The New-York Historical Society * Quarterly Bulletin

THE NEW-YORK HISTORICAL SOCIETY * QUARTERLY BULLETIN VOL. IX JANUARY, 1926 No. 4 THE GRAND CENTRAL DEPOT, 188a Showing the northern entrance of the Murray Hill Tunnel under Fourth Avenue. NEW YORK: 170 CENTRAL PARK WEST PUBLISHED BY THE SOCIETY AND ISSUED TO MEMBERS THE NEW-YORK HISTORICAL SOCIETY, 170 CENTRAL PARK WEST (Erected by the Society 1908) Wings to be erected on the 76th and 77th Street corners OFFICERS OF THE SOCIETY For Three Years, ending 1929- PRESIDENT FOREIGN CORRESPONDING SECRETARY JOHN ABEEL WEEKES ARCHER MILTON HUNTINGTON FIRST VICE-PRESIDENT DOMESTIC CORRESPONDING SECRETARY WALTER LISPENARD SUYDAM THOMAS T. SHERMAN SECOND VICE-PRESIDENT RECORDING SECRETARY J. ARCHIBALD MURRAY WILLIAM RHINELANDER STEWART THIRD VICE-PRESIDENT TREASURER ARTHUR H. MASTEN R. HORACE GALLATIN FOURTH VICE-PRESIDENT LIBRARIAN FRANCIS ROBERT SCHELL ALEXANDER J. WALL ROBERT H. KELBY, Librarian Emeritus NEW YORK CITY'S FIRST RAILROAD, THE NEW YORK AND HARLEM, 1832 TO 1867 BY JOSEPH WARREN GREENE, JR. The first railroad on Manhattan Island was the New York and Harlem Railroad, chartered in April, 1831. The charter provided that the Company might construct a double track railroad, from the northerly side of East 23rd Street to the Harlem River, at any point between Third and Ninth Avenues, with a branch west to the Hudson River, on any street between 124th and 129th Streets. It was to submit its route map to the Common Council within two months and was to entirely complete its line to the Harlem River in 1835. Its route was to lie along Fourth Avenue. Among the founders of this railroad were men greatly inter ested in finance and in the commercial prosperity of the city. Among them were Benson McGowan and Thomas Addis Emmett, both of whom owned considerable land in Harlem, and were there fore particularly interested in a new and reliable means of communi cation between that village and New York City. The incorpo rators quickly got together, after the granting of the charter, and elected as their president, John Mason, the founder and first presi dent of the Chemical Bank. On February 25, 1832, ground was broken for the railroad. The ceremony was in a rocky section of Murray Hill, at about the present 32nd Street and Fourth Avenue, a place then three miles from "town." After the rock had been bored, thirteen whistle blasts were set off* by President John Mason with other appropriate ceremony. He then made a speech which was responded to with much' cheering and eclat, after which the Company and its guests repaired to Hinton's Shot Tower Hotel, on the East River, near the tall shot tower erected by George Youle. There, so the Courier and Enquirer says, a cold collation was served and toasts to the Harlem Railroad were drunk in sparkling champagne, with great hilarity and good feeling. Thus commenced a single link in the great chain of art enterprising improvement which was to reach from New York to Buffalo. 107 108 THE NEW-YORK HISTORICAL SOCIETY In April, 1832, an act was passed providing that the Harlem Railroad could extend their tracks along Fourth Avenue south to 14th Street and through such other streets as the Mayor might from time to time permit, but not in any street below Prince Street, until four miles of railroad track north of that street had been completed. On May 2, 1832, the railroad was given permis sion to extend their rails south from 23rd Street to Prince Street with a single track down Fourth Avenue and Union Square, and another single track down the Bowery, both as far as Prince Street. After two months' use, unless otherwise directed, permission was to be given to lay a double track. The Mercantile Advertiser on July 20, 1832, tells of the ravages of cholera, which had driven hundreds of inhabitants out of town, so that the lower part of the city was quite deserted. "The cholera," it reports, "is making frightful inroads and destruction at Harlem, a small village seven miles from New York and many deaths have occurred among the laborers on the Harlem Railroad." A writer in the Evening Post, on August 14, states that a great cause of these deaths among the railroad workmen-was their eat ing of green apples from the orchards along Third Avenue. The Harlem Railroad was opened November 14, 1832. A graphic account of the festive first train is contained in the Morning Courier and Enquirer: "The Harlem Railroad Company with the Mayor, Corporation, and strangers of distinction, left the City Hall in carriages to the place of depot near Union Square, where two splendid cars made by Milne Parker, each with two horses, were in waiting. These cars are made low with broad iron wheels which fit the flanges of the railroad after an improved model from the Liverpool and Man chester cars. They resemble an omnibus, or rather several omnibuses attached to each other, padded with fine cloth and handsome glass windows, each capable of containing, outside and inside, fully forty passengers. The company was soon seated and the horses trotted ofF in handsome style, with great ease, at the rate of about twelve miles, followed by a number of private barouches and horsemen. Groups of spectators greeted the passengers of the cars with shouts and every window in the Bowery was filled. "After the experiment, the company and guests dined at the City Hotel and terminated, in a very agreeable manner, the first essay of New Yorkers on a rail road in their own city. "The comfort and convenience of this railroad to our citizens will be incon ceivable. Instead of being cramped and confined to a single lot of ground and a close atmosphere in the city, an acre or two will be purchased and a comfortable | > 91 H W 93 i «! 19 C S r1 w z NEW YORK AND HARLEM RAILROAD DEPOT, 1860 Fourth Avenue corner of 27th Street. O 110 THE NEW-YORK HISTORICAL SOCIETY house built at a reduced expense, a garden, orchard, dairy and other conveniences follow; and the train of railroad carriages will start from Trinity Church and convey passengers to Harlem and the intermediate stopping places, with as much facility and ease as they are now conveyed to Greenwich Village. These are a few of the advantages which this small undertaking promises; and in fact it will make Harlem the suburbs of New York. For fishing excursions to Harlem River and pleasant summer rides, it is presumed the cars will be kept in constant motion." The Courier and Enquirer of November n, 1832, advertised the railroad trains as follows, and continues the notice for three months: "New York and Harlem Railroad Company. The cars will run upon the rails from Prince Street to 14th Street, in the Bowery from 9 o'clock A.M., until 5 o'clock P.M., each fair day, except Sundays for the purpose of affording evidence to the public of the expediency of using railroads within the city. A small charge will be made to defray expenses." That the railroad excited a great deal of interest is proved by the following descriptive account in the Daily Advertiser for De cember 26, 1832: "The Bowery presented a most lively scene yesterday afterndon. A large part of the population of the city appeared to have congregated to witness the per formance of the cars on the Railroad. The vehicles were crowded we believe during the day. In and on two that were drawn by four horses, we should esti mate that from one hundred to one hundred and fifty persons were accommodated. The horses appeared to fly with a load, which, if on the pavement, they could not have drawn." During the two or three months following the first running of the cars the citizens of New York seem to have been divided in opinion as to the benefits and disadvantages of running, the Har lem Railroad cars along that part of the road already built, and as to the further extension of the tracks north, out of, and south, further into, the city. There was much discussion as to its real necessity at all. If proof, however, could be had at this time as to its success, based on its number of passengers alone, then such success was assured, for the cars every day were crowded on every trip with as many people as they could carry, intent on enjoying this novel mode of travel. The railroad during the early part of the year 1833 continued to gain enemies as well as friends. In February, it petitioned the state legislature for permission to extend its tracks down the QUARTERLY BULLETIN 111 Bowery and from thence to Wall Street in a direct line by the way of Chatham Street (Park Row) and William Street. A large mass meeting was held at Tammany Hall on February 14, 1833, to dis cuss the propriety of laying tracks on the Bowery below Prince Street, and on Broadway below 14th Street. There arose decided opposition against extending the railroad further downtown, and a movement to compel it to remove the tracks below 21st Street. One citizen protested that the proposed double track in the Bowery would render travelling inconvenient and dangerous because the rails occupying the crown of the street compelled passengers either to come in contact with them or seek the slanting sides; that the railroad had not enhanced real estate values as promised, and that if extended southward, William and Chatham Streets would have to be widened twenty or thirty feet to the immense destruction of property.

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