Manhattan Island

“ There were, here upon Manhattan Island, metal houses, widely spaced in gardens, and electrically powered factories of unfamiliar aspect. Overhead were skeleton structures, like landing stages; and across the further distance was the fleeting, transitory wraith of a monorail air-road. Along the river banks were giant docks for surface vessels and sub-sea freighters. There was a little concentration here, but not much. Man had learned his lesson.
This was a new era. Man was striving really to play, as well as work. ”

“ If this fashion of acquiring greatness continues, being inclusion rather than expansion, there need be no limit to the ciphers periodically tacked on to the population of the world’s swarming hives. Now that New York is growing, it might drop its insignificant borrowed name and assume its rightful one of dignity and historic import, Manhattan. It fills the twenty-two square miles between Harlem river, the Hudson, the East River, and the bay, which area is Manhattan Island. ”

“ No human virtue or civilization can long exist where four families live in a room, some of whom take boarders. The way to regenerate this New York mile is simply to widen Manhattan Island by building three bridges over the East River, and to shorten the island by making three lines of underground or overground railroad to the upper end of it. We may say, too, there are circles—not many, it is true, but some—in which a man's religion would not be considered a very valuable acquisition, if, when he had "got" it, he kept on chewing tobacco. ”

“ The very water of the East River, on either side of the island, seemed to dance in the sunlight, and the mad rush of the tide through Little Hellgate channel, between that and Ward’s [86] Island, northerly, was all one glitter. The great city of New York, over on Manhattan Island, was looking its very best, but the boys in the House of Refuge parade-ground could not see it. They could see nothing outside of their stone walled enclosure, but one boy saw something inside of it, just after the battalion broke ranks, which made him stand still and almost turn pale. ”

“ The estuary below Manhattan Island expands into the noble New York harbor, enclosed between Long Island on the east and Staten Island on the west, the latter being the Indian Aquehonga, meaning the "high sandy banks." The harbor entrance from the sea, at Sandy Hook, is eighteen miles below the city. Inside Sandy Hook is the lower bay, of triangular form, extending nine to twelve miles on each side, the Narrows, a deep channel 9 about a mile wide at the northeastern angle, opening into the upper bay, which is an irregular oval, about eight by five miles. ”

“ The island is now known as Little Esopus Island, taking that name from Little Esopus Creek, which flows to the Hudson at that point. It lies near the main land on the east side of the river, and divides the current in two channels, the most narrow of which is on the east. Kromme Elleboog (Crooked elbow) , is the abrupt bend in the river at the island, and the Long Reach extends from the island south to Pollepel's Island. The name is of record Rappoos, Raphoes, Raphos and Whaphoos, an equivalent, apparently, of Wabose and Warpose, the latter met on Manhattan Island. ”

“ All you would see would be a sort of large village on Manhattan Island, at the mouth of the Hudson River. And if you went back to the time of your grandfather's great-grandfather, I fancy you would see nothing on that island but trees, with Indian wigwams beneath them. Not a single white man or a single house would you see.
In the year 1609, just two years after Captain Smith sailed into the James River, a queer-looking Dutch vessel came across the ocean and began to prowl up and down the coast. ”

“ Dr. Hardy called their attention to the contour of Manhattan Island, long and tongue-shaped, and running almost north and south. He showed them the main thoroughfares, the great arteries of north and south traffic. He traced for them the routes of subway, surface, and elevated car lines. Together they located the tunnels and the ferries. They studied the harbor and the different shipping districts, coming quickly to know where the transatlantic liners docked, where the coastwise steamers were berthed, and where tramp steamers could find safe anchorages. ”

“ It is difficult for those who see this city of stone, brick and concrete to imagine its appearance in Henry Hudson's time, when stretches of meadow land alternated with groves or small forests of trees, over the greater part of the territory, while the upper part of Manhattan Island was traversed with rocky ridges rising in some cases to a considerable height above tide-water. ”

“ Built on a loose soil that is quite the antithesis of the granite hills of Manhattan Island, with unlimited opportunity to spread across the floor-flat plains beyond, it has neither the incentive nor the foundation needed to push its way far aloft. ”

“ Manhattan Island has something over 2,500,000 inhabitants, and is surrounded by a belt of population, several miles wide, of 12,000,000 more, of which it is the focus, so that the entire city contains more than 14,500,000 souls. The several hundred square miles of land and water forming greater New York are perfectly united by numerous bridges, tunnels, and electric ferries, while the city's great natural advantages have been enhanced and beautified by every ingenious device. ”

“ The ties of religion, charity, politics, science, art, literature and common occupation draw and hold people together in numberless associations which have filled Manhattan Island with splendid edifices. ”

“ After Hudson's discovery of the Hudson River, Dutch ships were sent over to Manhattan Island to establish an agency for the collection of furs. Rude cabins were pitched and lived in at the southern end of the island but these did not constitute a permanent settlement; they were a mere trading-post. The trade became so profitable, however, that something more permanent was desired, and in 1623 the West India Company dispatched ships with thirty families as the nucleus of a colony to be established near the present site of Albany. ”

“ Built on the slagged-down remains of New York's Manhattan Island, which had been destroyed by a sun bomb during the Holocaust nearly a century before, Government City occupied all but the upper three miles of the island, and the population consisted almost entirely of men and women engaged, either directly or indirectly, in the business of governing a planet. ”

“ As to clean and healthy streets, the upper and newer part of the city has, of course, the advantage. It is laid out with special attention to drainage, for which the ridged shape of the ground affords great facility; the island on which New-York is built being highest in the middle, and sloping off, east and west, towards the Hudson and East Rivers.
Manhattan island is about fourteen miles long, with an average breadth of one mile and a half, the greatest width being two and a half miles. ”

“ The total height is one hundred and fifty feet.
John Verrazani, a Florentine navigator, was the first European who entered New York Bay (1525) . In 1614 the Dutch built a fort on Manhattan Island, and in 1623 a permanent settlement was made, named Nieuw Amsterdam. In 1674 Manhattan Island came into the possession of Great Britain. At the Revolution the population was less than that of Philadelphia or Boston. It was evacuated by the forces of Great Britain in 1783, and from 1785 to 1789 was the seat of government of the United States. ”

“ They proposed that what was known as Westchester, the land lying north of Manhattan Island, should be considered part of Connecticut, but that the towns on Long Island should remain under the government of New Netherland. "We do not know of any province of New Netherland," the Hartford officers replied. "There is a Dutch governor over a Dutch plantation on the island of Manhattan. Long Island is included in our patent, and we shall possess and maintain it." ”

“ On Manhattan Island were braves—for freedom toiling day and night; building earthwork, redoubt and battery with never a luxury from morning to morning, except the luxury of fighting for Liberty. Soldiers from camp, light-horse and militia from New Jersey, had gathered on the island, and had been at work a day and a night when the news came to the Kull cottage that in a 138 few minutes its cow and calf would be called for. ”

“ The long and narrow island of Manhattan stretches thirteen miles, while it is not much over two miles broad in the widest part, and sometimes narrows to a few hundred yards, particularly in the northern portion. The Harlem River and the winding strait of Spuyten Duyvel separate northern Manhattan from the mainland. The island is very rocky, excepting the southern part, which is alluvial, and at the upper end the cliffs rise precipitously from the Hudson over two hundred and thirty feet into Washington Heights, and the surface descends sharply on the eastern side to the Harlem flats. ”

“ Police reserves were called out, and by midnight soldiers were being mobilized. Panics were starting everywhere. Millions of people crowded in on small Manhattan Island, in the heart of which was this strange enemy.
Panics.... Yet human nature is very strange. Thousands of people started to leave Manhattan, but there were other thousands during that first skirmish who did their best to try and get to the neighborhood of Patton Place to see what was going on. ”

“ The explorer Dermer was intent on winning immortality by finding a passage to the Pacific when, in 1619, he was storm-driven into Long Island Sound. At Manhattan Island, or thereabout, he got information from the obliging Indians that made plain his way to the Orient. ”

“ Before leaving New York, (which is ironically styled Gotham, from an old English town noted for the stupidity of its citizens,) let me say one word about its early history. New York, the great commercial metropolis of this country, is built on an island fourteen miles long, and from one fourth of a mile to two miles and a half wide, called, originally, Manhattan Island. This island was purchased from the Indians many years ago for twenty-four silver dollars. No wonder that race of people have had such bad luck during the last century ”

“ Strange people live in the recesses of the Ramapo and Catskill Mountains in sight of New York City, and in the Adirondacks, the Green Mountains, the Alleghanies—the farthest lands of the continent have no more interesting conditions than within a day's automobile drive of Manhattan Island. ”

“ Nobody knows whereabouts he come from—jes' dropped by out of some advertisement old Judson put in the papers up Burlington way."
"Tell me more about Freedom," broke in Nancy with dignity. "Is it a very old place?"
"Wal, it's jest as old as this Island, though I ain't much on readin' or dates. Folks on Nor' Hero's pretty proud of the hul Island and B'lindy sez as how it's printed that folks settled here long 'fore anyone, exceptin' the Indians, ever heard of Manhattan Island whar New York is. ”

“ Though not wanting in beauty, there are many bays that surpass this in the charms of scenery; but it may be questioned if the world possesses another site that unites so many natural advantages for the growth and support of a widely extended commerce. As if never wearied with her kindness, Nature has placed the island of Manhattan at the precise point that is most desirable for the position of a town. Millions might inhabit the spot, and yet a ship should load near every door ”

“ To the west, beyond the Hudson, lies the Jersey shore, covered by Jersey City and Hoboken. To the northeast, over the Harlem, lies the mainland of New York state; and to the southeast is Long Island with Brooklyn. East River, which separates Manhattan from Long Island, is not a river but a strait connecting upper New York Bay with Long Island Sound. It is long and winding, a mile wide at its narrowest point, and contains three large islands — Ward's, Randall's and Blackwell's — that are occupied chiefly by the city's institutions and prisons. ”

“ The hurdy-gurdy vies with the push-cart, the streets are full of children and women, and you are as a stranger in a strange land. You would not be in a more distinctively Italian section if you were by magic transplanted to Naples or Genoa.
A Group of Immigrants Just Arrived at Ellis Island
A Foreign City
Nor is it simply the East Side in lower [Pg 199] New York that is so manifestly foreign. Go where you will on Manhattan Island and you will see few names on business signs that do not betray their foreign derivation. Two out of every three persons you meet will be foreign. ”

“ 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. ”

“ This precaution taken, the Manhattan was towed into the mouth of the little creek and climbers and creepers drawn over her until no one would have suspected her presence there. The engine was not set in motion in making this change because of the danger from the explosions.
All this accomplished, Ned and Pat climbed back to the shelf of rock and again looked out over the mysterious China Sea. There were the two lights, one to the west and one to the north. They were closer to the island than before, however, and the light up toward Formosa was drawing to the south rapidly. ”

“ There are many large islands, Manhattan, containing the greater part of New York City, Long Island, Staten Island, Coney Island, and Fire Island are on the S. Shore; and the St. Lawrence river contains over 700 small islands belonging to New York. The entire State is noted for its scenery; the Palisades, Highlands, and Catskills on the Hudson, Lake George, and Lake Champlain, the islands in the St. Lawrence, numerous waterfalls, chasms, inland lakes, and glens, all abound in historical traditions and are of great interest to the tourist. The chief harbors are New York, on New York Bay ”