STATUE OF J. S. T. STRANAHAN AT THE ENTRANCE TO PROSPECT PARK
STATUE OF J. S. T. STRANAHAN AT THE ENTRANCE TO PROSPECT PARK
In the course of his address Mayor Lowsaid:—
"As the water of the lakes found the salt sea when the Erie Canal was opened, so surely will quick communication seek and find this noble bridge; and as the ships have carried hither and thither the products of the mighty West, so shall diverging railroads transport the people swiftly to their homes in the hospitable city of Brooklyn. The Erie Canal is a waterway through the land connecting the great West with the older East. This bridge is a landway over the water, connecting two cities bearing to each other relations in some respects similar. It is the function of suchworks to bless 'both him that gives and him that takes.' The development of the West has not belittled, but has enlarged New York, and Brooklyn will grow by reason of this bridge, not at New York's expense, but to her permanent advantage. The Brooklyn of 1900 can hardly be guessed at from the city of to-day. The hand of Time is a mighty hand. To those who are privileged to live in sight of this noble structure every line of it should be eloquent with inspiration. Courage, enterprise, skill, faith, endurance,—these are the qualities which have made the great bridge, and these are the qualities which will make our city great and our people great. God grant they never may be lacking in our midst. Gentlemen of the Trustees, in accepting the bridge at your hands, I thank you warmly in Brooklyn's name for your manifold and arduous labors."
"As the water of the lakes found the salt sea when the Erie Canal was opened, so surely will quick communication seek and find this noble bridge; and as the ships have carried hither and thither the products of the mighty West, so shall diverging railroads transport the people swiftly to their homes in the hospitable city of Brooklyn. The Erie Canal is a waterway through the land connecting the great West with the older East. This bridge is a landway over the water, connecting two cities bearing to each other relations in some respects similar. It is the function of suchworks to bless 'both him that gives and him that takes.' The development of the West has not belittled, but has enlarged New York, and Brooklyn will grow by reason of this bridge, not at New York's expense, but to her permanent advantage. The Brooklyn of 1900 can hardly be guessed at from the city of to-day. The hand of Time is a mighty hand. To those who are privileged to live in sight of this noble structure every line of it should be eloquent with inspiration. Courage, enterprise, skill, faith, endurance,—these are the qualities which have made the great bridge, and these are the qualities which will make our city great and our people great. God grant they never may be lacking in our midst. Gentlemen of the Trustees, in accepting the bridge at your hands, I thank you warmly in Brooklyn's name for your manifold and arduous labors."
Speaking of a glance forward for twenty-five years, Mayor Edsonsaid:—
"No one dares accept the possibilities that are forced upon the mind in the course of its contemplation. Will these two cities, ere then, have been consolidated into one great municipality, numbering within its limits more than five millions of people? Will the right of self-government have been accorded to the great city, thus united, and will her peoplehave learned how best to exercise that right? Will the progress of improvement and the preparation for commerce, manufactures, and trade, and for the comforts of home for poor and rich, have kept pace with the demand in the great and growing city? Will the establishment of life-giving parks, embellished with appropriate fountains and statues and with the numberless graces of art, which at once gladden the eye, and raise the standard of civilization, have kept abreast with its growth in wealth and numbers? These are but few of the pertinent questions which must be answered by the zealous and honest acts of the generation of men already in active life. Here are the possibilities; all the elements and conditions are here; but the results must depend upon the wisdom and patriotism and energy of those who shall lead in public affairs. May they be clothed in a spirit of wisdom and knowledge akin to that which inspired those who conceived and executed the great work which we receive at your hands and dedicate to-day."
"No one dares accept the possibilities that are forced upon the mind in the course of its contemplation. Will these two cities, ere then, have been consolidated into one great municipality, numbering within its limits more than five millions of people? Will the right of self-government have been accorded to the great city, thus united, and will her peoplehave learned how best to exercise that right? Will the progress of improvement and the preparation for commerce, manufactures, and trade, and for the comforts of home for poor and rich, have kept pace with the demand in the great and growing city? Will the establishment of life-giving parks, embellished with appropriate fountains and statues and with the numberless graces of art, which at once gladden the eye, and raise the standard of civilization, have kept abreast with its growth in wealth and numbers? These are but few of the pertinent questions which must be answered by the zealous and honest acts of the generation of men already in active life. Here are the possibilities; all the elements and conditions are here; but the results must depend upon the wisdom and patriotism and energy of those who shall lead in public affairs. May they be clothed in a spirit of wisdom and knowledge akin to that which inspired those who conceived and executed the great work which we receive at your hands and dedicate to-day."
The address of Abram S. Hewitt contained these significantwords:—
"I am here by your favor to speak for the city of New York, and I should be the last person to throw any discredit on its fair fame; but I think I only give voice to the generalfeeling, when I say that the citizens of New York are satisfied neither with the structure of its government, nor with its actual administration, even when it is in the hands of intelligent and honest officials. Dissatisfied as we are, no man has been able to devise a system which commends itself to the general approval, and it may be asserted that the remedy is not to be found in devices for any special machinery of government. Experiments without number have been tried, and suggestions in infinite variety have been offered, but to-day no man can say that we have approached any nearer to the idea of good government which is demanded by the intelligence and the wants of the community."If, therefore, New York has not yet learned to govern itself, how can it be expected to be better governed by adding half a million to its population, and a great territory to its area, unless it be with the idea that a 'little leaven leaveneth the whole lump'? Is Brooklyn that leaven? And if not, and if possibly 'the salt has lost its savor, wherewith shall it be salted?' Brooklyn is now struggling with this problem, it remains to be seen with what success; but meanwhile it is idle to consider the idea of getting rid of our common evils by adding them together. Beside, it is a fundamental axiom in politics, approved by the experience of older countries as well as our own, that thesources of power should never be far removed from those who are to feel its exercise. It is the violation of this principle which produces chronic revolution in France, and makes the British rule so obnoxious to the Irish people. This evil is happily avoided when a natural boundary circumscribes administration within narrow limits. While, therefore, we rejoice together at the new bond between New York and Brooklyn, we ought to rejoice the more that it destroys none of the conditions which permit each city to govern itself, but rather urges them to a generous rivalry in perfecting each its own government, recognizing the truth that there is no true liberty without law, and that eternal vigilance, which is the only safeguard of liberty, can best be exercised within limited areas. It would be a most fortunate conclusion if the completion of this bridge should arouse public attention to the absolute necessity of good municipal government, and recall the only principle upon which it can ever be successfully founded. There is reason to hope that this result will follow, because the erection of this structure shows how a problem, analogous to that which confronts us in regard to the city government, has been met and solved in the domain of physical science."
"I am here by your favor to speak for the city of New York, and I should be the last person to throw any discredit on its fair fame; but I think I only give voice to the generalfeeling, when I say that the citizens of New York are satisfied neither with the structure of its government, nor with its actual administration, even when it is in the hands of intelligent and honest officials. Dissatisfied as we are, no man has been able to devise a system which commends itself to the general approval, and it may be asserted that the remedy is not to be found in devices for any special machinery of government. Experiments without number have been tried, and suggestions in infinite variety have been offered, but to-day no man can say that we have approached any nearer to the idea of good government which is demanded by the intelligence and the wants of the community.
"If, therefore, New York has not yet learned to govern itself, how can it be expected to be better governed by adding half a million to its population, and a great territory to its area, unless it be with the idea that a 'little leaven leaveneth the whole lump'? Is Brooklyn that leaven? And if not, and if possibly 'the salt has lost its savor, wherewith shall it be salted?' Brooklyn is now struggling with this problem, it remains to be seen with what success; but meanwhile it is idle to consider the idea of getting rid of our common evils by adding them together. Beside, it is a fundamental axiom in politics, approved by the experience of older countries as well as our own, that thesources of power should never be far removed from those who are to feel its exercise. It is the violation of this principle which produces chronic revolution in France, and makes the British rule so obnoxious to the Irish people. This evil is happily avoided when a natural boundary circumscribes administration within narrow limits. While, therefore, we rejoice together at the new bond between New York and Brooklyn, we ought to rejoice the more that it destroys none of the conditions which permit each city to govern itself, but rather urges them to a generous rivalry in perfecting each its own government, recognizing the truth that there is no true liberty without law, and that eternal vigilance, which is the only safeguard of liberty, can best be exercised within limited areas. It would be a most fortunate conclusion if the completion of this bridge should arouse public attention to the absolute necessity of good municipal government, and recall the only principle upon which it can ever be successfully founded. There is reason to hope that this result will follow, because the erection of this structure shows how a problem, analogous to that which confronts us in regard to the city government, has been met and solved in the domain of physical science."
The brilliant oration of Dr. Storrs closed with the following glowing passage:—
"Local and particular as is the work, therefore, it represents that fellowship of the nations which is more and more prominently a fact of our times, and which gives to these cities incessant augmentation. When by and by on yonder island the majestic French statue of 'Liberty' shall stand, holding in its hand the radiant crown of electric flames, and answering by them to those as brilliant along this causeway, our beautiful bay will have taken what specially illuminates and adorns it from Central and from Western Europe. The distant lands from which oceans divide us, though we touch them each moment with the fingers of the telegraph, will have set their conspicuous double crown on the head of our harbor. The alliances of nations, the peace of the world, will seem to find illustrious prediction in such superb and novel regalia. Friends and fellow-citizens, let us not forget that in the growth of these cities, henceforth united and destined ere long to be formally one, lies either a threat or one of the most conspicuous promises of the time. Cities have always been powers in history. Athens educated Greece as well as adorned it, while Corinth filled the throbbing and thirsty Hellenic veins with poisoned blood. The weight of Constantinople broke the Roman Empire asunder. The capture of the same magnificent city gave to the Turks their establishment in Europe for the followingcenturies. Even where they have not had such a commanding preëminence of location, the social, political, moral force proceeding from cities has been vigorous, in impression, immense in extent. The passion in Paris, for a hundred years, has created or directed the sentiment of France. Berlin is more than the legislative or administrative centre of the German Empire, and even a government as autocratic as that of the Czar, in a country as undeveloped as Russia, has to consult the popular feeling of St. Petersburg or of Moscow. In our nation, political power is widely distributed, and the largest or wealthiest commercial centre can have but its share. Great as is the weight of the aggregate vote in these henceforth compacted cities, the vote of the State will always overbear it. Amid the suffrages of the nation at large it can only be reckoned as one of many consenting or conflicting factors. But the influence which constantly proceeds from these cities—on their journalism not only, or on the issues of their book presses, or on the multitudes going forth from them—but on the example presented in them, of educational, social, religious life—this, for shadow and check, or for fine inspiration, is already of unlimited extent, of incalculable force. It must increase as they expand, and are lifted before the country to a new elevation. A larger and a smaller sun aresometimes associated, astronomers tell us, to form a binary centre in the heavens, for what is doubtless an unseen system receiving from them impulse and light. On a scale not utterly insignificant a parallel may be hereafter suggested in the relation of these combined cities to a part, at least, of our national system. Their attitude and action during the war—successfully closed under the gallant military leadership of men whom we gladly welcome and honor—were of vast advantage to the national cause. The moral, political, intellectual temper which dominates in them as years go on, will touch with beauty or scar with scorching and baleful heats extended regions. Their religious life, as it glows in intensity, or with a faint and failing lustre, will be repeated in answering image from the widening frontier. The beneficence which gives them grace and consecration, and which, as lately, they follow to the grave with universal benediction; or, on the other hand, the selfish ambitions which crowd and crush along their streets, intent only on accumulated wealth and its sumptuous display, or the glittering vices which they accept and set on high—these will make impressions on those who never cross the continent to our homes, to whom our journals are but names. Surely we should not go from this hour, which marks a new era in the history of these cities, andwhich points to their future indefinite expansion, without the purpose in each of us that so far forth as in us lies, with their increase in numbers, wealth, equipment, shall also proceed, with equal step, their progress in whatever is noblest and best in private and in public life; that all which sets humanity forward shall come in them to ampler endowment, more renowned exhibition; so that, linked together, as hereafter they must be, and seeing 'the purple deepening in their robes of power,' they may be always increasingly conscious of fulfilled obligation to the nation and to God; may make the land, at whose magnificent gateway they stand, their constant debtor, and may contribute their mighty part toward that ultimate perfect human society for which the seer could find no image so meet or majestic as that of a city, coming down from above, its stones laid with fair colors, its foundations with sapphires, its windows of agate, its gates of carbuncles, and all its borders of pleasant stones, with the sovereign promise resplendent aboveit—'And great shall be the peace of thy children.'"
"Local and particular as is the work, therefore, it represents that fellowship of the nations which is more and more prominently a fact of our times, and which gives to these cities incessant augmentation. When by and by on yonder island the majestic French statue of 'Liberty' shall stand, holding in its hand the radiant crown of electric flames, and answering by them to those as brilliant along this causeway, our beautiful bay will have taken what specially illuminates and adorns it from Central and from Western Europe. The distant lands from which oceans divide us, though we touch them each moment with the fingers of the telegraph, will have set their conspicuous double crown on the head of our harbor. The alliances of nations, the peace of the world, will seem to find illustrious prediction in such superb and novel regalia. Friends and fellow-citizens, let us not forget that in the growth of these cities, henceforth united and destined ere long to be formally one, lies either a threat or one of the most conspicuous promises of the time. Cities have always been powers in history. Athens educated Greece as well as adorned it, while Corinth filled the throbbing and thirsty Hellenic veins with poisoned blood. The weight of Constantinople broke the Roman Empire asunder. The capture of the same magnificent city gave to the Turks their establishment in Europe for the followingcenturies. Even where they have not had such a commanding preëminence of location, the social, political, moral force proceeding from cities has been vigorous, in impression, immense in extent. The passion in Paris, for a hundred years, has created or directed the sentiment of France. Berlin is more than the legislative or administrative centre of the German Empire, and even a government as autocratic as that of the Czar, in a country as undeveloped as Russia, has to consult the popular feeling of St. Petersburg or of Moscow. In our nation, political power is widely distributed, and the largest or wealthiest commercial centre can have but its share. Great as is the weight of the aggregate vote in these henceforth compacted cities, the vote of the State will always overbear it. Amid the suffrages of the nation at large it can only be reckoned as one of many consenting or conflicting factors. But the influence which constantly proceeds from these cities—on their journalism not only, or on the issues of their book presses, or on the multitudes going forth from them—but on the example presented in them, of educational, social, religious life—this, for shadow and check, or for fine inspiration, is already of unlimited extent, of incalculable force. It must increase as they expand, and are lifted before the country to a new elevation. A larger and a smaller sun aresometimes associated, astronomers tell us, to form a binary centre in the heavens, for what is doubtless an unseen system receiving from them impulse and light. On a scale not utterly insignificant a parallel may be hereafter suggested in the relation of these combined cities to a part, at least, of our national system. Their attitude and action during the war—successfully closed under the gallant military leadership of men whom we gladly welcome and honor—were of vast advantage to the national cause. The moral, political, intellectual temper which dominates in them as years go on, will touch with beauty or scar with scorching and baleful heats extended regions. Their religious life, as it glows in intensity, or with a faint and failing lustre, will be repeated in answering image from the widening frontier. The beneficence which gives them grace and consecration, and which, as lately, they follow to the grave with universal benediction; or, on the other hand, the selfish ambitions which crowd and crush along their streets, intent only on accumulated wealth and its sumptuous display, or the glittering vices which they accept and set on high—these will make impressions on those who never cross the continent to our homes, to whom our journals are but names. Surely we should not go from this hour, which marks a new era in the history of these cities, andwhich points to their future indefinite expansion, without the purpose in each of us that so far forth as in us lies, with their increase in numbers, wealth, equipment, shall also proceed, with equal step, their progress in whatever is noblest and best in private and in public life; that all which sets humanity forward shall come in them to ampler endowment, more renowned exhibition; so that, linked together, as hereafter they must be, and seeing 'the purple deepening in their robes of power,' they may be always increasingly conscious of fulfilled obligation to the nation and to God; may make the land, at whose magnificent gateway they stand, their constant debtor, and may contribute their mighty part toward that ultimate perfect human society for which the seer could find no image so meet or majestic as that of a city, coming down from above, its stones laid with fair colors, its foundations with sapphires, its windows of agate, its gates of carbuncles, and all its borders of pleasant stones, with the sovereign promise resplendent aboveit—
'And great shall be the peace of thy children.'"
The newspapers tendered homage to the leaders of the Bridge movement, and to the guiding minds of the vast mechanical triumph—to John A. Roebling, Washington A. Roebling, Henry C. Murphy, William C.Kingsley, J. S. T. Stranahan, and others who had been prominent in the labors of organization and of execution.
The original cost of construction amounted to $15,000,000. The total number of passengers on promenade, roadway, and railroad during 1883 was 5,332,500. The total number in 1892, the year after the promenade toll was removed, was 41,772,808. The statistics for 1893 show that the traffic was highest in December and lowest in August. The earnings of the Bridge are thusshown:—
FromMay 23,1883,toDec. 1,1884$682,755.42"Dec. 1,1884,"Dec. 1,1885622,680.31""1885,""1886870,207.43""1886,""1887938,281.21""1887,""18881,012,254.82""1888,""18891,120,024.16""1889,""18901,239,493.90""1890,""18911,176,447.95""1891,""18921,801,661.48""1892,""18931,590,140.03Total$11,053,946.71
The receipts from all sources for the year ending December 1, 1893, were as follows: City of Brooklyn construction account, $150,000; city of New York construction account, $75,000; receipts from tolls, $1,252,908.04; material sold, labor, etc., $559.91; interest,$2,426.03; rent, real estate, and telegraph wires, $109,246.05. Total, $1,590,140.03.
The management of the Bridge was formed under control of a board of twenty trustees, eight being appointed by the Mayor, comptroller, and auditor of Brooklyn, and eight by the Mayor, comptroller, and president of the Board of Aldermen of New York city. Under an act of the Legislature, passed April 4, 1893, on April 12 following, this board was replaced by the present board of trustees, consisting of two persons appointed by the Mayor of the city of Brooklyn, two persons appointed by the Mayor of the city of New York, at a salary of $3000 each, and the mayors and comptrollers of the two cities, membersex officio, the appointed trustees to hold office for five years.
Supplementing the work of the Bridge are the elevated railroads and the electric or "trolley" system. Six steam railroads run into the city, four running to Coney Island, one to Rockaway Beach, and one, the Long Island Railroad, connecting with the railroad system of Long Island. Sixteen ferries connect the bay and river front with New York. The New York and Brooklyn Ferry Company carried about 16,000,000 passengers in 1893.
The boundaries of the city, measuring about thirty-two miles, include an extended water front that is one of the most picturesque in the country. The Erie basin and Atlantic docks on the southern extremity of the line represent an immense industry in grain shipments. Grain-elevators, coaling-stations, store-houses, the chief naval station in the United States, and the big establishments of the greatest sugar-refining district in the world, combine to give the river front an unusual interest.
The great docks on the southwestern water front represent important industries in which Brooklyn occupies a foremost place. The Atlantic basin covers forty acres, and is surrounded by brick and granite warehouses on three sides. These are 100 feet in depth, and three to five stories high. The basin contains four piers, three of which are covered, and are 700, 800, and 900 feet in length, by 80 feet in width. South central pier, 900 feet long, is the largest in the port. In the basin are seven elevators, six of which are controlled by the New York Grain Warehousing Company, the seventh being owned by Pinto Brothers. Atlantic basin is the largest grain-depot in the world. Its frontage line of basin and piersmeasures three miles. South central pier is leased by the Union Hamburg and the Nicaragua and Central American lines of steamships. Barber & Co. and T. Hogan & Sons control the east central pier; Funch & Edye's steamships dock at the south central pier, as do the lines to Bordeaux and Oporto. At the west central pier many goods from the Indies are unloaded, especially plumbago and cocoa-nut oil. The entrance to the basin is 200 feet in width. The north pier is much used by Italian barks. The basin has a uniformed police force of its own.
In this region also are finely appointed shipyards and dry docks, the Anglo-American docks, opened in 1866, being the largest in the United States. The chamber of Dock No. 1 is 510 feet in length, and that of Dock No. 2,610 feet. Most of the large iron ships that are docked at the port of New York are hauled up here. On the old Williamsburgh water front are the vast sugar-refineries, the greatest group of the kind in the world, and representing Brooklyn's greatest manufacturing interest. The output of most of these great hives of industry is now controlled by the American Sugar Refining Company. The largest of the refineries melts 2000 tons of rawsugar per day, producing over 12,000 barrels of refined sugar. Vessels from the West Indies and other points as remote as Java line the piers at this part of the water front, loading with barreled sugar.
Large cooperages and extensive oil refineries occupy the water front to the north, the great Standard Oil Company having its plant in this region.
The United States reservation, known as the Navy Yard, occupies about 112 acres in the bend of the river to which the Dutch gave the name that still clings, the Wallabout. This is the chief naval station of the United States. It contains trophies of the three great wars, and the 6000 feet of water front is always made interesting by the presence of one or more ships of war.
In 1884 Brooklyn obtained from the United States Government a lease of the 422,525 square feet of land on the east of the Navy Yard, and adjoining the Wallabout canal. On this plot a large market has grown up and supplied the city with a marketing centre of which it long stood in need. In July, 1890, an act of Congress authorized the sale of the fee-simple of the land to Brooklyn; the city authorities completing the purchase in November,1891, at the valuation of $700,000. Later, an additional purchase of adjoining land from the federal government extended the market property to the Wallabout canal, and enabled the increase of the number of lots for stands to 120. The present area of the market lands is bounded as follows: On the north by the Wallabout canal; on the east by the lands of the United States Naval Hospital; on the south by Flushing Avenue, and on the west by Washington Avenue.
In December, 1892, the national government authorized the sale to Brooklyn of additional lands of the Navy Yard reservation, abutting upon the west side of Washington Avenue, and embraced between that avenue and a line on a continuation of Clinton Avenue, Flushing Avenue, and the East River,—a tract which would more than double in extent the area of the market possessions.
Brooklyn's boundaries on the east and south touch a number of large cemeteries, most noted of which is Greenwood, which holds many distinguished dead, and many notable monuments. In 1893 there were 5519 interments at the cemetery of the Evergeens, and during the same year 3000 at Cypress Hills, and 18,000 at Calvary Cemetery. There arenot less than thirty cemeteries within the county, a fact that presents a serious problem in the extension of the city's lines.
The development of Prospect Park has been a matter of great pride and gratification to the city. In recent years the park has been adorned by a number of statues. J. S. T. Stranahan has received the unique honor of a public statue in his lifetime. In the plaza is the statue of Lincoln already mentioned. Within the park are busts of Thomas Moore, Washington Irving, and of John Howard Payne, one of Long Island's sons.
The Soldiers' and Sailors' Memorial Arch in the Park Plaza was proposed by Seth Low in a speech at Greenwood, on Decoration Day. The Legislature voted $250,000, subscriptions were raised, the competition for a suitable design was won by John H. Duncan, the corner-stone was laid in 1889, and the monument was finished in 1892.
The Municipal Building was finished in 1878, at a cost of $200,000, and the Hall of Records adjoining the county Court House in 1886, at a cost of $275,000. The most imposing public building in the city is the Federal Building, bounded by Washington, Johnson, and Adams streets. This massivestructure of Maine granite contains the central post-office quarters, and the federal courts and offices. The site cost $413,594.12, and the building $1,258,057.06.
Some of the most important building operations in recent years have expressed the enterprises of the great bazaars, gathered most thickly on Fulton Street, but appearing also on other leading thoroughfares.
A glance at the buildings of the city quickly suggests the remarkable increase in the number of theatres.
According to Gabriel Harrison's "History of the Drama in Brooklyn" the first dramatic performance in the city took place in a stone building on the north side of "the old road" (Fulton Street), near the corner of Front Street. This building had been known for thirty years or more as Corporation House, belonging to the corporation of the city of New York. It contained a tavern and a ferry room on its ground floor and a hall on the second. When the British gained possession of Brooklyn the house changed hands, and was known while they remained as the King's Head. It was fitted as a resort for officers and men, and all sorts of amusements were offered, from bull-baiting to games of chance.George III.'s birthday was celebrated by illuminations and fish dinners, to which the Tories of New York came over in rowboats. At the first dramatic performances here an original farce was acted, of which General John Burgoyne was the alleged author. It was called "The Battle of Brooklyn." The title-page reads: "The Battle of Brooklyn; a farce in two acts, as it was performed in Long Island on Tuesday, 27th day of August, 1776, by the representatives of the Tyrants of America, assembled in Philadelphia."
There were also dramatic performances in Greene's Military Garden in 1810, and later. An amphitheatre was built on Fulton Street in 1828. The assembly rooms of Military Garden were converted into a theatre in 1848. Chanfrau and Burke opened the Brooklyn Museum in 1850. The Odeon was built on the site of the present Novelty or Proctor's Theatre on Driggs Street, in 1852. It was afterward known as Apollo Hall. Washington Hall, afterward called the Comique, was built at the corner of Broadway and Fourth Street (now Bedford Avenue); Hooley's Opera House, at Court and Remsen streets, in 1862, and the Park Theatre was built a year later. The Brooklyn Theatre was opened in1871, and rebuilt after thefire.44Hyde & Behman's Theatre was built in 1877, the Grand Opera House in 1881, the Criterion in 1885, the Amphion in 1888. The completion of the fine Columbia Theatre on Washington Street was due to the enterprise of Edwin Knowles, who had been a successful manager of the Grand Opera House, and subsequently of the Amphion.
The newer city armories are further important additions to the city architecture.
On the first day of January, 1894, the military organizations of Brooklyn, comprising, with the Seventeenth Separate Company of Flushing, the entire Second Brigade of the New York National Guard, numbered about 3000 men. The strength of the brigade in 1892, as shown at inspection, was 3084. In this number were included the 403 officers and men of the Thirty-second Regiment, shortly afterward disbanded. Very few members of that organization are now in the service. In 1893, inspections of the several commands were held, as follows: Seventeenth Separate Company, April 3; Signal Corps, October 10; Third Battery, October 11; Forty-seventh Regiment, October 18; Fourteenth Regiment, October19; Thirteenth Regiment, October 21; Twenty-third Regiment, October 26. The Thirteenth and Fourteenth regiments, which did not go to the state camp last year, were inspected in the afternoon at Prospect Park. Below is shown the attendance of eachorganization:—
MUSTER ROLL FOR 1893.
Organization.Present.Absent.Total.PercentagePresent.Brigade Commanderand Staff11—11—Thirteenth Regt52911864781.61Fourteenth Regt53214968178.11Twenty-third Regt7703580595.65Forty-seventh Regt5214856991.56Third Battery.6887689.47Seventeenth Sep. Co.5196085.00Signal Corps4014197.56Total2,5223682,890
The difficulties arising from inadequate school accommodations, to meet which Mayor Low and other mayors had urged broad and sufficient action, continued to hamper the action of the department of public instruction. The development of the department under the superintendency of William H. Maxwell has been along thoroughly modern lines. Recentreforms have had a tendency to improve the quality of teachers by placing obstacles in the path of the incompetent. To a considerable extent these reforms have diminished the chances of political interference in the working of the school system.
The successful establishment, in 1878, of a Central Grammar School, admitting graduates from the public schools, was followed by the organization of separate high schools for boys and girls, and afterward by a manual training school, and a movement for the establishment of kindergarten classes and definite means of physical culture. On October 31, 1893, there were on register in the public schools of the city 102,468 pupils,—more than 2000 in excess of the sittings. For many years preceding this date a large number of classes had provided a half day's schooling only for the registered pupils, forcing the teachers of these classes to assume responsibility for two large classes of children on each school day.
STATUE OF ALEXANDER HAMILTON IN FRONT OF THE HAMILTON CLUB HOUSE
STATUE OF ALEXANDER HAMILTON IN FRONT OF THE HAMILTON CLUB HOUSE
In his report for the year ending December 31, 1892, Superintendent Maxwellsaid:—
"The child that begins the school course at six ought to complete it easily, and be ready to enter the high school, at the age of fourteen. In every grade, however, the average age isabout one year higher than it ought to be. There is now a well ascertained consensus of opinion among educational authorities that this delay in reaching the high school—in getting at such disciplinary studies as languages, geometry, and natural science—is detrimental not only to the individual child but to the public welfare. In some cases this delay is doubtless caused by protracted illness or general physical weakness; in some, by the mania—I can call it by no other name—which some principals and teachers have for holding back pupils from promotion; in some, by positive dullness or slowness of wit; but in the majority of cases it arises from the crowded condition of the lower primary classes. Instead of accommodating more children by swelling the registers of these classes, we are accommodating fewer. The teachers in these classes, work as hard as they may, are able to prepare but a small proportion of their classes for promotion; while by reason of lack of proper teaching in the introductory classes—a lack which is not chargeable to the teachers—the pupils are less able than they otherwise would be to do the work of the higher grades as they advance. The consequence is that pupils are put through our schools more slowly and in smaller numbers than they ought to be. If in a piece of machinery or in a living organism a greater strain is put on any onepart than it is able to bear, the strength and efficiency of the whole are proportionately diminished. Just so it is with our school system. The strain put upon the seventh primary teachers by choking up their classes impairs the efficiency of the entire system. The only rational conclusion is thatthe number of pupils to a class must be limited."
"The child that begins the school course at six ought to complete it easily, and be ready to enter the high school, at the age of fourteen. In every grade, however, the average age isabout one year higher than it ought to be. There is now a well ascertained consensus of opinion among educational authorities that this delay in reaching the high school—in getting at such disciplinary studies as languages, geometry, and natural science—is detrimental not only to the individual child but to the public welfare. In some cases this delay is doubtless caused by protracted illness or general physical weakness; in some, by the mania—I can call it by no other name—which some principals and teachers have for holding back pupils from promotion; in some, by positive dullness or slowness of wit; but in the majority of cases it arises from the crowded condition of the lower primary classes. Instead of accommodating more children by swelling the registers of these classes, we are accommodating fewer. The teachers in these classes, work as hard as they may, are able to prepare but a small proportion of their classes for promotion; while by reason of lack of proper teaching in the introductory classes—a lack which is not chargeable to the teachers—the pupils are less able than they otherwise would be to do the work of the higher grades as they advance. The consequence is that pupils are put through our schools more slowly and in smaller numbers than they ought to be. If in a piece of machinery or in a living organism a greater strain is put on any onepart than it is able to bear, the strength and efficiency of the whole are proportionately diminished. Just so it is with our school system. The strain put upon the seventh primary teachers by choking up their classes impairs the efficiency of the entire system. The only rational conclusion is thatthe number of pupils to a class must be limited."
The movement toward centralizing responsibility in the school principals began at this time to gather force. It was warmly supported by the superintendent.
In the Girls' High School, in 1893, the number of registered pupils was 1626; in the Boys' High School, 692. The annual appropriation for schools in 1893 was $2,449,735.33; from the city, $1,996,500.00; from the State, $394,414.82; other sources, $58,820.51.
A training school for teachers was established in 1885. From this admirable institution the graduates increased in number from 48 in 1886 to 70 in 1892.
With the educational interests of Brooklyn the Brooklyn Institute of Arts and Sciences is closely associated. In the summer of 1823 several gentlemen, among whom was Augustus Graham, met at Stevenson's Tavern for the purpose of establishing for the apprenticesof Brooklyn a freelibrary.45They adopted a constitution, and issued to the citizens of Brooklyn a circular, in which they solicited donations of books and money with which to effect their purpose. On November 20, 1824, they were incorporated by the Legislature of the State under the name of "The Brooklyn Apprentices' Library Association," and on July 4, 1825, the corner-stone of the first building owned by the association was laid by General Lafayette, at the junction of Henry and Cranberry streets. As early as 1835 the association had outgrown its original quarters, and the property having been sold to the city the institution was removed to a new building in Washington Street, then the centre of the wealth and culture of our young city. The first lecture delivered in the newly completed structure was by Prof. James D. Dana.
In order to broaden the scope of the association, an amended charter was granted by the Legislature in 1843, and the name therein changed to "The Brooklyn Institute." For many years thereafter the Institute was a most important factor in the social, literary, scientific, and educational life of Brooklyn. Itslibrary had a large circulation; in its public hall took place many social and historic gatherings, and from its platform were heard such eminent scientific men as Agassiz, Dana, Gray, Henry, Morse, Mitchell, Torrey, Guyot, and Cooke; such learned divines as Drs. McCosh, Hitchcock, Storrs, and Buddington, and such defenders of the liberties of the people as Phillips, Sumner, Garrison, Emerson, Everett, Curtis, King, Bellows, Chapin, and Beecher.
During this brilliant period of its history (1843–1867), the Institute received from Mr. Graham two very important donations. On July 4, 1848, the building, which had been heavily mortgaged, he presented to the trustees free from all incumbrance, and through his will, made known to the board of directors on November 28, 1851, shortly after his decease, he bequeathed to the Institute the sum of $27,000, as a permanent endowment fund. The will directs that the interest of $10,000 of this sum shall be used in the support of lectures on scientific subjects and in the purchase of apparatus and collections illustrating the sciences; that the interest of $12,000 shall be used in the support of Sunday evening lectures on "The Power, Wisdom, and Goodness of God as manifested in His Works," and thatthe balance of $5,000 shall be used in the support of a school of design and in forming a gallery of fine arts.
For several years, however, prior to 1867, owing to the erection of the Academy of Music and other public buildings, the Institute building was regarded as behind the times. The income from rental of portions of the building was dwindling to a low figure, and the financial support of the free library was becoming inadequate. Under these circumstances the directors remodeled the building in 1867, at an expense of about $3,000, a part of which was raised by life-membership subscriptions of $50 and $100, and the balance by a mortgage on the building. For twenty years (1867–87) this indebtedness necessitated the application of a portion of the income from the rent of the building and from the Graham endowment fund to the payment of the interest and the principal of the debt. Final payment on the mortgage was made early in 1887.
The causes of the partial inactivity of the Institute during the twenty years (1867–87) are therefore apparent. The most that it was able to do was to circulate its library, keep up its classes in drawing, and provide for the annual addresses on the 22d of February.Freed from debt in 1887, the Institute was enabled once more to use the whole income from its funds and building for educational purposes, and again to become an important agent in the work of education in the city.
The property of the Institute in 1887 consisted of the Institute building and land, valued at $90,000, a library of 12,000 volumes, a collection of paintings valued at $10,000, and endowment funds of $46,000. These last comprise the $27,000 bequeathed by Mr. Graham, the William H. Cary fund of $10,000 for the support of the library, and an increment of $9,000 realized through premiums on the sale of bonds.
During the year 1887–88 a new era in the history of the Institute was inaugurated. The board of trustees determined to make the property of the Institute the nucleus of a broad and comprehensive institution for the advancement of science and art, and its membership a large and active association, laboring not only for the advancement of knowledge, but also for the education of the people, through lectures and collections, in art and science. It was observed that while Boston had the Lowell Institute, a society of natural history, and an art museum; while Philadelphia had theFranklin Institute, an academy of sciences, and a gallery of fine arts; and while New York had the Metropolitan Museum and the American Museum, yet that Brooklyn had nothing corresponding to these institutions. It was felt that Brooklyn should have an institute of arts and sciences worthy of her wealth, her position, her culture, and her people; that it was her duty to do more than she was then doing for the education and enjoyment of her people, and that some step should be taken looking towards the future growth and needs of the city in matters of art and science.
Accordingly, a form of organization was adopted which contemplated the formation of a large association of members, and a continual increase of the endowment funds and the collections of the Institute. Provision was made for a subdivision of the membership into departments, representing various branches of art and science, each department forming a society by itself and yet enjoying all the privileges of the general association. A general invitation was extended to citizens specially interested in science and art to become members of the Institute. Courses of lectures on science and art were provided. The directors'room of the Institute was enlarged to accommodate the meetings of some of the departments contemplated, and a large lecture-room on the third floor of the Institute building was fitted up at an expense of $2600 for the occupancy of those departments that would make use of apparatus and collections at their meetings.
During the first fifteen months after the reorganization of the Institute a membership of three hundred and fifty persons was recorded. The Brooklyn Microscopical Society joined the Institute in a body, with sixty-four members, and became the Department of Microscopy. The American Astronomical Society, whose members resided mostly in New York and Brooklyn, became the Department of Astronomy, with thirty-two members. The Brooklyn Entomological Society united with the Institute, and became the Entomological Department, with forty-one members. The Linden Camera Club of Brooklyn became the Department of Photography, with twenty-six members. Departments of physics, chemistry, botany, mineralogy, geology, zoölogy, and archæology were successively formed. Each of the above twelve departments began to hold monthly meetings. The permanentfunds and property of the Institute were increased $3000. Additions were made to the library, and its circulation increased from 12,000 to 36,000 volumes per year. The lecture courses were fully attended. The classes in drawing were enlarged, and a general citizens' movement to secure a museum of arts and sciences for Brooklyn was inaugurated.
The subsequent growth of the Institute has been remarkable. The old building on Washington Street was burned in 1890, and the work was continued in temporary quarters, chiefly in the building of the Young Men's Christian Association on Fulton Street. During the fourth year of active work after the reorganization 632 new members were recorded. The real estate belonging to the old Brooklyn Institute on Washington Street was sold to the trustees of the New York and Brooklyn Bridge, and the old Institute was formally consolidated with the new Brooklyn Institute of Arts and Sciences. By an act of the Legislature the city was authorized to expend $300,000 in the erection of a Museum of Arts and Sciences on Prospect Hill, on a favorable site bounded by the Eastern Parkway, Washington Avenue, old President Street, and the Prospect Hill reservoir. In the year1892, 940 new members were added, bringing the total up to 2622; the number of lectures and class exercises open to members and others, by the payment of a moderate fee, was 1397, as against 1134 the previous year; the number of concerts was increased from eight to fifteen; the average daily attendance on all the exercises of the Institute for the eight months of active work was 936, and the total attendance for the year, 190,900; the annual income was increased from $18,934.20 in the previous year to $31,641.58; special courses of lectures were delivered on American history from the time of Columbus to the beginning of this century, and a special course of addresses was given by college presidents on educational problems; Institute extension courses of lectures were given in the eastern section of the city; the school of political science was established, with four classes and ninety-six pupils; the Brooklyn art school was transferred to new and larger quarters in the Ovington Studio Building, and the number of pupils was increased from ninety-four to one hundred and twenty-eight; the department of architecture, acting through its advisory board, devised a scheme of competition for the best plan and design for the proposed Museum ofArts and Sciences, which was accepted by the board of trustees, and adopted by the Mayor and park commissioner, and the competition so arranged resulted in the award to the distinguished New York architects, McKim, Mead & White.
Foremost among those who have brought the Institute to its present influential position in the city have been Gen. John B. Woodward and Prof. Franklin W. Hooper. Professor Hooper, who had been elected curator of the Institute in 1889, became director of the new Institute of Arts and Sciences in 1891.
Mention has already been made of the establishment of Packer Institute and the Polytechnic Institute. The handsome gift of Mrs. Wm. S. Packer resulted in the opening of an academy for the education of young women. Since the time of the opening in 1854, under the presidency of Dr. Alonzo Crittenden, the Packer Collegiate Institute has enjoyed a peculiar prominence in the educational work of the city, and has won a high, if not a foremost, place among academies of the kind in the United States. Dr. Crittenden was succeeded in 1883 by Dr. Truman G. Backus, who had filled the professorship of English language and literature atVassar, and whose brilliant attainments as a scholar and director have given new distinction to the institute.
A commanding position likewise has been gained by the Polytechnic Institute, whose establishment as an academy for young men resulted from the successful movement, aided by the gift of Mrs. Packer, for the establishment of a young women's school. A building on Livingston Street was completed and opened in 1855, Dr. John H. Raymond then being president of the faculty. Dr. Raymond was succeeded by Dr. David Henry Cochran, who had for ten years been principal of the State Normal School at Albany. Under a new charter, secured in 1890, the Brooklyn Collegiate and Polytechnic Institute received "all the rights, powers, and dignities given by the law and the ordinances of theregents46to a college, including membership in the University of the State of New York." Dr. Henry Sanger Snow, an alumnus and a trustee of the institute, took a leading part in the negotiations which resulted in the significant change. The new building adjoining the old was first occupied in September, 1891.
The Adelphi Academy began its life in 1869 as a private school for both sexes. In 1886 Charles Pratt, then president of the board of trustees, made gifts to the Institute, by means of which it secured a new building that was opened in 1888. The since extended buildings now occupy a large part of the block bounded by Lafayette Avenue, St. James Place, Clifton Place, and Grand Avenue. The preparatory, academic, and collegiate departments are supplemented by a kindergarten and a physical-training school. Art education has always occupied an important place in the Adelphi Academy. Many well-known artists have graduated from the art school superintended by Prof. J. B. Whittaker. The principals of the Adelphi since its establishment have been John Lockwood, Homer B. Sprague, Stephen G. Taylor, Albert C. Perkins, John S. Crombie, and Charles H. Levermore.
It is to Charles Pratt, who took so important a part in bringing Adelphi Academy to its present position, that Brooklyn is indebted for the school which, more than any other educational institution within its borders, is distinctively original and of a national fame. Pratt Institute is frequently compared with Cooper Institute in New York. The comparisonbetween the wise beneficence of Cooper and that of Pratt is, indeed, interestingly close; but the likeness between the two great schools is less perfect. Pratt Institute's remarkable characteristics are the result of a wise idea logically worked out. The buildings on Ryerson Street and Grand Avenue contain a unique combination of departments under a form of management that has proved to be eminently practical and progressive. Its educational plan illustrates manual and industrial training, as well as education in high-school and artistic branches. The methods of teaching domestic art, as well as political, economic, and natural science, have excited the admiration of students of education throughout the country. The large free library is one of many features of the institution.
The kindergarten idea in Brooklyn has had its leading exponent in Froebel Academy on Tompkins Square. Among other private educational institutions are St. John's College, the most prominent of the Roman Catholic schools, situated on Lewis Avenue, between Willoughby Avenue and Hart Street; St. Francis College, Bedford Academy, St. Joseph's Institute, Brooklyn Heights Seminary, Long Island Business College, Brooklyn LatinSchool, Bryant & Stratton's Business College, Miss Rounds's School for Girls, Kissick's Business College, and Browne's Business College.
In special education the Long Island College Hospital and the Brooklyn College of Pharmacy occupy an important place. The Long Island College Hospital and Training School for Nurses was chartered in 1858. Its history as a hospital and as a college has been notable. The graduates in 1893 numbered 60, bringing the total list of graduates nearly to 1500.
It frequently has been lamented that Brooklyn has no great free library, and the deficiency is one for which the city deserves a mark of discredit. But it is due to Brooklyn to observe that she is by no means without excellent opportunities for those who wish to read.
The Brooklyn Library, which succeeded the old Mercantile Library, is not free to the public, but the subscription rate is so low in comparison with the privileges that the institution is in many respects to be regarded as a great public library. The building on Montague Street was finished in 1868 at a cost of $227,000, and its beautiful Gothic front forms one of the genuine ornaments of the city.
The library contains nearly 200,000 volumes,admirably selected. The catalogue compiled by Stephen B. Noyes was of a character to bring honor alike to library and librarian. Upon the death of Mr. Noyes the management of the library came into the competent hands of W. A. Bardwell, who became librarian in 1888. The reading-rooms are furnished with 300 periodicals and newspapers. In the reference departments there were 75,000 readers in 1893, and in the reading-rooms 100,000 readers. The Brooklyn Library has, indeed, performed an immensely important service in the development of the city.
The Brooklyn Institute Free Library, formerly in the old Institute Building on Washington Street, and now at 502 Fulton Street, contains 16,000 well-selected volumes, and is efficiently managed. Pratt Institute Free Library is a notable instance of a great public service through a private agency. The library of 42,000 volumes includes 2000 German and 2000 French books. There are an Astral Branch at Franklin Avenue and Java Street, and delivery stations at Froebel Academy and 754 Driggs Avenue. Reading-room and library are free to the use of all residents of Brooklyn. The Long Island Free Library, at 571 Atlantic Avenue, is the result of a well-directed movement.There are but 15,000 volumes, but method of selection and distribution have assured the usefulness of the work. To this must be added the free public school libraries, and the substantial free library of the Union for Christian Work on Schermerhorn Street.
The free library of the Long Island Historical Society naturally occupies an important place. The reference department of 48,000 volumes includes the noteworthy publications of the society itself. The Law Library in the Court House contains 15,000 volumes, and there are 7000 volumes in the library of the Kings County Medical Society.
In addition to the libraries of the Young Men's and the Young Women's Christianassociations,47there are over twenty-five special free reading-rooms throughout the city, most of them connected with churches.
The large number of churches, and the emphasis laid upon church interests, once gave to Brooklyn the title of the City of Churches. The proportion between the number of churches and the population no longer is so exceptional as to justify such a title, but church life in Brooklyn is, in many respects, of unique prominence. The greatest preacher the United States has produced, Henry WardBeecher,48occupied the pulpit of Plymouth Church during a great formative period in the city's history. The Rev. Richard S. Storrs, D. D., pastor of the Congregational Church of the Pilgrims since 1846, the descendant of a distinguished family of preachers and orators, who has been called the "Chrysostom of Brooklyn," occupies a place among the most scholarly of American orators. The popularity of the Rev. T. De Witt Talmage, pastor of the Brooklyn Tabernacle since 1869, has been unexampled in the church history of the country. The thirty years' pastorate of the Rev. Theodore L. Cuyler, at the Lafayette Avenue Presbyterian Church, constituted a notable force in the advancement of the community. The enlightened leadership of the Catholic Church by the Right Reverend JohnLoughlin, first bishop of Brooklyn, who was succeeded in 1892 by the Right Reverend Charles E. McDonnell, has been a matter for congratulation in the Catholic Church; and the Episcopal Church has been under no less obligation to the first bishop of the Protestant Episcopal Diocese of Long Island, the Right Reverend A. N. Littlejohn, D. D. When Dr. Littlejohn was elected bishop in 1869, he was succeeded as rector of Holy Trinity Church by the Rev. Charles Henry Hall, D. D., who has been one of Brooklyn's strongest preachers.
St. James' Church, at Jay and Chapel streets, has been the cathedral church of the Catholic diocese for nearly half a century. The corner-stone of a great cathedral, to occupy the block bounded by Lafayette, Clermont, Greene, and Vanderbilt avenues, was laid in 1868, but only a part of the structure has been completed.
In 1893 the following were the numbers of churches of different denominations in Brooklyn: Baptist, 40; Congregational, 26; German Evangelical Association, 5; Jewish, 10; Lutheran, 27; Methodist Episcopal, 53; Primitive Methodist, 4; Methodist Free, 1; Methodist Protestant, 1; Presbyterian, 33; Roman Catholic, 63; Reformed Presbyterian,1; United Presbyterian, 3; Protestant Episcopal, 45; Reformed Episcopal, 2; Dutch Reformed, 19; Unitarian, 4; Universalist, 5; miscellaneous, 23.
In the county towns the churches are numbered as follows: Baptist, 1; Hebrew, 1; Lutheran, 5; Methodist Episcopal, 9; Protestant Episcopal, 8; Methodist Protestant, 1; Reformed, 8; Roman Catholic, 12. In 1893 there were ten so-called Chinese Sunday-schools in Brooklyn, most of them connected with Protestant churches, and said to enroll 200members.49
Religious societies in Brooklyn include a large list of prosperous and efficient bodies. Among these may be mentioned the Catholic Historical Society, the Union Missionary Training Institute, the Baptist Church Extension Society, Baptist Social Union, City Bible Society, Church Society of the Methodist Episcopal Church, City Mission and Tract Society, Brooklyn Sunday School Union, Eastern District Sabbath School Association, Brooklyn Theosophical Society, Brotherhood of Christian Unity, Church Charity Foundation,Congregational Church Extension Society, Congregational Club, Foreign Sunday School Association, German Young Men's Christian Association, Greenpoint Sunday School Association, Greenpoint Young Men's Christian Association, Kings County Sunday School Association, Long Island Baptist Association, Order of Deaconesses of the Methodist Episcopal Church, Women's Auxiliary, Unitarian Club, Universalist Club, and the Young People's Baptist Union.
Brooklyn's churches occupy a particularly intimate relation with the intellectual and social life of the city. The circumstances under which the Rev. John W. Chadwick, D. D., became a leader in that highly significant intellectual movement, the Brooklyn Ethical Association, which has held meetings during a number of seasons at the Second Unitarian Church, and under which the Rev. John Coleman Adams, D. D., instituted the free historical lectures to public school children at All Souls Universalist Church, have been typical of a wholesome and progressive tendency in the community.
The work of the churches is supplemented by many and admirable organizations devoted to the relief of the weak, destitute, and incompetent.An important position is occupied by the Association for Improving the Condition of the Poor. The Brooklyn Bureau of Charities, with central offices on Schermerhorn Street, has "the general purpose of promoting the welfare of the poor, the suffering, and the friendless in the city of Brooklyn. The specific objects and methods include: The promotion of cordial coöperation between benevolent societies, churches, and individuals; the maintenance of a body of friendly visitors to the poor; the encouragement of thrift, self-dependence, and industry; the provision of temporary employment and industrial instruction."
The Society of St. Vincent de Paul undertakes the general relief of the poor, without regard to color or creed, the work being done by a conference in each church (Catholic). The society is governed by a council composed of the president and vice-president of each conference.
A number of industrial agencies have been devised for the purpose of supplying temporary work for men and women. A bureau of relief for needy veterans of the Rebellion was established in Grand Army quarters at the City Hall. In recent years the number of free dispensaries throughout the city has greatly increased.
The Brooklyn Hospital, incorporated in 1845, received valuable aid from Augustus Graham, the founder of the Brooklyn Institute. The present hospital at Raymond Street and De Kalb Avenue has been in operation since 1852. St. Catherine's Hospital was established in 1869. The Memorial Hospital for women and children was founded in 1881; the Methodist Episcopal Hospital in the same year; St. Mary's Hospital in 1878; St. John's Hospital in 1871; the German Hospital in 1889; the Lutheran Hospital in 1881; the Brooklyn Hospital for Contagious Diseases in 1891; St. Peter's Hospital in 1864; the Brooklyn Home for Consumptives in 1864; the Eastern District Dispensary and Hospital in 1851; the Long Island Throat and Lung Hospital in 1889; the Brooklyn Throat Hospital in 1889; the Brooklyn Homœopathic Hospital in 1852; the Brooklyn Eye and Ear Hospital in 1868; the Kings County Hospital (a county institution) in 1837; the Brooklyn Maternity in 1870; the Faith Home for Incurables in 1878; the Inebriates' Home for Kings County in 1867.
For the protection and relief of children, the city has the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, the Children's Aid Society,the Industrial School Association, with six branches, the Nursery and Infants' Hospital, the Howard Colored Orphan Asylum, the Hebrew Orphan Asylum, the Orphan Asylum Society, the Roman Catholic Orphan Asylum Society, with three branches; the Eastern District Industrial School, the Sheltering Arms Nursery, St. Giles's Home, St. Vincent's Home for Boys, St. Christopher's Day Nursery, and St. Malachi's Home.
Brooklyn's right to the title of the City of Homes, rather than to that of the City of Churches, is excellently supported by a study of its social life; and in no phase is this peculiarity more apparent than in the club life of the city, which is distinctly in harmony with the general social life of the city. Several of the city clubs have "ladies' nights," or special receptions to which ladies are invited, and to some of the clubs ladies are admitted at certain hours of the day. "The Union League, with its Romanesque front of cinnamon brick and brownstone on a semi-square, is near the south end of Bedford Avenue. Its location is fine, and during the political campaigns it is an important centre. Medallions of Grant and Lincoln adorn the front, an eagle with outstretched wings holds up a 'bay,' and a carvedbear stands on the roof, a symbol of the 'grip' that clubdom has on the modern man. The great hall in this house is one of the finest in the country. Across the city, a square below the Park plaza, stands the Montauk, a fine structure, ornate, in light tones of brick, and with a Greek frieze above the third story, which is unique in architectural decoration and is a replica of old bas-reliefs. Near by is the mammoth building of the Riding and Driving Club, the largest and best arranged structure of the kind in this country. The Hamilton, one of the older clubs, has a tall building on the corner of Clinton and Remsen streets, showing an expanse of red brick and brownstone. It has no distinctive architectural style. Architecturally, a most elaborate club-house is the Germania on Schermerhorn Street. Its style is a rich but modified Florentine. The material is pale brown brick. A feature of it is the great arched doorway. The Bush wick Democratic club-house on Bushwick Avenue is, architecturally, on the same lines, a reduced version in stone and terra cotta. The club has but recently taken possession of this new house. Out in Flatbush, on the avenue, is the Midwood, an old colonial manse, unaltered, with wide-spreading grounds,its façade marked by great white columns, such as are almost unknown elsewhere in the county of Kings to-day. The Hanover, on Bedford Avenue, is a fine modern double house, with extensions and remodelings. The Brooklyn and the Oxford clubs have recently enlarged their rather unpretentious buildings without special reference to architectural beauty. The Excelsior is a plain city house. The Lincoln has the appearance of several buildings joined together, but is ornate and striking. Out of town the Crescent and the Field and Marine clubs have charming country homes, turreted and porticoed, and surrounded with trees andlawns."50
In literary, artistic, musical, dramatic, and social clubs, the city has become populous. The Academy of Music had its origin in the success of the Brooklyn Philharmonic Society, the leading organization for the patronage of music, which was incorporated in 1857. It had been remarked that the audiences which patronized the concerts of the New York Philharmonic Society were, in a great part, made up of Brooklyn people. In 1856 or 1857 it occurred to the heads of several families, who were the best and most appreciative patronsof the New York society, that Brooklyn might and ought to have a Philharmonic Society of its own. The project was inaugurated, and was attended with success. The subscription list doubled the second season. There were, the second year, over seven hundred subscribers, and numerous patrons besides. The Athenæum was entirely inadequate for the purposes of the society. In 1858, the leading members of the Philharmonic Society, by circulars, called the attention of several leading citizens to the relative change that was going on between the two cities, and pointed to the success of their society as the best evidence that the time had come when a large lyric hall was demanded by the necessities of our city. About fifty gentlemen responded to this call, and a preliminary meeting was held at the Polytechnic Institute, in October,1858.51A public meeting followed, a popular stock company was formed, and the Academy was incorporated in 1859. Land in Montague Street was bought for $41,000. The total expenditure reached $200,000. The Academy became and has remained the city's leading opera house, and largest place of public meeting.Most of the greatest musical artists, actors, and orators in the country have been heard under its roof.
Among the leading musical associations of the city are the Apollo Club, the Seidl Society, the Brooklyn Choral Society, the Arion Society, the Brooklyn Maennerchor, the Zoellner Maennerchor, the Amphion Musical Society, the Cæcilia Ladies' Vocal Society, the Concordia Maennerchor, the Euterpe Chorus and Orchestra, the Deutscher Liederkranz, the Saengerbund, and the Prospect Heights Choral Society. In recent years there has appeared a disposition to regard Brooklyn as a musical city. The increase in the number of musical societies and the patronage of opera and concert have unquestionably been great. Among the musical composers, resident in the city, who have made national reputations, Dudley Buck has been of first prominence.
The Brooklyn Art Association, a development of the Sketch Club, formed by Brooklyn artists in 1857, erected a handsome building adjoining the Academy of Music in 1872. The exhibitions held in the association galleries have been the chief displays of pictures seen within the city. In recent years the Brooklyn Art Club, a society composed ofartists solely, has attained a large membership, and has exhibited annually in the Art Association galleries. The Art Association maintains a free art school. The leading society of art connoisseurs is the Rembrandt Club.
The Society of Old Brooklynites, the Franklin Literary Society, and the Bryant Literary Society have won prominence, and a position of influence has been assumed by the Brooklyn Woman's Club.
In private libraries and art collections Brooklyn has grown rich within the past twenty-five years. The development of certain valuable picture collections has induced the wish that the city had a great museum similar to the Metropolitan in New York, which might receive contributions by bequest. The advancement of the Brooklyn Institute promises to supply this need.
The newspapers of Brooklyn have acquired an increasingly influential position in the life of the city. We have seen how the "Eagle," the "Times," and the "Freie Presse" attained their established positions. The "Standard-Union" represents some interesting newspaper history. The "Union" was started in the midst of the war period, its first editor being Edward Cary. The paper was purchased in1870 by Henry C. Bowen, and Gen. Stewart L. Woodford became editor-in-chief, and H. E. Bowen (son of Henry C.), the publisher. When General Woodford retired a few months later, he was succeeded by Theodore Tilton, whose skillful pen was in the service of the paper until January, 1872, when Henry C. Bowen assumed the editorship. In the following year the control of the paper passed to Benjamin F. Tracy, F. A. Schroeder, John F. Henry, and others associated with them, and Robert Burch, who afterward became managing editor of the "Eagle," took the post of editor-in-chief. Later the property came into the hands of Lorin Palmer, and in 1877 the purchase of the name and good-will of the Brooklyn "Argus," which had been established as a weekly in 1866 and as a daily in 1873, resulted in the change of title to "Union-Argus." When the Union Publishing Company was formed, the name "Argus" was dropped, and the paper was again known as the "Union" during the aggressive editorship of John Foord, formerly of the New York "Times," and afterward editor of "Harper's Weekly." In 1887 the "Standard," which had been established in 1884, was consolidated with the "Union," and John A. Hatton assumedthe editorship of the "Standard-Union." Soon afterward William Berri became principal owner of the paper, and in 1890 Murat Halstead, long the master spirit of Ohio journalism, was called to the chair of editor-in-chief. The qualities which gave Halstead a national reputation while editor of the Cincinnati "Commercial Gazette" have not failed to make his pen a power in Brooklyn and throughout the State.
The "Citizen," established in 1886 by leading Democrats of the city, since has been a forceful and consistent organ of the local Democracy. The editorship of Andrew McLean has been one of eloquence and energy, uniting a consummate knowledge of Brooklyn with a rare sagacity in estimating men and affairs.
The establishment of "Brooklyn Life" by Frederick Mitchell Munroe and John Angus McKay was a felicitous stroke in Brooklyn journalism. "Life" has enjoyed a unique popularity as a weekly review of Brooklyn social, artistic, and literary affairs.
Brooklyn journalism has been quick to reflect the life and sentiment of the city. It has been energetic, original, and clean. The fact that only two of the newspapers, the "Eagle"and the "Citizen," publish Sunday editions, is one which of itself indicates the presence of a conservative element in the city. The establishment of Travelers' Bureaus by the "Eagle," under the direction of the assistant business manager, Herbert F. Gunnison, was a piece of characteristic enterprise.
The political complexion of Brooklyn and Kings County during the past two or three decades has become increasingly Democratic, with periodical Republican relapses. In the incumbency of the sheriff's office, for example, there has been an interesting alternation in parties since 1875. During the same period the two parties have been represented with approximate evenness in the Mayor's office. In leadership of the Democratic party Henry C. Murphy was succeeded by his energetic lieutenant, Hugh McLaughlin, who has retained the position at the head of the party since before the Rebellion. The period and completeness of this local leadership probably finds no parallel in American political history. No analogous situation has ever existed in the Republican party, which has never had a generally recognized leader, and whose successes at the polls have been those of a party or a public feeling in opposition to the dominantorganized party. Both independent Democratic and independent Republican movements and leaderships have played an important part in the later activities of political life.
Of the commercial development of Brooklyn since 1876, it is to be said that it has advanced more remarkably on the water front than elsewhere. The traffic in grain, sugar, and oil, with the extensive cooperage and ship-building and repairing operations, constitutes an important element in any estimate of the city's prominence in manufactures.
In the value ofproducts52the sugar industry stands first, the foundry and machine-shop interests coming second, and slaughtering and meat-packing third. Fourth and fifth positions are to be given respectively to chemical industries and the grinding of coffee and spices. Cordage and twine making has for a long time occupied a prominent place in Brooklyn. Other prominent industries are in boots and shoes, furnishing goods, and paper hangings. The National Meter Company plant in South Brooklyn is the largest in the world.
One of the most striking illustrations of Brooklyn's advancement in commercial affairs has been the increase in the number and importanceof its financial institutions. The city's first banks were the Long IslandBank,53incorporated in 1824; the Brooklyn Savings Bank, incorporated in 1827; the Atlantic Bank, incorporated in 1836; the Bank of Williamsburgh, incorporated in 1839; the South Brooklyn Savings Bank, incorporated in 1850; and the Williamsburgh Savings Bank, incorporated in 1851. The first fire insurance company (the Brooklyn) was contemporaneous with the first bank. The Long Island Insurance Company was organized in 1833. In 1893 four insurance companies had their home offices in Brooklyn; there were twenty-three banks of deposit, fourteen savings banks, four safe deposit companies, seven trust companies, four title guarantee companies, and four savings institutions. In the same year there were about one hundred and ten strictly local securities.