Broadway / Chambers Street			(40.714161,-74.006128)
A.T. Stewart's Marble Palace		NE corner of Broadway and Chambers Street	(40.714283, -74.006033)
The first Ladies' Mile started in the early 19th century across from City Hall Park on the west side of Broadway. The retail brain behind the area was Lisburn, Ireland-born Alexander Turney Stewart, raised by a grandfather and emigrated from Belfast, Ireland, in 1818. When he got to NYC, he was about 15 years old. Giving up thoughts of becoming a minister, he first earned money by teaching at Isaac N. Bragg's Academy on Roosevelt Street. Stewart returned to Ireland and, using the money he inherited from his grandfather, he bought Belfast-made linens and laces and returned to NYC, using the merchandise to launch his retail career on September 1st, 1823. He paid $375 a month to rent a small store at 283 Broadway (right across from where he would later open his Marble Palace). After opening his store, Stewart married Cornelia Mitchell Clinch on October 16th, 1823. They moved into the back of his 12½-by-30-foot store. Between 1828 and 1837, Stewart moved to bigger and bigger west side stores, selling Irish fabrics and domestic calicos (plain woven textiles). Competing with the dry goods stores (mostly at Pearl Street), A.T. Stewart had the best prices and would never cheat his customers, whom he befriended. Between 1846 and 1848, A.T. Stewart built and opened his lavish Italian palazzo-styled Marble Palace at 280 Broadway on the NE corner of Chambers Street. The Italianate Tuckahoe marble-faced building was supported on cast-iron Corinthian columns, making it the first American store to feature such an extravagant exterior. This store also sold dry goods (re-termed department stores in the 1890s) and imported European women's clothing. The ladies came from miles and miles. The Marble Palace was the first giant store to let patrons browse on their own instead of shopping with sales clerks. It was also the first department store to use full-length mirrors so shoppers could view themselves from various angles. After 1856, A.T. Stewart added furs, which he advertised as the best and most natural skins. This landmark building was designed in palazzo style by John B. Snook and Joseph Trench. A.T. Stewart's Marble Palace was the first commercial Italianate building. High ceilings and natural light from its central rotunda gave a refined look to its merchandise. Fearing that the new street traffic nuisance (Broadway rail cars) would prevent his high class customers’ carriages from getting to his Marble Palace store, the Merchant Prince Alexander T. Stewart used his power to halt mass transit’s progress. After he energized Broadway Ladies Mile north of Chambers Street with his Marble Palace, Stewart expanded further uptown and built a huge six-story cast-iron emporium, which became the beginning of the second Ladies Mile on Broadway. A.T. Stewart's largest Broadway store yet, this “Iron Palace” opened in 1869 with 19 departments. Just south of Grace Church, stretching between 9th and 10th Streets and spanning to 4th Avenue, this immense store employed 320 clerks and 200 cash boys. Soon it would total almost 2,000 employees, and by 1877, the Iron Palace expanded into 30 separate departments, demonstrating the awareness to detail that made A.T. Stewart stand out from his competitors. And before Montgomery Ward, Sears and Spiegels became famous for their mail order business, A.T. Stewart had 20 people on his payroll in 1876 to handle the orders that came pouring in from around America. This second Ladies Mile went northward to 24th Street where McCreery's Department Store (1883) and Stern's (1878) were located. It also featured B Altman and Company, Lord and Taylor, and Macy's. A.T. Stewart kept his old Marble Palace on Chambers Street around for awhile to use as a warehouse. He also owned several factories and mills and was making $1 million a year by 1869. The top two floors of the Marble Palace on Chambers Street were added after Stewart's warehouse closed. When Stewart first built the structure, it topped the ground floor with four floors of pedimented windows above. In 1917, The Sun newspaper left Newspaper Row, moved across City Hall Park and into the Marble Palace building on Chambers Street. Benjamin H. Day began publishing The Sun on September 3rd, 1833, filling the newspaper with human interest articles. The Sun's original clock can still be seen on the old Marble Palace with its logo "The Sun Shines for All." The Marble Palace became a NYC landmark in 1966 after almost a half a decade known among New Yorkers as the Sun Building. A.T. Stewart soon owned almost all of Bleecker Street, the Globe Theatre, and the Metropolitan Hotel, and had a huge Fifth Avenue mansion. He also built affordable housing for his employees at Hempstead Plains, Long Island, in a town he called Garden City. With all his holdings, A.T. Stewart was the richest man in NYC thanks to the retail trade and not real estate. When A.T. Stewart died in NYC on April 10th, 1876, he was worth about $40 million, making him NYC's third richest man behind Astor and Vanderbilt. He was buried at St. Marks Church. But Stewart’s interesting history didn’t stop there. After 30 months of internment, his body was dug up from St. Marks Church on November 7th, 1878. Stewart Vault No. 112 was a few feet off the triangle by Second Avenue and East 10th Street, between the east church wall and Second Avenue. Closer to the east wall of the church was Peter Stuyvesant's vault No. 171. Beside A.T. Stewart were the vaults of Thomas Bibby and Benjamin Winthrop; in front and back were George Wotherspoon, James Cockroft, James McCall, John A. Graff and Edwin Townsend. The 12-by-15-by-10-ft. vaults with only 3 feet of earth covering the 4½-by3½-foot hole in the roof covered by three slabs. The middle slab fits into the grooved edges of the two side slabs, so the middle slab had to be removed before the side slabs. Once opened and through the almost square opening the grave-robbers had to descend down 12 stone stairs. There were five coffins to choose from, two with Stewart's kids and two members of the Clinch family. A.T. Stewart's coffin was the newest. His heavily decomposed body had not been embalmed so when air first hit, the body would have liquified quickly. The stench the morning after made the investigators sick. The November 7th grave robbery was preceded by an unsuccessful attempt on October 9th when just the name slab was removed. The robbers demanded a $200,000 ransom for A.T., but three years later his widow had whittled it down to $20,000. The remains that were recovered were entombed in the family vault in the Episcopal Cathedral of the Incarnation in Garden City, Long Island. Mrs. Cornelia Stewart died of pneumonia on October 25th, 1866. In 1896, John Wanamaker bought the Iron Palace and opened the New York version of his famous Philadelphia store.
Alfred Ely Beach's Pneumatic Subway		258-260 Broadway on the SW corner of Murray Street	(40.713015, -74.007404)
Alfred Ely Beach, publisher of Scientific American, created a 312-foot tunnel under Broadway (across from City Hall) that existed between 1870 and 1873. Rather than deal with Tweed and Tammany Hall, who not welcome a new transportation rival, Beach cloaked construction of this first subway tunnel in secrecy. Tammany Hall was being paid off by the many streetcar companies in NYC as well as the Erie Railroad. In 1868, however, Beach got a charter from Tammany Hall to build a pneumatic tube for mail, but a loophole in the charter did not state the size of the tube. This gave Beach the guts to build a 9-ft. wide tunnel in which he ran an experimental pneumatic pressure subway car that seated 22 people. Blown along by compressed air from a giant steam-operated fan, NYC's first subway car went 10 miles an hour. When the subway car tripped a wire at the end of the tunnel, it reversed the fan (nicknamed the Western Tornado) and sucked the car back into the station. Beach's company took a five-year lease in the basement of Devlin's Clothing Store at 258-260 Broadway on the SW corner of Murray Street. The foreman for the excavation was Alfred's 21-year-old son, Fred. Lit by lantern, their workers dug 20 feet under Broadway for 58 nights. The subway’s 120-foot carpeted waiting room was decorated with frescoes and paintings, and it had a fountain, aquarium and grand piano. A New York Herald reporter first noticed the sagging sidewalk above the subway, exposing the project. Other newspapers reported some news about it, but most details were withheld. A month after the news broke on February 26th, 1870, NYC's first underground subway opened. In the single year it was open to the curious public, around 400,000 people paid 25 cents each for the ride. The trip went from Broadway at Warren Street south to just past Murray Street and back north again to Warren Street. Boss Tweed and his biggest crony, Governor John T. Hoffinan, killed Alfred Beach's plans for an underground subway he wanted to run to Central Park. Official backing instead went to Tweed's viaduct plan calling for 40-foot arches to support an elevated track for train lines. A year later, Governor Hoffinan was voted and new Governor John Adams Dix passed Beach's bill in 1873. But by the time the good news arrived, Alfred Ely Beach was broke and his backers had pulled out. Beach's tunnel was rented out first as a shooting gallery and then as a storage facility until it was finally sealed up. Construction began on August Belmont’s creation -- the IRT -- on March 24th, 1900. In October 1904, the first electric-powered subway opened under City Hall. For 5 cents apiece, riders could travel from City Hall up the west side to 145th Street. This historic looped station is no longer open to the public, but is still used by the #6 train to turn around and roll back to the Chambers Street station. In February 1912, while digging the BMT subway under Broadway, workers were shocked to discover Beach's old underground tunnel and NYC's first subway car. The NYC subway system that first began under City Hall helped to double NYC real estate values, but still they were hardly subsidized. Subway maintenance was overlooked even more later as the powers-that-be (such as Robert Moses) focused on building tunnels, bridges and parkways, stroking the automobile industry while sacrificing mass transit.
American Hotel		229 Broadway	(40.712321, -74.00808)
In 1827, the American Hotel was operated at 229 Broadway on the corner of Barclay Street, across from City Hall Park, by the Cozzens of West Point, so it was mostly patronized by members of the army. Its architecture by Davis and its figures by Canova, the American Hotel stood on the future site of the Woolworth Building. In 1850, Taber & Bagley assumed management of the hotel. South of the American Hotel on Barclay Street (where John Jacob Astor would build his Astor House) was the David Lydig mansion, which was once owned by Cornelius Roosevelt. It was next to the home of Rufus King before the future state senator became known for his antislavery stance and moved his manor to Jamaica Queens in 1805). King, a soldier in the Revolutionary War, was a representative of the Confederation Congress and one of the authors, framers and signers of the U.S. Constitution. In 1820, Rufus King delivered two of the most radical speeches ever heard in the Senate before the Civil War. His opposition to admitting Missouri, a slave state, to the Union started his long antislavery career. David Lydig was born in NYC in 1764 and died on June 16th, 1840. Before moving to 225 Broadway (near Barclay Street) in 1819, Lydig lived at 35 Beekman Street. After selling his Broadway mansion at great profit to John Jacob Astor for his Astor Hotel, he moved to 34 Laight Street. When Lydig realized that the Erie Canal would bring cheap wheat and flour to NYC, he sold his flour interests before his competitors did. To the north of the American Hotel were the homes of John McVikar (not the British criminal, McVicar) at 231 Broadway and Philip Hone, a NYC mayor. Irish-born McVikar was one of the founders of the St. Patrick's Society in 1792, and by 1797, he was its vice president. McVikar was in the lending business at 27 Queen (now Pearl) Street prior to 1786 and lived at 39 Maiden Lane. From 1793 to 1810, McVikar was a director for the Bank of New York and a director of the Mutual Insurance Company and the United Insurance Company after 1795. Before moving to Broadway he lived at 228 Pearl Street. When Davy Crockett visited NYC in the 1830s, he stayed at the American Hotel, which was easily accessible to City Hall across the street and the Five Points, where he enjoyed going slumming. His presence at the hotel caused such a big fuss that it made the neighbors crazy, including Philip Hone. Hone was mayor of NYC starting in 1826 (for only one year) and president of the Delaware and Hudson Canal Company. He bought a home on Broadway at the corner of Park Place for $25,000, where he wined and dined NYC society. Hone backed the first opera house in NYC and the first summer hotel in the Rockaways, but both ventures failed. He sold his Broadway home in 1836 for $60,000, this site was converted into street shops and eventually became the site of the American Hotel.
Astor House Hotel		West Side of Broadway between Vesey and Barclay Street	(40.711833, -74.008541)
The site of the old company farmhouse was the location of the 1836 Astor House Hotel, (demolished in 1926). Opened in June 1836 as the Park Hotel, this Greek Revival-styled hotel had 309 rooms in six stories. Its central courtyard was covered by an iron and glass rotunda created by James Bogardus. The fashionable crowd who lived high on the hog in the country finally had a ritzy place to stay in NYC. The Astor House Hotel was designed by Isaiah Rogers, America's foremost hotel architect who was also the architect the Tremont House in Boston, the first hotel with indoor plumbing. The cost of living rose 66 percent in 1836 due to inflation. The Astor House Hotel's south section and central courtyard was taken down in 1913 to make way for subway construction, and the rest of the hotel met the same fate in 1926.
Barden's Tavern		Corner of Broadway and Murray Street	(40.713204, -74.007246)
After owning his first inn in Jamaica, Long Island, Edward Barden, a veteran, opened a tavern on lower Broadway in Manhattan that may have the birthplace of Tammany. In late 1786, the Tammany Society (also called the Columbian Order and the Independent Order of Liberty) was founded by upholsterer William Mooney, who had been active as one of NYC's Sons of Liberty. The society most likely started at Talmage Hall because later meetings were advertised at that usual location. At Barden's Tavern, on the corner of Broadway and Murray Street in 1770, a club of lawyers called the Moot met on the first Friday night of each month. And here on May 12th, 1789, the Secret Society of St. Tammany was founded as a political and social organization under a constitution and laws. Also the first Grand Sachem of Tammany, Mooney and some of his craftsmen companions wanted the Tammany Society to provide the common soldier a club as nice as officers’ clubs. In 1788, Barden took charge of the old City Arms on Broadway and Thames Street, so the Tammany meetings at Barden's were held not at Murray Street but further downtown on the west side of Broadway This makes sense as one of the known gathering spots of Tammany Society at that time was on the banks of the Hudson. Tammany called Barden's Tavern their wigwam, and members wore Indian costumes to the meetings until 1813. Tammany was regularly incorporated as a fraternal aid association in 1805. Talmage Hall at 49 Cortlandt Street was believed to be the site of St. Tammany Society’s earliest known annual wigwam, May 1st, 1787, to honor the society’s saint, the legendary immortal Tammend, a Delaware chief, “great in the field and foremost in the chase.” The event was written up in the press making May 1st, St. Tammany's Day, and likely the initial function. Society that became a political machine that became the Democratic Party. It controlled NYC politics while helping millions of voting immigrants (especially the Irish). Members’ ranks in the club were named using Indian titles ranging from Braves to the highest level Sachems. At one time, only male property owners were allowed to vote in political elections until Tammany opened voting to all men. Their other progressive ideas ended debtors prisons. The first meeting of the directors of the Manhattan Company, Aaron Burr’s water utility concern, was held at Edward Barden's Tavern on April 11th, 1799.
Bixby's Hotel		1 Park Place	(40.712689, -74.007699)
Bixby's Hotel at 1 Park Place at Broadway became famous in the 1850s for the writers who would gather to discuss the topics of the day. Nathaniel Hawthorne would huddle around Daniel Bixby's stove on his infrequent visits to NYC. Bixby was a publisher who set himself up as a hotelkeeper to cater to journalists. Naval officers also frequented his hotel. On May 4th, 1852, Edward B. Crane hung himself from the bed post at a 4th story room at Bixby's. According to his suicide note, Crane a resident of Millville, Massachusetts didn't get the courage to jump overboard from his boat so he took the hotel room and his life. Crane's note claimed that it took more courage to live than to die.
Bread and Cheese Club		SE corner of Broadway and Reade Street	(40.714507, -74.005829)
Born September 15th, 1789, in Burlington, NJ, James Fenimore Cooper became one of the most popular American novelists. Besides his famous "The Last of the Mohicans," Cooper’s novels include "Precaution," "The Pioneers," "Lionel Lincoln," "The Prairie," and “The Pilot." In 1822, Cooper created an informal social and cultural conclave called the Bread and Cheese Club (also called "The Lunch" and the "Lunch Club" by its intimates). It grew out of impromptu gatherings of Cooper's intellectual network of friends. Membership consisted of American writers, editors and artists as well as scholars, educators, art patrons, merchants, professionals, lawyers and politicians who dabbled in the arts. The chief shared aim of their forum was to enhance America's cultural independence. The club was organized around the notion of an electoral system in which prospective new members were voted in with bread, or rejected with cheese. The Bread and Cheese Club first met in the back room of Wiley's New Street bookstore on the corner of Wall and New Streets. Before moving to New Street, Wiley opened his first print shop in 1807 at 6 Reade Street. John Wiley was the publisher who made Cooper a national celebrity when he published his second novel, “The Spy,” in 1821. The Bread and Cheese Club was first called “Cooper's Lunch," which was an outgrowth of the back room at Wiley's called "The Literary Den.” The Bread and Cheese Club would hold most of its meetings at Washington Hall, which stood on the SE corner of Broadway and Reade Street. The members would generally meet every fortnight (14 days) on Thursday afternoons until the evenings after dinner. Food for the suppers were supplied by members on an alternating basic and usually cooked by Abigail Jones, an artist of color. Members took turns catering or hosting the meetings, assisted by daughters of members. Of the members’ total of 73 daughters, Cooper had five. He also had two sons with Susan Augusta DeLancey (1792-1852), whom he married January 1st, 1811, in Mamaroneck, NY. After living in New Rochelle, NY, the Coopers moved and built a home in Scarsdale. Besides Cooper and his publisher John Wiley, the club’s membership of just 35 included poets William Cullen Bryant, Fitz-Greene Halleck, J.A. Hillhouse, and Robert Charles Sands; writers Washington Irving, James Kirke Paulding, J.G. Percival, Major Jack Downing, and Gulian C. Verplanck (also an editor and lawyer); painters Thomas Cole, William Dunlap, Asher Brown Duand, Henry Inman, John Wesley Jarvi, John Vanderlyn, Robert Weir, and Samuel Finley Breeze Morse (also an inventor); artist R.S.A. Durand; merchants Charles Augustus Davis, Jacob Harvey, and Philip Hone; businessman James DePeyster Ogden; judges William Alexander Duer, John Duer, and Chancellor James Kent; naturalist James Ellsworth De Kay; physician John Wakefield Francis; editor and educator Charles King; philosopher James Renwick, and author-lawyer Henry Dwight Sedgwick. Another author, Edward John Trelawny, only visited the club, and there were another two members whom history books have deleted. In 1824, when he was living abroad, Washington Irving was made the Bread and Cheese Club’s honorary chairman in absentia. Also that year, another member, painter (and inventor) Samuel F. B. Morse entered NYC's competition to commemorate the Marquis de Lafayette's tour of the U.S. Morse's official portrait of the Marquis won the prize. The Marquis de Lafayette was greeted by Cooper's Bread and Cheese Club in 1824 before traveling with General Swift to West Point. The Bread and Cheese Club lasted while Cooper lived in New York City until 1826, when it branched off into the Sketch Club and the Literary Club in 1827. Cooper died in 1851.
Bridewell Debtors Prison		West Side of City Hall Park, between Warren and Murray Streets	(40.713232, -74.006894)
On March 17th, 1775, the Common Council approved plans for the new city prison, the Bridewell. The main building of the Bridewell and its workhouse was finished in April 1776 and stood between the site of the first Almshouse and Broadway until 1838. With just bars in the windows and nothing to stop cold winds, the dark grey stone Bridewell building had a middle structure three stories high and wings that were only two stories. Besides vagrants, the mentally ill were also locked up in because mental illness was seen as a social problem at the time. During the British occupation from 1776-1783, American POWs were housed in the Gaol and Bridewell, starting with Colonel Robert Magaw's captured garrison of 1,200 men from the badly planned Battle of Fort Washington (November 16th, 1776). The Battle of Fort Washington was known as the Alamo of the American Revolution. Only 59 Americans died in the British attacks from the south, east, and north. George Washington thought to abandon the fort and move the men to the safety of New Jersey, but General Nathanael Greene convinced him to defend it. Magaw walked away in a prisoner exchangd for another high ranking British officer, but most of his men died in the prison ships in Wallabout Bay. After surrendering to the British, 2,837 Americans walked downtown to their death or imprisonment for the duration of the American Revolution. On January 4th, 1777, 800 men filled up the Bridewell Prison, which led British doctors to administer some kind of poison powder to keep the prisoner numbers down. Forgiveness of debt came to NYC thanks to Tammany Hall and reformer Joseph D. Fay, who led a crusade with the message that debtors don’t suffer from moral failure but are just victims of downward business cycles. In 1831, jail sentences for insolvency finally became forbidden in the State of New York. (In England, Parliament didn't end debtors prisons until 1869.) This law ended the 55-year-run of the Bridewell Debtors Prison and established the word “bankruptcy.” Almost two out of three immigrants who arrived in America were debtors on arrival. When the Bridewell was demolished in 1838, some of its stones were reused to build the original Tombs Prison, under construction the same year. The first Tombs Prison held 150 men and 50 women in its poorly land-filled, sinking structure. The land the Bridewell would sit on was owned by John Lamb and the Sons of Liberty, who bought the land in 1770 to erect a Liberty Pole that was inscribed “Liberty and Property.“ After the Battle of Golden Hill, other Liberty Poles went up on this spot across from 252 Broadway.
Broadway-Chambers Building		277 Broadway	(40.714371, -74.006374)
The Broadway-Chambers Building, designed by Cass Gilbert for his first NYC project, was finished in 1900. With a facade done in a traditional three-part classical composition (tripartite skyscraper construction), the building at 277 Broadway is made of brick with brightly glazed terra-cotta ornaments.
Brom Martling's Tavern		West side of Broadway between Thames and Cedar	(40.708708, -74.011068)
Tammany members back in the day would dress in Indian garb for some of their ceremonial events and meetings, where they smoked the calumet, or peace pipe. The first wigwams they rented consisted of the long room at Brom Martling's Tavern, the City Tavern, and Fraunces Tavern (NE corner of Pearl and Broad). Before, their usual spots included Talmage Hall and Barden's Tavern. From 1798 until 1812, Tammany Hall organizers (frequently called Martlingmen) met at Abraham Martling's one story tavern (SE corner of Nassau and Spruce Streets), before moving to their own building (the first Tammany Hall) on the west side of Broadway between Thames and Cedar, by City Hall. This rundown building that was known as the first real Tammany Hall was called the Pig Pen by many citizens. Tammany managed to gain power by keeping a finger on the pulse of the people in taverns. Despite attacks from moralists and crusaders, Tammany survived because its political machine protected the common man and gave him an identity. Many working class immigrants were attracted to Tammany's opposition to nativism and anti-Catholicism. Tammany was founded on the true principles of patriotism guided by motives of charity and brotherly love. Its purpose was to afford relief to the indigent and distressed, but as history has uncovered its evolving corruption, Tammanys must have been guided by the notion that charity begins at their own home. Tammany was named after Tamanend, the leader of the Delaware Lenape Indians who lived on the banks of the Schuylkill River. Brave chief Tamanend loved freedom and was the subject of widespread folklore. Tammany Society started as an offshoot of a Pennsylvanian club that began in the 1770s. After George Washington's inauguration, the New York chapter of Tammany was started in May 1789 as a patriotic fraternity similar to the Elks or Moose Clubs. Tammany started as a social drinking club for guys devoted to the rights of people to live free in a country without radical or fanatical principles.
Byram’s Garden / Mount Vernon Garden		West of Broadway and Leonard Street	(40.716965, -74.00426)
Before 1796, William Byram ran a public garden and pleasure resort on Kalckhook Hill (just west of Broadway and Leonard Street) known as Byram’s Garden. In 1796, the establishment became Corre's Garden, which was run by French cook Monsignor William Corre. Formerly a chef for a British officer, Corre sold mead and cakes at a stand on the Battery that was decorated with colored lamps. When Broadway was created, the garden towered high above street level and had to be reached by a long flight of steps. On July 19th, 1800, Corre renamed his garden the Mount Vernon Garden, and a few years later he called it the Mount Vernon Gardens Theatre. As the Park Theatre was closed in the summer, the public was hungry for theatrical representation so Corre's gardens offered cheap concerts, nighttime theatre presentations, and his renowned flying horses, an early cross between a flying swing and a merry-go-round. The flying horses were similar to an eight-person ride Phineas Parker created in the summer of 1800 for Joseph Delacroix's New York City Garden. Parker called the 20 mph rides the Patent Federal Balloon or the Vertical Aerial Coachee. In October 1800, Corre invited Richard Crosby to lecture on the science of aerostation, and after two weeks he filled a giant silk hot air balloon with inflammable air at the Mount Vernon Garden. Its launching at 4 p.m. on a Monday drew a huge crowd to the garden. Dubbed the beautiful varnished Silk Balloon and Aeronautic Carriage, the balloon rose 400 feet and headed southward until it disappeared from sight.
Carlton House		352 Broadway	(40.717103, -74.003681)
In 1850, P.J. Hodges ran the Carlton House, a respectable hotel that stood at 350 and 352 Broadway by Leonard Street. Charles Dickens stayed there, enabling him to witness the gritty Five Points district nearby. The Carlton House was just a few hundred feet away from the entrance to the Points at Broadway and Anthony Street (now called Worth Street). On Friday night March 4th, 1842, Dickens and his guides left the Carlton House to go slumming. The Carlton House was originally the home of Stephen Price, who was a joint lessee of the Park Theater, and Thomas Cooper, the tragedian. Another Carlton House was off Frankfort Street by William Street under the Brooklyn Bridge.
Christopher Colles' 1st Log Pipeline		East Side of Broadway between White to Leonard Streets	(40.717379, -74.003477)
By the end of 1774, Christopher Colles’ visionary project called New York Waterworks began (but never finished) construction on a system to pipe water down Broadway between White and Pearl Streets. Public money financed a pumping station and a 165-sq.-ft. reservoir just east of Broadway on White Street on the Van Cortlandt-owned high grounds just outside the town. The public funds also paid for a well (30 feet across and 28 feet deep) that would have brought 2 million gallons of Collect Pond water up into the 1¾-acre White Street reservoir. Colles’ pump moved 200 gallons a minute and 300,000 gallons in a one-day test. Water Works enlisted Elisha Gallaudet to design red and black ink notes that in August 1774 became the first paper currency used in an American city. The pumping station, a 40-by-12-by-6-ft. brick and stone structure erected on the former hill between Broadway and Cortlandt Alley, was to have been equipped with a large network of pipes made from hollow logs that would distribute water to NYC. By February 1775, a seven-foot steam engine was built, intended for pumping water from Broadway and Leonard Street down the east side of Broadway. The Revolutionary War put a hold on the New York Water Works project, and in 1776, Colles’ work was destroyed by the British in a strike against colonial ingenuity. Colles stayed active in NYC water search for the next 25 years. Before Colles’ project, a small Moravian community in Bethlehem, PA, had the first pumped water supply in the U .S. in 1755. In 1772, Providence, RI, became the only other colonial town with a piped water supply. An Irish-born engineer, Colles created the first U.S. road map and guide book in 1789, but quit that business in 1792 because of few subscribers. His atlas covered 1,000 miles from Albany to Williamsburg, an invaluable record of our nation's earliest roadway network. Colles came to America in 1765, and made money lecturing on scientific subjects. He also invented an early steam engine for a distiller in Pennsylvania. Also an early pioneer of canal development, Colles petitioned the Legislature in 1774 to build a canal through the Mohawk Valley connecting the Lake Ontario with the Hudson River. The Erie Canal opened 27 years later. Colles even created a semaphoric telegraph between NYC's Battery and Sandy Hook, NJ, for use during the War of 1812. Early almanac makers relied on Colles’ astronomical observations. In his later years, Colles was superintendent for the newly organized Academy of Fine Arts at the old Government House below Bowling Green. He died in 1821 at age 84 and was buried in the old St. John's cemetery that became Hudson Park. Colles was always poor, and his plans were often ridiculed by the public, who displayed a distrust and prejudice that only ended up hurting NYC's progress
City Hall Park		Between Broadway, Park Row and Chambers Street	(40.71395, -74.00624)
Unlike the Tweed Courthouse costing over $16 million, the third City Hall only cost only $500,000. City Hall was built on a hill looking over the huge harbor that made NYC what it is today. The Commons (City Hall Park) was first used as a park in 1686 by the few hundred people who lived in NYC at the time, a far cry from the 100,000 that occupied NYC by the time the third City Hall was finished in 1811. Joseph F Mangin (French) and John McComb Jr. (Scottish) designed the third City Hall using a French Renaissance Georgian style. When this City Hall was built, the side that faced north was simply done in brownstone unlike the rest of the expensive Massachusetts marble structure. The reasoning for not using marble on the northern side was that no one of importance lived that far north. In 1831, the first illuminated public clock in NYC was added atop City Hall’s cupola where a fire tower was also built. Huge City Hall celebrations were held for Lafayette, Charles Lindbergh, the Atlantic Cable (whose 1858 fireworks caused City Hall's biggest fire), and the opening of the Erie Canal. On April 24th and April 25th in 1865, Abe Lincoln's body was put in City Hall’s colonnaded Rotunda. Outside City Hall in 1776, George Washington and his troops listened to the reading of the Declaration of Independence in front of the citizens of NYC.
Company Farmhouse		West Side of Broadway between Vesey and Barclay Streets	(40.71176, -74.008595)
Trinity Church would eventually own the huge tract of farmland called the Company Farm. The Company Farmhouse, just south of the Broadway rope walk (where Park row meets Broadway today), became a tavern called the Drovers Inn. The Drovers innkeeper was Adam Vandenberg. Adam's brother, Cornelius Vandenberg, sent the first Winter Albany Post in December, 1747. A successful amusement promoter in NYC, Adam also owned an entertainment garden called the Mead Garden (a.k.a. Vandenberg's Garden) and a horse race course. This site became the location of the famous Astor House Hotel in 1838, after it was the site of the 1794 home of John Jacob Astor himself.
De La Montagne's Tavern		253 Broadway on the west side just north of Murray Street	(40.713277, -74.0072)
Abraham De La Montagne's Tavern / Montagne Garden and Public House (headquarters of the Liberty Boys) was located at 253 Broadway on the west side, just north of Murray Street. On January 13th, 1770, British soldiers from the 16th Regiment attempted to blow up the Liberty Pole with black powder. Failing that, they attacked Montagne's breaking its windows and wrecking furniture. A few nights later, on the 17th, the British succeeded in sawing down the Liberty Pole, and it was found in pieces outside the front door of Montagne's. After the Revolutionary War, Montagne changed the tavern’s name to the United States Garden. By 1772, NYC had 22,000 citizens, doubling in size since 1742. There was a tavern for every 55 citizens. Montagne's Inn was taken over by the famous purveyor of ice cream, John H. Contoit, who ran it from 1802-1805. Contoit renamed Montagne's the New York Garden. Augustus Parise then took over the famous site, and after that a new building called the Parthenon was built there. By the first anniversary of the Battle of Golden Hill on March 19th 1771, the British celebrated at Montagne's Tavern. Abe Montagne must have switched loyalties from all the business from the British soldiers living at the expanded upper barracks across Broadway. Before all that, Peter Stuyvesant wrote "for want of a proper place, no school has been open for three months, and the youth were running wild," in a bid to inquire about funds for a Latin school. Stuyvesant got his way On April 4th, 1652, when the Directors in Holland agreed to pay Dr. Johannes (Jan) Momie de la Montagne, 200 to 250 guilders a year to start an elementary Latin school at the City Tavern (which became the Stad Huys).
Dugdale and Searle's Rope Walk		Broadway from Ann Street to Chambers Street	(40.712789, -74.007431)
In 1719, Dugdale and Searle's long rope-walk stretched along Broadway from Ann Street up to Chambers Street. Thanks to permission from the Trinity Church Corporation, the rope walk lasted for about 20 years at that location in front of City Hall Park. At one point on Broadway, the rope walk ran about 40 feet from an associated small building in City Hall Park across from Murray Street from 1728-1775. This rope walk building I call “hemp headquarters” was removed to make room for the Bridewell in 1775.
First NYC Sidewalks		Broadway between Vesey and Murray Streets	(40.712315, -74.007916)
The first NYC sidewalk was three blocks long on the west side of Broadway between Vesey and Murray Streets. Set in 1787, the narrow sidewalk could fit only two at a time. The first sidewalk on the east side of Broadway was also added in 1787 along the Bridewell fence in City Hall Park.
Irving House Hotel		281 Broadway at the NW corner of Chambers Street	(40.714362, -74.006285)
In 1850, the Irving House was a fashionable hotel run by D.D. Howard. It was located at 281 Broadway at the NW corner of Chambers Street, where Nedick's once had a hot dog. After 1856, Delmonicos moved from their first location at 19 Broadway into the ground floor of the Irving House Hotel. The Irving House Hotel was replaced by the Broadway-Chambers Building (277 Broadway), which was the first NYC project of Cass Gilbert (Woolworth Tower). A Renaissance revival building made of brick ornamented with brightly glazed terra-cotta, the Broadway-Chambers Building was finished in 1900. Its facade is done in a traditional three-part classical composition (tripartite skyscraper construction). Before it became the Irving House Hotel, John C. Colt, brother of the inventor of the revolver, Samuel Colt, had a second floor office in this building. On September 17th, 1941, John Colt killed a printer named Samuel Adams with a hatchet. Adams had come over from his place at Ann and Gold Streets to Colt's office to collect a $50 debt. Colt packed Adams’ body in a crate, which was taken to the Maiden Lane dock and stashed aboard a ship called Kalamazoo, heading for New Orleans (or South America). Colt was to be hanged at the Tombs Prison at 4 p.m. on November 18th, 1941, but on that morning he got married to his mistress, Caroline Henshaw. A diversionary fire was started in the wooden cupola on the Tombs’ roof, and a burnt body was found in Colt's cell with a knife in its heart. The power of his brother’s wealth and community standing may have made John Colt the first person to escape the Tombs. Rumor had it that John and Caroline Colt made it to France and hid out there the rest of their lives.
Jan de Wit and Denys Hartogveldt's Windmill		City Hall Park West of Spruce Street	(40.712289, -74.006524)
Jan de Wit and Denys Hartogveldt built a windmill to grind wheat just south of where City Hall currently stands. The first structure in the Commons, the windmill was followed in 1728 by a small structure built to accompany the rope walk that ran down Broadway from Park Row to Chambers Street. Also on the current City Hall site, NYC's first Almshouse was built by the Common Council in 1734-1736. This first almshouse was frequented by vagabonds, rogues, disorderly persons, parents of bastard children, trespassers, runaway servants and beggars. Just beyond the workhouse fence, it had a cemetery to its east that was uncovered in 1999.
Liberty Tree / Liberty Pole		City Hall Park between Warren and Chambers Streets across from 252 Broadway	(40.713092, -74.006647)
The first Liberty Pole was put up in Boston on Orange Street by Hanover Square on August 14th, 1765, at which time it was actually a Liberty Tree. Deacon Jacob Elliott's large elm tree was used to hang in effigy Andrew Oliver, a merchant who agreed to collect the stamp tax. Placed next to the tree was a green-soled boot (green being the color of liberty since Robin Hood), which represented the Earl of Bute (who started the idea of the tax). This Boston elm was the first Tree of Liberty, where Quakers were hanged and Tories tarred and feathered. On a flagpole next to it, a red flag was hung to secretly signal a meeting of the Liberty Boys. The name Liberty Boys was coined by a British Lieutenant Colonel Barre to refer to the demonstrators against the Colonial Stamp Act. Sir Isaac started as an Irish soldier and became a Member of Parliament. Barre, VT, and Wilkes Barre, PA, were named after him. In NYC, when the Stamp Act was repealed on March 18th, 1766, Whigs hatched a plan to erect a Liberty Tree in the Commons (City Hall Park) between Warren and Chambers Streets. This first NYC Liberty Tree was a white pine post, and it was also called the Tree of Liberty. Disturbed as they were by the green symbol of Liberty, the British really got ticked off when the Liberty Tree was cut from white pine, prohibited in general and reserved exclusively for the English Navy’s ship masts. The first Liberty Tree was put up in City Hall Park on May 21st, 1766, shortly before a banquet on June 6th, 1766, to celebrate the anniversary of the King of England's birth. This tree/pole/mast/flagpole was decorated in the King’s colors. The British wanted to create statues of the King and William Pitt for the anniversary, but the Liberty Boys (by then a group of merchants, seamen, artisans, mechanics and self-made men) objected. British soldiers tore down the first NYC Liberty Tree on August 10th, 1766, causing thousands of patriotic Americans to gather in protest. After the Liberty Tree, the NYC Liberty Boys erected a Liberty Pole on August 12th (or 14th), 1766, which was torn down September 23rd, 1766. Within a day or two, another Liberty Pole was erected, but this, like all other Liberty Poles, was cut down by the British. Another time was on the night of March 18th, 1767, after being angered by an anniversary celebration of the repeal of the Stamp Act. On March 19, 1767, less than a year after the first Liberty Tree, 2,000 New Yorkers erected the fourth Liberty Pole, and this one was armored. Heavy iron plates protected the base that was set so deep in the ground the soldiers couldn't topple it. The 1767 Liberty Pole was in response to the Townshend Duty Act (which taxed paint, paper, glass, lead, and tea imports). The Quartering Act made the Whigs wig out, and they began to assault British soldiers as they came out of their barracks. These assaults made the winter of 1769-1770 a very nervous time for the British soldiers. On January 13th, 1770, the British tried to use black powder to blow up Liberty Pole #4. When this attempt failed, the British attacked Montagnie's Tavern, often used as the Liberty Boys’ Clubhouse as well as Burn's ]]could that name be Burns? If yes, then it’s Burns’ Tavern, wrecking the building and its furniture. British soldiers came back January 17th and sawed down the armored Liberty Pole and left the pieces stacked neatly outside Abraham Montagnie's Tavern at 252 Broadway. Responding to a Sons of Liberty broadside calling for a meeting on the Commons, 3,000 patriots rallied on January 18th and 19th, 1770. A handbill titled "To the Betrayed Inhabitants of the City and Colony of New York" was written and printed by Alexander McDougall (the leader of the NYC Liberty Boys). The patriots were armed with clubs, brickbats and sharpened sleigh rungs, while the British soldiers had bayonets and cutlasses. For two days NYC was an urban battleground until the military and town fathers restored order. The whole incident seemed to snowball on January 19th when British handbills titled "God and a Soldier" were put up. Sea captain and privateer Isaac Sears and other Sons of Liberty members tried to stop these postings, and a group of patriots started forming. When they kept a few British troops captive, other British soldiers came to their rescue. The mob of patriots retreated to a nearby wheat field on Golden Hill (between Cliff, John and William Streets). After proclaiming "Where are your Sons of Liberty now," about 40 soldiers from the 28th Regiment charged the mostly Whig crowd with fixed bayonets. Although no deaths resulted from this first significant encounter of the Revolutionary War to come, the injuries made first blood flow and this battle -- the Battle of Golden Hill or Gouden Bergh (Dutch) -- noteworthy. After the Battle of Golden Hill, privateer Isaac Sears, wine importer John Lamb, African American Joseph Allicocke, and Sea Captain and Liberty Boy leader Alexander McDougall asked the Mayor and the Common Council to erect another Liberty Pole (#5). When they refused, Sears, Lamb, McDougall, and some of the other Liberty Boys bought a plot of land across from 252 Broadway (where the Bridewell would stand), very close to the British Barracks in City Hall Park. This privately owned plot in City Hall Park (then called the Commons) was 11 feet wide and 100 feet deep and was purchased on February 3rd, 1770. Amazingly, this plot was situated near the site of the former Liberty Poles. On this narrow plot of land on February 6th, 1770, a giant 90-foot pole was erected by the Liberty Boys, 12 feet deep into the City Hall Park ground. This Liberty Pole was the biggest structure in NYC, and it stood for six years, eight months and 22 days. Six horses were needed to pull the 68-foot long lower end (a former ship's mainmast), thousands of armed patriots carried the 22-foot topmast into place. A gilded vane with the word "Liberty" (and maybe "Property" on its other side) was put on top of Liberty Pole #5, and a large flag that said "Liberty" was raised. Inscribed on the pole was "Liberty and Property." Wooden caps, Liberty vanes or Liberty flags were placed on top of most Liberty Poles. By the first anniversary of Golden Hill on March 19th, 1771, the British held their celebration at Montagnie Tavern (Montagnie must have switched loyalties because of all the British business from the big upper barracks across Broadway). The Liberty Boys bought a building in the Spring Garden on the east side of Broadway at Ann Street (where P.T. Barnum would build his first museum). This new Liberty Boy clubhouse was named Hampden Hall to honor a great English patriot. Somebody tried to topple the pole on March 29th, 1771, but the alarm rallied enough patriots to save Hampden Hall from possible burning and the fifth Liberty Pole survived. During the March 18th, 1775, celebration of the Stamp Act repeal, patriots gathered at the Liberty Pole were assaulted by a Sergeant William Cunningham (Provost-Marshall during the British takeover of NYC), but this attack failed and Cunningham was punished with a humiliating public whipping. Some of the 11,000 patriots who died under Cunningham's vengeful hands (starving and rotting in converted jails and prison ships in Wallabout Bay) remembered his failed Liberty Pole attack and related this to his harsh actions against them. Even though the 5th Liberty pole was extra-reinforced with nail-studded iron bars and bound with metal hoops, the British reportedly took it down on October 28th, 1776, under order of Governor Tryon. And it couldn’t have been the first thing that came down when the British first took over NYC after the Battle of Long Island on September 6th, 1776 On Flag Day June 14th, 1921, NYC threw a ticker-tape celebration and put up a new Liberty Pole on the site of the last Liberty Pole of 1776. The exact site was just west of what would later be the Mayor's room in City Hall, in the middle of City Hall’s west side, and Broadway, according to a survey J. Bankers on June 22nd, 1774. Created in two sections just as the last original pole (#5) was, Liberty Pole #6 measured 66 feet tall. A 40-foot lower portion was created from an Oregon Douglas fir tree, a gift from the Lumberman's Association in Portland. The top was made from a Maine pine tree. An exact replica of the old Liberty weather vane was added to the top, and iron bands surround the protected base. The 1921 Liberty Pole was a joint gift from the Sons of the Revolution in the State of New York and the New York Historical Society. In 1940, a replacement pole was erected (#7), but around 12 years later August 29th, 1952, they had to saw it down because of extensive decay. This revolutionary symbol of collective action should always stand in City Hall Park as a reminder of the strength of people power. Standing in City Hall Park today: Liberty Pole #8.
New York Garden		355 Broadway	(40.71729, -74.003949)
Ice cream mogul John H. Contoit ran another public garden on the west side of Broadway between Leonard and Franklin Streets. Contoit's New York Garden was situated between two buildings on top of Kalckhook Hill. An oasis decorated with colored lanterns, it became one of the best known resorts in NYC. It followed his first ice cream garden at 39 Greenwich Street in 1801, and another ice cream saloon across Broadway from City Hall Park between 1802 and 1805. This second location used to be Montague's Inn at 253 Broadway (by Murray Street). Contoit then moved the New York Garden one block south near Park Place until 1809, and it was situated here at 355 Broadway from 1809 to about 1849. Served in high glasses for 12½ cents (one Mexican shilling), Contoit's ice cream flavors included vanilla, lemon, and, if in season, strawberry. Contoit's was also was known for its pound cake, lemonade, claret and cognac. His ice cream fortune and ongoing investments in NYC real estate made Contoit a name on every New Yorker’s lips.
Peale's Museum		252 Broadway	(40.713403, -74.007103)
Charles Wilson Peale was an artist who was well known for his portraits of John Hancock, Thomas Jefferson, Alexander Hamilton and Benjamin Franklin. He painted 60 portraits of George Washington from seven sittings. In 1788, Peale opened his American Museum in Philadelphia next door to Independence Hall. In 1825, his son Reubens opened a NYC museum on the site of Montague's at 252 Broadway across from City Hall Park. Peale's Museum and Gallery of Fine Arts lasted until 1841 when P.T. Barnum bought his collection for $7,000. A band would play music to attract customers to early NYC museums.
Soldier's Upper Barracks		North End of City Hall Park	(40.713767, -74.006218)
In 1757, the Upper Barracks (the Lower Barracks were downtown at the Battery) were built at the north end of City Hall Park, near the site of the Tweed Courthouse, by the Chambers Street palisades. The two-story, 420-by-21-ft. barracks building contained twenty 21-sq.-ft. rooms on each floor. During the American Revolution, two more long buildings were constructed for soldiers. In 1784, after the British left NYC, all the barracks were leased for residences and then sold off in 1790.
The Third City Hall		City Hall Park between Murray and Warren Streets and Broadway and Park Row	(40.71264, -74.006098)
City Hall Park is a nine-acre park that once was a free pasture anyone in town could use. It had public bonfires and celebrations five times a year. When it was a livestock grazing area, it was variously called the Flat, the Fields, the Green, the Square, and between 1653 and 1699. it was called the Commons. Hundreds of years before the white man came, an Indian village called Werpoes (werpoe means “hare”) sat just north of City Hall Park. Before the hills of NYC were leveled, City Hall Park was on one of the highest grounds in lower NYC so it had views of the Hudson and East Rivers. The government’s first executions in the Commons took place in May 1691 when Jacob Leisler and his son-in-law Jacob Milborne were hung or beheaded for alleged treason. Leisler led NYC's militia and seized control of Fort James on May 31st, 1689, in the name of William of Orange. Nicholas Bayard got a drunken Governor Henry Slaughter to sign the papers convicting them to death. Before he was executed in the Commons, Jacob Leisler forgave his enemies. On the site of the current City Hall, NYC's first almshouse was built by the Common Council between 1734 and 1736. The almshouse, which became Bellevue, was a six-bed infirmary used by vagabonds, rogues, disorderly persons, parents of bastard children, trespassers, runaway servants and beggars. The Almshouse, also called the Public Work House and Home of Correction, had a cemetery to its east just beyond the workhouse fence; the cemetery was uncovered in 1999. Also in the 1730s, City Hall Park was used as a military parade ground. In 1764, the Stamp Act led to the airing of public grievances on the Commons. On November 1st, 1765, the Sons of Liberty’s first activist event took place, and Lt. Governor Cadwallader Colden's carriages and the home of Major Thomas James (Fort George's Commander) were destroyed in rioting that lasted on and off through May 1766 when the patriotic mob destroyed a fancy new theater. On January 4th, 1770, the Liberty Boys put up their first Liberty Pole opposite the British barracks in the northern area of City Hall Park. All told, seven Liberty Poles (and one Liberty Tree) have been erected by patriots and destroyed by British on the grounds of City Hall Park; the eighth Liberty Pole still stands there. On July 9, 1776, at 6 p.m., the newly ratified Declaration of Independence was read in City Hall Park to a public that included George Washington and his troops. After hearing the Declaration, the inspired crowd marched on Bowling Green and toppled the 4,000-pound, gold-plated statue of King George III. Many souls were freed at City Hall Park when it became the place for executions. The British hanged 250 American soldiers in the park, whose northwestern strip was also part of the African American cemetery. The northeast corner of City Hall Park supposedly still has 15 mostly intact skeletons, most likely dead folks from the old almshouse or jail, buried under a flower bed. Nathan Hale, America's first spy, was a 21-year-old graduate of Yale who was captured September 21st, 1776, and executed the next day, after his famous last words, "I only regret I only have one life to give my country." He may have been hanged at the north end of City Hall Park by Chambers Street where Jacob Leisler was executed. In 1893 at City Hall, Nathan Hale was immortalized with his first statue; CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia, also has a statue of Hale. Frederick MacMonnies sculpted the City Hall statue, giving Hale’s face the knowing look of impending execution. In 1803, Mayor Edward Livingston laid the cornerstone of NYC's third City Hall, designed by architects Joseph-Francois Mangin (also responsible for the Old St Patrick's Cathedral, still standing) and John McComb Jr. McComb was influenced by the Adams Brothers, who built the 1774 Edinburgh Register Office. The City Hall stairway also pays homage to the Adams Brothers’ staircase at the Glasgow Assembly Rooms. The front and both sides of City Hall were built of white Stockbridge marble, but cheaper brownstone covered the rear section. At the time of its construction, City Hall was so far north of town that its back wouldn't have been really seen by anyone important. The third City Hall was 215 feet long by 105 feet deep and cost just over $500,000. NYC officials began using it on July 4th, 1810, and it was finally finished in 1812. Fire watch in the City Hall cupola started around 1830. A fireworks display celebrating the laying of the Atlantic Cable destroyed the cupola in August 1856. The 1878 statue called Justice is the third statue situated on the cupola; the first two were made of wood and rotted away.
Tiffany & Company		West Side of Broadway across from City Hall Park	(40.713175, -74.007243)
Tiffany & Young opened on Broadway September 18th, 1837, 10 years after Charles Tiffany ran a country store for his father. The store was in a wood and brick building on the west side of Broadway across from City Hall Park, and its first week’s profits totaled 33 cents. Launched with $1,000 borrowed from Charles Lewis, Tiffany's father, the store first sold stationery and various decorative arts and fancy goods. Unlike other stores in that era that relied on haggling, all the items at Tiffany & Young had clearly marked prices, and Tiffany and his partner John F. Young also had a strictly cash policy; no credit and no bartering. Luckily on January 1st, 1839, the owners took all the cash home with them for the holidays because someone broke into the store and carted away $4,000 of merchandise. In 1839, the popularity of tasteless baubles spurred the store owners to add crudely made cheap costume jewelry for the first and only time. In 1841, J.L. Ellis became a partner and the Broadway store became Tiffany, Young and Ellis. Four years later, costume jewelry was dropped and real gold jewelry was added because of its escalating popularity. By 1847 silverware and Swiss jeweled watches were also sold. Like his neighbor, P.T Barnum, Tiffany was a publicity genius. He crafted a tiny silver horse and carriage for the wedding of Barnum's little people, General Tom Thumb and Lavinia. In 1853, Charles Lewis Tiffany bought out his partners and renamed the store Tiffany & Company. In 1870, Tiffany opened the largest jewelry store in the world in a new iron store on Union Square. Much like a museum with all its exhibits for sale, Tiffany’s featured the $18,000 Tiffany Diamond, which was found in 1877 in the new Kimberly mines in South Africa. Now worth over $2 million, the diamond remains the largest flawless canary diamond ever mined. By 1887, Tiffany was called the King of Diamonds when he displayed the French crown jewels. In 1940, Tiffany moved to 727 Fifth Avenue by 57th Street, and 21 years later Audrey Hepburn was immortalized on film as the store’s famously obsessed fan. Charles Lewis Tiffany died in 1902 at the age of 90.
Washington Hotel		SE Corner of Broadway and Reade Street	(40.714411, -74.005795)
Washington Hotel, a three-story hotel on Broadway, was first called Washington Hall when it was completed in 1812. It was on the SE corner of Reade Street where the old A.T. Stewart Building stands today. Washington Hall served as the Federalist Party headquarters in NYC (while the other party built Tammany Hall). In 1828, Washington Hall and its huge assembly space were converted into a hotel. It was the site of many fashionable functions and society dances, including the annual Firemen’s Ball and James Fenimore Cooper's Bread & Cheese Club. While exiled in America, Prince Louis Napoleon, the nephew of Napoleon Bonaparte, stayed at the Washington Hotel for a few months in the spring of 1837. A fire in 1844 destroyed the historic hotel, making room for A.T.'s Marble Palace in 1846. There was another Washington Hotel at 302 Greenwich Street.
White Conduit House		NW of Broadway and Duane Street	(40.71542, -74.005483)
In the 1700s, Conrad Vanderbeck owned one of NYC's earliest public gardens, and it was located on what would become the NW corner of Broadway and Duane Street. Just south of this old garden was the White Conduit House, built just before or during the American Revolution before Broadway was cut through the area. The White Conduit House tavern had one of NYC's oldest suburban pleasure gardens. The tavern was built on the west side of Broadway (then called Great George Street) between Leonard and Anthony (now Worth) Streets on top of the old Kalckhook Hill. Often used as a meeting house, the White Conduit House was located at the site of today’s 353-357 Broadway until 1800.