The Epic of New York City

by Edward Robb Ellis

  Carnegie acquiesced, partly because he foresaw the use of such a hall as a lecture platform and partly because he hoped that such a building could pay its own way. He told Damrosch that he was willing to spend $2,000,000 to construct the building, but that other New Yorkers would have to maintain and expand the institution. In the spring of 1889 Carnegie organized the Music Hall Company, and that summer excavation began for the main building.

  The chosen site was the southeastern corner of Seventh Avenue and Fifty-seventh Street, then considered far uptown. Saloons abounded in the neighborhood, and Carnegie, who never drank liquor, was annoyed when he heard that at the end of a working day his laborers headed for a bar run by a brewery on Fifty-sixth Street. He cut off this source of supply by buying the property and closing the tavern.

  The Music Hall, as Carnegie Hall was first called, was designed by William B. Tuthill. Besides being an accomplished architect, Tuthill had an excellent tenor voice, played the cello, was secretary of the Oratorio Society, and knew all of New York’s serious musicians. In those days acoustical engineering was in its infancy, but Tuthill methodically studied the acoustics of all the important European concert halls. When the cornerstone was laid on May 13, 1890, Carnegie said of the structure, “It is built to stand for ages, and during these ages it is probable that this hall will intertwine itself with the history of our country.”

  It was erected piecemeal over the next seven years—not just one building, but three buildings cunningly connected to look like one. Down to the present, strangers are confused by the fact that the eighth floor of one unit runs into the tenth floor of another. Tuthill designed the exterior of the main building in modified Italian Renaissance Eclectic, which one writer described as a “fat, brown-and-buff Romanesque pile.” Its foyer was well marbled, and the auditorium was rich in red plush and gilt trimmings. Two tiers of boxes were constructed around 3 sides of the auditorium, which seats 2,760 persons.

  To open the Oratorio Society’s new home, Walter Damrosch planned a five-day six-concert music festival, and he persuaded Peter Ilich Tchaikovsky to conduct some of his own works. When the Russian landed here late in the afternoon of April 26, 1891, he was the first truly great composer to visit America. Tchaikovsky was not a conductor by profession. A morbid neurotic, he sometimes felt as if his head were falling off as he stood on the podium, and at a previous concert he had clutched his head with one hand during the entire performance.

  Tchaikovsky had a ruddy complexion, a bitter and full-lipped mouth, piercing blue eyes, gray hair, and a gray beard, and he dressed meticulously. As members of the welcoming committee helped him pass through customs, he glanced about apprehensively. He suffered from what he called heart cramps, and he had endured nervous breakdowns, tried unsuccessfully to cure his homosexuality by marrying, and made a stab at suicide. He felt homesick now and grieved over the recent death of his sister. Upon reaching the Hotel Normandie at Broadway and Thirty-eighth Street, he sat down in his suite and wept.

  The formal opening of Carnegie Hall was held on the evening of May 5, 1891. Seated in Box 33 was Andrew Carnegie, a tiny man with white beard and hair, his hard mouth hidden by his mustache and his bright eyes widely separated by a thick nose. He was applauded by the chorus, about 400 strong, massed on the stage behind the orchestra. Exactky at 8 P.M. Walter Damrosch lifted his baton, and the chorus began singing a popular hymn, “Old Hundred.” Later that evening Tchaikovsky conducted the Marche Solennelle, one of his minor works, but this time he did not feel it necessary to keep his head from toppling off. His beat was firm, forcible, and a little harsh.

  Tchaikovsky considered Carnegie Hall “magnificent.” He was paid $2,500 for this and other appearances during the music festival, and before leaving here, he was entertained by Carnegie. The Russian composer liked the Scottish-born steel magnate, partly because Carnegie expressed admiration for Moscow, which he had visited two years before. Tchaikovsky was also impressed by Carnegie’s simplicity and his talent as a mimic. The musician wrote in his diary: “He grasped my hands, declaring that I am the uncrowned but true king of music; embraced me (without kissing—here men never kiss), expressed my greatness by standing on tiptoe and raising his hands up high, and finally threw the entire company into raptures by showing how I conduct. He did it so seriously, so well, so similarly, that I myself was delighted.”

  Carnegie Hall did not pay its way, as Carnegie had hoped. Although it was well attended, its operating costs exceeded its income, so with many complaints Carnegie underwrote its annual deficits for many years. However, it was an artistic success. Few auditoriums have such excellent acoustics as Carnegie Hall, which became America’s most important concert hall.

  The world’s largest cathedral began to take shape in Manhattan about this time. Called the Cathedral of St. John the Divine, it was the Mother Church of the Episcopal diocese of New York.

  Back in 1828 the need for such a cathedral had been mentioned by John Henry Hobart, the third Episcopal bishop of New York. In 1872 the idea was revived by Horatio Potter, the sixth Episcopal bishop, who urged Episcopalians to erect the largest church in America. G. T. Strong discussed the plan with John Jacob Astor, grandson and namesake of the original John Jacob Astor. The grandson told Strong he would donate $100,000 toward the project, causing the diarist to write: “Often as I have thought of it, I never regarded the realization of such a conception as within the bounds of possibility till my casual talk with John J. Astor at the door of 68 Wall Street this morning. Why not try to make the dream a reality?” That was on May 27, 1872. The next year Bishop Potter obtained a state charter incorporating the Cathedral of St. John the Divine.

  He was succeeded as bishop by his nephew, Henry Codman Potter, who had pronounced the benediction at the dedication of the Statue of Liberty. The new bishop appealed for funds, not merely from Episcopalians but from Christians of every creed. John D. Rockefeller, a Baptist, later contributed $500,000.

  On October 31, 1891, the Episcopalians paid $850,000 for 11½ acres of land then occupied by an orphan asylum on the Morningside Heights plateau, 3 blocks east of the Hudson River. The site was bounded on the west by Amsterdam Avenue, on the north by West 113th Street, on the east by Morningside Drive, and on the south by West 110th Street. Part of the Battle of Harlem Heights had been fought here. Architects throughout the world were invited to submit plans for the cathedral. The winners were two Americans, George Lewis Heins and Christopher Grant La Farge. They chose the Romanesque Eclectic style, deriving part of their inspiration from the Cathedral of Gerona in Spain, which La Farge had visited in his youth. The cornerstone was laid on St. John’s Day, December 27, 1892.

  Built in the shape of a cross, the cathedral was so oriented that a priest standing at the high altar faced the east. Its nave, 601 feet long, became the longest in the world. Its foundation, 72 feet below the surface at certain spots, rested on solid rock. Except for steel in the roof over the nave, the building was made entirely of stone. Its core was Maine granite. Its outer walls were Mohegan granite from Peeks-kill, New York. Its inner surfaces were Bedford (Indiana) limestone and Wisconsin dolomite. Its flying buttresses were placed inside, rather than outside, the structure.

  Flanking the nave were columns so lofty that they added grandeur to the magnificent cathedral. The work of hoisting them into place was directed by Carrie A. Howland, wife of one of the contractors. A shipload of tall pine trees had to be brought here all the way from Oregon around Cape Horn in order to make a derrick tall and strong enough to lift the granite pillars. The trees were landed at a Hudson River dock, as were the columns. To move the columns from the waterfront to the cathedral site required the construction of a truck reputed to be then the largest in the world.

  Set in the western and front façade of the cathedral was a great rose window, forty feet in diameter. Under this stained-glass marvel stood ponderous bronze doors, eighteen feet high, weighing twelve tons, and richly ornamented on the outside with bas-relief panels i
llustrating biblical scenes.

  The first service in the unfinished cathedral was held on January 8, 1899. After the death of Heins, architect La Farge carried on alone until 1911. At that time only the choir, the apse, and a rough masonry shell at the crossing had been completed. Certain cathedral officials, who preferred the more traditional Gothic architecture, declared the original contract at an end and turned the commission over to Ralph Adams Cram and Frank E. Ferguson. This was a disheartening blow to La Farge and largely cut short his creative career. Cram and Ferguson designed the rest of the building in French Gothic Eclectic.

  Although more than $20,000,000 has been spent on the cathedral, it is only about two-thirds finished today. Still lacking are two western towers, not yet carried to their full height of 207 feet, and a central spire, designed to rise more than 400 feet.

  St. Peter’s in Rome is a church, not a cathedral; its 41,900,000 cubic feet make it the largest church in the world. St. John’s in New York is a cathedral because it contains the bishop’s throne; its 16,822,000 cubic feet make it the largest cathedral in the world. The Cathedral of St. John the Divine can seat 10,000 people and hold thousands of standees. A scientist has predicted that this massive pile of stone upon stone will endure for at least 5,000 years.

  The first Waldorf-Astoria Hotel resulted from a feud and then a truce between two branches of the Astor family. In the 1880’s the empress of American society was Carolina Webster Schermerhorn Astor, known to the elite as the Mrs. Astor. She had married William Astor, the second son of William Backhouse Astor, and at their wedding reception Ulysses S. Grant had become a little drunk. The Mrs. Astor lacked beauty and brains, wore a black wig because her hair was falling out, but rose to undisputed leadership in society because she had $50,000,000 and the personality of a Prussian drill sergeant.

  On the southwestern corner of Fifth Avenue and Thirty-fourth Street she built a 4-story mansion costing $1,500,000 and spent $750,000 to furnish it. Her husband disliked social life, so she chose Ward McAllister as her chamberlain, secretary, and social arbiter. The third Monday of every January she gave a ball regarded as the crowning event of the social season. At first she limited her guests to 400. McAllister told a reporter, “There are only about four hundred people in fashionable New York society. If you go outside the number you strike people who are either not at ease in a ballroom or else make other people not at ease. See the point?” The phrase “The Four Hundred” came to mean society’s elite.

  Mrs. Astor received her guests while standing in front of a full-length life-size oil portrait of herself. She wore as many jewels as possible, among them a triple necklace of diamonds and a famous diamond stomacher said to have belonged to Marie Antoinette. Every pair of canvasback ducks consumed by her guests cost the equivalent of a worker’s weekly wages, and her annual ball was paid for by rentals from miles of tenements.

  Her nephew was William Waldorf Astor, a great-grandson of the original John Jacob Astor. He was tall and stooped, parted his hair in the middle, and was as eccentric as he was irascible. It galled him when voters twice refused to elect him to Congress. Equally irritating was his aunt’s social glory, which he wanted for his wife, Mary Dahl-gren Paul Astor. Despite the fact that his fortune was twice as large as his aunt’s, he was unable to wrest the social leadership from her. Declaring that “America is not a fit place for a gentleman to live,” he planned to move to England. First, however, he would try to humble his aunt.

  He lived on the northwestern corner of Fifth Avenue and Thirty-third Street in a house inherited from his father, John Jacob Astor III. Only a garden separated his place from his aunt’s. He planned to raze his house and on its site erect a hotel so tall that its shadow would fall on his aunt’s residence and dwarf its grandeur. Furthermore, he would call it the Waldorf so that everyone who voted against him would have to pronounce this part of his name. He chose Henry J. Hardenbergh to design his hotel and George C. Boldt to run it.

  No expense was spared to make the Waldorf the most sumptuous hotel in America. The building alone cost nearly $4,000,000, while furnishings came to $600,000. Construction never was hurried, every detail being planned and built with meticulous care. When completed, it stood 13 stories high and had 530 rooms and 350 private baths. On the rainy night of March 14, 1893, the new Waldorf was officially opened. This was a depression year, and one Sunday the hotel had only 40 guests and 970 employees available to wait on them. Quickly recovering, however, the Waldorf won widespread fame.

  Less than a year later the Mrs. Astor capitulated. Unwilling to live within a shadow created by her nephew and seeking to remove herself from what she considered sordid commercialism, she engaged Richard Morris Hunt to design a new palace for her farther north on Fifth Avenue.

  Her son, John Jacob Astor IV, was angered by his cousin’s victory and envious of his new hostelry. He decided to tear down his mother’s abandoned mansion and there erect a hotel even taller than the Waldorf. But money was thicker than bad blood. Boldt, who had leased the Waldorf, suggested that the two hotels be operated as one so that both cousins would make greater profits. Cautiously agreeing, they stipulated that every opening between the two structures be constructed in such a way that they could be bricked up and sealed off, should the occasion arise.

  John Jacob Astor IV, sixteen years younger than his cousin, had a lean face, a sharp nose, long sideburns, and a pointed upturned mustache. He decided to name his hotel the Astoria for the trading post his great-grandfather had planted in Oregon at the mouth of the Columbia River. In the spring of 1895 he began to demolish his mother’s mansion, and by the following summer the Astoria was well along in its construction. The Waldorf had no bar; patrons would drink vintage wine at their tables. The Astoria featured a huge four-sided bar that became famous. It also boasted an enormous carriage entrance and the first roof garden of any New York hotel.

  The 17-story Astoria opened on November 1, 1897, and by a coincidence this, too, turned out to be a stormy evening. President William McKinley was unable to attend, but sent Vice-President Garret A. Hobart. The combined hotel, called the Waldorf-Astoria, cost $13,000,000. With its 1,000 rooms and 765 private baths, it was the world’s costliest, largest, and most magnificent hotel. Hardenbergh, who designed both parts, immediately became the foremost hotel architect of his time. The German Renaissance edifice abounded in roofed galleries, balconies, gables, and clusters of chimneys. The Empire dining room was modeled after the grand salon in King Ludwig’s palace at Munich.

  “Meet me at the Waldorf” became a byword among New York’s elite during the Gay Nineties and long afterward. The hyphenated hotel continued to function at that location until 1929, when it was torn down to make way for the Empire State Building.

  Chapter 33

  ELLIS ISLAND OPENS

  IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY New York grew faster than any other big city in the world because immigrants washed upon its shores in ever-increasing numbers. Now, however, there came a change in the ethnic nature of the influx. Before 1883 about 85 percent of the immigrants were from northern and western Europe. After that, a flood of foreigners began arriving from central and southern Europe.

  In the 1880’s more than twice as many aliens landed as had arrived in any two previous consecutive decades. In 1861 only 91,918 reached America, but 669,431 were admitted in 1881. Most of the aliens came through New York. They were fleeing from exploitation and from political and religious persecution.

  In 1880 New York City had 80,000 Jews, most of them of German extraction. Then, in 1881, Czar Alexander III began persecuting Russian Jews by forbidding them to acquire land, establishing Jewish quotas in schools and universities, and instituting cruel pogroms. Terror-stricken Jews poured out of the Russian empire, their exodus becoming the greatest since the departure of the Jews from Egypt.

  Between 1881 and 1910 a total of 1,562,000 Jews came to America. A majority remained in New York, and a majority of this majority settled in the Lower East Side, co
nverting it into the world’s largest Jewish community. By 1910 there were 1,252,000 Jews living there. Irishmen and Germans hastily left for other parts of the city, leaving New York’s oldest dwellings to the newcomers. Walt Whitman did not share in the general scorn for the Russian Jews. In a letter written to his Russian translator in 1881, Whitman remarked on the amazing similarity between Russians and Americans.

  It was not anti-Semitic Christians who first slandered Jews with the derogatory term “kikes.” New York’s long-established German Jews, noting that the names of many Russian Jews ended with ki, began calling them kikis, which gradually changed to kikes. Hoping to escape this embarrassing distinction and obtain credit from German businessmen, some Russians took German names. Efforts were made to exclude Jews from good jobs and neighborhoods, from clubs and schools. Many Lower East Side Jews became peddlers because little capital was needed to get into this line of work. Pushcarts were thickest on Hester Street, the chief market center on the Lower East Side. Jews were so fond of the theater they said their diet was “bread smeared with theater.” The first Yiddish play in America was staged in New York in 1882. Second Ave. became the Jewish Rialto.

  As a result of centuries of political oppression, most Jews were liberals, and many were Socialists. They spent so much time quarreling about different radical doctrines that the Irish easily maintained control of Tammany Hall. However, the Irish were slow to move out of the ranks of unskilled labor, whereas the Jews were quick to become first small merchants and then professional men.