Lights and Shadows of New York Life

J >> James D. McCabe >> Lights and Shadows of New York Life

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In this way all alarms are sent, first to the central office, and thence
to the various engine-houses. The alarm from the central office is
struck on a large gong placed in a conspicuous part of the engine-room of
every engine or hook and ladder company. The locality, and often the
precise site of the fire can be ascertained by means of these signals.
For instance, the bell strikes 157 thus: _one_--a pause--_five_--another
pause--_seven_. The indicator will show that this alarm-box is at the
corner of the Bowery and Grand street. The fire is either at this point
or within its immediate neighborhood. The signals are repeated on all
the bells in the fire-towers of the city, and the citizens, by consulting
their printed indicators, can inform themselves of the location of the
fire. On an alarm of fire about one-sixth of the whole force goes to the
place of danger. If the alarm be repeated the number is increased by
another sixth, and so on until the necessary force is obtained. Each
company is restricted to certain portions of the city, so that there is
no confusion in sending out the proper force.

As soon as the sharp strokes of the gong give the signal of danger, and
point out the locality, every man springs to his post. The horses are
attached in a few seconds, the fire is lighted in the furnace, and the
steamer and hose carriage start for the scene of action. The foreman
runs on foot, ahead of his steamer, to clear the way, and the driver may
keep up with him, but is not allowed to pass him. Only the engineer, his
assistant, and the stoker are allowed to ride on the engine. The rest of
the company go on foot. Fast driving is severely punished, and racing is
absolutely prohibited. The men are required to be quiet and orderly in
their deportment in going to and returning from fires. The engines have
the right of way in all the streets. This is well understood, and it is
astonishing to see the rapidity with which a route is cleared for them
through the most crowded streets.

Upon reaching the fire, communication is made between the plug or hydrant
and the engine, and the work begins. The chief engineer is required to
attend all fires, and all orders proceed from him. The most rigid
discipline is preserved, and the work goes on with a rapidity and
precision which are in striking contrast to the noise and inefficiency of
the old system.

A force of policemen is at once sent to a fire. They stretch ropes
across the streets at proper distances from the burning buildings, and no
one but the members of the Fire Department is allowed to pass these
barriers. In this way the firemen have room for the performance of their
duties, lookers-on are kept at a safe distance, and the movable property
in the burning house is saved from thieves. Merchants and others have
frequently given grateful testimony to the protection afforded their
property by the firemen. Upon one occasion the members of the department
had complete possession for several hours of every part of the building
containing the immense and valuable stock of jewelry of Messrs. Tiffany &
Co. This firm made a public declaration that after a rigid investigation
they had not missed a penny's worth of their property, and gratefully
acknowledged the protection afforded them. Under the old system Messrs.
Tiffany & Co. would have been ruined.

[Picture: A FIRE IN NEW YORK.]

The life of a fireman is very arduous and dangerous, but the applicants
for vacancies in the department are numerous. The men are often called
upon not only to face great personal danger, but they are also subjected
to a severe physical strain from the loss of rest, and fatigue.
Sometimes they will be called out and worked hard every night in the
week, and all the while they are required to be as prompt and active as
though they had never lost a night's rest. They are constantly
performing deeds of heroism, which pass unnoticed in the bustle and whirl
of the busy life around them, but which are treasured up in the grateful
heart of some mother, wife, or parent, whose loved ones owe their lives
to the fireman's gallantry.

During the recent visit to New York of the Prince Alexis of Russia, a
pleasing instance of the efficiency of the department was given. The
Prince had just reviewed a detachment of the department, and had returned
to his hotel (the Clarendon), in Fourth avenue, just out of Union Square.
One of the Fire Commissioners proposed to him to test the efficiency of
the force he had just inspected, and accompanied him to the alarm box at
the corner of Fourth avenue and Seventeenth street, about half a block
from the hotel. The box being opened, the Prince gave the signal, and
immediately returned to his hotel. Before he had reached the balcony,
the sharp clatter of wheels was heard in the distance, and in a few
seconds several steamers clashed up, "breathing fire and smoke," followed
by a hook and ladder detachment and the Insurance Patrol. Within three
minutes after the alarm had been sounded, two streams were thrown on the
Everett House, and within five minutes ladders were raised to the hotel
windows, and the men were on the roofs of the adjoining buildings.

Thanks to the model department, New York feels a security from fires
unknown until now. The hopes of the friends of the new system have been
more than realized. The fire statistics speak more eloquently than words
could, and they show a steady decrease of the loss by fire. In 1866,
there were 796 fires, involving a loss of $6,428,000; in 1867, the number
of fires was 873, and the loss $5,711,000; in 1868, the fires were 740 in
number, and the loss was $4,342,371; and in 1869 there were 850 fires,
with a loss of $2,626,393. In the last mentioned year, only 43 out of
the 850 fires were communicated to the adjoining buildings, a fact which
speaks volumes for the exertions of the department.

The Headquarters of the department are located at 127 Mercer street, in a
handsome building known as Fireman's Hall. Here are the offices of the
Commissioners, the Chief Engineer, Secretary, Medical officer, Telegraph
Bureau, Bureau of Combustible materials, and Fireman's Lyceum. The
Lyceum contains a library of over 4000 volumes, and a collection of
engravings, documents, and relics relating to the old Fire Department.
All fines exacted of firemen, and those imposed on citizens for violating
the ordinances relating to hatchways and kerosene lamps, are paid into
the treasury of the "Fire Department Relief Fund," for the maintenance of
the widows and orphans of firemen.

XXXI. THE BUSINESS OF NEW YORK.

New York is the commercial metropolis of the Union. Its local trade is
immense, but its foreign trade and its trade with the rest of the country
are much greater. The port is the American terminus of nearly all the
steamship lines plying between the United States and foreign countries.
About two-thirds of all the imports of the United States arrive in New
York, and about forty per cent. of all the exports of the country are
shipped from the same point. In 1870, the total imports amounted to
$315,200,022. The Customs duties on these amounted to $135,310,995. The
imports are given at their foreign cost in gold, and freight and duty are
not included in this estimate. The exports for the same year (including
$58,191,475 in specie) were worth $254,137,208. The total of imports and
exports for that year was $569,337,230, the value of the foreign trade of
New York.

The domestic trade is also immense. During the year 1864 some of the
receipts of the port were as follows:

Barrels of wheat flour 3,967,717
Bushels of wheat 13,453,135
" oats 12,952,238
" corn 7,164,895
Packages of pork 332,454
" beef 209,664
" cut meats 268,417
" butter 551,153
" cheese 756,872
Tierces and barrels of lard 186,000
Kegs of lard 16,104
Barrels of whiskey 289,481
" petroleum 775,587

New York has many advantages over its rivals. Merchants find a better
and a more extensive and varied market, and as they like to combine
pleasure with business, find more attractions here than elsewhere. New
York is emphatically a great city, and it is entirely free from
provincialisms of any kind. The narrow notions of smaller places are
quickly replaced here with metropolitan and cosmopolitan ideas, tastes
and habits. Moreover, the city is the chief centre of wealth, of art, of
talent, and of luxury. These things are too firmly secured to be taken
away, and strangers must come here to enjoy them. Merchants from other
States and cities like the liberal and enterprising spirit which
characterizes the dealings of the New York merchants. They can buy here
on better terms than elsewhere, and their relations with the merchants of
this city are generally satisfactory and pleasant. Besides this, they
find their visits here of real benefit to them in their own callings.
The energy, or to use an American term, "the push" of New York
exhilarates them, and shows them how easily difficulties, which in less
enterprising places seem insurmountable, may be overcome. They go back
home braced up to their work, and filled with new and larger ideas.

Between ten and fifteen millions of strangers annually visit New York for
business and pleasure. All spend large sums of money during their stay,
and a very large part of this finds its way into the pockets of the
retail dealers of the city. The hotels, boarding houses, restaurants,
livery stables, and places of amusement reap large profits from these
visitors. Indeed, the whole city is benefited to a very great extent by
them, and it thus enjoys a decided advantage over all its rivals.

Everything here gives way to business. The changes in the city are,
perhaps, more strictly due to this than to the increase of the
population. It is a common saying that "business is rapidly coming up
town." Private neighborhoods disappear every year, and long lines of
substantial and elegant warehouses take the places of the comfortable
mansions of other days. The lower part of the city is taken up almost
exclusively by wholesale and commission houses, and manufactories. The
retail men and small dealers are being constantly forced higher up town.
A few years ago the section of the city lying between Fourth and
Twenty-third streets was almost exclusively a private quarter. Now it is
being rapidly invaded by business houses. Broadway has scarcely a
residence below the Park. The lower part of Fifth avenue is being
swiftly converted into a region of stores and hotels, and residents are
being steadily driven out of Washington and Union Squares. Even Madison
Square is beginning to feel the change. But a few years ago it was
regarded as the highest point that New York would ever reach in its
upward growth.

Enterprise, talent, and energy are indispensable to any one who wishes to
succeed in business in New York. Fortunes can he made legitimately here
quicker than in many other places, but the worker must have patience.
Fortune comes slowly everywhere if honestly sought. There is also
another quality indispensable to a genuine success. It is honesty and
integrity. Sharp practices abound in the city, but those who use them
find their road a hard one. No man can acquire a good and steady
credit--which credit is of more service to him here than in almost any
other place in the world--without establishing a reputation for rigid
integrity. The merchants of the city are keen judges of character, and
they have no patience with sharpers. They will deal with them only on a
strictly cash basis.

The city abounds in instances of the success which has attended honest,
patient, and intelligent efforts. John Jacob Astor was a poor butcher's
son. Cornelius Vanderbilt was a boatman. Daniel Drew was a drover. The
Harpers and Appletons were printers' apprentices. A. T. Stewart was an
humble, struggling shopkeeper. A well-known financier began by blacking
a pair of boots. Opportunities as good as these men ever had are
occurring every day. Those who are competent to seize them may do so,
and rise to fortune and position.

Many of the colossal fortunes of the city have been created by the rise
in the value of real estate. The rapid growth of the city during the
past twelve years has greatly increased the value of property in the
upper sections. Many persons who but a few years ago were owners of
tracts which were simply burdensome by reason of the numerous and heavy
assessments upon them, and for which no purchasers could be found, have
become very wealthy by the rapid increase in the value of their property.
Many persons owning property of this kind sold at a heavy advance during
the real estate speculations that succeeded the war. Others leased their
lands to parties wishing to build on them. Others still hold on for
further improvement. The Astors, A. T. Stewart, Vanderbilt and others
have made a large share of their money by their investments in real
estate.

A farm near the Central Park, which could not find a purchaser in 1862,
when it was offered at a few thousand dollars, sold in 1868 in building
lots for almost as many millions.

In 1860 a gentleman purchased a handsome house in a fashionable
neighborhood. It was a corner house and fronted on Fifth avenue. He
paid $50,000 for it, and spent $25,000 more in fitting up and furnishing
it. His friends shook their heads at his extravagance. Since then he
has resided in the house, and each year his property has increased in
value. In 1869 he was offered nearly $300,000 dollars for the house and
furniture, but refused to sell at this price, believing that he would be
able in a few years to command a still larger sum.

XXXII. THE SABBATH IN NEW YORK.

On Sunday morning New York puts on its holiday dress. The stores are
closed, the streets have a deserted aspect, for the crowds of vehicles,
animals and human beings that fill them on other days are absent. There
are no signs of trade anywhere except in the Bowery and Chatham street.
The city has an appearance of cleanliness and quietness pleasant to
behold. The wharves are hushed and still, and the river and bay lie calm
and bright in the light of the Sabbath sun. One misses the stages from
Broadway, and a stranger at once credits the coachmen with a greater
regard for the day than their brothers of the street cars. The fact is,
however, that Jehu of the stagecoach rests on the Sabbath because his
business would be unprofitable on that day. The people who patronize him
in the week have no use for him on Sunday. The horse-cars make their
trips as in the week. They are a necessity in so large a city. The
distances one is compelled to pass over here, even on Sunday, are too
great to be traversed on foot.

Towards ten o'clock the streets begin to fill up with churchgoers. The
cars are crowded, and handsome carriages dash by conveying their owners
to their places of worship. The uptown churches are the most
fashionable, and are the best attended, but all the sacred edifices are
well filled on Sunday morning. New York compromises with its conscience
by a scrupulous attendance upon morning worship, and reserves the rest of
the day for its own convenience. The up-town churches all strive to get
in, or as near as possible to, the Fifth avenue. One reason for this is,
doubtless, the desire that all well-to-do New Yorkers have to participate
in the after-church promenade. The churches close their services near
about the same hour, and then each pours its throng of fashionably
dressed people into the avenue. The congregations of distant churches
all find their way to the avenue, and for about an hour after church the
splendid street presents a very attractive spectacle. The toilettes of
the ladies show well here, and it is a pleasant place to meet one's
acquaintances.

The majority of New Yorkers dine at one o'clock on Sunday, the object
being to allow the servants the afternoon for themselves. After dinner
your New Yorker, male or female, thinks of enjoyment. If the weather is
fair the fashionables promenade the Fifth and Madison avenues, or drive
in the park. The working classes fill the street-cars, and throng the
Central Park. In the summer whole families of laboring people go to the
park early in the morning, taking a lunch with them, and there spend the
entire day. In the skating season the lakes are thronged with skaters.
The church bells ring out mournfully towards three o'clock, but few
persons answer the call. The afternoon congregations are wofully thin.

In the mild season, the adjacent rivers and the harbor are thronged with
pleasure boats filled with excursionists, and the various horse and steam
railway lines leading from the city to the sea-shore are well patronized.

Broadway wears a silent and deserted aspect all day long, but towards
sunset the Bowery brightens up wonderfully, and after nightfall the
street is ablaze with a thousand gaslights. The low class theatres and
places of amusement in that thoroughfare are opened towards dark, and
then vice reigns triumphant in the Bowery. The Bowery beer-gardens do a
good business. The most of them are provided with orchestras or huge
orchestrions, and these play music from the ritual of the Roman Catholic
Church.

Until very recently the bar-rooms were closed from midnight on Saturday
until midnight on Sunday, and during that period the sale of intoxicating
liquors was prohibited. Now all this is changed. The bar-rooms do a
good business on Sunday, and especially on Sunday night. The Monday
morning papers tell a fearful tale of crimes committed on the holy day.
Assaults, fights, murders, robberies, and minor offences are reported in
considerable numbers. Drunkenness is very common, and the Monday Police
Courts have plenty of work to do.

At night the churches are better attended than in the afternoon, but not
as well as in the morning.

Sunday concerts, given at first-class places of amusement, are now quite
common. The music consists of masses, and other sacred airs, varied with
selections from popular operas. The performers are famous throughout the
country for their musical skill, and the audiences are large and
fashionable. No one seems to think it sinful thus to desecrate the
Lord's Day; and it must be confessed that these concerts are the least
objectionable Sunday amusements known to our people.

It must not be supposed that the dissipation of which we have spoken is
confined exclusively to the rougher class. Old and young men of
respectable position participate in it as well. Some are never called on
to answer for it, others get into trouble with the police authorities.
One reason for this dissipation is plain. People are so much engrossed
in the pursuit of wealth that they really have no leisure time in the
week. They must take Sunday for relaxation and recreation, and they
grudge the few hours in the morning that decency requires them to pass in
church.

XXXIII. THE POST-OFFICE

I. INTERNAL ARRANGEMENTS.

Strange to say, the great metropolis, in which the largest postal
business in the country is transacted, has never had a building for a
Post-office, which was erected for that purpose. It has been compelled
to put up with any temporary accommodation that could be obtained, and
for many years past its Post-office has been simply a disgrace to the
nation.

In the days of the Dutch, letters were brought over from Europe by the
shipmasters and delivered to some coffee house keeper, who took charge of
them until the persons to whom they were addressed could call for them.
This custom was continued under the English until 1686, when the
authorities required that all ship letters should be placed in charge of
the Collector of the Port. In 1692, the city authorities established a
Post-office, and in 1710, the Postmaster-General of Great Britain removed
the headquarters of the postal service of the Colonies from Philadelphia
to New York. The first city Post-office was located in Broadway opposite
Beaver street. About the year 1804, the Post-office was removed to No.
29 William street, corner of Garden street, now Exchange Place, where it
remained until 1825, when the Government leased the "Academy building" in
Garden street, now Exchange Place, and opened it as a Post-office. In
1827, the office was transferred to the basement of the Merchants'
Exchange, the site now occupied by the Custom House. Wall street was
then just undergoing the change from private residences to bankers' and
brokers' offices. The Merchants' Exchange was destroyed in the great
fire of 1835, and the next day a Post-office was extemporized in a brick
building in Pine, near Nassau street, and shortly after was transferred
to the Rotunda, in the City Hall Park, which had been offered to the
Government by the municipal authorities. The Rotunda, however, proved
too small for the business of the department, which had been greatly
increased by the establishment of lines of railways and steamboats
between New York and the various parts of the country, and in 1845 the
Post-office was removed to the Middle Dutch Church, in Nassau street,
between Pine and Cedar streets, its present location, which was purchased
by the Government for the sum of $350,000.

[Picture: THE OLD POST-OFFICE.]

This building has always been entirely unsuited to the needs of a
Post-office for such a city as New York. It was dedicated in 1732, and
was used for worship by one of the Dutch congregations of the city. In
1776, the British having occupied the city, it was converted into a
prison by the conquerors for the incarceration of their rebellious
captives. It was subsequently used by them as a riding school for the
instruction of cavalry. After the British evacuated the city, the
congregation reoccupied it, and refitted it for religious worship. After
paying for it the large sum mentioned above, the Government was compelled
to make a further expenditure of $80,000, to fit it up for its new uses.
Since then many changes, some involving a heavy outlay, have been made in
the building, but even now it is not capable of meeting the demands upon
it, and the Government is now engaged in the erection of a new building
expressly designed for a Post-office.

The Pine street front is devoted to the reception and departure of the
mails. The street is generally filled with wagons bearing the mystic
words, "U.S. Mail." Some are single-horse vehicles, used for carrying
the bags between the main office and the numerous stations scattered
through the city; others are immense wagons, drawn by four and six
horses, and carrying several tons of matter at a time. These are used
for the great Eastern, Western, and Southern, and the Foreign Mails. The
Pine street doors present a busy sight at all hours, and the duties of
the men employed there are not light. Huge sacks from all parts of the
world are arriving nearly every hour, and immense piles of similar sacks
are dispatched with the regularity of clockwork.

The body of the building, by which is meant the old church room itself,
is used for opening and making up the mails. This work is carried on on
the main floor, and in the heavy, old-fashioned gallery which runs around
three of the sides. Huge semi-circular forms are scattered about the
floor, each divided into a number of open squares. From each of these
squares hangs a mail bag, each square being marked with the name of the
city or town to which the bag is to be sent. A clerk stands within the
curve of the form, before a table filled with letters and papers, and
tosses them one by one into the squares to which they belong. This is
done with the utmost rapidity, and long practice has made the clerk so
proficient that he never misses the proper square. The stamping of the
office mark and cancelling of the postage stamps on letters to be sent
away is incessant, and the room resounds with the heavy thud of the
stamp. This is no slight work, as the clerks who perform it can testify.
The upper floor is devoted to the use of the Post-Master and his
Assistants, the Superintendent of the City Delivery, and the Money Order
and Registered Letter Offices. A wooden corridor has been built along
the side of the church along Nassau and Cedar streets, and here, on the
street floor, are the box and general deliveries, and the stamp windows.
This is the public portion of the office, and is always thronged.

The visitor will notice, in various parts of this corridor, the slides
for the depositing of letters and papers intended for the mails. The
accumulation of mail matter here is so great that it is necessary that
letters designed for a certain part of the country should be deposited in
one particular place. Letters for New England must be placed in a
certain box, those for the Middle States in another, those for the
Southern States in another, those for the West in another. The names of
the States are painted conspicuously above each box, so that there may be
no mistake on the part of strangers. Letters for the principal countries
of Europe and Asia are posted in the same way. Newspapers and
periodicals have a separate department. The mails of these journals are
made up in the office of publication, according to certain instructions
furnished by the Postmaster, and go to the Post-office properly assorted
for distribution. This system of depositing mail matter saves an immense
amount of labor on the part of the clerks, and also hastens the departure
of the mails from the office.