A HISTORICAL TOUR OF THE GREATEST STREET IN THE WORLD.......BROADWAY BROADWAY TO WALL STREET Prior to 1911 1. LAND SPECULATION Many of the grantees of lots on both sides of the street were imbued by the spirit of land speculation which has distinguished the city ever since, and the constant changes in ownership of the lots show this speculative spirit. The authorities tried in 1676 to increase the occupancy of the vacant lots of the city by directing all owners of vacant lots or ruinous buildings to build upon the lots or improve them under penalty of seeing them sold at public auction. This was an exercise of the right of eminent domain which would have satisfied Henry George two centuries later. 2. INHABITANTS TO PAVE STREETS In 1658, the inhabitants of Brower Street were directed to pave their street in order to facilitate traffic, as the street was almost impassable. This was the first street in the city that was paved, and in consequence it became known as Stone Street. Broadway was not paved until 1707, and then only from Trinity Church to the Bowling Green; at the same time the residents were permitted to plant trees in front of their lots. In 1709, the street was levelled as far as Maiden Lane. In 1691, an order was made concerning the paving of certain streets, among which we find: "Broadway, on both sides, ten feet, down to Mr. Smith's (opposite the Bowling Green) on the west side, and to Lucas Kiersted's on the other." Yet it is probable that the vicinity of the Bowling Green was not paved until 1747, when a committee was appointed to have so much of the street around the Bowling Green and the fence along the fort paved as they might see proper. The paving consisted of cobblestones, and extended only ten feet in front of the houses, the middle of the street serving as a gutter and probably being a quagmire in wet weather. The work fell upon the owners of the lots, and in case of default in complying with the ordinance there was a fine of twenty shillings to be levied upon the recalcitrant householder. 3. EARLY SIDEWALKS Anything in the way of sidewalks was at first voluntary on the part of the property owners; they were called strookes by the Dutch. Sidewalks did not come in until 1790, and then were made of brick. New York was far behind the Quaker City in this respect, as shown by a remark of Dr. Franklin to the effect that a New Yorker could be known by his gait, in shuffling over a Philadelphia fine pavement like a parrot upon a mahogany table. A Philadelphia visitor about 1835 remarks then that New York's large flagstones and wide foot pavements surpass Philadelphia even for ease of walking, and the unusual width of the flagstone footways across the pebbled streets at the corners is very superior. It must have been a pleasure to him to get away from the possibility of stepping on a loose brick on a rainy day. 4. PUBLIC WELLS In 1677, public wells, two of which were in the middle of Broadway, were established for the better protection of the city in case of fire. One of these wells, called "Mr. Rombout's Well," was situated near Exchange Place, the other, not far from it. The care of these wells was placed with a committee of the inhabitants of the vicinity, who were assessed for one half of their cost and maintenance. The water in the city was generally bad and scarce; though occasionally good sweet water was found, as at the famous "Tea Water Pump" at Pearl Street and the Bowery. Potable water from some of these good sources of supply was hawked about the streets, and sold to the inhabitants. The wells were abolished from Broadway in 1806. 5. RESERVOIR ESTABLISHED The question of an adequate supply of good water arose as early as 1774, when Christopher Colles constructed a reservoir at public expense on the east side of Great George Street, between Pearl and White, then far out of town. Water was obtained from sunk wells and from the Collect, or Freshwater pond, on the site of the present city prison on Centre Street. The water was distributed through wooden pipes in 1776, but the supply was insufficient and the quality poor. The British took possession of the city immediately afterward, the plant fell into disuse, and the people returned to the ancient pumps and wells. In 1798, the question of getting a supply of water from the mainland of Westchester County was agitated, but the corporation was deterred by the expense. Alexander Hamilton did not believe that the matter of water supply came within the province of the municipality so far as ownership and maintenance were concerned. Then the Manhattan Company was formed by Aaron Burr, whose charter gave the right of supplying the city with water and the further right to engage in the banking business. Colles's reservoir was utilized, and the old plan of wooden pipes was resumed; but water was both scarce and bad, and the company paid more attention to banking than it did to water and thus lost the confidence of the community, which soon voted the new plan a failure. When, in 1894, the excavations were in progress for the cable road of Jacob Sharp, some of the old wooden pipes were exhumed in Broadway. The great fire of 1835, entailing a loss upon the city of 648 houses and over eighteen millions of dollars, quickened the public interest in the water question upon which the citizens had voted "yes" at the previous spring election. Croton water was admitted into the city on July 4, 1842, and the event was celebrated on the fourteenth of October with the most imposing celebration which had yet graced the streets of the city. 6. STREET LIGHTING In the Dutch days, no attempt was made at lighting the streets of the town at night; but in 1679 every seventh house was obliged to hang out a pole with a lantern and lighted candle on the nights when there was no moon; and at the same time a night watch was formed. The expense of the lights was divided among the seven house-holders adjacent to the lantern. In 1762, an act of the assembly gave authority to provide means of lighting the city, and in that year the first lamps and posts were purchased. In 1774, sixteen lamplighters were employed. In 1823, the Manhattan Gaslight Company was incorporated and permitted to light the city below Canal Street. The gas pipes were laid on both sides of Broadway in 1825, and the lamps were lighted shortly afterward. This system still prevails throughout the city, though electric lighting has superseded gas in most of the important thoroughfares. Broadway, between Fourteenth and Twenty-sixth streets, was the first section of the city to be lighted with arc lights, December 20, 1880. About the same a high mast was erected in the middle of Union Square at the top of which was a cluster of electric lamps; but this plan of lighting the square was not a success. 7. OSWEGO MARKET The establishment of a meat market in the Bowling Green was still in use in 1702, as it was rented then for five years. About the end of the seventeenth century, a new plan was adopted by which the city was spared the expense of erecting the necessary market buildings. This was by the residents of a neighborhood petitioning for a market, for which they paid the cost of erection and maintenance and a rental to the city, which became the owner at the expiration of the lease. In 1738, the inhabitants of the West Ward between Broadway and the Hudson petitioned for the erection of a market in Broadway, as they were so distant from the markets already established, and for the convenience of farmers and others who came from New Jersey and from up the Hudson. Upon permission being granted, they erected (1739) a market-house forty-two feet long and twenty-six feet wide in the middle of Broadway, "fronting the street in which the chief justice lives (probably Maiden Lane), and opposite to Crown (Liberty) Street." Mention is also made of a market having occupied this site in 1729. The market was called the "Oswego Market." In 1746, twenty-six feet were added to the south end of the building, and other additions were made later. It enjoyed a prosperous existence for over thirty years, by which time Broadway had grown up and become one of the principal streets of the city. Many attempts were made to get the corporation to remove the market, taking up, as it did, so much of the highway that it interfered with traffic; but the corporation refused to act. At last the building was, in 1771, declared a public nuisance by the grand jury. They describe it as being one hundred and fifty-six feet long and twenty feet, three and one half inches wide. A decision was made to move the market to another site.Several localities were suggested, among others, the Commons,--and the Council finally settled upon the shore of the North River at the foot of Dey Street, where a new market-house was erected which subsequently became Washington Market (1812). At the time that the Oswego Market was removed from Broadway, the street was paved in that locality. The market received its odd name from the fact that during the French and Indian War, Fort Oswego was considered the most important place within control of the English to withstand the encroachments of the French from Canada. The troops, provisions, and other supplies for the fort were all shipped from the river front near the foot of the present Cortlandt Street, a point which became known as the "Oswego Landing.The lane from the landing led up to the market, which thus adopted the name of Oswego. It was also called the "Broadway Market," and the "Crown Market" from being abreast of Crown Street. After the removal of the market from the middle of Broadway in 1771, the residents of the vicinity felt the inconvenience of having no market near by, and so petitioned for the establishment of one on the corner of Broadway and Maiden Lane; their petition was granted, and the market established shortly afterward. It took the name of Oswego, but is better known as "Old Swago." It stood until 1811, when it was removed by aldermanic resolution. 8. INHABITANTS TO KEEP STREETS CLEAN The first attempt to clean the streets was made in 1696, when a contract was made at thirty pounds sterling a year. Before this, every householder had been obliged to keep the street clean in front of his own residence. These ordinances failed of effect; and in 1702, all the inhabitants were required to sweep the dirt into heaps in front of their doors on Friday morning and to have it removed before Saturday night under penalty of a fine of six shillings. The cartmen were obliged to carry away the dirt at three cents a load, or, if they loaded their own carts, at six cents; in the event of a refusal, they were subject to heavy fines. 9. GARBAGE IN STREETS DISPOSED OF BY HOGS From the Dutch days down to 1825, there were no methods employed for removing the refuse and garbage from the houses. All such matter was thrown into the streets where it was disposed of by the hogs, which were allowed to range the streets for that purpose, as the dogs used to do in Constantinople. It was estimated as late as 1820 that thirty thousand hogs roamed the streets of the city, and in Boston, Philadelphia, and other places, New York was a byword for filthiness. Notwithstanding the fatal visitations of the yellow fever and other diseases,__directly traceable to the festering masses of putrefying refuse in the city streets,___it was not until 1823 that the Common Council listened to the protests of the best citizens and directed that carts should be used to remove the garbage and that the swine should be captured and sent to the public pound. The men and boys of the streets offered such forcible resistance to the carts and to the attempt to arrest the hogs that the ordinance became a dead letter until several years later, when a proper public spirit of indignation against such antiquated methods was aroused, and the hogs were driven from the streets and the carts permitted to go unmolested. 10. OTHER POINTS OF INTEREST

Broadway and Rector Street

Rector Street received its name from the fact that the first rector of Trinity, the Rev. William Vesey, used to live on this street; his name is also commemorated in Vesey Street on the north side of St. Paul's. After 1790, fine residences began to line this side of the street as well as the other, occupied by many of the leading merchants and professional men, among whom may be mentioned Alexander Hamilton and Dr. Charlton. In 1827, the Adelphi Hotel, six stories in height, was erected at the corner of Beaver Street. By 1825, like the opposite side of the street, many of these fine residences were given over to hotels, inns, and boarding-houses. The most noted of all these boarding-houses in the thirties was located at 61 Broadway and was presided over by Miss Margaret Mann, who was called familiarly "Aunt" Margaret. It was patronized largely by ladies, a sign of its eminent respectability. 11. WASHINGTON IRVING At one time Washington Irving lived at Number 16 Broadway with his friend Henry Brevoort at the house of Mrs. Ryckman. He often strolled up Broadway to visit his friend, the Widow Jane Renwick, who lived at the corner of Cortlandt Street, and whose son afterwards became a professor at Columbia College. Mrs. Renwick was "The Blue-Eyed Lassie" of Robert Burns's poem. When Irving returned from his diplomatic post in Spain in 1848, he was not very well off, and he took a desk in the office of his brother, John Treat Irving, a well-known lawyer. Mr. George P. Putnam wrote to Irving making him a generous offer in the matter of publication of his past and future works. Putnam remained Irving's publisher until the latter's death in 1859, during which time Irving received much more than the thousand dollars a year. 12. HOTELS Among the other hotels which have enjoyed good reputations were Barnum's, called the Howard House in 1851, and the Tremont Temperance House at Number 110. In 1906, the small plot of ground 40 feet by 30, at the southeast corner of Wall Street, sold for six hundred dollars a square foot, the highest price ever paid up to this date (1910) for land upon the island of Manhattan. 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 Back To BROADWAY Main Back To MANHATTAN Main Back To BROOKLYN Main