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CONSTRUCTING THE FRAME OF NEW YORK: COMMERCE, BEAUTY AND THE BATTLE OVER THIRTEENTH AVENUE
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 24 July 2018
Abstract
This article examines contests over improving the municipal waterfront in New York during the Gilded Age, and it uncovers the hidden history of Thirteenth Avenue. To maintain its commercial prominence and competitive edge, New York established the Department of Docks in 1870, granting it the authority to manage maritime trade and oversee the redesign and modernization of the city's wharves and piers. Debates about how a modern industrial and commercial waterfront should look centered on new ideas about the aesthetic economy of cities. Business and civic leaders believed that the beauty of the built environment could be leveraged as an asset to attract commerce and industrial investment. But these debates about improving the industrial waterfront ultimately pitted business interests against maritime labor and local manufacturers. Thirteenth Avenue was a small-scale industrial district on the far edge of Greenwich Village that stood in the way of the lucrative transatlantic steamship trade. Siding with mercantile interests over those of small manufacturers, the city condemned Thirteenth Avenue in the 1890s and reclaimed it for the Hudson River to make way for the Chelsea Piers. These elaborate Beaux-Arts piers served as an aesthetic frame for New York City, but they also reflected the unequal dynamics of municipal planning and politics at the turn of the twentieth century.
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References
NOTES
1 Annual Report of the Department of Docks (1871), 10.
2 New York Times, Apr. 12, 1870, 4.
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20 Report of the Committee on Wharves, Relative to the Erection of a Great Pier on the North River Document No. 80, NYC Board of Aldermen, Committee on Wharves (New York: William Townsend, 1836); “Our City Wharves,” New York Times, Jan. 2, 1870.
21 New York Times, Apr. 12,1970, 4.
22 Annual Report of the Department of Docks (1871), 43. See also Bone, New York Waterfront, 112–21.
23 Of the 44 completed piers between the Battery and West 11th Street in 1878, 14 were leased by railroad companies, 11 by steamship companies, 1 by a ferry company, and 19 were either leased or shared by individuals or small commercial and business entities. North of 11th Street on what was Thirteenth Avenue, there were no railroad or steamship company leases; 22 individuals or small commercial entities held leases on piers and along bulkheads on Thirteenth Avenue. Annual Report of the Department of Docks (1878), 58–68.
24 Between 1837 and 1857, riparian landowners purchased water lots from the city and filled them in to create Thirteenth Avenue. In 1857, the NY State Commission on Encroachments recommended discontinuing the process of granting water lots and filling. Chapter 182, Laws of the State of New York, Passed by the Sixtieth Session of the Legislature, Begun the Third day of January, 1837 (Albany, NY: E. Croswell, 1837)Google Scholar; Report of the Commissioners Relative to Encroachments in the Harbor of New-York, Report in the Senate no. 40 (Albany, NY: C. Van Benthuysen, 1857), 53–54Google Scholar; Steinberg, Gotham Unbound, 80.
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28 Rosenzweig and Blackmar, The Park and the People, 59–91.
29 Minutes, Conference of the Commissioners of the Sinking Fund with The Counsel to the Corporation; Mayor Abraham Hewitt; Mr. James C. Carter, Special Counsel, the Dock Commissioners of the City of New York, and Mr. Simon Stevens, Representing Private Owners, Nov. 23, 1888, Simon Stevens Papers, New York City Waterfront Improvement Collection, New-York Historical Society (hereinafter Simon Stevens Papers, N-YHS).
30 Rosenzweig and Blackmar, Park and the People, see chap. 3.
31 Annual Report of the Department of Docks (1888), 3–5; The 1889 Mullaney Dock Bill was pushed by advocates for public access to piers. See “Resolution Opposing the Passage of Senate Bill No. 594, Hugh Grant Papers (B1382 F45), MANYC.”
32 West Side Central Association Circular against Westside Plan, date damaged. Signed by C. B. Dean, Jr., and C. B. Lawton. Meeting held in real estate offices of E. L. & B. S. Burnham (16 8th Ave). Franklin Edson Papers (B1312 F29), MANYC.
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35 Hendrik Hartog argues that New York's 1811 grid was predicated upon the idea that the city could take possession of land for public streets, though the legal process would not yet be called “eminent domain.” Stanley Schultz explains that courts first started using the term in the 1820s and ‘30s. Hartog, Public Property and Private Power, 175; Schultz, Constructing Urban Culture, 35.
36 Rosenzweig and Blackmar, Park and the People, 65–78.
37 Deposition, William Haws, January 18, 1897, Condemnation Proceeding #45-1896, Division of Old Records, New York City Municipal Archives. (hereinafter cited as Condemnation Records, NYC); Deposition, John Harsen Rhoades, November 20, 1896, #45-1896, Condemnation Records, NYC. See also Rosenzweig and Blackmar, Park and the People, 81–91.
38 “A Very Peculiar Avenue,” New York Times, Nov. 11, 1883, 12; New York Times, May 9, 1886.
39 See descriptions of buildings and the landscape in depositions taken during condemnation hearings. Condemnation Records, NYC.
40 “A Very Peculiar Avenue,” New York Times, 12.
41 New York Times, Mar. 10, 1878; New York Times, Mar. 11, 1878.
42 New York Times, Dec. 25, 1897.
43 New York Times, May 9, 1886.
44 John B. Snook deposition, Nov. 22, 1895; David Brown deposition, Dec. 4, 1895, 40-1895, Condemnation Records, NYC.
45 The Campbell lot was owned by Emily Johnston de Forest, daughter of Metropolitan Museum President John T. Johnston and wife of railroad lawyer and social reformer Robert de Forest. 47-1896, Condemnation Records, NYC.
46 1-1901, 46-1896, Condemnation Records, NYC.
47 Hoffmann also owned the block between Jane and Horatio Streets, and family members owned other property on Thirteenth Avenue. 7-1895, 40-1895, 46-1896, Condemnation Records, NYC.
48 7-1895, Condemnation Records, NYC.
49 45-1896, Condemnation Records, NYC.
50 John Harsen Rhoades deposition, Nov. 20, 1896, 45-1896, Condemnation Records, NYC.
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53 The Senate bill stalled because of amendments attached by Assembly representatives. “The Dock Bill at Albany,” New York Times, May 10, 1886, 4. See also “Produce Men Idle All Week,” New York Times, May, 9, 1886, 16; “Three Times One Are Three,” New York Tribune, Mar. 12, 1891, 4.
54 Hot Shot for the Dock Bill,” New York Tribune, Mar. 26, 1888, 2.
55 Sinking Fund Conference Minutes, Simon Stevens Paper, N-YHS.
56 Simon Stevens Papers, N-YHS.
57 Simon Stevens to Abraham Hewitt, Jan. 16, 1888, Simon Stevens Papers, N-YHS.
58 Ibid.
59 Stevens to Grant, Apr. 2 1889, Grant Papers, MACNYC.
60 Laws of the State of New York, Passed at the One Hundred and fifteenth Session of the Legislature, Begun January fifth, 1892, and Ended April Twenty-First, 1892, in the City of Albany I (Albany, NY: Banks & Brothers, 1892)Google Scholar.
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65 The Papers of the Art Commission of New York include submission files for every pier and public building that the Art Commission oversaw, as well as many of the blueprints originally submitted with them. ACNY Papers.
66 Annual Report of the Department of Docks (1909), 273.
67 Submission Reports 484, 501, 522, 547, 594, 745, 2633, Chelsea Piers—Series 236, ACNY Papers.
68 New York Times, Dec. 27, 1908, SM3.
69 “New Chelsea Piers Open Tomorrow,” New York Times, Feb. 20, 1910, C6.
70 The International Mercantile Marine Company held leases for Piers 58-62 (occupied by the American Line, the Atlantic Transport Line, The White Star Line and the Red Star—or “Belgian-American” Line), while the Cunard Line leased Piers 53, 54, and 56, and the Compagnie Generale Transatlantique leased Pier 57; ferry and railroad companies also had access to the north side of Pier 62. Dock Commissioner to W. Taylor Phillips, Secretary of the Sinking Fund, June 15, 1906, George McClellan Papers (B23 F258), MANYC.
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