Office, the Italian Renaissance City Hall by John McComb, Jr.,
1803–1812 (architecturally the best of the public buildings); the
Court House, the Hall of Records (French Renaissance), and a
new Municipal Building with a lantern 559 ft. high, the main
building of 23 storeys being pierced by an arcade through which
Chambers Street runs; a little farther N. and E. of Broadway,
the Tombs (1898–1899), the city prison, connected by a flying
bridge called “the Bridge of Sighs” with the Criminal Courts;
at Madison Avenue and 25th Street, the elaborate Appellate
Court House (J. B. Lord); and on Fifth Avenue (40th-42nd Sts.)
the new Public Library (1911). There are several large armouries
of the state militia in the city, the best known being those of
the 7th, 69th and 71st regiments.
Churches.—Historically the foremost religious denomination in New York City is the Dutch Reformed. The consistory of the Collegiate Church, controlling several churches, is the oldest ecclesiastical organization in the city, dating from 1628, when there was a Dutch church “in the Fort.” After the city passed into the hands of the English the Protestant Episcopal Church rapidly increased in power, and in 1705 received the grant of the “Queen’s Farm” between Christopher and Vesey streets. This immense wealth is held by the corporation of Trinity Church. Its present building (1839–1846; by R. M. Upjohn) is on the site of a church built in 1696, at the head of Wall Street on Broadway. The bronze doors are a memorial to J. J. Astor, and the altar and reredos, to W. B. Astor. In the churchyard are the graves of Alexander Hamilton, Robert Fulton, Captain James Lawrence, Albert Gallatin, William Bradford, the colonial printer, and General Phil Kearny. Many of the largest Episcopalian churches in the city were founded as its chapels, including St Paul’s (1766), the oldest church building in the city. Trinity has several important chapels dependent on it. The Presbyterian Church is relatively stronger in New York than in any other city in the country with the possible exceptions of Philadelphia and Pittsburg. The first Methodist Episcopal society in the United States was formed in New York in 1766 and still exists as the John Street Church. The varied immigration to the city had brought in the other Protestant sects; the large Irish immigration of the first two-thirds of the 19th century, and the great Hebrew migration of the last part of the same century, made the Roman Catholic and the Jewish denominations strong. The city became the see of a Roman Catholic bishop in 1808 and of an archbishop in 1850. The Roman Catholic Cathedral, St Patrick’s (50th-51st Streets; Fifth-Madison Avenues), is the head of the archdiocese of New York; it is the largest and one of the most elaborately decorated churches in the country, designed by James Renwick and erected in 1850–1879, with a Lady Chapel added in 1903. It is in Decorated style and is built principally of white marble. Behind the Cathedral on Madison Avenue is the archiepiscopal residence. The Protestant Episcopal Cathedral of St John the Divine, on 112th Street near Morningside Park, was begun in 1892; the crypt and St Saviour’s Chapel were completed in 1910. Other prominent Episcopalian churches are: Christ Church, organized in 1794, the second parish in age to Trinity; St Mark’s, an old parish with a colonial church (1829); Grace Church (organized in 1808), since 1844 in a commanding position at Broadway and 10th Street, at the first turn in Broadway, with a building of white limestone in Decorated style with a graceful stone spire; the Church of the Ascension (1840) with John La Farge’s mural painting of the Ascension, a chancel by Stanford White, and Sienese marble walls and pulpit; and the Church of the Transfiguration (1849), nicknamed “The Little Church around the Corner,” and famous under the charge of Dr George H. Houghton (1820–1897) as the church attended by many actors. It has a memorial window to Edwin Booth by John La Farge. Of Presbyterian churches the First (organized in 1719) long occupied a brick church on Wall Street, near the old City Hall, and since 1845 has been on Fifth Avenue between 11th and 12th Streets; and the Madison Square Church was organized in 1853, and after 1907 occupied one of the most striking ecclesiastical buildings in the city, in a quasi-Byzantine style, with a golden dome and a facade of six pale green granite Corinthian columns. The First Baptist Church (organized 1762; present building on Broadway and 79th Street) is the oldest and the Fifth Avenue Baptist Church (1841) is the richest society of that denomination in the city; the Memorial Church (1838) is a memorial to Adoniram Judson. The first Congregational Church was built in 1809, but it was soon sold and the congregation disbanded; the Broadway Tabernacle on Broadway, near Worth Street, was a famous church in 1840–1857; the present church is at Broadway and 56th Street. St Peter’s (Roman Catholic; 1785) is the oldest Catholic organization in the city; St Patrick’s (1815) was formerly the cathedral church, and St Paul the Apostle (Paulist; 1859; rebuilt 1876–1885, with decorations by John La Farge) was established by Isaac Hecker. There are many Jewish synagogues and temples.
Hotels.—The principal hotels, clubs and theatres of New York City have steadily been making their way up-town. Both hotels and clubs had their origin in the taverns of the 17th and 18th centuries, such as Fraunces’s Tavern, on the corner of Pearl and Broad Streets, built in 1719, used as a residence of the De Lancey family, sold in 1762 to Samuel Fraunces (Washington’s steward after 1789), who opened it as the Queen’s Head or Queen Charlotte, used for a time (1768) as the meeting-place of the Chamber of Commerce, and the scene, in its assembly room, of Washington’s farewell to his officers in 1783; it was restored in 1907 by the New York State Society of The Sons of the Revolution, which owns the building. There are now few first-class hotels in the down-town district, the Astor House being the principal exception to the rule that the hotel district is bounded by 23rd and 59th Streets, and by Fourth and Seventh Avenues. With the rapid increase in the value of New York City real estate many apartment-hotels have been built, especially on the upper west side. The most widely-known restaurants are Delmonico’s and Sherry’s, both at Fifth Avenue and 44th Street.
Clubs.—The clubs of New York are even more important to the social life than those of London, and most of them are splendidly housed and appointed. The oldest of the social clubs is the Union Club, organized in 1836. The Union League Club (organized 1863, incorporated 1865) was formed by members of the U.S. Sanitary Commission, and is the club of the leaders of the Republican party in the city. The Democratic organizations corresponding to it are the Manhattan Club (organized 1865, reorganized in 1877), and the Democratic Club, more closely allied with the local organization of Tammany Hall. The Metropolitan Club was formed in 1891 by members of the Union Club, with which the Calumet Club (1879) also is closely connected. The Knickerbocker Club was founded in 1871 by descendants of early settlers; and the St Nicholas Club by descendants of residents of the city or state before 1785. The University Club (1865, for college graduates only) has one of the handsomest club-houses in the world. Among the special clubs chiefly for writers, artists, actors and musicians, are the Century Association (1847, membership originally limited to 100, devoted to the advancement of art and literature); the Lotos Club (1870, composed of journalists, artists, musicians, actors and “amateurs” of literature, science and fine arts); the Salmagundi Club (1871, artists); the Lambs’ Club (1874, “for the social intercourse of members of the dramatic and musical professions with men of the world”); the Players’ (1887, actors and authors, artists and musicians), whose building was the gift of Edwin Booth, its founder and first president; the Grolier Club (1884, bibliophiles); the Cosmos Club (1885, members must have read von Humboldt’s Cosmos); and the New York Press Club (1872, journalists). The Sorosis (1868) is a women’s club, largely professional. Other clubs are the New York Bar Association (1870), the Engineers’ Club (1888), the New York Athletic Club (1868), the Racquet and Tennis Club, the New York Yacht Club (1844, incorporated 1865, the custodian of the “America’s” cup): and the Riding Club (1883); the Freundschaft Society (1879) and the Deutscher Verein (1874) for Germans; the Army and Navy Club (1889); several Hebrew clubs, notably the Harmonie and the Progress (1864); the Catholic Club of New York, and the clubs of Harvard (1865), Yale, the University of Pennsylvania, Cornell University and Princeton.
Theatres, &c.—The first dramatic performances[1] in New York City were given in September and December 1732 by a company from London which played at Pearl Street and Maiden Lane; the first playhouse was opened on the 5th of March 1750, but in 1758 became a German Reformed Church; and the second was opened with Rowe’s Jane Shore on the 28th of December 1758, but remained a theatre only a little more than six years. What has been called the first New York theatre, opened on the 7th of December 1767 in John Street near Broadway, was the Royal Theatre during the British occupation in the War of Independence, and was destroyed in 1798. In that year was built on Park Row the Park Theatre (burnt 1820; rebuilt 1821; burnt 1848) in which George Frederick Cooke (1810), James W. Wallack (1818) and Junius Brutus Booth (1821) made their American débuts, in which Edmund Kean, Charles Kean, Fanny Kemble and Edwin Forrest played, and in which Il Barbiere di Siviglia, the first Italian opera given in the United States, was rendered in 1825, and the first ballet was danced by Fanny Ellsler in 1840, Rivals of the Park Theatre were: the Chatham Garden and Theatre in 1823–1831, and later the Bowery Theatre (opened in 1826; burnt in 1828, 1836, 1838 and 1845; named the Thalia in 1879, when it became a German theatre; and since 1892 Yiddish). Among famous theatres of the 19th century the following may be mentioned: Niblo’s Garden (built in 1829; burned in 1846; rebuilt in 1849; destroyed in 1895) was long owned by A. T. Stewart, and after 1866 was the scene of many spectacular shows. Palme’s Opera House (1844–1857) was the home first of Italian opera and after 1848, under the management of William E. Burton (1802–1860), of comedy. In Mechanics’ Hall (1847–1868) E. P. Christy’s minstrels, George Christy’s minstrels and the Bryant Brothers appeared. The Astor Place Opera House (on the present site of the Mercantile Library; 1847–1854) is best known because of the riot at Macready’s appearance on the 19th of May 1849, in which many were killed by the police and militia. Tripler Hall (1850–1867) was built for Jenny Lind’s début but not completed in time. Here Rachel played in
- ↑ See T. Allston Brown, A History of the New York Stage (3 vols., New York, 1903).
