The Panic of 1907

There was an excellent article in the New York Times about the closed-door meeting in Washington where Treasuty Secretary Henry Paulson dictated the terms of the government's $250 billion investment in 9 large U.S. banks. Seems that Paulson got them all in the room and told them they weren't leaving until they'd signed the one-page agreement he had drafted.

This brought to mind a famous story about the Panic of 1907--at the time one of the most severe economic panics the nation had ever seen. At that time it wasn't the government that Wall Street turned to for a bailout, it was J. Pierpont Morgan, whose famous "House of Morgan" stood opposite the New York Stock Exchange. (The building, still there, is now part of a condo development.)

When the Knickerbocker Trust Company failed in October 1907, Morgan was able to prop up the floundering stock exchange by getting banks to promise $25 million dollars to infuse the market with liquidity. However, a number of other small banks and trusts were on the verge of collapse and Morgan knew there'd be more market uncertainty without a stronger course of action. On the night of November 2, 1907, he invited the leaders of the city's big banks to his new library. Once there, Morgan locked them inside and wouldn't let them go until 5:00 a.m. the next morning having secured an additional $25 million in investment capital to bolster the failing trust companies.

Morgan, who died six years later, was one of America's largest collectors of rare books and fine art. The library--the original section of which was designed by noted Beaux-Arts architect Charles Follen McKim--is now the Morgan Library & Museum, one of New York's finest small museums.

More information about Morgan, his library, and the Panic of 1907 can be found in Inside the Apple. Pre-order you copy today!

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Christopher Columbus in New York City

Monday, October 14, marks the 74th year that Christopher Columbus' "discovery" of America has been celebrated as a national holiday. In New York City, celebrations date back to at least 1792, the 300th anniversary of Columbus' voyage, but didn't really start in earnest until the first waves of Italian immigrants began arriving in the years around the Civil War.

In 1892, the 400th anniversary, New York City went all out in its Columbus celebrations. Three separate statues were planned for Central Park and--since there was already one in the park, donated by a private individual--this would have meant a total of four Columbus monuments in the park alone. In the end, we only have two Columbus commemorations: one in the middle of Columbus Circle (donated by the Italian-American community) and one on the Mall, put up under the auspices of the New York Genealogical and Biographical Society (NYG&B).

Each is worth a visit. The Italian Columbus stands on a 70-foot pillar in the midst of the traffic circle where 59th Street intersects Broadway and Central Park West. It is sculpted of marble by Gaetano Russo and the base is inset with bas relief images of Columbus' first landing.

To reach the other Columbus, enter the park here and walk north on the West Drive (the ring road) to Tavern on the Green/Sheep Meadow. Turn right and walk east along the bottom of Sheep Meadow; when you get to the other side, follow the path as it curves to the left (don't re-cross the ring road) and you'll get to base of the park's formal promenade, known as the Mall. There you'll find the other Columbus. 

This work, often known as "the Spanish Columbus," is by Jeronimo Sunol, a Spanish artist who had already created a similar sculpture in Barcelona. The statue's champion was James Grant Wilson, a Civil War veteran, New York City historian, Central Park lover, and all-around civic-minded citizen. Through the NYG&B, Wilson raised the funds to place this statue in the park, probably as a counterbalance to the Italian piece in Columbus Circle. With so many Italians immigrating to the United States in the late 19th century, it is likely that the subtext of any so-called "Spanish Columbus" was that it was, in fact, a "non-Italian Columbus."

Meanwhile, the Spanish government was interested in commemorating the explorer with its own statue, but plans fell through and it was never built.

Lastly, there was the privately donated piece. It was sculpted by Emma Stebbins--best known for the park's Angel of the Waters--and ended up living for years in a tavern that once stood in the park near the 102nd Street transverse. Stebbins' Columbus later traveled down to Columbus Park in Chinatown and now stands in Cadman Plaza in front of the Brooklyn Supreme Court building. (To visit, take the 2, 3, 4, or 5 subway to Borough Hall. The Columbus Statue is directly in front of the main Supreme Court entrance.)

Much more about Columbus and his appearances in NYC history, art, and architecture can be found in Inside the Apple.

Happy Columbus Day!

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New York's Lost Ballparks

With the end of the season for both the New York Yankees and the Mets, both Yankee Stadium and Shea Stadium are coming down.

This is, of course, not the first time New York has lost classic stadiums. On tours of Harlem and Brooklyn Heights, baseball fans often ask us about the fate of Ebbets Field--home of the Brooklyn Dodgers--and the Polo Grounds, once home to the baseball's Giants and Yankees as well as football's Giants and Jets.

As the name suggest, the Polo Grounds were originally built for polo matches, though other sports were played there too. The original stadium was on 110th Street, just north of Central Park and it was the first home of the New York Gothams, who soon changed their name to the Giants. In the 1890s, the Giants moved to a new stadium on Coogan's Bluff at the terminus of the 9th Avenue Elevated Railroad and a year later into the stadium next door that had once belonged to the short-lived rival Players' League. Expanded after a fire in 1911, it was this stadium that remained the Polo Grounds until 1964.

The Polo Grounds was home to one of baseball's most famous games; on October 3, 1951, the Giants won the National League pennant with Bobby Thomson's "Shot Heard 'Round the World," a home run off the Brooklyn Dodgers' Ralph Branca, launching them into the World Series (which they subsequently lost to the Yankees).

The Yankees played at the Polo Grounds from 1913 to 1922 and it was home to the NFL Giants from 1925 to 1955. The New York Jets and the New York Mets were the stadium's last occupants. Both played there until Shea Stadium opened in 1964. The Polo Grounds were demolished that year and a public housing project built in there place. A sign hangs on the wall of one of the buildings in the housing project where home plate once stood.

Ebbets Field suffered as similar fate. The stadium was built in the Flatbush neighborhood in Brooklyn in 1913 to be home to the Brooklyn Dodgers, then owned by Charles Ebbets. It was here Jackie Robinson broke the color line when he joined the team in 1947.

However, in the 1950s the team's owner, Walter O'Malley, began putting intense pressure on the city to build the ball club a new, improved stadium. When New York balked at O'Malley's demands, the Dodgers followed through on what many had considered an empty threat and moved the team to Los Angeles in 1957. That same year, the Giants left the Polo Grounds for San Francisco, suddenly taking New York from being a city of three world-class baseball teams to a city with just the Yankees. Many in Brooklyn have never forgiven O'Malley--or the team--for their desertion.

In 1960, Ebbets Field was demolished and, like the Polo Grounds, was replaced by public housing. The housing project, originally called the Ebbets Field Houses, was renamed the Jackie Robinson Apartments in 1970s.

The New York Times Great Children's Read

On Sunday, October 5, the New York Times is once again hosting its "Great Children's Read" on the campus of Columbia University.

This all-day event features celebrities (well, mostly demi-celebrities) reading from a slew of great children's books set in New York City. A full schedule is available on their site, but one highlight will be the well-eyebrowed George Whipple reading oneof James's all time-favorite kids books: The House on East 88th Street.

Also appearing will be They Might Be Giants, whose most recent children's album is Here Come the 123s.

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"Super City: New York" on the History Channel

On Monday, September 22, at 9:00pm (and repeated later in the week), the History Channel is showing a special called Super City: New York. It's been a little tough finding out information, but the blurb states (with some touch-and-go grammar) that the show:

"Peeling back layers of time shows Manhattan Island as it looked when it was discovered by Henry Hudson in 1609, then examines how people and nature have changed the landscape and speculates on the city's future."

We are intrigued.

UPDATE

Now that we've seen the show both in September and its recent December re-airing, we thought a little review was in order.

According to the show, to be a "Super City," a place must be "a marvel of engineering, infrastructure, and commerce." New York is certainly all those things, though the program gave pretty short shrift to the commercial aspects of the Big Apple.  (Perhaps they are saving that for the sequel.)

At two hours, the special seemed to drag a little--especially during the sections about skyscraper building, which didn't seem to offer anything new. But on the whole, this is an enjoyable foray into the city's natural history and its incredible infrastructure.

Some interesting tidbits we gleaned:

• When most of the world's landmass was just one continent, dinosaurs walked from New Jersey to Africa, and the Jersey side of the Hudson is teeming with dinosaur footprints.
  
  
• The palisades are the edge of a lake that formed when Africa ripped away from North America.
  
  
• A beaver pond once stood in the area that is now Times Square. (This, and many other good facts, are courtesy of Eric Sanderson and the Mannahatta Project at the Wildlife Conservation Society.)
  
  
• Rebuen Rose-Redwood, a geographer at Texas A&M and an expert on the 1811 survey that mapped Manhattan's grid, has found at least one original survey pin in Central Park. (We are going to search for the pin when the weather gets warmer and--if feasible--add it to one of our tours.)
  
  You can also read this article about Rose-Redwood and how his discovery of the pin was recreated for the TV cameras.
  
  
• A 55-mile long pneumatic tube system that once delivered 200,000 pieces of mail per hour between the post office and downtown office buildings.
  
  

Many of these aspects of New York's history, including the city's geology, geography, and infrastracture, all appear in  our book, Inside the Apple, which is coming out in March. To pre-order a copy at Amazon, follow this link -- or go to our home page to find other online merchants.

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Whales in New York - Past and Present

As was heavily reported this week in the local news (see the Times, Post, and US News & World Report), the waters just outside New York harbor are teeming with whales.

Scientists, led by Dr. Christopher Clark, director of bioacoustics research at Cornell's ornithology lab, placed a series of underwater microphones in the waters surrounding New York, thinking that they would find evidence of a few migratory whales. Instead, they found hundreds, including right whales, humpbacks, blue whales, and minke whales.

In its earliest years, New York City was well known for its whale population. In March 1647, Adriaen van der Donck, New Amsterdam's resident lawyer (and the man whose farm gave rise to the city of Yonkers), reported that he'd seen several whales swim all the way up the Hudson River to Troy, New York (almost 160 miles from the harbor). There the poor creatures beached themselves. This made the Hudson "oily for three weeks" and produced a stench that could be smelled for miles.

In 1697, Trinity Church, Wall Street, received its official royal charter, which gave it title not only to a significant amount of land in Lower Manhattan, but also to the profit from any whales or shipwrecks along the banks of the Hudson. As the charter noted, the church was permitted to:

"seize upon and secure all Weifts Wrecks Drift Whales and whatsoever else Drives from the high sea and is then  lost below high water mark and not having a lawful Owner within bounds and limits of his Majesties Province of New York."

After securing the whales, the parish could then

"tow [them] ashore and then to cutt up the said Whales and try into Oyle and secure the Whalebone [to sell to raise cash for] the building of the Church aforesaid and to no other use whatsoever until the same be perfectly finished."

Anyone have any idea what a "weift" is?

You can read more about the building of the first Trinity Church and about Adriaen van der Donck in Inside the Apple.

The Subway That Never Reached Williamsburg

The Times FYI column posted a question we've always wanted to ask:

Q. Most subway stops’ names use only the street number (42nd Street, for example). How come West Fourth Street and a few stops in the Bronx (like East 180th Street and East 149th Street) are given an east/west distinction?

A. Mainly to avoid confusion.

Herb Schonhaut, manager in New York City Transit’s Office of Station Signage, said the Fourth Street station uses the word “West” to distinguish it from the planned but unbuilt “South” Fourth Street Station in Williamsburg, Brooklyn.

Now, that's the kind of answer that raises more questions--such as, what South Fourth Street Station?

Luckily, the folks over at the Waterfront Preservation Alliance of Greenpoint and Williamsburg have all the answers in an excellent blog post today, which details the IND Second System that was to have opened in the 1930s.

The first New York City subway, the IRT (Interborough Rapid Transit) opened in 1904 with a line that ran from City Hall to 42nd Street (today's No. 6 train), across 42nd Street to Times Square (now the Shuttle), and up the West Side along Broadway (now the No. 1 train). More on the subway and its impact in the shaping the city can be found, as always, in Inside the Apple, due out in early March 2009.

Photo by Pro-Zak on Flickr.

Yes, Virginia...

The New York Sun has been in the news a lot recently; editor Seth Lipsky announced at the beginning of the month that the paper would cease operations at the end of September unless new investors could be found.

However, Lipsky's current incarnation of the Sun has only been published since 2002. The original sun, which published from 1833 to 1950, was famous for many things, but none more than the editorial that ran 111 years ago this week under the headline: "Is There a Santa Claus?"

The editorial was prompted by a letter from eight-year-old Virginia O'Hanlon, who wrote:

DEAR EDITOR: I am 8 years old. Some of my little friends say there is no Santa Claus. Papa says, "If you see it in THE SUN it's so." Please tell me the truth; is there a Santa Claus?

The unsigned response (written by the Sun's Francis Pharcellus Church), has become the most reprinted newspaper editorial of all time. It is almost universally known by the opening of its second paragraph, "Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus." (And, thus, is perhaps wisely not known by its opening sentence: "Virginia, your little friends are wrong.")

In it, Church admonished Virginia's little friends and urges her to not to fall into the trap of being a skeptic in a skeptical world. On the editorial's centennial in 1997, the New York Times printed a nice summary of its influence over the years and its importance when it was first printed.

(The former home of the Sun, on Broadway and Chambers Street in Lower Manhattan, was originally built to be a department store run by mogul A.T. Stewart. Stewart's rise--and the bizarre circumstances surrounding his burial--are covered in our book, Inside the Apple.)

Sandhogs

The History Channel has launched a new documentary series called Sandhogs, which premiered last Sunday. As the first episode rightly pointed out, New York is literally built on the foundation laid by these workers: our power and telecommunications grid, subway system, water tunnels, and bridges are all thanks to their hard work.

We're not sure how well this series will sustain its narrative arc after the first episode, but it's worth checking out nonetheless. They are re-showing the first episode a couple of times tonight, or you can just pick it up on Sunday with the second episode.

(The Croton Aqueduct system, a major component of the show, is one of the many topics in Inside the Apple.)

New York's many 9/11 anniversaries: the Staten Island Peace Conference

As we approach the seventh anniversary of the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center, it can be easy to forget that long before 9/11, the date September 11 held an important place in New York City's history.

Probably the most important event is September 11, 1609, when Henry Hudson began his voyage up the Hudson River. While he didn't find what he was looking for (a northwest passage), his exploration led to European migration and, thus, to the founding of New York City. We'll write more about Hudson and his momentous voyage in later posts; this week, we thought we'd concentrate on 9/11/1776 and the Staten Island Peace Conference.

In late August 1776, the first pitched battle of the war--then known as the Battle of Long Island and now mostly known as the Battle of Brooklyn--had taken place. It was a decisive victory for the British under General William Howe. Indeed, if Howe hadn't held back, it could have been a war-ending victory for the British troops. However, the British didn't press their advantage and George Washington was able to evacuate thousands of American troops to Manhattan under the cover of thick fog.

Howe's brother, Admiral Lord Richard Howe, was in charge of the British navy and it was put to him to approach the rebellious American about a peace accord. The British wanted to give the Americans one last chance to come back into the fold as loyal colonists before, presumably, taking harsher measures.

The conference was held on the south shore of Staten Island in a house owned by Colonel Christopher Billopp, a Loyalist. The Americans sent a delegation of three from Philadelphia: Edward Rutledge from South Carolina, the youngest signer of the Declaration of Independence; John Adams of Massachusetts; and elder statesman Benjamin Franklin. 

The meeting lasted less than three hours and accomplished nothing. Howe was shocked that the three Americans rejected out of hand the idea of rejoining the mother country. More to the point, he had no authority to negotiate. For Adams and Rutledge, the diplomatic show must have seemed a waste of time. When Howe told Adams he thought of him as a "gentleman of influence," Adams retorted that Howe could "consider me in what light you please... except as a British subject."

The Billopp house, today known as the Conference House, is open April through mid-December on Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays. More information about visiting can be found at http://www.theconferencehouse.org.

(More information on Henry Hudson and the Battle Brooklyn can be found in our forthcoming book, Inside the Apple.)