Fifth Avenue | Page 6

way to worship. The
Sabbath day still retained a good deal of the funereal aspect with which
the New England Puritans had invested it. The city was silent save for
the tolling of the church bells. At ten o'clock in the morning, at three in
the afternoon, and again, at seven at night, the solemn processions of
men, women, and children, clad in their Sunday best, issued from the
homes, and slowly wended their way to church. When the congregation
had gathered, and the service was about to begin, heavy iron chains
were drawn tightly across the streets adjacent to the various places of
worship. It was the hour for serious meditation. No distracting noise
was to be allowed to fall upon those devout ears.
Abram C. Dayton, in his "Last Days of Knickerbocker Life," left a
description of the service at the Dutch Reformed Church of that day.
He told of the long-drawn-out extemporaneous prayers, the allusions to
"benighted heathen"; to "whited sepulchres"; to "the lake which burns
with fire and brimstone." Of instrumental accompaniment there was
none, and free scope was both given and taken by the human voice
divine. Then the sermon! Men were strong in those days! Clergymen
had not become affected with the throat troubles prevalent in later times.
No hour-glass or warning clock was displayed in the bleak spare edifice.
In the exuberance of zeal often the end of the discourse came only with
utter physical exhaustion. Then the passing of the plate; an eight-stanza
hymn, closing with the vehemently shouted Doxology; and the
concluding Benediction. From that old-time Sabbath day the affairs of
the world were rigidly excluded. It was a day of rest not only for the
family but for the family's man-servant and maid-servant. Saturday had
seen the preparation of the necessary food.
[Illustration: THE WASHINGTON ARCH. A SPLENDID SENTINEL
GUARDING THE APPROACH TO THE AVENUE. BEYOND,
HOUSES DATING FROM THE THIRTIES OF THE LAST
CENTURY, THAT MARK THE BEGINNING OF THE STRETCH
OF TRADITION]
On the Sabbath only cold collations were served. Public opinion was a

stern master. Woe betide the one rash enough to defy the established
conventions! The physician on his rounds, or the church-goer too aged
or infirm to walk to the place of worship, were the only ones permitted
to make use of a horse and carriage. Now and then one of the godless
would slip away northward for a drive on some unfrequented road.
Detection meant society's averted face and stern reprimand. For an
indefinite period the sinner would be a subject of intercession at
evening prayers.
The weekday life was in keeping with the Knickerbocker Sabbath.
Home was the family castle, over which parental authority ruled with
an iron hand. Hospitality was genuine and whole-hearted; but tempered
by frugal moderation. Strict punctuality was demanded of every
member of the household. The noon repast was the meal of the day. At
the stroke of twelve old New York sat down to table. In the home there
was variety and abundance, but the dinner was served as one course.
Meats, poultry, vegetables, pies, puddings, fruits, and sweets were
crowded together on the board. This adherence to the midday meal
must have been the weak point in the armour in which the old order
encased itself. For there the first breach was made. New Yorkers,
returning from visits to Europe, hooted at the primitive noon repast of
their youth. At first what were called the "foreign airs" of these
would-be innovators were treated with derision. But they persisted, and
by slow stages three o'clock became the extra fashionable hour for
dinner. The old City Hotel was one of the first public places to fall into
line.
The time was to come when a dining establishment, second to none of
its day in social prestige and culinary excellence, was to stand on a
corner of Fifth Avenue and Fourteenth Street. But when those who
dwelt on lower Fifth Avenue were still pioneers, dining out in public
places meant a long and venturesome journey to the southward. The
restaurants of that time--they were more generally called "eating
houses,"--were almost all established in the business portions of the
city. The midday dinner was the meal on which they depended for their
main support. Then masculine New York left its shop or its counting
house, hurried a block to the right, or a block to the left, and fell

greedily on the succulent oyster, the slice of rare roast beef, or the
sizzling English mutton chop. Conspicuous among the refectories of
this type were the Auction Hotel, on Water Street, near Wall; the dining
room of Clark and Brown, on Maiden Lane, near Liberty Street, one of
the first of the so-called English chop-houses; the United States Hotel,
which stood, until a few