BIRTH of METROPOLIS 1863-1900

ORIGINS 
COLONIAL
 AMERICAN REVOLUTION
GROWING PAINS
BIRTH OF METROPOLIS
JAZZ AGE
MODERN TIME
 NOW

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Second part of 19th Century. The Gilded Age

The term "Gilded Age" was coined by Mark Twain in the book 'The Gilded Age: A Tale of Today'. The name refers to the process of gilding an object with a superficial layer of gold and is meant to make fun of ostentatious display while playing on the term "golden age". The Gilded Age refers to the era of rapid economic and population growth in the United States during the post–Civil War and post-Reconstruction eras of the late 19th century. The Gilded Age, the era of robber barons, inventors, industrialists and millions of newly arrived immigrants, is responsible for the creation of a modern industrial economy. The late 19th century saw the advent of new communication technologies, including the phonograph, the telephone, and radio; the rise of mass-circulation newspapers and magazines; the growth of commercialized entertainment, as well as new sports, including basketball, bicycling, and football, and appearance of new transportation technologies, such as the automobile, electric trains and trolleys. The era between Civil War and Great Depression was the most dynamic in the development of New York. During this period New York town became a New York City, and its citizens - urban people.​​

1867   El in lower Manhattan.

By 1870 the population of New York City reached 1,000,000; new means of transportation became necessary. The first elevated railway in New York City, called Ninth Ave El, opened in 1868. From 1868 through 1870, the line ran on a single track and was extended to 30th Street.  It was followed the Second, Third and Sixth Avenue Els. Train ride was fairly luxurious for the riders, but El was quite bad for the people who lived along the tracks. Not only they lost privacy as the train was on the level with their windows, but also dirt and fumes from the trains made the situation quite insufferable.​​

1871  Boss Tweed is arrested.​

​​Politics was dominated by newly formed Democratic Party connected with Tammany Hall Society.   Tammany Hall was both a political and social organization which operated on the grass-roots level. Boss Tweed, leader of Tammany Hall in 1860s, was the president of the county board of supervisors, the street commissioner, and a state senator. He was in position to control the entire city's machinery, executive, legislative and judicial sectors. His people were elected to office, he dictated the law, and controlled the judicial system. By 1869 he was stealing more than $1 million a month from the city. Tweed bought a mansion on Fifth Avenue and 43rd Street, and stabled his horses, carriages and sleighs on 40th Street. By 1871, he was a member of the board of directors of not only the Erie Railroad and the Brooklyn Bridge Company, but also the Third Avenue Railway Company and the Harlem Gas Light Company. He was president of the Guardian Savings Banks and he and his comrades set up the Tenth National Bank to better control their fortunes. Tweed had for months been under attack from Thomas Nast, the cartoonist from Harper's Weekly and the New York Times. Regarding Nast's cartoons, Tweed reportedly said, "Stop them damned pictures. I don't care so much what the papers say about me. My constituents don't know how to read, but they can't help seeing them damned pictures!" Boss Tweed was arrested due to an extraordinary cost overrun for the County Courthouse, now referred to as "the Tweed Courthouse."   The project which was originally estimated at $250,000 eventually tallied up to $12,000,000, most of which went into the pocket of Tweed and his cronies. Ironically, his trial was held in the still-incomplete courthouse. He was convicted of 204 counts and after some time in prison, died in 1878.

1870  Metropolitan Museum is established.

Story has it that in 1866 a group of Americans in Paris, gathered at a restaurant to celebrate the Fourth of July (American Independence Day).  After dinner, John Jay, a prominent lawyer and grandson of eminent American jurist John Jay, gave a speech proposing that he and his compatriots create a "national institution and gallery of art." During the next four years, they convinced American civic leaders, art collectors, and philanthropists to support the project, and in 1870 the Metropolitan Museum of Art was incorporated. ​​

1877  Bell Telephone service starts. Natural History Museum opens

In 1877, Professor Alexander Graham Bell held his first demonstration of the telephone for New Yorkers. He was carrying a conversation from the Hotel St Denis (on Broadway and 11th) with his assistant in Brooklyn. Later that year the telephone company of New York was incorporated and started offering telephone service to the City. One unfortunate detail associated with the phones was that the wires suspended from poles were blocking the sky. Natural History Museum. The American Museum of Natural History is one of the largest and most celebrated museums in the world. The museum complex contains 23 interconnected buildings housing 45 permanent exhibition halls. The museum collections contain over 32 million specimens of plants, humans, animals, fossils, minerals, rocks, meteorites, and human cultural artifacts, of which only a small fraction can be displayed at any given time. The museum receives about five million visitors annually.​​

1878   St Patrick Cathedral built on 5th Avenue.

St. Patrick's Cathedral on 5th Ave is the largest Catholic cathedral in North America and a seat of Roman Catholic Archdiocese of New York. The "Old St Patrick Cathedral" is located on Mulberry Street in Nolita. It is still a parish church and is the oldest Catholic site in New York City. The cornerstone for the new cathedral was laid in 1858, much further north of the populous areas of New York at that time. The work on the cathedral was interrupted by the American Civil War, recommencing in 1865. It was completed in 1878. The magnificent building was designed by James Renwick, Jr. in the Gothic Revival style. Famously, Scott Fitzgerald and his fiancé, Zelda, were married in New York's St. Patrick's Cathedral. The cathedral was the setting for a large portion of the 1990 film, The Godfather Part 3.​​

1879   9th Av El extended north of 59th.

Population of New York City reached 1,000,000 by 1870. Ninth Ave El operates regularly. Second, Third and Sixth Ave Els are under construction.​​

1880  Met Opera established.  New Millionaires.​

​​The City becomes home for new millionaires. John D. Rockefeller made his money in oil, Carnegie and Frick - in steel, the Morgans were bankers, and Cornelius Vanderbilt made his fortunes in ferry service and railroads. The Metropolitan Opera Company was incorporated by Vanderbilt, Gould, and a few others who couldn't get seats in the snobby Academy of Music.

1882 Edison opens electric power plant.  The Chinese Exclusion Act.

After being granted a patent for the light bulb in January 1880, Edison set out to develop a company that would deliver the electricity to power and light the cities of the world. That same year, Edison founded the Edison Illuminating Company—the first investor-owned electric utility—which later became the General Electric Corporation. Thomas Edison built the world's first electric power plant to the city, located on Pearl Street. In 1882 he held the first ever demonstration of electrified buildings and streets in downtown Manhattan. The Pearl Street generating station provided 110 volts of electrical power to 59 customers in lower Manhattan. First few months after Edison's system went into operation, customers weren't charged a penny. As the inventor was working out the kinks, the city was slowly getting used to the idea which took another decade to really catch on.    The Chinese Exclusion Act. The Chinese Exclusion Act was the first significant law restricting immigration into the United States. In the spring of 1882, the Chinese Exclusion Act was passed by Congress and signed by President Chester A. Arthur. This act provided an absolute 10-year moratorium on Chinese labor immigration. For the first time, Federal law proscribed entry of an ethnic working group on the premise that it endangered the good order of certain localities. According to this law Chinese women and children were prohibited from entering the United States unless they can evidence a marriage to a merchant. As a result a Chinese bachelor enclave forms at Pell and Doyer and the lower part of Mott Streets which became known as the "Bachelor Society."   The population of this ghetto remained well below 4,000 until the advent of World War II.     Initially limited to engaging in certain kinds of businesses, the Chinese first opened hand laundries, then in about 1890 began to open restaurants that appealed to tourists; and soon thereafter began to arise the gift shops and temples as we see them today. It was Franklin D. Roosevelt who signed a measure in 1943 that lifted the Chinese Exclusion Act, after China and the U.S. became allies in the Second World War.​​

1883 Brooklyn Bridge opens.  Immigration from Eastern Europe.

​​​Spectacular in looks and revolutionary in design, the Brooklyn Bridge was the first bridge to connect Manhattan and Brooklyn and was the longest suspension bridge in the world. In fact it was 50% longer than any bridge previously built. Immigration from Eastern Europe. Before 1883 over 80% of immigrants came from Northern and Western Europe. In 1880, New York had 80,000 Jews mostly from Germany. But after 1881 when Czar Alexander II was assassinated, the government of the new Czar, Alexander III organized one pogrom after another to keep the anger of the masses focused on the Jews. In addition to the pogroms, Alexander III promulgated a series of laws against the Jews which stated: "It is henceforth forbidden for Jews to settle outside the cities and townships." "Jews are also prohibited from administering properties." "It is forbidden for Jews to engage in commerce on Sundays and Christian holidays." ​This prompted the first wave of Jewish immigration which by 1910 brought 1,500,000 Easter European Jews to America.

1884 The Dakota is built.

Pioneering development of the Upper West Side as well as the idea of luxury apartment living, the Dakota was built on 72nd street and Central Park West By this time, the city was built up to 40th street; therefore building up in the 70s was nothing but sheer madness. The Upper West Side was sparsely inhabited and considered as remote as the Dakota Territory. But the Central Park was already built, and Clark, Dakota’s developer, correctly anticipated that the place will be more than desirable. He also envisioned that avenues and streets of Upper West Side will be named after the new western states and territories. At the time, the Dakota territory was still Indian Territory and rich with gold. Clark didn't mind the name; in fact, he played it up by placing a head of Indian over the main entrance.​​

1886   Statue of Liberty.

"Liberty Enlightening the World" was a gift of friendship from the people of France to the people of the United States to commemorate the 100th anniversary of American independence. Construction of the statue began in 1875 in France, and was completed in 1884.  After a presentation ceremony in Paris, the statue was dismantled and shipped to NYC in 214 containers. The statue took its sculptor Bartholdi 10 years to complete, and it took 2 more years to collect money and build the pedestal. Since 1886 the Statue of Liberty greeted millions of new immigrants to the land of opportunity.​​

1888   The Blizzard of 1888.

In March of 1888 New York City was slammed by one of the most devastating blizzards in recorded history.   From March 11th to 15th the city was buried underneath a twenty to fifty-inch blanket of snow. The Great White Hurricane, as it came to be known, disabled transportation and telegraph communication from the Chesapeake Bay to Montreal.  Huge, “modern” cites suddenly found themselves cut off from the rest of the world. For the first time in its history, the New York Stock Exchange closed, and would remain so for two days as the storm raged on. In New York City alone, more than 200 perished from the extreme cold.  In the icy darkness of night, fires raged as helpless volunteers watched from afar, their teams trapped in the deep drifts that formed by the howling winds.​​

1891 Carnegie Hall opens. Washington Square Arch built.​

Designed by architect William Burnet Tuthill and built by philanthropist Andrew Carnegie in 1891, it is one of the most prestigious venues in the world for classical music. It so happened that Walter Damrosch, famous conductor and composer, set sail from New York City to his native Germany for a summer of study. As fortune would have it, Andrew Carnegie, czar of America's steel industry, was aboard the same ship headed to Europe for his honeymoon. Two men had met, and apparently, Damrosch kept bringing up the idea that New York lacked a concert hall. As a result, Carnegie presented the city with a $2-million gift for the construction of the venue. Carnegie Hall opened in 1891. The performer for the opening night was none other than famous Russian composer Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky. The concert hall was jammed full of New Yorkers. Even though the best way to get to Carnegie Hall is practice, one could also be rent it out. Washington Square Arch The arch was designed by McKim, Mead and White in 1889 to celebrate the centenary of George Washington's inauguration. It was supposed to be a temporary wooden structure constructed for the festivities. The arch was such a hit that its Marble version was immediately commissioned to architect Stamford White.​​

​​1892 Ellis Island opens.

Known as the "Island of Tears", Ellis Island was the largest formal gateway to America at the time. Over twelve million immigrants entered the United States through it between 1892 and 1954. In the year of 1907 alone, approximately 1.25 million immigrants were processed at Ellis Island.

1897     First Waldorf Astoria opens.

The original Waldorf-Astoria, designed by Hardenberg, opens on 5th and 34th. At the cost of $13 million, with 1,000 rooms, it is the most expensive, largest and the most magnificent hotel in the world.

1898  Greater New York is established.

​​​At the very end of the century, the five boroughs were incorporated into metro New York City. “Broadway” becomes the official name of the most famous street in New York City.

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