The Wonders of Old New York
When engaging with the charming society of New York, patience is a virtue. Avoid rushing through your romantic dalliances. Take your time exploring the city. Spend a few days immersing yourself in its wonders. Reconnect & expand your network of acquaintances. Survey the bustling markets to discover where you can find the best deals & fresh ideas.
If you have a favored establishment for your shopping visit it. Greet your old friends warmly, regardless of the state of their hairlines. Venture out to gather insights but be mindful not to indulge excessively in liquid lunches.
Patience, once again, is key. Allow yourself the luxury of extra time.
Visit the lead retail stores to glean inspiration from their impressive displays. Learn the art of window dressing, no matter your trade—whether it be christening caps, caramels, corsets, shoes, soda water, or even burial cases. A thoughtfully arranged and eye-catching display captures attention and leaves an impression far more effective than a haphazard presentation.
Embrace the rhythm of the city & let New York’s charm unfold before you at its own magnificent pace. As you explore the bustling streets of New York City, hunt for new articles to enhance your inventory & attract your tourists. Keep an eye out for novelties—these are treasuring that appeal to everyone, except perhaps those who prefer hairs in their butter. Year by year, the demand for unique & innovative items continues to grow.
Should you find the supply of novelties lacking, don’t hesitate to fall back on the tried & true. Stock up on “chestnuts”—those classic, well-loved stories & items. Consult with seasoned salesmen & ask if they have any fresh tales or products. Engage with the locals & let them show you what’s new, novel, & delightful. This will help you identify what your own town might need to charm & satisfy tourists from nearby crossroads, hamlets, & villages.
Remember, the art of entertainment is invaluable & ever rewarding when executed well. And New Yorkers are masters of this art.
Now that you’ve decided to extend your stay, take advantage of the opportunity to gather useful information that can save you money, reduce travel, & minimize inconvenience. In this grand city, such knowledge is plentiful.
So, immerse yourself fully in the wonders of Old New York. Given that New York City is the largest metropolis on the American continent & practically the world unto itself, it’s certainly worth your while to explore & experience as much of it as possible.
When your business brings you to New York, see if you can combine pleasure with your professional duties. Witness the latest fashions, observe how people conduct themselves at hotels, theaters, churches, & the various resorts around the city where people gather for leisure & refreshment. Do not claim that you can’t afford this—because you can. Absorb the latest trends & fill your trunk with new goods. Take notes on how you’ll dress & what you’ll wear upon returning home. Within three weeks, you’ll have the entire town buzzing, moving from place to place & showcasing evidence that you’ve been somewhere & brought something back.
Visit the theaters. Attend the churches. Take time to enjoy the parks. Ride the entire length of the elevated railway on each side of the Island from the Battery to the end of the road, & this as far into the country as you can go & see how much there is of New York City. Don’t content yourself merely by seeing what is to be seen directly on the Island of Manhattan, generally known as the city of New York.
Go down to the Battery or South Ferry, take a steamboat ride to Bedloe’s Island, & walk around the Bartholdi Statue. Twenty-five cents pays the steamboat fare there & back.
Take the little steamer which plies every hour between the Battery & Governor’s Island. See where the soldiers who are here to guard the city of New York from invasion are quartered. See where General Hancock lived so long. Walk around & see how nicely everything here is kept. Go into the museum wherein are to be found thousands of relics of battles by sea & land. Visit the fortifications & get an idea how war is carried on—in theory if not in practice. The little boat runs to & from the city to Governor’s Island every 30 minutes as part of the Government Service, carrying over & bringing back without charge those who would make the trip.
Take a boat to Staten Island from the Battery & put in an afternoon there witnessing the games & amusements which are furnished for the recreation of ten thousands of people who go there each week to enjoy an eight-mile steamboat ride across New York Bay & eight miles return.
Ride over Staten Island or a portion of it by carriage. It’s one of the most enjoyable trips. There are good livery stable establishments to be found on Staten Island, especially at the first landings. The roads are generally very good & as one drives to the higher ground three or four hundred feet above the sea, the view of land & ocean, cities & villages, lakes, bays, ponds & creeks, with threads of railway reaching off into the distance creating a very charming picture, that you’ll never forget.
Visit Coney Island where the so-called mediocrity of New York gathers to the number of twenty thousand on a week day, & one hundred thousand on a Sunday.
You can make the trip on the large iron steamboats from the Battery to Coney Island & return at any time during the day for 50 cents the round trip, or you can go by cars two or three different lines at the same rate of fare. At Coney Island you can roll in the sand, wade into the ocean as far as you feel like going, eat clams, drink ginger ale, & other beverages o refresh the arid tonsils. Take in 100 or more variety shows & see men & women, boys & girls, lovers & sweethearts, babies, dogs, etc. Enjoying surf bathing, which is here to be had in abundance, with officers handy to keep you from getting in beyond your depth, or from trying to cross the ocean on foot.
Coney Island is a curiosity. Once it was a barren stretch of sand worth something like $500,000 or less than nothing. Now it’s a summer city of the beach, a sort of piratical rendezvous where one man appears to be bishop, king, commissioner, mayor, levier of taxes, collector of customs, comptroller of political destinies, etc., so that Robinson Crusoe on his lonely Island wasn’t more of a monarch over what he surveyed than is the head of political-financial combination governing that part of New York known as Coney Island. It’s a curiosity that should be seen, as it alone would give you something to talk about for a month.
A very delightful trip is that by steamer to Rockaway Beach & to Far Rockaway, especially if you want a sniff of ocean air—clean, fresh, & invigorating. Or you can have a steamboat ride to Long Branch & return for a few dimes.
Another charming trip is up the East River, past Blackwell’s Island, Ward’s Island, Fort Schuyler, out into Long Island Sound, past Hart’s Island, which is the pauper burial ground, & then a mile or two beyond to Glen Island, which has been fitted up in magnificent style as a summer resort, & where the old-fashioned clam bake, together with meat, drink & musical accompaniments can be enjoyed ad libitum. After that, you can wander about to see the curiosities, rest in the shade, enjoy the sea breeze, listen to music.
Another good thing to do is to visit the Charity & Correction institutions of New York. To do this properly call at the corner of 11th Street & Third Ave., at the office of the Commissioners of Charities & Corrections. Go into the office & introduce yourself to Mr. Simmons, Mr. Porter or Mr. Brennan, who are the three Commissioners of Charities & Corrections for the City of New York, & who have about sixteen thousand persons under their care, comprising the prison, almshouse, workhouse, & hospital population of the city, & their attendants. You’ll find these gentlemen well-posted, very pleasant & always willing to give or afford strangers visiting New York every possible opportunity to acquaint themselves with the workings of the Charity & Correction institutions of the city, which includes the Tombs, all the police courts, the prisons, hospitals, insane asylums, workhouses, & educational establishments, wherein children of the poor & unfortunate are taught. After that you’ll have obtained a pass from the Commissioners. Go to the foot of East 26th Street, which is on the East & the East River side of New York.
At the foot of East 26th Street, standing in the water a little way from the shore, but reached from the grounds of Bellevue Hospital, is the “dead house,” in which are kept for a day or so the bodies of those who are brought in from the city, fished out from the river, etc., and which bodies are eventually, unless claimed by relatives, taken to the pauper burial ground at Hart’s Island for interment. You can get on with a pass, if you’re alive, & if you go on dead you can get out with a cheap pine coffin costing about 21 cents.
At 10 o’clock every forenoon the large & beautiful steamer Thomas S. Brennan, named after the popular & gentlemanly Commissioner of Charities, leaves this dock on a business trip up the East River. Here you get aboard. If you’re early enough you’ll see the many prison vans or iron omnibuses filled with prisoners brought from the prisons & police courts of the city to this point for shipment to the Penitentiary on Blackwell’s Island & to the Workhouse on Hart’s Island.
The Steamer Brennan is the service of the city exclusively. Its business is to convey parties from the city to Charity Hospital on Blackwell’s Island, which is the first landing. To convey prisoners to the Penitentiary, to the large stone building, which is within a stone’s throw of the Charity Hospital.
Patients for the hospital & prisoners for the penitentiary are discharged at the same landing, where the officers receive & escort them to the hospital & the prisoners to the penitentiary, where they are sheared, bathed, etc., & assigned to the several tasks the superintendent of the Penitentiary deems them fit to work at.
Relieved of this much of her load, the Brennan goes on up the river to the Workhouse, landing there from 75 to 150 men & women each morning, who are marched off & escorted to the Workhouse, where they’re given work to do for a time altogether too short. Supplies for the inhabitants of the Island, which number several thousand, including the inmates of the Female Insane Asylum, which is also on Blackwell’s Island, are here put off for distribution.
This done, the Brennan goes on up the East River, through Hell Gate, to Ward’s Island, on which is the large Homeopathic Hospital, one of the finest of its class in the world, also the insane asylums for males. This is the largest insane asylum on the American continent. It covers several acres of ground, & is occupied by something like 2000 men, a large portion of whom are insane, while a certain percentage are sane, but are unfortunately run in here & kept appeasing the envy, malice, or ugliness of persons who delight in thus torturing those they have a spite against or by saddling their support upon the city.
After discharging the patients & guests who come to see relatives in the hospital & asylums, the Brennan returns a little way, then proceeds up the Harlem River to Randall’s Island, on which is located Mrs. Dunphy’s celebrated school for “idiotic, imbecile or feeble-minded children & homes for idiots who cannot be taught,” & other departments of this nature, all connected or attached to the Charity & Correction department. Here also is the Foundlings’ Home, where are about 400 babies, from one day to four years of age, cared for by nurses.
This takes the time till about half past 12, when the boat returns, stopping a few moments at Hart’s Island, & reaching her dock at the foot of East 26th Street somewhere about 1:30 PM, affording those who care to see a great deal in a little while an opportunity of obtaining information that, if not altogether pleasant, is certainly worth knowing. You’ll get ideas worth taking home with you.
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