Long Island City

“ The Island of Manhattan, which is occupied by the city of New York proper, has a population of nearly two millions, and a strait on its eastern side, connecting Long Island Sound with New York Harbour, alone divides it from the other great seats of population, called respectively Long Island City and Brooklyn. ”

“ In the east a band of pallid light lifted up out of the night, and the horizon took shape against it, stark and black. Slowly, stealthily, the formless dawn dusk spread over the sleeping world; to the zenith the light-smitten stars reeled and died, and houses, fields, and thoroughfares lay a-glimmer with ghostly twilight as the car tore headlong through the grim, unlovely, silent hinterland of Long Island City.
The gates of the ferry-house were inexorably shut against them when at last Maitland brought the big machine to a tremulous and panting halt, like that of an over-driven thoroughbred. ”

“ The views on all sides are charming. In the rear is the city, with its roofs and spires; Black Rock and Stratford lights are in plain sight; to the eastward and southward stretches “Old Long Island’s sea-girt shore”; and between lies the broad expanse of the salt water, with its ever “fresh” breezes, and the perpetual panorama of sails and steamers. I do not believe that a million dollars to-day would compensate the city of Bridgeport for the loss of what is confessed to be the most delightful public pleasure-ground between New York and Boston. ”

“ Situated on Long Island Sound, with that vast water-view in front, and on every other side a beautiful and fertile country with every variety of inland scenery, and charming drives which led through valleys rich with well-cultivated farms, and over hills thick-wooded with far-stretching forests of primeval growth,—all these natural attractions appeared to me only so many aids to the advancement the beautiful and busy city might attain, if public-spirit, enterprise, and money grasped and improved the opportunities the locality itself extended. ”

“ Even the huge advertising sign-boards which usually shout to passers-by along the approaches to cities are rather scarce in this country, for it is about midway between two branches of the only railroad on Long Island, and there is no need for a trolley. There is nothing but country roads, with more or less comfortable farm-houses and large, squatty barns; not only old farm-houses, but what is much more striking, farm-houses that are new. Now, it does seem odd to build a new farm-house in a city.
115
The Dreary Edge of Long Island City. ”

“ Workaday New York is stretching its arms and settling down to business.
Nor is the awakening city to be confined to the narrow [18] strip of island between the North and East rivers. Over on Long island are Brooklyn, Long Island City, Flushing, Jamaica and a score of other important places now within the limits of Greater New York. Some folk find it more economical to live in these places than in the cramped confines of Manhattan, and so it is hardly dawn before the great bridges and the tubes over and under the East river are doing the work for which they were built—and doing it masterfully. ”

“ Fifty years ago, New York was little more than a village; now, it is a fine city with three hundred thousand inhabitants. I have never seen any city so admirably adapted for commerce. It is built upon a narrow island, between Long Island Sound and the Hudson River, Broadway running up it like the vertebrae of some huge animal, and the other streets diverging from it at right angles, like the ribs; each street running to the river, and presenting to the view a forest of masts. ”

“ The drift from town to country homes is a sign of the times and an augury of great good to the coming generation, physical and patriotic. After all, bricks and mortar are not the making of a city. New York is at its best beyond the borders. Its rich citizens overflow into these northern suburbs and lordly estates, and across the East River into Brooklyn and Long Island’s garden villages, and across the Hudson into New Jersey’s charming towns, and down the bay to Staten Island. ”

“ Floating platforms, moved by steam, with space in the middle part for twelve or fourteen carriages and horses, and luxurious covered apartments, heated with steam-pipes on either side, ply to and fro every five minutes at the small charge of one halfpenny a passenger, and the time occupied in crossing the ferries is often less than that of the detention on Westminster Bridge. Besides these large places, Staten Island and Long Island are covered with villa residences. Including these towns, which are in reality part of this vast city, New York contains a population of very nearly a million! ”

“ The City of New York is made defendant on the ground that in 1898 Long Island City was merged into it by the Greater New York Act and that the consolidated corporation assumed the obligations and liabilities of the constituent municipalities. ”

“ A dwelling upon these plains will then gratify the taste, and secure all those pleasures and enjoyments which render a rural life so attractive to the denizens of the city. A small freehold may now be purchased on this territory at a price which would scarcely secure a rocky knoll at the same distance from New York, on the banks of the Hudson. ”

“ The earliest historical description of Long Island, in Daniel Denton's "A Brief Description of New York, formerly called New Amsterdam," published in London in 1670, remarks that "the greatest part of the Island is very full of timber, as Oaks, white and red, Walnut-trees, Chestnut-trees, which yield stores of Mast, etc." The same record says:
"For wild beast there is Deer, Bear, Wolves, Foxes, Raccoons, Otters, Musquashes, and Skunks. ”

“ In the case of Van Gelder, it led to no useful results; in that of my respected relative—had he lived—it would have culminated in the production of a work of research, which would have shed undying light on the history of Long Island, and would have been a blessing to future generations.
About thirty miles from the city of New-York is a headland jutting out into Long Island Sound, fortified against the wash of the sea by huge boulders of rock. The banks of the shore are rough and rugged, and bear marks of the wear and tear of the waves. ”

“ Long Island is separated from New York by a narrow sound, across which ferry-boats ply in both directions with extreme punctuality. From any part of New York city a couple of electric cars or an electric railway will take you to the threshold of the ferry-boat, and trains await you at the back-door, so to speak, of the ferry-boats, to convey you down the length of Long Island. On board the ferry-boat you can buy a variety of badly-printed and sensational daily papers for the sum of one cent; you can get your boots blacked for very little more ”

“ It must not be forgotten that he was sent over to Long Island—the British had not yet entered New York, and from the spot from which he started on his way to Long Island it was at that time possible to send any man to any part of the city of New York within an hour. It is not possible to believe that any sane man would start on a week’s journey to reach a destination he could arrive at in safety within an hour. ”

“ Faint perfume from Long Island woodlands, wandering puffs of wind from salt meadows freshened the city streets; St. Felix Street boasted a lilac bush in leaf; Oxford Street was gay with hyacinths and a winter-battered butterfly; and in Fort Greene Place the grassy door-yards were exquisite with crocus bloom. Peace, good-will, and spring on earth; but in men's souls a silence as of winter.
To Northland folk the unclosing buds of April brought no awakening; lethargy fettered all, arresting vigour, sapping desire. ”

“ One advantage this city possesses peculiar to itself; you may be as much in the country as you can desire for five farthings english money: the fare is no more to Long Island, where you may be conveyed, from the heart of the city, in a few minutes, and meet with as great a variety of hill and dale, wood and water, as in any part of the world. This island is ninety miles in length. ”

“ On this spot the city is built. The hills of Groton, and the low sands of Waterford, extend on either hand like outstretched arms around the harbor. Fisher's Island stands back as an additional embankment on the east. Other small islands of the Sound recede into dark specks upon its bosom, and the narrow line of Long Island, lying like the edge of a slender cloud upon the limits of the horizon, vary the prospect with the elements of beauty and grandeur.
Fort Trumbull occupies an eligible situation for the protection of the harbor and town. ”

“ This unequaled concentration of attractions can be reached in thirty minutes from either the upper or lower part of the city—of course New York city is meant, as no one need leave Philadelphia or Boston to get into the country—and by a most delightful route, partly on water and partly by railroad. The trains run every hour all through the day, and the line is the safest in the world. This spot, so desirable, so infinitely superior to all others, is Flushing, Long Island. ”

“ There are a few large farms on Long Island, mostly on the north side, but it is becoming more and more a place of suburban residence. This change is due in part to cool summer and warm winter winds from the ocean, which makes the July mean temperature 68° to 70° F. at the east end and the south side, and 72° on the north shore, as contrasted with 74° for the west end and New York City. ”

“ You know the old saying sir ... opportunity knocks but once on a young man’s door. In six months I can virtually guarantee that these lots will have doubled in value. Now that we are a part of New York, the second city in the world, sir, dont forget that.... Why the time will come, and I firmly believe that you and I will see it, when bridge after bridge spanning the East River have made Long Island and Manhattan one, when the Borough of Queens will be as much the heart and throbbing center of the great metropolis as is Astor Place today. ”

“ In Manhattan, where the buildings had been more soundly constructed, the signs of abandonment were less evident ... empty streets, an occasional cracked window. Not even an unusual amount of dirt because, in the past, the normal activities of an industrial and ruggedly individual city had provided more grime than years of neglect could ever hope to equal. No, it would take Manhattan longer to go back than Long Island. Perhaps that too would not happen during his lifetime. ”

“ So far as the union in name is concerned, it is scarcely worth consideration, for in any comparison which our national or local pride may institute between this metropolis and the other great cities of the world, its environment, whether in Long Island, Staten Island, or New Jersey, will always be included. In considering the population of London, no one ever separates the city proper from the surrounding parts. They are properly regarded as one homogeneous aggregation of human beings. ”

“ This line of slightly elevated downs was Long Island, a great sandy bank enlivened with vegetation, which stretches along the American coast from Montauk Point to Brooklyn, adjoining New York. Several yachts were coasting along this island, which is covered with villas and pleasure-houses, the favourite resorts of the New Yorkists.
Every passenger waved his hand to the land so longed for after the tedious voyage, which had not been exempt from painful accidents. Every telescope was directed towards this first specimen of the American continent, and each saw it under a different aspect. ”

“ Not far from the geographical centre of the city there are fields where, as all who have ever commuted to and from the north shore of Long Island must remember, German women may be seen every day in the tilling season, working away as industriously as the peasants of Europe, blue skirts, red handkerchiefs about their heads, and all: while not far108 away, at frequent intervals, passes a whining, thumping trolley-car, marked Brooklyn Bridge. ”

“ Once arrived on Long Island, a walk of a hundred yards or so leads to the ticket-office. Those hundred yards are uncovered, however; but since people who live on Long Island must pass them in order to get into the Delectable City, there is no reason why the railroad or the ferry-boat company should offer conveniences in the way of shelter to their passengers. Given competition, any line would vie with the others in mirrors and gilded furniture; but if there is none, why on earth spend a penny? Not a passenger the less will travel because the mode of transit is bestial. ”

“ New London is a city hiding within a river, three miles from its meeting with the waters of Long Island Sound. On the farthest seaward point of the western shore is a light-house. Before, and yet a little eastward of the river's mouth, is an island about nine miles long screening it from the full power of Atlantic storms, and forming, with Watch Hill, [308] the prolongation of the broken line of land stretching out into the Sound from the northern limb of the Long Island shore. ”

“ In such parts of the city, except when No Trespassing signs prevent, on any day of the open season scores of men and youths may be seen whose work and homes are generally in the densest parts of the city, respectable citizens from the extreme east and west sides of Manhattan, artisans and clerks, salesmen and small shopkeepers, who, quite unexpectedly in some cases, share the ancient fret and longing of the primitive man in common with those other New Yorkers who can go farther out on Long Island or farther up into New York State to satisfy it. ”

“ Nothing could be in greater contrast than the simple toilets of these proprietors of the island of Manhattan and their painted successors of our own day. The few men who owned the 141,486 lots into which the surface of New York City is now triturated, seemed, in the plainness of their attire and manners, to be only squatters upon a territory not their own, nor carried their feathered heads half as high as the modern trader in tape and calico, squeezed into a space often only sixteen feet and eight inches wide by one hundred deep. ”