Broadway_A History of New York City in Thirteen Miles

by Fran Leadon

  CHAPTER 26. CHICKENS ON THE ROOF

  229 electricity “free at all hours”: The World’s Loose Leaf Album of New York Apartment Houses. New York: New York World, 1910, 48.

  229 “black as slate in the fog”: Saul Bellow, Seize the Day. New York: Penguin, 1965, 3.

  230 a menu of littleneck clams: Ansonia lunch menu, Rare Book Division, the Buttolph Collection of Menus, New York Public Library Digital Collections, 1907.

  230 There was a barbershop: “Big Private Telephone Exchange,” New York Times, February 11, 1902, 13.

  230 the “Most Superbly Equipped House”: Postcard, 1909, Art and Picture Collection, New York Public Library.

  231 Babe Ruth: “Ruth Develops New Talent. Learns to Play Saxophone,” New York Times, December 23, 1927, 24.

  231 as little as $900 per year: Advertisements, New York Tribune, September 8, 1907, 11; August 23, 1908, 13.

  232 Stokes family: William Earle Dodge Stokes was the son of James Boulter Stokes; his brother was merchant and philanthropist Anson Phelps Stokes, and his nephew was architect Isaac Newton Phelps Stokes, author of The Iconography of Manhattan Island.

  232 dumped the Ansonia’s waste: “Stokes’s Ash Heap Stirs His Neighbors,” New York Times, April 5, 1908, 8.

  232 “the diseased offscouring”: W. E. D. Stokes, The Right to Be Well Born. New York: C. J. O’Brien, 1917, 57.

  232 “Our pure healthy New England blood”: Ibid., 48.

  232 In 1903, Stokes was hospitalized: “Lawyer Fixed Up Alibi,” New York Tribune, October 18, 1903, 2.

  233 Robert Reinhart, whose family: “The Ansonia Remembered,” New York Times, Real Estate Section, November 7, 1971, 1.

  233 Gene Yellin, who grew up: Gene Yellin, personal interview, New York, January 27, 2016.

  233 The building was still full: The Ansonia was rescued from certain demolition in 1971, when tenants petitioned the city’s Landmarks Preservation Commission for protection as a city landmark. Today the Ansonia has been largely restored to its original condition and converted to condominiums.

  CHAPTER 27. HARSENVILLE

  234 94 prime acres of Dyckman’s land: H. Croswell Tuttle, Abstracts of Farm Titles in the City of New York, Between 39th and 73rd Streets, West of the Common Lands, Excepting the Glass House Farm. New York: Spectator Co., 1881, 547.

  235 Pew - holders in the church: Hopper Striker Mott, The New York of Yesterday. New York and London: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1908, 178, 184–186.

  235 sang hymns to a tuning fork: Ibid., 163.

  235 “walk and conversation”: Ibid., 169.

  236 “Mme. d’Auliffe” surrounded herself: Ibid., 87–89.

  236 “Auliffe” was actually a mispronunciation: Margaret A. Oppenheimer, The Remarkable Rise of Eliza Jumel. Chicago: Chicago Review Press, 2016, 48.

  237 kicked out of an inn in Virginia: Samuel Griswold Goodrich, Life of Louis-Philippe, Late King of the French. Boston: J. B. Hall, 1848, 21.

  CHAPTER 28. THE RAVEN OF SPECULATION

  241 docked at Pier 2: Steamboat schedule, A Picture of New-York in 1846, with a Short Account of Places in Its Vicinity; Designed as a Guide to Citizens and Strangers. New York: Roman & Ellis, 1846, 94.

  241 Poe wrote to Muddy the next morning: Edgar Allan Poe to Maria Clemm, April 7, 1844. Quoted in The Letters of Edgar Allan Poe, John Ward Ostrom, editor. New York: Gordian Press, 1966, I, 251–252.

  242 James Gordon Bennett dismissed Poe’s hoax: “Beach’s Last Hoax,” New York Herald, April 15, 1844, 2.

  242 Beach printed a retraction: “Balloon,” New York Sun, April 15, 1844. Quoted in Dwight Thomas and David K. Jackson, The Poe Log: A Documentary Life of Edgar Allan Poe, 1809–1849. Boston: G. K. Hall & Co., 1987, 460.

  242 “There is nothing put forth”: Quoted in Jacob E. Spannuth and Thomas Ollive Mabbott, editors, Doings of Gotham by Edgar Allan Poe. Pottsville, Pa.: Jacob E. Spannuth, 1929, 31.

  242 he was feeling ill and depressed: Edgar Allan Poe to Nathaniel Parker Willis, May 21, 1844. Quoted in Thomas and Jackson, The Poe Log, 462.

  242 the future 84th Street: The Brennan house was located approximately at present-day 206 W. 84th Street.

  243 Poe’s room had a fireplace: Theodore F. Wolfe, “Poe’s Life at the Brennan House,” New York Times Saturday Review of Books, January 4, 1908, 10.

  243 “I have been roaming far and wide”: Quoted in Spannuth and Mabbott, Doings of Gotham by Edgar Allan Poe, 25.

  243 “The perfumery department is especially rare”: Ibid., 48.

  243 Poe stopped in a tobacco store: Thomas and Jackson, The Poe Log, 472.

  243 the incessant “din of the vehicles”: Quoted in Spannuth and Mabbott, Doings of Gotham by Edgar Allan Poe, 61.

  243 “I have . . . rambled and dreamed”: Edgar Allan Poe to James Russell Lowell, July 2, 1844. Quoted in Ostrom, The Letters of Edgar Allan Poe, I, 256.

  244 Poe had withdrawn so thoroughly: Edgar Allan Poe to Frederick W. Thomas, September 8, 1844. Quoted in Ostrom, The Letters of Edgar Allan Poe, I, 262.

  244 Stationed at a desk in the corner: Nathaniel Parker Willis, Home Journal, October 30, 1858; cited in Thomas and Jackson, The Poe Log, 473.

  244 To travel the six miles: As an alternative, Poe could have stayed on the Bloomingdale stage to Tryon’s Row near City Hall Park, then walked a few blocks south to his office. See omnibus and stage routes in A Picture of New-York in 1846, 95–96.

  244 on January 29 published a new poem: “The Raven,” New York Tribune, February 4, 1845, 4.

  245 the Journal moved to new offices: John Doggett Jr., Doggett’s New York City Directory, 1845–46, 429; advertisement, New York Tribune, May 2, 1845, 3.

  245 “perhaps a little jaded”: Walt Whitman, Specimen Days & Collect. Philadelphia: Rees Welsh & Co., 1882, 29.

  246 “disposed of his interest”: “City Items,” New York Tribune, January 1, 1846, 2.

  246 found him in a tavern in Baltimore: Thomas and Jackson, The Poe Log, 844.

  246 Mary Brennan was listed: Trow’s New York City Directory, 1879.

  246 By the mid - 1880s the Brennan farm: Robinson’s Atlas of the City of New York. New York: E. Robinson, 1885, Sheet 24, New York Public Library Map Collection.

  246 Hemstreet took the mantel home: William Hemstreet, “ ‘Raven’ Mantel Is in Brooklyn,” New York Times Saturday Review of Books, December 21, 1907, 843.

  246 donated it to Columbia University: “Columbia Receives the Poe Mantel,” New York Times, January 5, 1908, 8; “After a Part in Poe’s ‘Raven,’ the Dust of Obscurity,” New York Times, August 11, 2012, A16.

  246 dotted with elm, locust, buttonwood: John Flavel Mines, A Tour Around New York and My Summer Acre: Being the Recreations of Mr. Felix Oldboy. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1893, 227.

  247 the decrepit Apthorp mansion as “debased”: Charles Dawson Shanly, “Along the Hudson River at New York,” Atlantic Monthly XXII, 129 (July 1868), 2.

  247 “threatened on all sides”: Mines, A Tour Around New York and My Summer Acre, 227–229.

  247 “[The] air was thick with the shadows”: Ibid.

  248 “In some thirty years every noble cliff”: Quoted in Spannuth and Mabbott, Doings of Gotham by Edgar Allan Poe, 26.

  248 “Going! Going! Gone!”: Mines, A Tour Around New York and My Summer Acre, 225.

  CHAPTER 29. BOOMTOWN

  251 compared the district to London: Egbert L. Viele, The West End Plateau of the City of New York. New York: Johnson & Platt, 1879, 17.

  251 “in wretched condition”: “West Side Property Holders,” New York Times, July 12, 1885, 12.

  251 “desultory and scattered”: “The Wonderful West Side,” New York Sun, March 23, 1889, 5.

  251 mail was still carried by a lone rider: “The Big West Side of Town,” New York Sun, March 31, 1889, 6.

  251 the only commuter disembarking at 93th Street: Ibid.

  251 from 9 million to 46 million: Samuel Carter, Cyrus Field: Man of Two Worlds. New York: G.
P. Putnam’s Sons, 1968, 339.

  252 the Mutual Life Insurance Company: “The Wonderful West Side,” 5.

  252 “They were mistaken”: “The Big West Side of Town,” 6.

  252 In 1889 a vacant lot on the Boulevard: Ibid.

  252 only 27 percent of the lots : George W. Bromley and Walter S. Bromley, Atlas of the City of New York. Philadelphia: G. W. Bromley & Co., 1891, sheets 23, 25, 26, 36, 37, 38.

  252 “The demand is constantly for more”: “The Wonderful West Side,” 5.

  253 “Boulevard” sounded too foreign: “No More ‘Boulevard,’ ” New York Tribune, February 16, 1899, 8.

  253 “Hundreds of men, red - shirted and grimy”: “No Longer Lies Dormant. Boulevard Vitalized by Better Buildings and Transit,” New York Tribune, May 16, 1899, 3.

  254 “They are making an underground trolley”: Horatio Sweetser to Theodore Sweetser, May 28, 1899. Manuscript letter. Courtesy of Richard and Kathleen Hage.

  254 Broadway had no transit at all: “Delay That Is Ruinous,” New York Tribune, November 12, 1899, 2.

  255 “ ATTENTION, BARGAIN HUNTERS”: Advertisement, New York Tribune, November 14, 1899, 10.

  255 In 1899 a small lot: “No Longer Lies Dormant. Boulevard Vitalized by Better Buildings and Transit,” 3.

  255 so vast in scope, the Tribune marveled: “New-York the Empire City,” New York Tribune, December 31, 1902, Part II, 8.

  256 “as if they had been doing it all their lives”: “Our Subway Open, 150,000 Try It,” New York Times, October 28, 1904, 1.

  256 one station every six blocks: The 91st Street station was considered too close to the 86th and 96th street stations and was abandoned in 1959.

  257 Apartments often came equipped: “The West Side’s Newest Apartment Buildings,” New York Tribune, Sunday Real Estate Section, September 3, 1899, 6.

  257 rents in Broadway’s new apartment houses: Ibid.; advertisement, New York Tribune, Sunday Real Estate Section, October 22, 1899, 9.

  257 “elegant” suites of six to ten rooms: “The Wonderful West Side,” 5.

  258 “magnificent human hives”: “Millions Invested in Homes,” New York Tribune, December 31, 1902, Real Estate Section, 9.

  258 189 vacant lots: George W. Bromley and Walter S. Bromley, Atlas of the City of New York. Philadelphia: G. W. Bromley & Co., 1898 (corrections up to 1902), 1911, 1920–1922.

  CHAPTER 30. HOMETOWN

  260 “the large and opulent class”: Egbert L. Viele, The West End Plateau of the City of New York. New York: Johnson & Platt, 1879, 15. In 1879 many of the wealthiest Jewish Grand Dukes still lived on the East Side well below Lenox Hill: Adolph Lewisohn and David, Henry, James, and Jesse Seligman all lived between East 46th and 55th streets. The northward migration to Lenox Hill began in earnest in the 1880s, when Meyer Lehman moved to East 62nd Street and Jacob H. Schiff built a large mansion at Fifth Avenue and East 74th Street. Trow’s New York City Directory, 1882.

  260 the “great west side plateau”: Viele, The West End Plateau of the City of New York, 16.

  260 the “Jewish Fifth Avenue”: Stephen Birmingham, “Our Crowd”: The Great Jewish Families of New York. New York: Harper & Row, 1967. Reprinted 1996, Syracuse University Press, 258–259.

  260 400,000 people: “Big Wave of Jews Coming,” New York Tribune, December 17, 1905, Part V, 1.

  260 “There is room for all of them”: Ibid.

  260 By then 750,000 residents: Ibid.

  261 “The reason the Jews ran out of Harlem”: Jeff Kisseloff oral history interviews. Manuscripts and Archives Division, New York Public Library, Astor, Lenox, and Tilden Foundations.

  261 “[We] were upwardly mobile”: Ibid.

  262 By 1930, an estimated one - third of the West Side’s population: Federation of Jewish Philanthropies, Demographic Study Committee, The Estimated Jewish Population of the New York Area, 1900–1975. New York, 1959, 26; Welfare Council of New York City, Research Bureau, Population in Health Areas, New York City, 1930, Health Districts 27–35, Manhattan. Quoted in Selma Cantor Berrol, “The Making of a Neighborhood: The Jewish West Side,” New York Neighborhood Studies, Working Paper No. 4. New York: Division of Urban Planning, Graduate School of Architecture and Planning, Columbia University, ca. 1982, 1.

  262 epicenter at Broadway and 86th Street: Aaron M. Frankel, “From the American Scene: Back to Eighty-Six Street,” Commentary II, 2 (August 1, 1946).

  262 “[My father] was too lenient”: Jeff Kisseloff oral history interviews. Manuscripts and Archives Division, New York Public Library, Astor, Lenox, and Tilden Foundations.

  262 “We were always, constantly, considering survival”: Ibid.

  262 the West Side’s population increased: Russell Porter, “Our Changing City: Along Manhattan’s West Side,” New York Times, July 4, 1955, 13.

  262 over 100,000 Puerto Ricans: Ibid.

  262 “To the Irish, the Italians were guineas”: Jeff Kisseloff oral history interviews. Manuscripts and Archives Division, New York Public Library, Astor, Lenox, and Tilden Foundations.

  263 The Alamac was the quintessential : Barbara Samuelson, personal interview, New York, April 25, 2016.

  265 “Mainly the West Side then was small shops”: Ibid.

  265 Zabar’s grocery, which Louis Zabar: Christopher Gray, “Zabar’s, Broadway between 80th and 81st Street; As Its Horizons Widened, It Never Left Home,” New York Times, November 10, 2002, www.nytimes.com.

  265 Aaron Chinitz, a Jewish immigrant: “Aaron Chinitz, Founder and President of Two Restaurants Here, Is Dead,” New York Times, April 6, 1945, 15.

  265 They featured almost identical menus: C & L Restaurant and Tip Toe Inn menus. Rare Book Division, Buttolph Collection of Menus, New York Public Library Digital Collections, 1954–1955.

  265 well over a million were consumed: “Bagel Famine Threatens in City; Labor Dispute Puts Hole in Supply,” New York Times, December 17, 1951, 1.

  265 where locals stuffed themselves with chopped herring: Steinberg’s Dairy menu. Rare Book Division, Buttolph Collection of Menus, New York Public Library Digital Collections, 1941.

  265 Walter Matthau used to get a rise: Joann Stang, “How They Survive,” New York Times, July 25, 1965, Section 2, 1.

  266 Hidden beneath the new sign: www.ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com. Accessed September 28, 2016.

  CHAPTER 31. ASYLUM

  270 fragments of the Bloomingdale Road: A nondescript alley on 97th Street, just behind the Powellton apartment house on Broadway, is actually a fragment of the road; another small fragment exists out of view behind the Barnard Court apartment building at the corner of Claremont Avenue and 116th Street. And farther to the north, two fragments of the road survive as Old Broadway and Hamilton Place.

  270 Harlem Heights or Vandewater Heights: Andrew S. Dolkart, Morningside Heights: A History of Its Architecture & Development. New York: Columbia University Press, 1998, 4.

  271 Eddy recommended that New York Hospital: James Hardie, The Description of the City of New-York, Containing Its Population, Institutions, Commerce, Manufactures, Public Buildings . . . New York: Samuel Marks, 1827, 259–261. New York Hospital opened in 1791 and was demolished in 1869.

  271 to “relieve the melancholy mind”: A Picture of New-York in 1846; with a Short Account of Places in Its Vicinity; Designed as a Guide to Citizens and Strangers. New York: Roman & Ellis, 1846, 43.

  271 an act prohibiting 115th through 120th streets: “Refusing to Close a Street,” New York Times, June 27, 1884, 8.

  271 the asylum followed the Retreat model: Hardie, The Description of the City of New-York, 262.

  272 Philip Hone was an asylum trustee: The Diary of Philip Hone, 1828–1851, Bayard Tuckerman, editor. New York: Dodd, Mead & Co., 1889, I, ix, 9.

  272 Of the 4,182 patients: J. H. French, Historical and Statistical Gazetteer of New York State. Syracuse: R. Pearsall Smith, 1860, 432.

  272 “At Bloomingdale”: Margaret Fuller, “Our City Charities. Visit to Bellevue Alms House, to
the Farm School, the Asylum for the Insane, and Penitentiary on Blackwell’s Island,” New York Tribune, March 19, 1845, 1. Quoted in Judith Mattson Bean and Joel Myerson, Margaret Fuller, Critic: Writings from the New-York Tribune, 1844–1846. New York: Columbia University Press, 2000, 101.

  273 Olmstead predicted, land values in the area would skyrocket: “West Side Property Holders,” New York Times, July 12, 1885, 12.

  273 In 1879, Olmstead suggested: “A Site for the World’s Fair,” New York Times, October 2, 1879, 8.

  273 Olmstead argued that since the asylum charged: “Refusing to Close a Street,” 8.

  273 Olmstead and Bixby demanded: “Insane Asylum Methods,” New York Times, March 25, 1888, 11.

  273 Olmstead and Bixby brought to the stand: “Bloomingdale Taxes. The Senate Committee Investigating the Institution’s Standing,” New York Times, March 11, 1888, 16.

  273 “The Bloomingdale Lunatic Asylum has damned”: “Insane Asylum Methods,” 11.

  273 John Brewer, who owned lots: Ibid.

  273 “People won’t live in the neighborhood of a madhouse”: Ibid.

  274 Agent William Cruikshank testified: “Bloomingdale’s Claims. Defending Itself Before the Senate Committee,” New York Times, April 1, 1888, 14.

  274 “Do you ever go up there?”: Ibid.

  274 On May 3 the senate committee: “The Bloomingdale Asylum. A Report Adverse to Cutting Streets Through Its Grounds,” New York Times, May 4, 1888, 1.

  274 the result of a mysterious “tacit agreement”: “To Go to White Plains. Bloomingdale Insane Asylum to Be Moved,” New York Times, May 19, 1888, 5.

  274 “The lunatics in the asylum”: “The Big West Side of Town,” New York Sun, March 31, 1889, 6.

  274 With the asylum out of the way: “West Side Property Holders,” 12.

  CHAPTER 32. ACROPOLIS

  276 King’s College was chartered in 1754: Brander Matthews, A History of Columbia University, 1754–1904. New York: Columbia University Press, 1904, 18.

  276 “with the utmost Decency and Propriety”: New-York Gazette, August 30, 1756. Quoted in Matthews, A History of Columbia University, 1754–1904, 20–21.