Hall Park.

This park, like all of the Island of Manhattan, was a wilderness a few hundred years ago. By 1661, where the park is there was a clearing in which cattle were herded. In time the clearing was called The Fields; later The Commons. On The Commons, in Dutch colonial days, criminals were executed. Still later a Potter's Field occupied what is now the upper end of the Park; above it, and extending over the present Chambers Street was a negro burying-ground. On these commons, in 1735, a poor-house was built, the site of which is covered by the present City Hall. From time to time other buildings were erected.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Cell in the Prison under the Hall of Records]

The new Jail was finished in 1763, and, having undergone but few alterations, is now known as the Hall of Records. It was a military prison during the Revolution, and afterwards a Debtors' Prison. In 1830 it became the Register's Office. It was long considered the most beautiful building in the city, being patterned after the temple of Diana of Ephesus.

The Bridewell, or City Prison, was built on The Commons in 1775, close by Broadway, on a line with the Debtors' Prison. It was torn down in 1838.

[Sidenote: Third City Hall]

[Sidenote: Governor's Room]

The present City Hall was finished in 1812. About that time The Commons were fenced in and became a park, taking in besides the present s.p.a.ce, that now occupied by the post-office building. The constructors of the City Hall deemed it unnecessary to use marble for the rear wall as they had for the sides and front, and built this wall of freestone, it being then almost inconceivable that traffic could ever extend so far up-town as to permit a view of the rear of the building. The most noted spot in the City Hall is the Governor's Room, an apartment originally intended for the use of the Governor when in the city. In time it became the munic.i.p.al portrait gallery, and a reception room for the distinguished guests of the city. The bodies of Abraham Lincoln and of John Howard Payne lay in state in this room. With it is also a.s.sociated the visit of Lafayette when he returned to this country in 1824 and made the room his reception headquarters. The room was also the scene of the celebration after the capture of the "Guerriere" by the "Const.i.tution"; the reception to Commodore Perry after his Lake Erie victory; the celebration in connection with the laying of the Atlantic cable; and at the completion of the Erie Ca.n.a.l. It contains a large gilt punch-bowl, showing scenes in New York a hundred years ago. This was presented to the city by General Jacob Morton, Secretary of the Committee of Defense, at the opening of the City Hall.

At the western end of the front wall of City Hall is a tablet reading:

NEAR THIS SPOT IN THE PRESENCE OF GEN. GEORGE WASHINGTON THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE WAS READ AND PUBLISHED TO THE AMERICAN ARMY JULY 9TH, 1776

[Sidenote: First Savings Bank]

Other buildings erected in the Park were The Rotunda, 1816, on the site of the brown stone building afterwards occupied by the Court of General Sessions, where works of art were exhibited; and the New York Inst.i.tute on the site of the Court House, occupied in 1817 by the American, or Scudder's Museum, the first in the city. The Chambers Street Bank, the first bank for savings in the city, opened in the bas.e.m.e.nt of the Inst.i.tute building in 1818. In 1841 Philip Hone was president of this bank. It afterwards moved to the north side of Bleecker Street, between Broadway and Crosby, and became the Bleecker Street Bank. Now it is at Twenty-second Street and Fourth Avenue, and is called The Bank for Savings.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Statue of NATHAN HALE City Hall Park]

[Sidenote: Fences of City Hall Park]

The statue of Nathan Hale was erected in City Hall Park by the Sons of the Revolution. Some authorities still insist that the Martyr Spy was hanged in this park. Until 1821 there were fences of wooden pickets about the park. In that year iron railings, which had been imported from England, were set up, with four marble pillars at the southern entrance.

The next year trees were set out within the enclosure, and just within the railing were planted a number of rose-bushes which had been supplied by two ladies who had an eye to landscape gardening. Frosts and vandals did not allow the bushes more than a year of life. Four granite b.a.l.l.s, said to have been dug from the ruins of Troy, were placed on the pillars at the southern entrance, May 8, 1827. They were given to the city by Captain John B. Nicholson, U. S. N.

The building 39 and 41 Chambers Street, opposite the Court House, stands on the site of the pretty little Palmo Opera House, built in 1844 for the production of Italian opera, by F. Palmo, the wealthy proprietor of the Cafe des Mille Colonnes on Broadway at Duane Street. He lost his fortune in the operatic venture and became a bartender. In 1848 the house became Burton's Theatre. About 1800, this site was occupied by the First Reformed Presbyterian Church, a frame building which was replaced by a brick structure in 1818. The church was moved to Prince and Marion Streets in 1834.

[Ill.u.s.tration: No. 11 Reade St. where Aaron Burr had an office....]

[Sidenote: Office of Aaron Burr]