Michael closed the door. “You two go back to sleep. I’ll stay awake in case he does come back.”
Michael sat with his back against the door and the knife in his hand. He didn’t know how long he stayed in that position, but at some point, he heard the soft murmuring of voices and the lazy shuffling of feet in the hallway. Evidently, it was morning.
The three of them went downstairs and out into the gloom of an early morning rain. As bad as the air smelled, it was a welcome break from the foul air of their claustrophobic room. Michael looked up and down the street for signs of the man, but all he saw were drunken men staggering on the sidewalks so drunk they could hardly see, women sleeping in doorways, and pigs rooting in piles of rubbish.
“Come on, Maureen. Let’s find a policeman and we’ll tell him what happened.”
“No. I can’t do that.”
“Why not?” Emily asked. “The police will help you.”
“They’ll do no such thing. Don’t you know all the policemen are paid off by the likes of him?”
Emily and Michael were stunned. They wouldn’t have been surprised if they’d heard that back in Ireland. It was common knowledge that the police and the army were under the thumb of the landlords. But they thought it would be different here in America.
Before they could stop her, Maureen darted into Murderers Alley and disappeared into a darkened building.
“Should we follow her?” Emily asked.
Michael took one look at the rough men loitering in the alleyway and decided it would be a mistake to pursue her. “No. We have to attend to our own business.”
“But what’s to become of that poor woman?”
“I don’t know.” He surveyed the derelicts all around them. “It would seem that this city is full of people like Maureen and we can’t help all of them.”
As the hotel clerk had said, they found the currency establishment at the foot of the quay. Before they’d left their room, Emily had removed the money from the lining of her dress. Now she put it on the counter in front of a young, bespectacled man. “I’d like to exchange this for American dollars.”
“Certainly, madam.” He quickly counted out the money and gave her the equivalent in dollars. He looked them over carefully. “May I presume you are just off the boat?”
Once again, Michael was painfully aware of their disheveled appearance, not to mention their odor. “We are. But now that we have money we’re off to find decent lodgings, a hot bath, and some new clothes.”
The clerk looked at Emily’s thread-worn dress and nodded sympathetically. “Well, there’s Lord and Taylor’s on Catherine Street. But for ladies clothing, I would highly recommend A.T. Stewart’s Marble Palace located on Broadway and Chambers Street. You can’t miss it. It’s not called a marble palace for nothing. The store is so well-known there’s no sign on the front. My wife tells me the store advertises regular and uniform prices. She appreciates not having to haggle over prices. As for the gentleman, I would recommend Devlin and Company at the corner of Broadway and Grand.”
“Perhaps you could recommend a place where we might find decent lodgings at an affordable price?” Emily asked.
“I know of none personally, but there are any number of boardinghouses along Greenwich Avenue. You might try there.”
“Thank you very much for the information.”
“Not at all. My uncle came out from Ireland a couple of years ago and he had a hard time of it in the beginning. It takes a while to get your bearings.”
“I imagine it does,” Michael said, thinking of the scoundrel in the green tie.
“Oh, and one more thing. That’s quite a bit of money you have. I would advise you not to carry all of it on your person. The streets are full of amusers and their ilk. A word to the wise.”
“Amusers?” Michael asked.
“It’s the latest trick of the criminal trade. They throw snuff or pepper in your face and while you’re temporarily blind, they rob you.” He chuckled. “Perhaps that’s the origin of the term getting robbed blind.”
When they came out of the currency house, Emily said, “First thing is we must find a place to stay and take baths. Then, we go clothes shopping.”
“That’s fine with me. It’s getting so I can’t stand my own stink.”
Asking directions and getting lost a couple of times, they finally found Greenwich Avenue. True to the clerk’s word, there were any number of boardinghouses lining both sides of the street.
“This looks grand,” Michael said staring up at handsome three-story brownstone building.
They climbed the stoop stairs and knocked on the door. A plump woman with rosy red cheeks and her gray hair pulled back in a severe bun opened the door.
“Yes? She gave them a critical once over with her eyes. Judging by the frown on her face she wasn’t impressed with what she saw.
“We’re looking for lodgings,” Emily said.
“Quite impossible. You can’t afford my rent.”
“We have money,” Michael said, irritated by the woman’s haughty tone.
She fixed him with a steely gaze. “It’s forty dollars a week.”
“Forty dollars a week? They both said in unison.
“Try the boardinghouse at 515,” she said and slammed the door.
Back on the street, they reconsidered their options. “We could afford that rent for a while,” Emily said. “But until we’re both gainfully employed, we’d better settle for something less expensive.”
The house at 515 Greenwich Avenue was a great comedown from the first house they’d visited. It was in need of painting, the stoop’s bricks were crumbling, and two shutters were hanging at odd angles.
A small, elderly man with a push broom mustache over a weak chin opened the door. “Yes, what is it?”
“We’re looking for lodgings,” Michael said.
“Come in then, come in. I’m Coyle, the landlord. The rent for the two of youse is ten dollars a week, payable in advance. The price includes meals. Come with me, I’ll show you what I have available.”
He led them up a staircase covered by threadbare carpeting. A strong, musty smell permeated the air. He led them down a dark hallway to a small room containing a bed, a dresser and a chair.
“This is what I have available. It’s quite suitable.”
Michael took one look at the worn-out bedspread, the rickety chair, and the peeling wallpaper and wanted to say it wasn’t suitable, but he held his tongue.
Emily was underwhelmed by the room. “This will do. We need a hot bath. Is that available?”
“It is, but it’ll cost extra.”
After much-needed baths, they set out to look for A.T. Stewart’s Marble Palace department store. After a few wrong turns, they found their way to Broadway and stopped in amazement at the utter confusion. Traffic was almost at a standstill as dozens of horse carts and cursing, red-faced cart men dodged and maneuvered their way around piles of timber, mounds of bricks, mountains of packing-cases, pyramids of stones and stacks of goods blocking the street.
A.T. Stewart’s Marble Palace was as the exchange clerk had said. Michael stood in amazement at the sight. He’d never seen so large a building. It was indeed a marble palace sheathed in dazzling white Tuckahoe marble. Standing five stories high, it spanned the entire length of the block between Chambers and Reade Streets. Its street-level facade boasted fifteen plate-glass windows, behind which were displayed beautiful fabrics for dresses, muslin, as well as a wide range of cloaks and bonnets. Adding to the traffic chaos on the street, dozens of carriages were lined up outside the store awaiting their shopping mistresses.
The magnificent interior of the store was organized around a large circular court covered by a domed skylight that soared five stories above the main floor. Beautifully displayed on polished mahogany counters and marble shelves were all manner of clothing and goods, including silks from Lyon, gloves and dresses from Paris, carpets made in Brussels, Irish linens, French laces, English woolens, pa
isley and cashmere shawls, some of which—to Michael’s amazement—cost two thousand dollars. Emily had shopped in London and Paris, but she had never seen anything quite this opulent.
A handsome young man, one of the store’s two hundred clerks, approached them. “May I be of service to madam?”
“Yes. I’m looking for dresses and shoes.”
“Very good. Right this way, madam.”
He led her to the dress department. “May I ask, are you employed in the domestic service?”
“No, why do you ask?”
He looked around and dropped his voice. “Lately, we’ve been getting complaints from some of our wealthier customers.”
“About what?”
He grinned. “It seems that these mistresses are quite vexed because their servants buy our dresses and become virtually indistinguishable from them. That’s why most of them insist that their employees wear costumes suitable to their station in life.”
“How silly.”
“True. But I just wanted to warn you. Some domestics have been forced to return their dresses because their employers thought them above their station.”
“Well, I’m not in domestic service and I don’t intend to be.”
“Very good, madam.” He held up a yellow dress. “Would madam like to try this on?”
Emily ran her hand across the soft fabric. “Yes, I would.”
While Emily went to try on dresses, Michael wandered about the store, marveling at the sheer volume of clothing on display. On the second and third floors, he saw carpets, ladies’ suits and a bewildering assortment of shawls.
When he returned to the dress department, he caught sight of Emily and couldn’t believe his eyes. After weeks aboard the ship with scarcely a change of clothes or a decent bath, he’d almost forgotten how beautiful she was. She was wearing a bright blue hoop skirted dress and a flowered bonnet that highlighted her soft auburn hair.
She spun around. “Well, what do you think?”
“It’s beautiful,” he stammered. “And so are you.”
“Thank you, kind sir. Now, let’s get you some suitable clothing.”
On their way back to the boardinghouse, weighted down with their clothing purchases from Stewart’s and Devlin’s, they witnessed an extraordinary sight. Just three blocks from their boardinghouse, a building was on fire. Suddenly, there was the sound of bells and a fire wagon, pulled by a dozen men, came rushing up the street. Then, from the opposite direction, came another fire wagon with bells ringing came. Both groups reached the building at the same time. Then to Michael’s amazement, the two groups ran at each other and started clubbing each other as the fire continued to consume the building.
They arrived back at the boardinghouse just in time for supper. Seated around the table in the small dining room was a young girl in her early twenties, an older woman in her fifties, and a middle-aged man with enormous whiskers and a strong, pleasant aroma of tobacco about him.
The whiskered man stuck out his hand. “Greetings. I’m Gaylord Temple.”
“I’m Michael Ranahan and this is my wife Emily.”
The young girl nodded shyly. “Hi. I’m Sarah Kavanagh.”
“And I am Mrs. Winslow,” the older woman said with an air of authority.
As they sat down, Gaylord whispered to Michael, “The food’s not much, but old man Coyle’s always good for seconds.”
“Unfortunately, the subpar quality of the food does not entice one to seek seconds,” Mrs. Winslow intoned with an arched eyebrow.
Just then, Coyle came into the dining room carrying a tureen. “I heard that, Mrs. Winslow. If the food is not to your liking, you might wish to dine at Delmonico’s over on Beaver Street with all the other swells.”
Ignoring his comment, she said, “And what is on the menu tonight, dear Mr. Coyle?”
“It’s a stew if you must know, Mrs. Winslow.”
“Stew again. How enchanting.”
“Well, I can’t feed the likes of you steak with the paltry rent you pay me.”
“Perhaps if you refurbished your establishment, you could charge more.”
“Refurbished?” Gaylord chuckled. “He’d have to pull the entire building down and start over.”
Coyle gave him a dirty look and Mrs. Winslow said, “Mr. Temple, I do believe you have just forfeited your chance at seconds tonight.”
“Not at all. Mr. Coyle knows I was kidding. Right Mr. Coyle?”
Coyle slammed the tureen down on the dining room table. “You can all serve yerselves,” he said, and stomped out of the room.
As Michael ladled stew into Emily’s bowl, he said, “We saw something very strange today. A building was on fire and two fire wagons showed up at the same time and they started fighting with each other.”
Gaylord chuckled. “It happens all the time. There are dozens of volunteer fire companies in the city and only the company that puts out the fire gets paid by the insurance company. The competition is fierce. Men have been killed over it. For added muscle, some of these fire companies employ the Dead Rabbits, the Plug Uglies, and the like.”
“Dead Rabbits?” a puzzled Emily asked.
“Gangs, madam. The city is full of gangs. Just last year, over at the Five Points a couple of them battled in the streets for two days.”
“My goodness. Why?”
“The Dead Rabbits are made up mostly of Irish immigrants. The Bowery Boys are nativists and anti-immigration. They went at it for two days with brick-bats, stones, clubs, and guns. Over a thousand gang members were involved. When the police came to break it up, the two gangs joined forces against the police. Overwhelmed, the police had to call out the militia to stop the riot. Over a hundred men were injured and eight died. At least that we know of.”
Seeing the look of astonishment on Michael’s face, Mrs. Winslow said, “You will find, Mr. Ranahan, that New York City is a very violent place.”
“It is that,” Gaylord agreed. “If you ever have the occasion to walk by a firehouse you’ll see a bunch of loafers hanging about. When there’s a fire, they follow the firemen to the scene and take advantage of the chaos to pick pockets and conduct all sorts of mischief. Some even dress like firemen complete with red shirts, fire hats, and badges and they go into the burning buildings to loot whatever they can.”
“How do you know so much about it, Gaylord?” Michael asked.
“I’m a reporter with the New York Tribune. It’s my job to know everything that goes on in this city.”
“So, you cover crime and such?”
“Lord, no. My editor, Mr. Horace Greeley, will have none of that in his newspaper. We gather news with good taste, high moral standards, and intellectual appeal. Police reports, scandals, dubious medical advertisements, and flippant personalities are barred from its pages. Still,” he said with a wink, “I keep my eye on the ne’er-do-wells and blackguards in the city.”
“Perhaps you could explain another unusual building we saw the other day,” Emily said. “It looked like some kind of Egyptian tomb.”
“Ah, that would be our city prison affectionately known as the ‘Tombs’ and it’s where our rapscallions and rogues of the Five Points are frequently housed. When Charles Dickens saw it, he had only one question: "‘What is this dismal fronted pile of bastard Egyptian, like an enchanter’s palace in a melodrama?’"
“I would agree,” Emily said. “It seems like a very fancy building just to house criminals.”
“No doubt graft and the passing of huge sums of money had something to do with it,” Mrs. Winslow sniffed.
“It’s true. There was plenty of graft to go around,” Gaylord said. “The building was badly built on the site of the old Collect Pond and started sinking the very day it opened. There are calls to tear the damn thing down.” He turned to Emily. “So, what are your plans now that you have arrived in our fair city?”
“We’re both going to be looking for work tomorrow. Does anyone have any suggestions where we might start?”
> “I work at Stewart’s,” Sarah said. “I believe they’re hiring.”
“We were just there today. It’s a lovely store. Are you a sales clerk?”
“Goodness, no. Mr. Stewart hires only handsome young men to be sales clerks.”
“Whatever for?”
“Well, it is a store for ladies, and he believes that ladies would rather deal with an attractive young man than a woman.”
“You’ve got to hand it to old Alexander T. Stewart,” Gaylord interjected. “He’s a crafty old Irishman who came here from Belfast. He opened a small dry-goods shop over on Broadway and parlayed that into the magnificent edifice you shopped in today. The man’s a genius. Until he came along, the time-honored custom in clothing stores was for a clerk to engage a customer as soon as he came through the door. Prices were purposely not fixed and after a time of tedious negotiating an agreed price was struck. Old Stewart realized that if he was to move his merchandize faster, he would have to change the whole system.”
“What did he do?” Emily asked.
“He instituted regular and uniformed prices. Absolutely revolutionary.”
“That’s what the man at the currency exchange told us.”
“Furthermore, he outsmarted all the other merchants in the city.”
“How so?”
“He created a store that would fill a woman’s every need. Before he came along, merchants expected women to purchase fabrics, bonnets, furniture and the like at small specialty shops scattered along Broadway. His idea was quite radical, but it worked. A.E. Stewart’s is one of the most successful department stores in the city. Everything you need is under one roof.”
“Obviously, a man of vision.” Emily turned to Sarah. “So, what do you do there, Sarah?”
“I’m a seamstress.”
“What kind of wages does the store pay?”
“For women, somewhere between fifty cents and two dollars a week.”
“Are those good or bad wages?” Michael asked, still unfamiliar with American currency.
Manhattan Page 3