Fifth Avenue | Page 7

years ago, at the corner of Water and Fulton
Streets, and which was the chosen home of the captains of the whaling
ships from New London, Nantucket, New Bedford, and Sag Harbor;
Downing's, on Broad Street, famed for its Saddle Rocks and Blue
Points, and its political patrons; and the basement on Park Row, a few
doors from the old Park Theatre, presided over by one Edward Windust.
This last was a rendezvous for actors, artists, musicians,
newspaper-men--in short, the Bohemian set of that day--and its walls
were covered with old play-bills, newspaper clippings, and portraits of
tragedians and comedians of the past.
But already a demand had been felt for viands of another nature;
hospitality of another sort. The womankind of the day was looking for
an occasional chance to break away from the monotonous if
wholesome and substantial table of the home. Those stiff
Knickerbockers knew it not; but the modern dining-out New York was
already in the making. At first the movement was ascribed to the
European Continental element. In New York Delmonico and Guerin
were the pioneers in the field. The former began in a little place of pine
tables and rough wooden chairs on William Street, between Fulton and
Ann. The original equipment consisted of a broad counter covered with
white napkins, two-tine forks, buck-handled knives, and earthenware
plates and cups. From such humble beginnings grew the establishments
that have subsequently carried the name. Francis Guerin's first café was
on Broadway, between Pine and Cedar Streets, directly opposite the old
City Hotel. Another resort of the same type was the _Café des Mille
Colonnes_, kept by the Italian, Palmo, on the west side of Broadway,
near Duane Street. It was apparently on a scale lavish for those days.
Long mirrors on the walls reflected, in an endless vista, the gilded
columns that supported the ceiling. The fortune accumulated by Palmo
in the restaurant was lost in an attempt to introduce Italian opera into
the United States. Palmo's Opera House, in Chamber Street, between

Centre Street and Broadway, later became Burton's Theatre.
Until 1844, New York was guarded against crime by the old
"Leather-heads." This force patrolled the city by night, or that part of it
known as the lamp district. They were not watchmen by profession, but
were recruited from the ranks of porters, cartmen, stevedores, and
labourers. They were distinguished by a fireman's cap without front
(hence the name "Leather-head"), an old camlet coat, and a lantern.
They had a wholesome respect for their skins, and were inclined to
keep out of harm's way, seldom visiting the darker quarters of the city.
When they bawled the hour all rogues in the vicinity were made aware
of their whereabouts. Above Fourteenth Street the whole city was a
neglected region. It was beyond the lamp district and in the dark.
In no way, to the mind of the present scribe, can the contrast between
the life of the modern city and of the town of the days when Fifth
Avenue was in the making be better emphasized than by comparing the
conditions of travel. It was in the year 1820 that John Stevens of
Hoboken, who had become exasperated because people did not see the
value of railroads as he did, resolved to prove, at his own expense, that
the method of travel urged by him was not a madman's scheme. So on
his own estate on the Hoboken hill he built a little railway of narrow
gauge and a small locomotive. Long enough had he been sneered at and
called maniac. He put the locomotive on the track with cars behind it,
and ran it with himself as a passenger, to the amazement of those
before whom the demonstration was made. So far as is known that was
the first locomotive to be built or run on a track in America. But even
with Stevens's successful example, years passed before steam travel
assumed a practical form.
When the pioneer of Fifth Avenue wished to voyage far afield it was
toward the stage-coach as a means of transportation that his mind
turned, for the stage-coach was the only way by which a large portion
of the population could accomplish overland journeys. To go to Boston,
for example, the traveller from New York usually left by a steamboat
that took him to Providence in about twenty-three hours, and travelled
the remaining forty miles by coach. Five hours was needed for the

overland journey, and was considered amazing speed. By the year 1832
the overland trip between New York and Boston had been reduced to
forty-one hours. But the passengers were not allowed to break the
journey at a tavern, even for four or five hours of sleep, as they had
formerly done, but were carried forward night and day