19th Century: Birth of Metropolis and Gilded Age
By the turn of 19th century, New York becomes the largest city in the nation, its population reaching 100,000. These were the times when New York became not only the largest but the most important city in the nation.
1807
Fulton launches his steamboat.
By the turn of 19th century, New York becomes the largest city in the nation, its population reaching 100,000.
The first functioning steamboat, designed by Robert Fulton, starts out from South Street Sea Port and goes all the way to Albany, covering 150 miles distance at the record speed of 5 miles an hour! She was described as “a monster, moving on the waters, defying wind and tide, and breathing flames and smoke.”
Robert Fulton, an artist turned inventor, did not invent the steam engine, but he was the first to put it to practical use. Fulton’s partner was Chancellor Livingston, one of the founding fathers; Fulton’s first steamboat was called Clermont, after Livingston’s estate.
What started as a breathtaking experiment turned into passenger steamboats transport service running on regular schedule up and down North River.
Washington Irving is publishing.
In 1807 Washington Irving starts publishing satirical essays poking fun at New Yorkers. There was an old English legend about King John who wanted to build a castle in the village of Gotham. In 13th Century England, any road the king travelled on had to be made a public highway, and the people of Gotham did not want a public highway through their village. They decided to pretend to be mad, to scare the king away. Coined by Washington Irving, Gotham, a city of mad people, became New York City’s nickname.
Washington Irving was quite surprised of how little New Yorkers knew about their history. He wrote satirical ‘History of New York from the Beginning of the World to the End of the Dutch Dynasty’. He pretended it was written by the antiquarian Diedrich Knickerbocker. Since then native New Yorkers are referred to as Knickerbockers.
1811
City grid is laid
In the beginning of 19th century most of New York’s population resided below present Civic Center area; Greenwich Village was still a bucolic rural place.
In anticipation of city’s growth, the Commissioners created a grid plan which up to now defines Manhattan’s topography. Described by the commission as a blend “beauty, order and convenience,” the grid was adopted in 1811 to facilitate the sale and development of land north of 14th Street to Washington Heights.
According to the plan, the city is laid out in a series of equal blocks set 200 feet apart, 2,000 blocks altogether. 12 Avenues ran from South to North, streets – from East to West. Street numbers increase towards North, Avenue numbers increase towards West.
There are 20 street blocks per mile or 5 Avenue blocks per mile.
5th Avenue divides Manhattan into East Side and West Side.
1812
The War of 1812
At the outset of the 19th century, Great Britain was locked in a long and bitter conflict with Napoleon Bonaparte’s France. In an attempt to cut off supplies from reaching the enemy, both sides attempted to block the United States from trading with the other.
The Royal Navy also outraged Americans by its practice of impressment, or kidnapping seamen from U.S. merchant vessels and forcing them to serve on behalf of the British.
In the War of 1812, the United States took on the greatest naval power in the world, Great Britain. The United States suffered many costly defeats at the hands of British, Canadian and Native American troops over the course of the War of 1812, including the capture and burning of the nation’s capital, Washington, D.C., in August 1814.
Nonetheless, American troops were able to repulse British invasions in New York, Baltimore and New Orleans. Many celebrated the War of 1812 as a “second war of independence,” beginning an era of partisan agreement and national pride.
City Hall is built
New York City Hall, seat of the government of New York City, is the oldest City Hall in the United States that still houses its original governmental functions. This is where the office of the Mayor of New York City and the chambers of the New York City Council are located.
The building’s front facade was clad in white marble, while the back was left with the old boring sandstone. That was done in order to cut construction costs, since, as it was believed back then, the city would never grow so big that the back of the building would be visible.
1822
Yellow fever epidemic.
By 1820s, New York had become the largest city in the nation and the first city in the U.S. to surpass 100,000 people in population. That, along with the poor water supply, caused constant outbreaks of yellow fever.
1822 marked the last such outbreak in lower Manhattan.
In June 1822 a case of yellow fever broke out on Lumber Street, near the Battery. As the situation began rapidly deteriorating, the city declared anything below City Hall an infested district and put up a barricade along Chambers Street. Lower Manhattan became deserted as people fled northward to anywhere the air was considered more wholesome.
One of the favorite destinations was a village located to the North of New York called Greenwich.
By the time the epidemic ended in the fall of 1822, 388 New Yorkers had died.
When things returned to normal, a lot of people decided to stay in Greenwich Village and settle. The causes of Yellow Fever remained a mystery well into the next century.
1825
The Erie Canal opens
In the beginning of the 19th century New York is the largest city in the nation; after Erie Canal is constructed it becomes a major economic center.
The Erie Canal was the longest canal in the world built in the shortest time. It connected Hudson River (through Mohawk River) to the Great Lakes, making New York City “the mouth of the continent”. After Erie Canal was constructed New York experienced its first economic boom.
Because of the Erie Canal, New York City finds itself in position to control half of nation’s imports and at least 1/3 of its exports.
By 1850 ,the city’s population reached 1/2 million, quadrupling the population from 1820s.
Most of the new immigrants in the first half of the 19th century arrived from Germany and Ireland.
1848
John Jacob Astor dies
John Jacob Astor died the richest man in the nation, having amassed a fortune of $20 million.Astor arrived from Germany at the end of 18th century and started out as a humble fur trader. In 1807, the US government lead by Thomas Jefferson implemented the Embargo Act according to which American ports were closed to foreign trade. No ships could go either in or out. Astor found a way around the embargo and made a small fortune trading with China; he was also lending money to the government at huge rates. He went on to invest in real estate which made him enormously wealthy. Being nicknamed the “landlord of New York”, he owned most of the property where new immigrants settled.
Admittedly his only regret was that as much real estate as he had owned, he didn’t buy even more!1849
Astor Place Riots
The mid-19th century featured two major acts of civil disobedience. One of them took place at the Astor Place Opera House. The bloody riot appeared to have been sparked by the theater performance.
The rivalry between the British Shakespearean actor Macready and his American counterpart Forrest had started years earlier. Macready had toured America, and Forrest essentially followed him, performing the same roles in different theaters and each man was revered by a contingent of energetic supporters.
The venue for Macready’s performance, the Astor Opera House, had been designated as a theater for the upper class. The controversy between the two actors became symbolic of a divide in American society between the upper class New Yorkers, who identified with the British gentleman Macready, and the lower class New Yorkers, who supported the American Forrest.
When the rioting crowd was throwing stones at members of the Seventh Regiment and receiving bullets in return, there was more happening below the surface than just a disagreement over who best could perform the role of Macbeth.On the day of the riot, preparations were made on both sides. The opera house where Macready was to perform was fortified, its windows barricaded. Scores of policemen were stationed inside, and the audience was screened when entering the building.As Macready took the stage inside, trouble began in the street. A crowd of about 20,000 attacked the opera house, and police retaliated with clubs.
The riot was the worst theater riot in history. When it was all over, 30 people were left dead and 150 wounded.1850
Boss Tweed elected alderman
William Marcy “Boss” Tweed was leader of New York City’s corrupt Tammany Hall political organization during the 1860s and early 1870s. Tweed became a powerful figure in Tammany Hall–New York City’s Democratic political machine–in the late 1850s. By the mid-1860s, he had risen to the top position in the organization and formed the “Tweed Ring,” which openly bought votes, encouraged judicial corruption, extracted millions from city contracts, and dominated New York City politics.
Mid-19th century New York
By the mid-19th century, New York becomes the second largest port in the world after London.
By the mid-18 hundreds there were 10,000 Jews in New York, but very little anti-Semitism, as the community stuck to themselves.
Manhattan was solidly built up to 34th Street. Broadway was paved up to Chambers Street.
1853
World fair
In 1853 New York hosted the first World Fair event in America. It was called the Exhibition of the Industry of All Nations. To house the exhibition, Crystal Palace was built in what is now Bryant Park.
The Crystal Palace opened in 1853 and was packed with all the marvels that science, art and industry from around the world could offer. Thousands poured through the wide doors to view sculpture, paintings machinery and inventions from all points of Europe and America New York and the young country, not yet a century old, had held its own with the European capitals.
At the New York Crystal Palace, Elisha Otis demonstrated his newly invented elevator. He amazed a crowd when he ordered the only rope holding the platform on which he was standing cut. The rope was severed by an axeman, and the platform fell only a few inches before coming to a halt. After the World’s Fair, Otis received continuous orders for elevators, doubling each year.
Steinway demonstrated his piano in 1855 at the New York Crystal Palace just two years after the company’s foundation.
Sadly, the New York Crystal Palace itself was destroyed by fire in 1858. The fire began in a lumber room on the side adjacent to 42nd Street. Within fifteen minutes its dome fell and in twenty-five minutes the entire structure had burned to the ground. No lives were lost but the loss of property amounted to more than $350,000. This included the building, valued at $125,000, and exhibits and valuable statuary remaining from the World’s Fair.
1854
Academy of Music opens
The Academy of Music was a New York City opera house, located at East 14th Street and Irving Place in Manhattan. The 4,000-seat hall opened in 1854. A New York Times review declared it to be an acoustical “triumph”, but “In every other aspect … a decided failure,” complaining about the architecture, interior design and the closeness of the seating. The old moneyed families like Belmonts, Beekmans, Stuyvesants, etc. led by none other than Mrs. Astor herself enjoyed their opera in the Academy of Music. The Academy’s opera season became the center of social life for New York’s elite, with the oldest and most prominent families owning seats in the theater’s boxes.
Part of the enjoyment for the elites was the ability to deny entrance to the ‘nouveau riches’. This group of ‘new moneyed’ newcomers included Vanderbilt, J. P. Morgan, and Gould. Famously William Henry Vanderbilt, one of the richest men in the world, offered $30,000 for an opera box for the 1880-81 season, and was refused! Nouveau riches, with Alva Vanderbilt at the helm of the operation, promptly decided to build a new opera house, the Metropolitan, which opened with a great fan-fare on Broadway and 39th Street and became an instant success.
The Academy of Music couldn’t compete with the Metropolitan and ceased presenting opera in 1886, turning instead to vaudeville. It was finally demolished in 1926.
1858
St Patrick’s Cathedral started
As the city’s Catholic population swelled to 200,000, Archbishop Hughes decided to build a new grandiose Catholic cathedral way uptown in the wilderness – 50th Street. The magnificent St Patrick’s was designed by James Renwick, Jr. in the Gothic Revival style and took 20 years to build.
Macy’s opens
William Macy opened his first modest dry-goods store at 6th Ave and 13th Street. Macy’s eventually moved to its current location at 34th and Broadway and became one of the largest stores in the world.
First Chinese immigrants settle in NY
The mid-19th century was the high point of German immigration, numbering 1/2 million people and making the German community second only to the Irish.
1859
Cooper Union opens
Peter Cooper, self-made millionaire and self-taught inventor, opens a college where world-class education in art, architecture and engineering is offered free of charge.
According to Cooper’s central idea, one should be able to receive education regardless of social status, wealth, gender or color, Peter Cooper made his school free for the working classes.
The school was open for women as well as men, and there was no color bar at Cooper Union.
Cooper demanded only a willingness to learn and a commitment to excellence.
Peter Cooper wanted his school to play a role in the political and cultural life of the country. In the basement of the Foundation Building he established the largest secular meeting room in New York City. It seated 900, and soon after it was opened, and it made history. Abraham Lincoln, yet unannounced candidate for president of the United States, and a virtual unknown in New York, was invited to speak there by the Young Men’s Republican Union.
In the Cooper Union’s meeting room Lincoln gave a speech which propelled him to presidency and defined the country the way it is now.
1860
Central Park is created
Central Park, the green wonder of New York, was the first designed urban park in the United States.
The New York grid of 1811 didn’t provide for any open park space. By the middle of 19th Century, the population of New York was increasing with dizzying speed, and the need for a city park became apparent.
A competition for the best design for Central Park was won by a team, made up of a British architect, Calvert Vaux and a park designer, Frederick Law Olmsted. Their entry, entered anonymously under the name Greensward, was the last of 34 designs to reach the judges and it was awarded first place.
Olmsted envisioned the park as idyllic, naturalistic place for all the people, poor and reach, not depending on their social status.
The most influential innovations in the Central Park design were the “separate circulation” systems for pedestrians, horseback riders, and pleasure vehicles. The “crosstown” commercial traffic was entirely concealed in sunken roadways, screened with densely planted shrub belts so as to maintain a rustic ambiance.
The Greensward plan called for some 36 bridges, all designed by Vaux, neither two are alike.
Central Park is 2.5 miles long and 0.5 mile wide, it could fit the Principality of Monaco almost twice!
1861
Civil War starts
In response to the election of Abraham Lincoln as President, 11 southern slave states declared their secession from the United States and formed the Confederate States of America (“the Confederacy”); the other 25 states supported the federal government (“the Union”).
After four years of warfare, mostly within the Southern states, the North won, the Confederacy surrendered and slavery was outlawed everywhere in the nation.
1863
Draft Riots
During the Civil War Lincoln needed to draft 300,000 men from NYC. His draft policy made it possible to get out of the commitment by paying $300, which meant that the wealthy could buy their way out of draft and only the poor had to go to the front.
This caused one of the worst acts of civil disobedience, known as the Draft riots of 1863, which lasted for 3 days and claimed the lives of over 100 people.
1865
Civil War ends, Lincoln assassinated
As the Civil war ends on April 9, New York City bursts out in celebrations.
However, just a few days later, it plunges into mourning. On April 11, 1865 President Lincoln, while attending a theater performance in Washington DC, is assassinated by well-known actor and a Confederate spy John Wilkes Booth. President Lincoln’s funeral cortege arrives to New York on the way to the president’s final resting place in Illinois in April 24, and about half a million mourners gather to mourn and show their sorrow.
Second half of 19th Century.
The Gilded Age
The term “Gilded Age” was coined by Mark Twain in the book ‘The Gilded Age: A Tale of Today’. The name refers to the process of gilding an object with a superficial layer of gold and is meant to make fun of ostentatious display while playing on the term “golden age”.
The Gilded Age refers to the era of rapid economic and population growth in the United States during the post–Civil War and post-Reconstruction eras of the late 19th century. The Gilded Age, the era of robber barons, inventors, industrialists and millions of newly arrived immigrants, is responsible for the creation of a modern industrial economy.
The late 19th century saw the advent of new communication technologies, including the phonograph, the telephone, and radio; the rise of mass-circulation newspapers and magazines; the growth of commercialized entertainment, as well as new sports, including basketball, bicycling, and football, and appearance of new transportation technologies, such as the automobile, electric trains and trolleys.
The era between Civil War and Great Depression was the most dynamic in the development of New York. During this period New York town became a New York City, and its citizens – urban people.
1867
El in lower Manhattan
By 1870 the population of New York City reached 1,000,000; new means of transportation became necessary.
The first elevated railway in New York City, called Ninth Ave El, opened in 1868. From 1868 through 1870, the line ran on a single track and was extended to 30th Street.
It was followed the Second, Third and Sixth Avenue Els.
Train ride was fairly luxurious for the riders, but El was quite bad for the people who lived along the tracks. Not only they lost privacy as the train was on the level with their windows, but also dirt and fumes from the trains made the situation quite insufferable.
1871
Boss Tweed is arrested
Politics was dominated by newly formed Democratic Party connected with Tammany Hall Society.
Tammany Hall was both a political and social organization which operated on the grass-roots level.
Boss Tweed, leader of Tammany Hall in 1860s, was the president of the county board of supervisors, the street commissioner, and a state senator. He was in position to control the entire city’s machinery, executive, legislative and judicial sectors. His people were elected to office, he dictated the law, and controlled the judicial system.
By 1869 he was stealing more than $1 million a month from the city.
Tweed bought a mansion on Fifth Avenue and 43rd Street, and stabled his horses, carriages and sleighs on 40th Street. By 1871, he was a member of the board of directors of not only the Erie Railroad and the Brooklyn Bridge Company, but also the Third Avenue Railway Company and the Harlem Gas Light Company. He was president of the Guardian Savings Banks and he and his comrades set up the Tenth National Bank to better control their fortunes.
Tweed had for months been under attack from Thomas Nast, the cartoonist from Harper’s Weekly and the New York Times. Regarding Nast’s cartoons, Tweed reportedly said, “Stop them damned pictures. I don’t care so much what the papers say about me. My constituents don’t know how to read, but they can’t help seeing them damned pictures!”
Boss Tweed was arrested due to an extraordinary cost overrun for the County Courthouse, now referred to as “the Tweed Courthouse.” The project which was originally estimated at $250,000 eventually tallied up to $12,000,000, most of which went into the pocket of Tweed and his cronies.
Ironically, his trial was held in the still-incomplete courthouse. He was convicted of 204 counts and after some time in prison, died in 1878.
1870
Metropolitan Museum is established
Story has it that in 1866 a group of Americans in Paris, gathered at a restaurant to celebrate the Fourth of July (American Independence Day). After dinner, John Jay, a prominent lawyer and grandson of eminent American jurist John Jay, gave a speech proposing that he and his compatriots create a “national institution and gallery of art.”
During the next four years, they convinced American civic leaders, art collectors, and philanthropists to support the project, and in 1870 the Metropolitan Museum of Art was incorporated.
1877
Bell Telephone service starts
In 1877, Professor Alexander Graham Bell held his first demonstration of the telephone for New Yorkers. He was carrying a conversation from the Hotel St Denis (on Broadway and 11th) with his assistant in Brooklyn.
Later that year the telephone company of New York was incorporated and started offering telephone service to the City. One unfortunate detail associated with the phones was that the wires suspended from poles were blocking the sky.
Natural History Museum opens
The American Museum of Natural History is one of the largest and most celebrated museums in the world. The museum complex contains 23 interconnected buildings housing 45 permanent exhibition halls.
The museum collections contain over 32 million specimens of plants, humans, animals, fossils, minerals, rocks, meteorites, and human cultural artifacts, of which only a small fraction can be displayed at any given time.
The museum receives about five million visitors annually.
1878
St Patrick Cathedral built on 5th Avenue
St. Patrick’s Cathedral on 5th Ave is the largest Catholic cathedral in North America and a seat of Roman Catholic Archdiocese of New York.
The “Old St Patrick Cathedral” is located on Mulberry Street in Nolita. It is still a parish church and is the oldest Catholic site in New York City.
The cornerstone for the new cathedral was laid in 1858, much further north of the populous areas of New York at that time. The work on the cathedral was interrupted by the American Civil War, recommencing in 1865. It was completed in 1878.
The magnificent building was designed by James Renwick, Jr. in the Gothic Revival style.
Famously, Scott Fitzgerald and his fiancé, Zelda, were married in New York’s St. Patrick’s Cathedral.
The cathedral was the setting for a large portion of the 1990 film, The Godfather Part 3.
1879
9th Av El extended north of 59th
Population of New York City reached 1,000,000 by 1870.
Ninth Ave El operates regularly.
Second, Third and Sixth Ave Els are under construction.
1880
Met Opera established. New Millionaires
The City becomes home for new millionaires. John D. Rockefeller made his money in oil, Carnegie and Frick – in steel, the Morgans were bankers, and Cornelius Vanderbilt made his fortunes in ferry service and railroads.
The Metropolitan Opera Company was incorporated by Vanderbilt, Gould, and a few others who couldn’t get seats in the snobby Academy of Music.
1882
Edison opens electric power plant
After being granted a patent for the light bulb in January 1880, Edison set out to develop a company that would deliver the electricity to power and light the cities of the world. That same year, Edison founded the Edison Illuminating Company—the first investor-owned electric utility—which later became the General Electric Corporation.
Thomas Edison built the world’s first electric power plant to the city, located on Pearl Street. In 1882 he held the first ever demonstration of electrified buildings and streets in downtown Manhattan.
The Pearl Street generating station provided 110 volts of electrical power to 59 customers in lower Manhattan. First few months after Edison’s system went into operation, customers weren’t charged a penny. As the inventor was working out the kinks, the city was slowly getting used to the idea which took another decade to really catch on.
The Chinese Exclusion Act
The Chinese Exclusion Act was the first significant law restricting immigration into the United States.
In the spring of 1882, the Chinese Exclusion Act was passed by Congress and signed by President Chester A. Arthur. This act provided an absolute 10-year moratorium on Chinese labor immigration. For the first time, Federal law proscribed entry of an ethnic working group on the premise that it endangered the good order of certain localities.
According to this law Chinese women and children were prohibited from entering the United States unless they can evidence a marriage to a merchant.
As a result a Chinese bachelor enclave forms at Pell and Doyer and the lower part of Mott Streets which became known as the “Bachelor Society.” The population of this ghetto remained well below 4,000 until the advent of World War II.
Initially limited to engaging in certain kinds of businesses, the Chinese first opened hand laundries, then in about 1890 began to open restaurants that appealed to tourists; and soon thereafter began to arise the gift shops and temples as we see them today.
It was Franklin D. Roosevelt who signed a measure in 1943 that lifted the Chinese Exclusion Act, after China and the U.S. became allies in the Second World War.
1883
Brooklyn Bridge opens
Spectacular in looks and revolutionary in design, the Brooklyn Bridge was the first bridge to connect Manhattan and Brooklyn and was the longest suspension bridge in the world. In fact it was 50% longer than any bridge previously built.
Immigration from Eastern Europe
Before 1883 over 80% of immigrants came from Northern and Western Europe.
In 1880, New York had 80,000 Jews mostly from Germany. But after 1881 when Czar Alexander II was assassinated, the government of the new Czar, Alexander III organized one pogrom after another to keep the anger of the masses focused on the Jews.
In addition to the pogroms, Alexander III promulgated a series of laws against the Jews which stated:
“It is henceforth forbidden for Jews to settle outside the cities and townships.”
“Jews are also prohibited from administering properties.”
“It is forbidden for Jews to engage in commerce on Sundays and Christian holidays.”This prompted the first wave of Jewish immigration which by 1910 brought 1,500,000 Easter European Jews to America.
1884
The Dakota is built
Pioneering development of the Upper West Side as well as the idea of luxury apartment living, the Dakota was built on 72nd street and Central Park West
By this time, the city was built up to 40th street; therefore building up in the 70s was nothing but sheer madness. The Upper West Side was sparsely inhabited and considered as remote as the Dakota Territory.
But the Central Park was already built, and Clark, Dakota’s developer, correctly anticipated that the place will be more than desirable. He also envisioned that avenues and streets of Upper West Side will be named after the new western states and territories. At the time, the Dakota territory was still Indian Territory and rich with gold. Clark didn’t mind the name; in fact, he played it up by placing a head of Indian over the main entrance.
1886
Statue of Liberty
“Liberty Enlightening the World” was a gift of friendship from the people of France to the people of the United States to commemorate the 100th anniversary of American independence.
Construction of the statue began in 1875 in France, and was completed in 1884. After a presentation ceremony in Paris, the statue was dismantled and shipped to NYC in 214 containers.
The statue took its sculptor Bartholdi 10 years to complete, and it took 2 more years to collect money and build the pedestal.
Since 1886 the Statue of Liberty greeted millions of new immigrants to the land of opportunity.
1888
The Blizzard of 1888
In March of 1888 New York City was slammed by one of the most devastating blizzards in recorded history. From March 11th to 15th the city was buried underneath a twenty to fifty-inch blanket of snow.
The Great White Hurricane, as it came to be known, disabled transportation and telegraph communication from the Chesapeake Bay to Montreal. Huge, “modern” cites suddenly found themselves cut off from the rest of the world.
For the first time in its history, the New York Stock Exchange closed, and would remain so for two days as the storm raged on.
In New York City alone, more than 200 perished from the extreme cold. In the icy darkness of night, fires raged as helpless volunteers watched from afar, their teams trapped in the deep drifts that formed by the howling winds.
1891
Carnegie Hall opens
Designed by architect William Burnet Tuthill and built by philanthropist Andrew Carnegie in 1891, it is one of the most prestigious venues in the world for classical music.
It so happened that Walter Damrosch, famous conductor and composer, set sail from New York City to his native Germany for a summer of study. As fortune would have it, Andrew Carnegie, czar of America’s steel industry, was aboard the same ship headed to Europe for his honeymoon. Two men had met, and apparently, Damrosch kept bringing up the idea that New York lacked a concert hall. As a result, Carnegie presented the city with a $2-million gift for the construction of the venue.
Carnegie Hall opened in 1891. The performer for the opening night was none other than famous Russian composer Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky. The concert hall was jammed full of New Yorkers.
Even though the best way to get to Carnegie Hall is practice, one could also be rent it out.
Washington Square Arch built
The arch was designed by McKim, Mead and White in 1889 to celebrate the centenary of George Washington’s inauguration.
It was supposed to be a temporary wooden structure constructed for the festivities. The arch was such a hit that its Marble version was immediately commissioned to architect Stamford White.
1892
Ellis Island opens
Known as the “Island of Tears”, Ellis Island was the largest formal gateway to America at the time. Over twelve million immigrants entered the United States through it between 1892 and 1954.
In the year of 1907 alone, approximately 1.25 million immigrants were processed at Ellis Island.
1897
First Waldorf Astoria opens
The original Waldorf-Astoria, designed by Hardenberg, opens on 5th and 34th. At the cost of $13 million, with 1,000 rooms, it is the most expensive, largest and the most magnificent hotel in the world.
1898
Greater New York is established
At the very end of the century, the five boroughs were incorporated into metro New York City. “Broadway” becomes the official name of the most famous street in New York City.
