NEW YORK 



Munlv .in.l aggressive ; llu- Yul.li-li 

 is il. >ui Citing and original. 

 M mv wlio have inaili- mi.iiey are 

 lutli to leave it, ami 1.1 m-l Street 

 has ita fashions and convent ions 

 no less than Fifth Avenue. 



The Kast rivor is too swift for 

 .shipping, but on both sides of the 

 N.u-tli river the great liners berth. 

 'I'll-- docks extend in New York 

 from the Battery to West Fifty - 

 n in tli Street, theCunard, the White 

 Star, the Anchor, and other great 

 steamship companies having their 

 from about 14th to 23rd 

 Street. 



The Streets o! the City 



For 2 ra. from the Battery the 

 street plan of New York is irregu- 

 lar, but after that the usual Ameri- 

 can rectangular plan prevails. The 

 streets run roughly E. and W., 

 20 to the mile ; the avenues N. and 

 S., seven to the mile. Numbers are 

 the rule, but in the N. districts 

 many avenues adopt names, as 

 Columbus or Amsterdam. Broad- 

 way, however, runs diagonally 

 across the chequer-board until at 

 106th Street it becomes the con- 

 tinuation of llth Avenue. 



The extraordinary celerity with 

 which New York districts alter 

 their character has deprived the 

 streets just N. of 14th of their 

 recent pre-eminence as a shopping 

 and theatrical centre. Washington 

 Square and a few blocks at the S. 

 end of Fifth Avenue still remain 

 the homes of old New York families, 

 in spite of the spread of business 

 there, and Greenwich clings des- 

 perately to its reputation as an ar- 

 tistic and rather Bohemian centre. 



To the visitor the heart of New 

 York is now the district contained 

 within Broadway and Fifth Avenue, 

 26th and 59th Streets. Here are 

 the great hotels and restaurants, 

 the Metropolitan Opera House, and 

 Carnegie Hall, the best theatres, 

 ami the big department stores. In 

 this region is focused all the 

 luxury, all the amusement, that 

 money can buy, and it presents 

 such a concentration of the glitter 

 of life in a small space as no other 

 city can show. 



Times Square, which is domin- 

 ated by the Times building, is the 

 Piccadilly Circus of New York, and 

 its pavements, when lit up by the 

 electric signs of the " Great White 

 Way," are as crowded at midnight 

 with pleasure-seekers as is 34th 

 Street at noon with shoppers and 

 bargain-hunters. In this district 

 may be found also the New York 

 public library, in ita white marble 

 home ; S. Patrick's Roman Catholic 

 cathedral, with its stately Gothic 

 spires ; the galleries of the National 

 Academy of Design, and many of 

 tho principal churches. 



B72P 



, .V.I Mi to I Kith 

 stretchea Central Park, ilivi.lm.- 

 New York between Fifth and 

 Seventh Avenues. It in the fincnt 

 of all the city's fine park*, and it 

 contains the Metropolitan M 

 of Art, while the American Museum 

 f Natural 1 1 i-i TV m in Manhattan 

 Square adjoining it. Along the K. 

 aide of tho park are the mansions 

 of millionaires who have given 

 Fifth Avenue ita social prestige. 



The Upper West Side, on the 

 other side of the park, is also a 

 residential district, but there are 

 many apartment houses. Along 

 Broadway these have been brought 

 to the highest point of perfection, 

 and, sometimes occupying an entire 

 block, and rising to 12 or 14 

 storeys, accommodate great num- 

 bers in luxurious style. Riverside 

 Park is a pleasant promenade along 

 the bank 6f the North river, and 

 Riverside Drive, just above it, con- 

 tains another fine row of apartment 

 houses. Two great national me- 

 morials, the Soldiers' and Sailors' 

 Monument, and Grant's Tomb, 

 stand on the Drive, while a little 

 E. of it is a remarkable collection 

 of fine buildings. The library, 

 lecture halls, laboratories, and dor- 

 mitories of Columbia University 

 crown Morningside Heights, and 

 close by are Barnard College for 

 women, and the Union Theological 

 Seminary. The as yet unfinished 

 Episcopal cathedral of S. John the 

 Divine and S. Luke's Hospital are 

 also found on Morningside Heights 

 above 110th Street. 



New York's Suburbs 



At 125th Street comes Harlem, 

 once a separate town, and still a 

 distinct centre, the home of the 

 middle classes, and there is room 

 in Manhattan, on the W. side, for 

 another large district of comfort- 

 able, but not quite so luxurious, 

 apartment houses. Here is the City 

 college, the apex of the municipal 

 educational system, while on Uni- 

 versity Heights, in the borough of 

 tho Bronx, are the new buildings 

 of the university of New York, 

 with tho remarkable Hall of Fame 

 for the commemoration of dis- 

 tinguished Americans. Of the other 

 boroughs of New York City tho 

 Bronx (pop. 736,016) is for the most 

 part a typical suburban tract, but 

 much of it is as yet undeveloped. It 

 contains zoological and botanical 

 gardens. Queensborough (pop. 

 469,000) is a growing industrial and 

 residential centre, while Richmond 

 borough, or Staten Island (pop. 

 116,500), is in the main a rural re- 

 gion, with farms and country towns. 

 Brooklyn, on the other hand, was 

 formerly a separate city, and had 

 a municipal, social, and intellectual 

 life of ita own. 



NEW YORK 



Four great bridges over the Eaat 

 river, the Brooklyn, the Man- 

 hattan, the Willianuburg, and the 

 Queenaborough, and several tun- 

 IK -N. join Manhattan to Brooklyn 

 an. I (jueena, and four tunnela and 

 numerous ferries join it to New 

 Jersey. They have been worked 

 into the wonderful interurban 

 transportation system that iU 

 hurrying millions have forced New 

 York to develop. In Manhattan 

 almost every avenue has iU tram- 

 way line, and there are four N. and 

 8. elevated railways ; while the 

 tube system has been recently ex- 

 tended at a coat of over 70,000,000 

 to cover the entire city except 

 Staten Island. Enormous engineer- 

 ing difficulties have been overcome, 

 and the train service in the " rush 

 hours " is maintained with wonder- 

 ful efficiency. Transportation from 

 E. to W. is generally inadequate. 

 Railways and Government 



Three great trunk lines run into 

 New York, the New York Central, 

 and the New York, New Haven, and 

 Hartford at the Grand Central 

 station, and the Pennsylvania 

 Railroad at the Pennsylvania Ter- 

 minus, both of these " depot* " 

 being magnificent buildings. 

 Several other important lines have 

 their termini on the New Jersey 

 shore of the North river. 



New York is governed by a 

 mayor, elected for four years, and 

 the Board of Estimate and Appor- 

 tionment, consisting of the mayor, 

 the controller or financial officer, 

 the president of the board of 

 aldermen, and the presidents of the 

 five boroughs, and the board of 

 aldermen, numbering 67. All the 

 important municipal legislation 

 and the initiation and carrying 

 out of the great schemes of de- 

 velopment are in the hands of the 

 board of estimate, while the mayor 

 is charged with the main adminis- 

 tration. 



New York to-day is obliged to 

 undertake public works of great 

 magnitude. Thus it has enlarged 

 its water supply, bringing water 

 86m. from the Ashokan reservoir, 

 through a tunnel which coat over 

 33,000,000 to build. It haa also 

 spent 22,000,000 on ita four 

 bridges over the East river. 



Bibliography. New York, T. 

 Roosevelt, 1895; History of the City 

 of New York, M. J. Lamb and 

 C. C. Harrison, Svola., 1896: Nooks 

 and Corners of Old New York, C. 

 Hemstraet, 1899 ; History of Now 

 York by Diedrich Knickerbocker, 

 \V. Irving, new ed. 1902 : New 

 York : Old and New. R. R. Wilson, 

 new ed. 1909 ; Historical Guide to 

 the City of New York. F. B. Kelly. 

 1909 : History of th City of New- 

 York in the 17th Century, M. G. van 

 Renwclaer. 2 vols., 1909. 



