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قراءة كتاب America, Volume III (of 6)
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the noted Tombs City Prison, thus named because originally it was a sombre gray building in the gloomy Egyptian style, but this was recently replaced by a modern structure. The Criminal Courts adjoining are connected with it by a bridge.
PETER COOPER AND PETER STUYVESANT.
At Bond Street, in advancing up Broadway, are encountered the booksellers, this with adjacent streets being the home of much of that trade. In Lafayette Place is the spacious Astor Library, and in the wide Astor Place is the handsome new building of the Mercantile Library. The former is now a part of the New York Public Library. A half-century ago the site of the Mercantile Library was occupied by the "Astor Place Opera House," then a leading theatre, and in the adjacent streets occurred the "Macready riots" in 1849. The rivalries of Edwin Forrest and Macready resulted in an effort by the partisans of the former to prevent the latter from playing in the Opera House on the night of May 10th. The Forrest faction attacked the building with stones, and the police being unable to control them, troops were called out, and, firing several volleys along Astor Place, they suppressed the riot and dispersed the mob, but at a cost of about sixty killed and wounded. At the end of Astor Place and its junction with Third Avenue is the Cooper Institute, occupying an entire block, a large brownstone building with a fine front, founded and endowed in 1857, at a total cost of about $1,000,000, by Peter Cooper, for the free education of men and women in science and art. His statue stands in front. It also received in 1900 additional gifts from his executors and $300,000 from Andrew Carnegie. Peter Cooper was a wealthy manufacturer and merchant of the broadest philanthropy. At a recent anniversary of the Institute his son-in-law, Abram S. Hewitt, speaking of him, said: "Fifty years ago three men, all of whom started in life as poor boys, got together and talked over various ways by which they could be of benefit to the public. They were Peter Cooper, Ezra Cornell and Matthew Vassar. The latter said he would found a school for girls, and he founded Vassar College. Mr. Cornell said he would found a school for boys, and he founded Cornell University. Peter Cooper said he would found a school for both girls and boys, and he founded Cooper Union. But Mr. Cooper's school differs from the others, in that here, any boy or girl may receive an education absolutely free of charge." Opposite the Cooper Institute is an immense red building, the "Bible House," the home of the American Bible Society, where the Scriptures are printed by the millions, in all languages, for distribution throughout the world—over eighty different languages and dialects being used.
Diagonally northeast from Astor Place runs Stuyvesant Street, formerly the country lane leading out to the ancient farmhouse of old Governor Stuyvesant, surnamed "Peter the Headstrong." Here was built "St. Mark's Church in the Bowerie" in the last century, then a mile out of town, and the quaint little Stuyvesant House still stood, at that time, perched on a high bank near the church, having, with its odd-looking overhanging upper story, been built of small yellow bricks brought out from Holland. In the days of New Amsterdam this region was Governor Stuyvesant's "Bauerie," and to it he retired when compelled to surrender to the English in 1664. He lived in this secluded spot for eighteen years, dying in 1682, and his brown gravestone occupies a place in the wall of the church. He was the last of the Dutch Governors, energetic, aristocratic and overbearing, and described by Irving as a man "of such immense activity and decision of mind that he never sought nor accepted the advice of others;" Irving further saying that he was a "tough, sturdy, valiant, weather-beaten, mettlesome, obstinate leather-sided, lion-hearted, generous, spirited old Governor."
Returning to Broadway, for a mile or more it, with the adjacent streets, is the great retail shopping district. Here on the pleasant afternoons are throngs of shoppers. A short distance above, Broadway bends to the left, displaying Grace Church, with its rich marble façade, beautiful spire, and adjoining rectory, chantry and church house, an unique ecclesiastical group, dating from 1846, when it was far "up town," but now almost covered-in by the huge surrounding stores. Fourteenth Street crosses beyond, and here is Union Square, a pretty oval park of about four acres, adorned by an ornamental fountain and statues of Washington, Lafayette and Lincoln. Large buildings and stores surround the square, the chief being Tiffany's noted jewelry establishment. Fourteenth Street is a wide avenue, with an extensive shipping trade. To the eastward of Broadway is the Academy of Music and the noted Tammany Hall. This is the seat of the "Tammany Society," established in 1789 for benevolent purposes, but now controlled by the Democratic political organization ruling New York. The Hall is a capacious brick structure with stone facings, surmounted by a statue of its presiding genius, the old chief and warrior of the Lenni Lenapes, St. Tammany, who with outstretched hand beneficently looks down upon the street. The sturdy Indian, however, was probably more used to the mild and just methods of William Penn and his Quakers on the Delaware than to the political schemes on the Hudson, of which fate seems to have made him a patron saint.
MADISON SQUARE.
Broadway reaches Madison Square at Twenty-third Street, another wide highway crossing the city, and also intersects Fifth Avenue, which is the western side of the Square. This junction has a park of about six acres, surrounded by large hotels and noted buildings, and alongside the triangular intersection of Broadway and Fifth Avenue is a handsome granite monument to General Worth, a hero of the War with Mexico. The plateau on which it stands is usually availed of as the site for the official reviewing stage for processions. This Square is the great centre of elaborate civic and military displays, and has, with its surroundings and the light stone of the adjacent buildings, an air that is decidedly Parisian, it occupying much the same position for New York as the Place de la Concorde in Paris, or Trafalgar Square in London. In Madison Square are statues of Admiral Farragut (the finest statue in New York), William H. Seward, President Arthur and Roscoe Conkling. At the northwest corner of the Square was for many years Delmonico's famous restaurant, since moved farther up town. Its owner, after feeding wealthy New Yorkers on the choicest viands for several decades, finally lost his mind, and in a fit of aberration wandered over into the wilderness in New Jersey, and becoming lost in the woods, actually died of starvation. The new Appellate Court of New York is on the eastern side of the Square; at the northeast corner is the Madison Square Garden, and at the southeast corner the Madison Square Presbyterian Church, where the great clerical censor of New York, Rev. Dr. Parkhurst, occupies the pulpit. Madison Square may be regarded as the social centre of modern New York. Far to the northward Fifth Avenue stretches, with its rows of palatial brownstone residences, and towards the north-northwest Broadway extends for two miles to Central Park, passing many hotels, theatres, and the tall "French flats" that have been devised for residences in the crowded city where the land surface is so scarce. It also passes, at the intersection of Sixth Avenue, the Greeley and Herald Squares, with statues of Horace Greeley and William E. Dodge, and the New York Herald Building. A short distance beyond is the Metropolitan Opera House, the finest theatre in the city, rebuilt after a fire in 1893. Broadway at Fifty-ninth Street reaches


