1847 -- A City-wide referendum calls for a
Free Academy that in 1866 is to become the City College of New York . It is first
housed in a building at 17 Lexington Avenue, and staffed with a president and 5 faculty members who
offered a pre-freshman year and fours years of liberal arts instruction. It conferred its first
degree in 1853.
1848 -- John Jacob Astor dies as the richest man in the country, having
accumulated his fortune estimated at around $20M, through fur
trading, shipping and Manhattan real estate. Also in this year the "Boss," William Marcy Tweed
finds his way into New York City politics, and within a few years becomes first a City alderman
and then a U.S. Congressman. By 1863 he fortifies his position as grand sachem of Tammany,
and set offs an era of unimaginable corruption in the City.
1849 -- At the Astor Place Opera House on May 10th, where the English actor
William Macready was performing Shakespeare's
Macbeth, a riot broke out between rival fans of Macready and supporters of American
actor Edwin Forrest.
1850 -- Jenny Lind, "the Swedish Nightingale," arrives in New York and performs
at Castle Garden under a contract with P.T.
Barnum. By mid-century, also, the Population of the City has
increased to more than half a million
people, almost doubling the figure of the year 1800.
1851 -- New York City's Bryant Park is the location of the first American
World's Fair, featuring the spectacular Crystal Palace
(completed 2 years earlier), a domed exhibition hall in the shape of a Greek cross constructed of
cast- iron and glass. Reputed to be a fireproof structure, just 5
years later the Palace goes up in
blaze of flames and burns to the ground.
1854 -- The Astor Library is opened on Lafayette Street. housing donations of
notable private collections. When at the turn of
the next century the new, Carnegie-endowed Public Library is built on 42nd Street, the Astor Library book
collections are forwarded to that building, and the Astor building
is used as a holding depot for
Jewish immigrants to the Lower East Side of the City. In the
1960s this building became a public
theater under the direction of Joseph Papp.
1855 -- As thousands of immigrants continue to a pour into the City's ports,
Castle Clinton is transformed from a theater into an
immigration center. Although Ellis Island, which is about a mile out
at sea in New York Harbor from the
Battery, was acquired by the federal government in 1808, it was used for many years as a powder magazine,
and only since 1891 has it served as the chief immigration station of the nation. Also in
this year, Women's Hospital is opened; established by women it is dedicated to serving women in
pregnancy and suffering from women's diseases. And the poet, Walt Whitman, self-publishes his
collection of poems entitled Leaves of Grass.1857 -- Mayor Fernando Woods' Municipals, the City's indigenous police force,
fight it out with the newly created Metropolitans formed at the
State level, in order to break Woods' iron grip over the City. An ignominious clash takes place at
City Hall, with neither group clearly emerging as the victor. It is only the State court that
finally convinces Woods to finally back down.
1858 -- The competition to design Central Park on some 843 acres
purchased by the City north of residential neighborhoods is won by
Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux. Soon thereafter an
army of ten thousand workers begins shifting and moving land,
carving away from here and bolstering there. The entire project took
about 20years to complete.
Also in this year, the Nantucket Quaker, ex-whaler and land speculator,
Rowland Hussey Macy opens a small
store at the junction of 6th Avenue and 14th Street, selling fancy
finishing and trimmings for ladies
clothing. Through a policy of heavy advertising, fixed prices and no
credit, by 1869 he expands his store into into 12 distinct departments, and by 1877
into 22. It is not
until 1902, however, that Macy's store is
moved into larger quarters at Broadway and 34th Street. Macy's
modest operation is destined to become the
largest department store in the world.
1859 -- Cooper Union is opened for the advancement of science and art
by Peter Cooper, the American inventor of the first
locomotive (called Tom Thumb) and manufacturer of Bessemer-processed steel beams for fire-retardant buildings. Cooper, who unsuccessfully sought the American
presidency at age 86 as a candidate of the
Greenback Party, desired to make higher education available to the working class, and thus
his private school was endowed and tuition-free for talented workers. Situated at 41 Astor Place,
Cooper Union initially offered degrees in engineering, architecture and art, but has since absorbed the
Female School of Design and now offers a more traditional curriculum.
1860 -- In February, 1500 people gather in the Great Hall at Cooper Union to
hear Abraham Lincoln deliver a campaign speech for
Republican presidential nomination, and Lincoln unhesitatingly addresses
the subject of slavery. In
November of 1860 Lincoln is elected President of the United States.
1861 -- Mayor Fernando suggest to the City Council that New York City
secede from New York State in order to protect the City's
$200M- per-annum cotton trade with the South and placate cotton merchants and shipping
interests. The Council refuses to entertain his suggestion.
When Civil War breaks out on April 12,
there is a mammoth rally at Union Square and City all bedecked in red, white and blue pledges
loyalty to the Union.
1862 -- The ironclad Monitor is launched on January 30 from Greenpoint,
Brooklyn under Lieutenant John Lorimer Worden and meets
the Confederates' Merrimac (it had been renamed Virginia) on March 9, 1862 at Hampton
Roads. Neither vessel is able to injure the other and they fight to thus halting the hitherto
considerable destruction wrought by the Southern on Northern shipping.
1863 -- On July 13, riots break out in New York City due in part an
inequitable draft wherein the rich are able to buy their way out
of conscription for the paltry sum of $300. Other issues, however, are simmering as well, such as
poverty, unemployment, racial hatred and inability of the City to quickly assimilate and
accommodate an overwhelming amount of of immigration in the prior decade. It has been estimated that some
50,000 to 70,000 people participated in the riots, most of whom were Irish (the largest
immigrant group at that point in the City's history). The
riots raged for four days, and destruction was
wholesale -- drafts offices were torched, business and homes were wrecked, policemen were
attacked and killed and Blacks were lynched. The Colored Orphan Asylum was burned to the
ground. In order to quell the riots, which in due course were officially recorded as a
federal insurrection, Lincoln had to bring in 10,000 soldiers from
Gettysburg. These troops occupied the City
for the remainder of the summer.
1864 -- Stephen Foster, the songwriter and composer of "Old Folks at
Home ("Swanee River")," "Oh, Susannah," and several other beloved
American songs, dies in Bellevue Hospital as an impecunious man just a few days after writing "Beautiful
Dreamer."
1865 -- The Civil war ends on April 9, and New York City bursts out in
celebrations punctuated by cannon fire. When within a week
the surprising news of of President Lincoln's assassination reaches
the City, it plunges into mourning.
President Lincoln's funeral cortege arrives in April 24, and about
half a million mourners lined the City's to
gape and show their sorrow.
1866 -- Cholera returns to the City, raising the level of New Yorkers it
has carried away in the past few decades to more than
10,000. In response, the City creates the first Municipal Board of
Health in the country and vests
it with extensive powers.
1867 -- Prospect Park opens in Brooklyn, after a long delay caused by the
Civil War. Also designed by Frederick Law Olmsted and
Calvert Vaux, this 526-acre park is brought to completion in just 10 years. Also in
this year, the first cable-car line on elevated steel girders is
demonstrated by Charles T. Harvey. It
makes a quarter of a mile run along Greenwich Street.
1869 -- On Black Friday, September 24, the stock market collapses,
businesses fold one after another, and myriads of individuals are
ruined as the country enters a severe depression. The event
was apparently spurred by a group
of speculators headed by robber barons Jay Gould and James Fisk, when they tried to enlist the
support of Federal officials in an attempt to corner the gold market. Also in 1869, the American Museum of
Natural History opens its doors to the public. At first housed in the arsenal in Central Park, it
moves to its present location on Central Park West and 79th Street in 1877. One of the
largest of its kind in the world, the American Museum contains in its
buildings and exhibits some 30 million artifacts and items, as well as the
Hayden Planetarium with a magnificent laser-beam caster..
1870 -- A pneumatic subway, invented by Alfred Ely Beach , co-publisher of
the New York Sun, is tested on 100 yards of track in a
tunnel below Broadway, between Warren and Murray Streets. Boss Tweed, however, is
invested in other forms of transportation, and therefore development of this fan-blown project and a
real subway is quashed and delayed for coming decades.
1871 -- Boss Tweed is arrested due to an extraordinary cost overrun for
the County Courthouse, now sometimes called "the
Tweed Courthouse." The project which was originally estimated
at $250,000 eventually
tallied up to $13,000,000, most of which went into the pocket of Tweed and his cronies. The
Courthouse was eventually finished in 1878. Also in 1871, Grand
Central Depot opens. Financed
with the capital of Commodore Cornelius Vanderbilt, the Victorian building
on 42nd Street and 4th
Avenue is the terminus of the New York Central, New York and Harlem, and New York and New
Haven railroads. When the tracks that ran up the center of 4th
Avenue to 96th Street are covered some years later, 4th Avenue is renamed -- Park Avenue.
(By this time the Commodore already owns all the incoming-railraods
to the Ctiy.)
The
old Grand Central Depot
was eventually razed and, then, replaced in 1913 with a
beaux-arts-style building which is still in use
today. Yet another financial event occurred this year, when J. P.
Morgan organized a new banking
house, Drexel, Morgan and Co.
Also in this year the Salmagundi Club is founded at 87 Fifth Fifth
Avenue in a home that was built for Irad Hawley, president of the Pennsylvania
Coal Company. Finally in1871, the Central Park Carousel is installed for
the pleasure of children and adults alike. (The original carousel was
replaced in 1968, after a
fire, with a another carousel from Coney Island.) The power source
for the first Central Park
carousel was is mule situated in a basement below the carousel's platform.
1872 -- Victoria Woodhull becomes the first American woman to run for
president. She is backed by Vanderbilt money
and a small fortune made in her own Wall Street brokerage firm, the first ever
operated by a woman. On Christmas Eve, a
great fire ravages P. T. Barnum's circus, menagerie and museum, quartered
for the winter in the Hippotheatron on 14th Street. Only one camel
and two elephants escape with their lives.
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