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FIFTH AVENUE
by
ARTHUR BARTLETT MAURICE
Author of "New York in Fiction," "The New York of
the Novelists," "Bottled up in Belgium," etc.
Drawings by Allan G. Cram
New York
Dodd, Mead and Company
1918
[Illustration: "MASSIVE AND SPLENDIDLY GOTHIC IS ST. THOMAS'S. THE
CHURCH DATES FROM 1825. IN 1867 THE PRESENT SITE WAS SECURED, AND THE
BROWN-STONE EDIFICE OF THE EARLY SEVENTIES WAS FOR NEARLY TWO
GENERATIONS THE ULTRA-FASHIONABLE EPISCOPAL CHURCH OF THE CITY"]
FOREWORD
In the making of this book the author has drawn from many sources.
First, for many suggestions, he is indebted to Mr. Guy Nichols, the
librarian of the Players Club, whose knowledge of the city is so
profound that his friends occasionally refer to him as "the man who
invented New York." The author is indebted to the Fifth Avenue
Association and to the invariable courtesy of those persons in the New
York Public Library with whom he has come in contact.
Among the books that have been consulted are, first of all, the
admirable monographs, "Fifth Avenue," and "Fifth Avenue Events," issued
by the Fifth Avenue Bank. From these he has drawn freely. Among other
volumes are "The Diary of Philip Hone," Ward McAllister's "Society as I
Have Found It," George Cary Eggleston's "Recollections of a Varied
Life," Matthew Hale Smith's "Sunshine and Shadow in New York" (1869),
Seymour Dunbar's "A History of Travel in America," Miss Henderson's "A
Loiterer in New York," William Allen Butler's "A Retrospect of Forty
Years," Fremont Rider's "New York City," Francis Gerry Fairfield's "The
Clubs of New York," Anna Alice Chapin's "Greenwich Village," Theodore
Wolff's "Literary Haunts and Homes," Rupert Hughes's "The Real New
York," James Grant Wilson's "Thackeray in the United States," Mrs.
Burton Harrison's "Recollections, Grave and Gay," Abram C. Dayton's
"Last Days of Knickerbocker Life in New York," and Martha J. Lamb's
"History of the City of New York." Also various articles in the
magazines and newspapers.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER Page
I THE SHADOW OF THE KNICKERBOCKERS 1
II THE STRETCH OF TRADITION 29
III A KNICKERBOCKER PEPYS 41
IV GLIMPSES OF THE SIXTIES 60
V FOURTEENTH TO MADISON SQUARE 78
VI SOME GREAT DAYS ON THE AVENUE 100
VII SOME AVENUE CLUBS IN THE EARLY DAYS 125
VIII LITERARY LANDMARKS AND FIGURES 150
IX FIFTH AVENUE IN FICTION 165
X TRAILS OF BOHEMIA 183
XI THE SLOPE OF MURRAY HILL 199
XII CONFESSIONS OF AN EXILED BUS 211
XIII A POST-KNICKERBOCKER PETRONIUS 226
XIV THE CREST OF MURRAY HILL 244
XV GIANT STRIDES OF COMMERCE 255
XVI BEYOND MURRAY HILL 266
XVII APPROACHING THE PLAZA 285
XVIII STRETCHES OF THE AVENUE 297
XIX MINE HOST ON THE AVENUE 312
ILLUSTRATIONS
"Massive and splendidly Gothic is St. Thomas's. The church
dates from 1825. In 1867 the present site was secured,
and the brown-stone edifice of the early seventies was for
nearly two generations the ultra-fashionable Episcopal
church of the city" Frontispiece
FACING PAGE
The Washington Arch. A splendid sentinel guarding the
approach to the Avenue. Beyond, houses dating from the
thirties of the last century, that mark the beginning of the
Stretch of Tradition 14
At the northeast corner of the Avenue and Tenth Street is the
Episcopal Church of the Ascension, built in 1840, and
consecrated November 5, 1841. It belongs to a part of
the Avenue, from the Square to Twelfth Street, which has
changed little since 1845 32
Madison Square. Yesterday it was the home of the Flora
McFlimsies of the William Allen Butler poem "Nothing
to Wear." Today, in the eyes of the Manhattanite, it is
the centre of the Universe 68
"The Tower of the Metropolitan Building. Whatever artists
may think of it the tower is, structurally, one of the wonders
of the world. Exactly halfway between sidewalk and
point of spire is the great clock with the immense dials" 86
In the bright sunlight the Avenue glitters with the pavillions
of patriotism. Old Glory may be counted by the tens of
thousands; England's Union Jack, and the Tricolour of
France by the thousands. To forestall the Kaiser the
Avenue is "coming across" 112
Where the Avenue and Thirty-fourth Street cross stands the
building popularly known as the Knickerbocker Trust Company.
Here, in the middle of the last century, "Sarsaparilla"
Townsend built in brown-stone, and A.T. Stewart
later built in white marble 136
"At the northwest corner of Fifty-fourth Street is the
University Club, to the mind of Arnold Bennett ('Your
United States'), the finest of all the fine structures that
line the Avenue" 172
"The site of the old Lenox Library is now occupied by the
house of Mr. Henry C. Frick, one of the great show residences
of the Avenue and the City. A broad garden
separates the house, which is eighteenth century English,
from the sidewalk" 218
The terrace of the Public Library. Today the spot is the
scene of the activities of those engaged in the work of
speeding America's Answer. Once it was far uptown, and
on the eastern side of the Avenue were the residences
known as "Spanish Row," or "The House of Mansions". 248
Commerce, with giant stride, is marching up the stately Avenue.
The story of a business house that began in the neighbourhood
of Cherry Hill, migrated to Grand Street, thence
to Broadway and Union Square, and again to the slope
of Murray Hill, is, in epitome, the story of the city itself. 260
"On the site of the old Croton Reservoir the cornerstone of
the Public Library was laid November 10, 1902, and the
building opened to the public May 23, 1911. To it were
carried the treasures of the Astor Library and the Lenox
Library" 268
Entrance to the Public Library. The Library, 590 feet long
and 270 deep, was built by the City at a cost of about nine
million dollars. The material is largely Vermont marble,
and the style that of the modern renaissance 274
"O beautiful, long, loved Avenue,
So faithless to truth and yet so true."--JOAQUIN MILLER 280
South of where "St. Gaudens's hero, gaunt and grim, rides on
with Victory leading him," may be seen the Fountain of
Abundance, and, in the background, the new Plaza Hotel 290
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, on the site of what was once
the Deer Park, had its origin in a meeting of the Art
Committee of the Union League Club in November, 1869 304
FIFTH AVENUE
CHAPTER I
_The Shadow of the Knickerbockers_
The Shadow of the Knickerbockers--An Old-time Map--The Beginnings
of the Avenue--Watering Place Life--The Beach at Rockaway--Coney
Island--Newspapers in the Thirties--Early Day Marriages--The
Knickerbocker Sabbath--Home Customs--Restaurants and Hotels--The
Leather-heads--Conditions of Travel--Stage-coaches and Steamers--The
Clipper Ships--When Dickens First Came.
Boughton, had you bid me chant
Hymns to Peter Stuyvesant.
Had you bid me sing of Wouter.
(He! the Onion-head! the Doubter!)
But to rhyme of this one-mocker,
Who shall rhyme to Knickerbocker?
--_Austin Dobson_.
Before the writer, as he begins the pleasant task, is an old
half-illegible map, or rather, fragment of a map. Near-by are three or
four dull prints. They are of a hundred years ago, or thereabouts, and
tell of a New York when President Monroe was in the White House, and
Governor De Witt Clinton in the State Capitol, at Albany, and Mayor
Colden in the City Hall. To pore over them is to achieve a certain
contentment of the soul. Probably it held itself to be turbulent in
its day--that old New York. Without doubt it had its squabbles, its
turmoils, its excitements. We smile at the old town--its limitations,
its inconveniences, its _naïvetés_. But perhaps, in these years of
storm, and stress, and heartache, we envy more than a little. It is not
merely the architectural story that the old maps, prints, diaries tell;
in them we can find an age that is gone, catch fleeting glimpses of
people long since dust to dust, look at past manners, fashions,
pleasures and contrast them with our own.
But to begin with the old map. The lettering beneath conveys the
information that it was prepared for the City in 1819-1820 by John
Randel, Jr., and that it shows the farms superimposed upon the
Commissioner's map of 1811. Through the centre of the map there is a
line indicating Fifth Avenue north to Thirteenth Street. Here and there
is a spot apparently intended to represent a farmhouse, but that is all;
for in 1820, though Greenwich Village and Chelsea were, the city proper
was far to the south. Some of the names on the old map are familiar and
some are not.
Just above the bending lane that ran along the north side of Washington
Square, then the Potter's Field, may be read "Trustees of Sailor's Snug
Harbor." The land thus marked extends from what is now Waverly Place to
what is now Ninth Street. In 1790 Captain Robert Richard Randall paid
five thousand pounds sterling for twenty-one acres of good farming land.
In 1801 he died, and his will directed that a "Snug Harbor" for old
salts be built upon his farm, the produce of which, he believed, would
forever furnish his pensioners with vegetables and cereal rations. Later
Randall's trustees leased the farm in building lots and placed "Snug
Harbor" in Staten Island. Above the estate, in diagonal form, and at one
point crossing Fifth Avenue to the west, was the large farm of Henry
Brevoort. More limited holdings, in the names of Gideon Tucker, William
Hamilton, and John Morse, separate, in the map, the Brevoort property
from the estates of John Mann, Jr., and Mary Mann. The latter must have
been a landowner of some importance in her day, for the fragment of a
chart runs into the margin above the line of Thirteenth Street without
indicating the beginning of any other ownership.
On the land to the west of the Avenue line may be read "Heirs of John
Rogers," "William W. Gilbert," "Nicholson" (the Christian name lies
somewhere beyond the map horizon), and "Heirs of Henry Spingler."
Irrigation is indicated by a line, running in a general northwesterly
direction, bearing the name "Manetta Water," while a thinner line,
joining the first line from the northeast, is described as "East Branch
of Manetta Water." Manetta Water was the English name. The Dutch had
called it "Bestavaer's Rivulet." It was a sparkling stream, beloved of
trout fishermen, rising in the high ground above Twenty-first Street,
flowing southeasterly to Fifth Avenue at Ninth Street, then on to midway
between the present Eighth Street and Waverly Place, where it swung
southwesterly and emptied into the Hudson River near Charlton Street. It
ran between sandhills, sometimes rising to the height of a hundred feet,
and marked the course of a famous Indian hunting ground.
The joy of the Izaak Waltons of the past is occasionally the despair of
the Fifth Avenue householders of the present. Flooded cellars and
weakened foundations may be traced to the purling waters of the
sparkling stream. But perhaps the trout were jumping. Then the last
fisherman probably worried very little about the annoyances to which his
descendants were to be subjected. In much the same spirit we are saying
today, "What will it all matter a hundred years hence?"
Beginning at the Potter's Field, the line of what is now Fifth Avenue
left the "Road over the Sandhills" or the "Zantberg" of the Dutch, later
known as Art Street, long since gone from the map, and crossed the
Robert Richard Randall Estate. Thence it ran through the Henry Brevoort
farm, which originally extended from Ninth to Eighteenth Streets, and
which had been bought in 1714 for four hundred pounds. Crossing the
tributary stream at Twelfth Street, it passed a small pond between
Thirteenth and Fourteenth Streets, and then ran on, over low and level
ground, to Twenty-first Street, then called "Love's Lane." To the right
was the swamp and marsh that afterwards became Union Square. Following
the trail farther, the hardy voyager wandered over "hills and valleys,
dales and fields," through a countryside where trout, mink, otter, and
muskrat swam in the brooks and pools; brant, black duck, and yellow-leg
splashed in the marshes and fox, rabbit, woodcock, and partridge found
covert in the thicket. Here and there was a farm, but the city, then
numbering one hundred thousand persons, was far away. Then, in 1824, the
first stretch of the Avenue, from Waverly Place to Thirteenth Street,
was opened, and the northward march of the great thoroughfare began. Let
us try to picture the old town of that day, the city that was still
under the shadow of the Knickerbockers.
First, at the southern extremity of the island, was the Battery and
Battery Park. When, in "The Story of a New York House," the late H.C.
Bunner described the little square of green jutting into the waters of
the upper bay, it was as it had been some years before the earliest
venturesome pioneers builded in lower Fifth Avenue. From the pillared
balcony of his house on State Street--the house may still be seen--Jacob
Dolph caught a glimpse of the morning sun, that loved the Battery far
better than Pine Street, where Dolph's office was. It was a
poplar-studded Battery in those days, and the tale tells how the wind
blew fresh off the bay, and the waves beat up against the sea-wall, and
a large brig, with all sails set, loomed conspicuous to the view, and
two or three fat little boats, cat-rigged, after the good old New York
fashion, were beating down towards Staten Island, to hunt for the
earliest bluefish. That was in 1808, and sixteen years later, the
Battery, with its gravelled, shady paths, and its somewhat irregular
plots of grass, was still the city's favourite breathing spot. There, of
summer evenings, after the stately walk down Broadway, the crinolined
ladies and the beaux with their bell-crowned hats gathered to watch the
sun set behind the low Jersey hills, and perhaps to inspect the review
of the Tompkins Blues, or the Pulaski Cadets. There was fierce rivalry
between these two commands, one under Captain Vincent, and the other
under Captain McArdle, and each corps had its admiring sympathizers.
Both Blues and Cadets presented a fine, martial appearance as they swung
across the Battery, marching like veterans who had faced fire and would
not flinch. "Sure it was," a flippant chronicler has recorded, "both had
an undisputed reputation for charging upon a well-loaded board with a
will that left no tell-tale vestige." Very likely, in the throng, all
were not of New York. There were doubtful strangers, too, looking with
yearning eyes out over the dancing waters of the blue bay--swarthy,
weather-beaten men with huge earrings. They called themselves
"privateers-men." But there were those who smiled at the word, for
romance had it that there were still buccaneers in the Spanish Main.
In many families that daily visit to the Battery was all the summer
change. Mr. Dayton, in his "Last Days of Knickerbocker Life," informed
us that neither belle nor gallant lost caste by declining to participate
in the routine of watering place life, simple and inexperienced as it
then was. Yet there were summer resorts, and they were patronized by the
best and most prominent citizens of the country. The springs at Saratoga
had already been discovered, and there were many New Yorkers who made
the then long and arduous trip.
But nearer at hand was the "Beach at Rockaway," sung by the military
poet, George P. Morris, and Coney Island. At the latter resort
conditions were primitive. Unheard were the blaring of bands, and the
raucous cry of the "Hot-Dog man," and the riot and roar of the rabble.
Mr. Blinker, of O. Henry's "Brick Dust Row," could not then have seen
his vision and found his light. For there was no mass of vulgarians
wallowing in gross joys to be recognized as his brothers seeking the
ideal. But he might have been as well pleased with the unpretentious
hotel at the water's edge, where the urbanite could enjoy the cooling
ocean breezes, and listen to the waves, and dine upon broiled chicken
and succulent clams.
The press of the third decade of the last century was high-priced and
vitriolic. Of the morning papers now known to New Yorkers there was
none. The "Sun," the first to appear, began in 1833. But of the
afternoon journals there was the "Evening Post," perhaps even then
"making virtue odious," as a wit of many years later was to express it,
and the "Commercial Advertiser," now the "Globe," the oldest of all
metropolitan journals. Before the appearance of the "Sun," the morning
papers had been the "Morning Courier and New York Enquirer," the
"Standard," the "Democratic Chronicle," the "Journal of Commerce," the
"New York Gazette and General Advertiser," and the "Mercantile
Advertiser and New York Advocate." In the evening there were the "Star,"
and the "American," besides the "Post" and "Commercial Advertiser."
These newspapers were mere appendages of party, "organs" in the
narrowest and most restricted sense, espousing blindly certain interests
or ideas, expounding in long editorials the views of small groups of
politicians.
"Here's this morning's New York Sewer! Here's this morning's New York
Stabber! Here's the New York Family Spy! Here's the New York Private
Listener! Here's the New York Peeper! Here's the New York Plunderer!
Here's the New York Keyhole Reporter! Here's the New York Rowdy Journal!
Here's all the New York papers! Here's full particulars of the patriotic
Locofoco movement yesterday, in which the Whigs were so chawed up; and
the last Alabama gouging case; and the interesting Arizona dooel with
bowie knives; and all the political, commercial, and fashionable news.
Here they are! Here they are! Here's the papers! Here's the papers!
Here's the Sewer! Here's the New York Sewer! Here's some of the twelve
thousand of today's Sewer, with the best accounts of the markets, and
four whole columns of country correspondence, and a full account of the
ball at Mrs. White's last night, where all the beauty and fashion of New
York was assembled; with the Sewer's own particulars of the private
lives of all the ladies that were there. Here's the Sewer! Here's the
Sewer's exposure of the Wall Street gang, and the Sewer's exposure of
the Washington gang, and the Sewer's exclusive account of a flagrant
act of dishonesty committed by the Secretary of State when he was eight
years old; now communicated, at great expense, by his own nurse. Here's
the Sewer! Here's the New York Sewer in its twelfth thousand, with a
whole column of New Yorkers to be shown up, and all their names printed.
Here's the Sewer's article upon the judge that tried him, day afore
yesterday, for libel, and the Sewer's tribute to the independent jury
that didn't convict him, and the Sewer's account of what might have
happened if they had! Here's the Sewer, always on the lookout; the
leading journal of the United States!"
Such were the cries, according to the veracious account of Charles
Dickens, who had paid his first visit to us a short time before, that
greeted the ears of Martin Chuzzlewit upon his arrival in the gate city
of the western world. That amiable caricature reflects what the English
novelist thought or pretended to think, of the New York journalism of
the day. Exaggeration, of course: the bad manners of a young genius of
the British lower middle classes. But quite good-naturedly today we
concede that beneath bad manners and exaggeration there was a foundation
of truth. Into the making of Colonel Diver, the editor of the "Rowdy
Journal," may have gone a little of old Noah, of the "Star," or James
Watson Webb, of the "Courier and Enquirer," or Colonel Stone, of the
"Commercial." Can't you see those grim figures of an old world strutting
down Broadway, glaring about belligerently and suspiciously? Almost
every editor of that period had a theatre feud at one day or another. On
the luckless mummer who had incurred his displeasure he poured out the
vials of his wrath. He incited audiences to riot. Against his brother
editors he hurled such epithets as "loathsome and leprous slanderer and
libeller," "pestilential scoundrel," "polluted wretch," "foul jaws,"
"common bandit," "prince of darkness," "turkey buzzard," "ghoul."
Somehow, in thinking of the old days, I find it hard to reconcile those
men and women who lived under the Knickerbocker sway with their
newspapers. It is pleasanter to dwell upon the old customs, to picture
Mr. Manhattan leaving the scurrilous sheet behind him when he departed
from his store or counting house, and repairing with clean hands to the
wife of his bosom and his family, somewhere in Greenwich Village, or
Richmond Hill, or Bond Street, or the beginnings of Fifth Avenue.
But to revert to the manners of the old town. First of all there was the
business of getting married. It was with an idea of permanency then, and
the Knickerbocker wedding was, in consequence, a ceremony. To it, the
groom, his best-man, and the ushers went attired in blue coats, brass
buttons, high white satin stocks, ruffled-bosomed shirts, figured satin
waistcoats, silk stockings, and pumps. The New Yorker's tailor, if his
pretensions to fashion were well-founded, was Elmendorf, or Brundage, or
Wheeler, or Tryon and Derby; his hatter, St. John, and his bootmakers,
Kimball and Rogers. For the wedding ceremony, the man's hair was tightly
frizzed by Maniort, the leading hair-dresser of the day. He was the
proprietor of the Knickerbocker Barber-Shop at Broadway and Wall Street,
and the town gossip. Years later he was to enjoy the patronage of the
Third Napoleon in Paris as a reward for favours extended to the Prince
when the latter was an exile here. There is little record of elaborate
pre-nuptial bachelor dinners in the style of modern New York. What would
have been the use? The gardens of the city's fashionable homes boasted
no extensive circular fountains or artificial fishponds into which the
best-man or the father of the bride-to-be could be flung as an artistic
diversion. As has been said, it was something of a slow old world,
lacking in many of the modern comforts.
The robe of the bride was of white satin, tinged with yellow, the bodice
cut low in the neck and shoulders, and ornamented with lace. Over her
hair, built up by Martell, was flung the coronet of artificial orange
blossoms held by the blonde lace veil. Then the satin boots and the
six-button gloves. At the wedding-supper the bride's cake, rich, and of
formidable proportions, was the _pièce de resistance_. Also there was
substantial fare; hams, turkeys, chicken, and game; besides fruits,
candies, and creams. In place of the champagne of later days there were
Madeira, Port, and Sherry. Round the table, illuminated by wax candles
and astral lamps, young and old gathered; the women of a past generation
in stiff brocades, powdered puffs, and tortoise-shell combs. From the
first to last the Fifth Avenue wedding of those days reflected the
patriarchal system that had not yet passed.
It was not a matter of denomination, but when the world was young, the
pioneers of the Avenue did not smile on the way to worship. The Sabbath
day still retained a good deal of the funereal aspect with which the New
England Puritans had invested it. The city was silent save for the
tolling of the church bells. At ten o'clock in the morning, at three in
the afternoon, and again, at seven at night, the solemn processions of
men, women, and children, clad in their Sunday best, issued from the
homes, and slowly wended their way to church. When the congregation had
gathered, and the service was about to begin, heavy iron chains were
drawn tightly across the streets adjacent to the various places of
worship. It was the hour for serious meditation. No distracting noise
was to be allowed to fall upon those devout ears.
Abram C. Dayton, in his "Last Days of Knickerbocker Life," left a
description of the service at the Dutch Reformed Church of that day. He
told of the long-drawn-out extemporaneous prayers, the allusions to
"benighted heathen"; to "whited sepulchres"; to "the lake which burns
with fire and brimstone." Of instrumental accompaniment there was none,
and free scope was both given and taken by the human voice divine. Then
the sermon! Men were strong in those days! Clergymen had not become
affected with the throat troubles prevalent in later times. No
hour-glass or warning clock was displayed in the bleak spare edifice. In
the exuberance of zeal often the end of the discourse came only with
utter physical exhaustion. Then the passing of the plate; an
eight-stanza hymn, closing with the vehemently shouted Doxology; and the
concluding Benediction. From that old-time Sabbath day the affairs of
the world were rigidly excluded. It was a day of rest not only for the
family but for the family's man-servant and maid-servant. Saturday had
seen the preparation of the necessary food.
[Illustration: THE WASHINGTON ARCH. A SPLENDID SENTINEL GUARDING THE
APPROACH TO THE AVENUE. BEYOND, HOUSES DATING FROM THE THIRTIES OF THE
LAST CENTURY, THAT MARK THE BEGINNING OF THE STRETCH OF TRADITION]
On the Sabbath only cold collations were served. Public opinion was a
stern master. Woe betide the one rash enough to defy the established
conventions! The physician on his rounds, or the church-goer too aged or
infirm to walk to the place of worship, were the only ones permitted to
make use of a horse and carriage. Now and then one of the godless would
slip away northward for a drive on some unfrequented road. Detection
meant society's averted face and stern reprimand. For an indefinite
period the sinner would be a subject of intercession at evening prayers.
The weekday life was in keeping with the Knickerbocker Sabbath. Home was
the family castle, over which parental authority ruled with an iron
hand. Hospitality was genuine and whole-hearted; but tempered by frugal
moderation. Strict punctuality was demanded of every member of the
household. The noon repast was the meal of the day. At the stroke of
twelve old New York sat down to table. In the home there was variety and
abundance, but the dinner was served as one course. Meats, poultry,
vegetables, pies, puddings, fruits, and sweets were crowded together on
the board. This adherence to the midday meal must have been the weak
point in the armour in which the old order encased itself. For there the
first breach was made. New Yorkers, returning from visits to Europe,
hooted at the primitive noon repast of their youth. At first what were
called the "foreign airs" of these would-be innovators were treated with
derision. But they persisted, and by slow stages three o'clock became
the extra fashionable hour for dinner. The old City Hotel was one of the
first public places to fall into line.
The time was to come when a dining establishment, second to none of its
day in social prestige and culinary excellence, was to stand on a corner
of Fifth Avenue and Fourteenth Street. But when those who dwelt on lower
Fifth Avenue were still pioneers, dining out in public places meant a
long and venturesome journey to the southward. The restaurants of that
time--they were more generally called "eating houses,"--were almost all
established in the business portions of the city. The midday dinner was
the meal on which they depended for their main support. Then masculine
New York left its shop or its counting house, hurried a block to the
right, or a block to the left, and fell greedily on the succulent
oyster, the slice of rare roast beef, or the sizzling English mutton
chop. Conspicuous among the refectories of this type were the Auction
Hotel, on Water Street, near Wall; the dining room of Clark and Brown,
on Maiden Lane, near Liberty Street, one of the first of the so-called
English chop-houses; the United States Hotel, which stood, until a few
years ago, at the corner of Water and Fulton Streets, and which was the
chosen home of the captains of the whaling ships from New London,
Nantucket, New Bedford, and Sag Harbor; Downing's, on Broad Street,
famed for its Saddle Rocks and Blue Points, and its political patrons;
and the basement on Park Row, a few doors from the old Park Theatre,
presided over by one Edward Windust. This last was a _rendezvous_ for
actors, artists, musicians, newspaper-men--in short, the Bohemian set of
that day--and its walls were covered with old play-bills, newspaper
clippings, and portraits of tragedians and comedians of the past.
But already a demand had been felt for viands of another nature;
hospitality of another sort. The womankind of the day was looking for an
occasional chance to break away from the monotonous if wholesome and
substantial table of the home. Those stiff Knickerbockers knew it not;
but the modern dining-out New York was already in the making. At first
the movement was ascribed to the European Continental element. In New
York Delmonico and Guerin were the pioneers in the field. The former
began in a little place of pine tables and rough wooden chairs on
William Street, between Fulton and Ann. The original equipment consisted
of a broad counter covered with white napkins, two-tine forks,
buck-handled knives, and earthenware plates and cups. From such humble
beginnings grew the establishments that have subsequently carried the
name. Francis Guerin's first café was on Broadway, between Pine and
Cedar Streets, directly opposite the old City Hotel. Another resort of
the same type was the _Café des Mille Colonnes_, kept by the Italian,
Palmo, on the west side of Broadway, near Duane Street. It was
apparently on a scale lavish for those days. Long mirrors on the walls
reflected, in an endless vista, the gilded columns that supported the
ceiling. The fortune accumulated by Palmo in the restaurant was lost in
an attempt to introduce Italian opera into the United States. Palmo's
Opera House, in Chamber Street, between Centre Street and Broadway,
later became Burton's Theatre.
Until 1844, New York was guarded against crime by the old
"Leather-heads." This force patrolled the city by night, or that part of
it known as the lamp district. They were not watchmen by profession, but
were recruited from the ranks of porters, cartmen, stevedores, and
labourers. They were distinguished by a fireman's cap without front
(hence the name "Leather-head"), an old camlet coat, and a lantern. They
had a wholesome respect for their skins, and were inclined to keep out
of harm's way, seldom visiting the darker quarters of the city. When
they bawled the hour all rogues in the vicinity were made aware of their
whereabouts. Above Fourteenth Street the whole city was a neglected
region. It was beyond the lamp district and in the dark.
In no way, to the mind of the present scribe, can the contrast between
the life of the modern city and of the town of the days when Fifth
Avenue was in the making be better emphasized than by comparing the
conditions of travel. It was in the year 1820 that John Stevens of
Hoboken, who had become exasperated because people did not see the value
of railroads as he did, resolved to prove, at his own expense, that the
method of travel urged by him was not a madman's scheme. So on his own
estate on the Hoboken hill he built a little railway of narrow gauge and
a small locomotive. Long enough had he been sneered at and called
maniac. He put the locomotive on the track with cars behind it, and ran
it with himself as a passenger, to the amazement of those before whom
the demonstration was made. So far as is known that was the first
locomotive to be built or run on a track in America. But even with
Stevens's successful example, years passed before steam travel assumed a
practical form.
When the pioneer of Fifth Avenue wished to voyage far afield it was
toward the stage-coach as a means of transportation that his mind
turned, for the stage-coach was the only way by which a large portion of
the population could accomplish overland journeys. To go to Boston, for
example, the traveller from New York usually left by a steamboat that
took him to Providence in about twenty-three hours, and travelled the
remaining forty miles by coach. Five hours was needed for the overland
journey, and was considered amazing speed. By the year 1832 the overland
trip between New York and Boston had been reduced to forty-one hours.
But the passengers were not allowed to break the journey at a tavern,
even for four or five hours of sleep, as they had formerly done, but
were carried forward night and day without intermission. A fare of
eleven dollars was usually exacted for the trip.
Even to go to one of the towns of Connecticut, the shore towns of the
Boston Post Road, was an undertaking that called for serious preliminary
study. A New York paper, now before the writer, carries in its first
column an advertisement of a new steamer, the "Fairfield," plying
between New York and Norwalk. But in order to make use of its services,
the traveller had to be at the pier at the foot of Market Street at six
o'clock in the morning. Upon the arrival at Norwalk stages were at hand
for the convenience of such of the passengers who wished to travel on
to Saugatuck, Fairfield, Bridgeport, Stratford, Milford, and other
points. The same column carried information for those who contemplated
voyaging to Newport or Providence. Every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday
the steamboats "Benjamin Franklin" (Capt. E.S. Bunker) and "President"
(Capt. R.S. Bunker) left New York for those Rhode Island towns at five
o'clock in the evening.
The Post Road to Boston of those days differed much from the Boston Post
Road of the present; especially in its first stages going northward from
New York. There was no spacious Pelham Parkway skirting the waters of
the Long Island Sound. Before crossing the Harlem the road followed in a
general way the Broadway trail. Beyond the river it zigzagged in a
northeasterly direction through Eastchester. Not until the crossing of
the Byram River transferred the road from New York to New England did it
take on any resemblance to the trail of today, and even beyond, the town
of Greenwich seems to have been neglected entirely.
Yet, in comparison, the East was developed. It was the bold Sinbad
turning his face resolutely and courageously towards the setting sun who
experienced the real inconveniences and perils. Nor, at first, did that
mean the adventurous journey into the lands that were beyond the great
Appalachian range. The shining countenance of the unknown was nearer at
hand. It is just a matter of turning the clock back a hundred years.
From the windows of the apartment houses looking down on the Riverside
Drive the Delaware River is just beyond the Jersey hills. To journey
there today does not even call for the study of time-tables. Mr.
Manhattan rises at the usual hour and eats his usual leisurely
breakfast. At, say, nine o'clock, he settles back behind the
steering-wheel of his motor-car. Crossing the Hudson by the Forty-second
Street Ferry, he climbs the Weehawken slope, and swings westward over
one of the uninviting turnpikes that disfigure the marshy land between
the Passaic and the Hackensack. Then he finds the real Jersey, the
Jerseyman's Jersey, of rolling hills, and historic memories of
Washington's Continental troops in ragged blue and buff.--Morristown,
with its superb estates, the stiff climb of Schooley's Mountain, the
descent along the wooded ravine, the road following the winding
Musconetcong River through Washington, the clustered buildings of
Lafayette College crowning the Pennsylvania shore, and in good time for
luncheon Mr. Manhattan is over the bridge connecting Easton and
Phillipsburg.
A few years ago there appeared a little book telling of the experiences
of a family migrating from Connecticut to Ohio in 1811. In interesting
contrast to the morning dash just outlined is the story of that journey
of a little more than one hundred years ago. Before crossing the North
River the voyagers solemnly discussed the perilous waters that
confronted them. "Tomorrow we embark for the opposite shore: may Heaven
preserve us from the raging, angry waves!" The first night's stop was at
Springfield, where, within the living memory of the older members of the
party, a skirmish between the American troops and the soldiers of King
George had taken place.
Another day's travel carried the party as far as Chester. At that point
the task of travel became arduous. Over miry roads, in places blocked by
boulders, there was the painful, laborious ascent of the steep grade
leading to the summit of what we now call Schooley's Mountain. There the
party camped for the night, beginning the descent early the morning of
the following day. The brisk three or four hours' run that gives the
motorist of today just the edge of appetite needed for the full
enjoyment of his midday meal was to those hardy adventurers of a century
ago almost the journey of a week.
For transatlantic travel there was the Black Ball line, between New York
and Liverpool, first of four ships, and later of twelve. That service
had been founded in 1816 by New York merchants. The Red Star line
followed in 1821, and soon after the Swallowtail line. The packets were
ships of from six hundred to fifteen hundred tons burden, and made the
eastward trip in about twenty-three days and the return trip in about
forty days. The record was held by the "Canada," of the Black Ball line,
which had made the outward run in fifteen days and eighteen hours. That
time was reduced later by the "Amazon." The first steamer to cross the
Atlantic was the American ship "Savannah." She made the trial trip from
New York to Savannah in April, 1819, and in the following month her
owners decided to send her overseas. The time of her passage was
twenty-six days, eight under steam and eighteen under sail. Stephen
Rogers, her navigator, in a letter to the New London "Gazette," wrote
that the "Savannah" was first sighted from the telegraph station at Cape
Clear, on the southern coast of Ireland, which reported her as being on
fire, and a king's cutter was sent to her relief. "But great was their
wonder at their inability to come up with a ship under bare poles. After
several shots had been fired from the cutter the engine was stopped, and
the surprise of the cutter's crew at the mistake they had made, as well
as their curiosity to see the strange Yankee craft, can be easily
imagined." From Liverpool the "Savannah" proceeded to St. Petersburg,
stopping at Stockholm, and on her return she left St. Petersburg on
October 10th, arriving at Savannah November 30th. But the prestige that
the journey had won did not compensate for the heavy expense. Her
boilers, engines, and paddles were removed, and she was placed on the
Savannah route as a packet ship, being finally wrecked on the Long
Island coast. The successful establishment of steam as a means of
conveying a vessel across the Atlantic did not come until the spring of
1838, when, on the same day, April 23rd, two ships from England reached
New York. They were the "Sirius," which had sailed from Cork, Ireland,
April 4th, and the "Great Western," which had left Bristol April 8th.
The following year marked the founding of the Cunard Line.
About the same time began the famous Clippers, which carried
triumphantly the American flag to every corner of the Seven Seas. They
were at first small, swift vessels of from six hundred to nine hundred
tons, and designed for the China tea trade. Later came the "Challenge,"
of two thousand tons, and the "Invincible," of two thousand one hundred
and fifty tons. "That clipper epoch," said a writer in "Harper's
Magazine" for January, 1884, "was an epoch to be proud of; and we were
proud of it. The New York newspapers abounded in such headlines as
these: 'Quickest Trip on Record,' 'Shortest Passage to San Francisco,'
'Unparalleled Speed,' 'Quickest Voyage Yet,' 'A Clipper as is a
Clipper,' 'Extraordinary Dispatch,' 'The Quickest Voyage to China,' 'The
Contest of the Clippers,' 'Great Passage from San Francisco,' 'Race
Round the World.'" Runs of three hundred and even three hundred and
thirty miles a day were not uncommon feats of those clipper ships, a
rate of speed far surpassing the achievement of the steam-propelled
vessels of the period.
When Charles Dickens first came to New York, in 1842, it was after a
transatlantic journey that had landed him at Boston. There is extant a
picture of the cabin that he occupied on the "Britannia" on the trip
across that throws an interesting light on the limitations and
inconveniences to which early Fifth Avenue was subjected when it visited
the old world. Leaving Boston on a February afternoon, Dickens proceeded
by rail to Worcester. The next morning another train carried him to
Springfield. The next stop was Hartford, a distance of only twenty-five
miles. But at that time of the year, Dickens records, the roads were so
bad that the journey would probably have occupied ten or twelve hours.
So progress was accomplished by means of the waters of the Connecticut
River, in a boat that the Englishman described as so many feet short,
and so many feet narrow, with a cabin apparently for a certain
celebrated dwarf of the period, yet somehow containing the ubiquitous
American rocking chair. Going from Hartford to New Haven consumed three
hours of train travel; and, rising early after a night's rest, Dickens
went on board the Sound packet bound for New York. That was the first
American steamboat of any size that he had seen, and he wrote that, to
an Englishman, it was less like a steamboat than a huge floating bath,
and that its cabin, to his unaccustomed eyes, seemed about as long as
the Burlington Arcade. From the deck of this packet he first viewed
Hell's Gate, the Hog's Back, the Frying Pan, and other notorious
localities attractive to readers of the Diedrich Knickerbocker History.
When, later, Dickens left New York for Philadelphia, he wrote of the
journey as being made by railroad and two ferries, and occupying between
five and six hours.
The ten years that separated the first visit of Dickens and the first
visit of Thackeray had wrought many changes. Thackeray, too, came to New
York from Boston, but in his case it was the matter of one unbroken
train journey, in the course of which he reread the "Shabby Genteel
Story" of a dozen years before. Dickens's transatlantic trip had
consumed nineteen days. The "Canada," which carried Thackeray, made the
crossing in thirteen. In New York Thackeray stayed at the Clarendon
Hotel, on the corner of Fourth Avenue and Eighteenth Street; but his
favourite haunt in the city was the third home of the Century, in
Clinton Place. Though not in the least given to flattery or
over-effusiveness in his comments on Americans and American
institutions, Thackeray wrote and spoke of the Century as "the best and
most comfortable club in the world."