History of New York City (1855–1897)

Ocean-going steamships and steam railroads, developed in earlier decades, grew to take over most long-distance transport, bringing an ever-increasing stream of immigration and industrialization.

While the police were busy with their feud, the Dead Rabbits Riot between two gangs in Five Points occurred in July, lasting two days, and was stopped only by intervention of the state militia.

[3][4] Historian Tyler Anbinder says the "Dead Rabbit" name "so captured the imagination of New Yorkers that the press continued to use it despite the abundant evidence that no such club or gang existed."

Anbinder notes that, "for more than a decade, 'Dead Rabbit' became the standard phrase by which city residents described any scandalously riotous individual or group.

"[5] Historians such as Michael Kaplan and Elliott Gorn have argued that an intensifying highly masculine working-class male identity fostered gangs, brawling, and even homicide and rape, which was fueled by New York City taverns.

Angry residents burned down the hospital compound in 1858 in a series of attacks known as the Staten Island Quarantine War.

[9] As the population grew explosively in Lower Manhattan after 1820, middle-class residents were drawn to the few existing open spaces, mainly cemeteries, to get away from the noises, smells, and chaotic life in the city.

Landscape painter Asher B. Durand and writer William Cullen Bryant, recalling their rural upbringing and the great parks of Europe, advocated the therapeutic value of nature in the overcrowded city.

The state government in 1853 provided $5 million and eminent domain powers to buy out the land owners of what became Central Park.

The most influential innovations in the Central Park design were the multiple circulation plans for pedestrians, horseback riders, and pleasure vehicles.

The crossing routes for commercial traffic were concealed in sunken roadways screened with densely planted shrub belts so as to maintain a natural setting.

Powerful New York politicians and newspaper editors helped shape public opinion toward the war effort and the policies of President Abraham Lincoln.

[16] Meanwhile, the upscale membership of the New York Union League Club recruited over 2,000 black men for the 20th United States Colored Infantry to help fill the quotas and to make a major contribution to African American civil rights.

It catered to a downscale clientele and besides the usual illegal liquor, gambling and prostitution, it featured nighly fistfights, and occasional shootings, stabbings, and police raids.

[32] Rapid outward expansion required longer journeys to work and shopping for the middle class office workers and housewives.

[35] Street-level electric trolleys moved at 12 miles per hour, and became the main transportation service for middle class shoppers and office workers.

European immigration brought further social upheaval, and old world criminal societies rapidly exploited the already corrupt municipal machine politics of Tammany Hall.

[37][38] Pioneering photojournalist Jacob Riis documented the poor conditions of immigrant tenement dwellers in his 1890 How the Other Half Lives; he was befriended by Republican reformer Theodore Roosevelt.

The efforts of reform-oriented Democratic politicians, especially Samuel J. Tilden, as well as aggressive newspaper editors aided by the biting cartoons of Thomas Nast, helped elect opposition candidates in 1871.

Tweed's fall put an end to the immunity of corrupt local political leaders and was a precursor to Progressive Era reforms in the city.

Such laws were enforced in most small towns and rural areas, but not in New York's larger cities, where political machines controlled the police and the courts.

In modern major cities, the department store made a dramatic appearance in the middle of the 19th century and permanently reshaped shopping habits and the definition of service and luxury.

[51] In 1862, Stewart built a new store on a full city block with eight floors and nineteen departments of dress goods and furnishing materials, carpets, glass and china, toys and sports equipment, ranged around a central glass-covered court.

Furthermore, ambitious young women from the middle class who wanted a career were welcomed into the clerical ranks, where they developed social skills to work with their upscale customers.

The skyscraper also required a complex internal structure to solve issues of ventilation, steam heat, gas lighting (and later electricity), and plumbing.

The apartment building came first, as middle-class professionals, businessmen, and white-collar workers realized they did not need and could scarcely afford single-family dwellings in the high-cost real estate districts of the city.

[57][58] Starting with the luxurious Stuyvesant Apartments that opened in 1869, and the even more lavish The Dakota in 1884, affluent tenants hired full-time staff to handle the upkeep and maintenance, as well as security.

[59][60] The less-lavish middle-class apartment buildings provided gas lighting, elevators, good plumbing, central heating, and maintenance men on call.

Rent was cheap for those who could endure the dust, clutter, smells and noises; the only cheaper alternatives were squalid basement rooms in older buildings.

[64][65] Pre-war steam ferries had already made Brooklyn Heights into a bedroom community for affluent professionals on Wall Street and other urban areas.