A HISTORICAL TOUR OF THE GREATEST STREET IN THE WORLD.......BROADWAY FROM WALL STREET TO THE COMMONS Prior to 1911

Wall Street Panic

1. TRINITY CHURCH In 1696, the provincial assembly passed a law that each parish in the province should induct a good Protestant minister and pay his salary out of the rates. Governor Benjamin Fletcher, who was an active churchman, construed this to mean that the Established Church of England should become the Established Church of the province; and, notwithstanding considerable opposition succeeded in carrying his point. Thus Trinity came into being in 1696. The church edifice was enlarged in 1737 and destroyed in the fire of 1776. It was not rebuilt until 1791; and the structure of that date stood until 1839-40, when the present beautiful structure was begun. A quarter of a century ago, visitors to New York went to the top of Trinity steeple in order to get a view of the city which lay at their feet; and the most prominent object to any one approaching the city from any direction was the church spire, which stood above all other objects. Now, Trinity has been so dwarfed and surrounded by immensely high buildings that you cannot see the steeple until you are at the church itself. The church was usually spoken of in colonial days as "the English church;" and it was the fashionable church of the city which was attended by the government officials and by many of the wealthy merchants, especially those of English birth or descent. The ringing of Trinity's chimes upon holidays and upon New Year's eve has become one of the customs of the city; though the ringing in of the new year has in late years become something of a farce owing to the noise of the crowds who drown out the music of the bells with discordant blasts of tin horns. The edifice has been the recipient of many beautiful and artistic gifts from its wealthy parishioners. 2. TRINITY CHURCHYARD The ground upon which the church and graveyard stand was the plot set aside as a garden for the Dutch Company. The latter has been a burial place ever since the closure of the old Dutch burying-ground in 1676 or 1677; and it has been stated that previous to 1822, 160,000 bodies had been interred within its limits, though there is reason to believe that this number is greatly exaggerated. The yard contains the remains of many of New York's citizens of the olden time; but burials below Canal Street were prohibited in 1813. Of the many prominent names which will attract a visitor to the graveyard, is a stone sarcophagus on the left as we enter from Broadway which contains the remains of Captain James Lawrence of the United States Frigate Chesapeake, which engaged in a fatal duel with the British frigate Shannon off Boston harbor on the first of June, 1813, during which Lawrence was mortally wounded. Within a few feet of each other along the southern wall of the graveyard, overlooking Rector Street, are the graves of Robert Fulton, the inventor of the steamboat, and of Alexander Hamilton, "The patriot of incorruptible integrity, the soldier of approved valor, the statesman of consummate wisdom, whose talents and virtues will be admired by grateful posterity long after this marble shall have mouldered into dust." Another grave which attracts the attention of the romantically sentimental is that of Charlotte Temple, the heroine of an unfortunate eighteenth century love affair. In the upper part of the churchyard is a monument to the prison martyrs of the Revolution who died in New York. It is stated that this was erected by Trinity Corporation to prevent the city from cutting Pine Street through the graveyard, there being some law on the State's statute books to prevent the removal or injury of any public monument for purposes of highway improvement. 3. GRACE CHURCH The southwest corner of Rector Street was occupied at one time by a German Lutheran Church, erected about 1710 by immigrants from the Palatinate who had been driven out of their desolated country by the armies of Louis XIV. The church was burnt in the fire of 1776, but was not rebuilt on this site. In 1809, there were some dissensions within the congregation of Trinity, and a number of the church members withdrew and erected a new church edifice on the site of the "Burnt Lutheran Church." This was Grace Church, which, owing to the upward trend of population, moved to Tenth Street and Broadway in 1846. During the time it was located at Rector Street, it was as fashionable as any church in New York, and its pews commanded higher rents. 4. THE MALL The permission granted the inhabitants in 1707 to plant trees in front of their premises had in a few years resulted in the presence on Broadway of many beautiful trees which greatly enhanced the appearance of the street. The English officers called the section in front of Trinity "The Mall". This was the place of the parade and the favorite lounging place of the officers and other fashionables. Here the band played, and spectators of both sexes assembled on the east side of the street to listen to the music and to watch the fashionable world on promenade. 5. THE MANSION OF ETIENNE DE LANCEY Just above Trinity, between the present Thames and Liberty streets, stood the mansion of Etienne De Lancey, erected about the year 1700. De Lancy was a French Huguenot who had been obliged to leave France at the time of the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685. He became a wealthy and influential merchant of New York and married into the Van Cortlandt family. One of his sons was James De Lancy, who became chief judge of the province after Morris had been removed by Governor Cosby, and lieutenant-governor under Clinton; another son was Peter, who inherited the mills on the Bronx River at West Farms, and a third was Oliver, who became a brigadier-general of Loyalists during the Revolution. 6. THE PROVINCE ARMS TAVERN In 1754, Edward Willett, one of the tavern keepers of the city, was attracted by the commanding position of the house and its fine view of the Hudson and rented it from Lieutenant-Governor James De Lancey, the inheritor from his father Etienne, and opened it as a tavern under the name of Province Arms. The New York Mercury of May 1, 1754, says: "Edward Willet, who lately kept the "Horse and Cart Inn" in this city, is removed into the house of the Honorable James De Lancey, Esq., Lieutenant-Governor, at the sign of the "Province Arms," in the Broadway, near Oswego Market." The first event to start it on its long and brilliant career was a public dinner given in 1755 to the new governor, Sir Charles Hardy. Hardy had been appointed successor to Sir Danvers Osborne, who had committed suicide in the garden of John Murray's house, a short distance away on Broadway. The next public dinner of importance was that given in 1756, when the lieutenant-governor of the province, the governors and students of the college, and many prominent merchants and others gathered here and marched to the laying of the corner-stone of King's College, the ancestor of Columbia University. At the conclusion of the ceremony, they all returned to the tavern where they partook of "a very elegant dinner." 7. BURNS'S COFFEE HOUSE In May, 1763, Mr. George Burns, another of the city's innkeepers, moved from the King's Head in Whitehall Street to the Province Arms, and the place became known as Burns's Coffee House, though still called the Province Arms and the City Arms. A month after Burns assumed control, a lottery was drawn in the tavern for the construction of a light-house on Sandy Hook. Being so close to the Mall in front of Trinity churchyard, the inn became the favorite resort of the English officers, and of the fashion of the city, sharing its honors, however, with another inn, also in a De Lancy house, the Queen's Head at Broad and Great Queen (Pearl) streets, better known as Fraunce's Tavern, and still in existence under the fostering care of the Sons of the Revolution. But it is as the headquarters of the Sons of Liberty that Burns's secures its historic interest and from the fact that notable meetings were held there marking the progress of revolutionary feeling. The tavern was used for other purposes than for indignation or political meetings of the inhabitants. It was the meeting place of St. Andrew's and similar societies and of the governors of King's College, who probably found it more comfortable to transact business in its genial atmosphere with a bottle of good wine before them than in the cold halls of education. Musical concerts were also given within the walls of the tavern and in the extensive grounds attached. In 1777, these gardens saw a fatal duel between Captain Tollemache of the Royal Navy and Captain Pennington of the Coldstream Guards. The duel was with swords; and a few days after the hostile meeting, Captain Tollemache was buried in Trinity churchyard. Burns remained here as host until 1770, when he was succeeded by Bolton, who came from the Queen's Head (Fraunce's); later, Hull assumed charge and had the honor of entertaining John Adams and his colleagues, who were on their way to the first meeting of the Continental Congress in Philadelphia in 1775. 8. THE STATE ARMS When the British left the city in November, 1783, John Cape leased the tavern and changed its name to the State Arms; and on the second of December a great entertainment was given in honor of Washington and the return of peace. It had various hosts until 1782, when the property passed out of the possession of the De Lanceys and into that of the Tontine Association, which demolished the old building and erected the City Hotel on the site, the first building in the city to be roofed with slate. Dr. Francis says: "So long ago as 1802, I had the pleasure of witnessing the first social gathering of American publishers at the old City Hotel, Broadway, an organization under the auspices of the venerable Matthew Carey." Carey was from Philadelphia and one of the earliest publishers in the country. 9. THE CITY HOTEL Until the opening of the Astor House in 1836, the City Hotel was the most famous in the city; and it did not lose its prestige entirely until 1850, when it was torn down and replaced by a block of stores. In 1828, the building with lots, taking up the whole block between Thames and Liberty streets, was sold at public auction for $123,000; in 1833 it was damaged by fire. The hotel was famous not only for its excellent fare and service, but more especially for the banquets that were held there and for the distinguished men who were entertained. During the War of 1812, on the twenty-sixth of December of that year, a great banquet, at which five hundred gentlemen sat down, was given to the victorious naval commanders, Decatur, Hull, and Jones. Later, others were similarly honored. On May 30, 1832, upon Irving's return from abroad, he was tendered a banquet with Philip Hone in the chair. The latter describes it as "a regular Knickerbocker affair." On February 18, 1842, during the first visit of Charles Dickens to this country he was entertained at dinner at the City Hotel, with Washington Irving in the chair as toastmaster. There were no clubs in those early days; but the leading hotels, the City and Washington Hall, had their own coteries of evening visitors who gathered for social intercourse and for discussion of affairs in which they were interested. On June 17, 1836 Colonel "Nick" Saltus as president formed the Union Club, the first organization of its kind in the city, and quarters were engaged at 343 Broadway as a club-house, which was opened June 1, 1837. The Boreel building occupies the site of the old hotel at 115 Broadway, and upon its front an appropriate tablet has been placed by the Holland Society. The City Hotel was conducted by Willard and Jennings, the former of whom was the general factotum of the establishment, while the latter looked after the provender and liquid refreshments, these latter being of incomparable quality and so famous that when the hotel was dismantled the bottles remaining in the cellar were sold at fabulous prices. Willard was never seen anywhere except in the hotel; he was a man of cheerful disposition and indefatigable energy and was possessed of so wonderful a memory that he remembered every traveller who had ever stopped at the hotel; and if the same guest were to visit the hotel again, Willard could at once greet him by name, tell where he was from, his business, and the room he had occupied. There is a well authenticated anecdote that when Billy Niblo moved from Pine Street and opened his suburban "Garden" many of his old customers were invited to be present at the opening. Willard neither accepted nor declined the invitation; and on the appointed evening a number of the bon vivants of the town waited upon him to escort him to Niblo's. After bustling about and looking into all sorts of places for a while, he announced to his friends that he could not accompany them as he had no hat, and that some one had taken an old beaver which had been lying about for years and which he claimed was his. A hat was procured from Charles St. John, the celebrated hatter, whose place was directly opposite, and the party sallied forth with the best-known man in the city, who, strange to relate, would have been compelled to ask his way if he had gone more than a block from the City Hotel. 10. LAND OF JAN JANSEN DAMEN North of Trinity churchyard is the land formerly belonging to Jan Jansen Damen, two large portions of which came into the possession of Olaff Stevenson Van Cortlandt and Tunis Dey about the time that the English took the colony from the Dutch. The properties were divided up by the heirs of Van Cortlandt and Dey and sold as building lots, the first about 1733, and the latter about ten years later. Broadway was regulated from Dey to Fulton Street in 1760. In 1745, a lot at the southwest corner of Dey Street sold for seventy-five pounds; in 1770, a lot near this sold for three hundred and eighty pounds, which shows that the land in this vicinity was becoming more desirable and increasing in value; yet in 1785, just after the Revolution, Alderman Bayard sold full-sized lots at auction on Broadway below Fulton Street for twenty-five dollars; but the price being so low, the sale was stopped. of the houses that occupied this land nothing is known, as they were destroyed in the fire of 1776. Those erected in their places at first were of a temporary character; but about 1790 the street began to be lined by elegant brick mansions, occupied by the wealthiest and most fashionable families of the city. Broadway held this character of a select, residential neighborhood until about 1840, when business began to creep in and the residents moved farther up the street and to other sections. 11. THE EVOLUTION OF BROADWAY What a change has come over Broadway in the past twenty-five years! Where these private mansions of the wealthy once stood now rise those marvels of engineering skill, the great office buildings of the present. Here and there are a few of the more modest buildings still standing, sandwiched in between their huge neighbors and looking to the eyes of the present generation to be sadly out of place. It will not be long before they, too, disappear; and coming generations will scoff at the idea that upon these sites once stood three or four story buildings with extensive grounds sloping gently down to the bank of the Hudson. In this wilderness of brick and stone there still stand the oases of Trinity and St. Paul's churchyards, of such enormous value that the time may come when they, too, may have to go for sacrifice upon the altar of business. May that time be afar off___they are too rich in historic associations to be treated as ordinary land. 12. TIME SIGNAL TO MARINERS About 1874, there was established on the top of the Western Union Telegraph office at the corner of Dey Street, then one of the tallest and most prominent buildings in the city, a time ball, which was dropped at noon by means of telegraphic connection with the Naval Observatory in Washington. This was of inestimable service to the masters of vessels in the harbor, who were thus enabled to compare and adjust their ship chronometers; and the inhabitants of the city set their watches by it. It was no unusual sight to see hundreds of faces turned anxiously upward about twelve o'clock, their owners, with watch in hand, waiting for the signal of noon. The ball is still dropped, but the erection of so many high buildings between the harbor and the Western Union has lessened its value to mariners. In consequence, the Hydrographic Office has been experimenting for some time with a time light to be placed on the tower of the Metropolitan Life building at Madison Square. As the light will be seven hundred feet above the street and will be visible for twenty miles, it is expected that the old usefulness of the time signal to mariners will be restored. 13. ST. PAUL'S CHAPEL In 1840, there were still living several people who remembered when the site of St. Paul's, between Fulton and Vesey streets, was a wheat field. The church edifice, or more properly, chapel, was erected by Trinity Corporation upon part of its farm in 1765, and opened the following year when the Rev. Mr. Auchmuty preached the dedication sermon. It is one of the three buildings of a public, or semi-public, character, dating from pre-Revolutionary days that still stand upon the island of Manhattan*. (The others are Fraunce's Tavern at the corner of Broad and Pearl streets, and the Roger Morris, or "Jumel," mansion on Washington Heights.). During the great fire of 1776 it was saved by the comparative flatness of its roof which permitted people to stay upon it and extinguish the burning brands which otherwise would have set it on fire. After his inauguration in 1789 Washington attended the service at St. Paul's given in honor of the occasion; and as Trinity was still in ruins, he continued to attend St. Paul's during the time New York was the capital of the country. Governor George Clinton of New York also attended services at the same place, and the pews occupied by these distinguished men on opposite sides of the church are appropriately marked by mural tablets, one bearing the coat of arms of the United States, and the other, that of New York. Within the churchyard the visitor can find upon the tombstones many of the historic names of the city. This yard is a favorite resort of many of the women clerks of the down-town district who come here with book and luncheon on the hot days of summer and pass the noon hour in the shade and coolness of the trees. Upon the Broadway front of the church is a mural tablet to the memory of that gallant Irishman and soldier, Major-General Richard Montgomery, one of the earliest victims of the Revolution. He was killed in the assault upon Quebec, December 31, 1775. His body was recovered by the British commander, Sir Guy Carleton, and buried with appropriate honors. In 1818, the State of New York caused his remains to be removed to St. Paul's from Quebec with high honors, and the United States erected the tablet. Montgomery had been an officer of the British army and had been at the siege of Quebec under Wolfe. His prospects of advancement being poor, he resigned from the army and came to America, first settling at Kingsbridge. He married Janet Livingston, and thus became allied with one of the most powerful families of the province. At the outbreak of the Revolution he was made a brigadier-general and was ordered as second in command to Schuyler in the Canadian expedition of 1775. Owing to Schuyler's illness, the command devolved upon Montgomery, who was made a major general before the fatal assault upon the citadel of Quebec. Upon the bold promontory of Cape Diamond, one can read from the river St. Lawrence a sign maintained by the Canadians, "Here Montgomery fell, December 31, 1775." 14. SOME HOTELS On the east side of the thoroughfare above Wall Street, the same conditions prevailed as below the latter street. Among the hotels were the Tremont Temperance House at Number 110, the New York Athenaeum established in 1824 at the corner of Pine Street, and the National Hotel established in 1825 at Number 112, corner of Cedar Street. The name of William Cullen Bryant is attached to the highway in the fact that in his earlier days he edited the New York Review and Athenaeum, whose office was in the building at the corner of Broadway and Pine Street, and for fifty-two years he was the editor of the New York Evening Post, located from 1875 to the spring of 1907 at the corner of Fulton Street and Broadway. 15. THE EQUITABLE LIFE INSURANCE BUILDING The Equitable Life Insurance building, opposite Trinity, may be considered as the pioneer of the modern high office buildings. It was erected in 1870, and for many years afterwards the United States Weather Bureau had its quarters on the roof. In the course of time, the building was over-topped by its neighbors, and the bureau found lodgment in the tower of the Manhattan Life Insurance building at a height of three hundred and fifty-one feet above the street. In 1887, several additional stories were added to the Equitable Building. 16. EARLY PUBLISHERS AND BOOKSELLERS The earliest printing-press in the city was set up in Hanover Square, and here Gaines, Weymouth, and Rivington located and issued their journals. Among earlier publishers and booksellers in the thirties was Jonathan Leavitt, in the two story building at the corner of Broadway and John Street. Leavitt's brother-in-law was Daniel Appleton, who came from the dry-goods trade to take care of the wholesale part of the book business, and who, in 1825, started at 200 Broadway the great publishing house which bears his name. T. & J. Swords were "the ancient Episcopal publishers in Broadway," whose imprint may be found as early as 1792. Elam Bliss catered to the reading public from his shop on the site of the Trinity buildings and was the publisher of the Talisman, the first of the annuals, whose editors were Bryant, Verplanck, and Robert C. Sands. G. & C. Carvell, the English successors of the more famous Eastburn, were on the corner of Wall Street and Broadway and had the most extensive retail trade in the city, their place being the resort of the literati equally with that of Bliss on the opposite side of the street. On the first of January, 1833, the first number of the Knickerbocker Magazine was issued from its office on Broadway under the editorship of Charles Fenno Hoffman, to whose sister Washington Irving was engaged to be married; her untimely death and the grief of it kept Irving a bachelor all his life. Hoffman was editor for a few months only, giving up the position on account of ill health and being succeeded by Lewis Gaylord Clark, who conducted the magazine for over a score of years. A. T. Goodrich & Co. were booksellers at the corner of Broadway and Cedar Street, who kept a popular circulating library; James Eastburn & Co. were publishers and booksellers at the corner of Broadway and Pine Street, whose "rooms" were the favorite resort of men of letters and of leisure. 17. JONES AND NEWMAN'S PICTORIAL DIRECTORY OF NEW YORK, In 1848, the following booksellers are given on Broadway: A) EAST SIDE D. Appleton & Co., 202; Bangs, Richards & Platt (auctioneers), 204; Stringer & Townsend, 222 (all these below the Park); and William Rudde at 322 whose sign reads "Homeopathic Medicines and Books." B) WEST SIDE Stanford & Swords, 139; G.P. Putnam, 155; John Wiley, 161; Cooley, Keese & Hill (auctioneers), 191; Leavitt, Trow & Co., at the same number; Mark H. Newman & Co., 199; Clark, Austin & Co., 205; Charles S. Francis & Co., 253; Carter & BArothers, 285; and Beraud & Mondon, 315, immediately south of the entrance of the New York Hospital. The names of many of these booksellers still appear in New York firms. 18. OTHER MISC. INFORMATION Robert Dawson was the keeper of a livery stable at Number 9 Dey Street, just off Broadway; Mrs. Poppleton kept a fashionable confectionery shop at 206 Broadway; Niblo was then at William and Pine Streets, and Chester Jennings was mine host of the City Hotel. Another popular shop was that referred to elsewhere by the poets as "Cullen's Magnesian Shop." It was located at the corner of Park Place and sold ice-cream and soda-water; it was the most highly embellished shop of its kind in the city. During the first decade of the nineteenth century, James Sharpless, the English portrait painter, was to be seen on Broadway; and at a later period, John Trumbull, the distinguished American historical painter. In an advertisement of 1763, notice is given that "The Bake House at the corner of John Street is for sale; it has a bolting house and a new cistern annexed, and is for sale by G. Van Bomel." When, in 1775, at the corner of Broad and Beaver streets, Marinus Willett stopped the British soldiers from removing the arms, he mounted the first cart and drove to the place of Abraham Van Wyck, a staunch Whig, who kept a ball-alley at the corner of John Street and Broadway and deposited the captured arms in Van Wyck's yard. This was a favorite place with the Sons of Liberty; later, when the Hearts of Oak were formed, the arms were used for equipping these rather irregular militia. An advertisement of 1769 reads; "Mary Morcomb, mantua maker from London, at Isaac Garniers, opposite to Battoc Street in the Broadway, makes all sorts of negligees, Brunswick dresses, gowns, and other apparel of ladies, also covers Umbrellas in the neatest manner." 19. SECRETARY VAN TIENHOVEN'S PLANTATION His plantation was above Maiden Lane to a point about midway between Fulton and Ann streets, and comprised about sixteen acres of land. It was decreed in 1674 that the process of tanning constituted a nuisance, and all engaged in that industry were required to move their pits beyond the city wall. Within a year or two, four shoemakers who did their own tanning bought what was virtually Van Tienhoven's old grant, which became known in consequence as the "shoemakers' land." In 1696, Maiden Lane was regulated, and the land of the shoemakers was cut up into one hundred and sixty lots. Eventually, they had to move their business to the neighborhood of the Freshwater pond and to Beekman's swamp, at which latter place are gathered the dealers in hides and leather of the present. 20. YELLOW FEVER For many years after the Revolution, New York had visitations of that dread West Indian disease, yellow fever. When the fever was in the city the residents used to flee to their country places, to Greenwich, or to other suburban villages. There were epidemics in 1791, 1795,and 1798, this last being the most virulent and carrying off 2086 persons, exclusive of those who fled from the city. The population at that time was fifty-five thousand. During the height of the disease the churches were closed, business was at a standstill, and the banks moved their offices to Bank Street (whence the name) in Greenwich Village. The post-office was removed to the house of Dr. James Tillary on the corner of Broadway and Wall Street, and the citizens came from their retreats in the country between the hours of nine a.m. and sundown, during which time physicians said it was safe to visit the city. There were several outbreaks of fever in later years, but the establishment of the quarantine at Staten Island in 1801 has for many years effectually prevented anything but sporadic cases. 21. PERILS OF THE BROADWAY PEDESTRIAN A visitor of 1845 speaks of the noise and confusion on Broadway at that time. The truck drivers purposely went out of their way to enjoy the sights along the great thoroughfare and to show to pedestrians and their fellowdrivers and those on the buses their capabilities in the way of what Mrs. Gamp would have called "langwidge," when their progress was blocked by other carts. So dangerous was the passage at Fulton Street, although there were in those days no surface cars to increase the difficulties of getting across, that an iron bridge called the Loew bridge, was erected at this point across Broadway. It was completed in May, 1867; but pedestrians preferred the dangers of the street to the task of climbing the stairs_____this was before the days of the elevated railroads____and so the bridge was removed in 1868. The widening of other streets convenient to the water front, and the establishment of the "Broadway Squad" of police, six footers, every one of them, and the present traffic squad have lessened the dangers to a minimum; though it is still difficult for him who is not born a New Yorker, or who has not been caught early and learned the ins and outs of metropolitan life, to cross Broadway between the Bowling Green and Manhattan Street. 22. BROADWAY PARADES Broadway has been the favorite route of parades and processions from the earliest times until within the last decade. Among the parades which have taken place since 1800, we may mention the Hudson bi-centenary in 1809, the reception to Lafayette in 1824, that in honor of the revolution in France in 1830, the admission of Croton water in 1842, the reception to the Hungarian patriot Kossuth in 1851, the processions in honor of Alfred Edward, Prince of Wales (the late Edward VII.), and of the first Japanese embassy in 1861, the German parade in 1872 at the conclusion of the war between Prussia and France, the Washington centenary of 1889, and the Columbus parade of 1892 in commemoration of the four hundredth anniversary of the discovery of America. Among the funerals, some of them actual and some commemorative, have been those of Hamilton in 1804, Montgomery in 1818, Andre in 1821, when his remains were removed from Tappan to England, President Monroe in 1825, President Harrison in 1840, President Taylor in 1850, Henry Clay and Daniel Webster in 1852, General Worth in 1857, President Lincoln in 1865, General Grant in 1885, and Governor and Vice-President George Clinton in 1909, when his body was brought back to the state for which he did so much after its century- long rest in the cemetery at Washington, where he had died while vice-president. In the older days, there were parades every year upon the Fourth of July and upon Evacuation Day, November twenty-fifth. In war times there have been the departure of the troops and their return, and innumerable minor parades; but we must not leave out the great parades of the merchants and business men of the city at the time of presidential elections within the last twenty years, when as many as one hundred thousand men, not soldiers, marched from the Bowling Green to Madison Square. The last great parade was the reception tendered to ex-President Theodore Roosevelt on June 18, 1910, upon his home-coming after a year spent in Africa and Europe. The growth of the city in area and population has caused the route of the great processions to be changed to the upper part of the city from One Hundred and Tenth Street by way of Central Park West, and Fifth Avenue to the Washington Arch at Fourth Street. Now, Broadway is used once a year (and it nearly always rains) for the annual parade of the Old Guard; and there is a parade nearly every day in the year of strange looking people, with peculiar dress and language, with multitudinous children and boxes and bundles, finding their way from Ellis Island to the tenements of the city____later, to become citizens of the Great Republic and to add to its wealth and glory. 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 Broadway The Dutch Heere Straat The Fort and the Bowling Green Wall Street Back To BROADWAY Main Back To MANHATTAN Main Back To BROOKLYN Main