(From Forty-Second Street to Ninety-Sixth)
                                    Prior to  1911

 1.  NEW  YORK  TIMES  BUILDING

      On the triangular block between Broadway and Seventh Avenue is the
high building of the New York Times, from which the open space from
Forty-third to Forty-seventh streets gets its name of Times Square.  The
plot was occupied with a block of two-story buildings, containing a private
school and several quiet stores, which seemed to be almost out of the
business of the vicinity. About 1890, a hotel-keeper named Regan erected a
building on the south side of the plot and ran it with a bar and famous
Rathskeller.  In 1900, the underground railway was commenced, and about the
same time the Times decided to erect its great building on the entire plot.
The Regan building was one of the earliest of the skeleton, steel and
concrete construction, and its demolition after about ten years of existence
was watched by the architects and civil engineers with a great deal of
interest in order to see the effect upon the steel framing. As it was torn
to pieces, it was found that everything was as good as the day it was put
into the building. An immense, deep hole in the solid rock was necessary for
the new building; for the subway was to pass under it, and its foundations
were to carry not only the Times building itself, but the tracks of the
subway also, and to be able to withstand the vibrations of the passing
trains. In many respects therefore, the building is one of the most
wonderful in New York; and until the Singer building was erected, it was the
highest structure in the city, if we figure from the lowest foundations,
where the presses are located to the top of its high tower.

 2.  LONG  ACRE  SQUARE

      For many years before this open space became Times Square, it was the
location of businesses connected with the manufacture and repair of
carriages and harness; and in imitation of the locality in London devoted to
similar activities, it was popularly, though not officially, known as "Long
Acre Square." Then it became devoted to the automobile industry, but now
even that has departed to the section above.

 3.  A  REVOLUTIONARY  EVENT

      One Revolutionary event is connected with Times Square. On the
fifteenth of September, 1776, the British landed at Kip's Bay from Long
Island with the intention of cutting off the American Army, then in full
retreat. The greater part of the army was well up on the Bloomingdale Road,
but Putnam with four thousand troops was still in the city. Washington
despairingly attempted to prevent the landing of the British on the shore of
the East River, but his troops fled almost before a shot was fired. Word had
been sent to Putnam to join the chief, and he hurried his troops out of the
city. Guided by Aaron Burr over the Middle Road from the fortifications
above Canal Street, he managed to escape the cordon of British troops being
thrown across the island and joined the chief on the Bloomingdale Road at
this point, barely getting through in the nick of time. A tablet to
commemorate this joyful meeting of the two generals was erected on the west
side of the square some years ago by the Sons of the Revolution.

 4.  FARM  LANDS

      The section of Broadway from Forty-fifth to Seventy-first Street was
laid out and widened under a series of acts beginning about 1845 and
extending to 1869. For some time after the earlier of these dates, the
Bloomingdale Road was a country lane, lined with farm lands and homesteads.
Continuing above on the east side as far as Sixty-fifth Street we find farms
belonging to Medeef Eden, Emmet (to about Forty-ninth Street), Andrew
Hopper, Cornelius Harsen, Deborah Burton, Catherine Cosine, Jane Ackerman,
Rachel Cosine, and John H. Tallman. On the west side for the same distance
were farms belonging to John Jacob Astor, (a portion of the Eden farm on
which the Hotel Astor now stands), Francis Church, Philip Weber, Andrew
Hopper, Striker, Jacob Hayes, John Cosine, Hegeman, Sarah Slack, and
Havemeyer. Many of these farms extended down to the Hudson River even in
1800, and most of them had originally done so, but had been divided up among
new owners; and even the names given here might not answer for a different
period.

 5. OLD  HOPPER  FARM

      During the spring of 1910 real estate interests were especially active
in connection with the old Hopper farm which was on both sides of the road.
The first of the name was Andries Hoppe, who came to New Netherlands in
1652. His son,Mathjes Adolphus Hoppe, bought a farm extending diagonally
across the road between Forty-eighth and Fifty-fifth streets down to the
shore of the Hudson River. His heirs inherited the property , which in time
became divided up among them and passed to other owners. One of the old
Hopper homesteads stood for a century and a half at Fiftieth Street and
Broadway until 1883, when William H;. Vanderbilt bought the property, and
the old house was razed to make way for the American Horse Exchange. Andrew
Hopper (1736-1824), for whom this house had been built by his father, John
Hopper, the second owner, was a merchant of New York, having a place of
business in Chatham Street. His town house was at Ann Street and Broadway,
the Hampden Hall of the Liberty Boys, which later became the site of
Scudder's and Barnum's museums.

 6. THEATRICAL  ENTERPRISES

      The first theatrical enterprise to locate in this vicinity was the
large structure on the east side of Broadway between Forty-fourth and
Forty-fifth streets, erected by Oscar Hammerstein upon the site of a
building which had been the armory of the Seventy-first Regiment. Under one
roof, there were a great music hall, a concert hall, and a theatre, the
intention being to admit to all for one entrance fee. It was known as
Hammerstein's Olympia, and the first performance was given in the Lyric
Theatre on November 25, 1893. The management passed from Hammerstein; and
the music hall part became the New York Theatre in December, 1898, while the
Lyric became, on August 29, 1899, the Criterion, under the management of
Charles Frohman.
      Within the last few years, a new course has been pursued in theatrical
management in New York and throughout the country. The tendency has been for
a great many theatres to come into the control of a few managers or firms,
constituting what has been termed the "Theatrical Trust"; so that dramatic
companies  outside the combination have sometimes had difficulty in getting
into New York houses. Another marked  change has been the increase in the
price of seats, and the elegance of the newer theatres. It is a far cry from
the thirteen, twenty-five, and fifty cents of the best theatres of half a
century ago to the dollar, dollar and a half, and two dollars of the
present; and these prices are nearly always supplemented by an additional
dollar paid to the ticket speculators who manage, notwithstanding the
advertised efforts of the box-offices, to get the best seats in the house
before any one else has a chance at them.
      On the streets opening out of Times Square, and within a radius of
half a mile, are numerous theatres erected within the past five years. Among
those on Broadway itself, are the Globe, above Forty-sixth Street, the
Astor, at the corner of Forty-fifth Street, and the Gaiety, at the corner of
Forty-sixth--all on the west side; Cohan's, on the east side between
Forty-second and Forty-third streets, and still others are projected for the
immediate future. To be bromidic: "It's hard work to keep track of them;
they spring up like mushrooms, almost in a single night."
      With so many theatrical enterprises located on Broadway, it is natural
that plays should be written about the great thoroughfare. Two of
them--comedies, of course--are The Man Who Owns Broadway, and Forty-Five
Minutes from Broadway. Numerous songs have sounded the glory of the street
and have become popular. When the American fleet on its world encircling
cruise of 1908-9 left New Zealand, the farewell song of our English cousins
of the Antipodes was Give my Regards to Broadway, a song that stirred the
heart of every American sailor, as he remembered, or anticipated, the joys
of the great highway.  There is the Majestic at Fifty-eighth Street, the
Circle at Sixtieth, the Colonial at Sixty-second, and the Lincoln Square
where Broadway crosses Columbus Avenue at Sixty-Sixth. The houses are
generally devoted to vaudeville, light opera, moving pictures, and similar
entertainments that do not call for anything from their audiences except
laughter.

 7.  FASHIONABLE  RESTAURANTS AND  HOTELS

      Among the fashionable restaurants and hotels located here for several
years are Shanley's, Rector's, Churchill's, the Hotel Cadillac, and the
Hotel Astor. Several of these are putting up new buildings, so that in
another year or so there will be a group of some of the finest hostelries in
New York. The side streets contiguous to Times Square are also devoted to
restaurants and theatres. The celebration of New Year's Eve in this
neighborhood has become, so it is stated in the daily papers and by those
who have been present, a grand orgy after midnight, putting to blush the
wildest capers of the Moulin Rouge, Maxim's and other notorious places in
Paris. For this occasion it is necessary to engage tables a long time ahead,
and in the way of drink nothing but champagne is served upon the night of
the thirty-first of December.

          A)  HOTEL  RECTOR
                   Rector's new hotel and restaurant at the southeast corner
of Forty-fifth Street was opened on the twenty-seventh of December, 1910. It
cost upwards of three millions of dollars, but its construction is
remarkable for the speed with which the old buildings were torn down and the
new one erected and furnished--all within  a period of eleven months.

          B)  HOTEL  ASTOR
                  The most prominent building on the west side of the square
is the Hotel Astor, situated on the old Eden farm and belonging to the Astor
estate. It was opened in September, 1904, by William Muschenheim, formerly
steward, or commissary, at West Point, who had for several years previous
run a restaurant, very popular with college and similar societies, called
"The Arena," in West Thirty-second Street near Broadway. Mr. Muschenheim has
one of the finest private collections of maps, documents, papers, and prints
relating to old New York to be found in the city, and many of these are
exposed on the walls of the hotel. The hotel is probably the most popular
and moderate priced of the really first-class hotels in New York. It has
sheltered  many ambassadors, special embassies, and distinguished
foreigners, and is the favorite banqueting place of many societies,
including some composed entirely of women.

 8. OTHER  POINTS  OF INTEREST

      The triangular block at Forty-seventh Street, Broadway and Seventh
Avenue, now occupied by Floyd & Co., Auctioneers, was formerly the site of
St. Martin's Hall, inaugurated February 11, 1850, for lectures, assemblies,
and other social affairs for the up-town folks. The plot cannot long remain
in its present condition, and a theatre or hotel will some day soon occupy
the site. Above Forty-seventh Street, the thoroughfare is in a transition
state; there are carriage factories and showrooms, automobile ware rooms,
apartment houses, hotels, vacant lots, and some of the old buildings,
including several cottages of the days when this was a country road. The
site at Numbers 1634-1642, on the old Hopper farm, was occupied by the
American Horse Exchange until 1910, when the Winter Garden Theatre was
erected by the Shuberts. The Exchange was from 1883 the up-town Tattersall's
where horses of the best breeds, carriages, and harness were sold, usually
at auction. At the northeast corner of Fifty-sixth Street is the modern
Tabernacle, first opened for service in March, 1905, and the legitimate
successor of the other two which have stood on Broadway; it is a very ornate
building, the corner-stone of which was laid in 1903. At Number 1684, the
Metropolitan Roller Skating Rink has been in operation since 1906. The
building which it occupies has been an armory of one of the city batteries,
a bicycle academy, and various other things during the past thirty years.

 9. THE  OLD  GUARD

      At the northwest corner of Forty-ninth Street, the Old Guard had its
armory from 1898 to 1908. This is not a part of the regular military force
of the State, but it has peculiar privileges, and is usually detailed as an
escort for any distinguished person who reviews parades or processions. From
a social standpoint, it ranks higher, possibly, than any other military
organization in the city, and it partakes more nearly of the nature of a
social club than do the regular regiments. The vast majority of the rank and
file of the national guard organizations are young men, while those in the
Old Guard have passed the meridian of life, having seen active and strenuous
service elsewhere. The City Guard was formed in 1833, and at the same time a
rival organization, called the Light Guard, was formed out of the old Blues,
dating from 1762. After the Civil War, the survivors of the Two
organizations united to form the Old Guard on April 22, 1868. The
distinctive white uniform and great bearskin hat always attract attention,
and the veterans are held very high in popular estimation.

10.  COLUMBUS  CIRCLE

      At Fifty-ninth Street is the entrance to Central Park, and where
Broadway, Eighth Avenue, and Fifty-ninth Street cross is an open space
called "The Circle". Its centre is occupied by a fine column and base called
the Columbus Statue, presented to the city by the Italian residents in 1892
in commemoration of the four hundredth anniversary of the discovery of
America by their fellow countryman, whose statue surmounts the column.

11. THE  BOULEVARD
      The Western Boulevard, or simply the Boulevard, as it was commonly
called, was the work of the Tweed ring; and the highway was opened in 1868.
The assessments levied upon the property owners contiguous to the old
Bloomingdale Road were more than many of them could pay, and they either
lost their property or it became heavily encumbered. Like all the work of
the ring, the construction was a gigantic steal; but Tweed certainly showed
great foresight in laying out this fine thoroughfare, lined with trees whose
price to the taxpayers was enormous. The new Boulevard followed the general
direction and bed of the old road, though it did not follow all its
windings. As most of the farm lands and estates abutted on the Bloomingdale
Road, we find that many of them will be found on both sides of the modern
thoroughfare. The new thoroughfare was known as the Boulevard until January
first, 1899, when the board of aldermen changed its name to Broadway
throughout its length to Kingsbridge.
      As the downfall of the ring occurred shortly after the opening of the
Boulevard, it was left for many years in an unpaved state, and was, in
consequence, a mudhole in wet weather where vehicles frequently became
stalled, and in dry weather the dust was terrific. When the Twenty-second
Regiment marched to its new armory in 1891, one could hardly see the
soldiers for the clouds of dust.
      The first paving of the street was ordered from Fifty-ninth to
Seventy-ninth streets in 1890; and all kinds of materials have been
used--macadam, asphalt, and brick. The paving was done in sections as the
needs of the rapidly building locality required, the last being completed in
1907. When the section as far as One Hundred and Sixth Street was finished
in 1896, the street became the favorite route of the wheelmen, who turned
through the last named street to Riverside Drive and so on to Grant's Tomb.
It is now a finely paved, asphalt brick pavement and is a much patronized
route for automobiles.

12.  THE  ARMORY
      The armory of the Twenty-second Regiment of Engineers of the National
Guard is on the east side of Broadway;, between Sixty-eighth and Sixty-ninth
streets.
      The regiment was organized in April, 1861, at the outbreak of the
Civil War and had its quarters at Seventh Street and Hall Place; it occupied
its armory in Fourteenth Street near Sixth Avenue in 1864. The present
armory was occupied in 1891. The regiment was mustered into the service of
the national government during the Spanish War, and became an engineer
regiment on February 20, 1902. A new armory, the corner-stone of which was
laid December 19, 1909, is now in course of construction on Fort Washington
Avenue at One Hundred and Sixty-eighth Street at a cost of about a million
of dollars; and the members of the regiment hope to occupy it in the spring
of 1912.

13.    BICYCLES AND  AUTOMOBILES

      The construction of the elevated roads in 1880, and the running of the
surface cars made the section west of Central Park more easily accessible
than in the days of the stages, and building operations began. Previous to
1880 and even for some time after that date the vacant lots were occupied by
squatters, whose ram-shackle structures, goats, and multitudinous children
added what we may now consider as a picturesque touch to the scene. Some of
the children of these squatters have become rich through the increase in
value of the lots which their fathers had the foresight, or good luck, to
buy in those early days. About 1890, the bicycle was in its glory; and for
nearly a decade the smooth asphalt of the Boulevard attracted the devotees
of the wheel, the favorite ride being as far as Clarement and Grant's Tomb.
The annual parades of the wheelmen were beautiful sights, especially at
night, when countless lights flickered along the roadway as the silent
vehicles speeded swiftly along. Many shops and buildings were erected to
accommodate the wheelmen and their needs; and there is no doubt that the
desirability of this locality as a residence section was thus brought to the
attention of many thousands and helped in its development. Now, alas! the
wheel has departed; and where once bicycle shops abounded, we find their
places taken by many more shops and garages for the sale and repair of the
automobile. Where, in the nineties, the bicyclist had constant views of open
spaces and truck gardens, now the autoist, as he dashes madly along, sees
solid blocks of great  hotels and apartment houses, with private houses only
on the side streets.

14.  SUBWAY  RAILROAD (Construction)

      The subway railroad is directly responsible for this; and as it
belongs to this period of Broadway's development subsequent to 1895, a brief
account of it may be given here. The idea of an underground railway was of
old date. It was in 1890 that the first rapid transit commission was
appointed by Mayor Hugh J. Grant; it reported in 1891 that the tunnel
franchise should be sold to the highest bidder, but capitalists were afraid
to back the scheme on account of its uncertainty and the vast amount of
capital involved. In 1894, the legislature created the Rapid Transit Board,
which, fortunately, was composed of men of unimpeachable integrity and
enterprise with no interest or concern in politics, and they went at the
matter in a business-like way. The plans for the tunnel, drawn by the
engineer, William Barclay Parsons, were approved by Mayor Strong in 1897;
and the congested condition of the traffic lines due to the influx of
visitors on Grant's Day, April 27, of that year, showed the absolute
necessity of immediate relief. The contracts were let to John B. McDonald on
February 21, 1900, and work was begun shortly afterwards, four and one half
years being the time allowed for the completion of the work and the running
of the trains. The section of the road under Broadway begins at Forty-second
Street and continues to One Hundred and Sixty-eighth Street, rejoining
Broadway again at Two Hundred and Eighteenth Street and continuing over it
as an elevated structure to the terminus at Two Hundred and Forty-second
Street abreast of Van Cortlandt Park. The road is four tracks as far as One
Hundred and Third Street and two tracks beyond.
      During the nearly five years that the underground was building,
Broadway was a sight to be remembered, as the work was done from the surface
and the street and the car tracks had to be supported by temporarybridges of
planks; and it was no unusual thing for a vehicle to fall into the
excavation. As a result of this excavation, the trees planted by the Tweed
ring, which had by this time begun to beautify the thoroughfare, were badly
injured, and in many cases destroyed completely. In May, 1910, the central
plots of the street were fenced in, sodded, and set out with plants and
shrubs. In the Washington Heights section the cut was so deep that the work
was done entirely below the surface by regular subterranean miners brought
fronm the mining places of the world, and the surface was undisturbed.

15.  SUBWAY  RAILROAD  (Its opening)

      The subway was officially opened to the public from Brooklyn Bridge to
Broadway, and One Hundred and Forty-fifth Street on October 27, 1904; to One
Hundred and Fifty-Seventh Street, November 12, 1904; to Two Hundred and
Twenty-first Street, March 12, 1906; to Two Hundred and Twenty-fifth Street,
January 14, 1907; to Two Hundred and Thirtieth Street, January 27, 1907; and
to Two Hundred and Forty-second Street, its present northern terminus at Van
Cortlandt Park, August 1, 1908. At its lower end, it was opened to Fulton
Street, January 16, 1905; to Wall Street, June 12, 1905; and to the Bowling
Green and the South Ferry, July 10, 1905. In the Washington Heights section,
some of the stations are so deep that elevators carry the passengers to and
from the surface.
      So immensely popular has the subway become since its opening that it
is greatly overcrowded, and other lines and extensions are projected. There
are many thousands of New Yorkers who see and know nothing of their city
except in the neighborhood of their homes and places of business, between
which they travel on the underground.

16.  WEALTHY  MERCHANT  PROPERTIES

      In colonial days, many of the wealthy merchants had country-seats near
the bank of the Hudson. Some of these gentlemen were loyalists during the
Revolution and, in consequence, lost their property by confiscation; among
the owners we recognize many Dutch and Huguenot names. The principal owners
as far north as Ninety-sixth Street were John H. Tallman, Bogert, G.
Kimberly, John Gottsberger, John Hardenbrook, Jacob Harsen, Sarah McGill,
Stephen Jumel, Jacob Lorillard, Richard Somerindyke, John C. Vandenheuvel,
John McVickers, Brockholst Livingston, James Hamilton, and David M.
Clarkson.
      There is one name among the owners of property here that was still
more famous in colonial days, but which we do not find after the
Revolution--that of Oliver DeLancey. He was a loyalist during that struggle
and was made a brigadier, commanding a brigade of loyalists and refugees,
recruited principally from the Tories of New York, Westchester, and Dutchess
Counties, and from Connecticut, New Jersey, and Long Island. His house, a
fine colonial mansion, faced the Bloomingdale Road near Seventieth Street;
and in it De Lancey extended a generous hospitality to the best society of
the province.

17.  THE  APTHORPE  HOUSE

      The Apthorpe House stood until 1892 on the block between Ninetieth and
Ninety-first Streets and Columbus and Amsterdam Avenues in the centre of a
farm which originally consisted of two hundred acres. It was built about
1765 and was a fine mansion with columns in front. The gentleman who built
the house was Charles Ward Apthorpe, a wealthy lawyer of New York, who,
though a personal friend of Washington, was a loyalist of a mild type. In
consequence, he lost his estates in Massachusetts, but his New York property
was untouched as he died in the old mansion in 1797. It came into the
possession of Brockholst Livingston, and later into that of Colonel Thorne,
who had married Miss Jauncey, whose family were great landowners in this
vicinity, and it continued to be the scene of social events for half a
century longer, when it became a public house and picnic ground under the
name of Elm, or Wendell Park. During the Civil War, the extensive property
was used for encamping and drilling recruits before sending them to the
front.
      The Apthorpe house is also connected with the greatest name in
American history. After the fiasco at Kip's Bay and the escape of Putnam's
division on the fifteenth of September, 1776, Washington took up his
quarters in the mansion. Preparations were made for supper, when the
approach of the British was announced and the Americans made a precipitate
retreat, leaving their meal to be eaten by Howe and his staff, who made the
house their headquarters for several days.

18  THE  ORANGEMEN  AFFAIR

      The Protestants from the north of Ireland, commonly called Orangemen,
held a picnic in Elm Park on the anniversary of the battle of the Boyne,
July 12, 1870. As they marched up the Boulevard, then in course of
construction, some of the airs played by their bands aroused the ire of the
Catholic Irish laborers upon the street, who began to stone the procession.
A small-sized riot ensued, in which shots were exchanged and three persons
were killed and several wounded, some of whom died afterward.  The Orangemen
announced their intention of parading in 1871, and the Catholic Irish
threatened to break up the celebration. The parade was prohibited by the
chief of police the day before which it was to occur. Upon this becoming
known, several of the public business and commercial bodies held indignation
meetings and asked: "If the Irish Catholics are permitted to parade
unmolested on St. Patrick's Day, why have not the Protestant Irish an equal
right to do the same thing under police protection?" Governor Hoffman was
telegraphed for; and after consultation with leading citizens, revoked the
police order prohibiting the parade and ordered out the militia to protect
the paraders.
      In view of possible disorder, all of the Orange lodges, with one
exception, gave up the idea of a parade and sought various picnic grounds
outside the city. Escorted by five regiments, Gideon Lodge, with less than
one hundred men, started on the designated line of march for Elm Park. The
streets were filled with spectators, and there was no disturbance until the
procession reached Eighth Avenue between Twenty-fourth and Twenty-fifth
streets; then a shot was fired as a storm of stones  and missiles was hurled
at the procession from the neighboring house tops. Two of the regiments
fired volleys without authorization, and, as a result, fifty-four spectators
were killed or mortally wounded, while many others received injuries. As is
usual in such cases, among those hurt or killed were many innocent
lookers-on. Three of the soldiers of the Ninth Regiment were killed, and
many others received injuries from stones and brick-bats. The marks of the
bullets are still discernible upon some of the houses in Eighth Avenue.
These two affairs of 1870 and 1871 are known in the history of the city as
the "Orange Riots."

19.  BLOEMENDAAL  TO  BLOOMINGDALE

      The Dutch, with fervent patriotism, having named the city at the lower
end of the island New Amsterdam, proceeded to name places in the vicinity of
New Amsterdam after home places of which they were reminded in this new
land. Thus, a beautiful village near old Harlem called Bloemendaal and
famous for its horticultural nurseries gave its name to this section not far
removed from the New Harlem on the island of Manhattan; and it is only a
step from Bloemendaal to Bloomingdale. Owing to the large estate of Jacob
Harsen between Sixty-sixth and Seventy-second streets, it was also called
Harsenville. Harsen's Lane led from within the present Central Park from
Sixth Avenue, westward between Seventieth and Seventy-first streets to
Columbus Avenue, and thence to the Bloomingdale Road half a block south of
Seventy-second Street. Harsen's House was at Seventieth Street and the
Bloomingdale Road. **

**   It must be remembered that these streets did not exist, even on paper,
until the acceptance of Randall's map of 1821 by the commission of 1807; and
that the actual cutting through of streets above Fifty-ninth, except in some
few cases, did not begin until after 1860.

20. BLOOMINGDALE  REFORMED  DUTCH  CHURCH

      The Bloomingdale Reformed Dutch Church at Sixty-eighth Street and
Broadway is the successor of the original church established near the same
site in 1805. It probably owed its birth to the prevalence of yellow fever
in the city and the desire of those who fled to this locality to have church
services. In 1813, Andrew Hopper, of whom we have already spoken, was
married here a second time. Some generous elder of the church society gave
to it a large plot of ground for a parsonage, and its increment in value
saved the church from extinction. When the Boulevard was opened, the old
church edifice was in its path and had to be removed; but the immense value
to which the parsonage lot attained enabled the church society to erect the
present beautiful structure.

21. RUTGERS  RIVERSIDE  PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH

      Rutgers Riverside Presbyterian Church is at Seventy-third Street. It
was first organized in 1796 under the name of Rutgers Presbyterian Church
and had its origin in the desire of expansion on the part of the New York
Presbytery after the recovery of the city by the Americans  from the
British. A lot was donated by Henry Rutgers of the Reformed, or Dutch Church
upon his property at the corner of Rutgers and Henry Streets; and a frame
edifice was built and opened on May 13, 1798. By 1841, the congregation had
so increased that a stone church was built upon the same site; twenty years
later, the neighborhood had so changed and the congregation had grown so
small that the property passed to St. Teresa's Roman Catholic Church, which
still occupies the same site. Rutgers formed a union with the Madison Avenue
Church of that time at the corner of Madison Avenue and Twenty-ninth Street,
which had been opened for public worship in 1844. In 1875, a new and larger
structure was erected; but by 1881 the same conditions of change in
population were met as in Henry Street, and the church was closed, to reopen
six months later  for a period of three years during which the church lost
steadily. At the end of 1884, it was determined to close the historic church
and dissolve the society, but another attempt to revive it was made in 1886.
At the end of two years, it was seen that this effort also was fruitless,
and it was determined to build west of Central Park. The church on Madison
Avenue was sold to the Masons of the Ancient Scottish Rite; and the new
chapel at the Boulevard and Seventy-third Street, under the name  of Rutgers
Riverside, was opened September 23, 1888, to be followed later by the
present fine edifice, which was opened January 19, 1890.

22.  CHRIST  PROTESTANT  EPISCOPAL  CHURCH

      Christ Protestant Episcopal Church is also an historic church. It was
organized in 1793 and was first placed on a site on Ann Street, which it
vacated in 1823 to occupy a newly consecrated edifice in Anthony Street
which had formerly been occupied by a theatre. The building in Ann Street
was sold in 1827 to the Roman Catholics, then poor in wealth and population,
and was long used by them as a church. The church in Anthony Street was
completely destroyed by fire, July 30, 1847, but it was rebuilt and
reoccupied until 1854, when the society moved to West Eighteenth Street,
remaining there until 1859, when a new church was erected at Fifth Avenue
and Thirty-fifth Street. When this last edifice was burned in 1891, the
society moved to its present location on the Boulevard. The original  Ann
Street structure was destroyed by fire in 1834.

23.  OTHER  CHURCHES IN THE AREA

      The other churches in this vicinity south of Ninety-sixth Street are
all of more recent organization. They are:  Manhattan Congregational at
Seventy-sixth Street, organized 1896; Roman Catholic Church of the Blessed
Sacrament at the southeast corner of Seventy-first Street, organized 1887;
the First Baptist Church at the northwest corner of Seventy-ninth Street,
organized in 1891; and the Evangelical Lutheran church at the northeast
corner of Ninety-fourth Street, organized 1897.

24. OPEN  SPACE  A  PARK  OR  SQUARE

      Wherever Broadway crosses one of the avenues of the island, we find at
the crossing, or near it, an open space of a block or more to which the name
of " Park," or "square" is given, and that the cross street is usually
broader than those above or below it. This is the case at Fourteenth,
Twenty-third, Thirty-fourth, Forty-second, Fifty-ninth, Sixty-sixth, and
Seventy-second Streets, where Broadway crosses University Place, Sixth,
Seventh, Eighth, Ninth (or Columbus), Tenth (or Amsterdam) Avenues
respectively. To the space  from Seventieth to Seventy-third Street, at the
last-named crossing, has been given the name of Sherman Square in honor of
the great General. In the triangular plot at the upper end of Sherman Square
is a marble statue of Guiseppe Verdi, the great Italian composer.  On the
base of the pedestal are several marble figures representing some of the
principal characters from his operas. The monument was built by
subscriptions obtained from Italian residents, principally through the
efforts of one of the Italian papers of the city, and was unveiled on
October 2, 1906.

25.  COLONIAL  HOUSE  ONCE  RESIDENCE  OF EDGAR  ALLAN  POE

      As late as 1893, there stood on a height of rock on the south side of
Eighty-fourth Street east of the Boulevard, where the cutting through of the
street had left it, an old colonial house, once the residence of Edgar Allan
Poe, in which he wrote "The Raven". Poe's wife Virginia was in poor health
and the couple came here in 1844 and boarded with Mrs. Brennan in order that
Mrs. Poe could get the pure, fresh air. In the olden time, before the
surrounding land had been covered with modern dwellings, the house commanded
a magnificent view both up and down the Hudson.

26.  A  FAMOUS  MANSION

      Another famous mansion was a stone house standing  at Seventy-ninth
Street, between Broadway and West End Avenue. This was built about 1759 by
John C. Vandenheuvel, a Dutch governor of Demerara, who came to New York to
escape the fever and liked it so well here that he bought four hundred acres
of land in this vicinity and built his country house upon it. The
Vandenheuvel town-house was opposite the City Hall Park, between Barclay
Street and Park Place. The property was vacated during the Revolution, and
was sold by the Vandenheuvel heirs in 1827 to Harmon Hendricks, who leased
it in 1833 to Burnham at a yearly rental of six hundred dollars. Burnham's
near Seventy-fourth Street and the Bloomingdale Road, was the most famous
road-house in this section from before 1820 until the proprietor opened the
still more famous Mansion House in the old Vandenheuvel dwelling. After
Burnham's occupancy, the property passed into the possession of a Frenchman
named Poillon, who sold it in 1878 to the Astor estate. The old house stood
until the spring of 1905, when it was demolished to make room for the
enormous apartment house and hotel called the Apthorpe, which occupies the
whole block in the middle of which the old house used to stand.

27.   THE  SOMERINDYKE  HOUSE

      The Somerindyke house, at Seventy-fourth Street and the Bloomingdale
Road, was an interesting place, because here, so it has been frequently
stated, Louis Philippe, afterwards king of the French, and his brothers
taught school while in exile. Later authorities proclaim the story a myth,
as the three noblemen while in this country drew upon the purse of their
friend, Gouverneur Morris, for their expenses. When they returned to France
and fortune, they forgot their generous American friend until he reminded
them of the debt. Then they repaid, but treated the loan as a business
transaction entirely. This aroused the ire of the old aristocrat, who could
be as sarcastic in his old age as in his earlier days; and since they
ignored the element of friendship which had entered into the loan, he
demanded the interest and entered suit against them, and his heirs
eventually received the money.

28.  BELNORD  APARTMENT  HOUSE

      Occupying the entire block from Eighty-sixth to Eighty-seventh Street,
and from Broadway to Amsterdam Avenue, is the apartment house called the
Belnord. It contains one hundred and seventy-six apartments, with from seven
to eleven rooms each, and a corresponding number of bath-rooms. It is said
to be the largest apartment house in the world, and contains a population of
upwards of a thousand. It was opened in 1909.


This completes the total transcribing of Historical Highlights of Times
Square and the Surrounding areas, from Forty-second Street to Ninety-sixth,
prior to 1911.

Source:  The Greatest Street in the World (The story of Broadway, old and
New, from the Bowling Green to Albany)
Author:  Stephen Jenkins
Publisher:  G.P. Putnam's Sons-New York and London
The Knickerbocker Press
Copyright: 1911
_________________________________________________

   Researched, Prepared and Transcribed by Miriam Medina
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