Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 17.djvu/505

CITY.] NEW Y R K 465 1880. 1870. 1860. 11,339 7,624 4,375 $131,206,356 8129,952,262 $61,212,757 ?i^S8, 441,691 178,696,939 90,177,038 227,352 129,577 90,204 $97,030,021 $63,824,049 $28,481,915 $472,926,437 $332,951,520 $159,107,369 In number of establishments the boot and shoe industry leads in 1880, the number in this case being 839. Then, in order, come bakery products, 782 ; cigars, 761 ; men s clothing, 736 ; carpenter - in, 460 ; printing and publishing, 412 ; plumbing and gasritting, 401 ; furniture, 299 ; painting and paper-hanging, 293 ; foundry products, 287; jewellery, 240; machinery, 240 ; women s clothing, 230 ; blacksmithing, 205. The whole number of industries enume rated in the census table is 164. In the value of products, men s clothing leads, the total being 60,798,697. Next in order come meat packing, $29,297,527 ; printing and publishing, $21,696,354 ; malt liquors, $19,137,882; women s clothing, $18,930,553; cigars, $18,347,108; lard (refined), $14,758,718 ; foundry products, f 14, 710,836; sugar and molasses (refined), $11,330,883. Then come furniture, bakery products, machinery, silk and silk goods, boots and shoes, carpentering, musical instruments (pianos and materials), grease and tallow, flouring and grist-mill products, coffees and spices (roast and ground), marble and stone work, shirts, iron castings, oleomargarine, millinery and lace goods, jewellery, all with annual production ranging from $10,000,000 to 35,000,000. Docks. Until 1870 the docks of the city were not confided to the care of a special department of the city government, and there was no adequate attempt made to put them in practical and durable shape, and to extend the wharf line. In that year a separate dock department was authorized by the legislature, and it is continued under the present charter. It is in charge of three commissioners, nominated by the mayor and confirmed by the aldermen. They liold office for six years, and receive an annual salary of $3000 each. The bulkhead line of the city from the Battery to Sixty-First Street on the Hudson River, according to the new plan, measures 25,743 feet, and from the Battery to Fifty-First Street on the East River 27,995 feet. At the Battery a stone pier was completed several years ago. This is the only stone pier on the water front. The .system which the department is trying to carry out proposes the construction of a new bulkhead wall, first along the Hudson River front, and eventually along the East River, and the widening of the street along the Hudson River to a width of 250 feet, and of that along the East River to a width of 150 feet in the lower part and of 100 feet in the upper part. A beginning of this work has been made along the Hudson River, but it makes slow progress, partly because the title to the water front in many places is disputed by private individuals, and this results in much tedious litigation. It is the intention to give 20 to 25 feet of water at every point along the new bulkhead. This bulkhead is now completed at detached points on the Hudson River, as from West Tenth Street to Canal Street, and from Jay Street to Warren Street, and the work is going on at other points. The allotment of wharfs and places in the harbour to vessels is not done by the dock or any other city depart ment, but by the captain of the port and eleven harbour masters, all of whom are nominated by the governor of the State and con firmed by the State senate. The captain of the port holds office for three years, and the harbour masters for two years. Ferries. As New York is on all sides surrounded by water, ferry boats form the principal means of communication between it and the opposite shores. The water-courses of its northern boundary Harlem River and Spuyten Duyvel Creek are narrow enough to be bridged ; but, until the opening of the Brooklyn Bridge, steam ferry-boats supplied the only means of communication with New Jersey and Long and Staten . Islands. These boats are arranged with cabins for passengers on both sides, and a roadway for horses, waggons, cattle, &c., in the middle. They are worked by the rail road companies and other private corporations. The principal ferries to New Jersey, running from the Hudson River side, have their piers at the foot of the following streets : Liberty, Cortlandt, Barclay, Chambers, Desbrosses, Christopher, Twenty-Third, and Forty- Second. The principal ferries to Brooklyn, running from the East River side, have their piers at the foot of the following streets : Whitehall (2), Wall, Fulton, Catharine, Roosevelt, Grand, and Houston. There are also two ferry lines to Staten Island, four to Long Island City, one to Astoria, L.I., one to Blackwell s Island, two to Greenpoint, L.I., and one to Governor s Island. The Brooklyn ferry-boats leave their piers every ten minutes (and those from Fulton Street every five minutes) during the business hours, lessening their trips afterwards to one every fifteen or twenty minutes. On the New Jersey side they run at intervals of from ten to thirty minutes. During certain of the busiest hours of the morning and evening the fare for each foot passenger on the leading Brooklyn ferries is 1 cent ; during the rest of the day it is 2 cents. On the New Jersey ferries it is uniformly 3 cents. Conveyances. The rapid growth of the city in a long line to the northward has naturally led to great difficulties of transportation. The old omnibuses began to be supplemented in 1834 on all the leading longitudinal lines of thoroughfare by tramway cars drawn by two horses, but, though running in the most frequented routes at intervals of a minute, they became long ago unequal to the demands on them. As the dwelling houses became farther and farther separated from the business part of the city, the discomfort and delay of this mode of travel, especially in winter weather, grew very serious, and caused a considerable migration to Jersey City and Brooklyn of persons who would have remained on Manhattan Island but for the difficulty of getting to and fro. After a long period of clamorous discontent, the remedy was applied in 1878 by the construction of what is known as the Elevated Railroad, worked by steam locomotives on raised iron trestle work in four of the avenues, the Ninth, Sixth, Third, and Second, and running from the Battery to the Harlem River every three to four minutes, 10 cents being the ordinary fare for the entire distance of 10 miles, but with "commission" trains at 5 cents between certain hours of the morning and evening, for the accommodation of the working classes, the fare in these having been fixed by the State commission which settled the conditions of the charters. The result has been a very rapid increase of population in the upper end of the island. Public Works. There are but few public buildings of much architectural pretension. The principal are the city-hall, the general post-office, the custom-house, the barge office at the Battery for the accommodation of passengers landing from steam ships, the new produce exchange, and the Roman Catholic cathedral in Fifth Avenue. The two great public works of the city are the Croton aqueduct and the suspension bridge, spanning the East River, connecting New York with Brooklyn. The former, which carries the water supply of the city over 40 miles from the Croton Lake in Westchester county, has a capacity of 115,000,000 gallons daily, and is now delivering 90,000,000 gallons daily. It has for forty years supplied the inhabitants with water with a profusion never seen elsewhere in the modern world, and with little or no restriction on its use. Of late the supply has begun to be inade quate, and provision has (1883) been made by the legislature for the construction of an additional reservoir and aqueduct. The Brooklyn Bridge connecting New York with Brooklyn across the East River is much the largest suspension bridge yet constructed, measuring 5989 feet in length, while that at Elfin, the next largest, only measures 2562. The work on it began in 1870, and it was opened for traffic on May 24, 1883. The bridge consists of a central span 1595| feet in length from tower to tower, two spans of 930 feet each from the towers to the anchorage on either side, and the approaches of ironwork and masonry, the one on the New York side being 1562f feet, and that on the Brooklyn side 971 feet in length. The towers, between which the central span extends, are 276f feet above high water, and rest upon a rock foundation 80 feet below the surface of the river and 40 feet below its bed. The cables, four in number, supporting the spans, are 15f inches in diameter, and 37574 feet in length. They rest on movable "saddles" where they pass over the towers, exerting here a vertical pressure only, the stress (or lengthwise pull) being sustained wholly at the anchor ages, masses of solid stone masonry weighing 60,000 tons each, and rising 90 feet above the river s edge. Each cable contains 5282 gal vanized steel wires in nineteen separate strands, consisting of 278 lengths, each strand having over 200 miles of continuous wire. The wires are laid parallel (not twisted), and packed as closely as possible, the greatest care being necessary to secure perfect evenness of length, and are covered with an outside spiral wrapping of wire. The deflexion of the cables between the towers is 128 feet ; the clear height of the bridge above high water is 135 feet in the centre and 118 feet at the towers, giving a free passage to shipping. The width of the bridge is 85 feet, divided between five passage ways. In the centre is a footway 15J feet wide and raised 12 feet above the other passages, giving an open view on both sides ; next this on each side are tracks for cars, worked by cables from a stationary engine at the Brooklyn terminus ; and outside of these are waggon ways 19 feet wide. The entire cost of the bridge, $15,500,000, was borne by the cities of New York and Brooklyn, the latter paying two-thirds. Hudson River Tunnel. The width of the Hudson River along the city s front is so great that no engineer has yet proposed to bridge it there ; but an engineering feat almost as difficult is now in progress. This is the excavation of a tunnel beneath the bed of the river large enough to permit the running of steam trains in it. The work is in the hands of private capitalists. The entrance of the tunnel in New York is at the foot of Morton Street ; in Jersey City it is at the foot of Fifteenth Street, near the Hobokeu line. Work was begun at the New Jersey entrance in 1874, and at New York entrance several years later. There are in fact to be two tunnels, about 25 feet apart, with connexions every 1000 feet. This mode of construction is easier than to make one tunnel of double width. The river from bulkhead to bulkhead at this point measures 5400 feet in width, and each entrance is about 60 feet back from the bulkhead. The tunnels will measure, inside, 17 feet XVII. - 59