NYC Post #6: "New York will be alive..." 1860-1898. A Brief History of the Big Apple. (#6 of 8).

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^{NOTE: Most of the information here, including components of the title, are obtained through The Historical Atlas of New York City: A Visual Celebration of 400 Years of New York City's History by Eric Homberger, Henry Holt and Co., 1998.}

While New York initially responded to the outbreak of the Civil War with a wave of patriotic fervor, there was bound to be tumult almost from the outset. The Democrats were the most powerful local political force, with strong ties to the South, and much of the city’s leadership had lobbied for reconciliation and peace. The tenor decisively changed after the North lost the key battle at Bull Run, and as the was drew on, relations were strained between New York’s many different groups.

An odd side-story in all of this concerned the city’s present mayor, Fernando Wood of Tammany Hall infamy… he was notoriously pro-South and briefly argued a rhetoric of secession by which New York would become its own nation, Tri-Insula (Latin – Three Islands). Fortunately, for both the city and the United States, the idea never gained any traction, even among the City Council, and Fernando Wood is chiefly known today as New York’s most corrupt mayor.

The height of unrest occurred during the summer of 1863. Congress had just passed a conscription law that skirted the rich who were able to pay a single exemption fee, and this exacerbated the already pitched class tensions to the breaking point.
On July 13th, 1863, two days into the draft lottery, a Fire Engine Company (each firehouse was independent of all others, and turf wars between rival firefighters we not uncommon) burned down a Marshal’s office at Third and 47th Street. The rising smoke acted as a signal, and soon a large group of poor and immigrant protesters had swelled into a riot.
During the initial clash, as barricades were erected and fires set throughout Manhattan, forty police pushed a group of the rioters from Madison East to 3rd Avenue, than forced the crowds north to 46th street. At this point, however, another group of rioters had closed from behind and flanked the police force. Many were killed and beaten on both sides, but the police were driven back for the moment. Just hours later, a mob advanced on the police headquarters, but were outflanked themselves at Broadway, Bleeker, and 4th Streets, and the bulk of the insurrection was put down. Street battles raged on through the night, however, throughout midtown and downtown, and mile-long barricades were erected both on Ninth Avenue and in Alphabet City.
The following day, though the worst of the actual riot was over, violence continued against African Americans, hundreds of whom were sheltered by the police department. The death toll rose into the thousands, but by the weekend the army arrived and restored order for the remainder of the war.

* * * * *

Robert E. Lee’s surrender not only signaled the end of the Civil War, but under the terms of Reformation, the North profited off economic regulation of the South. Technological advances, the continuing pace of immigration, and its mirror in American expansion to the west triggered an economic explosion along the Atlantic seaboard, and New York was a primary beneficiary. The Gilded Age had begun.

As New York experienced this new surge of rapid growth, an continued to consolidate its financial and municipal institutions downtown, commercial activity followed the lead of residential trends, and moved to Midtown south of Central Park, where it had remained to this day. As industrial production expanded, competition increased by businesses that could come by a product in great numbers, and potentially sell it around the city as opposed to from one, small location. Underselling and building massive stocks of a variety of products became the prevailing marketing technique. Entrepreneurs such as Rowland H. Macy and Lord & Taylor pushed these strategies to their logical extreme, and brought about the modern Department Store by the late 1870s.

It was during this time that Fifth Avenue was paved and acquired the cachet reputation it has retained to this day. Wealthy bankers, magnates, architects, mayors, and the occasional abortionist built opulent residences along the avenue between Washington Square and Central Park. These houses were executed in lavish style and on a grandiose scale. Some contained individual galleries and theaters. Spectacular churches were also added within walking distance of their parishioners. The term “Fifth Avenoodles” was applied to residents, and suggested that great wealth did not necessarily correspond to good taste.

* * * * *

While the gilded age was marked by a distinct shift in style on Fifth Avenue, most New Yorkers lived in what were known as “tenement districts.” These districts, which in reality ran most of Manhattan’s length along the two rivers, and was particularly concentrated between Twelfth and Twenty-fifth streets, and on the Lower East Side (considered the most densely populated district in the world). Under New York ownership laws, landlords subdivided small portions of tall brick apartments, in some cases, building additional space into back yards, and leased them to poor New Yorkers and the burgeoning immigrant population. This relationship generated a whole slew of problems that periodically led to public health crises. First, there was little regulation of residencies; absentee landlords were not held accountable for the maintenance of their properties. Second, because land on Manhattan was so valuable, the tenements were expensive. Even where the quality of housing was exceptionally low, tenants were expected to pay a higher rent than elsewhere in the country. Third, the number of people living in small spaces, and the conversion of open space for living, led to a dark, crowded, and unsanitary environment. Many lodgings were enclosed on all sides, meaning that families had no access to windows or fresh air. What open spaces were left were usually coopted for clotheslines, gardening, and so on. Finally, the city itself was dealing with congestion, and streets that had been built for a lesser volume of traffic. The lack of adequate sewage and drainage systems meant that vermin and diseases not only thrived, but were easily spread.

There were several advances made in the tenement districts. A New Tenement House Law was passed in 1879, which led to the widening of many streets, and ultimately resulted in the demolition of such neighborhoods as Mulberry Bend and Five Points. Correcting the tenement problem, however, would require decades of steady progress, and to some extent, the problem persists today.

* * * * *

For decades, waves of the Irish had arrived in Manhattan’s tenements and were far and away the dominant immigrant group, but this started to change in the late 1800s. Germans, in particular, began arriving in large numbers. Prussians and Bavarians settled in the area north of Division and east of the Bowery, what is today the East Village, and their community became known as “Kleindeutschland.” The streets were lines with restaurants and beer gardens and shops.

Culturally, economically, and demographically, the Germans came from a different experience than the Irish. While both groups contained large numbers of Catholics, the Germans had in many cases an urban and mercantile history, while the Irish were almost exclusively farmers before immigrating. Germans came to occupy a former role to that of the Dutch after the English conquest, working at skilled trades, textiles, and manufacturing. In many cases the Germans bypassed the Irish in the acculturation process, and within a few decades, were relocating in large numbers to Harlem and Yorkville.

Millions of Germans immigrated to the U.S. in the years following the Civil War, and by the mid-1870s, this group composed over a third of the city’s population.

* * * * *

As the busy postwar era continued, as commercial, residential, industrial, and municipal New York literally pulled up roots and moved across the island, geographic concerns in a number of large American cities were preparing an architectural revolution necessitated by the demands of growth and geography. In Manhattan, the case was extreme; two miles across at its widest point, the shape of Manhattan placed severe restrictions on the center of America’s largest city. It was anticipated, then, that New Yorkers were particularly eager to find new ways to make use of limited space.

Conventional building techniques at the time allowed structures that would rise between five and eight stories, around a hundred feet at most. Some of the first steps in the development of the skyscraper, albeit limited ones, occurred in SoHo, between Houston and Canal, Crosby and West Broadway. As industrial interests in lower Manhattan were increasingly pressured to move to the outer burroughs, several engineers began experimenting with buildings with a frame of cast-iron instead of more traditional wood, brick, and stone. With cast iron, buildings could be built taller, and a direct result was the first use of the elevator.

A problem with this approach, however, was the massive weight of the structure. Not only did the mass of the iron create entirely new limitations on height (albeit more stories were possible), but the distribution required that lower stories devote increasing amounts of space to support. For this reason, the lobbies, by far the most valuable space with access to the streets, were also the most restrictive.

The experimentation with a metal framework, however, was a crucial half of the invention of the skyscraper. The second half fell into place in Chicago, when a steel skeleton was developed to support the weight of the building instead of the walls. This not only allowed full-use to be made of all floors in a building, but also enabled buildings to be built to heights unimagined before.

The new methods of design were quickly seized in New York, and by the turn of the century, the twenty-story Flatiron, a wedge-shaped skyscraper overlooking Madison Square Park had become the signature of New York’s skyline.

* * * * *

The development of the skyscraper was one of the most enduring and important physical transformations New York would undergo. Equally significant were advances made in transportation and infrastructure.

Throughout the early 1800s, transportation was chiefly accomplished through use of horse-drawn omnibuses. By the 1830s, ridership had reached approximately 100,000 per day, and it was clear that crowded streets could no longer accommodate the cumbersome vehicles, and New Yorkers were growing impatience with the inefficiency of the ride.

Throughout major world series, more sophisticated, technologically advanced transit systems tended to be based on two general models: subway and elevated trains. These models enabled steam-powered trains capable of transporting a large number of passengers without interfering with regular street traffic. London has become the oldest example of a functioning subway system, while Chicago is one of the only cities to have retained the elevated model on a large scale. New York initially opted for an elevated system. The Nine Avenue El opened in 1871, and ran from Battery Park to 59th Street. The track was later extended to 155th St., and additional els were opened along Second, Third, and Sixth Avenues, as well as a Suburban Branch that crossed the Harlem River and extended into Westchester (now the Bronx). For awhile, the El system alleviated some of the congestion, but as an initial model it left much to be desired; the trains were noisy and dirty, and the riggings that supported the heavy steam-powered trains were not sufficient for the weight they must bear. Most importantly, the need for a more extensive system not limited by the availability of straight-running thoroughfares, and the easy contact with the outer burroughs (which were also growing rapidly at this time), led to plans for subways to replace the El on Manhattan.

Of course, public transit wasn’t the only important development of New York’s infrastructure at this time. Up past the Civil War, the Hudson and East rivers had only been joined by ferry traffic, and bridges were scarce even along the narrow Harlem River. With burgeoning growth on the mainland and on Long Island, in Brooklyn particularly, a direct connection between Manhattan and surrounding entities was an increasing priority.

The Brooklyn Bridge was the first, and remains the most striking, development along this line. As the Historical Atlas of New York City city states: “No other structure has been so painted, etched, lithographed, photographed and written about.” (108). For over twenty years it was the longest suspension bridge in the world, and with striking granite towers rising almost three hundred feet above the river, it was a dramatic way to enable passage for thousands of commuters between Brooklyn and Manhattan.

The construction of the Brooklyn Bridge triggered a building boom that continued well into the 20th century. Within twenty years, many other bridges had been built across the East River: first the Williamsburg and then the Manhattan and Queensboro bridges, as well as numerous bridges across the Harlem River. Interestingly, New York was not connected to New Jersey across the Hudson river at all until 1908, with the completion of the Hudson Tubes. The Holland Tunnel wouldn’t open until 1927, and the George Washington Bridge, the first route over the river, was completed in 1931.

* * * * *

In addition to skyscrapers such as the Flatiron and the structures such as the Brooklyn Bridge, many of New York’s most enduring landmarks were completed during the Gilded Age. First among these must be the Statue of Liberty. Commissioned by the French as a gift to the American people, the statue was unveiled in 1886 in New York Harbor, where it stands to this day. Other landmarks included Madison Square Garden, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Museum of Natural History, and the Metropolitan Opera House.

As the Historical Atlas states, "the days of rivalry with Boston and Philadelphia were now over. Other cities, such as St. Louis and Chicago, were growing faster than New York after the Civil War, but the supremacy of the city in size, as well as its economic, commercial and cultural predominance was unchallenged. New York was intensely scrutinized." Or, as Charles Eliot Norton wrote in 1861, speaking prophetically at the onset of the Civil War: "A few years hence and Boston will be a place of the past, with a good history no doubt, but New York will be alive."

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