The Building of Manhattan Read online

  Rents were high. There were now about 4,200 houses in New York. Although the law stated that no house, except one of brick or stone, could be built south of present-day Duane Street, wooden frame buildings with brick fronts were not uncommon.

  The house of General Henry Knox, for sale in 1789, was described as being “a four storey brick house on the west side of Broadway, 31½ feet wide by 60 feet deep, containing two rooms of thirty feet in length, one of twenty-six feet, three of twenty-three feet, and two of twenty feet, besides four other rooms with fireplaces, and four smaller ones without them. On the ground floor . . . a large servants-hall... a kitchen 20 ft. by 30 ft. in dimension. In the rear of the house there was a piazza thirty feet long by ten feet wide and the back yard contained a good well, cistern, and ash-house. The lots ran back about 500 feet to the end of a wharf on Greenwich Street, and upon one of them, fronting upon Greenwich Street, was a coach-house twenty-eight feet four inches wide.”

  Pigs still roamed the streets and added to the dirt and confusion. Many households kept all manner of livestock — horses, fowl, pigs, goats. Any goat found roaming the city at large became the property of any person who seized it.

  New York City’s population had reached 60,515 by 1800. The city was being built up as far north as Canal Street; on the Hudson River side it was reaching out toward Greenwich Village.

  New York’s seaport streets, shown here about 1797, at the corner of Wall and Water streets, were the scene of most of the city’s activities and the center of its financial success. To support its trade the city’s merchants built, repaired, and supplied many different types of sailing ships, and in their warehouses they dealt with most of the other ports of the world.

  1811: A PLAN FOR GROWTH

  In 1806 the City Council realized that New York needed to plan for its future growth. Industry was taking over more and more residential space in lower Manhattan, while north of Canal Street building lots were being staked out in any empty space. Residential housing was going up on the nearest open land. The development of the island was getting out of control. A commission was appointed to decide what to do.

  In 1811, the commissioners presented their “plan,” shown on the map below. They observed: “To some it may be a matter of surprise that the whole island has not been laid out as a city. To others it may be a subject of merriment that the Commissioners have provided space for a greater population than is collected at any spot on this side of China. They have in this respect been governed by the shape of the ground. It is not improbable that considerable numbers may be collected at Harlem before the high hills to the southward of it shall be built upon as a city; and it is improbable that (for centuries to come) the grounds north of Harlem Flat will be covered with houses.”

  At the time, the “plan” was the most far-reaching decision ever taken by the city in shaping its own future. Manhattan Island was now planned as a rectangular grid with wide avenues running north-south, and all streets above 14th Street running east-west from river to river and perpendicular to the avenues.

  Avenues were numbered from 1 to 12—four short avenues were lettered A, B, C, and D. The streets were numbered as far north as 155th Street.

  No consideration was given to existing roads, property divisions, or the natural variations in the land. Only Broadway, as a major artery already in use, continued as a diagonal road cutting across the grid. Broadway, which got its name from the Dutch herre wegh — their “broad way” in lower Manhattan — followed an early Indian trail. The streets below 14th Street, already existing in an irregular manner, were to remain as they were. From now on, New Yorkers would proceed to build at an ever-increasing pace. but always within the confines of the grid plan.

  Most of the island was still open land, with farms, squatters, and large estates. There were also many small villages in the undeveloped sections of the island, each with its own name: Greenwich (Village), Chelsea, Yorkville, Murray Hill, Harlem, Carmansville, Bloomingdale, Manhattanville, Harsenville.

  CITY HALL

  The Common Council of April 18, 1803, resolved that, at the laying of City Hall’s cornerstone, “the Mayor draw on the City Treasurer for the sum of fifty dollars, and present it to John McComb where the ceremonies are performed, as a compliment to the workmen.”

  The building’s cost was recorded: “The sums expended on this noble superstructure were: from 1803 to 1814 $538,733.45.”

  The new City Hall, designed by architects Joseph Mangin and John McComb, was completed in 1812, with the south front and sides built of marble. According to folklore, the north side, which is the back of the building, was of more ordinary red sandstone because the city would never grow beyond that uptown side of the building.

  Horses and carriages sometimes competed with livestock, but the new streets were now graded. Collect Pond had been filled in and houses had been built over it. Sanitation was primitive and there were frequent outbreaks of contagious diseases.

  Whether rich or poor, all New Yorkers shared problems which had to be solved if the city was to increase in size and prosper. The city had to have a reliable source of pure drinking water, a safe sewage system, and a means of getting about more quickly and more easily.

  POPULATION PRESSURES: 1811—1850

  The problem of getting around the city with ease and speed was not about to be solved easily. Travel in the early 1800’s was by horse and carriage — unpredictable and irregular.

  Not until 1830 did the first horse-drawn street railroad begin regular service as far north as 15th Street, although by that time a stagecoach was already making the trip from the Battery to Greenwich Village — and taking one hour to get there.

  Yearly epidemics caused great distress. Severe outbreaks of mosquito-borne yellow fever killed hundreds yearly. In 1832 Asiatic cholera made its first appearance in New York: 3,500 died. Those who could flee congested lower Manhattan did so. Greenwich Village, already a favorite place in which to live, began to grow in size, and the city as a whole began to move northward. Its population in 1820 reached 120,000 — double that of 1800.

  The city was growing enormously, financially as well as physically. It weathered the war of 1812-14 with England, when its trade was cut off, and the nation’s financial panic of 1837, when all but three of the city’s banks failed.

  The opening of the Erie Canal in 1825 was a powerful financial impetus to the growth of the city. When first proposed it was considered an act of folly—to carve a canal through 362 miles of wilderness from Albany to Buffalo, making possible a journey by water from New York City to the Great Lakes and to the great American Midwest. There were no highways to that area, and for another quarter-century there would be no railroads. New York was to be the booming transfer center for all goods and travel to the West.

  With the canal it took only a third of the time to go from New York to the Midwest and at a twentieth the cost. Fortunes were made by New Yorkers. New villas and mansions were built along Broadway, still a residential street, and along Fifth Avenue, in 1830 built up as far north as 21st Street.

  The city, then as now, was continually tearing down and rebuilding. Former mayor Philip Hone wrote in 1831: “The city is now undergoing its usual annual metamorphosis; many stores and houses are being pulled down, and others altered, to make every inch of ground productive to its utmost extent.” Eight years later he noted: “The spirit of pulling down and building up is abroad. The whole of New York is rebuilt about once in ten years.”

  Most of the houses for single families were row houses attached to each other. In 1833 the first tenement, intended exclusively for tenant families, was built. Houses by then were also being built of a brownstone — actually a stone with the name “Jersey freestone.”

  By 1840 the population had passed the 300,000 mark. The city was growing too fast. Its inhabitants were overwhelming its resources.

  The city solved its water problems with one of the great engineering triumphs of the time: the construction of the Croto
n Reservoir and Aqueduct. This brought clean, pure water to the city from a massive dam on the Croton River, far to the north. Carried only by the force of gravity, the water traveled through a 45-mile-long tunnel to Manhattan. On July 4, 1842, the entire city celebrated as this fresh Croton River water filled the newly built reservoir at Fifth Avenue and 42nd Street.

  This ready supply of Croton water promised help in combating one of the city’s constant dangers: fire. The Great Fire of 1835— the worst in the city’s history — had destroyed more than 670 buildings in lower Manhattan. But even with the new reservoir a fire in 1845 again swept lower Manhattan, this time with the loss of nearly 300 buildings and at a cost of many millions of dollars.

  Also, with a reliable water supply, indoor plumbing became practical. In addition, by 1850 more than 100 miles of sewer pipes had been installed in the city streets.

  Central heating, another innovation that was improving city life, was being built into the more prosperous homes.

  It was also becoming easier to get about the city. By 1850 a horse-drawn “railroad” regularly carried passengers all the way from City Hall to a depot on 42nd Street. The streets there were unpaved and most of the land nearby was empty, but the city was expanding into those rectangular street blocks that the commissioners had wisely planned for, years earlier.

  New York was called a “semi-barbarous metropolis,” and no wonder — it could never catch up with its growth in population. While the city was struggling to accommodate its own people, immigrants were arriving by boat from Europe in record numbers—212,796 newcomers in 1850 alone. The city kept getting bigger but, despite the increasing population pressures, was becoming more livable.

  Manhattan was about to undergo a revolution in the way its buildings were built, in their size and height, and in their effect on how the city looked.

  In this 1849 view of New York, looking south from Union Square and 14th Street, the most prominent features of the city’s skyline are the church spires and ships’ masts, with one six-story building in the foreground.

  THE CAST-IRON BUILDING

  In 1849, James Bogardus, a New Yorker, built a factory for himself at Duane and Centre Streets. It was described in 1858 as “the first complete cast-iron edifice ever erected in America, or in the world.”

  Bogardus explained his method of cast-iron building construction in a sixteen-page booklet: “The cast-iron frame of the building rests upon sills which are cast in sections of any required length. These sills, by the aid of the planing machine, are made of equal thickness, so as not to admit of any variation throughout the whole: they are laid upon a stone foundation, and are fastened together with bolts. On the joint of the sills stand the columns, all exactly equal in height, and having both their ends faced in a turning lathe so as to make them perfectly plane and parallel; and each column is firmly bolted to the ends of the two adjacent sills on which it rests. These columns support another series of sills, fascias, or cornices, in section, of the same length as the former, but of greater height, according to the design of the architect: they are separately made of equal dimensions, by the planing machine, and are bolted to the columns, and to each other, in the same manner as before. On these again stand another row of columns, and on these columns rests another series of fascias or cornices; and so on, continually, for any required number of stories: the ends of the columns and fascias having been all previously drilled so as to receive the bolts. The arches are bolted, and the spaces between the columns are filled up with windows, doors, and panels, which may be ornamented to any taste.”

  Since antiquity, buildings had been constructed of stone, brick, wood, and concrete, requiring massive walls and foundations to support the entire weight of the whole structure. Each floor that was added to a building required an increase in the width of the walls at their base, thus limiting every building’s height to the width of wall that was practical.

  Bogardus’ cast-iron frame construction, with his idea of “iron flooring to be supported by iron beams in combination with ... sectional truss girders,” was one early step in the development of the metal skeleton-supported building.

  Front and back elevations, and a section of a Bogardus Iron Building, with his method of bolting together the interchangeable columns, beams, and ornamental decoration

  It was a mass-produced, prefabricated structure that “could be erected with extraordinary facility... adjusted and secured by the most ignorant workman... the building cannot fail to be perpendicular and firm ... it may be raised to a height vastly greater than by any other known means.”

  People thought the cast-iron buildings would crash of their own weight, or a fire would melt the structure, or it would be hit by lightning, or the metal would expand and contract and cause the decay of the building. But New York’s builders realized the advantages of the speed and economy with which a prefabricated cast-iron building could be erected. They enthusiastically put up cast-iron exteriors, and opened up their interior spaces with delicate iron columns as floor supports. But they still built brick walls behind the cast-iron fronts and used wooden floors and beams.

  Cast-iron construction permitted a wide variety of fanciful, inexpensive ornamentation. Faces, flowers, ornate eaves, twisted ropes, scrolls, arches, and columns were all cast in iron.

  New York City led the nation in the manufacture and construction of cast-iron buildings. Even today, more than a century after they were built and after thousands have been taken down, almost 300 such buildings are still in use in Manhattan — their cast-iron fronts adding variety and interest to the city’s architecture.

  Standardized cast-iron buildings, such as this example, could be ordered from Daniel Badger’s Catalog of Architectural Iron Works, New York City, 1865.

  THE “SAFETY HOISTER” RAISES THE ROOF

  Elisha Otis demonstrates his “safety hoister” in New York City. The weight of the elevator, when the rope was cut, forced a steel wagon spring to straighten out, causing iron teeth to clamp into the notched guard rails on each side.

  Cast-iron buildings had the potential to rise above the customary five or six floors of mid-1800 structures. But there was a real restriction on how high a building would be built—people still had to walk up and down the stairs.

  Then, in 1854, Elisha Otis demonstrated his “safety hoister” to an astonished public at New York’s Crystal Palace—America’s first World’s Fair. In a dramatic display of confidence in his invention, while riding his steam-powered elevator he cut the rope which raised and lowered him. Instead of crashing to the bottom, the hoist platform on which he was standing stopped where it was. Otis had invented an elevator braking device.

  Steam-powered hoists had been in use before, but this was the world’s first practical and safe elevator. Otis continued to improve his elevator as his competitors built their own systems, some driven by counterweights, vertical screw drives, or hydraulic systems. But the “safety hoister” had become the “safe elevator.” No longer would buildings be limited to a height that stairways made practical.

  Otis’s steam engine. to power his elevator

  Larger buildings were being put up higher than ever before, now that the top floors could be reached by elevator and rented as easily as lower floors. A spirit of rivalry seemed to find an outlet in the construction of the city’s tallest, or biggest, or most innovative building.

  By 1875 the Western Union Building on lower Broadway would reach the height of 10 stories, only to be surpassed by the spire added atop the new Tribune Building that same year.

  The 10-story James Gordon Bennet Building on Nassau Street had its top four floors of cast-iron construction added years after the original building had been put up.

  By 1889-90, when it was built, the Pulitzer Building, on Manhattan’s Park Row, was the tallest office building in the world, at 349 feet. The interior of this building was supported by wrought-iron columns, with the weight of the building supported by very thick outer walls of masonry, in some
places more than nine feet thick.

  Under the building were great cavernous spaces for equipment plus storage for 500 tons of paper. The electric plant with the “energy of 8,500 incandescent lamps” was in a vault under the sidewalk. The building’s boiler room was outside its walls, and its basement was made of solid granite. It was one of the last tall buildings of its kind to be built in New York City.

  Builders and architects everywhere were being challenged by new ideas. In England, steel was being made by the new Bessemer process. It was more versatile, harder, and stronger than cast iron or wrought iron. In New York, a method of fireproofing metal beams was being perfected. In America and in Europe engineers were undertaking the building of spectacular new bridges to accommodate the steam railroads expanding across the continents.

  The metal beams and arches of these bridges had proved capable of spanning great distances and supporting heavy loads and weights. The load capabilities of the metals under weight, the stresses of shock, and the extremes of temperature and wind velocity were all becoming part of the builder’s new technology. What could be done horizontally would have consequences for what could now be built vertically.

  In 1955, the once proud Pulitzer Building was demolished to make way for a new roadway approach to the Brooklyn Bridge. In its last days it provided four months of temporary office space for Mayor Robert Wagner and his staff. They had moved there, just across the street. to escape the noise created by the refacing of City Hall’s exterior stonework.