Broadway's Long Story.

Dominion, Volume 5, Issue 13, 23 December 1911, Page 12

Broadway's Long Story.

Historic Incidents. From the days of the Indians to the Prese it. (S) -®

Broadway's reputation as a great thoroughfare is ho longer local (bays Ui« New York "Evening Post")'. It is worldwide. It has been added' to tho list of Pall Hall and Piccadilly; tho Champa Elyscc, the Prado, the l:'ntor den Linden, tho Rialto, and tho otlior historic thoroughfares of Europe. When the United States battleship fleet was sailing from New Zealand to continue its cruise around ' tho world, tho peoplo who lined tho piers and packed excursion steamboats to watch tho men-o'-wur get under way sang, "Giva My Regards to Broadway." Aside from Using tho subjcct of popular songs and - musical comedies, Broadway, has managed to. acquire a standing in serious literature in the. century or mj. Several libraries of books op its history and associations have been written, some ' of thorn dealing only with restrictod phases of its past, sonic limited to definite historical epochs,, some treating of it in its restricted sense as one of flic citj streets,,and a.few taking it up in tho days of tho .first Dutch settlement, and carrying their account .to tho present time, dealing, too, with tho whole nf Broadway, which extends from the Bowling Green.to Albany. Tor tho real Broad, way does not stop at tho city lino: it oontiuues ou up tie Hudson River valley to_ the Stalo capital. Two of tho most recent of these book* f.m, "Broadway," by .1. B. Kerfoot, and lho Greatest Street in tie World," by Stephen Jenkins, tho latter a comprehensive. compendium of tho street's entire history. It takes up tho interesting details of every block, describing its aspect ?i , vl i. r ' oU3 '•' IUCS ' ."10 famous buildings that have adorned it, tho personages who lived in them.or wero wont to tread it* pavements, and the historical events in which it figured. Early Military History. The book suggests, among other things, the story of American history, with the battle.'; loft out, to bo sure, although now and then one hears the thunder of cannon and the tramp of troops inarching down to tho Bowling Green. It was at tho foot of Broadway that one-legged Peter Sluyvesant marshalled his motley assembluge of Knickerbockers before start- : nig on his successful expedition agninst tho Swedish colony at Fort Christiana, ill Brian-are. And up Broadway mai'chod the Lnglish sailors and marines who took New Amsterdam for the Duko of York in 16G4. -Many a timo during tho following border wars tho old street witnessed tho passage of weird columns of painted, feathered savages, carr.viug long poles fringed with French scalps. Coming down to later times, we learn of,how the news of the Declaration of Independence was celebrated by tho destruction of tho statuo of Georgo tho Third, in Bowling Green. Ou August 27; 1776, was fought tho battlo of Long Island, and up Broadway marched tho remnants of tho colonial troops who had escaped after the defeat across the East .River. ■ Two weeks later, on September 12, tho. evacuation began, and on tlio 15th tho fifes and drums of tho British, red-coats shrilled and rumbled in front of tho Kennedy mansion at No. 1 Broadway, now the site of a huge office-building. An interesting site, by tho way, that lot at tho southern extremity of tho great street. It is probably unique.in the city by reason of the fact that sinco its first, grant in 1643, only three buildings have occupied it—a tavern,, kept at first by one Pioter Klocks, ex-soldier of Holland And confrere ,of, pirates, which was torn down/ to mate way for '."an clcgant'-mansion, - built Ijy AduiiraLSjt Pejer }Farjren,.whieh\ i passed'into tho possession-of. ,thfi Watts, family, and changed hahds again, through the marriage of tho Watts heiress to Captain Archibald Kennedy, R.N., afterward Earl of Cassilis, after whom it wis called, until it was demolished in 1882, [ to make way for tho Washington offico buildThore ware many other parades and pro- . cessions along Broadway after the coming i of tho redooats, ono of tho most important i of which was the return of the American ■ army, with Washington riding ahead, when tho second evacuation took place, in • 1783. Up Broadway again marched tho soldiers and sailors who celebrated tho. • naval victories of the war of 1812, and the i banquet to Dcwtnr; and Jodas, tho , victorious commanders, was given m the ■ old City Hotel, New York's jnost impos--1 ing hostelrv until John Jacob Astor sur- ! passed it vath the Astor House. Lafayette was escorted up Broadway when lie . visited this country for the last time in - 1824: the Croton Awicduct parade moved. ; up its flag-hung A-ista in 18+2; and a ! few vears later it was thrilled by tho ; departure of tho soldiers on their way to : Mexico, and a few months later still, by . the news of t-lie battle, of Buensi I_i~ta ! and the capture of' the Cit} of Mexico. 1 Coming of Kossuth. In 1851, Kossuth, the Hungarian pn--1 triot, was escorted up Broadway with every honour that the somewhat uncouth ! city of that timo could afford. Ten ; years afterward the Prince of Wales, afterward King Edward NII, ar.(l the ' first .Tnpanose embassy were escorted up 1 Brondwny to the new Fifth A.vcnu« ! Hotel, far. far uptown at Twcnty-llnra ' Street. Respectfully enthusiastic and : cordial, those welcomes, but wholly un- ; like the delirium - that swept the street from olid to end that day not long, after- ' Yi'ard when the New York regiments i departed for Washington, in rfsnonso to the President's call for volunteers.. The came scenes were repeated during _ the ' Spanish war, and in the lalf-cwitury. 1 that, has elapsed since. Broadway has ' witnessed many processions that outdid • ill magnificence any el tho spectacles ot 1 the early days. . ill.. Perhaps Die reader is not w apt to bo ; interested in the more recent history of : the uptown districts, but so much has happened in the fifty years since the ; citv passed Madison Square that ono cannot afford to ienore it, any more ; than one can afford to skip .the pa«s that tell of the post road which S t\o : continuation of Broadway outside tho citv limits, and trace its course up Ihe ' Hudson River Valley, through honkers, Bronx, and Westchester County. Po»«rhkeepsie, and tlie villages of Columbia . aud Rensselaer Counties, to Albany, , once called Fort Oranee. One tlio. , «torv with a conviction that not .'yen the'annals of the Appian Way or Watling Street can offer a more exciting storv 1> is net only New \ork that ono' sees in Broadway's history. . It t* Hie evolution and growth of America, the transition from the village of lints, huddled behind its log stockades along tho lino; of AVall Strcot. to the citv of todav with its "Billion-Dollar Milo of enormous buildings covering the village that was. I• . •