The Union Dime Savings Bank

The Union Dime Savings Bank stood on Thirty-second Street, facing Greeley Square, from 1876 to February, 1910. From in front of the bank the old Bloomingdale stages had their point of departure before going out of existence altogether. About fifty years ago, the property belonged to Richard F. Carman, who asked $90,000 for the plot, but took $87,500, remarking to his agent with a chuckle of satisfaction as he closed the bargain: "I guess that fellow's stuck." Such was the opinion of many who considered the price beyond all reason for property in the neighborhood of Thirty-fourth Street; in 1874, when the savings bank took title, it paid $275,000, or about seventy dollars a square foot for approximately four thousand square feet. At the sale in October, 1906, the bank received about two hundred and fifty dollars a square foot; and the purchaser sold to an English syndicate in June, 1909, at a price which is stated to have been in the neighborhood of three hundred and seventy five dollars a square foot, a value for city property only exceeded so far by the plot at the corner of Broadway and Wall Street. This will give some idea of the increment in land values in this vicinity within half a century.

The Great White Way

Broadway from Thirty-fourth to Forty-seventh Street has been for the last few years the locality where the gay life of the metropolis has been most readily seen. Here are congregated great hotels, famous restaurants, and theatres; and the brilliant illumination at night by the countless electric lights has caused this section of the avenue to be called the "Great White Way"; and no stranger has seen New York who has not traversed it.

It is to this part of the town that the heart of the exiled New Yorker turns, and it is hither that the footsteps of visitors bent on gaiety naturally and inevitably find their way. The occupants of stores and theatres as far down as Twenty-third Street claim to be a part of it all and they were ten years ago but they cannot stop the law of progress up the famous thoroughfare. From abreast of the City Hall Park, in the first half of the nineteenth century, gay fashion has gradually worked its way northward to this present section. Perhaps, at the end of this century, the "Great White Way" will be as quiet and colorless as is now the section of
Broadway below Fourteenth Street, while the gay populace of that future time will find its pleasures in the neighborhood of Kingsbridge. This seems to be the law of the street. When that day comes, Manhattan Island will have lost the greater part of its population and will be devoted almost entirely to business; while the enormous mass of the people will live in the suburbs of
Westchester County, of New Jersey, and of Long Island, carried daily to and from their occupations at rates of speed now undreamed of, and by means of transit which exist at present only in the dreams of visionaries.

Grant's Tomb

A few rods south of Claremont is the mausoleum erected by the people of the nation to contain the remains of the great commander of the Civil War, Ulysses S. Grant. His wife lies beside him. His funeral occurred August 8, 1885, and was the most imposing one ever seen in this city. The body was placed temporarily in a small, brick vault adjacent to the tomb, work upon which was begun upon his birthday, April 27, 1891. It was dedicated April 27, 1897, upon which occasion there was an imposing military and civic parade which attracted to the city hundreds of thousands of strangers. The day was one of great discomfort and suffering to the spectators along Riverside Drive, as it was cold, and a strong gale prevailed which swept up the river without hindrance. During the celebration of the three hundredth anniversary of the discovery of the Hudson and of the one hundredth of steamboat navigation under Fulton, in the fall of 1909, the ships of the different navies that participated were strung along the river for miles. The naval parade and illumination were witnessed by half a million people, who blackened the slopes of the park in the vicinity of the tomb so that the lawns were obscured.

Other Points of Interest

Returning to the present Broadway, we find to the east of the thoroughfare at One Hundred and Tenth Street, also called Cathedral Parkway, the Protestant Episcopal Cathedral of St. John the Divine, which has been in course of construction for over a quarter of century upon the site of the Leake and Watts Orphan Asylum, which was established in 1831. The corner-stone of the cathedral was laid September 27, 1892. On the blocks north of it are St. Luke's Hospital and Home for the Aged.

The blocks above One Hundred and Sixteenth Street on the east side were occupied from 1821 to 1894 by the Bloomingdale Insane Asylum, which had moved in the former year from the grounds of the New York Hospital at Thomas Street, and which moved in the latter year to White Plains in Westchester County.

Abreast of the university buildings, the underground railway emerges from the subway and is carried across the valley of Manhattan Street by means of a viaduct, entering the subway again upon the north side at One Hundred and Thirty-fifth Street. The village of Manhattanville formerly occupied this section through the valley as far east as Seventh Avenue. The author states " I remember when the Eighth Avenue horse-car route was extended as far as One Hundred and Twenty-fifth Street, and we considered we were securing wonderful transportation. At One Hundred and Twenty-fifth Street, we cross into the ancient town of New Harlem, whose southern, or western, boundary line extended from the Hudson, just south of the Fort Lee Ferry at Manhattan Street, in a straight line diagonally across the island to Seventy-fourth Street and the East River; the other boundaries were the East, Harlem, and Hudson Rivers."

Charitable Societies Located in the Area of Broadway.

Attracted by the salubrity and healthfulness of Washington Heights, several charitable societies located among the country estates, on or near the old road or upon Broadway.

The Sheltering Arms

It was organized in 1864 for homeless children between five and twelve years of age for whom no other institution provides, is at Amsterdam Avenue and One Hundred and Twenty-ninth Street.

The Hebrew Orphan Society

It was founded in 1822, is on the same avenue at One Hundred and Thirty-sixth Street.

The Montefiore Home

At Broadway and One Hundred and Thirty-eighth Street is one of the grandest charities in the city, the Hospital and Home for Chronic Invalids, commonly called the "Montefiore Home." It was founded in 1884 and is supported almost entirely by the voluntary subscriptions from people of the Jewish faith, as a memorial to the famous philanthropist, Sir Moses Montefiore; it is open to both sexes without distinction of race or creed. The present quarters have been found to be too cramped to carry out fully the desires of the trustees, and arrangements are already completed to transfer the Home to the Borough of The Bronx on the Gunhill Road near Jerome Avenue. The new buildings are to cost $1,500,000, and will be designed to accommodate six hundred invalids, with all modern improvements for their comfort and health.

The Colored Orphan Asylum

It was organized in 1837, was for many years at Amsterdam Avenue and One Hundred and Forty-third Street until its removal to Mount St. Vincent. At the time of the draft riots of July, 1863, the asylum was located at Fifth Avenue between Forty-third and Forty-fourth streets. The malice of the rioting crowds was directed against every one who showed color, whether man, woman, or child, and many negroes were hanged from near-by lamp-posts. Inspired by this hatred, the mob made an attack upon the asylum and fired the buildings, which were consumed; but fortunately, the children were withdrawn safely through a rear entrance. With the money obtained as damages from the city, that secured from the sale of the Fifth Avenue plot, and that subscribed by citizens, many of whom had never heard of the institution until the burning of the asylum, the new buildings were started on Washington Heights.

The Institution For the Dear and Dumb

It was incorporated in 1817 with De Witt Clinton as first president of the society; it is located at One Hundred and Sixty-third Street and Fort Washington Avenue.

The New York Juvenile Asylum

It was founded in 1817 at what is now Madison Square, long occupied a portion of the Smedes property below One Hundred and Sixty-eighth Street until its removal to Dobbs Ferry.

Trinity Cemetery

Trinity Church secured the plot of ground between Amsterdam Avenue and the river and between One Hundred and Fifty-third and One Hundred and Fifty-fifth streets, and opened it as Trinity Cemetery in 1843. To it were transferred at that time, and later, the bodies from the graveyards attached to St George's in Beekman Street, St. Stephen's in Broome Street, and St. Thomas's in Broadway, as those edifices gave way to the advance of business and were sold by their congregations. Upon the stone fence at the corner of One hundred and Fifty-third Street and Broadway is a bronze tablet erected by the Sons of the Revolution, stating that upon this height and through the cemetery grounds was constructed one of the southern outworks of Fort Washington. It was the first portion of the works to fall in the assault of November 16, 1776. When the Boulevard was constructed about 1870, the cemetery was cut into two parts connected by a suspension bridge. The grounds are laid out in terraces, and from the top of the hill the view looking down through the trees to the river is a beautiful one. General John A. Dix is buried here. A monument in the form of an Irish cross at the northern entrance bears the name of the great American naturalist and ornithologist Audubon.

The James Gordon Bennett Place

It occupied a part of the land upon which Fort Washington is situated.

John James Audubon

He lived in Audubon Park above One Hundred and Fifty-fifth Street. Here he was far removed from the noise and turmoil of the city the "crazy" city, as he called it which he loathed with all the feeling of a man whose life had been spent principally in the open air in communion with Nature. Here he died in 1851 and was buried in Trinity Cemetery.

The Grange Country-House

Alexander Hamilton owned an estate in this neighborhood on the Bloomingdale Road near One Hundred and Fortieth Street, and here he erected a handsome country-house which he named the "Grange" after the home of his grandfather in Ayrshire, Scotland. The house has been removed a short distance away to the east side of Convent Avenue, where it serves as the parish house of St. Luke's P.E. Church; so that it is assured of preservation for some time, at least. From the Grange, Hamilton used to drive to and from his office in the city; after putting his affairs quietly in order, he took his last drive for his fatal meeting with Burr, without letting his "dear Betsy" have an inkling of the prospective encounter. Of the thirteen trees planted by Hamilton in commemoration of the thirteen original States, nothing now remains but the stumps and a few fallen logs; these could a year or two back be easily procured by the relic hunter in the playground adjoining the R.C. Church of our Lady of Lourdes in One Hundred and Forty-third Street.