Bible Encyclopedias
New York (City)

1911 Encyclopedia Britannica

The largest city of New York state, U.S.A., situated at the junction of the Hudson river, here called the North river, with the narrow East river (actually a strait connecting Long Island Sound with the Upper Bay), and between Long Island Sound and the Atlantic Ocean. It is composed of five boroughs: the Borough of the Bronx on the south-easternmost part of the mainland of New York state; the Borough of Manhattan on Manhattan Island (including also other small islands') immediately S. and S.W. of the Bronx, and bounded on the W. by the North river, on the E. by the East river, and on the S. by New York Bay; the Borough of Richmond (Staten Island, q.v.), the southernmost and westernmost part of the city; and on the western end of Long Island, the Borough of Brooklyn, and, N. of it, the Borough of Queens. The city hall, in the southern part of Manhattan Island, is in lat. 40° 4 2 ' 43 N. and long. 74° o' 3" W. The greatest width of the city E. and W. is 16 m., and the greatest length N. and S. is 32 m.; its area is about 326.97 sq. M. (285.72 sq. m. more than in 1890), of which Manhattan Borough constitutes nearly 21.93 sq. m., the Borough of the Bronx about 41.7 sq. m., the Borough of Queens about 129.5 sq. m., the Borough of Brooklyn 77.6 sq. m., and the Borough of Richmond 55.2 sq. m. 2 The total waterfront of the city is 341.22 m., and much of it, especially on the lower part of Manhattan, is made ground.

New York harbour is one of the most beautiful, largest and best of the world's great ports. Over the bar (Sandy Hook), about 20 m. S. of the S. end of/Manhattan Island, is the " Main Ship Bayside-Gedney channel," woo ft. wide and 30 ft. deep. By 1909 the;Federal government had completed 72 m. of the Ambrose channel farther to the E. and 49 ft. deep, and 950 -1600 ft. wide (2200 ft. is the projected width). 3 .` A third 1 The more important of these small islands are: Blackwell's (about 120 acres) in the East river, Ward's N. of Blackwell's, and Randall's N. of Ward's, separated from it by Little Hell Gate, and in the mouth of the Harlem river; in the Upper Bay, Governor's Island (originally 65 acres; enlarged by the addition of tot acres to the southwest), a U.S. military reservation, about 1000 yds. S. of the Battery, the southernmost point of Manhattan Island; Bedloe's Island (sometimes called Liberty Island from the Bartholdi statue on it of " Liberty Enlightening the World "), with an area of 132 acres, lying 2 m. S.W. of the Battery; and Ellis Island, 12 m. W.S.W. of the Battery, occupied by the Federal government as a landing-place for immigrants. In the Lower Bay, and a part of the Borough of Richmond, are the artificial islands, Swinburne (18661870; 8 m. S. of the Battery) and Hoffman (1868-1873; 7 m. S. of the Battery), constructed for quarantine stations.

Manhattan and Bronx boroughs compose New York county; the counties of Queens and Richmond are coterminous respectively with the boroughs of those names; Brooklyn Borough is coextensive with Kings county.

The narrowness of the channel makes the tidal scour more effective, and it was little filled in even when sewage and garbage was dumped in the Bay itself. The river carries little silt and leaves most of it well above the harbour. The natural excellence of the harbour may be inferred from the following figures: in1895-1903the Federal Cadwallader Colden (Acting) Sir Henry Moore.. Cadwallader Colden (Acting). John Murray, earl of Dunmore .

William Tryon

Transition. Provincial Congress

State. George Clinton John Jay .

George Clinton Morgan Lewis Daniel D. Tompkins. John Taylor (Acting). De Witt Clinton .

Joseph Christopher Yates De Witt Clinton .

Nathaniel Pitcher (Acting) Martin Van Buren Enos Thompson Throop (Acting) Enos Thompson Throop William Learned Marcy William Henry Seward William C. Bouck Silas Wright .

John Young Hamilton Fish .

Washington Hunt Horatio Seymour Myron Holley Clark John Alsop King. Edwin Dennison Morgan Horatio Seymour. Reuben Eaton Fenton John Thompson Hoffman John Adams Dix. Samuel Jones Tilden. Lucius Robinson Alonzo Barton Cornell Grover Cleveland David Bennett Hill (Acting) David Bennett Hill. Roswell Pettibone Flower. Levi Parsons Morton. Frank Swett Black. Theodore Roosevelt. Benjamin Barker Odell Frank Wayland Higgins. Charles Evans Hughes Horace White .

John A. Dix. .

. 1763-1765.1765-1769.1769-1770.1770-1771. 1771-1776 1776-1777Dem01crat Whig/ Democrat Whig Democrat1777-1795Anti-Federalist 1 7951801 Federalist1801-1804Dem.-Repub.1804-18071807-1817 18171817-18231823-18251825-18281828-1829 18291829-18311831-18331833-18391839-18431843-18451845-18471847-18491849-18511851-18537,1853-1855Democrat1855-1857Whig-Repub.

1857-1859 Republican1859-18631863-1865 Democrat1865-1869Republican1869-1873Democrat

1873-1875 Republican

1875-1877 Democrat

1877-1880 „1880-1883Republican

1883-1885 Democrat

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1886-1892.1892-18951895-1897 Republican.1897-18991899 -19011901-19051905-19071907-19101910

1911 channel, the South and Swash, is used by coasting vessels drawing about 20 ft. The harbour is divided into three parts: the Lower Bay, the Upper Bay and the North and East rivers. The Lower Bay (about 88 sq. m.) of which Raritan Bay on the S.W., Sandy Hook Bay on the S.E., and Gravesend Bay on the N.E. form parts, and to which the channels mentioned afford entrance from the ocean, has Staten Island to the W. and N., Brooklyn to the N. and E., and the New Jersey shore to the S. and W. The Upper Bay has an area of 14 sq. m., is the immediate embouchure of the North and the East river, is connected with the Lower Bay by the Narrows (minimum width I m.) and with Newark Bay to the W. by Kill Van Kull, immediately N. of Staten Island, and, except for these four narrow water-ways, is enclosed by land. The North river (maximum depth, 60 ft.) is here about I m. wide and the East river (maximum depth more than loo ft.; in Hell Gate channel about zoo ft.) is about 4 m. wide and, from the Battery to Throg's Neck and Willett's Point, where Long Island Sound proper begins, about 20 m. long. The north-east entrance to the harbour, from Long Island Sound by the East river, used principally by New England coasting vessels (especially coal barges), was made navigable for vessels of 25-27 ft. draft by the Federal government, which in1870-1876and in 1885 widened and deepened the formerly dangerous narrows and removed the reefs of Hell Gate, between Manhattan Island (E. 88th Street), Blackwell's Island, Astoria (on the Long Island shore), and Ward's Island. The third great entry and commercial feeder to the harbour is the North river, by which the great inland water-borne traffic of the Hudson river and the Erie Canal is brought to the port of New York. On the North river are the piers of the transatlantic steamship companies, part of them on the New Jersey side at Hoboken. The coastwise trade with New England, especially through Long Island Sound, is largely from the East river, to which a part of the Hudson river traffic makes its way by the Harlem river. The Harlem is a place of anchorage for small craft.

The narrow approaches to the harbour from the ocean and from Long Island Sound make its fortification easy. On Sandy Hook, less than 8 m. from the nearest points of Rockaway Beach and Coney Island on the other side of the entrance, is Fort Hancock, established as a military reservation (1366 acres) in 1892; it received its present name in 1895, and has an artillery garrison. Between the lower and upper bays, on the Narrows, are Fort Wadsworth (1827; named in honour of General James S. Wadsworth (1807-1864), killed in the battle of the Wilderness), on the Staten Island side, a reservation of 230 acres, including Fort Tompkins, on higher ground than Fort Wadsworth proper, and, across the Narrows, on the Long Island shore, Fort Hamilton (1831), with a reservation of 167 acres. Older fortifications are Fort Lafayette (1807; called Fort Diamond until 1823), between Forts Hamilton and Wadsworth on an artificial island, now used to store ordnance and supplies, and Fort Columbus (1806), South Battery (1812) and Castle Williams (built in 1811 by Jonathan Williams (1750-1815), who planned all the earlier fortifications of New York harbour; it is now a military prison), all on Governor's Island, where are important barracks and the New York arsenal of the Ordnance Department. The north-eastern approach to the harbour, at the entrance to Long Island Sound, is protected by fortifications, Fort Totten, at Willett's Point (1862), and directly across from this battery by Fort Schuyler (1826; post established 1856) with a reservation of 52 acres on Throg's Neck.

Geology

Manhattan Island 1 (13 1 m. long; maximum width - at 14th Street-24 m.; average width about 2 m.) is a "group of gneissoid islands separated. by low levels slightly elevated above tide and filled with drift and alluvium " (L. D. Gale in W. W. Mather's Geology of New York, 1843), with a steep west wall from Manhattanville (125th Street W. of 8th Avenue) S. beyond 81st Street, and a much steeper east wall. Upon its first occupation by the Dutch the island was rough and rocky with brooks, ponds, marshes and several expenses for important harbour improvements, principally dredging, were $1,035,300 for New York, $2,710,000 (exclusive of $1,185,000 for the Delaware Breakwater) for Philadelphia, $1,501,169 for Boston, $1,404,845 for New Orleans, and $470,000 for Baltimore.

1 See Wm. H. Hobbs, Configuration of the Rock Floor of Greater New York (Washington, 1905), Bulletin 270 of the U.S. Geological Survey, with an excellent summary of the earlier literature. The study of the underlying rock of Manhattan Island and its vicinity has been stimulated by the great engineering and building enterprises in the city limits.

swamps.' Superficially the island may be divided into: an area of drift, S. of 21st Street on the East river, of 13th street on Broadway and of 31st Street on the North river; a second, narrow area of drift running from Hell Gate N.W.to Manhattanville in a line parallel to the Harlem; a limestone (Inwood limestone) area on the Harlem from its mouth to the sharp turn in its course; a second and smaller limestone area on the Spuyten Duyvil in the north-westernmost part of the island; and the remainder areas of gneiss, the larger part being in two great " islands," one between the line of E. 21 st Street, 13th Street and W. 31st Street, already mentioned, and a line from Hell Gate to Manhattanville, and the other nearly joining the first at Manhattanville and covering all the narrow N.W. part of Manhattan Island except the second limestone area on the Spuyten Duyvil. These two gneiss areas have a southerly tilt; they are named respectively Washington and Morningside Heights. In all these areas, except the limestone, the underlying rock is what is styled Manhattan schist (see U.S. Geologic Atlas, N. Y. City, folio No. 83). The waterfront of Manhattan does not correspond in direction with limestone belts, but is probably due to lines of fracture (see W. H. Hobbs, in Bulletin, Geological Society of America, xvi. 151-182).

The Borough of the Bronx is made of high N.E. and S.W. ridges, sloping E. to the lower shores of Long Island Sound; and the Boroughs of Brooklyn and Queens form part of the great terminal moraine. Low serpentine hills (300-380 ft.), with a N.E. and S.W. trend, occupy the central part of the northern end of Staten Island; W. of this is Jura-Trias formation, crossed in its centre by a narrow strip of igneous dike rock; the E. and S. part of the island is Cretaceous. Yellow gravel is one of the many evidences of glacial drift; but the S.E. part of the island was not encroached upon by the moraine.

Climate

A combination of marine and continental influences produces a humid climate subject to sudden changes of temperature. The temperature, however, rises above 90° F. only six days in a year on the average; it rarely falls below zero; and in a period of thirtyeight years, from 1871 to 1908, extremes ranged between 100°, in September 1881, and - 6°, in February 1899. The mean winter temperature (December, January and February) is 32°; the mean summer temperature (June, July and August) is 72°; and the mean annual temperature is 52°. The average monthly rainfall ranges from 3.2 in. in May to 4.5 in. in July and in August, and the mean annual precipitation is 44.8 in. The average annual fall of snow amounts to 37 in., of which 11.5 in. falls in February, 8.7 in. in January and 8.2 in. in March. The average number of hours of sunshine ranges from 150 in November to 271 in June. The prevailing winds are N.W., except in June when they are S.W.

Streets

In the downtown portion of Manhattan Island, a strip about 2 m. long, some streets follow the irregular water-fronts and others cross these; and on the west side this irregularity extends farther N., in the former Greenwich village (W. and N.W. of Washington Square), where West 4th Street, running N.W., crosses West 12th Street, running S.W. north of Houston Street, then North Street, the northernmost limit of the occupied city; in 1807 a commission laid out the island into streets, which were numbered from S. to N. and were called East and West, as they were E. or W. of Broadway, below 8th Street, and of Fifth Avenue, above 8th, and into avenues, which were numbered 3 from E. to W., Twelfth Avenue being on the North river waterfront. East of First Avenue in a bulge of the Island S. of 23rd Street four additional avenues were named A, B, C, and D, Avenue A being one block E. of First Avenue. Afterwards Madison Avenue was laid out midway between Fourth and Fifth Avenues, N. from 23rd Street, and Lexington Avenue, midway between Third and Fourth Avenues, N. from 21st Street. The most important of the avenues is Broadway, an unfortunately narrow street in the busy downtown part of its course. From Bowling Green, immediately N. of the Battery, it goes in a straight line (E. of N.) for about 22 m. to loth Street; then bears off to the W. It is called the Boulevard from 78th Street to 162nd Street in its course between Amsterdam Avenue and West End (or Eleventh) Avenue (to 104th Street), and then as a continuation of West End Avenue; and thence to the Yonkers city line is called Kingsbridge Road. The monotonous regularity of the rectangular street plan of Manhattan above 14th Street is partly redeemed by this westward trend of Broadway, the only 2 See a paper, " Old Wells and Water-Courses on the Island of Manhattan," by George Everett Hill and George E. Waring, Jr., in Historic New York: the First Series of the Half Moon Papers (New York, 1899).

3 In the Borough of the Bronx the system of numbered avenues no longer holds, but the cross streets are numbered consecutively, W. 262nd Street being immediately S. of the Yonkers line and E. 242nd and 243rd immediately S. of the Mt. Vernon boundary.

old street in this part of the city. The Bowery, extending N. from Chatham Square to East 4th St. (practically continued by Fourth Avenue), is not now a street of commercial importance, being largely taken up with Yiddish tenements. Broadway, in its southernmost part, is a financial and business street; the financial interests centre particularly about Wall Street,' which is about one-third of a mile above the Battery, runs E. from Broadway, and was named from a redoubt built here by the Dutch in 1653 on news of a threatened attack by the English. The wholesale dry goods district is on Broadway and the side streets between Reade and Prince Streets and the wholesale grocery district immediately W. of this. In Maiden Lane is' the wholesale jewelry trade. The leather and hide trade is centred immediately S. of the approaches to the Brooklyn Bridge. A little farther up-town on the East Side is the tenement district, one of the most crowded in the world. The principal shopping districts are on Broadway from 17th Street to 34th Street; on Sixth Avenue from 14th Street to 34t h Street; and to an increasing degree on Fifth Avenue from 23rd Street to 42nd Street, and on the cross-streets in this area, especially 23rd, 34th and 42nd Streets. Next to Broadway the best known of the avenues is Fifth Avenue, which extends from Washington Square to the Harlem river (143rd Street) in a straight line. On Fifth Avenue there are a few residences in its lower part and between 34th and 45th Streets; but N. of 50th and on the E. side of Central Park are many fine residences. The cross streets within one block to the W. and two blocks to the E. of Fifth Avenue, Central Park West, and in general the upper West Side and in particular Riverside Drive, high above the North river, are the newer residential parts of the city.

Parks

The park system in 1908 included property valued at $501,604,188. The principal parks are: Central Park in Manhattan; Prospect Park in Brooklyn (q.v.); and Bronx Park, Van Cortlandt Park and Pelham Bay Park in the Bronx. The first park (as distinguished from " square ") of any size in Manhattan was Central Park (840 acres; between 59th and i Toth Streets and between 5th and 8th Avenues; about 21 m. long and 11 m. wide), which was laid out (beginning in 1857) by F. L. Olmsted and Calvert Vaux. Nearly one-half is wooded, with a variety of native and foreign trees and shrubs. The park contains a large pond, the Mere, in the N.E. corner; the Croton retaining reservoir and the receiving reservoir, and other sheets of water. Near the 65th Street entrance from 5th Avenue is the Arsenal, the executive quarters of the Department of Parks, with a meteorological observatory (1869).

Pelham Bay Park (1756 acres), in the north-easternmost corner of the city, lies on Long Island Sound, includes Hunter's Island and Twin Islands, and has a total shore front of about 9 m. Bordering on the city of Yonkers, S. (from 262nd Street) to 242nd Street, is Van Cortlandt Park (1132 acres), in which are the Van Cortlandt Mansion (1748), for a time Washington's headquarters and now a Revolutionary Museum under the Colonial Dames, a parade-ground (75 acres), and Van Cortlandt Lake, a skating pond. East of Van Cortlandt Park is Woodlawn Cemetery. Mosholu Parkway (600 ft. wide and about 6000 ft. long) leads from Van Cortlandt Park to the S.E., and Bronx and Pelham Parkway (400 ft. wide and 12,000 ft. long) from Pelham Bay Park to the S.W. connecting these parks with Bronx Park (719 acres) on either side of the Bronx river, a small stream which here broadens into lakes and ponds and has a fall at the lower end of the park. Bronx Park reaches from 180th Street to 205th Street.;The northern part is occupied by the New York Botanical Gardens and the southern part by the Zoological Park.

Battery Park is at the southern end of Manhattan; here are the New York Aquarium (in what was until 1896 Castle Garden, on the site of Fort Clinton) and a children's playground (1903). In City Hall Park are the public buildings mentioned below.

The other down-town open spaces are small; many of them are recreation grounds, some, such as Mulberry Bend Park and Hamilton Fish Park, being on the site of former slums, condemned by the city at great expense. Especially in this part of the city municipal recreation piers and free baths have been constructed. Washington Square (1827), between Waverley Place, Wooster and Macdougal Streets, at the foot of 5th Avenue, became a pauper burial-ground about 1797, and was laid out as a park in 1827; on the N. side of the square there are still a few fine old residences. Union Square, between Broadway and 4th Avenue, is a favourite place for workmen's mass meetings. Madison Square is reclaimed swampy ground on which there was an arsenal in 1806-1815, then a parade-ground, and in1825-1839a municipal House of Refuge in the old barracks, and which was then laid out as a park and was a fashionable centre in 1850-1875. Bryant Park on Sixth Avenue, between 40th and 42nd Streets, was a Potter's Field in 1813-1823, and in 1853 was the site of 1 See F. T. Hill, Story of a Street (New York, 1908).

a world's fair with Cr y stal Palace, which was destroyed in 1858. In De Witt Clinton Park between 52nd and 54th Streets on the North river, there was the first children's farm school' in New York. Riverside Park (140 acres; 1872), between 72nd and 129th Streets, on the North river front, is a finely wooded natural terrace with winding paths. Morningside Park (31; acres), between W. Iloth and 123rd Streets, beautifully wooded, and Mount Morris Park (206 acres) from 120th to 124th Streets, interrupting Fifth Avenue, are high rough ground, Mount Morris being the highest point on Manhattan Island.

Among the other parks in