NEW YORK CITY. 



519 



Tin- total number of criminal cases that were 



handed during 1802 was 8,518, against 4,172 



oases in 1*'.M. Of this number, 5,208 wen- dis- 



T in t he ( 'ourt of General Sessions, against 



lisposrd Of ill 1S!U. 



The (Irand Juries during 1802 acted upon 



7.11") i -;IM -s. Hence for the first time in fifteen 



i here is no accumulation of complaints in 



the IMstrict Attorney's office which have not 



been presented to the Grand Jury. 



Public Works. This department is under 

 the charge of a commissioner appointed by the 

 Mayor, independent of the Board of Aldermen. 

 He holds his office for four years, and receives a 

 salary of $8,000. The commissioner during the 

 year was Thomas P. Gilroy, whose office was at 

 31 Chambers St reet. There are nine sub-bureaus, 

 as follow: 1, for laying water pipes, construct- 

 ing >e\vers, walls, and hydrants, paving streets, 

 ete. (William 11. Burke, water purveyor); 2, for 

 the collection of revenue from the sale and use 

 of water (.Joseph Hi ley, water registrar); 3, for 

 the care of all property connected with the sup- 

 ply of Croton water (George W. Birdsall, chief 

 engineer) ; 4, for grading, flagging, curbing, and 

 guttering the streets (William M. Dean, super- 

 intendent) ; 5, for lamps and gas (Stephen Mc- 

 Cormick, superintendent) ; 6, for streets and 

 roads (John J. Ryan, superintendent); 7, for 

 repairs of and supplies to, etc. (William G. Ber- 

 gen, superintendent); 8, for the removal of in- 

 cumbrances (Michael F. Cummings, superintend- 

 ent); !), for the care of sewers (Horace Loomis, 

 engineer). 



The annual report of the department shows 

 that in regulating and grading new streets, 123,- 

 000 cubic yards of earth and rock were excavated, 

 and 403,000 square feet of new flagging was laid 

 in building and repairing sidewalks, while 8J 

 miles of new sewers were built, and considerable 

 progress has been made in the reconstruction of 

 the old sewerage system in the lower part of the 

 city by the building of marginal sewersand out- 

 lets along the water front. 



The new Criminal Court building is reported 

 as completed, except the interior work of plaster- 

 ing and wood trimming. It contains 201 rooms, 

 and will furnish ample accommodations for the 

 criminal courts, the District Attorney and his 

 stall, and other public officers. The 155th Street 

 viaduct is completed to Eighth Avenue, and the 

 people now have a commodious and convenient 

 footway from Washington Heights to Eighth 

 Avenue. 



The report shows that the department col- 

 lected for Croton water rents $2,082,356.32, 

 while the additional sum of $441,670.60 was as- 

 sessed as liens upon property where the rental 

 was not paid. 



From various other sources the department 

 collected for the city $227,045.00, making its 

 total revenue $8,651,081. 



Over 15 miles of additional water mains were 

 laid during the year, and over 66 miles during 

 the past four years. The average daily water 

 supply distributed is 171,000,000 gallons, or 

 about 100 gallons a day for each person. There 

 is sufficient storage capacity in the Croton water- 

 shed, and conduit capacity in the two aque- 

 ducts, to keep up this rate of supply until the 

 population of the city reaches 4,000,000. The 



cost of the aqueduct to Dec. 81, 1892. amounted 

 to $26,770,730. Of the receipts, $26.145,000 ran,.- 

 from the sale of bonds, $607,168 from premium 

 on bonds, and $8,212 from miscellaneous sales. 



The work of laying new pavements made good 

 progress during the year, and 284,540 square 

 yams of granite-block pavement were laid, and 

 178,547 square yards of asphalt pavement. The 

 total length of new pavements laid in the past 

 four years is 70 miles of granite blocks and 41$ 

 miles of asphalt. 



The public lamp service was extended into 

 104 miles of new streets, and the city now lights 

 530 miles of streets, docks, and bridges with 26.- 

 545 gas lamps, 1,535 electric lamps, and 152 



naphtha lamps. 



The Bureau of Incumbrances made 2,018 seiz- 

 ures and removals of street obstructions, and 

 removed from the streets 1,142 cartloads of 

 abandoned material, 705 decayed shade trees, 731 

 telegraph poles, and 1,104 miles of telegraph 

 wire. On April 12 the department tried to sell 

 the building material which composes the ruins 

 of the old arsenal at White and Elm Streets. 

 The terms of the sale were that the building 

 should be torn down to the street level and 

 entirely removed within thirty days. But no 

 one wanted it. The city will remove the mate- 

 rial. The arsenal was built about fifty years 

 ago by the State, and was considered the finest 

 in New York. The first story is of stone, and 

 the other two of brick. It is of Gothic archi- 

 tecture, and was battlemented and turreted like 

 an old castle. The windows are narrow slits in 

 the wall. During the civil war the First New 

 York Volunteers were recruited in the building. 

 Other regiments were recruited there, and it was 

 the headquarters in war times of the Sixty-ninth 

 Regiment and the Third New York Calvary. 

 When the arsenal at 35th Street and Seventh 

 Avenue was built the State presented the old 

 arsenal to the city. 



Public Parks. This department is under 

 the direction of a board of four commissioners, 

 consisting of Paul Dana, president, who re- 

 ceives a salary of $5.000, and A. B. Tappan, 

 Nathan Strauss, and Henry Winthrop Gray. A 

 bill was passed by the Legislature authorizing 

 the Board of Estimate and Apportionment to 

 appropriate an additional $50,000 for the main- 

 tenance of the American Museum of Natural 

 History in Central Park, thus permitting the 

 opening of the new wing of the museum during 

 May. The bill also made possible the opening of 

 the museum on Sundays and two evenings of each 

 week free of charge. The additional appropria- 

 tion will allow the opening of a space nearly 

 as large as the original building. 



Likewise a bill authorizing New York city to 

 spend $150,000 in improving nnd establishing a 

 public aquarium at Castle Garden and Battery 

 Park was passed by the Legislature. Contracts 

 were signed as follow : Improving the entrance 

 to Central Park at Eighth Avenue and lOCth 

 Street: mason and granite work in four small 

 parks on Park Avenue; iron railing for two 

 parks on Park Avenue; repairing the a-phalt 

 naved walks in the parks other than Centra] 

 Park. In April. John W. Smith was appointed 

 superintendent of the menngerie, to succeed 

 William A. Conklin. 



