New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1903-11-22
LITTLE OLD NEW YORK.
Some odd Phases of Her March to
Greatness.
XVIII.


Few, if any. Of the thousands who cross Broad
way at Fourteenth-st every day have any knovl-
edge, or. having it, give thought, Of the posi-
tion this spot held in the long ago as the ex-
treme limit Of the city. II was far uptown"
in the beginning of the nineteenth century,
and to the extreme south and southwest of it
the ancestors OF the present day Knickerbock-
ers carried on business and had their dwelling
houses.
The 'pleasantest streets for the residence of
private and genteel families" in the old DAYS
were State-st., fronting the Battery; Bridge
St. Bowling Green, Greenwich-st, from the Bat
fiery 10 Cortlandt-st; Broadway. from the Bat
terry to Rector-st.; Bond-st., Hudson-st Park
Place, Chambers-st., Liberty and Cortlandt SITS.
west OF Broadway; Dey-st, Vesey-st, Barclay
St, Murray-st., Warren-st., Bleecker-st., Prince
St. Lafayette Place, Broome-st., Spring-st,
Grand-st.. Franklin-st-. White-st. and Walker-st
Other streets that more within the vortex
of business such as Beel1man, Pearl. Cliff, John
and Cherry SITS. were also pleasant, but were
not considered to be in quite so fashiona BILE a
quarter OF the town. Madison-st. after its i'm
provement in 1924. was built up with neat and
spacious houses, and was a very convenient and
respectable street.
As to business. South-st, as now. was occu-
pied by shipping merchants. but only from the
Battery TO Roosevelt-st., and Front and Water
SITS. with wholesale grocers and commission
merchants. Pearl-st. was the peculiar and
favorite resort Of wholesale drygoods merchants.
earthenware Dealers etc." from Coenties Slip
to Peck Slip. The auction stores were also here,
as well as in Wall-st., between Pearl and Water
SITS. Broadway was the "handsomest street and
the greatest thoroughfare." It ran from the
Battery to feminist, three miles in length
and eighty feet in BREADTH and contained SINH
lar businesses to those Of the present day, with
four Episcopal churches, a hospital the Ma
sonic Hall. two museums and the City Hall
From the City Hall Park TO Astor Place was
called St George-st-. or Great George-st., up to
the close Of the last century, and was later COM
monty spoken of the Middle Road. Maiden
Lane, from Broadway to William-st., and Will
iam-st., from Liberty-st. to Beeknan-st and
Chathan-st, from the park eastward were oc-
cupied principally by retail dry and fancy goods
stores, as was Canal-st. west of Broadway.
Ferry and Jacob SITS to-day fulfil the same
mission in 1926. but Water-st. was the fur
rier district, and Broad-st that Of cabinet and
chair makers.
When the century had attained middle age
people Of wealth began to build their homes
away from the encroachment of business and
Bond Bleecker and Great Jones SITS. became
fashionable centres. Later Washington Square
became a place OF life. instead OF what it for
merly was. a place of death, and one finds among
its inhabitants the names of people Of substance
such the Alsops, the Rhinelanders, the Leroys
the Minturns and the Robinsons. An exclusive
set gathered around ST. Johns Church, in Var
/ ick-st., and here Alexander Hamilton, General
Schuyler, the Delanelds the Lords, the Lydigs
and other notables built substantial houses and
converted the waste land and sand dunes into
St Johns Park, "a spot beautiful to behold"
But as TO Broadway. AS was told in a pre-
vicus article the hotels were all at the lower
end Of this thoroughfare, with the City Hall
Park as their centre. and there was nothing to
| speak Of above Union Square. Country seats
OF exclusives adorned Sandy Hill. at the upper
| end Of Broadway. and solid brownstone and
brick mansions clustered around the little park
at the junction of Bowery Lane and the Middle
Road, now Union Square. From University
Place and Thirteenth-st. unrestricted view
could be had CT the East River or OF the Hud-
son. Where the Wanamaker store is to-day
was the Elliot estate, afterward the property of
Captain Randall, who decided it TO the Sailors
Snug Harbor. Adjoining ii to the north was the
Brevoort estate, the ownar of which resisted
with Dutch stubbornness a contemplated cut
ting through Of Eleventh-st. from Broadway to
the Bowery. and won his fight. leaving Elev-
enth-st. ending at Fourth-ave. and beginning
again west OF Broadway"
When the farmhouse Of Henry Spingler, with
! its twenty-five acres west Of the Bowery Road,
stood within the limits OF the present Union
/ Square, an attempt was made so the writer was
| told by an old New-Yorker. TO have Broadway
meet in a straight course the BIoomingdale
/ Read at the north Of the square So much re-
! sistance offered to the scheme by the holder
! OF the property that the direction of the thor
( oughfare changed at feminist, and still
4 further detected at Fourteenth-st.
! Broadway was an accident, anyway, accord
/ ing to all authority. Originally IL was sup
posed that the citys main artery OF travel would
turn 10 the east of the Commons and follow
/ the old Boston Road. and provision was made
/ to that end Business for a long time insisted
| upon turning 10 the east of the street at City
Hall Park, and owners of property were deter
J mined keep the west side sacred to residences
! But it not so to be. Pearl-st. ceased to alb
sorb the drygoods trade over half century ago.
and when a. 7. Stewart spread his drygoods
nets on the shilling side OF Broadway that set
/ tied IT," The chronology:
/ In l7Ss Trinity Church was rebuilt. and the
New-York Society Library kept in room
+ in the City Hall on June IL the New-York
State Convention. called TO consider the adop-