The Scranton tribune. [volume] (Scranton, Pa.) 1891-1910, 1898-03-11

Houston) we began mapping streets
and avenues northward. We encount-
cred in our surveys ancient and ne
elected hawthorn hedge fences, now
grown into saplings, that were impass-
able without the aid of the ak. When
we came to the crossing and union of
the Bowery road and the beginning of
the Bloomingdale road an acute angle
intersected by streets left so awkward
an area for building purposes that we
laid out a square in it, and because
Of these interfering unions of thor
oughfares we named it Union square.
We so arranged streets above Hous-
ton that every twenty of them consti-
tuted a mile. We made as an average
eight lots to every block front"
These published plans and maps ex-
cited in many quarters irony and sar-
casm. The men who built the rear of
the city hall of red stone because back
of it were only suburbs laughed at the
idea of the city's ever extending to the
Harlem river, where the commission
ers ended their plan. A Thirteenth
avenue and 150th street excited laugh
ter among the unthinking. Similarly
when Henry c. Murphy, as corpora
tion counsel of Brooklyn, predicted that
Coney Island and Jamaica would one
day become boundaries of his city, he
also was laughed at.
When the island of Manhattan was
thus mapped into lots, naturally spec
ulation in them was engendered, and
residences gradually increased north
ward. With Bishop Berkeley the
course of the star of empire was west
ward, but for the Gothamites, because
of the rivers, necessarily IL was north
ward only.
The census Of 1914 showed 90, 900 in
habitants for New York and Brooklyn,
/ 1000 of whom We're slaves--a published
fact which set on foot the movement,
soon successful, of making New York
a free state.
WEALTH FIGURES.
Seventy eight years ago only 800 res
idents and estates paid personal tax on
sums of more than $1,000. Only four
teen paid personal estate ranging in
value between $4,000 and 500 900;
among these taxpayers were Isaac
Bronson, Henry C. De Rham, Peter
Harmony, Philip and John Hone, Her
| man Hendricks. Nathaniel Primer,
Peter and Daniel Remsen and reter
Schermerhorn. Then the Henry A.
Coster estate paid on $5OOOOO, John NJ.
| Aspinwall on 100000, John G. Coster
on 100000, William Jauncey on $12O, ,UUU
Robert LenoX on 100000, Thomas H
Smith on s1S0,00O and Stephen Whit
ney on $l6O,000. New York's only mil
| lionaire was John Jacob Astor. And
that was day when assessments were
| laid by ward elected officers who were
honestly anxious to reach the full
| amounts. There are dozen million
| aires in this city today each of whom
| enjoys wealth greater than possessed
by all who paid personal tax in 1920
In 1920 Peter Goelets personal wealth
was officially estimated at $50 600
| None of the three Hamersley brothers
had personal property assessed al
more than $4,000; none of the How.
lands at more than s25,OOO; only one OF
the ten Jones's reached 100000: onl,
one of the twelve Lawrences William
attained $4,000: only one (Robert F,
or the eight Livingstons reached $50,
600; Nicholas Low was ranked at s2O.
600: Anson G.. Phelps reached onl,
$4,000; William Rhinelander only $40.
900; only one Roosevelt had 500, 900; Re
corder Van Wyck was figured at SO.
900, and not Vanderbilt was named.