Broadway_A History of New York City in Thirteen Miles

by Fran Leadon

  399 The mutilated body of a pregnant Italian woman: “Hairs Clutched in Hand of Girl Brutally Slain. New Clue in the Mystery,” New York Evening World, August 11, 1913, 1–2.

  399 For years the Joseph Keppler house stood vacant: Simmons, “Where Cobwebs Thrive on Manhattan Isle,” 5, 7.

  399 “quaint houses with cupolas and pillars”: Ibid.

  399 “And what do ye be after?”: Helen Worden, Round Manhattan’s Rim. Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill Co., 1934, 169.

  399 Dwyer let Worden inside the old mansion: Ibid., 171–172.

  CHAPTER 48. THE LAST FARM

  401 filled with family mementos: Bashford Dean and Alexander McMillan Welch, The Dyckman House: Park and Museum, New York City, 1783–1916. New York: Gilliss Press, 1916, 40.

  401 hung with antiquated implements: Ibid., 36.

  401 The first Dyckman in the New World: “Old Dyckman Farm Becomes City’s Newest Recreation Ground,” New York Sun, October 10, 1915, Section 7, 5; Dean and Welch, The Dyckman House, 22.

  402 By the 1860s the “Dyckman Tract” had grown: Dean and Welch, The Dyckman House, 21.

  403 probably the largest land sale in Manhattan’s history: “Auction Bids the Beginning of Broadway Values,” New York Sun, December 1, 1912, 25; advertisement, New York Tribune, May 31, 1871, 7.

  403 Hugh and Mary Drennan, who had arrived: 1880 United States Federal Census; New York, New York; Enumeration District 535, p. 451D, www.ancestry.com.

  403 the Drennans’ second - oldest daughter: “Postmaster in 1880 Dies,” New York Times, March 3, 1951, 13. In 1900, Mary and Elizabeth Drennan were listed in Trow’s Directory as living on Broadway near 210th Street.

  403 “with an unkempt yard and slovenly surroundings”: Sarah Comstock, “Old Homesteads in Upper New York,” New York Times, July 9, 1916, Section 2, 8.

  404 “There is, perhaps, not a city in the world”: Dean and Welch, The Dyckman House, 7.

  404 “You will probably come upon it with a start”: Comstock, “Old Homesteads in Upper New York,” 8.

  405 $30 a month: 1930 United States Federal Census; New York, New York; Enumeration District 31-1164, p. 16A, www.ancestry.com.

  405 The farm had good soil: Jeff Kisseloff oral history interviews, Manuscripts and Archives Division, New York Public Library, Astor, Lenox, and Tilden Foundations.

  405 1930 had been an especially hard year: “Farm,” Time XVI, 11 (September 15, 1930), 70.

  406 300 of them in just two apartment buildings: 5000 Broadway had 187 residents in 1930; 5008 Broadway had 114. 1930 United States Federal Census; New York, New York; Enumeration District 31-1164, pp. 8B-11A, www.ancestry.com.

  406 “No stories, no stories!”: Helen Worden, Round Manhattan’s Rim. Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill Co., 1934, 166. Mary Benedetto’s fears of Fellman raising the rent were well founded: A photograph of the farm taken in 1933 shows large billboards positioned at the street corners, advertising the entire block for sale or lease. The Benedettos’ grasp on their farm was, it seems, always tenuous.

  407 “[Almost] every other week: “City Is ‘Going Rural’ Fast, Census Shows; Leads the State in Rate of Farm Increase,” New York Times, May 21, 1935, 21.

  407 Patsy was operating a stationery store: 1940 United States Federal Census, National Archives and Records Administration; New York, New York; Enumeration District 31-1974, p. 4A, https://1940census.archives.gov.

  407 Vincenzo was listed: Ibid.

  407 about $50 worth of produce: “Farm Here Fades; Census Job Gone,” New York Times, April 3, 1940, 4.

  407 Vincenzo Benedetto died in 1943: “Vincenzo Benedetto,” obituary, New York Times, August 1, 1943, 38.

  407 “It was just someplace to live”: Jeff Kisseloff oral history interviews, Manuscripts and Archives Division, New York Public Library, Astor, Lenox, and Tilden Foundations.

  407 “You had freedom”: Ibid.

  CHAPTER 49. INDIAN TRAIL

  409 “It was not an interesting people”: Martha Lamb and Burton Harrison, History of the City of New York: Its Origin, Rise, and Progress. New York: A. S. Barnes & Co., 1896, I, 36.

  409 “the patient art of the wild men”: Reginald Pelham Bolton, Indian Paths in the Great Metropolis. New York: Museum of the American Indian, Heye Foundation, 1922, 16.

  409 the “No. 1 citizen of Washington Heights”: “Reginald Bolton, Engineer, Author,” New York Times, February 19, 1942, 19.

  410 “ancient trail of the Red Men of Manhattan”: Reginald Pelham Bolton, The Path of Progress. New York: Central Savings Bank, 1928, 7.

  410 a “harmless” Dutch wheelwright: David Pietersz de Vries, Voyages from Holland to America, A.D. 1632–1644, translated from the Dutch by Henry C. Murphy. New York: s. n., 1853, 149–150. De Vries gave the victim’s name as Claes Rademaker (Dutch for “Wheelmaker”).

  411 “on the road, over which the Indians”: Ibid.

  411 “on the Wickquasgeck road”: J. Franklin Jameson, editor, Narratives of New Netherland, 1609–1664. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1909, 213.

  412 Jennie F. Macarthy: “Affidavit of Jennie F. Macarthy,” January 7, 1931. Robert Read et al v. the Rector, Church Wardens and Vestrymen of Trinity Church in the City of New York and John Doe and Richard Doe. Supreme Court of the State of New York, Appellate Division, First Department, County Clerk’s File No. 1046, 1931, 12-15.

  412 “There is hardly a doubt”: Jennie F. Macarthy, “Original Grants, Farms: Introduction,” in I. N. Phelps Stokes, The Iconography of Manhattan Island, 1498 to 1909. Six volumes. New York: Robert H. Dodd, 1915–1928. Reprinted, New York: Arno Press, 1967, VI, 67-b.

  412 Macarthy figured that the road: The Post Road, which began in 1669 as the “Road to Harlem,” branched away from the Bowery at present-day 23rd Street and ran up the east side of the island past Turtle Bay on its way to the village of Harlem. The Post Road was superseded by the 1811 Commissioners’ Plan and closed in stages between 1839 and 1852.

  412 The Bloomingdale Road was one of several highways: Colonial Laws, New York, I, 532. Quoted in Stokes, The Iconography of Manhattan Island, IV, 445.

  412 “From the House at the End of New York lane”: “Minutes of the General Sessions of the Peace,” manuscript, 129–130. Quoted in Stokes, The Iconography of Manhattan Island, IV, 458; and in D. T. Valentine, Manual of the Corporation of the City of New-York. New York: Edmund Jones & Co., 1862, 518.

  414 “The white men did not remove it”: “Prehistoric Broadway,” New York Times, September 10, 1922, Section 6, 8.

  414 “Broadway an Indian Trail”: “Broadway an Indian Trail: Present Famous ‘Bright Light’ Pathway Used as Artery of Trade by the Aborigines,” Pioneer Express (Pembina, North Dakota), December, 29, 1922, 7.

  CHAPTER 50. WHERE DOES THIS ROAD END?

  415 “The inhabitants near this bridge”: Charles Dawson Shanly, “Along the Hudson River at New York,” Atlantic Monthly XXII, 129 (July 1868), 1.

  416 “granary of the world”: “Address of the Committee to Mr. Clinton and his Answer,” in David Hosack, Memoir of De Witt Clinton. New York: J. Seymour, 1829, 478.

  416 well over 100 million bushels: “Harlem Ship Canal,” New York Herald, May 6, 1878, 4.

  416 A canal across upper Manhattan: Ibid.

  416 the “Broadway of Harlem”: “Work on the Harlem Canal,” New York Tribune, January 10, 1888, 1; “Harlem Canal Opened,” New York Evening World, June 17, 1895, 1.

  417 a huge chasm of “astonishing breadth and depth”: “Harlem Ship Canal,” 20.

  417 handed a ceremonial keg: “Harlem Canal Opened,” 1.

  417 It was estimated that two more years: Ibid.

  417 By 1903, the canal: “The Harlem Ship Canal Has Become a Jest Among Pilots Because of Neglect—Government Urged to Complete the Partly Constructed Waterway,” New York Tribune, Illustrated Supplement, May 31, 1903, 8.

  419 a C - Town supermarket: Since the line dividing Manhattan from the Bronx is midway between 228th and 230th streets, the nor
thernmost building on Broadway in Manhattan is actually the southernmost building of the Marble Hill Houses, a public housing project. But since it’s set back from the street, perhaps it’s not technically “on” Broadway anyway.

  420 “Broadway,” Walt Whitman wrote: Jerome Loving, “ ‘Broadway, the Magnificent!’: A Newly Discovered Whitman Essay.” Walt Whitman Quarterly Review 12 (Spring 1995), 215.

  420 where New Yorkers felt most at home: Stephen Jenkins, The Greatest Street in the World: The Story of Broadway, Old and New, from the Bowling Green to Albany. New York and London: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1911, vi.

  BIBLIOGRAPHY

  BOOKS

  Albion, Robert Greenhalgh. The Rise of New York Port, 1815–1860. New York and London: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1939.

  Astor, John Jacob. A Journey in Other Worlds: A Romance of the Future. New York: D. Appleton & Co., 1894.

  Bacon, Mardges. Le Corbusier in America: Travels in the Land of the Timid. Cambridge: MIT Press, 2001.

  Badger, Daniel D. Illustrations of Iron Architecture, Made by the Architectural Iron Works of the City of New York. New York: Baker & Godwin, 1865.

  Barnum, Phineas Taylor. The Autobiography of P. T. Barnum, Clerk, Merchant, Editor, and Showman; with His Rules for Business and Making a Fortune. London: Ward & Lock, 1855. Second Edition.

  Barnum, Phineas Taylor. The Life of P. T. Barnum, Written by Himself. London: Sampson Low, Son & Co., 1855.

  Beach, Moses Yale. The Wealth and Biography of the Wealthy Citizens of the City of New York. New York: New York Sun, 1846.

  Bean, Judith Mattson, and Joel Myerson, editors. Margaret Fuller, Critic: Writings from the New-York Tribune, 1844–1846. New York: Columbia University Press, 2000.

  Belasco, David. The Theatre Through Its Stage Door. New York and London: Harper & Brothers, 1919.

  Bellow, Saul. Seize the Day. New York: Penguin, 1965.

  Beveridge, Charles E., editor. Frederick Law Olmsted: Writings on Landscape, Culture, and Society. New York: Library of America, 2015.

  Bird, Isabella Lucy. The Englishwoman in America. London: John Murray, 1856.

  Birmingham, Stephen. “Our Crowd”: The Great Jewish Families of New York. Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 1967.

  Bolton, Reginald Pelham. Indian Paths in the Great Metropolis. New York: Museum of the American Indian, Heye Foundation, 1922.

  Bourget, Paul. Outre-Mer: American Impressions. London: T. Fisher Unwin, 1895.

  Brooks, Richard Albert Edward, editor. The Diary of Michael Floy Jr. of Bowery Village, 1833–1837. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1941.

  Brown, Thomas Allston. History of the American Stage. New York: Dick & Fitzgerald, 1870.

  Brown, Thomas Allston. A History of the New York Stage from the First Performance in 1732 to 1901. Three volumes. New York: Dodd, Mead & Co., 1902.

  Browne, Henri Junius. The Great Metropolis: A Mirror of New York. Hartford: American Publishing Co., 1869.

  Burroughs, John. John James Audubon. Boston: Small, Maynard & Co., 1902.

  Candler, Isaac. A Summary View of America: Comprising a Description of the Face of the Country, and of Several of the Principal Cities; and Remarks on the Social, Moral, and Political Character of the People: Being the Result of Observations and Enquiries During a Journey in the United States. London: T. Cadell, 1824.

  Carman, Harry James. The Street Surface Railway Franchises of New York City. New York: s. n., 1919.

  Carter, Samuel. Cyrus Field: Man of Two Worlds. New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1968.

  Censer, Jane Turner, editor. The Papers of Frederick Law Olmsted. Volume IV, Defending the Union: The Civil War and the U.S. Sanitary Commission, 1861–1863. Baltimore and London: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1986.

  Chambers, Whittaker. Witness. Washington, D.C.: Regnery Publishing, 1980.

  Chase, Philander D., and Frank E. Grizzard Jr., editors. The Papers of George Washington, Revolutionary War Series, VI, 13 August 1776 – 20 October 1776. Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1994.

  Chernow, Ron. Alexander Hamilton. New York: Penguin, 2004.

  Child, Lydia Maria. Letters from New-York. New York: Charles S. Francis & Co.; Boston: James Munroe & Co., 1843.

  Child, Lydia Maria. Letters from New York. Second Series. New York and Boston: Charles S. Francis & Co., 1845.

  Churchill, Allen. The Great White Way. New York: E. P. Dutton & Co., 1962.

  Cohan, George M. Twenty Years on Broadway and the Years It Took to Get There. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1925.

  Costello, Augustine E. Our Firemen. A History of the New York Fire Departments. New York: Augustine E. Costello, 1887.

  Crowe, Eyre. With Thackeray in America. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1893.

  De Vries, David Pietersz. Voyages from Holland to America, A.D. 1632–1644. Translated from the Dutch by Henry C. Murphy. New York: s. n., 1853.

  Dickens, Charles. American Notes for General Circulation. Paris: Baudry’s European Library, 1842.

  Dolkart, Andrew S. Morningside Heights: A History of Its Architecture and Development. New York: Columbia University Press, 1998.

  Downing, Andrew Jackson. The Fruits and Fruit Trees of America: Or, the Culture, Propagation, and Management, in the Garden and Orchard, of Fruit Trees Generally; with Descriptions of All the Finest Varieties of Fruit, Native and Foreign, Cultivated in This Country. London: Wiley and Putnam, 1845.

  Drake, Francis S. Life and Correspondence of Henry Knox, Major-General in the American Revolutionary Army. Boston: Samuel G. Drake, 1873.

  Dreiser, Theodore. The Color of a Great City. New York: Boni & Liveright, 1923.

  Dunlap, David W. On Broadway: A Journey Uptown over Time. New York: Rizzoli, 1990.

  Ellington, George. The Women of New York; or, The Under-World of the Great City. New York: The New York Book Co., 1869.

  Emerson, Edward Waldo, and Waldo Emerson Forbes. The Journals of Ralph Waldo Emerson. Volume VIII. Boston and New York: Houghton Mifflin Co., 1912.

  Fein, Albert, editor. Landscape into Cityscape: Frederick Law Olmsted’s Plans for a Greater New York City. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1967.

  Finch, John. Travels in the United States of America and Canada. London: Longman, Bees, Orme, Brown, Green & Longman, 1833.

  Gates, John D. The Astor Family, New York: Doubleday & Co., 1981.

  Godwin, Parke. Homes of American Authors. New York: G. P. Putnam & Co., 1853.

  Goldman, Emma. Living My Life. Two volumes. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1931. Reprinted, New York: Dover Publications, 1970.

  Goodrich, Samuel Griswold. Life of Louis-Philippe, Late King of the French. Boston: J. B. Hall, 1848.

  Graham, Stephen. New York Nights. New York: George H. Doran Co., 1927.

  Green, Asa. A glance at New York: Embracing the City Government, Theatres, Hotels, Churches, Mobs, Monopolies, Learned Professions, Newspapers, Rogues, Dandies, Fires and Firemen, Water and Other Liquids, & c. & c. New York: A. Greene, 1837.

  Grinnell, George Bird. Audubon Park: The History of the Site of the Hispanic Society of America and Neighboring Institutions. New York: Hispanic Society of America, 1927.

  Griswold, Rufus W. The Prose Writers of America. Philadelphia: Porter & Coates, 1870.

  Gunn, Thomas Butler. The Physiology of New York Boarding-Houses. New York: Mason Brothers, 1857.

  Hardie, James. A Census of the New Buildings Erected in the City, in the Year 1824. New York: S. Marks, 1825.

  Hardie, James. The Description of the City of New-York, Containing Its Population, Institutions, Commerce, Manufactures, Public Buildings . . . New York: Samuel Marks, 1827.

  Hedrick, U. P. The Plums of New York. Albany: J. B. Lyon Co., 1911.

  Hellman, George S., editor. Letters of Henry Brevoort to Washington Irving. Two volumes. New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1916.

  Hellman, George S., editor. The Letters of Washington Irving to Henry Brevoort. Two volumes. New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1915.
/>   Henry, Joseph. The Campaign Against Quebec: Being an Accurate and Interesting Account of the Hardships and Sufferings of That Band of Heroes Who Traversed the Wilderness, by the Route of the Kennebec, and Chaudière River, to Quebec, in the Year 1775. Watertown, N.Y.: Knowlton & Rice, 1844.

  Hobbs, William Herbert. The Configuration of the Rock Floor of Greater New York, U.S. Geological Survey. Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1905.

  Holmes, Isaac. An Account of the United States of America, Derived from Actual Observation, During a Residence of Four Years in That Republic. London: Caxton Press, 1823.

  Hosack, David. Memoir of De Witt Clinton. New York: J. Seymour, 1829.

  Jacobs, Jane. The Death and Life of Great American Cities. New York: Vintage Books, 1961.

  James, Henry. A Small Boy and Others. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1913.

  James, Henry. Washington Square. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1881.

  Jameson, J. Franklin, editor. Narratives of New Netherland, 1609–1664. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1909.

  Jenkins, Stephen. The Greatest Street in the World: The Story of Broadway, Old and New, from the Bowling Green to Albany. New York and London: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1911.

  Jones, Thomas. History of New York During the Revolutionary War. New York: New-York Historical Society, 1879.

  Judson, Isabella Field. Cyrus W. Field: His Life and Work, 1819–1892. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1896.

  Kalfus, Melvin. Frederick Law Olmsted: The Passion of a Public Artist. New York: New York University Press, 1990.

  Kent, William. Memoirs and Letters of James Kent. Boston: Little, Brown & Company, 1898.

  Kernan, Frank. Reminiscences of the Old Fire Laddies and Volunteer Fire Departments of New York and Brooklyn: Together with a Complete History of the Paid Departments of Both Cities. New York: M. Crane, 1885.

  Kisseloff, Jeff. You Must Remember This: An Oral History of Manhattan from the 1890s to World War II. Baltimore and London: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1999.

  Lamb, Martha, and Burton Harrison. History of the City of New York: Its Origin, Rise, and Progress. Three volumes. New York: A. S. Barnes & Co., 1896.