BROOKLYN.
Brooklyn a Suburb of New York.--A City of Homes.--Public
Buildings.--Churches.--Henry Ward Beecher.--Thomas De Witt
Talmage.--Theodore L. Cuyler, D.D.--Justin D. Fulton, D.D.--
R. S. Storrs, D.D.--Navy Yard.--Atlantic Dock.--Washington
Park.--Prospect Park.--Greenwood Cemetery.--Evergreen and
Cyprus Hills Cemeteries.--Coney Island.--Rockaway.--Staten
Island.--Glen Island.--Future of Brooklyn.
New York holds such supremacy over the other cities of the United States
that she almost overshadows Brooklyn, which lies so near her as to be
separated only by the narrow channel of the East River. Yet Brooklyn in
any other locality would be a city of the first importance, ranking, as
she does, the third in the Union as to size and population, and
numbering not less than six hundred thousand inhabitants. Practically
New York and Brooklyn are but one city, with identical commercial
interests, and a great deal else in common. Many of the most prominent
business men of the former city find their homes in the latter; and by
means of the numerous ferries and the great Suspension Bridge there is a
constant interchange of people between them. The time may come when they
will be united under one municipal government; though, no doubt, many of
the older residents of Brooklyn, who have helped to build her up to her
present extent and prosperity, would object to losing her name and
identity. But should such a union ever take place, there will be at once
created, next to London, the largest city of the world, with a
population of not less than two millions of people.
Brooklyn is situated on the west end of Long Island, and overlooks both
the East River and the Bay. It extends nearly eight miles from north to
south, and is about four miles from east to west. Its business is not so
extended or so important as that of New York, nor, as a rule, are its
business edifices so imposing, though some of them present a very fine
appearance. It is, in fact, a great suburb of the metropolitan city,
composed more largely of dwellings than of commercial houses. Its
business men, each morning, make an exodus across the East River to Wall
street, or Broadway, or other streets of New York, and then return at
night. It is, in fact, a great city of homes, all of them comfortable
and many of them elegant. There is no squalor, such as is found in Mott
or Baxter streets and the Five Points and their neighborhood, in its
sister city. Handsome mansions, tasteful cottages and plain but neat
rows of dwellings are found everywhere, and the streets are beautifully
shaded by avenues of trees.
The public buildings of Brooklyn worthy of notice are few, compared to
those of New York. Fulton street is its principal thoroughfare, and
contains occasional handsome edifices. The City Hall, on an open square
at the junction of Fulton court and Joraleman street, is a fine, white
marble building, in Ionic style, with six columns supporting the roof of
the portico. It is surmounted by a tower one hundred and fifty-three
feet in height. Just back of this, to the southeast, and facing toward
Fulton street, is the County Court House, with a white marble front, a
Corinthian portico, and an iron dome one hundred and four feet high.
Beside the Court House, to the westward, stands the Municipal Building,
also of marble, four stories in height, with a mansard roof, and a tower
at each corner. The Post Office is in Washington street, north of the
City Hall. The Long Island Historical Society has a fine edifice at the
corner of Clinton and Pierrepont streets, and possesses a large library
and collection of curiosities. The Academy of Design, on Montague
street, has a handsome exterior; opposite is the Mercantile Library, a
striking Gothic structure, containing two reading rooms and a library of
forty-eight thousand volumes. The building of the Young Men's Christian
Association is on Fulton street, at the corner of Gallatin Place, and
contains a library and free reading room. The Penitentiary is an immense
stone structure on Nostrand avenue, near the city limits. The County
Jail, in Raymond street, is constructed of red sandstone, in castellated
Gothic style. The Long Island College Hospital is an imposing building,
surrounded by extensive grounds, on Henry street near Pacific.
Brooklyn is, preeminently, the City of Churches, of which she is said to
contain not less than one hundred. She has secured the services of the
most eminent clergymen in the country, and thousands of people each year
make a pilgrimage thither, for the sole purpose of listening to some one
or other of those whom they have long admired and appreciated at a
distance. Most prominent among all these clergymen is Henry Ward
Beecher, who has been the pastor of Plymouth Church ever since its
organization in 1847. Mr. Beecher came of a noted family, his father,
Rev. Lyman Beecher, being one of the theological lights of his day and
generation, while his brothers and sisters have all distinguished
themselves in some way. The author of "Uncle Tom's Cabin" was his
sister, Mrs. Harriet Beecher Stowe, while all of his brothers are, like
himself, in the ministry.
Mr. Beecher's popularity has been unparalleled. Besides the hundreds who
listen to him every Sunday, each sermon is reported in full and read by
thousands of people throughout the country. He has been a leader of
liberal thought in the Protestant churches; and it is largely due to his
bold and advanced utterances that the church in which he holds communion
has taken a long step ahead of the position which it occupied early in
the present century.
Plymouth Church is a plain edifice, in Orange street, near Hicks. It has
a large seating capacity, yet every Sunday it is filled. A goodly
proportion of the audience is composed of strangers, who are not
permitted to take seats until the pewholders are provided for. These
visitors stand in long rows at each of the doors, the rows sometimes
extending out upon the sidewalk, waiting their turns to be seated. Ten
minutes before the hour of service they are conducted to seats, and the
pewholders who come after that time must take their chances with the
rest. On pleasant Sundays every seat is occupied, and the aisles and
vestibules are crowded.
Mr. Beecher occupies no pulpit, in the strict sense of the word. In
front of the organ and choir is a platform, upon which are three chairs
and three small tables, or stands. On one of the latter is a Bible, and
on the others a profusion of flowers. One realizes in this church the
grandeur of congregational singing, which is led here by a choir of one
hundred voices, and accompanied by a magnificent organ. When the entire
congregation join in some familiar hymn, the singing is exceedingly
impressive. Mr. Beecher, albeit his reputation is that of a sensational
preacher, makes little attempt at sensationalism in his manner of
delivery. He reads well and speaks well, with a clear, distinct
enunciation, which is heard in every part of his church. He talks
directly to his point, using plain but forcible language, his sermons
sparkling with original thought and brilliant language, all based upon a
foundation of plain, practical common sense. He has great dramatic
power, yet manifests it in so unstudied a manner that it is never
offensive. He imitates the voice and manner of the man of whom he is
speaking; the maudlin condition of the drunkard, the whine of the
beggar, the sanctimoniousness of the hypocrite; and keeps his audience
interested and on the alert. The Friday evening lectures are also
features of this church, and are conducted without formality, yet in a
decorous manner.
The Brooklyn preacher who is a rival of Beecher, in the popular
estimation, is Thomas De Witt Talmage, whose church is in Schermerhorn
street, and known as the Tabernacle. It is built in Gothic style,
semi-circular in form, like an opera house, and is capable of seating
5,000 persons. It is the largest Protestant place of worship in the
United States, yet every Sunday it is filled nearly, if not quite, to
its utmost capacity.
Talmage was born at Bound Brook, New Jersey, in 1832. After graduating
at the Theological Seminary, at New Brunswick, he preached in
Belleville, New Jersey; Syracuse, New York; and Philadelphia, until
1869, when he came to Brooklyn to be pastor of the Central Presbyterian
Church. Within a year he had become the acknowledged rival of Beecher.
His church was crowded, and in 1870 a large amphitheatre, called the
Brooklyn Tabernacle, capable of seating four thousand persons, was
built. This building was destroyed by fire in 1872, and while it was
being rebuilt in its present size and form, Talmage preached in the
Academy of Music, to immense crowds. The great organ used in the Boston
Coliseum, during the Musical Peace Jubilee, accompanies the singing at
the Tabernacle, which is principally congregational, though a choir of
four male singers give one or more voluntaries. The singing was led by
Arbuckle, the celebrated cornetist, but he died in May, 1883, and was
buried on the day of the opening of the Suspension Bridge.
In 1879, Talmage visited Great Britain, and made a most successful
lecture tour, receiving from five to six hundred dollars for each
lecture, and netting about fifty thousand dollars for the tour. In this
country he has not been so popular as a lecturer as Beecher. He is a
tall, angular man, with dark hair, red whiskers, light complexion, large
mouth and blue eyes. His pulpit is merely a platform, about thirty feet
in length, built in front of the organ, between the pipes and the
performer; and back and forth on this he paces while delivering his
sermon, frequently making forcible gestures, which have caused him to be
caricatured as a contortionist or gymnast. He is fluent in his style,
with much originality of expression, yet with a certain drawl in the
middle of his sentences, and snarl at their end, which renders his
elocution not entirely pleasing. He carries his audience with him
through the heights and depths of his oratory, now provoking to smiles,
again affecting to tears.
Theodore L. Cuyler, D.D., has been pastor of the Lafayette Avenue
Presbyterian Church since 1860. He was born at Aurora, New York, on
January tenth, 1822, and preached in Market street church, in New York
City, from 1853 to 1860. The church edifice where he now ministers is
one of the most spacious and complete, in all its arrangements, in
either New York or Brooklyn, having seats for two thousand people, while
the Sabbath-school hall will accommodate one thousand.
Dr. Cuyler, during the thirty-seven years of his ministry, has delivered
five thousand three hundred and forty discourses, and a multitude of
platform addresses. He has received four thousand and forty-one persons
into church membership, of whom about one-half have been on confession
of faith. He has published several volumes and over two thousand
articles in the leading religious newspapers. The present membership of
the Lafayette Avenue Church is nineteen hundred and twenty persons. His
congregations are very large on every Sunday, and he is an untiring
pastor, especially zealous for temperance. He preaches the old orthodox
gospel, with no "modern improvements." His discourses are able and
eloquent, while his chief aim in the pulpit is to reach the heart.
Justin D. Fulton, D.D., is still another eminent clergyman of Brooklyn.
He was born in 1828, in Sherburne, Madison County, New York, and
literally worked his way through college and to the ministry. He began
his public life in St. Louis, where he was engaged as editor of the
_Gospel Banner_. Preaching in the Tabernacle Baptist Church of that
city, he delivered the first Free-state sermon ever heard in St. Louis.
He also put his anti-slavery sentiments into his paper, and was shortly
deposed from his position as editor because he would not believe
slavery to be right and defend it. From St. Louis he went to Sandusky,
Ohio, preaching there a short period; and from thence, in 1859, to
Albany, New York, where he became pastor of the Tabernacle Church. In
1863 he received a call from the Tremont Temple Church of Boston, and
labored with that church for ten years, increasing its membership from
fifty to one thousand. In 1873, he became pastor of the Hanson Place
Church, of Brooklyn, leaving it, however, in 1875, to organize the
Centennial Baptist Church, in the same city. His popularity as a
preacher became so great that it was presently found necessary to seek a
larger place of worship. Therefore, in 1879, the Rink was purchased, for
much less than its original cost, and was consecrated as a People's
Church. The Rink is an immense edifice, capable of seating nearly six
thousand persons.
Dr. Fulton is an able writer, having published a number of volumes, the
most prominent among which is "The Roman Catholic Element in America."
In the old days of slavery he was a most able and eloquent anti-slavery
advocate, and as such created strong prejudice against himself in
certain quarters. He preached the funeral sermon of Colonel Ellsworth,
in Tweddle Hall, Albany, in which he said that the war must go on until
the musket should be put in the hands of the black man, and he was
permitted to prove his manhood on the battle field. This drew down upon
him the denunciation of the conservative press; but he was appointed
Chaplain of Governor Morgan's staff, and served in hospital and camp. He
is no less famous as an advocate of temperance, and devotes much of his
energies to work in this field.
In person, Dr. Fulton is tall, stout, finely formed, with black whiskers
and moustache, and a somewhat bald forehead. His manner in the pulpit is
full of earnestness and impetuosity. He sometimes overwhelms his
audience with a whirlwind of words. He has strong magnetic and nervous
power, while he impresses his listeners with his sincerity and candor.
He makes frequent and expressive gestures, and combines in his oratory
the carefulness of art with the fire of genius. In belief he is
thoroughly orthodox, having no leanings toward the so-called
"liberality" of many popular clergymen.
R. S. Storrs, D.D., is pastor of the Church of the Pilgrims, at the
corner of Remsen and Henry streets. He is one of the most noted
clergymen of the city, and was selected to assist in the opening of the
New York and Brooklyn Suspension Bridge, making one of the addresses of
the occasion.
The Unitarian Church of the Saviour, at the corner of Pierrepont street
and Monroe Place, is an elaborate Gothic edifice, as is also St. Ann's
Episcopal Church, at the corner of Clinton and Livingston streets. The
Roman Catholic Church of St. Charles Borromeo, in Sidney Place, is
famous for its music. The Dutch Reformed Church, in Pierrepont street,
is of brown stone, in the richest Corinthian style, and the interior
elaborately finished.
The United States Navy Yard is one of the features of Brooklyn, and is
the chief naval station of the country. It is on the south shore of
Wallabout Bay, and contains forty-five acres. The yard is inclosed by a
high brick wall, and contains numerous foundries, workshops and
storehouses. Vessels of every kind used by the navy may be seen at
almost any time at the yard, and it has also a large and varied
collection of trophies taken in war and relics of earlier times, which
prove of interest to the visitor.
At the other extremity of Brooklyn, a mile below South Ferry, is the
Atlantic Dock, which covers an area of forty-two and one-half acres, and
deserves special attention. It is surrounded by piers of solid granite,
upon which are spacious warehouses.
In the heart of the city, a little south of the Navy Yard, between
Myrtle and DeKalb avenues, is Washington Park, or old Fort Greene. It is
on an elevated plateau, contains thirty acres, and commands extensive
views. Its name of Fort Greene dates back to the time of the Revolution,
when it was the seat of extensive fortifications.
The special pride of Brooklyn is Prospect Park, one of the finest in
America, where art and the landscape gardener have assisted rather than
thwarted nature in her efforts to produce beauty. It is situated on an
elevated ridge on the southeastern borders of the city, and from certain
localities commands broad views of Brooklyn, New York, the inner and
outer harbor, and the Jersey shore. It contains five hundred and fifty
acres, which embrace broad, green lawns, grassy slopes, groves, wooded
hills, beautiful with ferns and wild flowers, lakes and rocky dells. It
contains eight miles of drives, four miles of bridle paths, and eleven
miles of walks. At the main entrance, on Flatbush avenue, is a large,
circular open place known as the Plaza, paved with stone and bordered by
grassy mounds. A fountain of novel design furnishes the welcome sound of
splashing, trickling water, and not far distant from it is a bronze
statue of President Lincoln. Within the Park, on an eminence overlooking
the cottages and dell, is a monument, erected in 1877, to the memory of
John Howard Payne, author of "Home, Sweet Home."
On Gowanus Heights, overlooking Gowanus Bay, in the southern portion of
Brooklyn, is situated Greenwood Cemetery, one of the most beautiful
"cities of the dead" in the world. It was laid out in 1842, and contains
over five hundred acres. At least two hundred thousand interments have
been made in it. It is a perfect wilderness of beauty. The surface of
the ground is uneven, and hills and valleys, grassy slopes, beautiful
little lakes with fountains playing in their midst, overshadowing trees,
a profusion of brilliant flowers, and the white or gray gleam of a
thousand monuments, varied and beautiful in design, all unite in forming
an exquisite spot for the resting place of the dead, which is a fitting
embodiment and expression of the loving remembrance in which they
continue to be held by the living. Among the many elegant and expensive
monuments which this cemetery contains, not one will attract more
attention for its beauty and elaborateness than that erected to
Charlotte Canda, a young French girl, whose fortune was expended in the
marble pile above her grave. The main entrance to Greenwood, near Fifth
Avenue and Twenty-third street, has a magnificent gateway in the pointed
Gothic style, and opens upon a most enchanting landscape. On an
elevation to the right of this entrance, within this cemetery, is
obtained an extensive view of Brooklyn and the bay. The cemetery
contains nineteen miles of carriage roads, and seventeen miles of
footpaths.
Four miles to the eastward of Greenwood are the cemeteries of the
Evergreen and Cypress Hills, both beautiful spots, and the latter
especially celebrated as containing the grave of a large number of
soldiers of the late war.
Radiating from Brooklyn, in almost every direction, are routes leading
to some of the most frequented pleasure resorts of the country. On the
southern coast of Long Island, just east of the Narrows, is Coney
Island, four and a half miles long, with a firm, gently-sloping beach.
The island is divided into four distinct places of resort: Coney Island
Point, or Morton's, at the west end, the oldest of the four; West
Brighton Beach, or Cable's, where there is an iron pier one thousand
feet long, extending out into the ocean, and an observatory three
hundred feet high; Brighton Beach, connecting with West Brighton by a
wide drive and promenade, known as the Concourse; and Manhattan Beach,
the most fashionable resort on the island. At the latter place are two
vast hotels, and an amphitheatre, with three thousand five hundred
seats, upon the beach, for the accommodation of those who wish to watch
the bathers.
Rockaway Beach is to the westward of Coney Island, and is about four
miles long, with surf bathing on one side and still bathing on the
other. A colossal tubular iron pier, twelve hundred feet long, extends
out into the ocean, affording a landing for steamboats.
Staten Island, the western boundary of the Narrows, is a sort of earthly
paradise, which separates the Lower Bay from the Upper. It is a
beautiful island, having an area of nearly sixty square miles, and
rising boldly from the waters of the bays. It commands extensive views
over harbor and ocean, and is a favorite summer home or place of
temporary resort.
Along the shores of the Sound are many places for summer rest and
recreation. Glen Island, lying in the East River, is a famous and
attractive picnicing spot for both New Yorkers and Brooklynites.
Brooklyn is a beautiful and an extensive city, a fitting suburb of the
metropolis. The additional facilities for transit between the two cities
afforded by the completion of the Suspension Bridge will tend to her
material advantage, drawing thither a still larger class of people to
make their homes in its quiet suburban streets and avenues, out of the
noise and whirl of the great city. Her prosperity must keep pace with
that of her elder sister, and so close is the bond of common interest
between them, that whatever benefits one must benefit the other.