Nooks and Corners of Old New York Part 6

[Sidenote: Columbia College]

The two blocks included between Barclay and Murray Streets, West Broadway and Church Street, were occupied until 1857 by the buildings and grounds of Columbia College. That part of the Queen's Farm lying west of Broadway between the present Barclay and Murray Streets--a strip of land then in the outskirts of the city--in 1754 was given to the governors of King's College. During the Revolution the college suspended exercises, resuming in 1784 as Columbia College under an act pa.s.sed by the Legislature of the State. In 1814, in consideration of lands before granted to the college which had been ceded to New Hampshire in settlement of the boundary, the college was granted by the State a tract of farming land known as the Hosack Botanical Garden. This is the twenty acres lying between Forty-seventh and Forty-ninth Streets, Fifth and Sixth Avenues. At that time the city extended but little above the City Hall Park, and this land was unprofitable and for many years of considerable expense to the college. By 1839 the city had crept past the college and the locality being built up the college grounds were cramped between the limits of two blocks. In 1854, Park Place was opened through the grounds of the college from Church Street to West Broadway (then called College Place). Until about 1816 the section of Park Place west of the college grounds was called Robinson Street. In 1857 the college was moved to Madison Avenue, between Forty-ninth and Fiftieth Streets, and in 1890 it was re-organized on a university basis.

[Sidenote: Chapel Place]

West Broadway was originally a lane which wound from far away Ca.n.a.l Street to the Chapel of Columbia College, and was called Chapel Place.

Later it became College Place. In 1892 the street was widened south of Chambers Street, in order to relieve the great traffic from the north, and extended through the block from Barclay to Greenwich Street.

Evidence of the former existence of the old street can be seen in the pillars of the elevated road on the west side of West Broadway at Murray Street, for these pillars, once on the sidewalk, are now several feet from it in the street.

[Sidenote: Bowling Green Garden And First Vauxhall]

In the vicinity of what is now Greenwich and Warren Streets, the Bowling Green Garden was established in the early part of the eighteenth century. It was a primitive forest, for there were no streets above Crown (now Liberty) Street on the west side, and none above Frankfort on the east. The land on which the Garden stood was a leasehold on the Church Farm. The place was given the name of the Vauxhall Garden before the middle of the same century, and for forty years thereafter was a fashionable resort and sought to be a copy of the Vauxhall in London.

There was dancing and music, and groves dimly lighted where visitors could stroll, and where they might sit at tables and eat. By the time the city stretched past the locality, all that was left of the resort was what would now be called a low saloon, and its pretty garden had been sold for building lots. The second Vauxhall was off the Bowery, south of Astor Place.

[Sidenote: A. T. Stewart's Store]

The Stewart Building, on the east side of Broadway, between Chambers and Reade Streets, has undergone few external changes since it was the dry goods store of Alexander T. Stewart. On this site stood Washington Hall, which was erected in 1809. It was a hotel of the first cla.s.s, and contained the fashionable ball room and banqueting-hall of the city. The building was destroyed by fire July 5, 1844. The next year Stewart, having purchased the site from the heirs of John G. Coster, began the construction of his store. Stewart came from Ireland in 1823, at the age of twenty. For a time after his arrival he was an a.s.sistant teacher in a public school. He opened a small dry goods store, and was successful.

The Broadway store was opened in 1846. Four years later Stewart extended his building so that it reached Reade Street. All along Broadway by this year business houses were taking the place of residences. The Stewart residence at the northwest corner of Thirty-fourth Street and Fifth Avenue, was, at the time it was built, considered the finest house in America. Mr. Stewart died in 1876, leaving a fortune of fifty millions. His body was afterwards stolen from St. Mark's Churchyard at Tenth Street and Second Avenue.

At Broadway and Duane Street, roasted chestnuts were first sold in the street. A Frenchman stationed himself at this corner in 1828, and sold chestnuts there for so many years that he came to be reckoned as a living landmark.

At the same corner was the popular Cafe des Mille Colonnes, the proprietor of which, F. Palmo, afterwards built and conducted Palmo's Opera House in Chambers Street.

[Sidenote: First Sewing Machine]

In a store window on Broadway, close to Duane Street, the first sewing-machine was exhibited. A young woman sat in the window to exhibit the working of the invention to pa.s.sers-by. It was regarded as an impracticable toy, and was looked at daily by many persons who considered it a curiosity unworthy of serious attention.

[Sidenote: Masonic Hall]

At Nos. 314 and 316 Broadway, on the east side of the street just south of Pearl Street, stood Masonic Hall, the cornerstone of which was laid June 24, 1826. It looked imposing among the structures of the street, over which it towered, and was of the Gothic style of architecture.

While it was in course of erection, William Morgan published his book which claimed to reveal the secrets of masonry. His mysterious disappearance followed, and shortly after, the rise of the anti-Masonic party and popular excitement put masonry under such a ban that the house was sold by the Order, and the name of the building was changed to Gothic Hall. On the second floor was a room looked upon as the most elegant in the United States: an imitation of the Chapel of Henry VIII, it was of Gothic architecture, furnished in richness of detail and appropriateness of design, and was one hundred feet long, fifty wide and twenty-five high. In it were held public gatherings of social and political nature.

[Sidenote: New York Hospital]

The two blocks now enclosed by Duane, Worth, Broadway and Church Streets, were occupied by the buildings and grounds of the New York Hospital. Thomas Street was afterwards cut through the grounds. As the City Hospital, the inst.i.tution had been projected before the War of the Revolution. The building was completed about 1775. During the war it was used as a barrack. In 1791 it was opened for the admission of patients. On the lawn, which extended to Broadway, various societies gathered on occasions of annual parades and celebrations. The hospital buildings were in the centre of the big enclosure. At the northern end of the lawn, the present corner of Broadway and Worth Street, was the New Jerusalem Church.

[Sidenote: Riley's Fifth Ward Hotel]

On the corner of West Broadway and Franklin Street was Riley's Fifth Ward Hotel, which was a celebrated place in its day. It was the prototype of the modern elaborately fitted saloon, but was then a place of instruction and a moral resort. In a large room, reached by wide stairs from the street, were objects of interest and art in gla.s.s cases--pictures of statesmen, uniforms of the soldiers of all nations, Indian war implements, famous belongings of celebrated men, as well as such simple curiosities as a two-headed calf. On Franklin Street, before Riley's door, was a marble statue minus a head, one arm and sundry other parts. It was all that remained of the statue of the Earl of Chatham, William Pitt, which had stood in Wall Street until dragged down by British soldiers. For twenty-five years the battered wreck had lain in the corporation yard, until found and honored with a place before his door by Riley. At the latter's death the Historical Society took the remains of the statue, and it is in its rooms yet.

The pa.s.sage of Washington through the island is commemorated by a tablet on a warehouse at 255 West Street, near Laight, which is inscribed:

TO MARK THE LANDING PLACE OF GENERAL GEORGE WASHINGTON, JUNE 25, 1775, ON HIS WAY TO CAMBRIDGE TO COMMAND THE AMERICAN ARMY.

[Sidenote: St. John's Church]

St. John's Church of Trinity Parish, in Varick Street close to Beach, was built in 1807. When the church was finished St. John's Park, occupying the entire block opposite--between Varick and Hudson, Laight and Beach Streets--was established for the exclusive use of residents whose houses faced it. Before it was established, the place had been a sandy beach that stretched to the river. The locality became the most fashionable of the city in 1825. By 1850 there had begun a gradual decline, for persons of wealth were moving up-town, and it degenerated to a tenement-house level after 1869, when the park disappeared beneath the foundations of the big freight depot which now occupies the site.

Around the corner from the church, a block away in Beach Street, is a tiny park, one of the last remnants of the Annetje Jans Farm. The bit of farm is carefully guarded now, much more so than was the entire beautiful tract. It forms a triangle and is fenced in by an iron railing, with one gate, that is fast barred and never opened. There is one struggling tree, wrapped close in winter with burlap, but it seems to feel its loneliness and does not thrive.

[Sidenote: The Red Fort]

From the centre of St. John's Park on the west, Hubert Street extends to the river. This street, now given over to manufacturers, was, in 1824, the chief promenade of the city next to the Battery Walk. It led directly to the Red Fort at the river. The fort was some distance from the sh.o.r.e. It was built early in the century, was round and of brick, and a bridge led to it. It was never of any practical use, but, like Castle Garden, was used as a pleasure resort.

[Sidenote: Lispenard's Meadows]

[Sidenote: Cows on Broadway]

Early in the eighteenth century, Anthony Rutgers held under lease from Trinity a section of the Church Farm which took in the Dominie's Bouwerie, a property lying between where Broadway is and the Hudson River. The southern and northern lines were approximately the present Reade and Ca.n.a.l Streets. It was a wild spot, remaining in a primitive condition--part marsh, part swamp--covered with dwarf trees and tangled underbrush. Cattle wandered into this region and were lost. It was a dangerous place, too, for men who wandered into it. To live near it was unhealthy, because of the foul gases which abounded. It seemed to be a worthless tract. About the year 1730, Anthony Rutgers suggested to the King in Council that he would have this land drained and made wholesome and useful provided it was given to him. His argument was so strong and sensible that the land--seventy acres, now in the business section of the city--was given him and he improved it. At the northern edge of the improved waste lived Leonard Lispenard, in a farm house which was then in a northern suburb of the city, bounded by what is Hudson, Ca.n.a.l and Vestry Streets. Lispenard married the daughter of Rutgers, and the land falling to him it became Lispenard's Meadows. In Lispenard's time Broadway ended where White Street is now and a set of bars closed the thoroughfare against cows that wandered along it. The one bit of the meadows that remains is the tiny park at the foot of Ca.n.a.l Street on the west side. Anthony Rutgers' homestead was close by what is Broadway and Thomas Street. After his death in 1750 it became a public house, and, with the surrounding grounds, was called Ranelagh Garden, a popular place in its time.

[Sidenote: Ca.n.a.l Street]

On a line with the present Ca.n.a.l Street, a stream ran from the Fresh Water Pond to the Hudson River, at the upper edge of Lispenard's Meadows. A project, widely and favorably considered in 1825, but which came to nothing, advocated the extension of Ca.n.a.l Street, as a ca.n.a.l, from river to river. The street took its name naturally from the little stream which was called a ca.n.a.l. When the street was filled in and improved, the stream was continued through a sewer leading from Centre Street. The locality at the foot of the street has received the local t.i.tle of "Suicide Slip" because of the number of persons in recent years who have ended their lives by jumping into Hudson River at that point.

In Broadway, between Grand and Howard Streets, in 1819, West's circus was opened. In 1827 this was converted into a theatre called the Broadway. Later it was occupied by Tattersall's horse market.

[Sidenote: Original Olympic Theatre]

Next door to Tattersall's, at No. 444 Broadway, the original Olympic Theatre was built in 1837. W. R. Blake and Henry E. Willard built and managed the house. It was quite small and their aim had been to present plays of a high order of merit by an exceptionally good company. The latter included besides Blake, Mrs. Maeder and George Barrett. After a few months of struggle against unprofitable business, prices were lowered. Little success was met with, the performances being of too artistic a nature to be popular, and Blake gave up the effort and the house. In December, 1839, Wm. Mitch.e.l.l leased the house and gave performances at low prices.

At No. 453 Broadway, between Grand and Howard Streets, in 1844 John Littlefield, a corn doctor, set up a place, designating himself as a chiropodist--an occupation before unknown under that t.i.tle.

At No. 485 Broadway, near Broome Street, Brougham's Lyceum was built in 1850, and opened in December with an "occasional rigmarole" and a farce.

In 1852 the house was opened, September 8, as Wallack's Lyceum, having been acquired by James W. Wallack. Wallack ended his career as an actor in this house. In 1861 he removed to his new theatre, corner Thirteenth Street and Broadway. Still later the Lyceum was called the Broadway Theatre.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

"Murderers' Row" has its start where Watts Street ends at Sullivan, midway of the block between Grand and Broome Streets. It could not be identified by its name, for it is not a "row" at all, merely an ill-smelling alley, an arcade extending through a block of battered tenements. After running half its course through the block, the alley is broken by an intersecting s.p.a.ce between houses--a s.p.a.ce that is taken up by push carts, barrels, tumbledown wooden balconies and lines of drying clothes. "Murderers' Row" is celebrated in police annals as a crime centre. But the evil doers were driven out long years ago and the houses given over to Italians. These people are excessively poor, and have such a hard struggle for life as to have no desire to regard the laws of the Health Board. Constant complaints are made that the houses are hovels and the alley a breeding-place for disease.

[Sidenote: Greenwich Village]

Greenwich Village sprang from the oldest known settlement on the Island of Manhattan. It was an Indian village, cl.u.s.tering about the site of the present West Washington Market, at the foot of Gansevoort Street, when Hendrick Hudson reached the island, in 1609.

The region was a fertile one, and its natural drainage afforded it sanitary advantages which even to this day make it a desirable place of residence. There was abundance of wild fowl and the waters were alive with half a hundred varieties of fish. There were sand hills, sometimes rising to a height of a hundred feet, while to the south was a marsh tenanted by wild fowl and crossed by a brook flowing from the north. It was this Manetta brook which was to mark the boundary of Greenwich Village when Governor Kieft set aside the land as a bouwerie for the Dutch West India Company. The brook arose about where Twenty-first Street now crosses Fifth Avenue, flowed to the southwest edge of Union Square, thence to Fifth Avenue and Eighth Street, across where Washington Square is, along the line of Minetta Street, and then to Hudson River, between Houston and Charlton Streets.

[Sidenote: Sir Peter Warren]

The interests of the little settlement were greatly advanced in 1744, when Sir Peter Warren, later the hero of Louisburg, married Susannah De Lancey and went to live there, purchasing three hundred acres of land.

Epidemics in the city from time to time drove many persons to Greenwich as a place of refuge. But it remained for the fatal yellow-fever epidemic of 1822, when 384 persons died in the city, to make Greenwich a thriving suburb instead of a struggling village. Twenty thousand persons fled the city, the greater number settling in Greenwich. Banks, public offices, stores of every sort were hurriedly opened, and whole blocks of buildings sprang up in a few days. Streets were left where lanes had been, and corn-fields were transformed into business and dwelling blocks.

[Sidenote: Evolution of Greenwich Streets]

The sudden influx of people and consequent trade into the village brought about the immediate need for street improvements. Existing streets were lengthened, footpaths and alleys were widened, but all was done without any regard to regularity. The result was the jumble of streets still to be met with in that region, where the thoroughfares are often short and often end in a cul-de-sac.

In time the streets of the City Plan crept up to those of Greenwich Village, and the village was swallowed up by the city. But it was not swallowed up so completely but that the irregular lines of the village streets are plainly to be seen on any city map.

Near where Spring Street crosses Hudson there was established, about 1765, Brannan's Garden, on the northern edge of Lispenard's Meadows. It was like the modern road-house. Greenwich Road was close to it, and pleasure-seekers, who thronged the road on the way from the city to Greenwich Village, were the chief guests of the house.