The New York herald., 1922-04-16


one of the popular studio streets of
THE Village" bears name going
back to the exodus of 1892, for 1t was
in Bank street that the banks from
the city set up their establishments,
and at the corner Of Bank and
Charles streets the Custom House
took quarters. There they continued
not only in the summer of 1922 but
through the winter and on until the
fall of 1923, when the epidemic had
burned itself out.
1t is to the yellow fever epidemic
of 1922 that Greenwich Village to-day
owes its crooked streets and pictur-
esque byways. The influx to it's safe
Precincts was so sudden there was no
chance to lay out an orderly street
system, as was done elsewhere in
later years while the city moved
northward through other villages.
The New Workers of 1922 settled in
the village as they found it and built
their temporary houses almost over
night in the lanes and streets of the
sleepy little town.
The yellow fever epidemic of 1895
was easily traced to the tropics, for
members Of the crew Of a British
frigate just in from Port-au-Prince,
Haiti, were the first victims. BY
1896, the belief was well established
that the disease was swept away by
strong, cool breezes, for a northwest
wind, blowing that summer, sent 1t
out to sea. The breezes, however,
were associated only with the cold
and frost they brought, never with
blowing away the mosquitoes which
seventy-five years later were identi-
fed as the carriers of the disease.
The old sailing ships Of that day
furnished quarters for the tropical
mosquitoes that brought yellow fever
germs to New York. The very i'm
munity of Greenwich Village, an i'm
probable flight for a mosquito from
the water front, and the outbreak of
1922 in Rector street after shipping
had found dockage so far up the
North River, bear out the origin of
the epidemics in the unwelcome in
sect visitors from the tropics.
After the epidemic of 1895, how
ever, there was movement to inn
prove sanitation and the building of
underground sewers was discussed
After that of 1898 the question of
pure water came up, but the cost Of
piping it from the Bronx River
nearly million dollars-put off the
substitution of this pure supply for
the springs and wells of the old city.
In 1896 Washington Square had
been bought for cemetery, and it
was used as potters' field during
the later epidemics. Many notable
persons found their last resting place
beneath its sod.
In 1922 STEPHEN ALLEN. sail
maker by calling, was Mayor of New
York. He was a man of financial
and commercial standing. Like his
predecessors, he labored zealously
during the epidemic, but his efforts
were circumscribed by the prevailing
ignorance and his accomplishments
went little further than visiting the
sick and seeking. by the remission
of huckster's taxes, to induce the
farmers to bring food supplies into
the plague ridden town.
New York was freed from yellow
fever epidemic partly through good
luck and partly through wise previ.
sion. The fire of 1893, which wiped
out the East Side and its old docks
south of Wall street and the coming Of
Croton water in, 1S45 had as much to
do with it as anything. Perhaps,
however, most credit must be given
to the relatively clean and swift
American clipper ships, which re-
placed so many Of the old time pack
cts in Whole stoaming holds the mos
quitoes FROM the West Indies had
been brought to New York to the de-
struction of its inhabitants.