Part 16

WASHINGTON SQUARE is located between Fourth and Seventh streets, at the lower end of Fifth avenue. The site was originally a Potter's Field, and it is said that over one hundred thousand persons were buried here in days gone by. The square contains a little over nine acres, and is handsomely laid out, and adorned with a fountain, around which passes the main carriage drive, flowers, shrubbery, etc. The trees are among the finest in the city, and are kept with great care. An iron railing formerly surrounded the grounds, but in 1870-71 this was removed, and Fifth avenue was extended through the square to Laurens street. This street was widened and called South Fifth avenue, thus practically extending the avenue to West Broadway at Canal street. The square is surrounded by handsome residences. On the east side are the University of New York and a Lutheran Church.

TOMPKINS SQUARE is one of the largest in the city, and is laid off without ornament, being designed for a drill ground for the police and military. It occupies the area formed by avenues A and B, and Seventh and Tenth streets.

UNION SQUARE, lying between Broadway and Fourth avenue, and Fourteenth and Seventeenth streets, was originally a portion of the estate of Elias Brevoort. In 1762 he sold twenty acres lying west of the "Bowery Road" to John Smith, whose executors sold it to Henry Spingler for the sum of 950 pounds, or about $4750. The original farm-house is believed to have stood within the limits of the present Union Square. About the year 1807 Broadway was laid off to the vicinity of Twenty-second street, and in 1815 Union Square was made a "public place," and in 1832 it was laid off as it now exists. The square is regular in shape, and the central portion is laid off as a park, and ornamented with shrubbery, flowers, walks, and a fountain. It is one of the prettiest parks in the city, and covers an area of several acres. It is oval in form, and is without an enclosure.

[Picture: THE WASHINGTON STATUE IN UNION SQUARE.]

Near the fountain is a thriving colony of English sparrows, imported and cared for by the city for the purpose of protecting the trees from the ravages of worms, etc. The birds have a regular village of quaint little houses built for them in the trees. They frequent all the parks of the city, but seem to regard this one as their headquarters. Some of the houses are quite extensive and are labelled with curious little signs, such as the following: "Sparrows' Chinese Pagoda," "Sparrows' Doctor Shop," "Sparrows' Restaurant," "Sparrows' Station House," etc. At the southeast angle of the square stands Hablot K. Browne's equestrian statue of Washington, a fine work in bronze, and at the southwest angle is his statue of Lincoln, of the same metal. The houses surrounding the square are large and handsome. They were once the most elegant residences in New York, but are now, with a few exceptions, used for business. Several hotels, the principal of which are the Everett and Spingler Houses, front on the Square. On the south side, east of Broadway, is the Union Square Theatre, and on the west side, at the corner of Fifteenth street, Tiffany's magnificent iron building. In a few years the square will doubtless be entirely surrounded with similar structures. It is here that the monster mass meetings are held.

STUYVESANT SQUARE lies to the east of Union Square, and is bisected by the line of the Second avenue. Its upper and lower boundaries are Fifteenth and Seventeenth streets. It consists of two beautiful parks of equal size, surrounded by a handsome iron railing, and filled with choice flowers and shrubbery. In the centre of each is a fountain. These parks are the property of St. George's Church (Episcopal), which stands on the west side of the square at the corner, and were given to the corporation of that church by the late Peter G. Stuyvesant, Esq.

GRAMMERCY PARK lies midway between the Fourth and Third avenues, and separates Lexington avenue on the north from Irving Place, really a part of the same avenue, on the south. Its northern and southern boundaries are Twentieth and Twenty-first streets. It is tastefully laid out, is enclosed with an iron fence, and is kept locked against the public, as it is the private property of the persons living around it. On the east side the entire block is taken up by the Grammercy Park Hotel--a first-class boarding house--the other three sides are occupied by the residences of some of the wealthiest capitalists in America. Here dwell Peter Cooper, Moses Taylor, Cyrus W. Field, James Harper (of Harper & Bros.), and others equally well known in the financial world.

MADISON SQUARE comprises about ten acres, and lies at the junction of Broadway and the Fifth avenue. The latter street bounds it on the west, Madison avenue on the east, Twenty-third street on the south, and Twenty-sixth street on the north. It is nearly square in form, and is beautifully laid off. It has no fence, and this adds to the appearance of space which the neighboring open area gives to it. The Fifth Avenue Hotel, the Hoffman, Albemarle, and Worth Houses face it on the west, the Hotel Brunswick is on the north side, and the Union League Club House and a handsome Presbyterian Church are on the east side along the line of Madison avenue. The land now included in Madison Square was owned by the city from a very early period, and was used as a Potter's Field. In 1806 it was ceded to the United States for the erection of an Arsenal, for which purpose it was occupied for several years. In 1824 the "Society for the Reformation of Juvenile Delinquents" obtained possession of the Arsenal grounds, on which they erected a House of Refuge, which was opened January 1st, 1825. This establishment consisted of two large stone buildings, and the grounds were enclosed with a stone wall seventeen feet high. In 1838 the House of Refuge was destroyed by fire, and a few years later Madison Square was laid out. It is now one of the most fashionable localities in the city, and the favorite promenade of the up-town people, who are drawn here in great numbers by the summer afternoon concerts of the Central Park Band.

RESERVOIR SQUARE occupies the site of the old Crystal Palace, and lies between Sixth avenue and the Croton Reservoir on Fifth avenue, and Fortieth and Forty-second streets. It has recently undergone great changes. It is a very pretty park, and is much frequented by the nurses and children of the adjacent neighborhoods.

X. THE FIFTH AVENUE.

The Fifth avenue, commencing at Washington Square, or Seventh street, and extending to the Harlem River, is said by the residents of New York to be the finest street in the world. It is about six miles in length, and is built up continuously from Washington Square to the Central Park, a distance of nearly three miles. From Fifty-ninth street to the upper end of the Central Park, One-hundred-and-tenth street, it is laid with the Nicholson or wooden pavement. It is being rapidly built up along its eastern side, the Park bounding the opposite side of the street, and this portion bids fair to be one of the most delightful and desirable neighborhoods in the city. In the vicinity of One-hundred-and-eighteenth street, the line of the avenue is broken by Mount Morris, an abrupt rocky height, which has been laid off as a pleasure ground. Around this the street sweeps in a half circle, and from here to the Harlem River, One-hundred-and-thirty-fifth street, it is lined with pretty villas, and paved with asphaltum.

From Madison Square to its lower end, the avenue is rapidly giving way to business, and its palatial residences are being converted into equally fine stores. Hotels and fashionable boarding-houses are thick in this quarter. Above Madison Square the street is devoted to private residences, and this part is _par excellence_ "The Avenue."

[Picture: FIFTH AVENUE, NEAR TWENTY-FIRST STREET.]

The principal buildings, apart from the residences, are the Brevoort House, at the corner of Clinton Place, an ultra fashionable hostelrie. On the opposite side of the street, at the northwest corner of Tenth street, is the handsome brown stone Episcopal Church of the Ascension, and on the southwest corner of Eleventh street is the equally handsome First Presbyterian Church, constructed of the same material. At the northeast corner of Fourteenth street is Delmonico's famous restaurant, fronting on both streets; and diagonally opposite, on the southwest corner of Fifteenth street, the magnificent house of the Manhattan Club. Not far from Delmonico's, and on the same side, is a brick mansion, adorned with a sign bearing a coat of arms, and the announcement that the ground floor is occupied by the eighth wonder of the world, "A Happy Tailor." At the southeast corner of Nineteenth street is the Fifth Avenue Presbyterian Church, in charge of the eloquent Dr. John Hall. Two blocks above, on the southwest corner of Twenty-first street, is the South Dutch Reformed Church, a handsome brown stone edifice, and diagonally opposite is the Glenham House. At the southwest corner of Twenty-second street, is the famous art gallery of Gonpil & Co., and immediately opposite the St. Germains Hotel. At Twenty-third street, Broadway crosses the avenue obliquely from northwest to southeast. On the left hand, going north, is the Fifth Avenue Hotel, and on the left Madison Square. The open space is very broad here, and is always thronged with a busy, lively crowd. At the northeast corner of Twenty-sixth street is the Hotel Brunswick, and on the southwest corner of Twenty-seventh street the Stevens House, both monster buildings rented in flats to families of wealth. At the northwest corner of Twenty-ninth street, is a handsome church of white granite, belonging to the Dutch Reformed faith, and familiarly known as the "Church of the Holy Rooster," from the large gilt cock on the spire. At the northwest corner of Thirty-fourth street is the new marble residence of Mr. A. T. Stewart, the most magnificent dwelling house in the land. Immediately opposite is a fine brown stone mansion, occupied at present by Mr. Stewart. On the southeast corner of Thirty-fifth street, is Christ Church (Episcopal), and on the northwest corner of Thirty-seventh street the Brick Church (Presbyterian), of which Dr. Gardiner Spring is the pastor. At Fortieth street, and extending to Forty-second, the west side of the avenue is taken up with the old distributing reservoir, a massive structure of stone, and immediately opposite is the Rutgers Female College. At the southeast corner of Forty-third street is the city residence of the notorious Boss Tweed, and at the northeast corner of the same street, the splendid Jewish synagogue known as the Temple E-manu-el. At the southwest corner of Forty-fifth street is the Church of the Divine Paternity (Universalist), of which Dr. Chapin is the pastor, and on the opposite side of the street in the block above, the Church of the Heavenly Rest (Episcopal). At the northwest corner of Forty-eighth street is the massive but unfinished structure of the Collegiate Dutch Reformed Church. On the east side of the avenue, and occupying the block between Fiftieth and Fifty-first streets, is the new St. Patrick's Cathedral, unfinished, but destined to be the most elaborate church edifice in America. The block above the Cathedral is occupied by the Male Orphan Asylum of the same church, next door to which is the mansion of Madame Restelle, one of the most noted abortionists of New York. On the northwest corner of Fifty-third street is the new St. Thomas' Church (Episcopal), a fine edifice, and owned by one of the wealthiest congregations in the city. Between Fifty-fourth and Fifty-fifth streets, and on the same side of the street, is St. Luke's Hospital, with its pretty grounds. On the east side, between Fifty-eighth and Fifty-ninth streets, and now in course of erection, will be located the Central Park Hotel, which is to be one of the most imposing structures in New York; and just opposite is the main entrance to the Central Park.

From Seventh to Fifty-ninth streets, the avenue presents a continuous line of magnificent mansions. There are a few marble, yellow stone, and brick buildings, but the prevailing material is brown stone. The general appearance of the street is magnificent, but sombre, owing to the dark color of the stone. Nearly all the houses are built on the same design, which gives to it an air of sameness and tameness that is not pleasing. But it is a magnificent street, nevertheless, and has not its equal in the great and unbroken extent of its splendor in the world. It is a street of palaces. Madison and Park avenues, and portions of Lexington avenue, are nearly as handsome, as are the cross streets connecting them with the Fifth avenue, and many of the streets leading to the Sixth avenue are similarly built. The great defect of the avenue is the poverty of resource in the designs of the buildings, but this is the only species of poverty present here.

If the houses are palatial without, they are even more so within. Some of them are models of elegance and taste; others are miracles of flashy and reckless adornment. The walls and ceilings are covered with exquisite frescoes. The floors are rich in the finest and thickest of carpets, on whose luxurious pile no footfall ever sounds. The light of the sun comes struggling in through the richest of curtains, and at night the brilliancy of the gas is softened by the warmest tinted porcelain shades, or heightened by the dazzling reflection of crystal chandeliers. The drawing rooms are filled with the costliest and the richest furniture which is the perfection of comfort, and with works of art worth a fortune in themselves. Back of these, or across the hall, through the half opened doors, you see the sumptuously furnished library, with its long rows of daintily bound books in their rosewood shelves. The library is a "feature" in most houses of the very wealthy, and in the majority of instances is more for ornament than for use. In the rear of all is the conservatory with its wealth of flowers and rare plants, which send their odors through the rooms beyond. The upper and lower stories are furnished on a corresponding scale of magnificence. Everything that money can procure for the comfort or luxury of the inmates is at hand. Nor are such residences few in number. They may be counted by the hundred, each with its contents worth a large fortune. The style of living is in keeping with the house, and, as a matter of course, only the very wealthy can afford such homes.

As for the occupants, they represent all classes--the good and the bad, the cultivated and the illiterate, the refined and the vulgar, the well-born and those who have risen from the gutters. If shoddy finds a home here, genuine merit is his neighbor. Those who have large and assured incomes can afford such a style of life; but they do not comprise all the dwellers on the Avenue. Many are here who have strained every nerve to "get into the Avenue," and who would sell body and soul to stay there, yet who feel that the crash is coming before which they must give way. Others there are who would give half their possessions to move in the society in which their neighbors live. They reside on the Avenue, but they are ignored by one class of its occupants, because of their lack of refinement and cultivation, and by another because of their inferiority in wealth. Great wealth covers a multitude of defects in the Avenue.

Perhaps the most restless, care-worn faces in the city are to be seen on this street. Women clad in the richest attire pass you with unquiet face and wistful eyes, and men who are envied by their fellows for their "good luck," startle you by the stern, hard set look their features wear. The first find little real happiness in the riches they have sold themselves for, and the latter find that the costly pleasures they courted have been gained at too dear a price.

[Picture: THE NEW RESIDENCE OF A. T. STEWART, ESQ.]

Families are small in the Avenue, and Madame Restelle boasts, that her wealth has been earned in a large degree by keeping them so. Fashion has its requirements, and before them maternity must give way. Your fashionable lady has no time to give to children, but pets lap-dogs and parrots.

Well, the Avenue mansions have their skeletons, as well as the east side tenement houses. The sin of the fashionable lady is covered up, however, and the poor girl must face the world. That is the difference. Madame married her husband for his money, and her love is given to one who has no right to claim it; and what between her loathing for her liege lord and her dread of detection, she leads a life not to be envied in spite of the luxury which surrounds her. The liege lord in his turn, never suspecting his wife, but disheartened by her coldness to him, seeks his "affinity" elsewhere; and, by and by, the divorce court tells some unpleasant truths about the Avenue.

Contemplating these things, I have thought that the most wretched quarter of the city hardly holds more unhappy hearts than dwell along the three miles of this grand street; and I have thanked God that the Avenue does not fairly represent the better and higher phases of social and domestic life in the great city.

XI. STREET TRAVEL.

I. THE STREET CARS.

The peculiar shape of the island of Manhattan allows the city to grow in one direction only. The pressure of business is steadily bringing the mercantile district higher up the island, and compelling the residence sections to go farther to the northward. Persons in passing from their homes to their business go down town in the morning, and in returning come up town in the evening. Those who live in the better quarters of the city, or in the upper portion of the island, cannot think of walking between their homes and their business. To say nothing of the loss of time they would incur, the fatigue of such a walk would unfit nine out of ten for the duties of the day. In consequence of this, street railways and omnibuses are more necessary, and better patronized in New York than in any city in the Union.

The street cars are the most popular, as they constitute the quickest and most direct means of reaching the most of the city localities. There are about twenty-two lines in operation within the city limits. The majority of these run from north to south, and a few pass "across town" and connect points on the North and East Rivers. A number centre in Park Row at the new Post-office, and at the Astor House. The fare is usually five cents below Sixty-fifth street, and from six to eight cents to points above that street.

The Street Railway Companies are close corporations. Their stock is very rarely in the market, and when it is offered at all sells readily at high prices. The actual dividends of these companies are large, often reaching as high as thirty-five per cent. This, however, is carefully concealed from the public, and the companies unite in declaring that the expenses of operating their roads are too heavy to admit of even a moderate profit. This they do, no doubt, to excuse in some degree the meanness with which they conduct their enterprises; for it is a striking fact that the heavier such a company's business grows, and the more its profits increase, the more parsimonious it becomes towards its employees and the public.

There is not a line in the city that has a sufficient number of cars to accommodate its patrons. More than one-half of those who ride on the cars are obliged to stand during their journey. As a rule, the cars are dirty and filled with vermin. The conductors and drivers are often appointed for political reasons alone, and are simply brutal ruffians. They treat the passengers with insolence, and often with brutality.

One meets all sorts of people on the street cars, and sometimes the contact is closer than is agreeable, and keeps sensitive people in constant dread of an attack of the itch or some kindred disease. Crowded cars are much frequented by pick-pockets, who are said to be frequently in league with the conductors, and many valuable articles and much money are annually stolen by the light-fingered in these vehicles.

[Picture: NEW PALACE-CAR IN USE ON THE THIRD AVENUE LINE.]

If the drivers and conductors are often deserving of censure, they have their grievances also. Their employers are merciless in their treatment of them. They lead a hard life, working about fifteen hours out of every twenty-four, with no holidays. The conductors receive from $2.00 to $2.50 per day, and the drivers from $2.25 to $2.75. In order to make up the deficiency between their actual wages and their necessities, the conductors and drivers have fallen into the habit of appropriating a part of the money received from passengers to their own use. Many of them are very expert at this, but some are detected, discharged from the service of the company, and handed over to the police. The companies of course endeavor to put a stop to such practices, but thus far have not been successful, and plead as their excuse for the low wages they give, that this system of stealing prevents them from giving higher pay. Spies, or "spotters," as the conductors term them, are kept constantly travelling over the roads to watch the employees. They note the number of passengers carried during the trip, and when the conductors' reports are handed in, examine them and point out such inaccuracies as may exist. They soon become known to the men. They are cordially hated, and sometimes fare badly at the hands of those whose evil doings they have exposed. This practice of "knocking down," or appropriating money, begins with the conductor, as he alone receives the money paid for fares. Those interested in it defend it on various grounds. The President of the Third Avenue Railway Company, the principal horse-car line in the city, once said to a reporter for a morning paper: