. The city of New York. he inven-tion of steam had not been introduced, andcommunication with the interior was slowand burdensome. Mail coaches left regu-larly two or three times each week—Albanyand Philadelphia being three-day trips andBoston six days. The site now in the course of developmentof New Yorks civic centre, and of which thenew court house will be the main building,embraces a section that was formerly a hugepond, in some places possessing a depth ofover 90 feet. It was on this pond that JohnFitch gave the first demonstration of asteamboat. An attempt was made to drainthe pond; part
. The city of New York. he inven-tion of steam had not been introduced, andcommunication with the interior was slowand burdensome. Mail coaches left regu-larly two or three times each week—Albanyand Philadelphia being three-day trips andBoston six days. The site now in the course of developmentof New Yorks civic centre, and of which thenew court house will be the main building,embraces a section that was formerly a hugepond, in some places possessing a depth ofover 90 feet. It was on this pond that JohnFitch gave the first demonstration of asteamboat. An attempt was made to drainthe pond; part of the work was canal was cut through the swampy landof Lispenard meadows to the west, drain-ing into the Hudson. This, however, madeit more of a menace to health than beforeand ten years later the pond was fiUedinand the canal turned into the street whichnow bears its name. Skirting the shore on the west, the firsthabitation outside of the city was a clusterof houses beginning at about Fourth Street, 69. which was then called Greenwich Greenwich Village ran a limpidstream which had its rise somewhere aboutMadison Square in Twenty-third Street,flowed along Broadway through FourteenthStreet and diverged to the southwest. Thewhole of Greenwich Village was of a particu-larly sandy nature, forming a natural drain-age system. On this account it seemed to befree from the awful scourges of yellow feverwhich periodically visited New York, andit was the custom during such epidemics formost of the families who could afford it toflee to Greenwich Village. The epidemicof 1822 was of such severity that all of thebanks and large houses erected buildingsthere in which to live and carry on business,from which fact Bank Street gets its exodus lasted for several months, andduring this period most of the importantbusiness of New York was transacted inGreenwich Village. The village was con-nected to New York by a stage line whichran once or twice a day; no
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1900, bookdecade1910, bookidcityofnewyork00brow, bookp
