arts (in Philadelphia 41%; in Chicago 35%; in Boston 32%).
In 1661 the population of Manhattan Island was about 1000.
In 1700 it was probably about 5000, the Dutch and English
being about equally divided, and there being a few French,
Swedes and Jews. In 1732 the population was 8624. During
the War of Independence the city lost heavily; but the recovery
at the close of the war was rapid, and although the population
probably fell during the war from 20,000 to 10,000, in 1790 it
was 33,131, then first being greater than that of Boston. From
60,515 in 1800 the population increased to 123,706 in 1820;
to 312,710 in 1840; to 813,669 in 1860 and to 1,206,299 in
1880. This rapid growth, the large part which immigration
plays in the growth, the marked falling-off in the character
of the immigrants, and the fact that it is usually the weaker and
less enterprising immigrant who stays in New York while the
more capable go West—all these circumstances combine to
make a serious social problem. The low scale of living of this
poorer class operates with the peculiar physical character of the
city, especially on the lower East Side, where so many of the
more recent immigrants live, to make the question of housing
difficult. In Manhattan and the Bronx 66·7% of the population
in 1890 and 72·6% in 1900 lived in dwellings in which the
minimum number of dwellers was 21; for the whole city in
1900 the percentage was 54·4, the corresponding percentage
for Chicago in 1900 was 17·9. For the entire Borough of Manhattan
the average density was 149·0 inhabitants per acre;
but in the Eighth Assembly District (98 acres; on the lower
East Side, bounded S.E. by Henry Street, E. by Clinton Street,
N. by Stanton Street, and W. by Chrystie Street), in which
more than two-thirds of the population is foreign-born, the
density in 1900 was 735·9 per acre, and in 1905 727·9 per acre.
In twelve tenement blocks in Manhattan in 1905 the density
was over 1000 per acre, the maximum being 1458 per acre in a
block bounded by Cherry, Jefferson, Monroe and Rutgers Streets.
A Citizens’ Association with a “council of hygiene and public
health” in 1865 employed sanitary experts to investigate the
city’s tenements. In 1879 a prize offered for the best plans for
tenements was unfortunately awarded to the so-called “dumb
bell” tenement, in which the court for air-space gives little air
or light, and many of these tenements, which, however, were
a great improvement on the older types, were built. In 1902
the further building of “dumb bell” tenements was forbidden
and a new Tenement House Commission was appointed. Model
apartments have been built: in 1855 by the Workmen’s Home
Association, organized by the Association for Improving the
Condition of the Poor; by the Improved Dwellings Company
of Brooklyn and the Improved Dwellings Association of Manhattan
(1879); by the City and Suburban Homes Company
(1896); and by some individuals. The city is comparatively
healthy; for the five years 1901–1905 the average death rate
was 18·99 per thousand for the entire city, 20·96 for the Borough
of the Bronx, 18·64 for the Borough of Brooklyn, 19·49 for the
Borough of Manhattan, 16·12 for the Borough of Queens and
18·98 for the Borough of Richmond.
Communications.—The physical limitations of Manhattan Island and particularly the circumstance that the business area of the city is small and that the movement of passengers is almost entirely in one direction at any one time, have hindered the development of a simple and adequate system of local communications. Between Manhattan and Long Island there were in 1910 four bridges, three of them completed in the decade immediately before 1910, three of them to Brooklyn (q.v.) and one to Long Island City; the New York and Brooklyn Bridge (1872–1883), with a Manhattan terminus at Park Row, and the Williamsburg Bridge (1897–1903) from Clinton and Delancey Streets, Manhattan, to South 5th and 6th Streets, Brooklyn, are suspension bridges; for a technical description of them see Bridges, vol. iv. pp. 537-538. The Manhattan Bridge (1901–1909) is a wire cable suspension bridge situated between the two just mentioned; its Manhattan terminal is at Canal Street and the Bowery, and its Brooklyn terminal is at Nassau Street. It is the largest of all suspension bridges with a total roadway length of 6855 ft. (Manhattan approach 2067 ft.; Brooklyn approach 1868 ft.; two land spans of 725 ft.; river span 1470 ft.) and a width of 122·5 ft. It has a double deck, the lower for two surface car tracks and a wagon way, and the upper for footways and four elevated railway tracks. The Queensboro Bridge (1901–1909) is a cantilever from Second Avenue, between 59th and 60th Streets, Manhattan, to Long Island City, with sustaining towers on Blackwell’s Island. Its total length, including a plaza in Queens 1152 ft. long, is 8601 ft. (Manhattan approach 1052 ft.; Queens approach 2672·5 ft.; west channel span 1182 ft.; island span 630 ft.; east channel span 984 ft.) and its width is 89·5 ft. over all, the roadway being 53 ft. and the two sidewalks each 16 ft. All of these bridges are crossed by electric cars, and on the bridges to Brooklyn there run surface cars and elevated trains. In 1909 an average of 4249 trolley cars and 3988 elevated cars crossed the Brooklyn Bridge every week day; for the Williamsburg Bridge the corresponding averages were 4473 trolley cars and 918 elevated train cars. The Harlem river is crossed by about a dozen bridges, including High Bridge, which carries the city aqueduct. The ferries to Brooklyn are less important than in the days when there was only one bridge and no subway connexion between Manhattan and Brooklyn; the opening of the Pennsylvania-Long Island railway tube in 1910 in the same way made the ferry from 34th Street, Manhattan, to Long Island City comparatively unimportant; and the Pennsylvania and the Hudson river subways have to some degree taken the place of ferryboats on the North river for passenger traffic between Manhattan and railways in New Jersey. Between Manhattan and the various islands (to North Brother Island from E. 16th; to Ward’s Island from E. 116th; to Randall’s Island from E. 125th and E. 120th) of the river and bay including Staten Island the only means of transportation is still by. ferryboats; the ferry line to Staten Island is owned and operated by the municipality. In Manhattan the first advance made on the horse car—which was still used to some extent in 1910, especially on streets along the water front—was the elevated railway; on great iron trestles of varying heights the first of these railways was built in 1867–1872 on New Church Street, West Broadway and Ninth Avenue, from the Battery to 59th Street; in 1878 a line was built on Sixth Avenue, branching off on 53rd Street to Ninth Avenue, and on 110th Street to Eighth Avenue and running on Eighth Avenue to the Harlem river (155th Street), a distance of 1034 m.; soon afterwards the Second and Third Avenue lines were built from the Brooklyn Bridge to the Harlem river, and the line now extends to Fordham (190th Street), a distance of 13 m. In 1902 the motive power of these elevated trains was changed from steam to electricity. In 1886 a cable car line was opened, the cars being operated by a clutch (or “grip”) seizing a moving endless cable in a slot beneath the road bed; but in 1898 the “underground trolley” system began to be substituted. Outside Manhattan the overhead trolley is prevalent. In 1900–1904 another era in “rapid transit” in New York was begun: in the latter year was opened the Broadway subway with electric trains from the City Hall, along Broadway (above 42nd Street) to Kingsbridge (230th Street) and by a branch line, turning to the E. from 104th street and running, above 110th Street, on Lenox Avenue to the Harlem river and then through the Bronx to West Farms (180th Street) at the S.E. entrance to Bronx Park. In 1901–1906 the subway was continued to South Ferry and was carried under the East river to the junction of Atlantic and Flatbush Avenues in Brooklyn. The construction company received a fifty years’ franchise for the operation of this subway. In 1908–1909 two more underground lines were opened connecting Manhattan with Hoboken (the terminus of the Delaware, Lackawanna & Western) and Jersey City (the terminus of the Erie, the Pennsylvania and the Central of New Jersey railways) by tubes under the North river; one of these extends up Sixth Avenue to 33rd Street, near the new terminal of the Pennsylvania railway, from which by 1910 tubes had been carried immediately E. and under the East river to Long Island and immediately W. to the New Jersey side. The municipality in 1910 contracted for the construction in Manhattan of lines on Broadway and Lexington Avenue and on Canal Street across town and for the continuation in Brooklyn of the subway to Coney Island and Fort Hamilton.
The opening of the Erie Canal made the city the gateway for communication by water from the Atlantic Ocean to the interior of the continent,[1] and when the great railway lines were built westward it became the chief railway terminal on the Atlantic coast. Water communication up the Hudson river and through the canal is still of great importance. The New York Central & Hudson river and West Shore railways follow closely this water route to Buffalo. The Erie, the Lehigh Valley, the Pennsylvania and the Delaware, Lackawanna & Western railways reach Buffalo by routes across New Jersey, Pennsylvania and western New York. The New York, New Haven & Hartford railway affords communication with New England; and the Pennsylvania and the Baltimore & Ohio railways, with the middle western and south-eastern parts of the country. The Central Railroad of New Jersey and the Long Island railway (belonging to the Pennsylvania) are more local. The New York Central & Hudson river and the New York, New Haven & Hartford railways have a terminal in the borough of Manhattan, and the Pennsylvania has a terminal there also, since 1910, with tunnels to Long Island and New
- ↑ Between 1840 and 1858 the tonnage cleared at New York nearly quadrupled, the increase being from 408,768 to 1,460,998; at the close of the period of the predominance of the canal as a freight carrier, in the decade 1850–1860, New York City had, thanks to the Erie Canal and the canals of Ohio, a monopoly of the trade of the upper Mississippi basin.
