ope
of Murray Hill, is, in epitome, the story of the city itself. 260

"On the site of the old Croton Reservoir the cornerstone of
the Public Library was laid November 10, 1902, and the
building opened to the public May 23, 1911. To it were
carried the treasures of the Astor Library and the Lenox
Library" 268

Entrance to the Public Library. The Library, 590 feet long
and 270 deep, was built by the City at a cost of about nine
million dollars. The material is largely Vermont marble,
and the style that of the modern renaissance 274

"O beautiful, long, loved Avenue,
So faithless to truth and yet so true."--JOAQUIN MILLER 280

South of where "St. Gaudens's hero, gaunt and grim, rides on
with Victory leading him," may be seen the Fountain of
Abundance, and, in the background, the new Plaza Hotel 290

The Metropolitan Museum of Art, on the site of what was once
the Deer Park, had its origin in a meeting of the Art
Committee of the Union League Club in November, 1869 304

FIFTH AVENUE

CHAPTER I

_The Shadow of the Knickerbockers_

The Shadow of the Knickerbockers--An Old-time Map--The Beginnings
of the Avenue--Watering Place Life--The Beach at Rockaway--Coney
Island--Newspapers in the Thirties--Early Day Marriages--The
Knickerbocker Sabbath--Home Customs--Restaurants and Hotels--The
Leather-heads--Conditions of Travel--Stage-coaches and Steamers--The
Clipper Ships--When Dickens First Came.

Boughton, had you bid me chant
Hymns to Peter Stuyvesant.
Had you bid me sing of Wouter.
(He! the Onion-head! the Doubter!)
But to rhyme of this one-mocker,
Who shall rhyme to Knickerbocker?
--_Austin Dobson_.

Before the writer, as he begins the pleasant task, is an old
half-illegible map, or rather, fragment of a map. Near-by are three or
four dull prints. They are of a hundred years ago, or thereabouts, and
tell of a New York when President Monroe was in the White House, and
Governor De Witt Clinton in the State Capitol, at Albany, and Mayor
Colden in the City Hall. To pore over them is to achieve a certain
contentment of the soul. Probably it held itself to be turbulent in
its day--that old New York. Without doubt it had its squabbles, its
turmoils, its excitements. We smile at the old