Fifty years in Yorkville, or, Annals of the parish of StIgnatius Loyola and StLawrence O'Toole . ultthat banks fell in, choking the drains, and the wateroverflowed the surrounding blocks to the depth of sixand ten feet. Here was an opportunity for diversion,exercise and amusement which the boys of the perioddid not neglect. Aquatic feats of diving, splashing,ducking, swimming were numerous in the long sum-mer days over the bed of Seventy-Fi fth Street, betweenThird Avenue and the Park. French Peter, a characterwho played Robinson Crusoe on an island in the sub- INTRODUCTION 11 merged district,
Fifty years in Yorkville, or, Annals of the parish of StIgnatius Loyola and StLawrence O'Toole . ultthat banks fell in, choking the drains, and the wateroverflowed the surrounding blocks to the depth of sixand ten feet. Here was an opportunity for diversion,exercise and amusement which the boys of the perioddid not neglect. Aquatic feats of diving, splashing,ducking, swimming were numerous in the long sum-mer days over the bed of Seventy-Fi fth Street, betweenThird Avenue and the Park. French Peter, a characterwho played Robinson Crusoe on an island in the sub- INTRODUCTION 11 merged district, was often the victim of their youthfulpranks, as some can recall to the present day. York-ville had a bad reputation owing to malaria, chills andother kindred ailments due to the saturated conditionof the soil. Many died of these ills, amongst othersthe contractor whose careless work caused the over-flow. At great expense and by laying down 8,000 feetof pipe for under drainage, the water was removedand the soil made dry by 1871; and now Yorkville isamongst the healthiest places in the Great White Way of Yorkville CHAPTER IIOrganization. The growing importance of Yorkville was recog-nized by the municipal and Catholic authorities. In1850 it was incorporated in the new Nineteenth Ward,extending between the rivers from Fortieth to Eighty-Sixth Street and was represented in the First Chamberof the city government by William Dooley. Educa-tional needs were for the moment satisfied by the estab-lishment of a Ward School on Eighty-Fourth Street,near Fourth Avenue, with two teachers, Mary J. Don-nell and Catherine Geary, to attend to budding geniusof the locality. Prior to 1850 no water mains had beenlaid in the streets above Fortieth Street; but from thisyear on feverish activity was displayed in providingpresent and future population with Croton after the Croton Aqueduct was constructed, andan abundant supply was at hand, many of the residentsin the older sections
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