Altitude, 17.06 at Customhouse, Manhattan, and 409 at Todt Hill, Richmond; pop. 7,380,259; boroughs—Manhattan, Brooklyn, the Bronx, Queens, Richmond (Staten Island); area 322.83 sq. m.; settled 1625, incorporated 1653; government—mayor, city council, board of estimate, borough presidents, and numerous boards, commissions, and agencies.
Street Order and Numbering: While the other boroughs are a maze of streets, in Manhattan, except for the southern and, in part, the northern tips, the streets are laid out on a gridiron pattern, making it by far the easiest of the boroughs in which to get around. Avenues run north and south, streets east and west. Up to 138th St., where Fifth Ave. ends, the buildings on the cross streets are numbered east and west of Fifth Ave., and the street names are prefixed E. and W. accordingly. The section east of Fifth Ave. is popularly referred to as the ‘east side,’ that west of the same avenue as the ‘west side.’ In Manhattan, all north of 138th St. is west. The addresses of avenue buildings are numbered south to north.
‘Uptown’ and ‘downtown,’ popular directional expressions, are relative terms: traveling south from any point is to travel downtown, and north from any point uptown. By and large, however, the downtown district is below 14th St. Occasionally ‘midtown’ is used to designate the area embraced by Seventh and Lexington Aves. and 34th and 57th Sts. ‘Cross-town’ is from east to west and vice versa.
Railroad Stations: Grand Central Terminal, Park Ave. and 42d St., serving New York Central System and New York, New Haven & Hartford R.R.; Pennsylvania Station, Seventh Ave. between 31st and 33d Sts., serving Pennsylvania R.R. and Long Island R.R. Other terminals in Hoboken, Jersey City, and Weehawken, N.J., reached by ferry or motor coach. City ticket offices at 17 John St., 4 W.33d St., and 3W.47th St.
Bus Stations: Capitol Greyhound Terminal, 245 W.50th St.; Dixie Bus Center, 241 W. 42d St.; Consolidated Bus Terminal, 203 W.41st St.; Gray Line Terminal, 59 W.36th St.; Hotel Astor Bus Terminal, 220 W.45th St.; Midtown Bus Terminal, 143 W.43d St.; All-American Bus Depot, 246 W.42d St.; Pennsylvania Motor Coach Terminal, 242 W.34th St. (All to be moved outside midtown section.)
Airports: La Guardia Field, Queens; Floyd Bennett Field, Brooklyn; Roosevelt Field, Mineola, Long Island.
Airlines Office: Union Airways Terminal, Park Ave. at 42d St., a central agency for tickets for all U.S. airlines.
Taxicabs: Basic meter rate 20¢ for the first quarter mile or any fraction thereof, 5¢ for each additional quarter mile. For articles left in taxicabs, call at Police Dept. Hack Bureau, 156 Greenwich St., Manhattan.
Public Transit Systems: The public transit systems, all owned by the city, converge on lower Manhattan. Both the IRT (Interborough Rapid Transit Corp.) and BMT (Brooklyn-Manhattan Transit Corp.) subway lines cross Times Square; the Eighth Ave. line (Independent City-Owned Rapid Transit R.R.) has an important station one block west at Eighth Avenue and 42nd Street. From Times Square the BMT runs uptown as far as 59th St., turns northeast to 60th St., then dips beneath the East River to Queens. The downtown segment of this line follows the course of Broadway and eventually emerges in Brooklyn to serve chiefly the lower part of that borough. At Union Square the 14th St., or Canarsie, spur of the BMT crosses, on its way from Eighth Ave. to Canarsie, Jamaica, and other points. The IRT has West side (Broadway-Seventh Ave.) and East side (Lexington Ave.) main lines, which serve commuters as far north as Van Cortlandt Park and the Bronx; both these lines also run downtown and into Brooklyn. A ‘shuttle’ links Times Square with Grand Central Terminal (42nd St. and Park Ave.). From Times Square a spur breaks off east to serve Queens. The Eighth Ave. (Independent) Subway serves Eighth Ave., Central Park West to the northern tip of Manhattan, the Bronx, and part of Brooklyn. A branch line runs east on 53rd St. to Jamaica. Each subway car has an easily read road map showing the routes of its system, and all stations bear signs distinguishing local from express and uptown from downtown platforms.
The East side is served by the Third and Second Ave. elevated (‘el’) lines, the West side by the Ninth Ave. line. These north-south lines served Manhattan points east and west of the subways. Much of the cross-town traffic is handled by bus service. (The elevated lines are [1940] rapidly being demolished.)
As Manhattan is an island, a heavy traffic is carried by ferries, bridges, and tunnels. Fifteen bridges and 16 tunnels radiate from Manhattan. The Hudson Tubes system (Hudson & Manhattan R.R.) operates between Manhattan and Hoboken, Jersey City, and Newark, N.J.
Accommodations: Hotels and apartments to suit every purse; largest hotels concentrated in midtown area from 24th to 59th Sts., between Eighth and Lexington Aves. (Consult New York Hotel Assn., 221 W.57th St., for full information.) Thousands of restaurants; foreign restaurants listed separately in classified telephone directory.
Information Service: New York City Information Center, Pershing Square at 42nd St. (panorama map of Manhattan); police information booth, Times Sq., at 43rd St. and Broadway; American Automobile Assn., Pennsylvania Hotel, Seventh Ave. at 33rd St.; New York Convention and Visitors’ Bureau, 233 Broadway; Esso and Socony-Vacuum Touring Services, RCA Building, Rockefeller Center; YMCA headquarters, 420 Lexington Ave.; YWCA Central Branch Information Desk, 610 Lexington Ave. (for addresses of ‘Y’ branches consult telephone directory); Hotel Assn. of New York City, 221 W. 57th St.; Daily News Information Bureau, 220 E.42nd St.; U.S. Travel Bureau, 45 Broadway.
Radio Stations: National Broadcasting Co.—WEAF (660 kc.), WJZ (760 kc.); Columbia Broadcasting System—WABC (860 kc.); WNYC (810 kc.); WQXR (1550 kc.); WEVD (1300 kc.); WMCA (570 kc.); WHN (1010 kc.); WBIL (1100 kc.); WBNX (1350 kc.); WOV (1130 kc.); WINS (1180 kc.); WNEW (1250 kc.); WFAB (1300 kc.); WBBR (1300 kc.).
Theaters: Mainly in the Times Square district, west of Broadway.
Night Clubs: Mainly from 42nd to 53rd Sts., between Eighth and Fifth Aves.; E.50’s; Harlem.
Public Beaches: Brighton Beach, Brooklyn; Coney Island, Brooklyn; Jacob Riis Park, Queens; Manhattan Beach, Brooklyn; Midland Beach, Staten Island; Orchard Beach, Pelham Bay Park, Bronx; Rockaway Beach, Queens; South Beach, Staten Island.
Steamships: In normal times all the large transatlantic liners may be visited when in port. Consult shipping news columns in newspapers for dates of arrival and departure. Apply at piers for passes. Adm. 10¢–50¢.
Concerts: (Outdoor) New York Philharmonic Orchestra, Lewisohn Stadium, Amsterdam Ave. and 138th St., June–Aug. Goldman Band Concerts: June–Aug.; Sun., Mon., Wed., Fri. on the Mall, Central Park; Tues., Thurs., Sat., Prospect Park, Brooklyn. (Indoor) Brooklyn Academy of Music, 30 Lafayette Ave., Brooklyn, Oct.–Apr.; Brooklyn Museum, Eastern Parkway and Washington Ave., Brooklyn, all year; McMillin Academic Theater (Columbia University), Broadway and 116th St., Oct.–Apr.; Metropolitan Museum of Art, Fifth Ave. at 82nd St., symphony concerts, Sats. in Jan. and Mar.; Steinway Concert Hall, 113 W.57th St., Sept.–Apr. and scattered evenings throughout May and June; Washington Irving High School, Irving Place and 16th St., Oct.–Apr. WPA concerts throughout the city all year round.
Opera: (Indoor) Metropolitan Opera House, Broadway and 39th St., Nov.–Mar.; Hippodrome, 6th Ave. and 43rd St., Nov.–Mar. (Outdoor) Jones Beach Stadium, Jones Beach, Long Island, July–Sept.; Triborough Stadium, Randall’s Island, July–Sept.
Annual Events: Jan., no fixed date, American Water Color Society exhibition, Motor Boat Show; Feb. 12, Lincoln’s Birthday ceremonies; Feb. 22, Washington’s Birthday exercises, including Sons of the Revolution church service; Feb., Six-Day Bike Race, Sportsmen’s Show; Mar. 17, St. Patrick’s Day exercises, including Fifth Ave. parade; Mar., Golden Gloves Boxing Tournament, International Flower Show; Apr. 6, Army Day exercises, including Fifth Ave. parade; Apr. 26, Grant’s Birthday exercises, including services at Tomb on Riverside Drive; Apr., Circus at Madison Square Garden, Rainbow Division Ball; May 1, May Day parade by labor organizations; May 30, Memorial Day exercises; June 14, Flag Day exercises, including Statute of Liberty celebration and Sons of the Revolution parade; July 4, Fourth of July exercises; July, Athletic Carnival at Randall’s Island Stadium; Aug., swimming contests at Palisades Park; Sept., no fixed date, National Electrical and Radio Exposition, Outdoor Art Exhibition in Washington Sq., Camera Art Exhibition at Rockefeller Center, Mardi Gras at Coney Island; Oct. 12, Columbus Day exercises, including meeting at Columbus Circle; Oct., no fixed date, Drug Trade Exposition, National Hotel Exposition, National Business Show, Rodeo at Madison Square Garden; Nov. 10, American Legion Victory Ball; Nov. 11, Armistice Day exercises, including Mass at St. Patrick’s Cathedral; Nov., Automobile Show, National Horse Show; Dec., International Ski Meet at Madison Square Garden, Chemical Industries Show at Grand Central Palace.
No attempt can be made in this space to give more than an outline view of New York City. The subject is treated more comprehensively in New York Panorama and New York City Guide of the American Guide Series.
The average New Yorker, conditioned to crowds, speed, Wall Street, even violent death, takes his city for granted. The visitor approaching the city sees spread before him one of the most congested habitations of men on earth, the lofty towers of Manhattan marking the apex of a vast jungle of structures in which men work, sleep, eat, play. Little more than three centuries has sufficed for the building of this gigantic city. The miracle of its upsurge since the turn of the present century makes it a dynamic expression of American civilization. In that sense New York is America.
Two events were of decisive importance in this development: the opening of the Erie Canal in 1825, and the creation, under State charter, of Greater New York in 1898. The former established the commercial supremacy of New York—a position thenceforth never threatened—over the rival ports of Boston, Philadelphia, and Baltimore, and made the city the great gateway for European immigration. The creation of Greater New York brought into the city’s jurisdiction not only areas as densely settled as lower Brooklyn, but also forests, farms, and marshes—a huge area for further expansion.
Most New Yorkers do not own their own homes; they rent apartments, and move about almost as freely as tent-dwellers. Population shifts in recent years have made Brooklyn the most populous borough, with the Bronx rapidly rising to challenge that primacy. Manhattan—the commercial, industrial, financial, and amusement center—is decreasing in population.
The city is a cluster of ethnic groups. Definite foreign colonies exist, but the lines are constantly shifting; and with the passing of the years, especially since drastic restrictions have been imposed on immigration, many Old World customs have been lost. On the other hand, much that has come to be considered peculiarly American is the direct contribution of these latter-day citizens. The Negroes are in some ways the most American of all.
If blood is to be used as the criterion for classification, there are more Italians in New York City than in Rome, more Irish than in Dublin, more Jews than in any other city in the world. Foreign white residents in the city in 1930 numbered 5,082,025, or 73.3 per cent of the total population. Of these the Italians led with 1,070,355, and were followed by the Russians (mostly Jews) with 945,072, the Germans with 600,084, the Irish with 535,034, the Poles with 458,381, and other groups trailing off into relatively small numbers. There are approximately 2,000,000 Jews in New York; a 1927 estimate gave 1,765,000.
Buying and selling goods remains New York’s largest economic activity. In 1935 the city did a wholesale business of $9,618,000,000, or about 22 per cent of the national total. In the same year its retail sales amounted to $2,847,332,000, or about 8 per cent of the national total. Retail and wholesale establishments, owned by 114,882 individual proprietors and firm members, employed 522,908 persons in 1935, each person earning an annual average of $1,500. Nearly half the retail stores fall under the ‘convenience goods’ category—food, drugs, and so on—and are scattered over the Greater City. The ‘shopping lines’ and ‘luxury goods,’ on the other hand, are concentrated in well-marked districts, the most important of which is the midtown region fed by the city’s two great railroad centers—the Grand Central Terminal and Pennsylvania Station.
Accessibility of capital, raw materials, and specialized machinery, geographical advantages, and concentration of population, including highly skilled workers, have combined to make New York the country’s greatest industrial center. In 1935, the 485,144 workers employed in 26,061 factories were paid $582,298,673 for converting materials (including fuel and power) worth $1,756,473,582 into products valued at $3,666,218,239. The largest industry is the production of clothing and accessories, followed in importance by printing and publishing, and the manufacture of foods, beverages, fur goods, jewelry, metal products, textiles, wood products, chemicals, clay and glass products, paper goods, and tobacco products. Individual manufacturing establishments are relatively small.
Labor unions form an influential element in the city’s industrial life. The strongest are the building trades unions, longshoremen’s and maritime unions, the Amalgamated Clothing Workers Union, the International Ladies Garment Workers Union, the Hotel and Restaurant Workers Union, and the International Fur Workers Union. Since 1923 the Amalgamated has operated a bank which has built apartment houses for its members and frequently made loans to employers in the industry. The Congress of Industrial Organizations, since its inception in 1935, has increased labor consciousness by organizing new industrial unions. One of these is the Transport Workers Union, including subway, elevated, bus, and surface line workers and taxi drivers. White collar unions also have prospered. The passage of the National Labor Relations Act of 1935 was a boon to labor. The American Labor Party, organized in 1936, gave President Roosevelt 238,845 votes in New York City, and in 1938 furnished the deciding votes in the re-election of Governor Herbert H. Lehman.
Exclusive of part-time vocational schools and the education projects of the WPA, the public educational system of New York City conducts 849 day and evening schools serving 1,178,561 pupils and four colleges. Institutions of higher learning include Columbia, New York, and Fordham Universities. The New School for Social Research is primarily an institution of adult education. Cooper Union grants degrees in engineering and also has an art school. Brooklyn Polytechnic Institute is an engineering college. Pratt Institute grants degrees in such fields as engineering and library science and offers technical courses of noncollegiate grade. There are many other denominational colleges and institutions for the study of law, medicine, fine arts, and the social sciences.
New York is one of the greatest centers of museums in the world. Among the best known are the American Museum of Natural History, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Brooklyn Museum, the Washington Heights group, the Museum of Modern Art, and the New York Museum of Science and Industry.
Broadly, for every ill to which man is heir, one or more of the city’s 1,167 social agencies offer aid. Every year 133 hospitals serve about 750,000 in-patients and about 2,000,000 out-patients. Clinics, 1,533 in number, specialize in a wide variety of ailments. In the fields of recreation, education, employment, and related activities, there are approximately 250 organizations.
New York City’s contribution to the growth of the arts in America has been the provision of a market place and a critical audience for the artist’s products. New York is the great center of the Nation’s publishing industry. Relatively few of America’s artists have been New Yorkers, but since the middle of the nineteenth century they have constantly sought out the book and music publishers, the periodicals, the newspapers, the stage, the art galleries, and the studios of Manhattan.
The city’s tempo, its racy vernacular, its endless variety, its wilderness of brick and steel, and its tumultuous humanity have provided a rich reservoir for creative artists. Walt Whitman drew copiously from it. O. Henry chronicled the lives of the little people of Bagdad-on-the-Subway. Stephen Crane, sifting its cruel contrasts through his clear and honest vision, penned Maggie, a Girl of the Streets. Later writers, like John Dos Passos, have attempted to imprison its character within the covers of a book. The Armory Show, held in the city in 1913, still ranks as the most memorable event of the American art world. John Marin in his water colors has caught something of the city’s squalor and grandeur. The multitude and magnitude of its skyscrapers constitute New York City’s one great contribution to architecture. Tin Pan Alley has written down the city’s folk music from minstrelsy through all the variations of jazz.
HARBOR AND RIVERS
The Port of New York, one of the largest in the world, and served by more than 300 motor truck lines and 10 trunkline railroads, embraces the area within a 25-mile radius of the Statue of Liberty with an approximate population of 12,000,000. In this region about 40,000 industrial establishments annually produce goods valued at $8,000,000,000.
The port is fringed by 771 miles of shore line. Along the more than 578 miles within the city limits are 1,800 piers, wharves, and bulkheads. The North (Hudson) River water front of Manhattan, the most intensively developed, is bordered with the piers of the great transatlantic and South American shipping companies.
On the Brooklyn water front are hundreds of large industrial plants, warehouses, and extensive drydocking and ship repair facilities; Bush Terminal is one of the largest docking, storage, and industrial developments in the world. On Staten Island is the only free port zone in the United States.
About 200 vessels nose into the harbor every day. In 1936 the total foreign and domestic water-borne commerce of the Port amounted to 110,697,688 tons valued at $7,864,339,142, of which more than four-fifths was domestic. The chief exports were wheat, flour, hay and feed, oil, kerosene, gasoline, motor vehicles, coal tar products, and copper manufactures, scrap iron, iron, and steel. Chief imports were petroleum, raw sugar, coffee, tea and cocoa, fruits and nuts, crude rubber, gypsum, iron ore, flaxseed, paper products, wood pulp, and bags and bagging.
In an apparent bedlam of intake and discharge, through a tangled skein of courses, the intra-port machinery functions with smoothness and precision. The loading and unloading operations are performed by 35,000 longshoremen; 15,000 men operate the 6,000 barges, scows, lighters, and carfloats of the port; 3,400 men run the railroad marine fleet of 1,600 craft. Private concerns own about 570 tugs. Fifteen thousand workers are employed in ship repairs and shipbuilding.
POINTS OF INTEREST
BEDLOE’S ISLAND: STATUE OF LIBERTY (1886) (open daily, Oct.–May 9–5; during Sept. to 6; during June, July, and Aug. to 7; adm. 10¢; boat from Battery every hour on the hour; half-hour schedule every Sat. and Sun. during summer season; round trip, adults 35¢, children 20¢), was executed by Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi, French sculptor, and presented by the French people to the people of the United States.
ELLIS ISLAND (open 10–11 a.m. and 2–3 p.m., except Sat., Sun., and holidays; pass issued at South Ferry Barge Office for ferry leaving daily at 9:45 a.m. and 1:45 p.m.; phone WHitehall 4–8860 for reservation at least one day in advance) lies about one mile SW. of the Battery in Upper New York Bay. Used by the Dutch as a picnic ground, in the early nineteenth century it was a Government arsenal. Since 1892 it has been an important immigration station.
GOVERNORS ISLAND (from South Ferry Barge Office visitors transported free on Govt. ferryboat at 30-min. intervals, 5:45 a.m.-1 a.m. daily), headquarters of the Second Corps Area, lies about 500 yds. off Battery Park in Upper New York Bay. Troops have left this island for the Seminole Wars, the Mexican War, the Civil War, the Spanish-American War, and the World War.
WELFARE ISLAND (open only to visitors of patients; ferry leaves ft. of E.78th St., Manhattan, at 30-min. intervals, 5¢ each way, passes obtained at ferry; Queensboro Bridge, pedestrian passage to elevators on island) lies in the middle of the East River from 52nd St. to 86th St., Manhattan. Up to 1921 known as Blackwells Island, it was the site of a city penitentiary and workhouse. Today, institutions of public service on the island are the Metropolitan Hospital, the New York City Home for Dependents, the Central Neurological Hospital, the Cancer Institute, the Welfare Hospital for Chronic Diseases, and the New York City Hospital.
BROOKLYN BRIDGE (1883), with Gothic pylons, is considered a masterpiece of design. Until 1903 this was the longest (6,016 feet) suspension bridge in the world. In this bridge John A. Roebling and his son, Washington A. Roebling, introduced several engineering methods that have since been widely employed, one being the use of semiflexible cable rests to allow for expansion and contraction during temperature changes.
TRIBOROUGH BRIDGE (1936), by the Triborough Bridge Authority, the second longest (17,710 feet) in the world, links Manhattan with the Bronx and Queens.
GEORGE WASHINGTON BRIDGE (1931), by O.H. Amman with Cass Gilbert in advisory capacity, links Manhattan with Fort Lee, N.J.; it is the only New York City bridge over the Hudson River.
HOLLAND TUNNEL (1927), twin tubes under the North (Hudson) River, is used by 12,500,000 cars every year.
LINCOLN TUNNEL (1938), is comprised of twin tubes under the North (Hudson) River.
QUEENS MIDTOWN TUNNEL is the only vehicular tube under the East River.
NEW TRANSATLANTIC PIERS, 44th to 57th St., North (Hudson) River: Pier 88 accommodates the Normandie, Pier 90 Queen Mary, Pier 92 giant ships of the Italian Line.
MANHATTAN
For most visitors to New York City, the center of interest is the Borough of Manhattan (pop. 1,871,474), the most explosive center of civilization in the New World. The borough is an island 12½ miles long, shaped like an index finger pointing to the south.
BROADWAY. BMT subway, any station from 42d St. downtown; IRT Broadway-Seventh Ave. subway, any station from 42d St. uptown.
BROADWAY, the longest and most fantastic street in the world, starts its 16-mile journey from the tip of Manhattan as a shipping lane, moves a few blocks north to the Wall Street financial center, passes by the civic buildings of the city, and takes a diagonal course from Union Square through the needle-trades area between 34th and 39th Streets. Between 42d and 53d Streets, Broadway is the Great White Way—renowned as an amusement and theatrical center. From 53rd Street to Columbus Circle it cuts through Automobile Row, center of the auto retail trade. It changes its diagonal course at 79th Street to parallel the island’s high escarpment facing the Hudson River. Here it is lined with hotels, apartment houses, cafeterias, beauty salons, movie houses, and churches. At 114th Street it strikes a new note in the buildings of Columbia University, and another at 155th Street in a group of museums. From this point on it is a nondescript thoroughfare, ending as a semisuburban road as it approaches the city’s limits.
POINTS OF INTEREST
(downtown to uptown)
NEW YORK AQUARIUM (open daily, 9–5 Apr.–Sept., 9–4 Oct.–Mar.; adm. free), in Battery Park, contains the largest collection of marine life in the country.
FRAUNCES TAVERN (open weekdays, adm. free), SE. corner of Pearl and Broad Sts., was built in 1719 as a residence by Etienne de Lancey, wealthy Huguenot. A merchant firm of de Lancey’s grandson remodeled the building for use as a store and warehouse in 1757. It was sold in 1762 to Samuel Fraunces, a West Indian of French and Negro blood, who opened it as the Queen’s Head Tavern. In 1783 George Washington bade farewell to his officers here. It now contains a restaurant frequented by bankers and brokers from the neighborhood.
TRINITY CHURCH (1846) (open daily), facing Wall St. on Broadway, is a Gothic brownstone edifice by Richard Upjohn.
SUB–TREASURY BUILDING (1842), corner of Wall and Nassau Sts., by Ithiel Town and A.J. Davis, is an example of Greek Revival architecture.
THE CITY HALL (1811), in City Hall Park, by Joseph Mangin and John McComb, is reminiscent of a small palace of Louis XVI’s reign.
The WOOLWORTH BUILDING (1913) (tower open 9–6 daily; adm. adults 55¢, children 25¢), Broadway and Park Place, by Cass Gilbert, with Gothic details, is the first of the ‘cathedrals of commerce.’ It is 60 stories high.
BELLEVUE HOSPITAL (1816) (open only to visitors of patients), First Ave., 26th to 30th Sts., is the oldest general hospital on the North American continent.
PENNSYLVANIA STATION (1910), between Seventh and Eighth Aves. from 31st to 33d Sts., by McKim, Mead and White, has a Roman Doric façade. At each end is a clock, with a dial seven feet in diameter, flanked by figures symbolizing Day and Night. The main hall is a copy of a Roman bath; the coffered vault is carried by eight Corinthian columns.
The METROPOLITAN OPERA HOUSE (1883), Broadway at 39th St., is New York’s premier home of grand opera.
MADISON SQUARE GARDEN (1925), Eighth Ave. between 49th and 50th Sts., America’s best known indoor arena, is the scene of the horse show ($315 a box), prize fights, political rallies, Ringling Bros.-Barnum & Bailey circus, hockey, six-day bicycle races, rodeos, trade exhibitions, tennis, and even Paderewski—once.
AMERICAN MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY (1877) (open 10–5 weekdays, 1–5 Sun.; adm. free), Central Park W. and 79th St., is one of the world’s largest institutions devoted to natural science exhibits.
HAYDEN PLANETARIUM (1935) (performances Mon.–Fri. 2, 3:30, and 8:30; Sat. 11 a.m., 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 8:30; Sun. and holidays 2, 3, 4, 5, and 8:30. Adm.: adults, mat. 25¢ and 50¢, eve. 35¢ and 60¢; children 15¢ at all times) is a separate unit in the group of National History Museum buildings, the gift of Charles Hayden. Main attractions are the Hall of the Sun and the Theater of the Sky.
CATHEDRAL OF ST. JOHN THE DIVINE (open daily), Cathedral Parkway (110th St.) to 113th St., Amsterdam Ave. to Morningside Drive, by Heins and La Farge, and Cram and Ferguson, is Romanesque and Gothic. Seven clustered chapels burst into the soaring splendor of the apse. When completed, it will be the largest Gothic cathedral in the world.
COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY (founded 1754 as King’s College), Broadway and W. 116th St., its buildings grouped on Morningside Heights, has 30,000 students and 3,000 teachers.
AMERICAN ACADEMY OF ARTS AND LETTERS, the National Institute of Arts and Letters (open 10–5 weekdays, 2–5 Sun. and holidays, Nov.–May; adm. free), 633 W.155th St., represents the country’s nearest approach to the French Academy. It offers a permanent exhibit of sculpture, paintings, and manuscripts of Academy and Institute members.
The AMERICAN GEOGRAPHICAL SOCIETY (open 9–4:45 weekdays; closed Sat. during summer; adm. free), Broadway and 156th St., has largest collection of geographical publications and maps in the Western Hemisphere.
At the AMERICAN NUMISMATIC SOCIETY (open 2–5 daily except holidays; adm. free), Broadway and 156th St., is a collection of coins and currencies.
HISPANIC SOCIETY OF AMERICA (museum open 10–4:30 weekdays, 1–5 Sun., except Thanksgiving and Christmas Days; library open 1–4:30 Tues.–Sat.; closed during Aug.; adm. free), Broadway and 155th St., is devoted to the study of culture and history of the Spanish and Portuguese peoples; its library has more than 100,000 volumes, and canvases by Velasquez, El Greco, Goya, and others.
The MUSEUM OF THE AMERICAN INDIAN, Heye Foundation (open 2–5 weekdays; closed July and Aug.; adm. free), Broadway and 155th St., the only organization of its kind in the world, contains an extensive collection of items pertaining to primitive Indian culture.
COLUMBIA PRESBYTERIAN MEDICAL CENTER, Broadway to Riverside Drive, 165th–168th Sts., has four major units: Columbia University medical and dental group, Presbyterian Hospital group, Babies’ Hospital of the City of New York, Neurological Institute of New York; the New York State Psychiatric Institute and Hospital is not affiliated, but adjoins the group.
JUMEL MANSION (about 1765) (open 11–5 daily except Mon.; adm. free), in Roger Morris Park, on a cliff above Edgecombe Ave., between 160th and 162nd Sts., was the headquarters of George Washington until his defeat at Fort Washington and the Laurel Hill redoubt. The museum displays relics of Colonial and Revolutionary periods.
THE CLOISTERS (open 10–5 weekdays, 1–6 Sun.; adm. Mon. and Fri. 25¢, other days free), Fort Tryon Park, a branch of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, contains famous collection of medieval architecture, sculptures, and tapestries.
DYCKMAN HOUSE (1783) (open 11–5 daily except Mon.; adm. free), 204th St. and Broadway, is the only eighteenth-century farmhouse on Manhattan. Its museum contains a collection of Dutch and English Colonial furniture and curios.
WALL STREET, IRT Lexington Ave. subway to Wall St. station; IRT Broadway-Seventh Ave. subway to Wall St. station.
WALL STREET, focal point of the financial district, is a gloomy canyon along which multitudes of people scurry during business days; after sundown and on Sundays it is silent and deserted. The traffic of the banks, largest in the country, is staggering; through the New York Clearing House passes an enormous volume of exchange. Private banks bear the renowned names of Morgan, Kuhn, Loeb, Harriman, Belmont. Besides the security exchanges, cocoa from Venezuela and West Africa, hides from the Argentine, coffee from Brazil, sugar from the West Indies, cotton from Texas—all have exchanges here. The telegraph and stock-indicator (‘ticker’) record split-second banking transactions in London, Rome, Paris, Berlin.
CHINATOWN. Second or Third Ave. el to Chatham Sq. station; IRT Lexington Ave. subway to Worth St. station.
CHINATOWN lies west of Chatham Square and the Bowery and extends westward to Mulberry Street between Canal Street on the north and Worth Street on the south. Of the 18,000 Chinese in New York City, only 4,000 live in Chinatown. Despite its reputation, the district is as safe as any other in the city. So few women are seen, it appears to be inhabited by men only—and children. Men stand in little clusters before shop doors, discussing in the native tongue affairs of the moment with inscrutable expressions and in modulated tones, while in the narrow winding streets the children play American games and fling at each other American slang phrases. The shop windows are stacked with Chinese fruits, vegetables grown on Long Island, and strange unfamiliar foodstuffs. Curio shops display in piled-up disorder a variety of bric-a-brac. A movie front offers the prospect of Chinese pictures made in China or San Francisco. The Chinese restaurants are declared by the Board of Health to be among the cleanest in the city. Animosities that once divided the district have given way to unity in the face of the Japanese invasion of China.
LOWER EAST SIDE. IRT Lexington Ave. subway to any station from 14th St. to Worth St.; Eighth Ave. Independent subway, Queens-Church Ave. line, to any station from Second Ave. to E. Broadway; Third or Second Ave. el to any station from 14th St. to Chatham Sq.
The LOWER EAST SIDE stretches along the east of Chinatown, from Brooklyn Bridge to 14th Street. With the Bowery, a battered relic of its early days, the East Side is a notorious slum district. Here are tens of thousands of Jews and Italians, thousands of Poles, Greeks, Russians, Spaniards, Lithuanians, and a scattering of Turks, Persians, and Chinese: a concentrated melting pot of the Nation’s immigrants. The one blatant characteristic common to them all is poverty. Ragged children play ‘potsy’ in the streets. Young mothers with old expressions search for pushcart bargains. Old men in threadbare clothes hobble along the sidewalks. Couples, flashy in cheap finery, dawdle here and there. Against the malodorous streets rise the façades of monotonous unbroken rows of brownstone structures with outside fire escapes and first-floor shops. Clotheslines straddle the huddled roofs. Grimy warehouses and sooty factories add their depressing touch. The average population to the acre for the city’s residential area as a whole is 266; here are acres crammed with 600. The East Side is the birthplace of Alfred E. Smith, Irving Berlin, and others who have risen high in the world.
GREENWICH VILLAGE AND WASHINGTON SQUARE. IRT Broadway-Seventh Ave. subway to Sheridan Sq. and Christopher St. station.
GREENWICH VILLAGE streets, turning abruptly or crossing where they should be parallel, express the antic spirit of the community. For the Village has performed some amazing mental acrobatics. Not for nothing is it called the Latin Quarter, the Bohemia of New York City. Free love, Freudianism, Socialism, imagist poetry, and fads of all shades have waxed and waned here. Today the burden of its incessant talk is economics. The Village retires late, rises late. In eccentric night clubs visited by the curious, it listens to a crapulent poet melodramatically reciting his effusions. Its Main Street, 8th, is a bazaar of art objects and second-hand books, odd tearooms and studios cheek-by-jowl with drug and grocery stores, movie houses, tailor shops. The real-estate boom of the 1920’s, with its intrusion of tall, ostentatious apartment buildings, has added a Midas touch.
WASHINGTON SQUARE, near the center of the Village, is dominated by an arch erected in 1892 in memory of Washington’s inauguration. Washington Square College of New York University is on the east. The old red brick houses on the north were once the homes of the Nation’s social leaders; and No.61, on the south side, has sheltered Theodore Dreiser, Frank Norris, Stephen Crane, John Reed, and Alan Seeger. Today along the tree-shaded walks of the Square stroll residents of the vicinity—the well-to-do of Fifth Avenue, members of the poor Italian section to the southwest, university students, and visitors from far and wide.
UNION SQUARE AND 14TH STREET. BMT, Union Sq. station; IRT Lexington Ave. subway, 14th St. station.
UNION SQUARE is America’s open-air center of radical propaganda, the district of liberal and trade-union ferment. The Socialist Party, the Communist Party, the Rand School of Social Science, the American Civil Liberties Union, and others share it with Tammany Hall. On a day in 1930, 80,000 workers and sympathizers met here to protest against unemployment. In the late night hours, the benches in the Square give rest to the wandering homeless.
Unmindful of the frothy political ripples in the Square itself, waves of bargain-hunters and amusement-seekers billow along FOURTEENTH STREET, the poor man’s street of the city. Fourteenth Street has undergone change after change, each as violent as the other. Laid out in 1811, it soon attracted the prosperous; the theater made it the city’s Rialto until the turn of the century; large retail stores made it the shopping aristocrat of New York. Then exclusive business moved northward and the needle trades took over the square. The old stately buildings disappeared or were broken down into offices and lofts, and even into rooms for rent. Flashy amusement spots, hole-in-the-wall eating places, cheap clothing shops, and cheaper dance halls now give the street its character.
THE GARMENT DISTRICT. IRT Broadway-Seventh Ave. subway and BMT subway, both Times Square station; Eighth Ave. Independent subway, 42d St. station.
The GARMENT DISTRICT, center of New York’s famous garment industry, is set in the very heart of Manhattan, from 30th to 42d Streets between Sixth and Ninth Avenues. To see the district best is to see it at the lunch hour, when the sidewalks become surging masses of humanity spilling over into the streets; ‘pushboys’ maneuver their hand trucks loaded with garments through the crowds; ‘pitchmen’ hawk their gimcracks on the curb. Side streets are blocked by Gargantuan trucks loading and unloading.
The workshops are the lofts clustered about the three tall buildings—themselves garment factories—between 36th and 38th Streets on Seventh Avenue, and from them buyers carry the new styles to all parts of the country. Small production units and an antiquated system of manufacture make for expensive competition and a high percentage of bankruptcies.
TIMES SQUARE. IRT Broadway-Seventh Ave. subway and BMT subway, both Times Square station; Eight Ave. Independent subway, 42d St. station.
The glow in the sky when dusk has fallen is the reflection of TIMES SQUARE, amusement center of the country. At Times Square, Broadway becomes the Great White Way, its night turned into synthetic day by flashing, glittering, multicolored light-pictures advertising the Nation’s products. The scene is cheap and tawdry, yet impressive and stimulating. The ebb and flow of the human tide never ceases here. The Times Square district, embraced by 39th and 57th Streets, from Fifth to Eighth Avenues, abounds in theaters, hotels, movie houses, small shops, lofts, spacious automobile showrooms, night clubs, restaurants, and ‘taxi-dance halls.’ Tin Pan Alley, workshop of the song-makers, jingles here. To the Metropolitan Opera House, Town Hall, and Carnegie Hall on the rim of the district come the great singers, the great solo performers, the great conductors, from everywhere. Its newest attraction is Rockefeller Center. The western section—Radio City—is devoted primarily to entertainment: the RKO Building contains offices, and the adjoining Radio City Music Hall offers stage shows and first-run movies; the National Broadcasting Company’s extension is the home of stations WJZ and WEAF; the Rainbow Room is a swanky night club requiring formal dress; the Rainbow Grill is less formal; the Center Theater has presented spectacular shows.
FIFTH AVENUE, MADISON AVENUE, PARK AVENUE. Fifth Ave. bus; IRT Lexington Ave. subway, any station from 33d St. to 59th St.
After four successive migrations northward, New York’s principal shopping center reached its present location—between 34th and 59th Streets along Fifth and Madison Avenues—in the first decade of the twentieth century. The FIFTH AVENUE segment is called the ‘Magnificent Mile.’ But Fifth Avenue has lost something of its former exclusiveness; even the five-and-ten stores have arrived. Display windows have created a new art, fascinating to hordes of ‘window shoppers.’
The section of MADISON AVENUE above 49th Street has become a smart shopping center, primarily because it lies between Fifth and Park Avenues. The shops here are smaller and more highly personalized in style than those on Fifth Avenue. Farther north are expensive food stores, antique dealers, and interior decorators, most of them in old brownstone buildings. Cafes and bars stud the area.
PARK AVENUE, east of these two shopping thoroughfares, is a street of large and expensive apartment buildings.
The long stretch of Fifth Avenue that faces Central Park from 59th to 110th Streets is called ‘Millionaires’ Row.’ Here, in palaces of limestone, once lived Andrew Carnegie, Senator William A. Clark, Jay Gould, O.H. Havemeyer, John Jacob Astor, Mrs. Hamilton Fish, and others. Banker, broker, successful writer and artist live in the neighborhood; to it have come others seeking a pretentious address. The large apartment buildings extend almost three miles northward. In spite of changes, ‘Millionaires’ Row’ has kept something of its old character and, because of its social traditions, remains New York’s most impressive residential street.
POINTS OF INTEREST
The EMPIRE STATE BUILDING (1931) (tower open 8 a.m.–1 a.m. daily; adm. adults $1.10, children 25¢), Fifth Ave. at 33rd and 34th Sts., by Shreve, Lamb and Harmon, is the tallest building in the world: 1,250 feet. Fifty-mile panorama can be viewed from its tower.
The PIERPONT MORGAN LIBRARY (main building open 11–4 Tues. and Thurs., 10–1 Sat.; annex open 10–5 weekdays; adm. free), 33 E. 36th St., the main building (1913) by McKim, Mead and White; the Annex (1928), at 29 E.36th St., by Benjamin W. Morris. Its exterior is severely formal, its interior sumptuously decorated and ornamented. It contains one of the most extensive private collections in the world: books, furniture, paintings, tapestries, sculptures, etc.
The NEW YORK PUBLIC LIBRARY (1911) (open 9 a.m.-10 p.m. weekdays, 1–10 Sun.), Fifth Ave. and 42nd St., by Carrère and Hastings, is an eclectic building based mainly on classical concepts. This is the central building of the New York Public Library, which includes branches in Manhattan, the Bronx, and Richmond.
GRAND CENTRAL TERMINAL (1913), Park Ave. and 42d St., is by Warren and Wetmore, and Reed and Stem. A feature of the 42nd St. façade is the sculptured group around the clock, by Jules Coutan, French baroque in conception; the three heroic figures represent Mercury, Hercules, and Minerva. The concourse leading from the waiting room is 385 ft. long, 125 ft. wide; the elliptically vaulted ceiling is carried by square piers 125 ft. high.
CHRYSLER BUILDING (1929) (tower open 9–6 daily; adm. adults 55¢, children 25¢), Lexington Ave. and 42d St., by William Van Alen, 1,048 ft. high, has a fantastic metal dome terminating in a spire. The building has a lobby finished in Rouge Flamme marble from Africa.
The NEWS BUILDING (1930) (guided tours at 2, 3, 4, 5, 7:45, and 8:45 daily; reservations in advance; exhibits on main floor open 9 a.m.–10 p.m. daily), 220 E.42d St., by John M. Howells and Raymond Hood, is considered a modern masterpiece. In its main lobby is a revolving terrestrial globe in a well under a faceted dome of black glass; walls carry weather maps and other meteorological items.
ROCKEFELLER CENTER (guided tours: Rockefeller Center, 10–9 daily, adults $1, children 50¢; National Broadcasting Co. studios, exclusive of sponsored broadcasts, 9 a.m.–11 p.m. daily, 55¢; Sky Gardens, 10–5 daily, May–Nov., 50¢. Single adm.: Observation Roof, 10–midnight daily, adults 40¢, children 20¢), between Fifth and Sixth Aves., 48th and 51st Sts., by Reinhard and Hofmeister, Corbett, Harrison and MacMurray, and Hood and Fouilhoux, comprises 14 buildings upsurging from a base of 12 land acres. The RCA Building is the tallest (850 ft., 70 stories) in the group. Four buildings are used as Fifth Ave. showcases for foreign nations: the British Empire Building, La Maison Française, Palazzo d’Italia, and the International Building East. Behind the last two rises the second International Building. The Time and Life Building, the Associated Press Building, and 30 Rockefeller Plaza (RCA Building Tower) surround the Plaza. The Fifth Avenue entrance is the most impressive. The Channel slopes from the avenue down to a flight of steps leading to the Sunken Plaza with series of fountains and other decorations.
NEW YORK MUSEUM OF SCIENCE AND INDUSTRY (open 10–10 daily; adm. adults 25¢, children 10¢; lectures and motion pictures occasionally), RCA Building, Rockefeller Center, presents a behind-the-scenes view of the industrial age—the most extensive, up-to-date exposition of its kind in America. The divisions of the exhibits—food industries, textiles, shelter, power, aviation, highway, railroad and marine transportation, communications, machine tools and electro-technology—contain about 2,500 items.
The MUSEUM OF MODERN ART (open 10–6 weekdays, 12–6 Sun.; adm. 25¢, Sun. 10¢), 11 W.53d St., houses exhibits of modern painting and sculpture.
The WALDORF-ASTORIA HOTEL (1931), Park Ave. at 49th and 50th Sts., by Schultze and Weaver, its chrome-capped twin towers rising 47 stories, is one of the largest and most costly hotels in the world.
ST. PATRICK’S CATHEDRAL (1879) (open daily), Fifth Ave. at 50th and 51st Sts., by James Renwick, is an example of Gothic Revival architecture. Geometric decorated tracery, twin spires, crockets, and dry coarse detail suggest the Cathedral of Cologne.
CENTRAL PARK is bounded by Central Park S., Fifth Ave., Cathedral Parkway (110th St.), and Central Park W. Its lakes, fields, and playgrounds are frequented in every season. South of the reservoir are Cleopatra’s Needle, relic of the Pharaohs and gift of the Khedive of Egypt in 1877; the Menagerie (open 11–5 daily; adm. free), a favorite with children; and the Belvedere, a meteorological observatory of the U.S. Weather Bureau.
TEMPLE EMANU–EL (1929) (open daily), Fifth Ave. and 65th St., by Robert D. Kohn, Charles Butler, and Clarence S. Stein, is an example of early Romanesque architecture, its three separate units integrated into one design.
The FRICK COLLECTION (open 10–5 weekdays; 1–5 Sun. and holidays; closed Mon., Decoration Day, July 4, Christmas, and month of Aug.; adm. free), 1 E.70th St., is New York’s only private home where art treasures are assembled and open to the public as a unit. It also includes the Bache Collection. Paintings, sculptures, enamels, Chinese porcelains, and other objects of art are on display. The mansion (1914), by Carrère and Hastings in the Louis XVI manner, is one of the showplaces of New York.
NEW YORK HOSPITAL AND CORNELL UNIVERSITY MEDICAL COLLEGE (buildings 1932) (open 2–3:30 Mon., Wed., Fri.; 2–3:15 Tues., Thurs.; guides), York Ave., E.68th to E.71st Sts., is popularly known as the East Side Medical Center. The buildings, by Coolidge, Shepley, Bulfinch and Abbott of Boston, are outstanding examples of modern architecture with a Gothic motif carried throughout the 15 units. The main building is 27 stories high. On the east side of the lot are three special hospitals: Psychiatric, Children’s, and Women’s Clinic; the buildings of the Medical College line York Ave.
METROPOLITAN MUSEUM OF ART (open 10–5 weekdays, 1–6 Sun., 10–5 legal holidays, 1–5 Christmas Day; children under 7 must be accompanied by an adult; adm. Mon. and Fri. 25¢, other days and legal holidays free), Fifth Ave. and 82d St., contains the most comprehensive collection of pictures and objects of art in America.
MUSEUM OF THE CITY OF NEW YORK (open 10–5 weekdays except Tues., 1–5 Sun.; Sun. lectures Nov.–Mar. at 4 p.m.; adm. Mon. 25¢, other days free), Fifth Ave. and 103d St., is devoted to the history of New York City. First floor: historical galleries trace growth of city from Indian village to present; Dutch furniture, portraits and miniatures of early settlers in corridor. Second floor: memorabilia of George Washington and Alexander Hamilton; changing fashions from Dutch period to end of nineteenth century. Third floor: display illustrating rise of communication.
The HARLEM RIVER HOUSES (1937), W.151st to W.153d St., Macomb’s Place to Harlem River, comprise the first large-scale modern housing community provided for low-income residents of Manhattan. Built by the Federal Public Works Administration, they are operated by the New York City Housing Authority: 574 apartments, all modern facilities; average rent $5.20 a week per room.
RIVERSIDE DRIVE. Bus. IRT Broadway-Seventh Ave. subway, Van Cortlandt Park extension, from 72d St. station uptown.
Almost at the point where the great piers end, RIVERSIDE DRIVE begins its six-and-a-quarter-mile run along the high embankment of the Hudson River. During the last century this shore line was inhabited by squatters and their goats. Between the years 1872 and 1910 the Drive was developed in sections. The first to take advantage of its superb location, incomparable setting, and gifts of light and air were the newly rich; consequently it lacks tradition, and the older American families of wealth have kept away from it. The Drive, however, remains the most favorably located of Manhattan’s streets. Its dips and rises and its winding course are a relief from the general run of city streets. And from its elevation the fluted cliffs of the Palisades are conspicuous across the wide river. Today its eastern flank is battlemented with apartment houses, a few mansions, and some well-known institutions. A narrow park borders it for most of its length. At the water’s edge run the twin lanes of the new Henry Hudson Parkway, intended eventually to be part of a continuous express route encircling Manhattan on the rim.
POINTS OF INTEREST
RIVERSIDE CHURCH, Baptist (1929) (observation tower open 10–5 daily; adm. 25¢), Riverside Drive and 122d St., by Allen, Pelton and Collens, is a Gothic structure, whose tower contains the Laura Spelman Rockefeller Memorial Carillon of 72 bells.
GRANT’S TOMB (1897) (open daily, 9–5, June 21 to Sept. 21; 9–4:30 Sept. 21 to June 21; adm. free), Riverside Drive and 123d St., by J.H. Duncan, is the burial place of General Ulysses Simpson Grant and his wife. It has a ponderous square base and circular superstructure, motif of double colonnade of Doric design at entrance repeated on other three sides with recessed columns, and a cruciform interior.
HARLEM. IRT Seventh Ave. subway, Lenox Ave. local, to any station between 110th and 145th Sts.
HARLEM, shut in by the East and Harlem Rivers, by Morningside and Washington Heights, and by Central Park, was once a district of quiet farms where lived a few Hollanders, French Huguenots, Danes, Swedes, and Germans. Between 1830 and 1880 the railroad and rapid transit lines reached it and worked a miracle of transformation. For three decades the Germans were the dominant element, with the Irish ranking second. The immigration waves of the 1880’s and 1890’s brought in Jews and Italians. Then the Negroes began to come in—from downtown, from the South, from the West Indies, from Africa.
There are three Harlems: Negro, Spanish, and Italian—half a million people crowded into the largest slum area in New York. The Harlem River Houses, a large-scale modern housing development, accentuate the urgent needs of the community.
Of the 327,706 Negroes in New York City, 250,000 live here, paying 50 per cent higher rents than those charged for equivalent dwellings elsewhere in the city. One block in the district has 3,824 residents, or an average density of 1,100 an acre. The most noticeable feature of Negro Harlem is the color of the human faces—black to near white. The speech is often the sing-song drawl of the South. The Negroes practice their professions and enjoy comparative freedom from oppression and prejudice. Harlem’s most recent messiah, Father Divine, has had phenomenal success. Clubs and societies flourish. The strident, ebullient life of the district is best seen at night, when the clubs are a riot of primitive abandon to the rhythm of Negro swing music.
Spanish Harlem clusters around the 110th Street station of the Lexington Avenue subway. It is a poor district; the restaurants, offering such Spanish dishes as arroz con pollo (rice with chicken) and gazpacho (Andalusian stew), draw much of their patronage from visitors. The population is about 120,000, of whom 85 per cent are Puerto Rican. During the World War they settled here because of low rents and freedom from racial discrimination. Sixty per cent of them have had no regular employment since their arrival. The market place that extends along Park Avenue from 111th to 116th Streets displays avocadoes, mangoes, guavas from Cuba, melonlike papayas, tamarinds used for making a drink called tamarindo, limes, tangerines, garbanzos (chick-peas), cassava, strings of red pepper, and so on. The air is redolent of spices. The purchasers show in their skins and features mixtures of Indian, Negro, and Spanish blood.
Italian Harlem, bordering the East River opposite Ward’s and Randall’s Islands, has a population of 150,000 living in an area of one square mile, the most densely populated section of Manhattan. It is the largest colony of Italian-Americans in the country. The market place presents the bright side of the district; the darker side is in the homes of the residents. Half the families had no income in 1937. During prohibition years it was the center of gang leaders. Social organizations, among them Harlem House, have exercised a reforming influence.
BROOKLYN
In Brooklyn 2,660,479 people are crammed into an area of 81 square miles. The borough is a vast residential cantonment with segregated shopping and service centers. The Flatbush, Shore Road, and Bay Ridge neighborhoods are occupied by the more prosperous elements of the community; Bay Ridge has a colony of Scandinavians; Brownsville is Jewish, Ridgewood German, the southern end Italian; Red Hook has a variety of national groups, largely Syrian and Arabian; the Irish and Poles are scattered.
About one fourth of the exports leaving New York is handled at Brooklyn’s water front, which contains more than 6,000 industrial establishments with products ranging from foodstuffs to inks.
POINTS OF INTEREST
PLYMOUTH CHURCH OF THE PILGRIMS (1849) (open daily), Orange and Hicks Sts., was the pulpit of Henry Ward Beecher from 1847 to 1887. Its simple interior is suggestive of a New England meetinghouse.
The LONG ISLAND HISTORICAL SOCIETY (open 9–6 daily except Sun. and holidays; July and Aug., Mon. to Thurs. only; adm. free), Pierrepont and Clinton Sts., houses a collection of books, pamphlets, and manuscripts especially devoted to life and history of Long Island. It has published six American historical works and a Catalogue of American Genealogies, all available for use.
BROOKLYN NAVY YARD (open 9–5 Mon.–Fri.; 1–4 Sat., Sun., and holidays; adm. free) has its main entrance on Flushing Ave. and Cumberland St.
The WILLIAMSBURG HOUSES (1937), Scholes St. to Maujer St., Leonard St. to Bushwick Ave., a slum-clearance and low-rent housing project, was completed under the Federal Housing program and is under the management of the New York City Housing Authority.
The BROOKLYN CHILDREN’S MUSEUM (1899) (open 10–5 weekdays and holidays; 2–5 Sun.; adm. free), Brooklyn Ave. and Park Place, was the first of its kind in the world and is rated the largest and best equipped. Exhibits: stuffed birds and animals, insects and minerals, handicraft and costume design, models of American historical events. Children may join the Museum League, Tree Club, Science Club, Mineral Club, Stamp Club.
KINGS COUNTY HOSPITAL, Clarkson and New York Aves., is a municipal institution with the largest bed capacity in the city, and cares for every ailment except contagious diseases and mental cases requiring prolonged treatment. The main building is a handsome brick structure, by Leroy P. Ward and Associates (1931).
BROOKLYN MUSEUM (open 10–5 weekdays, 2–6 Sun. and holidays; adm. Mon. and Fri., adults 25¢, children 10¢; other days free), Eastern Parkway and Washington Ave., is outstanding among American museums for the quality of its collections of the arts and crafts of American, primitive, and Asiatic peoples, and for its extensive educational program, consisting of concerts and dance recitals, demonstrations of various crafts, and lectures by writers, artists, and educators.
In the BROOKLYN BOTANICAL GARDEN (open 8 a.m. to dusk weekdays, 10 a.m. to dusk Sun. and holidays; adm. free), 1000 Washington Ave., are a brook, esplanade, trees, enclosed gardens, and glacial boulders. Special features are the Japanese Garden, the Rose Garden, the Rock Garden.
PROSPECT PARK, bounded by Prospect Park W., Prospect Park SW., Parkside, Ocean, and Flatbush Aves., covers 526 acres and is the borough’s main public area. It contains a lake, pools, playgrounds, picnic grounds, parade ground, a Quaker cemetery, gardens, statues, menagerie, and the old LEFFERTS HOMESTEAD (open 1–5 Mon., Wed., Fri.; adm. free), which houses a collection of seventeenth- and eighteenth-century items. It is the site of the most important action of the Battle of Long Island, on August 27, 1776.
BROOKLYN COLLEGE (founded 1930), Ave. H and Bedford Ave., city-supported coeducational college of liberal arts and sciences, is a group of Georgian buildings, by Randolph Evans with Corbett, Harrison, and MacMurray as associates. Outside of summer school, graduate, and extension divisions, there is a student enrollment of 12,000 (divided between day and evening classes), with a teaching staff of 800.
FLOYD BENNETT AIRPORT (IRT Flatbush Ave. subway to Flatbush Ave., then bus to field; BMT Brighton Beach subway to Ave. U, then bus to field; open free for inspection weekdays and Sat. mornings; sightseeing planes 9 a.m.–sundown daily; local flights $1.50 per person, over N.Y.C. $2.50 per person), at the foot of Flatbush Ave. and Jamaica Bay, was the base of many famous flights.
CONEY ISLAND (BMT Brighton Beach subway to Coney Island; BMT Sea Beach or West End subway to Stillwell Ave.; bus from Times Square, 50¢; boat from the Battery, leaving 11, 1, 2:30, 4, 5, 5:30, and 7 daily; season, May 30–second week after Labor Day; fireworks displays every Tues. 8:30 p.m.), Surf Ave., Ocean Parkway to W.37th St., offers a bathing beach, two-mile boardwalk, two large amusement parks, bathhouses, dance halls, freak shows, carousels, roller coasters, penny arcades, assorted game booths, waxworks, ferris wheels, shooting galleries, souvenir shops, restaurants, tea rooms, chop suey parlors, and hot dog stands. It accommodates as many as 1,000,000 people in a single day.
THE BRONX
The Bronx, the only borough of the Greater City on the mainland, has 1,385,777 people on its 41.4 square miles. As late as 1850 its population, largely German, was but 8,000. Annexation of West Bronx to New York in 1874 and of East Bronx in 1895 encouraged development. Hordes of immigrants from the East Side of Manhattan, seeking more commodious quarters, moved in. In 1938 half the population was Jewish, the remainder a medley of other national groups.
The borough is primarily a residential area. West Bronx contains over three fourths of the population; East Bronx, less prosperous neighbor, is yielding some of its congestion to districts northward. Eastchester retains something of its early rural atmosphere. The Bronx boasts more park acreage (4,563) than any of the other boroughs.
POINTS OF INTEREST
THE BRONX COUNTY BUILDING (1934), 161st St. and Grand Concourse, by Joseph H. Freedlander and Max Hausle, is a modern courthouse.
POE COTTAGE (open 10–1 and 2–5 Tues.–Sat., 1–5 Sun.; adm. free), Kingsbridge Rd. and Grand Concourse, a restored five-room frame house, was the home of Edgar Allan Poe during the last three years of his life (1846–9). It contains the bed in which Virginia Poe died, and a mirror, rocker, Bible, and spoon that belonged to the Poes.
HALL OF FAME (1901) (accessible any time from either University or Sedgwick Aves.), New York University, University Heights opposite W. 181st St., by Stanford White, is an arc-shaped colonnade integrating three beautiful buildings into a single handsome composition. Most illustrious of those represented by statuary in the Hall are Alexander Hamilton, Washington Irving, William Cullen Bryant, and Henry Ward Beecher.
FORDHAM UNIVERSITY (founded 1841), Fordham Rd. and Third Ave., is one of the largest Catholic educational institutions in the U.S., with a student body of 7,500.
BRONX PARK (IRT Bronx Park subway), Bronx Park E. and 180th St., covers 700 acres. Its most notable feature is the ZOOLOGICAL PARK (the Zoo) (open daily 9 to half hour before sunset from April 15 to Oct. 15; 10–6:30 Oct. 16 to April 14. Adm., Mon. and Thurs. 25¢ adults, 15¢ children under 12; free other days and holidays).
VAN CORTLANDT PARK (IRT Broadway-Seventh Ave. subway to 242d St. station), Broadway and 242d St., 1,132 acres, has two 18-hole golf courses, 21 baseball diamonds, tennis courts, horseshoe pitching courts, 2 cricket fields, 15 miles of bridle paths, archery and hockey fields, skiing hills, boating and ice skating, hiking trails, bird sanctuaries, children’s day camps, wooded sections, meadows. The VAN CORTLANDT HOUSE MUSEUM (open 10–5 Tues., Wed., Fri., Sat.; 12–5 Thurs., Sun.; adm. Thurs. 25¢, other days free) is near the entrance at Broadway and 242d St., on a high bluff overlooking the lake. A gray stone structure, fine example of Georgian Colonial architecture (1748), it was occupied by Washington for a short time after the Revolution. The Museum contains a collection of Dutch and Colonial furniture and an exhibit of ancient arms and documents. North of the mansion is Vault Hill, site of the Van Cortlandt burial ground.
ORCHARD BEACH (open daily 9–8 May 30 through weekend after Labor Day; lockers 15¢ and 25¢), in Pelham Bay Park, Eastern Blvd. and Westchester Ave., was constructed with WPA aid. Opened to the public in 1936, the attendance for the 1938 season totalled 2,268,300. It contains a bathing pavilion, free playgrounds for children, game area, loggia, cafeteria; the Split Rock and Pelham Bay Golf Courses are about 1 m. from beach.
QUEENS
Queens, 121 square miles in area, is the largest of the boroughs; its population (1938) is 1,291,314. The growth of this borough, dependent in large part upon subway, road, and bridge extensions, was further stimulated by the establishment of the New York World’s Fair at Flushing. Within recent years the 50 or so communities in Queens have steadily been crystallizing into one vast residential area.
LA GUARDIA FIELD (Triborough Bridge, Grand Central Parkway to airport; Independent-Flushing subway to Junction Blvd., then bus to airport), Grand Central Parkway and 94th St., North Beach, is the newest of the city’s airports, and one of its two municipal fields. It is a combination landplane and seaplane terminal.
The NEW YORK WORLD’S FAIR (8 m. from Times Square. Motor routes from Queensborough Bridge: Northern Blvd. [NY 25A], Queens Blvd. [NY 24], and Horace Harding Blvd. [NY 25], or Roosevelt Ave. From Triborough Bridge [toll 25¢]: Astoria Blvd. and Grand Central Parkway Extension. From New England: from Boston Post Rd. [US 1] follow Baychester Blvd., Eastern Blvd., and cross Bronx-Whitestone Bridge [toll 25¢]. Railway: L.I.R.R. [10 mins.]. Subways; from Times Square: IRT [23 mins.], BMT [26 mins.], and Independent [37 mins.]; 2nd Ave. el [30 mins.]) extends from Flushing Bay front along Flushing Creek Valley for about 3.5 m. with an average width of 1 m. The Fair is divided into 7 zones: Government, Transportation, Communications, Production and Distribution, Food, Community Interests, and Amusement. The Fair theme for 1940 was ‘For Peace and Freedom.’ Its official colors: White, Dutch Orange, and New York City Blue. The Theme Center, dominated by the perisphere, symbolizing the infinite, and trylon, symbolizing the finite, faces eastward across a composition of pools, lagoons, pylons, waterfalls, and fountains, to the Federal Building. Extending from each side of this structure are buildings housing exhibits of States and foreign nations. A heroic figure of George Washington towers over Constitution Mall, gazing in direction of Statute of Liberty. Four tall figures in paved square east of Washington Statue represent freedom of press, religion, assembly, and speech. Two avenues, one running northeastward, another southeastward, both from Theme Center, cut fan-shaped section out of exhibition area. Immediately west of Theme Center stands New York City exhibit building. Another main avenue leads southward from Theme Center, over a bridge spanning World’s Fair Blvd., to New York State Amphitheater on the north shore of Fountain Lake. The zone scheme, together with soaring trylon, makes for easy orientation. On the eastern side of Fountain Lake is the Amusement Section, embraced by a two-mile loop. In the Consolidated Edison Building, just southeast of Theme Center, is a diorama of New York City, largest ever made, depicting more than 4,000 of the city’s buildings and occupying nearly a city block of space. Within the Perisphere is a model of the city of the future—‘Democracity’—viewed as from a height of two miles. The Transportation Section lies to the west of Theme Center.
The KING MANSION (before 1750) (1–4:30 Mon., Wed., Sat.; free), Jamaica Ave. near 153rd St., King Park, Georgian Colonial, was the country seat of Rufus King from 1806 to 1827. It contains a collection of Colonial furniture and relics, Colonial toys, books, documents, arms, army buttons, and Long Island money.
JACOB RIIS PARK, foot of Rockaway Beach Blvd. (or from foot of Flatbush Ave. across Marine Parkway Bridge, toll 15¢, partly a WPA project, was opened to public in 1937. It offers a bathhouse, boardwalk, play areas, two of which are free; music weekdays; fireworks every Wednesday evening.
RICHMOND
(Stolen Island)
The borough of Richmond, a roughly triangular island, popularly known as Staten Island, has a population of 171,215. Although it is the third largest of the boroughs in area, Richmond is the least developed. A neat row of villages, some dating back to Colonial times, lines the north and west shores. Scattered along the north and northeast shores are shipbuilding yards, lumber mills, printing and publishing plants, and a large soap and oil plant. Storage tanks and the refinery units of New Jersey oil companies rise on the lowlands of the western district. The western section is given over to truck farms and unused meadowlands. Despite the fact that the island has the only free port in the country, its ocean-borne commerce is relatively negligible.
The older Dutch, English, and Huguenot families have preserved their ethnic purity to a large extent. Italians, Scandinavians, and Poles, comparatively recent arrivals, are grouped in the industrial areas.
POINTS OF INTEREST
STATEN ISLAND INSTITUTE OF ARTS AND SCIENCES PUBLIC MUSEUM (founded 1881) (open 10–5 weekdays, 2–5 Sun.; adm. free), Wall St. and Stuyvesant Pl., St. George, contains natural history, household, and insect collections, largely of Staten Island.
SAILORS’ SNUG HARBOR (founded 1801; asylum opened in 1833) (open 9–4 weekdays; adm. free), Richmond Terrace and Tysen St., New Brighton, is a home for retired seamen.
STATEN ISLAND ZOO (open 10–5 weekdays; 10–6 Sun. and holidays; adm. free), Broadway, Clove Rd., and Glenwood Place, W. New Brighton, is noted mainly for its collection of reptiles.
The CONFERENCE, or BILLOPP, HOUSE (built before 1688) (open Tues.–Sun., 10–6 May–Oct., 10–5 Nov.–Apr.), foot of Hyland Blvd., Tottenville, was the scene of a conference between British and American authorities after the Battle of Long Island.