Louisville covers about forty square miles of a plain, and is nearly enclosed by hills. It is handsomely built and extends for nearly eight miles along the river. Its well-shaded streets are from sixty to one hundred and twenty feet wide, and slope up from the river.
Perhaps the most prominent building in Louisville is the Custom House, in Chestnut Street between Third and Fourth Streets. The Court House is in Jefferson Street between Fifth and Sixth Streets, and is adjoined by the City Hall, with its square clock-tower.
The Louisville Public Library, at the corner of Fourth and York Streets, contains also an art gallery and a small museum, including the Troost Collection of Minerals.
The Farmers’ Tobacco Warehouse, in Main Street, is the center of the tobacco trade and has a large storage capacity. The University of Louisville, at corner of Eighth and Chestnut Streets, is housed in a handsome building. The Lincoln Bank, corner of Fourth and Market Streets, is fifteen stories high, with a splendid view from upper windows and roof.
Fourth Avenue, with many pleasant residences, leads south, passing the pretty little Central Park, to the Racecourse. Louisville possesses three fine parks: Iroquois Park, Cherokee Park, and Shawnee Park, to the south, east and west of the city. The First Regiment Armory has an enormous drill-hall and can seat fifteen thousand persons.
The Louisville Bridge, one mile long, crossing to the west end of Jeffersonville, was built in 1868-1872 and has twenty-seven iron spans supported by limestone piers. The Kentucky and Indiana Bridge, leading to New Albany, is one-half mile long. A third bridge, also leading to Jeffersonville, was constructed in 1892.
President Zachary Taylor (1784-1850) is buried near his old home, five miles to the east of Louisville.
Louisville is the greatest market for tobacco in the world, and has large pork-packing establishments, distilleries, and tanneries, with manufactories of plows, furniture, castings, gas and water pipes, machinery, flour, cement, cotton seed oil and cake, steam railroad cars, and carriages and wagons.
It was founded in 1778 and in 1780 named in honor of Louis XVI. of France, whose troops were then assisting the Americans. A great part of the town, including the tobacco-market and the city hall, was destroyed by a cyclone in March, 1890. Since the Civil War, Louisville has rapidly grown in importance as one of the chief gateways to the southwest.
Milwaukee(mÄl-wau´kÄ“),Wis.[Named from the river, called by the Algonquins Minnwaukee, or Me-ne-wau-kee, “good earth, good country, rich or beautiful country.â€]
It is the largest city in Wisconsin, and is situated on the west shore of Lake Michigan at the common mouth of three improved and navigable rivers, which, with a canal, supply twenty-four miles of dockage. An excellent harbor has been formed by the erection of huge breakwaters, and the river admits the largest lake-vessels to the doors of the warehouses.
The city is well built, largely of a light-colored[604]brick, and many of its streets are lined with beautiful shade trees, recalling some of the older eastern cities. Among the finest residence streets are Grand Avenue, Prospect Avenue, Waverly Place, Juneau Avenue, Marshall Street and Astor Street. About two-thirds of the inhabitants are Germans, which may account for its successful cultivation of music and art. There are no fewer than seventy-five musical societies in the city.
Grand Avenue, which runs east and west, contains many of the chief buildings and best shops, while Wisconsin Street and East Water Street are also busy thoroughfares. Among the most prominent buildings is the Federal Building, a handsome structure of granite in a turreted baronial style, occupying the block bounded by Jefferson, Jackson, Michigan and Wisconsin Streets, and containing the Post Office, Custom House and United States Court House. The interior is finely finished in marbles, mosaics, mahogany, and oak. The County Court House, a brown sandstone edifice, is in the square bounded by Jefferson, Jackson, Oneida, and Biddle Streets. The tall Wells Building, at the corner of Milwaukee and Wisconsin Streets; the Chamber of Commerce, Michigan Street; Plymouth Church, a massive building at the corner of Van Buren and Oneida Streets, and St. Paul’s Church, Marshall Street, are other important structures. The Auditorium, in Cedar Street, can accommodate ten thousand people.
The Layton Art Gallery, a well-lighted structure at the corner of Jefferson and Mason Streets, has some interesting pictures and statues. The paintings include examples of Rosa Bonheur, Constable, Corot, Millet, Achenbach, Alma-Tadema, Clays, Inness, Kensett, Mauve, Holmberg, Pradilla, Mesdag, Munkácsy, Van Marcke, and other modern masters. In the Sculpture Hall are works by Hiram Powers and Romanelli. The magnificent Public Library in Grand Avenue, between Eighth and Ninth Streets, contains two hundred thousand volumes and a free museum of natural history, palæontology, etc.
The curiously thin looking City Hall, with one of the largest bells in the world and an illuminated clock-dial, visible for two miles at night, occupies a triangular site bounded by East Water, Market and Biddle Streets.
Other notable structures in the business district are the Germania Building, the Evening Wisconsin Building, the Sentinel, the New Insurance Building, the Mitchell Building and the Pabst Building.
Among the public monuments are statues of Washington, near Ninth Street, and the Soldiers’ Monument.
Juneau Park, laid out on a bluff overlooking Lake Michigan, contains statues of Solomon Juneau, the earliest white settler, and Leif Ericson; it commands fine views. Lake Park, farther to the north, also overlooks the lake. Near it is the North Point Pumping Station, with a tall and graceful water tower. The Forest Home Cemetery, at the southwest corner of the city, deserves notice. The attractions of Washington Park, on the west limits of the city, include a large herd of deer.
The great breweries, such as Pabst’s, which covers thirty-four acres, or Schlitz’s, are wonderfully interesting plants, while the grain elevators, the flour mills, the coal docks, the International Harvester Co., and the workshops of the C. M. St. P. Railway are also great concerns. To the south are the rolling mills of the Illinois Steel Co., covering one hundred and fifty-four acres of ground. To the southwest, chiefly in the valley of the Menomonee, are the large brick yards that produce the light colored bricks which give Milwaukee the name of “Cream City.†To the north, along the Milwaukee River, are extensive cement works.
Sheridan Drive, skirting the lake to the south for two miles, is intended to be prolonged so as ultimately to meet the boulevard of that name running from Chicago to Fort Sheridan.
The other industries include manufactories of leather, machinery, iron and steel goods, tobacco, clothing, stoves, tinware, brick, furnaces, cars, steel and malleable iron. Pork packing is also carried on extensively.
Milwaukee became a village in 1835 and received a city charter in 1846. Its growth has been rapid, particularly in the last twenty-five years.
Minneapolis(min-e-ap´Å-lis),Minn.[The “Flour Cityâ€; named from Dakota Indian words,Minni, “water,â€ha, “curling,†and the Greek wordpolis, “a city,†namely “city of the curling water,†alluding to the Falls of St. Anthony.]
It is the largest city of Minnesota, adjoins the capital, St. Paul, and is situated on both sides of the Mississippi, which is here crossed by numerous bridges. The Falls of St. Anthony, with a perpendicular descent of sixteen feet, afford a water power which has been a chief source of the city’s prosperity.
At the corner of Second Avenue South and Third Street stands the Metropolitan Life Building, erected at a cost of one million six hundred thousand dollars. Adjacent is the Post Office, in a Romanesque style.
On Hennepin Avenue, at the corner of North Fifth Street, is the imposing Lumber Exchange. To the right are the West Hotel and the Masonic Temple. At the corner of Eighth Street is the private art gallery of Mr. T. B. Walker, containing good specimens of British portrait painters and of the Barbison school and also works by or ascribed to Raphael, Michael Angelo, Rubens, Rembrandt, Van Dyck, Holbein, and Murillo.
Farther on, at the corner of Tenth Street, is the Public Library and Art Gallery, an ornate Romanesque structure.
At the corner of Sixteenth Street is the new Roman Catholic Cathedral.
Other prominent churches are the First Unitarian Church, at the corner of Mary’s Place and Eighth Street; the Westminster Presbyterian Church, Nicollet Avenue; the Church of the Redeemer; the Fowler Methodist Episcopal Church, on Lowry Hill; the Second Church of Christ, Scientist; Plymouth Church, and St. Mark’s Cathedral.
At the other end of Hennepin Avenue is the Union Depot. Among other prominent buildings in the business quarter are the Court House and City Hall, a handsome building in Fourth Street, completed at a cost of three million dollars, with a tower three hundred and forty-five feet high; the New York Life Insurance Building, Fifth Street and Second Avenue, with an elaborate interior; the Northwestern National Bank; the First National Bank; the Andrus Building; Donaldson’s Glass Block Store; the Security Bank Building, and the Chamber of Commerce, Fourth Street South and Fourth Avenue.
The University of Minnesota lies on the left bank of the river, between Washington and University Avenues, and occupies various well-equipped buildings.
Other notable institutions are the Augsburg Theological School, Minneapolis Normal School, and a Conservatory of Music.
Within the urban limits of Minneapolis are fourteen wooded lakes, while the gorges of the Mississippi and the Minnehaha Creek are very picturesque. These natural features have been made the basis of a fine system of boulevards. From the southeast side of Lake Harriet the road runs to the east along the Minnehaha Creek, passing Lake Amelia, to Minnehaha Park, containing the graceful Falls of the Minnehaha, fifty feet high and immortalized by Longfellow.
The most delightful resort near Minneapolis or St. Paul is Lake Minnetonka (eight hundred and twenty feet above the sea), which lies fifteen miles to the west. The lake is singularly irregular in outline, and with a total length of twelve to fifteen miles has a shore line of perhaps one hundred and fifty miles.
Minneapolis is the foremost city in the world in flour and lumber products. The flour mills, perhaps its most characteristic sight, are congregated on the banks of the Mississippi, near St. Anthony’s Falls. Other important industries are the manufacture of agricultural implements and machinery, bread and baking products, cars and general shop construction, food preparations, foundry products, furniture, fur goods, dressed fur, malt liquors, patent medicines, and printing and publishing.
The Falls of St. Anthony were named in 1680 by Father Hennepin. In 1819 Fort Snelling was built by the United States government. Though a large mill was built as early as 1822, it was not till 1850 that a permanent settlement was made. In 1856 Minneapolis was incorporated as a town on the west bank of the river, and in 1867 it was incorporated as a city. St. Anthony on the east bank was annexed in 1872.
Nashville, Tenn.[The “Rock Cityâ€; first named as a settlement, Nashborough, in honor of Francis Nash of North Carolina, a brigadier-general in the Continental Army. In June, 1784, changed to Nashville.]
It is the capital of Tennessee, on the navigable Cumberland River, two hundred miles above the Ohio, and one hundred and eighty-five miles by railroad southwest of Louisville. The city, which is one of the principal railroad centers in the Southern states, is built mainly on the left bank of the river, which is crossed by a suspension bridge and a railroad drawbridge to the suburb of Edgefield. Nashville is a handsome, well-built town, and it is, perhaps, the most important educational center in the South.
The most prominent building in the city is the State Capitol, conspicuously situated on a hill. In its grounds are a bronze equestrian statue of Andrew Jackson, and the tomb of President Polk, whose home stood at the corner of Vine and Union Streets. Among the other chief buildings are the Court House, the Custom House, the Parthenon, used for exhibitions of art, Greek plays by students, etc., the Vendome and Bijou Theaters, the Carnegie Library, the Board of Trade, the First National Bank, and the Stahlman Building.
At the head of the educational institutions stands Vanderbilt University, endowed by Cornelius Vanderbilt with one million dollars. In the campus is a colossal statue of the founder, by Moretti. Other well-known institutions are the Peabody Teachers’ College, Boscobel College, Belmont College, the Saint Cecilia Academy, Radnor College, Buford College and Ward’s Seminary.
There are also several large colleges for colored students.
Among the places of interest near Nashville are the Hermitage, the home of General Andrew Jackson, eleven miles to the east.
Nashville occupies a foremost place among the manufacturing centers of the country. It is the fifth boot and shoe market in the United States, the largest candy and cracker manufacturing city in the South, and does an enormous wholesale dry goods, grocery, and drug business. It carries on an extensive trade in cotton and tobacco; while its manufactures, which are rapidly extending, include cotton, flour, oil, paper, furniture, timber, leather, iron, and spirits. The iron interests of the South are largely controlled here.
Nashville was settled in 1780, received its charter in 1806, and in 1843 was made the permanent capital.
New Haven, Conn.[The “City of Elmsâ€; named by the original settlers the “new haven.†The original Indian name was Quinnippac. The present name substituted “by the court†September 5, 1640.]
It is the chief city and seaport of Connecticut, at the head of New Haven Bay, is situated four miles from Long Island Sound, seventy-three miles by railroad northeast of New York and thirty-five miles southwest of Hartford.
The city is situated on a level plain, with a background of hills. Its broad streets are shaded with elms, and the public squares, parks, and gardens, with its handsome public and private edifices, make it one of the most beautiful of American cities.
From the large Union Station, which adjoins the harbor, Meadow Street leads north to the Public Green, on which are the City Hall, three churches, the Second National Bank, and the Free Public Library, United States Court House and Post Office. At the southeast corner of the Green is the Bennett Fountain, designed by John F. Weir after the monument of Lysicrates at Athens.
In College Street are most of the substantial buildings of Yale University, which, besides the Academic Department, has schools of Science, Theology, Medicine, Law, Forestry, Music, and Fine Arts, and also a Graduate School.
From the Public Green the university “campus†or quadrangle is entered by an imposing tower-gateway known as Phelps Hall. Among the buildings in the campus are the Art School, containing a good collection of Italian, American, and other paintings and sculptures; Connecticut Hall, the oldest Yale building (1750); Osborn Hall; Battell Chapel; Vanderbilt Hall; Alumni Hall; Dwight Hall, and the College Library. At the corner of Elm and High Streets is the Peabody Museum of Natural History, in which the mineralogical collections are especially fine.
Other important buildings of the university are the buildings of the Sheffield Scientific School, the Schools of Law, Medicine, and Divinity, the Chemical and Physical Laboratories, Memorial and other large halls.
Hillhouse Avenue is especially noted for its trees, and Chapel Street, the principal promenade, for the gardens surrounding many of the residences.
The parks have an aggregate area of one thousand two hundred acres. Besides the Green are the parks at East Rock (three hundred and sixty feet high) and West Rock (four hundred feet high), two masses of trap rock near the city which afford fine views. East Rock is surmounted by a soldiers’ monument. West Rock is famous for a cave in which the regicides Goffe and Whalley were for a time concealed. Savin Rock, Morris Cove, and Momaugin are shore resorts accessible from the city by electric car lines.
The railway lines from New Haven to New York City are the only ones of consequence that have been completely electrified.
New Haven is an important industrial city and has considerable commerce. The harbor has a jetty and a breakwater surmounted by a lighthouse, and the port has a large coasting trade. But it is of more consequence as a manufacturing town, employing many thousands of workers producing hardware, wire, locks, clocks, cutlery, firearms, corsets, india-rubber goods, carriages, furniture, paper, matches, musical instruments, etc.
New Haven was settled in 1638 by a company chiefly from London. In 1639 a government was established under a written constitution, and Theophilus Eaton, the pastor of the colony, was chosen and continued in the governorship until[606]1658. Church membership was a qualification for suffrage and eligibility to office. The New Haven colony was founded in 1643 by the union of Milford, Guilford and Stamford with New Haven. In the same year it became a member of the confederacy of the United Colonies of New England. The charter of Charles II. for Connecticut (1662) included the New Haven colony, but the latter, supported by Massachusetts and Plymouth, stubbornly opposed absorption and was only forced to accede in 1664. Yale College, founded in Saybrook, was removed to New Haven in 1717. The town was captured by the British under Tryon and Garth, July 5, 1779. It was incorporated as a city in 1784. Joint capital with Hartford from 1701; the government was removed from New Haven altogether in 1873.
New Orleans(nÅ« ôr’lÄ“-ănz),La.[The “Crescent Cityâ€; its name is a translation of the French nameNouvelle Orleans, given by them in honor of the Duc d’Orleans, then Regent of France.]
It is the chief city of Louisiana, a great port and mart, and is situated on both sides of the Mississippi River—the greater portion on the east bank—one hundred and seven miles from its mouth, and one thousand one hundred and ninety miles southwest of New York. The Mississippi makes two bends here, whence the city was called “The Crescent City,†but it is now shaped like the letter S. The river is from six hundred to one thousand yards wide, and sixty to two hundred and forty feet deep. The bar at its mouth was removed in 1874-1879 by the Eads jetties in South Pass, and vessels of thirty feet now easily reach New Orleans.
A great part of the city is below the level of the river during the high flood tides, which last for a few days each year, and is protected by a levee or embankment, fifteen feet wide and fourteen feet high. The city is laid out with considerable regularity, and many of the chief streets are wide and shaded with trees. The most important business thoroughfare is Canal Street, which runs at right angles to the river and divides the French Quarter, or “Vieux Carré†on the northeast, from the New City, or American Quarter, on the southwest. The finest residences are in St. Charles Avenue, and in Esplanada Avenue, where the wealthy Creoles have their homes. Of the total population about one-quarter are negroes, while the remaining three-fourths include large proportions of French, German, Irish, Italian and Spanish blood.
While it possesses few imposing buildings, New Orleans is a picturesque city. There are several parks, little improved, but with handsome monuments or statues of Jackson, Lee, Franklin, and others. The custom house of granite cost four million five hundred thousand dollars, and is the largest and most imposing building in the city. It is a large granite building in Canal Street, near the river, and contains a large Marble Hall.
Just below the Custom House, Canal Street ends at the Levee, which extends along the west bank of the Mississippi for about six miles and presents a very animated and interesting scene. At the left is Jackson Square, the old Place d’Armes, which retains its ancient iron railing, and contains a statue of General Andrew Jackson, by Mills. It is adjoined by the Cathedral of St. Louis, a good specimen of the Spanish-Creole style, built in 1792-1794, on the site of the first church in Louisiana, but altered in 1850. It contains some paintings and interesting tombs.
The buildings to the right and left are Court Houses, that to the south having been built for the Cabildo, or City Council of the Spanish régime. In it and in front of it were held the ceremonies attending the cession of Louisiana by the French Government to the United States in 1803.
In Orleans Street, near the east end of the Cathedral, is a Convent of Colored Nuns, which contains what was formerly the famous Quadroon Ballroom, mentioned by Cable, the scene of many celebrated festivities.
On the Levee, just beyond Jackson Square, is the French Market, which often reveals a scene of the greatest picturesqueness and animation. A little farther on, at the foot of Esplanade Avenue, is the United States Branch Mint, a large building in the Ionic style. In Royal Street, four blocks from Canal Street, is the new Court House, a handsome structure of white marble and terra cotta.
In the fine French Quarter the chief promenades are Esplanade Avenue, Rampart Street and Bourbon, Toulouse, Conti and Royal Streets. At the corner of Chartres and Hospital Streets is the Archbishop’s Residence, in the unchanged Ursuline Convent, built in 1730.
Following St. Charles Avenue from Canal Street to the south, is the St. Charles Hotel and the Orpheum and, just beyond, Lafayette Square, around which are grouped the City Hall, the new Post Office, St. Patrick’s Church, the First Presbyterian Church, and the Odd Fellows’ Hall. In the square are a statue of Franklin, by Hiram Powers, a monument to John McDonough, and a statue of Henry Clay. Farther on is Lee Circle, with a monument to General Robert E. Lee. At the corner of Camp Street and Howard Avenue, adjoining Lee Circle, stands the Howard Library, the last work of H. H. Richardson, who was a native of Louisiana. Adjacent are Memorial Hall, a museum of Confederate relics, and the new building of the Public Library. To the southwest, in Carondelet Street, is the Jewish Temple Sinai. The monument to Margaret Haughery, the “Orphans’ Friend,†is said to have been the first statue of a woman erected in the United States.
Tulane Avenue, named in honor of the chief benefactor of Tulane University, and its continuation Common Street, contain the Law Department of Tulane University, the House of Detention, the Jesuit Church of the Immaculate Conception in a singular Moorish style, the Parish Prison and Criminal Courts, the Hôtel Dieu, and the large Charity Hospital, originally established in 1784. The large Cotton Exchange is at the corner of Carondelet and Gravier Streets; the Produce Exchange is in Magazine Street, and the Sugar Exchange is at the foot of Bienville Street. The United States Marine Hospital lies near the river.
St. Charles Avenue, extending in a crescent from Lee Circle past Audubon Park to the river, is lined with oaks and magnolias and contains many old and admirable private residences. Among its public buildings are Christ Church, the New Orleans University, the Academy of the Sacred Heart, the Jewish Orphan Home, and the Harmony Club. At the point where the avenue crosses Audubon Park are the newer buildings of the Tulane University, an important and well-equipped institution. A department of Tulane University is the H. Sophie Newcomb Memorial College for Women, founded in 1886. A legacy of John McDonough has built and equipped thirty handsome school houses in different parts of the city.
The City Park, on the Metairie Ridge, is one hundred and fifty acres in extent. The Audubon Park, in which the Great Exhibition of 1884-1885 was held, and which now holds the “Sugar Experimental Station†of the State of Louisiana, is a long segment extending back from the river, being the ground in which the sugar cane was first grown in this state. Both parks contain fine live-oaks.
New Orleans is the largest cotton market in the world except Liverpool, handling annually two[607]million bales. The manufacturing products include machinery, cotton goods, boots and shoes, and amount in a year to sixty million dollars. As the outlet of the Mississippi Valley it commands a large export trade.
The site of New Orleans was first visited in 1699 by Bienville, who in 1718 laid the foundations of the city, and in 1726 made it the capital. In 1763 it was ceded to Spain by France, with the rest of Louisiana; but when in 1765 the Spanish governor attempted to take possession, he was driven out, and the people established a government of their own till 1769, when the Spaniards occupied it. It was ceded to France in 1802, and transferred to the United States a few days later. Incorporated as a city in 1804, it was divided in 1836-1852 into three separate municipalities, in consequence of the jealousies between the Creoles and the Americans. Other outstanding events have been the defeat of the British by Andrew Jackson in 1815; the capture in 1862 by the Federal fleet; serious political troubles with fighting in 1874 and 1877; and the lynching in 1891 of eleven Italian maffiosi. In 1880 the capital of Louisiana was removed from New Orleans to Baton Rouge.
Newport, R. I.[The “City of Mansionsâ€; named in honor of the English admiral Christopher Newport (under James I.).]
It was, until 1900, one of the capitals of Rhode Island, and lies on the west shore of the island, in Narragansett Bay, five miles from the ocean, and sixty-nine miles by railroad southwest of Boston. It has a deep and excellent harbor, defended by Fort Adams.
The town is noted for fine scenery, and is one of the most fashionable watering-places in America, containing some of the finest mansions in the United States. Bathing facilities are unrivaled, and there are many fashionable promenades.
The chief attractions are Touro Park, and the Old Mill, Cliff Walk, Bailey’s Beach, and the Ocean Drive.
The central point of Old Newport is Washington Square, or the Parade, within a few minutes’ walk of the railway station and steamboat wharf. Here are the State House, with portrait of Washington, by Stuart; the old City Hall (new one in Broadway, corner of Bull Street); a statue of Commodore O. H. Perry, the hero of Lake Erie; the Perry Mansion, and the Roman Catholic Church, with an Ionic portico.
Following Touro Street, to the southeast, is the Synagogue built in 1762 and the oldest in the United States; the Newport Historical Society; and, a little beyond, the picturesque Hebrew Cemetery. Touro Street ends here and Bellevue Avenue, the fashionable promenade, begins, running to the south.
The fine Fern-leaf Beech is at the corner of Bellevue Avenue and Redwood Street. Nearly opposite this is Touro Park, containing the Round Tower or Old Stone Mill, the origin of which is still somewhat of a mystery. Some authorities believe that it was built by Governor Arnold in the seventeenth century as a wind-mill, while others regard it as very possibly the central part of a church built by the Norsemen in the eleventh century. Longfellow mentions it in hisSkeleton in Armor. The park also contains statues of M. C. Perry and W. E. Channing; and opposite its south side stands the Channing Memorial Church.
A few hundred paces farther on, Bath Road leads to the left from Bellevue Avenue to the First Beach.
Bellevue Avenue soon passes the Casino, a long, low, many-gabled building, containing a club, a theater, etc. The Lawn Tennis Championship of America is decided in the courts attached to the Casino. Farther on, the avenue passes between a series of magnificent villas, and then turns sharply to the right and ends at Bailey’s Beach.
First or Easton’s Beach, a strip of smooth hard sand, three-fourths mile long, affords some of the best and safest surf-bathing on the Atlantic coast. From the east end of the beach a road leads round Easton’s Point to Purgatory, a curious fissure in the conglomerate rocks, one hundred and fifty feet long, seven to fourteen feet wide, and fifty feet deep.
At the west end of Easton’s Beach begins the famous Cliff Walk, which runs along the winding brow of the cliffs for about three miles, with the ocean on one side and the smooth lawns of handsome homes on the other. Here are summer residences, owned by the wealthiest society people of Boston, New York, and other cities.
Across the hill is Bailey’s Beach, a small bay with a long row of bathing-houses, which has become the fashionable bathing-resort of the Newport cottagers.
From Bailey’s Beach begins the beautiful Ocean or Ten Mile Drive, which skirts the coast of the peninsula to the south of the town for about ten miles, commanding magnificent views.
The locality of Newport has many natural curiosities, including the Hanging Rocks, Spouting Cave, and the Glen, or “Purgatory,†already referred to. Newport is the seat of the United States Naval War College, United States Training Station, Torpedo Station, Naval Hospital, Newport Hospital, and Hazard Memorial School.
The manufactures are flour, cotton goods, copper, brass, oil, etc.
Newport was settled in 1638 by eighteen adherents of Roger Williams, and was an important commercial town prior to the Revolutionary war, which effected its ruin and transferred its trade to New York. During the war it was occupied for three years by the British, and for a while by the French under Rochambeau. It was the birthplace of Commodore Perry and William Ellery Channing, and for a while the place of residence of Bishop Berkeley, the English philosopher.
New York City, N. Y.[The “Empire Cityâ€; also “Gothamâ€; named from the State which was named in honor of James, Duke of York, afterwards James II.]
It is the largest and most important city on the American continent, the second wealthiest on the globe, and, next to London, the most populous in the world. Situated on New York Bay at the confluence of the Hudson and East Rivers, about twelve miles from the Atlantic Ocean, it consists of the boroughs of Manhattan, The Bronx, Brooklyn, Queens, and Richmond, which have a joint area of three hundred and twenty-six square miles. Its extreme length, north and south, is thirty-five miles, its extreme width nineteen miles.
Manhattan, or New York proper, consists mainly of Manhattan Island, a long and narrow tongue of land bounded by the Hudson or North River on the west and the East River (part of Long Island Sound) on the east and separated from the mainland on the north and northeast by the narrow Harlem River and Spuyten Duyvil Creek; but also includes several small islands in New York Bay and the East River.
Manhattan Island is thirteen and one-half miles long, with an average breadth of one and three-fifths miles, and with the exception of a small, wild, and rocky portion, which is utilized for ornamental purposes, the entire island is laid out in avenues and streets. It includes several greens and parks, and its area has been considerably extended by filling in on the two river-sides.
The strikingly beautiful landlocked harbor of New York includes the lower bay, the upper bay, the East River, and the North, or Hudson River. Ocean steamships enter it from the sea by Sandy[608]Hook through the Narrows, and coasting ships from the north through Long Island Sound. The North River averages a mile wide; the East River is not so wide, but both are deep enough for the largest ships, and furnish many miles of wharfage. The Harlem River, at the north end of Manhattan Island, connects the two great rivers.
The bar at Sandy Hook, eighteen miles south of the city, which divides the Atlantic Ocean from the outer or lower bay, is crossed by two ship-channels, from twenty-one to thirty-two feet deep at ebb-tide. The lower bay covers eighty-eight square miles. The Narrows, through which all large ships pass on their way to the inner harbor, is a strait between Long Island and Staten Island, about a mile in width, and like other approaches is defended by forts. New York’s harbor or inner bay covers about fourteen square miles; it is one of the amplest, safest, and most picturesque on the globe, open all the year round.
Liberty Island, for a long time known as Bedloe’s Island, is situated in the harbor, about one and three-fourths miles from the lower end of the city. In 1886 the famous Bartholdi statue was erected on this spot, and occupies its central surface. It is a colossal bronze female figure one hundred and fifty-one feet in height, on a pedestal one hundred and fifty-five feet high, and holding aloft a torch which is lit by electricity at night.
Immense bridges span the East River and Harlem River, and there are some thirty steam-ferries.
The New York and Brooklyn Suspension Bridge, opened in 1883, which cost twenty million dollars, was soon found inadequate for the enormous traffic, and a second bridge from Canal Street to Brooklyn was opened in 1909.
The Williamsburg Suspension Bridge, between Manhattan and Williamsburg, was opened in 1903. It cost twelve million dollars.
The Queensboro Bridge, of cantilever type, between Long Island and Fifty-ninth Street, was opened in 1909. Its cost was twenty million dollars.
In 1909 another bridge from Manhattan to Brooklyn, built at a cost of twenty-six million dollars, was completed.
The Harlem River is crossed by several bridges, of which the Washington is noteworthy as being one of the finest in America.
Hell Gate Arch Bridge spans the East River at Hell Gate, between Ward’s Island and Astoria, Long Island. It was designed and built by Gustav Lindenthal for the New York Connecting Railroad to connect the Pennsylvania and New York, New Haven systems, at a cost, including approaches, of twenty-five million dollars. It is the longest arch in the world. The span is one thousand and sixteen feet ten inches between tower faces. The upper chord of the arch is three hundred feet above mean high water at the center and one hundred and eighty feet at the ends of the span; the lower chord is two hundred and sixty feet above mean high water at the center and forty feet at the ends; the roadway is one hundred and forty feet above mean high water.
Old New York is laid out very irregularly. Here the money interests and wholesale traffic are centered; Wall, New, and Broad Streets being the great centers of banking and speculative enterprises.
The newer part of the city, from Fourteenth Street to the end of the island, northward, is divided into twelve great avenues and several smaller ones, from seventy-five to one hundred and fifty feet in width, running north and south. These are crossed at right angles by streets, mostly sixty feet in width, running from river to river.
Fifth Avenue, the great modern central thoroughfare, divides the city into eastside and westside. Here or hereabout are the largest banks, churches, museums, libraries, shops, palaces, and tenements in America.
Fifth Avenue below Fifty-ninth Street is now largely occupied by store and office buildings where once were palatial private houses; and between Madison Square and Fifty-ninth Street contains many hotels and clubs, and the New York Public Library.
The original great thoroughfare, Broadway, runs a northwesterly course through the regular cross street arrangement, making some slight deflections, quite through the middle of the island.
For a distance of two and one-half miles from Fifty-ninth to One Hundred and Tenth Street, Central Park divides the city into two parts.
Other parks are Van Cortlandt, one thousand and sixty-nine acres; Pelham Bay, one thousand seven hundred acres; and Bronx Park, six hundred and sixty-one and sixty-one hundredths acres, containing the Botanical and Zoological Gardens. Prospect Park, Brooklyn, contains five hundred and sixteen and one-quarter acres. A recreation course, skirting the Harlem River, and reserved for fast driving, is the “Speedway,†and extending along the Hudson for three miles is Riverside Drive, with its striking views of the Palisades. On an abrupt elevation is Morningside Park, on which are located the new buildings of Columbia University, St. Luke’s Hospital, and the Cathedral of St. John the Divine. Beyond Morningside Park is a rocky ridge known as Washington Heights.
The most thickly settled part of Brooklyn borough is in the north, and the business portion is that part fronting on East River and the upper harbor. The southern part is largely marshland. At the southwestern extremity of Long Island, in this borough, stretches a sandbar known as Coney Island, on which are the widely-known popular summer resorts. Queensboro has several large population centers, among them Long Island City and Flushing. Richmond borough (Staten Island) contains numerous villages.
Communication throughout the city is afforded by an extensive system of electric surface, electric elevated roads, the great subway railroad system, and by ferries plying between the boroughs.
The subway has, for part of its course, four tracks, two of which are for express trains. It begins at the City Hall and traverses the whole length of Manhattan Island. The first length of eight miles to Washington Heights was opened in 1904. The following year the line was extended to the Battery, and also under the Harlem River into Bronx. In 1908 a further extension was opened between the Battery and Brooklyn by way of a tunnel. In 1909, a double-tube tunnel, the McAdoo, connected the city at Sixth Avenue and Twenty-third Street with Hoboken, N. J.
In 1910 several tunnels under the Hudson and East Rivers were opened. Other great works of development are almost constantly in progress to deal with the traffic requirements, including further subways, a number of river tunnels, and additional railroad terminals. A recent gigantic railway enterprise is the construction of the Pennsylvania tunnel under the Hudson River.
Some of the larger features of New York call for more detailed notice.
The architecture of New York exhibits great contrasts, including styles as diverse as the quaint old Dutch houses, and skyscrapers of twenty-five and thirty stories.
At the extreme south end of the island is the Custom House, a large quadrangular granite building, in the French Renaissance style, which occupies the site of Fort Amsterdam. The facade toward Bowling Green is adorned with colossal groups of Europe, Asia, Africa, and[609]America, and with twelve heroic figures representing the great sea-powers.
In Whitehall Street, opposite the Custom House, is the Produce Exchange, a huge brick and terra cotta structure in the Italian Renaissance style, containing numerous offices and a large hall. The tower, two hundred and twenty-five feet high, commands a fine view of the city and harbor.
Broadway begins at the Bowling Green, extending hence all the way to Yonkers, a distance of nineteen miles. Up to Thirty-third Street, Broadway is the scene of a most busy and varied traffic, which reaches its culminating point in the lower part of the street during business-hours. This part of the street is almost entirely occupied by wholesale houses, insurance offices, banks, and the like; but farther up are numerous fine shops. Broadway is no longer the broadest street in New York, but it is still the most important. The number of immensely tall office buildings with which it is now lined give it a curiously canyon-like appearance.
No. 1 Broadway, to the left, is the Washington Building, which is adjoined by the Bowling Green Building (sixteen stories), designed by English architects. Other conspicuous business buildings in the lower part of Broadway are the large Welles and Standard Oil Co. Buildings, Nos. 18, 26, the 42 Broadway Building, twenty stories, and Aldrich Court, on the site of the first habitation of white men on Manhattan Island. At Nos. 64-68 is the Manhattan Life Insurance Co., the tower of which is three hundred and sixty feet high. To the left, at the corner of Rector Street, is the imposing Empire Building, twenty stories, the hall of which forms a busy thoroughfare between Broadway and the Rector Street “L†station.
FAR-FAMED BROADWAY AT NIGHT
FAR-FAMED BROADWAY AT NIGHT
Wall Street diverging from Broadway to the right, at this point, is the great financial street of New York, the financial barometer of the country. On this street stands the United States Sub-Treasury, a marble structure with a Doric portico, occupying the site of the old Federal Hall, in which the first United States Congress assembled, and Washington was inaugurated as President; the Drexel Building, a white marble structure in the Renaissance style, occupied by J. Pierpont[610]Morgan & Co.; the National City Bank, largest in the country, occupying the old Custom House.
Trinity Church, on the west side of Broadway, is a handsome Gothic edifice of brown stone, with a spire two hundred and eighty-five feet high. The present building dates from 1839-1846, but occupies the site of a church of 1696. The church owns property to the value of at least twenty million dollars used in the support of several subsidiary churches and numerous charities.
Just above Trinity Church are the enormous Trinity and United States Realty buildings, two dignified structures, the former with an admirable facade in a modified Gothic style, and nearly opposite are the Union Trust Co. and the twenty-three story building of the American Surety Co., the latter containing the United States Weather Bureau (“Old Probabilitiesâ€). On the same side, between Pine Street and Cedar Street, is the office of the Equitable Life Insurance Co.
The block to the left, between Liberty Street and Cortland Street, is occupied by the buildings of the Singer Manufacturing Co., the City Realty Co., and the City Investing Co. The tower of the Singer Building, with its forty-one stories, rises to a height of six hundred and twelve feet. Between Broadway and Park Row is the Post Office, a large Renaissance building.
City Hall, containing the headquarters of the Mayor of Greater New York and other municipal authorities, is a well-proportioned building of marble in the Italian style, with a central portico, two projecting wings, and a cupola clock tower.
To the north of the City Hall is the Court House, a large building of white marble, with its principal entrance, garnished with lofty Corinthian columns, facing Chambers Street. The interior, which contains the State Courts and several municipal offices, is well fitted up. This building, one of the “Tweed ring†structures, is said to have cost twelve million dollars. Opposite the Court House, in Chambers Street, are various City Offices. These include the new Register Office or Hall of Records, a handsome building in the French Renaissance style, erected at a cost of six million dollars and faced with granite. The facade is adorned with sculptures, and the interior is also elaborately decorated. To the southwest of the City Hall, facing Broadway, is a statue of Nathan Hale.
Park Row, bounding the southeast side of the City Hall Park, contains the offices of many of the principal New York newspapers, the Pulitzer Building, with the World office, Tribune Building, New York Press, and Park Row Building with its lofty towers. Opposite the newspaper offices, in Printing House Square, is a bronze statue of Benjamin Franklin, and in front of the Tribune Building is a seated bronze figure of its famous founder, Horace Greeley.
Beyond Astor Place, Broadway passes the large building occupied by John Wanamaker, but originally erected for A. T. Stewart & Co. With its new annexes, it is heralded as the largest department store in the world.
Broadway now inclines to the left. At the bend rises Grace Church, which, with the adjoining rectory, chantry, and church-house, forms one of the most attractive ecclesiastical groups in New York. The church is of white limestone and has a lofty marble spire. The interior is well-proportioned, and all the windows contain stained glass.
At Fourteenth Street Broadway reaches Union Square, which is beautified with pleasure grounds, statues, and an ornamental fountain. At the corner of East Sixteenth Street is the massive office building of the Bank of Metropolis. Near the southeast corner is a good equestrian statue of Washington, in the center of the south side is a bronze statue of Lafayette, in the southwest corner is a statue of Abraham Lincoln, and on the west side is the James Fountain.
Broadway, between Union Square and Madison Square, is one of the chief shopping-resorts of New York, containing many fine stores for the sale of furniture, dry goods, etc. At Twenty-third Street it intersects Fifth Avenue and at the point of intersection stands the daring Fuller Building, generally known as the “Flat-iron Building†on account of its strange triangular shape. It is two hundred and ninety feet high, has twenty stories, and cost four million dollars.
Broadway now skirts the west side of Madison Square, a prettily laid out public garden, containing a bronze statue of Admiral Farragut, an obelisk to the memory of General Worth, a statue of Roscoe Conkling, a statue of President Arthur, and a statue of William H. Seward. The statue of Farragut is among the finest in New York, and the imaginative treatment of the pedestal is very beautiful. On the west side of the square is the new Fifth Avenue Building.
On the east side is the new Appellate Court House, a handsome building, perhaps somewhat overloaded with ornamentation.
On the east side of the square, between Twenty-third and Twenty-fourth Streets, is the enormous building of the Metropolitan Life Insurance Co., the tower of which has fifty stories and reaches a height of six hundred and ninety-three feet. Two elevators run to a height of five hundred and forty-four feet. Adjacent is the Madison Square Presbyterian Church, with its massive dome. At the southeast corner of Twenty-sixth Street stands the Manhattan Club, and at the northeast corner is the huge Madison Square Garden, with its Moorish tower capped by a fine statue of Diana.
The Herald Office, a Venetian palace, stands at Broadway and Thirty-fifth Street, in Herald Square.
West of Herald Square, at Seventh Avenue and Thirty-third Street, is the magnificent station of the Pennsylvania Railroad Company, covering an area four hundred and fifty by one thousand eight hundred feet, the largest structure of the kind in the world, connected by tunnels under the Hudson River with New Jersey, and under the East River with Long Island. The tracks are forty feet below the level of the city streets.
The Metropolitan Opera House, opened in 1883 and rebuilt ten years later, after a fire, stands between Thirty-ninth and Fortieth Streets.
At Forty-second Street and Broadway is the Times Building, an ornamental structure sixteen stories high, upon a triangle of ground.
To the east of Madison Avenue is the Grand Central Station, the terminus of the New York Central, the New York, New Haven and Hartford, and the Harlem Railways. Opposite the station is the Belmont Hotel, twenty-two stories high.
The corner at Broadway and Forty-second Street is the recent heart of the theatrical and hotel district, for clustered there are a dozen hotels, the immense Astor and Knickerbocker among them, and there are twenty theaters within half a mile, six of them almost side by side on Forty-second Street.
Beyond Times Square, Broadway is rather uninteresting, but there are some lofty specimens of apartment houses or French flats farther up. From Forty-fifth Street on, Broadway is largely occupied by automobile stores and garages. At the corner of Fifty-sixth Street is the new Broadway Tabernacle and at Fifty-ninth Street Broadway reaches the southwest corner of Central Park and intersects Eighth Avenue.
At the intersection, the so-called Circle, stands the Columbus Monument by Gaetano Russo,[611]erected in 1892, and consisting of a tall shaft surmounted by a marble statue, in all seventy-seven feet high. Beyond Seventy-eighth Street, Broadway, now a wide street with rows of trees, is usually known as the Boulevard. From One Hundred and Eighth Street to One Hundred and Sixty-second Street it coincides with Eleventh Avenue, at One Hundred and Sixteenth Street it passes Columbia University, and from One Hundred and Sixty-second Street it, as Kingsbridge Road, runs on to Yonkers.
Fifth Avenue, the chief street in New York from the standpoint of wealth and fashion, begins at Washington Square to the north of West Fourth Street and a little to the west of Broadway, and runs north to the Harlem River, a distance of six miles. Below Forty-seventh Street the Avenue has now been largely invaded by shops, tall office buildings, and hotels. The avenue has been kept sacred from the marring touch of the street railway or the elevated railroad, and is traversed by a line of motor omnibuses. The avenue is wide and well-paved, and many of the buildings are of brown sandstone. On a fine afternoon Fifth Avenue is alive with carriages and horsemen on their way to and from Central Park and it is, perhaps, seen at its best on a fine Sunday.
At Twenty-third Street the Avenue intersects Broadway and skirts Madison Square. To the right is the Flat-iron Building. At Twenty-sixth Street is the Café Martin.
The whole block between Thirty-third and Thirty-fourth Streets, to the left, is occupied by the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel, a huge double building of red brick and sandstone in a German Renaissance style. The restaurants and other large halls in the interior are freely adorned with mural paintings by American artists.
The Union League Club, the chief Republican club of New York, is a handsome and substantial building at the corner of Thirty-ninth Street.
Between Fortieth Street and Forty-second Street, to the left, on the site of the old reservoir of the Croton Aqueduct, stands the New York Public Library, a very dignified and imposing structure of white marble, built at a cost of ten million dollars.
A little to the east of this point, in Forty-second Street, is the Grand Central Station already referred to. At the southeast corner of Forty-second Street rises the tasteful Columbia Bank. The Temple Emanu-El, or chief synagogue of New York, at the corner of Forty-third Street, is a fine specimen of Moorish architecture with a richly decorated interior.
At the northeast corner of Forty-fourth Street is Delmonico’s Restaurant, a substantial building with elaborate ornamentation; and at the southwest corner is Sherry’s, a rival establishment, equally patronized by the fashionable world.
The Collegiate Church of St. Nicholas (Dutch Reformed), at the corner of Forty-eighth Street, is one of the handsomest and most elaborately adorned ecclesiastical edifices in the city. It is in decorated Gothic style and has a spire two hundred and seventy feet high. Just below Fiftieth Street, on the right, is the Democratic Club, the stronghold of Tammany and popularly known as “Tamany Hall†or the “Wigwam.â€
Between Fiftieth and Fifty-first Streets, to the right, stands St. Patrick’s Cathedral, an extensive building of white marble in the decorated Gothic style, and the most important ecclesiastical edifice in the United States. It is four hundred feet long, one hundred and twenty-five feet wide and one hundred and twelve feet high, and the two beautiful spires are three hundred and thirty-two feet high. The building, which was designed by James Renwick, was erected in 1850-1879, at a cost of three million five hundred thousand dollars.
Adjoining the cathedral, to the right, is the handsome Union Club, and at the corner of Fifty-fourth Street is the University Club, adorned with carvings of the seals of eighteen American colleges. The library contains admirable mural paintings, adapted from Pinturicchio’s work in the Borgia apartments of the Vatican. At the corner of Fifty-fifth Street are the St. Regis Hotel and the Gotham Hotel. The Fifth Avenue Presbyterian Church has one of the loftiest spires in the city.
Between Fifty-ninth and One Hundred and Tenth Streets Fifth Avenue skirts the east side of Central Park, having buildings on one side only. Among these, many of which are very handsome, is the Metropolitan Club.
At Fifty-ninth Street, where Fifth Avenue reaches Central Park, are three huge hotels: the New Plaza, the Savoy, and the Netherland. In the middle of the Plaza rises a bronze-gilt equestrian statue of General Sherman, of fine artistic merit.
Mt. Sinai Hospital is between One Hundredth and One Hundred and First Streets.
In Central Park, close to Fifth Avenue at Eighty-second Street, is the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
At One Hundred and Twentieth Street Fifth Avenue reaches Mount Morris Square, the mound in the center of which commands good views. Beyond Mt. Morris Square the Avenue is lined with handsome villas, some of them surrounded by gardens. It ends in a district of tenements and small shops at the Harlem River.
New York has many public parks, the finest of which is the Central Park. The district in which it is located was once a wilderness of rocks and swamps. Plans by Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux were so admirably carried out as to make the Central Park in ten years one of the most beautiful pleasure-grounds in the world.
Of its eight hundred and forty acres, four hundred are wooded. There are nine miles of drives, with thirty miles of paths, several lakes used for boats in summer and for skating in winter, immense lawns for baseball, tennis, etc., a zoological garden, and conservatories.
The chief promenade is the Mall, near the Fifth Avenue entrance, which is lined with fine elms and contains several statues and groups of sculpture, including Shakespeare, Scott, Burns, Halleck, Columbus, and the Indian Hunter. From the Terrace, at the north end of the Mall, flights of steps descend to the Bethesda Fountain and to the Lake, used for boating in summer and skating in winter. The most extensive view in the park is afforded by the Belvedere, which occupies the highest point of the Ramble, to the north of the Lake.
The North Park, beyond the Croton Reservoir, has fewer artificial features than the South Park, but its natural beauties are greater, and the Harlem Mere, of twelve acres, is very picturesque. Near the southeast corner of the park (nearest entrance in Sixty-fourth Street) are the Old State Arsenal and a small Zoological Garden. On the west side of the park is the American Museum of Natural History, and on the east side is the Metropolitan Museum of Art. To the west of the latter museum rises Cleopatra’s Needle, an Egyptian obelisk from Alexandria, presented by Khedive Ismail Pasha to the City of New York in 1877. The obelisk is of red syenite, is sixty-nine feet high and weighs two hundred tons. Among the other monuments in the park are statues of Webster, Bolivar, Hamilton and Morse, allegorical figures of Commerce and the Pilgrim, and several busts and animal groups. Just outside the park, beside the Sixth Avenue entrance, is a statue of Thorwaldsen.
In Manhattan Square, on the west side of Central Park, between Seventy-seventh and[612]Eighty-first Streets, stands the American Museum of Natural History, which contains collections of natural history, paleontology and ethnology.