The Secrets of the Great City | Page 6

friend who was with him, that he intended to start out early the next morning. This friend saw him, about noon the next day, waiting at the door of the St. Nicholas Hotel, surveying the passing crowd with an air of impatience.
"Have you finished your business?" he asked.
"No," said the gentleman, "I have not yet started out. I've been waiting here for three hours for this crowd to pass by, and I see no signs of it doing so."
The friend, pitying him, put him in a stage, and started him off, telling him that crowd usually took twenty-four hours to pass that point.
At night the scene changes. The crowd of vehicles on the street is not so dense, and the "foot passengers" are somewhat thinned put. The lower part of the city, which is devoted exclusively to business, is deserted. For blocks the only persons to be seen are the policemen on their beats. Above Canal street, however, all is life and bustle. The street is brilliantly lighted. The windows of the stores and restaurants, and the lamps of the theatres and concert saloons, add greatly to the general illumination, while the long lines of the red, green, and blue lights of the stages, rising and falling with the motion of the vehicles, add a novelty and beauty to the picture. Strains of music or bursts of applause, float out on the night air from the places of amusement, not all of which are reputable. The street is full of all kinds of people, all of whom seem to be in high spirits, for Broadway is a sure cure for the "blues." One feature mars the scene. At every step, almost, one passes women and girls, and even mere children, seeking for company, and soliciting passers by with their looks and manner, and sometimes by open words. The police do not allow these women to stop and converse with men on the street, and when they find a companion, they dart with him down a side street. This goes on until midnight. Then the street gradually becomes deserted, and for a few hours silence reigns in Broadway.
THE BOWERY.
Leaving the City Hall, and passing through Chatham street, one suddenly emerges from the dark, narrow lane, into a broad square, with streets leading from it to all parts of the city. It is not overclean, and has an air of sharpness and repulsiveness that at once attract attention. This is Chatham Square, the great promenade of that class generally known as "the fancy."
At the upper end of the Square is a broad, well paved, flashy looking street, stretching away to the northward, crowded with street cars, vehicles of all kinds, and pedestrians. This is the Bowery. It begins at Chatham Square, and extends as far as the Cooper Institute on Eighth street, where Third and Fourth Avenues, the first on the right hand, the other on the left, continue the thoroughfare to the Harlem river.
The Bowery first appears in the history of New York under the following circumstances. About 1642 or 1643, it was set apart by the Dutch as the residence of superannuated slaves, who, having served the Government faithfully from the earliest period of the settlement of the island, were at last allowed to devote their labors to the support of their dependent families, and were granted parcels of land embracing from eight to twenty acres each. The Dutch were influenced by other motives than charity in this matter. The district thus granted was well out of the limits of New Amsterdam, and they were anxious to make this negro settlement a sort of breakwater against the attacks of the Indians, who were beginning to be troublesome. At this time the Bowery was covered with a dense forest. A year or two later, farms were laid out along its extent. These were called "Boweries," from which the present street derives its name. Bowery No. I. was bought by Governor Stuyvesant. His house stood about where the present St. Mark's (Episcopal) Church is located. In 1660, or near about that year, a road or lane was laid off, through what are now Chatham street, Chatham Square, and the Bowery, to the farm of Governor Stuyvesant, beyond which there was no road. To this was given the distinctive name of the "Bowery Lane." In 1783, the Bowery again came into prominent notice. On the 25th of November of that year, the American army, under General Washington, marched into the Bowery early in the morning, and remained until noon, when the British troops evacuated the city and its defences. This done, the Americans marched down the Bowery, through Chatham and Pearl streets, to the Battery, where they lowered the British flag, which had been left flying by the enemy, and hoisted the "Stars