Greenwich Village | Page 8

has his own
connection with the tale of the Square, though not a very glorious one.
The town buzzed for days with talk of the sensational interview
between Nym Crinkle and Edwin Forrest, the actor. Mr. Willis made
some comments on Forrest's divorce, in an editorial, and that player, so
well adored by the American public, took him by the coat collar in
Washington Square and exercised his stage-trained muscles by giving
him a thorough and spectacular thrashing.
Somewhere in that neighbourhood, much earlier, another editor,
William Coleman, founder of the Evening Post, and Jeremiah
Thompson, Collector of the Port, fought a duel to the death. It was
indeed to the death, for Thompson was wounded fatally. But duels
were common enough in those days; we feel still the thrill of
indignation roused by the shooting of Alexander Hamilton by Burr.
The old University of New York--where Professor Morse conducted his
great experiments in telegraphy, where Samuel Colt in his tower
workroom perfected his revolver, where the Historical Society of New
York was first established and where many of our most distinguished
citizens received their education--was never a financial success. For a
time they tried to make it pay by taking tenants--young students, and
bachelors who wished seclusion for writing or research. Then, in the
course of time, it was moved away to the banks of the Hudson. On the
site now stands a modern structure, where, to be sure, a few of the old
University departments are still conducted, but which is chiefly
celebrated as being the first all-bachelor apartment house erected in
town. It is appropriately called the "Benedick," after a certain young
man who scoffed at matrimony,--and incidentally got married!
And a few of the families stay beneath the roofs their forefathers built,
watching, as they watched, the same quiet trees and lawns and paths of
the most charming square in all New York: De Forest, Rhinelander,
Delano, Stewart, De Rham, Gould, Wynkoop, Tailer, Guinness, Claflin,
Booth, Darlington, Gregory, Hoyt, Schell, Shattuck, Weekes,--these,
and others are still the names of the residents of Washington Square

North. Father Knickerbocker, coming to smoke his pipe here, will be in
good company, you perceive!
The recollections of many living persons who recall the old Square and
other parts of early New York, bring forcibly to us the realisation of the
speed with which this country of ours has evolved itself. In one man's
lifetime, New York has grown from a small town just out of its
Colonial swaddling clothes to the greatest city in the world. These
reminiscences, then, are but memories of yesterday or the day before.
We do not have to take them from history books but from the diaries of
men and women who are still wide-eyed with wonder at the changes
which have come to their city!
"The town was filled with beautiful trees," says one man (who
remembers Commodore Vanderbilt, with the splendid horses, the fine
manner and the unexampled profane eloquence), "but the pavements
were very dirty. Places like St. John's Park and Abingdon Square were
quiet and sweet and secluded. Where West Fourth Street and West
Eleventh Street met it was so still you could almost hear the grass grow
between the cobblestones! Everything near the Square was extremely
exclusive and fashionable. Washington and Waverly places were very
aristocratic indeed."
Waverly Place, by the bye, got its name through a petition of select
booklovers who lived thereabouts and adored Sir. Walter Scott. It
speaks well for the good taste of the aristocratic quarter, even though
the tribute came a bit late,--about twenty years after "Waverley" was
published!
The celebrated north side of the Square was called, by the society
people, "The Row," and was, of course, the last word in social prestige.
But, for all its lofty place in the veneration of the world and his wife, its
ways were enchantingly simple, if we may trust the tales we hear. In
the Square stood the "Pump With The Long Handle," and thence was
every bucketful of washing water drawn by the gilt-edged servants of
the gilt-edged "Row"! The water was, it is said, particularly soft,--rain,
doubtless,--and day by day the pails were carried to the main pump to
be filled!

When next you look at the motor stages gliding past the Arch, try, just
for a moment, to visualise the old stages which ran on Fifth Avenue
from Fulton Ferry uptown. They were very elaborate, we are told, and
an immense improvement on the old Greenwich stagecoaches, and the
great lumbering vehicles that conveyed travellers along the Post Road.
These new Fifth Avenue stages were brightly painted: the body of the
coach was navy blue, the running gear white, striped with red, and the
lettering and decorations of gold. A strap which enabled the driver