How many residents of this big city know where St. Mark's Place, Manhattan, is? It is in the old 17th Ward, running easterly from Third Avenue to Avenue A, terminating at Tompkins Square and running parallel to East Eighth Street.

In the early seventies, when my family moved to St. Mark's Place, there was every evidence of a recent aristocratic residential neighborhood; large mansions of granite and brownstone and numerous smaller private dwellings. Until a few years ago, the old Keteltas Mansion, at the northwest corner of Second Avenue, was still in existence.

Tompkins Square, the eastern terminus of the street, was generally known as the Parade or Drill Grounds; not a bench nor a tree nor a fence anywhere. This parade ground was used principally in the spring of the year, for out-door drilling or practice for the various regiments of the National Guard, as well as the Police and Fire Departments, the latter with all their newest and latest apparatus. All these parades came through St. Mark's Place, to the infinite joy and delight of the small boys of the neighborhood, of which I was one. We knew every Colonel, Band Master and Police Captain by name and took great pride in our "superior knowledge."

Tompkins Square was also the meeting-place of labor organizations, and I frequently saw thousands of men assembled there listening to speeches. One hot summer's night, about July, 1876, a mass meeting of laborers was called, thousands of disgruntled men came together, there was trouble in the atmosphere, threats of rioting were heard. The entire neighborhood was excited, sitting on stoops or standing in groups and discussing the probable outcome of the meeting. Policemen were parading the streets in twos and threes, occasionally a mounted policeman came along. The meeting started at 8 P.M., and at 10 o'clock a mounted policeman raced full speed through our block to the Police Station at Fifth street and First Avenue, ostensibly to give the alarm (these were the days before the telephone). The street was cleared like magic, doors were slammed and shutters were closed with a bang. We hear the mob shouting a full avenue block away and knew there was going to be trouble.

The mob had entered St. Mark's Place from the Parade Ground at Avenue A, singing or shouting a monotonous "Yeddy, Yeddy, Yeddy." It came nearer, they were about half-way down the block, when suddenly we heard the heavy footsteps of the Police Reserves in double-quick time, turning the corner at First Avenue. I should say there were about two hundred of them, under the command of Captain Williams (the celebrated Captain Alexander S. Williams who discovered the tenderloin in the New York Police precincts, and was so well known in New York that even the horses nodded to him, to use his own words). The mob and the police met head on in front of our house. I was peeping through the slats on the second floor. A quick command by Captain Williams, the liberal use of the old night-stick by the police, a few broken heads and limbs, and everything was over. Inside of five minutes the mob was running back toward Avenue A helter skelter. This again is evidence of how a small number of armed and trained men can subdue a mob of thousands.

I recall now that another squad of police had been hiding in the Mission House at the northwest corner of Avenue A. and St. Mark's Place, where they gathered during the day, sans uniform. They allowed the mob to pass down the street, knowing of course that Captain Williams and his men would meet them at the other end. As a result the rioters were bottled up or surrounded and received a fearful clubbing. A moment before the arrival of Captain Williams, I noticed quite a number of policemen lying flat on their stomachs at both eastern corners of First Avenue. They also had been hiding somewhere; the object, naturally, was to take the mob by surprise. If this mob of hoodlums had reached Second Avenue it would have been a serious affair. All credit to the police, they handled the situation wonderfully well.

St. Mark's Place, and our block in particular, was at that time the residential headquarters for musicians, mostly members of the Philharmonic and Symphony Orchestras. Most of them owned the houses they lived in. The families were large, rarely less than five children and frequently up to ten and twelve. True to their vocation, every boy that was destined to become a musician, and most of them were, had to learn two instruments. Our next door neighbor, for instance, played the bass violin in the Philharmonic Orchestra, and the cornet in the Seventh Regiment Band. They practiced four to six hours daily, and you can imagine the pandemonium. The tuning of an orchestra before a concert sounds like an infant's wail in comparison. These musicians were divided in two groups or factions, one would swear by Theodore Thomas of the Philharmonic; the other by Dr. Damrosch of the Symphony Orchestra.

In 1882, when we moved uptown, the old street had changed considerably; tenements and cheap flats replaced the old mansions; and now, I believe, it is part of the so-called Ghetto, and Tompkins Square is a recreation park.

St. Mark's Place, between First and Second Avenues, was a strictly residential street. With the exception of one or two "flats" or apartments, there were only private dwellings. On the south side of the street, about the middle of the block, was the residence of the Dugro family, of which the late Supreme Court Judge P. Henry Dugro was a member. In the later seventies or early eighties young Dugro was elected to a minor judgeship, and a handsome young man he was. His father, a rather picturesque old man with a scraggly black beard and a large soft felt hat, was one of the best known characters in the district. The old gentleman was very active in his son's campaign, with a specialty for "buttonholing." A few doors from the Dugros was the residence of Peter Cook, a well-known lawyer in his day; a tall heavy man with a black goatee and a silk hat. Judge Alfred Steckler lived a few doors west.

William Waldorf Astor was elected to the Assembly from this district (but I cannot recall where he lived at the time). This was the beginning of his political career, but, forsooth, it was not to be a brilliant one; not in this country, anyway. After the completion of his term as Assemblyman, he was nominated for Congress on the Democratic or Tammany ticket. It was a strong Democratic district and everybody thought Astor as well as elected. The returns, however, showed that he was most ignomoniously defeated; knifed by his own party. The opinion prevailed that the boys wanted some of his dough, and they got it. Not long after, Astor left this country to become a naturalized citizen of Great Britain. Politics make strange bedfellows, but it is quite a jump from a New York Assemblyman to a British Peer.

At the northwest corner of Second Avenue and St. Mark's Place was the Keteltas Mansion, as mentioned before, a large red brick building with white doors and marble trimming. Just north of this (and here we enter Second Avenue, which at one time was the finest residential street in the city) was the Folsom Mansion, with its large garden; this site is now occupied by the Stuyvesant Clinic. At the corner of Ninth Street and Second Avenue was the Goeller residence. Judge Dugro married one of the Goeller daughters. From Tenth to Eleventh Streets, and running partly parallel with Stuyvesant Place, we still find St. Mark's Church with its historical churchyard. It was originally known as "St. Mark's in the Bowerie," and from this church, St. Mark's Place derived its name. We will come back to the St. Mark's Churchyard later. At the northwest corner of Eleventh Street and Second Avenue was the residence of Senator William M. Evarts; the old building is still there and is occupied by St. Mark's Hospital. How well I remember the little old Senator in his broadcloth frock coat and silk hat a little the worse for wear, his clean-cut features and clean-shaven face. One seldom saw a man without a beard or mustache in those days, unless he was a clergyman or an actor. On the opposite corner of Eleventh Street was the building of the Historical Society.

A little farther north on Second Avenue we still find the Stuyvesant Parks, running from Fifteenth to Seventeenth Street on both sides of the Avenue, and Rutherford Place, with St. George's Church and the Quaker School or Friends' Seminary as the background to the West Park and Livingston Place to the East Park. Many of the old New York families lived in this neighborhood, such as the Rutherfords, Stuyvesants, Livingstons, Van Rensselaers, Jays and Schieffelins. On the northwest corner of Seventeenth Street and Second Avenue was the large mansion of Hamilton Fish. This site is occupied by the Lying-in Hospital.

Coming back to St. Mark's Place. The block between Second and Third Avenues had long before lost its old residential character. A few of the old residences remained, but very few. There were mostly apartment houses, or "flats" as they were known at that time. The Club House of the Arion Society was in the middle of the block on the north side, and directly opposite was the old Tivoli Garden. A few words about the latter may be interesting. Tivoli Garden in its early days was a family resort with a ban-stand in the center and small tables all around; they had a large orchestra and good music and occasionally a soloist. The evolution from a Music Garden to a Variety Show did not take long. I remember seeing Grimaldi, a celebrated clown of those days, at the Tivoli. One of his stunts, in which he made part of the audience, unconsciously, assist him, was very funny. He came on the stage with a good-sized sky-rocket, placed it on an elevation about two feet high and pointing it directly into the audience, he pretended to aim carefully at certain rows of seats, pantomiming to the people to move a little to the right or a little to the left, which some did involuntarily, but when he struck a match and lit the fuse, a number of people actually ducked. Scared out of their wits, we said in those days, but in this psychological age it is "prompted by the instinct of self-preservation."

Opposite the corner of Third Avenue and St. Mark's Place we find Cooper Union, or Cooper Institute as we called it, founded many years ago by the old philanthropist, Peter Cooper. I remember the old gentleman very well, with a profusion of white hair and a large white beard and green spectacles. He made the rounds of his institute every morning, invariably carrying with him a rubber air cushion. Peter Cooper amassed a large fortune in the glue business. In 1876 he was nominated for President by the Greenback Party. This was a short-lived affair. In the basement of Cooper Institute was a large auditorium, used principally for political meetings and for a number of years every Sunday night for "Dime Concerts." Good concerts for the masses at a reasonable price. Abram Hewitt, Ex-Mayor of this city and Congressman was a son-in-law of Peter Cooper.

A block below Cooper Union on the east side of the street was Tompkins Market, running from Sixth to Seventh Street, on the Bowery. The upper floor of this building was formerly the Seventh Regiment Armory until they built their present Armory on Park Avenue, along about 1880. Later it was used by the Sixty-ninth Regiment.

The Third Avenue Elevated was built in 1880, the First and Second Avenue in 1881. Along First Avenue the pillars were put up long before the rest of the frame-work. We boys would climb to the top of these pillars and jump into a pile of gravel for a nickel. I would not attempt it today for all the nickels in the world.

Coming back to St. Mark's Churchyard. This historical spot is worthy of a separate article and I will just dwell upon one important event in connection with it, one that caused the greatest sensation throughout the city. It was in November, 1878, when the remains of A.T. Stewart, the merchant prince, were stolen. The body rested in an underground vault since his death two years before. The vaults were all underground, with a heavy slab of stone, half a foot thick; tombstones or monuments were barred. The churchyard is protected by an eight-foot iron fence with spikes. How they managed to get the body out of the vault and over the iron fence without being detected is a mystery to this day. The object was blackmail. A reward of $25,000 was offered for the return of the body and capture of the ghouls; this reward was increased to $50,000 later. The body was subsequently recovered and deposited in the mausoleum of the Cathedral at Garden City, Long Island.

Alexander T. Stewart was born in Ireland and came to the country as a boy. He was without doubt the greatest Retail Merchant this country has known. His retail establishment at Ninth to Tenth Street and Broadway, completed shortly before his death, is to this day one of the finest buildings of its kind in the country. Besides the retail store, A.T. Stewart & Co. had a wholesale Dry Goods House on Broadway, taking in the entire block from Chambers to Duane Street. Stewart was one of the wealthiest men of the country and built a beautiful mansion at Thirty-fourth Street and Madison Avenue, where his widow survived him for a number of years.