NEW YORK 



420S 



NEW YORK 



hattan Island ; the two leading members of the 

 family. Stephanus and Jarolms. wort- l.orn when 

 the town at the southern end was still New Am- 

 sterdam. They owm-d nrarly all the land . 

 the Harlem River: eventually the city bought the 

 estate and named it Van Cortlumlt Park. The 

 old manor house still stands, and is used as an 

 historical museum. 



Jnincl MdHsinn. This home was erected in 

 1763. It was Washington's headquarters for five 

 weeks in 1776, and the headquarters of the British 

 General Clinton in the year following. Washing- 

 ton and his Cabinet were entertained here in 

 1790. The owner 

 died in 1S3:!. and 

 his willow married 

 Aaron Burr, with 

 whom she lived 

 but a short time. 

 Fitz-Greene Hal- 

 leek wrote Marco 

 is in this 

 residence. In 1903 

 the city purchased 

 the building and 

 grounds for $235,- 

 000, and it is now a museum of relics of the 

 Revolutionary period. It stands at 160th Street 

 and Jumel Place. 



Fraunces' Tavern. This once famous house is 

 one of the oldest buildings in the East standing. 

 It was built in the year 1700, in a location which 

 is now the corner of Broad and Pearl streets. It 

 was a common 

 meeting place 

 of Revolutionary 

 leaders, and in the 

 building, in De- 

 cember, 1783, 

 Washington took 

 leave of his offi- 

 cers and aides. 

 To preserve the 

 building from de- 

 struction the Sons 

 of the Revolution 

 took charge of it 

 and restored it to 

 its original appearance. The second floor is now 

 an historical museum. 



THE JUMEL MANSION 



FRAUNCES' TAVERN 



Commercial and Financial Buildings. The 

 sky line of commercial New York, seen from 

 a good vantage point on the Hudson, is an 

 extraordinary spectacle, and the effect of the 

 hundreds of towering buildings, crowded to- 

 gether along the narrow island, is one never 

 to be forgotten. The massive structures lining 

 Broadway house some of the greatest business 

 corporations in the world the Equitable As- 

 surance Society and the Manhattan and Metro- 

 politan Life Insurance companies, the firm of 

 F. W. Woolworth, the Standard Oil Company, 

 the Singer Sewing Machine Company, the 

 Adams and the American Express companies, 

 and many others. The famous Woolworth 

 Building, fifty-five stories above ground, is of 



special interest to the visitor in New York 

 because of its observation platform, over 700 

 feet above the ground. The view over Man- 

 hattan and its environs from the top of this 

 giant among skyscrapers, the highest building 

 in the world, affords an impressive lesson in 

 geography. (For illustration of the building 

 see ARC-HITECITKE panel, page 322.) At the 

 intersection of Broadway, Fifth Avenue and 

 23rd Street is another famous structure, the 

 well-named Flatiron Building, whose twenty- 

 one stories rise from a narrow, triangular base, 

 giving a peculiar effect of extreme height and 

 slenderness. The Metropolitan Life Building, 

 at Madison Square, is fifty stories high, and, 

 including the tower, is 700 feet above ground 

 level. In the tower is a wonderful clock 

 equipped with chimes that sound the hours and 

 the quarter- and half-hours. At night, by means 

 of an ingenious electrical arrangement, the 

 hours and quarter-hours are also announced by 

 white and red flashes. The minute hand of 

 this clock is seventeen feet in length and the 

 hour hand thirteen and one-third feet, and the 

 figures on the dial are four feet high. 



Many other impressive buildings have been 

 erected on the side streets crossing Broadway, 

 such as the white marble Clearing House, on 

 Cedar Street; the Chamber of Commerce, on 

 Liberty Street; and the twenty-six-story build- 

 ing of the Western Union Telegraph Company, 

 on Dey Street. The great financial district of 

 the city also has its architectural glories. In- 

 terest, of course, centers in the nucleus of this 

 section Wall Street. At Number 10, at the 

 head of New Street, stands the great Astor 

 Building; at the corner of Broadway and Wall 

 is the United Bank Building, home of several 

 banking firms and railway companies; at Wall 

 and Nassau is the thirty-nine-story structure 

 of the Bankers Trust Company, the ground 

 plot of which cost $825 a square foot. A new, 

 but comparatively small, building of palatial 

 beauty, at 23 Wall Street, houses the offices of 

 J. Pierpont Morgan & Company, and a few 

 doors away, at Number 30, is the magnificent 

 new Assay Office. Probably the handsomest 

 building in the entire district is the Subtreas- 

 ury, extending from the Assay Office to Nassau 

 Street. It is built of granite, in Doric style of 

 architecture, and contains a rotunda sixty feet 

 in diameter, the dome of which is supported 

 by sixteen Corinthian columns. The site of 

 this building was formerly occupied by the old 

 Dutch City Hall, and then by Federal Hall, 

 where Washington was inaugurated as first 



