A tour around New York, and My summer acre; being the recreations of MrFelix Oldboy . were onlyrough wooden affairs. But the breeze, the fresh sea air,the whispering leaves, the orioles and bluebirds, andthe shade were there, and to the boys of the period itsattractions were Elysian. Castle Garden, then a frown-ing fortress still thought capable of service, was reach-ed by a wooden bridge, and the salt-water lapped itsmassive foundations on all sides. The American In-stitute Fair was then held within its walls, and onthese occasions the boys explored it from the flag-staffto the magazine, and
A tour around New York, and My summer acre; being the recreations of MrFelix Oldboy . were onlyrough wooden affairs. But the breeze, the fresh sea air,the whispering leaves, the orioles and bluebirds, andthe shade were there, and to the boys of the period itsattractions were Elysian. Castle Garden, then a frown-ing fortress still thought capable of service, was reach-ed by a wooden bridge, and the salt-water lapped itsmassive foundations on all sides. The American In-stitute Fair was then held within its walls, and onthese occasions the boys explored it from the flag-staffto the magazine, and held high carnival there. A number of the Knickerbocker merchants and law-yers lived in the neighborhood of the Bowling Greenand the Battery a generation ago. Stephen Whitneyhad his home on Bowling Green Place. Robert Goeletlived on State Street, and his brother Peter at No. 32Broadway. The Rhinelanders had recently removedup-town to Washington Square, the Schermerhorns toGreat Jones Street, and the Leroys to Lafayette Place,but a large number of the old families of the city still. THE OLD MCCOMB MANSION lingered around lower Broadway and the adjacentstreets, and the Battery was always the terminus oftheir afternoon walk, whether they lived in its vicinityor as far up-town as the centre of fashion, at Bleeckerand Bond streets. The days parade of belles andbeaux led past Trinity and to the old trysting-place,under the trees by the water-side. Stephen Whitney, who was one of New Yorks fewmillionaires in his day, was a well-known character inthe young metropolis. Had he lived a generationlater, Uncle Stephen, as all the young men calledhim, would have been a power in the Street. As l66 A TOUR AROUND NEW YORK it was, he knew enough to hold the money he hadmade, and his shrewdness was proverbial. When Ste-phen Whitney was buried from old Trinity, his wasthe last Knickerbocker house below Broadway. Hishouse was closed, and the current of business buriedit under the waves. The old man
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1800, bookdecade1890, booksubjectnewyorknybuildingsst
