New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1870-07-02
SIMMER HOMES.

Many tired citizen, we dare say going to
the Central Park for breath of the evening
breeze at the close of these burning days,
looks wistfully from the high places at the
northern end of that pleasure ground over
toward the hills of Westchester County, and
enves him who can retreat every afternoon
from the sitting streets and foul odOrs OF the
city to shady cottage near one of those
pretty villages which line the tracks of the
Hudson River, the Harlem, and the New
Haven Railroads. For the man of leisure of
course Summer life in the city is sheer folly
but even for the hard-wOrked man of business
who must be at his desk, his counter, or his
work. bench from early morning until almost
night, a country home, though he can do no
more than sleep in it, should bring rest and
refreshment. Few large cities anywhere have
been so favored by nature with sites for subur-
ban dwellings as the City of New-York. To
say nothing of Long Island, Staten Island, and
Jersey, it has on the north a superb extent of
diversified country, Astounding in beautiful and
varied scenery, with fine, wholesome air, good
water, and plenty of shade. Three railways
run through this region it, others have been sur
veyed, the country roads are as decent as Amer
lean roads ever are, and broad, magnificent
pleasure drive, miscalled u boulevard, has
been opened through some of its fairest por-
tiOns. If the development of the lower part
of Westchester County had kept pace with the
growth of the metropolis from which it de-
rives its support, the whole of it for 20 miles
above Mott Haven should have been by this
time an almost continuous rural settlement.
Sixteen or eighteen years ago there was. in
o. 80 L.
the route of the Harlem Road, and the farmers
cut down their orchards and pulled up their
fences to turn their farms into building lots.
This was the result of inducements held out
by the railway company in the form of cheap
fares and frequent local trains. But in the
midst of the speculation the company sud
denly put up the rates of Communication and
restricted the comforts of passengers; settle
ments were checked; the grass covered the
new streets, and for years the country re-
manned dotted with those most mournful and
unsightly monuments of misplaced industry
half-grOwn towns suddenly arrested in all the
ugliness of immaturity. Within few wears the
development of these suburban settlements has
been revived. The pressure of population
within the city has forced many families across
the Harlem River in spite of the discourage
ment of insufficient transportation and high
fares There has been since the war a great
increase of the wealthy class to whom cheap
and quick travel is comparatively slight
object compared with the comfort of owning
a villa. Both these causes have operated to
swell the population of Southern Westchester;
but still greater change has been made by
the speculative development of villages which
builders are shrewd enough to see must inevitably
become in a very few years favorite residences
for the families of New-York business men.
The laying out of streets, however, is still far
in advance of the influx Of population. The
prosperity is consequently more apparent than
real, and it will remain so until the means of
communication with the city are enormously
improved.
At present thousands of busy men are cut off
from these pleasant Westminster homes by the
insuficiency of the railroad accommodations,
and thousands more by the extravagant ex-
pense of communication. The great system of
consolidation at which the Vanderbilt roads
have been aiming Ut late years involves the