by Fran Leadon
117 “stained with fire”: “The Great Meeting This Afternoon,” New York Tribune, April 20, 1861, 4.
117 “our grieved brethren of the slave states”: “Message of Mayor Wood,” New York Sun, January 8, 1861, 1.
117 Spontaneous, unscheduled speakers: “Close of the Meeting,” New York Tribune, April 22, 1861, 6.
117 The Sun noted: Untitled (first news column), New York Sun, April 23, 1861, 1.
117 The blocks surrounding the formerly tranquil square: Professions compiled from Lawrence G. Goulding, Goulding’s Business Directory of New York, Brooklyn, Newark, Paterson, Jersey City, and Hoboken. New York: Lawrence G. Goulding, 1875.
119 Hats were thrown in the air and pistols fired: “Our Greatest Fourth,” New York Sun, July 4, 1876, 1; “The City in Gala Dress,” New York Tribune, July 4, 1876, 1; “One Hundred Years,” New York Herald, July 4, 1876, 2.
119 “There were men, women, and children”: “Our Greatest Fourth,” 1.
119 Ruggles still lived in his original row house: Trow’s New York City Directory, 1872.
119 “Oh! checkered train of years, farewell”: “Dawn of a New Century,” New York Tribune, July 5, 1876, 1.
CHAPTER 14. THE RIALTO
120 The Academy of Music: Thomas Allston Brown, A History of the New York Stage from the First Performance in 1732 to 1901. New York: Dodd, Mead & Co., 1902, II, 24–113.
121 “unsurpassed riders, gymnasts, posture masters, & c.”: Ibid., 353–355.
121 “Why not at once set about dyking the sidewalks”: “The Canalization of Broadway,” New York Times, February 25, 1860, 4. The Times noted another advantage to the plan: “Then, too, when people got themselves murdered in the street, as they will insist upon doing, it would be so simple to drop them into the water, there to drift out of sight and remembrance.”
122 “Hello, Granville”: “The Rialto, Old and New,” New York Sun, September 8, 1895, 14.
122 He was born in New York around 1837: “Antoni Paster,” barber, 147 Fulton St., was listed in Longworth’s Directory in 1827; Antonio Pastor, haircutter, 165 Greenwich Street, was listed in 1839. See also Brown, A History of the New York Stage, II, 170–172.
122 As an eight - year - old: “Tony Pastor Dead,” New York Tribune, August 27, 1908, 7.
122 “family theater”: Advertisement, New York Tribune, October 29, 1875, 9.
122 Pastor had a way with a song: “Invented the Name of Lillian Russell,” New York Tribune, August 30, 1908, 53.
123 “[When] the weather’s fine”: Ibid.
123 the popular liniment St. Jacob’s Oil: Advertisement, New York Sun, December 3, 1881, 4.
123 in 1881, Pastor was mobbed: “Very Bad for Mr. Conkling,” New York Sun, May 31, 1881, 1.
123 the Tony Pastors unwisely challenged the Mutuals: “The Ball and Bat. How the Mutuals Waxed the Tony Pastors,” New York Sun, May 17, 1871, 1.
124 160 actors: Advertisement, New York Tribune, October 29, 1875, 9.
125 Huber’s Museum on 14th Street: Advertisements, New York Evening World, July 11, 1893, 5; New York Evening World, October 13, 1890, 3.
125 James Meade’s Midget Hall: Brown, A History of the New York Stage, II, 593, 595.
CHAPTER 15. INCENDIARY SPEECH
126 Ruggles once described Union Square: Address by the Hon. Samuel B. Ruggles, at Union Square, on the Opening of the Metropolitan Fair, April 8th, 1864. New York: C. A. Alvord, 1864, 11.
127 Goldman waved a red flag: “Anarchists Spoil the Meeting. Wrangling Mars the Labor Demonstration in Union Square,” New York Tribune, May 3, 1892, 1; Emma Goldman, Living My Life. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1931. Reprinted, New York: Dover Publications, 1970, I, 79–80.
127 Her theatrical performance: “Anarchists in Hiding,” New York Tribune, July 25, 1892, 1.
127 4,000 unemployed: “Emma at the Bar,” New York Evening World, October 4, 1893, 1.
127 remarks of an “incendiary character”: “Emma Goldman on Trial,” New York Sun, October 5, 1893, 7.
127 “She is small”: “Emma at the Bar,” 1.
128 “distinctly pudgy”: “Emma Goldman on Trial,” 7.
128 a “dangerous woman”: “Emma Goldman’s Sentence,” New York Sun, October 17, 1893, 5.
128 Selig Silverstein attempted to throw: “Bomb Kills One; Police Escape,” New York Times, March 29, 1908, 1.
129 “I want to say it’s about time the working class”: Mother Earth IX, 5 (July 1914), 145–146.
129 Edelsohn, wearing a black dress and red stockings: “1,000 Men Hold Reds in Order at Funeral for Bomb Victims,” New York Sun, July 12, 1914, 6.
129 “[I] am for violence”: Mother Earth IX, 5 (July 1914), 153–154.
129 “[While] we are approaching the Social Revolution”: Ibid., 140. The Sun, no friend to the anarchists, printed Berkman’s line as the more inflammatory “We are on the verge of social revolution. We are not quite ready yet, but when the time comes we will not stop short of bloodshed to gain our ends.” “1,000 Men Hold Reds in Order at Funeral for Bomb Victims,” 6.
130 “That was pretty hot stuff”: “1,000 Men Hold Reds in Order at Funeral for Bomb Victims,” 6.
130 “[The police] were always there”: Mary Sansone, personal interview, Brooklyn, August 19, 2015. Crisalli joined the IWW soon after immigrating from Italy to New York in 1911, the same year as the horrific Triangle Shirtwaist Company fire, which killed 146 mostly female garment workers in Greenwich Village. He organized sweatshops and often led striking workers to Union Square to picket.
130 “The place was mobbed”: Ibid.
130 “The police were bastards”: Ibid.
130 35,000 protestors assembled in Union Square : “Police Pummel Reds in Second Invasion of City Hall Park,” New York Times, March 2, 1930, 1.
131 “I saw no reason for perpetuating”: “Leaders of Red Riot Held Without Bail. Fight for Release,” New York Times, March 8, 1930, 2.
131 “From all parts of the scene”: “Reds Battle Police in Union Square; Scores Injured, Leaders Are Seized. Two Dead, Many Hurt in Clashes Abroad,” New York Times, March 7, 1930, 2.
131 The police moved in: “Police Battle Reds in Union Square Riot,” New York Times, August 2, 1930, 1, 4.
132 One typical May Day: “May Day Balloons Disperse ‘Brotherhood Seeds’ Here,” New York Times, May 2, 1958, 3.
133 “a graveyard of memories”: “Labor Day Puts Little Fervor into Thin Crowds at Union Sq.,” New York Times, September 6, 1960, 30.
133 Black Lives Matter: Emily Ngo, “Hundreds of Black Lives Matter Protestors March to Union Square,” Newsday, July 10, 2016.
CHAPTER 16. LADIES’ MILE
137 “We are all satisfied”: “The Art of Shopping,” Emporia News (Emporia, Kansas), December 28, 1861, 1.
137 Broadway’s “silks and velvets”: Moses King, King’s Handbook of New York City. Second edition. Boston: Moses King, 1893, 843.
137 past “pictures, jewelry, silks”: Jerome Loving, “ ‘Broadway, the Magnificent!’: A Newly Discovered Whitman Essay,” Walt Whitman Quarterly Review 12 (Spring 1995), 211.
138 a “woman out of the house”: William Henry Rideing, “Life on Broadway,” Harper’s New Monthly Magazine LVI, 331 (December 1877), 235.
138 “A woman who gets adrift on Broadway”: (Mrs.) George Washington Wylles, “The Theory of Shopping,” Bolivar Bulletin (Bolivar, Tennessee), May 11, 1867, 1. Reprinted from the American Phrenological Journal.
138 “On they go, on they go”: “Broadway,” Harper’s Weekly II, 79 (July 3, 1858), 428.
138 But there were rules: George Ellington, The Women of New York; or, The Under-World of the Great City. New York: New York Book Co., 1869, 36.
139 S. M. Peyser’s dry goods: S. M. Peyser was located at 487 Broadway, southwest corner of Broome Street. In 1858, Peyser placed a notice in the Tribune that tried to clarify rumors he had sold his business. It was his brother, Frederick M. Peyser, an importer who had operated a w
holesale store farther south at the corner of Broadway and Franklin Street (363 Broadway), who had gone out of business that spring. “I am now the only Peyser doing business on Broadway,” S. M. Peyser stated. Advertisement, New York Tribune, October 5, 1858, 1. Both brothers are listed in Rode’s Directory for 1854–55.
139 “Believe me, young ladies”: “Broadway,” Harper’s Weekly I, 35 (August 29, 1857), 545–546.
139 one young woman who walked down Broadway: Ibid.
139 the “vicissitudes of trade”: Undated clipping, Thomas Hunt & Co. ledger. Manuscripts and Archives Division, New York Public Library, Astor, Lenox, and Tilden Foundations.
139 Broadway’s shopping district was defined: Fourteen blocks is about six blocks less than a mile, but descriptions of Ladies’ Mile often extended past Madison Square, or included the long block along 23rd Street leading to the stores on Sixth Avenue. It might also have been interpreted as a half a mile up one side of Broadway and a half a mile down the other.
140 “a white house in the skies”: “A New Mercantile Palace. Opening of Arnold and Constable’s New Store,” New York Tribune, March 29, 1869, 5.
142 “The commerce of the world is here embodied”: Ellington, The Women of New York, 40.
142 “The clerk from behind his moustaches”: Ibid., 344.
142 “If you need exercise”: Wylles, “The Theory of Shopping,” 1.
CHAPTER 17. THE “MERRY CHAIR WAR”
144 In 1794 the land was appropriated by the city: Minutes of the Common Council of the City of New York, 1784–1831, New York: City of New York, 1917, II, 92.
145 The park appeared in its present rectangular form: See foldout map in John Disturnell, A Guide to the City of New York, Containing an Alphabetical List of Streets, & c. New York: J. Disturnell, 1837.
145 singing to them from sheet music: Elizabeth Story Palmer, My Memories of Old New York. New York: Edwin S. Gorham, 1923, 3.
145 Madison Square Presbyterian Church: The church was a Gothic Revival gem designed by Richard M. Upjohn, son of the renowned Trinity Church architect. Built in 1854, it was torn down in 1909.
145 a layer of “cold chocolate sauce”: Edith Wharton, The Age of Innocence. New York and Los Angeles: Windsor Editions by arrangement with D. Appleton & Co., 1920, 69.
145 “without great churches or palaces”: Edith Wharton, A Backward Glance. New York and London: D. Appleton-Century Co., 1934, 54.
146 “This is the most interesting spot in the city”: Richard Harding Davis, “Broadway,” Scribner’s Magazine IX, 5 (May 1891), 596.
146 chained himself to a streetcar: “Man Pulls Broadway Car,” New York Tribune, April 27, 1903, 4.
147 “up and down, up and down”: Stephen Crane, “In the Broadway Cars,” New York Sun, July 26, 1896, 3.
147 Conductors careered around the southwest corner: Fairfax Downey, “Traffic Regulation from Then Until Now,” New York Tribune, Part V (Magazine Section), January 15, 1922, 3; “Cable Car Passengers Hurt,” New York Sun, July 16, 1896, 9; “Thrown Off at Dead Man’s Curve,” New York Sun, September 12, 1896, 1.
147 “the most charming of the smaller parks”: Moses King, King’s Handbook of New York City. Boston: Moses King, 1893, 218.
147 the “people’s roof - garden ”: Davis, “Broadway,” 602.
148 “[Only] on the rarest of occasions”: “Pay Chairs and Hygiene,” New York Sun, July 14, 1901, 6.
148 “a port of missing men”: Theodore Dreiser, The Color of a Great City. New York: Boni & Liveright, 1923, 217.
148 Thousands slept: “Sleeping on the Beach,” New York Tribune, June 30, 1901, 1.
148 spraying water on each horse: “Humane Son of a Prizefighter. ‘Charlie’ Pool Relieves the Sufferings of Horses as They Pass in the Street,” New York Tribune, July 4, 1901, 3.
149 calling the whole affair an “outrage”: “Didn’t Pay for Park Seat,” New York Tribune, July 2, 1901, 5.
149 “When the policeman told me to sit on the bench”: Ibid.
149 the city’s parks were free and “for the people”: “The Parks Are Free,” New York Tribune, July 3, 1901, 6.
149 “The citizens of this community own the parks”: “Murphy Hits Chair Privilege,” New York Sun, July 4, 1901, 7.
149 a “thin, nervous, wiry little man”: “Pay Seats in City Parks Wanted Only by Clausen,” New York Evening World, June 26, 1901, 5.
150 “I believe a certain class of people”: “Spate Muses and Loses,” New York Tribune, July 10, 1901, 1.
150 The Fourth of July dawned warm: “A Cool Wind Fans City,” New York Tribune, July 5, 1901, 1.
150 a crowd of 300 to 400: “Green Chairs Cause Row,” New York Sun, July 7, 1901, 7.
150 Six or seven men from the crowd: “Spate Man Mobbed in Madison Square,” New York Evening World, July 6, 1901, 2.
150 “Save me! They’re going to lynch me!”: “Tries to Lynch Spate Man,” New York Tribune, July 7, 1901, 1.
150 children heckled Spate’s hapless attendants: “Merry Park Seat War,” New York Sun, July 8, 1901, 3.
151 insults “favoring the immediate extinction of aristocrats”: Ibid.
151 “Spate! Spate! Clausen and Spate!”: “Spate Chairs Cause Riot,” New York Tribune, July 9, 1901, 7; “All Day Park Chair Scrap,” New York Sun, July 9, 1901, 3.
151 a violent game of beanbags: “End of Pay Park Chairs,” New York Sun, July 10, 1901, 1.
151 “Smash it! Break it up!”: Ibid.
151 Some drivers even reversed direction: “Spate’s 5-Cent Chairs Cause a Riot. Mob Jeers Police in Madison Square,” New York Evening World, July 9, 1901, 2.
CHAPTER 18. THE FREAK BUILDING
153 the last section of Broadway’s cable traction system: Between 1898 and 1901 the cable traction system was replaced with electricity on the Broadway, Columbus, and Lexington Avenue lines of the Metropolitan Street Railway Co. The last cable was removed on May 25, 1901. Street Railway Journal XVI, 830; XVII, 681. Quoted in I. N. Phelps Stokes, The Iconography of Manhattan Island, 1498 to 1909, New York: Robert H. Dodd, 1915–1928. Six volumes. Reprinted, New York: Arno Press, 1967, V, 2043.
154 “At the present rate of improvement”: “Adopt Proskey’s Plan,” New York Tribune, May 18, 1901, 16.
154 He gave tours of his shambles of a home: Untitled, New York Tribune, May 22, 1901, 6.
154 “Only five flights more”: “Proskey’s ‘Comforts,’ ” New York Tribune, May 21, 1901, 4.
154 a federal court ruling forced him to surrender his keys: “Col. Proskey Gets Out,” New York Tribune, June 6, 1901, 14; “Another Effort to Oust Proskey,” New York Tribune, May 30, 1901, 4. The following year Proskey married, claiming he was tired of hotel rooms and the bachelor life. “Evicted, He Is Driven to Wed,” New York Evening World, March 16, 1903, 3.
155 the “Freak Building”: “Thugs Hold Up Flatiron Man,” New York Evening World, April 20, 1903, 3; “Gale Strews Harbor with Shipwrecks,” New York Evening World, September 16, 1903, 1.
156 compared the project to the Tower of Babel: Charles F. McKim to Daniel H. Burnham, April 30, 1902. Quoted in Charles Moore, Daniel H. Burnham, Architect, Planner of Cities. Boston and New York: Houghton Mifflin Co., 1921, I, 180–181.
157 “It appeared to be moving toward me”: Quoted in Dorothy Norman, Alfred Stieglitz, An American Seer. New York: Random House, 1973, 45.
157 “As one looks through the bars of the cage”: Montgomery Schuyler, “Architectural Appreciations—No. II,” Architectural Record XII, 5 (October 1902), 535.
157 “[It] is a great pity”: Ibid.
158 Chief Joseph: “Chief Joseph’s Adventures in New York,” New York Sun, October 4, 1903, 7.
158 stacks of newspapers flying everywhere: “Hurricane Corner,” Leslie’s Weekly XCVI, 2477 (February 26, 1903), cover illustration.
158 the “Home of the Winds”: “Blaze at the Big Flatiron,” New York Evening World, April 10, 1903, 2.
158 “Winds not only blow”:
“ ‘Rubbering’ at Flatiron Legal,” New York Evening World, February 9, 1903, 1, 12.
159 the “Flatiron Girl”: “The ‘Flatiron’ Girl in a Snowstorm,” New York Evening World, February 18, 1903, 13.
159 and began making arrests: “City in a Wet Gale. Pranks Played by the Wind at Flatiron Storm Centre,” New York Tribune, April 15, 1903, 3.
160 “Now, two minutes is a reasonable time”: “ ‘Rubbering’ at Flatiron Legal,” 1, 12.
160 The Evening World interpreted Mayo’s decision: Ibid.
160 “Women’s skirts flapped over their heads”: Bruce St. John, editor, John Sloan’s New York Scene. New York: Harper & Row, 1965, 123. Sloan’s studio was at 165 West 23rd Street, at Seventh Avenue. The diary he kept from 1906 to 1913 remains one of the most vivid descriptions of everyday life in New York in the years leading up to World War I.
CHAPTER 19. THE “LIGHT CURE”
161 “About 10 o’clock are now to be seen the Pleiades”: Richard Albert Edward Brooks, editor, The Diary of Michael Floy Jr. of Bowery Village, 1833–1837. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1941, 263.
162 During an especially impressive shower: “City Items,” New York Tribune, August 16, 1855, 7. “[The meteors] have been noticed and spoken of by the most casual observers—those whose eyes apparently, as well as thoughts, are so generally directed earthward that they seem to be unmindful in their evening walks that there is a celestial panorama right over their heads and presented every evening with no charge for witnessing it.”
162 “Bat, bat! Come under my hat!”: John J. Sturtevant memoir, Manuscripts and Archives Division, New York Public Library, Astor, Lenox, and Tilden Foundations, 57.
162 in the “Darke time of ye Moon”: Minutes of the Common Council of the City of New York, 1675-1776. New York: Dodd, Mead & Company, 1905, II, 21.
162 Broadway was lighted above Canal Street: New York Daily Advertiser, April 14, 1800. Quoted in I. N. Phelps Stokes, The Iconography of Manhattan Island, 1498 to 1909. New York: Robert H. Dodd, 1915–1928. Six volumes. Reprinted, New York: Arno Press, 1967, V, 1376.
162 4,519 of the city’s 11,239 streetlights: “Mayor’s Message,” New York Tribune, May 9, 1849, 4.