The Warner weekly sun. (Warner, Brown Co., Dakota [S.D.]) 1883-1885, 1883-11-24
NEW YORK CITY.


NltnIl Ai-i''
FROM the New York World,
New York at the beginning Of the
century had. q population less than co.
aNO At thai time the population o,
london was SO4, 0OO, London now mas
, 2 population of 500, 600 and New York
II its corporate limits is known to have
is 1000.
But Just here We are met with the OBJ
lection that the commercial, industrial,
polite and aggregate importance Of
New York can not he fairly estimated
bv the census report Of its population
within the corporate limit for the rea-
son that an enormous number Of people
transact their business in New York, de-
pend urOn il for their incomes, their So
ciety, their amusement. and their liter
AZURE, vino nevertheless reside outside
Of its limits. To get at anything like al
APPROXIMATE estimate of this population
is extremely difficult. tits safe to say,
however, that a million people consider
New York q proper place to do business
in, but not q tit place to live in.
There are obvious and adequate ca
sons for this belief, and among them is
the difficulty Of acquiring a healthy, ia
dependent come at a reasonable price.
1t is plain from this view that any
comparison of the growth Of New York
with London based upon statistics Ofpop-
ulatiOn in the corporate limits overlook
one Of the unique features of New York.
This suburban population has not
been estimated so far as its true value.
The influence of the metropolis upon
the country within a radius of twenty or
or twenty. five miles is marked and pc.
culiar. The city both absorbs and nour-
ishes the suburban activities. The hun
dred hamlets lying within an hours
reach of the City Hall draw the breath
Of life from the metropolis. They are
fed by the afluent life that overtlows
from the great center. And within that
radius oftwenty miles there is a diurnal
hux of activities coming and going.
Brooklyn, Jersey City, Williamsburg,
Get their pulse-beat from this organic
center. The stream of wealth flows
nightly over into Long Island, Staten Is
land and Jersey, and pours its ~atfluent
waves along the HackensaCk and Pas
sale and Hudson. II was made the
Bronx, the Pocantico and fifty smaller
rivers blossom like the rose with subur-
ban homes. It's vital currents are felt
as far north as Cornwall and Sing Sing,
as far east as Babylon, as far south as
the Raritan, as far west as Passaic.
New York in its actual girth, can not
be circumscribed by it's corporate limits
for the reason that its hardest and best
material cribs and flows to and from I'M
determined limits beyond.
Any fair estimate of the population of
lower Westchester, Kings, Queens, Stat
on Island, Union, Hudson, Essex, and
portions Of Bergen and Passaic that are
dependent on New York and draw their
commercial and social revenues from it,
would give US a population of 800, 600.
The enormous growth of the city since
the opening of the century is not, there
fore, as obvious in tabular statements as
it should be. 1t is true one can learn
that the imports have increased from
SOS, 000.006 to $3.50, 000, 900; hat nearly
six millions of immigrants have landed
here, since 1847 (the year that the Board
of Immigration was established); that
the city receives into it's capacious NAV
every year 800 900 cattle, / 800, 900 sheep
and 1000, 600 hogs, and the sum total of
produce per anu that comes to it feots
up the enormous figure of $3.50, DOC, 900.
But, even with these figures before us
we can form but a faint idea of the
growth of the city, unless we stop to
consider that only elghty-three wears
ago the authorities were laying out and
grading Duane and Reade streets, and
cutting a ditch through what is now Can.
al street to drain the Lispenard mead
owS. One can hardly believe that the
first sidewalk was laid in 1890, and that
before that our forefathers picked their
way oveT planks and bricks. 1t was not
till the opening of the century that they
determined to fix the grade of Broad
way between Duane and Canal streets,
and number the houses. 1t seems in
credible that Wall street should be the
uptown promenade, and that as late as
1883 people laughed at the folly ofbuild
ing the Astor House so far out Of the
way.
One who starts rom that old fash.
Toned but still popular and
travels nerthward will have nine good
miles Of city to traverse before he can
be said to be fairly up town, and when
he has reached the Harlem River he
knows very well TINT the corporate lin.
its are miles beyond, and the positive
human limits still further.
ANY calculation as the future of New
York based np0n the percentage OF in.
crease in population and the increase in
area presents to the mind q city at the
end OF another eighty years which "a,
exceeds anything that civilization has
yet accomplished in its process of aggre.
gatica,
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