Best of The History Guy: Gotham

foreign [Music] date May 24th 1883 138 years ago one of the great marvels of the Industrial Age was open to the public for the very first time A procession of 24 coaches the first one of which carried U.S president Chester Arthur and New York city mayor Franklin Edson crossed the 6000 16-foot suspension bridge one and a half times longer than any suspension bridge that had been built to that time across the East River between New York City on Manhattan Island and Brooklyn on Long Island the headline of the New York Times that day read two great cities United although the times gave its relative opinion of those two great cities the next day when they mentioned that the residents of Brooklyn would be happy to avoid a sometimes difficult ferry ride but the residents of New York City had no great cause for celebration as not one in a thousand of them would ever find occasion to use the new structure the Brooklyn Bridge represented the might of the industrial era the coming of age of the United States and its largest city there's much that can be said about the Brooklyn Bridge but it also represented unique challenges of an era of great change an era of great contradictions in an era of great architecture it is history that deserves to be remembered the carriage carrying President Arthur and mayor Edson was not actually the first Carriage to cross the Brooklyn Bridge that event had occurred 10 days earlier in the honor of being the first to cross the bridge in a carriage went to Emily Warren robling wife of the chief engineer in her lap she carried a white rooster which was supposed to represent Victory Mrs Warren was said to be concerned that the bird Mike pecker tried to escape the carriage the bird itself was said to have crowed the whole way and did not seem to appreciate the role it had to play in the spectacle the purpose of the crossing was not merely to give Mrs Roebling and her rooster the honor of being the first to cross the bridge which she had played such a significant role in building but also to test whether the horse's trotting would make the bridge Wobble the bridge didn't wobble but New York City residents might not have been convinced this to how strong the bridge was until the following year when showman PT Barnum famously walked 21 elephants and 10 camels across it at the same time but Mrs roebling's presence did represent some of the significant challenges that were associated with construction of the great buildings of the 19th century Mrs roebling's involvement in fact began with an accident while proposals for a bridge across the East River between New York City and Brooklyn were made at least as early as 1800 the design that would become the bridge that opened in 1883 was the brainchild of German board civil engineer John Augustus Roebling Roebling had built important but smaller suspension bridges in the United States such as the 535-foot Delaware Aqueduct completed in 1849. suspension bridges of this size were still relatively new especially in the United States and this project would be extraordinary the New York Times noted the art of building these Erie structures was then in its infancy here and Mr John Roebling stood at the head of the engineers who made it a study robling had made a proposal for a bridge between New York City and Brooklyn in 1852 in 1867 the same year that another of his projects the 1642 foot Cincinnati Covington Bridge spending the Ohio River was completed the New York State Senate passed a bill that allowed the bridge to be built New York and Brooklyn Bridge Company was incorporated authorizing the sale of five million dollars in public bonds to fund the bridge by some accounts bribery was involved in the deal Roebling was appointed chief engineer and began perfecting the plan for construction construction on that era was done by hand and as can still be true today included a measure of risk in a sign of the nature of the risks of the era on June 18 1869 Roebling was surveying the location for the bridge when his foot was struck by a ferry his foot was crushed and several toes had to be amputated he died 24 days later of tetanus his death the first of more than two dozen associated with the construction of the bridge represented the risks of the time it wasn't until 1924 that an effective tetanus vaccine was produced it wasn't until 1928 that Alexander Fleming discovered penicillin the first general purpose antibiotic which could be used to treat tetanus roebling's death was a stark reminder that the Brooklyn Bridge was built at a time when virtually any injury could result in a likely life-threatening infection after John roebling's death his 32 year old son Washington Augustus Roebling was appointed chief engineer a Civil War veteran who had built suspension bridges for the Union Army and played a significant role securing the defense of little Roundtop during the 1863 Battle of Gettysburg Washington had been assistant chief engineer and after his father's death continued to improve the design among his designs were the two enormous caissons which would be used to create the foundation for the bridges Two Towers the caissons were massive airtight wooden boxes of some 17 000 square feet they were constructed on land floated to the necessary spot on the river and sunk to the floor of the river they were then filled with propressed air and workers would sit down into them hand digging the riverbed until the case on reached Bedrock or on the New York side compacted sand the caisson would then be filled with concrete and become the foundation for the 900 000 ton suspension Towers it was cramped uncomfortable and dangerous work the wrist showed in 1870 when the wooden structure within the Brooklyn caisson caught fire Robin was eventually forced to flood the case on to put the fire out in a delayed construction for several months but there were more risks among them are particularly risk called caisson disease the Brooklyn Bridge was not the first example of caisson disease doctors as far back as the 18th century had noticed the deadly form of rheumatism that occurred with workers who worked in pressurized environments the illness was more clearly noted in 1871 among the workers working in caissons building the St Louis Eads Bridge 12 men died from the not well understood condition whose characteristic painful symptoms resulted in the name the bends the cause was decompression sickness a condition that is the result of dissolved gases coming out of solution into bubbles inside the body on depressurization in 1873 the project physician Andrew Smith noted 112 cases of the illness among the caisson workers on the Brooklyn Bridge eventually resulting in 14 fatalities Smith coined the term caisson disease among those that contracted the condition was Washington Roebling who frequently went into the caissons to supervise work the painful condition left him incapacitated and forced to supervise construction from his bed his wife Emily became his intermediary relating his instructions to his assistance and Reporting on the construction to him she became an expert on Bridge construction and materials and navigated the political Waters of contracts in the Board of Trustees she would later write to her son that I have more brains common sense and know-how generally than have any two Engineers civil or uncivil well she fought to maintain her husband's title as chief engineer she is generally recognized her been the de facto chief engineer of the project through its completion her experience represented the difficulty faced by women in the 19th century at the bridge opening speaker Abraham Stevens Hewitt described the bridge as an everlasting Monument to the sacrificing devotion of a woman and her capacity for higher education from which she has been too long this barred but the role that resulted in her carrying the rooster across the bridge in her carriage also underlied the plight of the 112 men whom Dr Smith had diagnosed with case on sickness the condition today called decompression sickness can be effectively prevented with careful decompression procedures in 1890 an airlock was used during the construction of the Hudson River tunnel an innovation that would eventually virtually eliminate the condition that Afflicted Washington Roebling for the rest of his life but the completion of construction did not end the peculiar risks of the bridge the structure a symbol of a modern city also demonstrated the problems of urbanization the crowds coming to see the monument to modernism were huge even at a total of one penny for pedestrians according to the New York Times on May 30th just six days after the Bridge opened just after 4 pm a middle-aged woman coming down the steps from New York lost her footing and fell she had been the top of a set of Seven Stairs that were the times opined too narrow when the width of the pathway is considered the woman was immediately assisted by a bridge policeman but another woman seeing the policeman dragging the women through the crowd screamed this set off a chain reaction the times continues those behind me to rush forward see what the trouble was those on the stairway could not hold back the throng and in an incident three or four persons were carried off their feet and fell those on the Promenade above the stairway knowing nothing of the fearful crush on the steps surged ahead with irresistible force and in a moment the whole stairway was packed with dead and dying men women and children piled upon one another in a writing struggling Mass the bizarre incident had killed 12 people injured more than 30. while the trustees were acquitted of negligence nonetheless they installed additional safety precautions including the installation of emergency phone boxes and additional railings that divided the pedestrian walkway into according to the times two streams one going and the other coming that will it is believed prevent any Jam taking place the bizarre tragedy seemed to be symbolic of the city whose population increased by nearly 70 percent from 1.4 to 2.5 million between 1870 and 1890. more than a million people paid to cross the bridge in the first six months that it was open and the span represented another unexpected risk on May 19 1885 swimming instructor Robert Emmett Odlum became the first known person to jump off the Brooklyn Bridge adlam apparently hoped to demonstrate to people that falling through the air was safe in order to encourage them to be willing to jump into a net in the case of a fire in a tall building he also might have been seeking fame his intent didn't seem to be suicide but as they say the problem is not in the fall but the landing Adam had announced his plan and had friends in a boat below the bridge ready to pick him up police were there to stop him but he distracted them with a decoy the times reported a small black-colored wagon Drew up at the rail a man in a red shirt and gray tights leaped to the rail raised his right arm straight above his head and the other arm pressed against his side and thigh and in an instant Odlum had made good his boast but that boast didn't go as planned the New York Times continued whether he jumped too quick after leaving the wagon or destroyed his balance by some movement on the rail or and jumping cannot be known but during The Descent of the body to the water Swift as it was those in the book could see that it turned slightly and it would not strike the water with the feet squarely down Avalon survived briefly and was picked up by the boat but expired a short times later from internal injuries more stunts followed and the first known person to jump from the bridge with the intent of suicide occurred in 1892. while specific statistics are not reported the bridges continued to attract suicide jumpers some of whom have survived a mental health expert was quoted on the ABC Nightly News in 2008 in general for people who live in areas with Bridges or tall buildings jumping is going to be the accessible and lethal means for them simply another way that the bridge represents the challenges of life in the city perhaps the strangest consequence of building the Brooklyn Bridge is that the bridges become symbolic of a very strange fraud characterized in the line if you believe that then I have a bridge to sell you in Brooklyn the line is not merely hyperbole it refers to a notorious con man named George C Parker according to the website New York City walks Parker would create fake documents and fake sales offices and build people by selling New York City landmarks including once masquerading as Ulysses Grant's grandson and selling Grant's tube the selling point was a possibility for collecting tolls while the Bridge opened with tolls The Pedestrian tolls were repealed in 1891 and the vehicle tolls in 1911. Parker would purport to sell the right to operate tolls on the bridge New York City walks explains his greatest con was selling the Brooklyn Bridge Legend claimed that he sold it at least twice a week but he did sell at least several times including at least once for fifty thousand dollars the new owner would discover that he was a victim of a con when the New York City police officers would stop the new owners from setting up toll booths in the middle of the bridge well George Parker has sometimes been called the greatest con man that ever lived he couldn't have been that great because he kept getting caught on his third conviction the judge sent him to New York's sing-sing prison for life the Brooklyn Bridge has come to be a symbol of the city in their obituary for Emily Roebling who died in 1903 and was eulogized recently in their series on people who were overlooked at the time of their death the New York Times wrote the Brooklyn Bridge would go on to become at least according to lore the most photographed structure in the world a gateway to that shining city as Thomas Wolfe won't described it whose Granite towers and thick steel cables have inspired countless artists musicians engineers and architects still today according to the Department of Transportation more than a hundred thousand cars four thousand cyclists and ten thousand pedestrians crossed the bridge daily but the bridge also represented the challenges faced by the city of Gotham it is perhaps the very embodiment of the contradictions of the Gilded Age in which it was built [Music] on January 2nd 1800 three men stood around New York's Manhattan well they were dragging the well with long poles within moments they found and recovered The Battered body of Julie Elma Sands who's 22 years old and at that point had been missing for 11 days shortly thereafter amending Levi weeks who was said to be Julie elma's fiancee was arrested for the crime murder and in the trial it followed he was defended by not just one but three of the most prominent determinies in York City the time former treasury secretary Alexander Hamilton soon to be Vice President of the United States Aaron Burr and future Supreme Court Justice Brock Holst Livingston the story of the murder of julielma Sands and the Manhattan well murder trial the first murder trial in the United States for which we have a written transcript is history that deserves to be remembered Levi weeks was 24 years old when he was arrested for juliama's murder he was the brother of Ezra weeks one of the most successful builders in New York City in 1800. at the time of the trial the weeks brothers were building Alexander Hamilton's estate The Grange just a year before the weeks had finished building the Gracie Mansion now the official residence of the mayor of New York City in December of 1799 he was living at The Boarding House of the Quakers Catherine and Elias ring Juliana Sands whom her friends called Elma was 22 years old in 1799 and also lived at the Rings boarding house Catherine was her cousin for several months she had been openly courted by Levi and on December 22nd she told her cousin that there were to be secretly wed that night what happened next would be the question around one of the very first Sensational and well-covered trials in the United States according to Catherine ring Levi weeks came down into the living room around 8 o'clock later she heard someone else come down whom she assumed to be Elma and after a few moments of whispering she heard them both leave Elma would never return her body was discovered in the Manhattan well in lisbenard Meadows on January 2nd 1800 a few days after a child had discovered Elmer's MAF a cylinder of fabric for her hands there her body seemed to have been beaten and her clothes were torn in several places the suspicion Netflix fell on her alleged fiancee Alma's body was brought to the Ring's boarding house where hundreds of people came to see it when the crowds became too great the casket was displayed on the street guarded by her family and friends Richard Croucher an acquaintance and frequent visitor to The Boarding House made himself conspicuous in declaring Levi's guilt and spreading rumors that a man in Rhode Island had confessed to being an accomplice he may even have been involved in printing hand bills condemning Levi whatever his involvement public sentiment against Levi weeks was overwhelmingly negative the New York Gazette and general advisors had Emma had expected to be married but little did she expect that the arrangements she had been making would direct her to that born from which no traveler returns soon she was said to have been pregnant and killed wearing her wedding dress Levi himself was not wealthy but he worked closely with his brother Ezra who was well connected it was Ezra who Enlisted the crack legal defense team of Burr Hamilton in Livingston all three were also active in the contentious election season of 1800 Burr and Livingston in support of Jefferson and Hamilton in support of the Federalists and so may have welcomed the publicity but even these talented lawyers had little experience in Criminal Court the American justice system in 1800 bore only a faint resemblance to the one that we know today English common law upon which the nation to American judicial system was largely based gave few protections to the accused England didn't even guarantee the right to representation in a felony trial until 1836 and this Arrangement meant that very few lawyers in the United States had any experience defending in criminal cases they didn't defend a misdemeanor trials either as most people accused could not afford an attorney whom they were expected to pay even if they were found not guilty the trial began with enormous crowds ringing the courthouse on March 31 1800. three transcripts of the trial would eventually be published one a few hours after the trial by a gentleman of the bar considered the weakest of the three a second by James Hardy who knew no shorthand and had a poor view of the trial and one by William Coleman eventually editor of the New York Evening Post Coleman's though not without fault is considered the most complete in all over 70 Witnesses were called to the stand and despite public sentiment the case was far from open and shut the lawyer for the prosecution was Cod Wilder Colden Assistant Attorney General for the first district of New York there were three judges Judge John Lansing the mayor of the city and a recorder the first witness for the prosecution was Catherine rain the defense succeeded in throwing out anything said to Mrs ring by the deceased including that Elma had told her that she would be married the prosecution won a business ring to illustrate that Elma was an upbeat girl not prone to sadness and described her and Levi's courtship the couple were given considerable privacy apparently because everyone believed that they were planning on marriage on the night of her disappearance Catherine helped Elma with her clothes and saw the borrowed muff that would later be found in the well she had heard but not seen the pair leave the house the door she said made a jarring noise when it opened so it was impossible that they had not left together the pair had left the house at 8 pm Levi had returned at 10. he asked Catherine if Elma had gone to bed and wondered why she would have gone out alone a little after eight one acquaintance element in the street but because the streets were very dark could not tell who was with her Colden called several witnesses who had heard cries for mercy and murder from the direction of the well and others that testified that they'd seen a one-horse sleigh that looked like Levi's Brothers between eight and nine o'clock the witnesses only disagreed on whether they had seen two or three people in the sleigh Colden called for the testimony of an Old Woman Who purportedly heard the week's sleigh leave their yard that night but her testimony came off as confused and this medical testimony didn't fare much better his first medical witness wasn't even a doctor but a dentist who had claimed to have made surgery his area of study calden was criticized for that choice as the dentist hadn't even seen the body until days after it had been pulled out of the well when it was sitting in the street being viewed by hundreds of other onlookers the prosecution also called Dr David hossek a respected doctor of New York's Elite and the same man who would attend Hamilton after his duel with Burr both of these doctors said the wounds that they had seen were most likely caused by strangulation the defense also called several medical experts and these doctors had actually been present at the coroner's jury had seen the body soonest after death but though the jury had declared a verdict of Murder by some person yet unknown both now testified that they believed the wounds were caused by decomposition in the freezing water and that Elma had committed suicide the prosecution did not challenge us incongruity those were not the only mistakes the prosecution made one witness only said that he knew nothing about this affair to my knowledge the three boys who had found them off were declared incompetent as they did not know what an oath was Richard croucher's testimony was also considered poor one contemporary said Croucher had the mean down look which is associated with the timidity of guilt none of this reflected well on colden's case he rested his case by citing a book that stressed the value of circumstantial evidence by comparison the defense was well organized and multifaceted they called to the stand other borders in the ring boarding house who described Elma as a troubled girl who suffered from Melancholy they brought up a time when she had said that she would not be troubled to drink a bottle of laudnam which would have killed her although Catherine ring insisted that that had been said in jest other borders said that they thought that Levi weeks was courting other girls as well and that he wasn't showing any particular attention to Elma they even tried to accuse Catherine's husband Elias of carrying on an affair with Elma one of the Ring's neighbors testified he had once heard voices in the front room and a shaking of the bed while Catherine was gone the witness claimed to have recognized Mr Ring's voice but could not identify the second except to imply that it was elmas in an odd section of testimony this witness claimed that he had never seen the room or the bed but that he knew that the bed was against the wall as he had seen it placed so the prosecution seems to have failed to have taken advantage of the muddled testimony the defense also called Ezra's stableman to the stand who claimed the sleigh could not have been taken from Ezra's yard and several other Witnesses who claimed the Slate could not have made it to that well in the dark notwithstanding the fact that they were actually slave marks found at the site Colden again let this go without comment the most important witness for the defense was Levi's brother Ezra who testified that between eight and nine Levi had been at his home discussing the next day's business with company leaving only a scant 20 minutes and accounted for not enough time for Levi to have killed Elma and returned to the boarding house the defense claimed that Alma had killed herself they attacked her character describing her as sad and lonely they claimed that she often lied about where she went at night their doctors seemed more credible than colden's doctors and it didn't help that the witnesses at the scene disagreed with each other one for example said that the hose on her leg had been torn off while another said that it simply had a hole in it civil argued that the collar bone had been broken but the coroner's jury disagreed there was one thing though upon which all the medical experts did agree despite all the rumors Elma had not been pregnant the most troubling piece of evidence brought to light in the trial was a single sentence allegedly spoken by Levi after the body had been discovered when he learned the body had been found he said is it the Manhattan well she was found in testimony from Witnesses seemed to establish that Levi had not known that the Muff had been found and so onlookers wondered how he had guessed where the body had been discovered the prosecution however again said nothing in Levi himself did not take the stand to explain the most retold and dramatic part of the trial likely didn't even happen the transcript disguise describes a witness on the stand he said a man had entered his shop to gossip about Levi's guilt at that point someone from the defense is not written who held a candle closer to Richard crutcher's face and the witness identified him as the man later both Hamilton and Burr would claim credit for this moment and the story took on a legendary quality Burr's biographer wrote that burhella candle opera to crouch his face and cried behold the murderer gentleman but Hamilton's son John Church wrote that the trial was a Herculean task and that only his father's logical Powers could conquer it in his telling Hamilton placed candles on either side of the stand as Crutcher testified to fix on him a piercing eye when the prosecution protested Hamilton allegedly answered I have special reasons the reason is that when the real culprit is detected in place before the court will be understood all of that theatricality which was described later was certainly apocryphal and it all stemmed from a brief moment when Croucher was merely identified as the man who had been spreading rumors no matter how unlikable or unattractive he was he was not the murderer he had an alibi for that night he'd been at a birthday party among Witnesses by the time the defense read their closing statement the trial had dragged on for two whole days much longer than anticipated the transcript isn't clear but after some discussion judge Lansing chose not to reconvene in the morning to summarize the cases and instead offered a short speech in which the public accused he endorsed the defense to the jury the court were unanimously of the opinion that the proof was insufficient to Warrant a verdict against Levi weeks with that instruction the jury was gone for just five minutes before The Returned with the verdict of not guilty the public was in an uproar her murderer yet lives but let him tremble with horror at the Vengeance that inevitably awaits him said one of the Ring's Neighbors meanwhile newspapers all over the city praised the balance and fair trial and lauded Levi weeks is a victim of the mob the first transcript of the trial released only hours after the verdict argued that Levi week's face was one of perfect artlessness where guilt could never have lurked Elma was described as a trollop Coleman's report is considered the first attempt following the revolution to make a Verbatim report of a criminal trial and therefore is a landmark in American Justice common disparage the other two reports for mistakes and omissions and unlike them made no commentary on the verdict or on Levi somehow this upset Ezra weeks who offered Coleman 500 to alter it Coleman refused and Ezra then offered to buy out the entire run of the transcript common answer that he could not be bought for all the money in New York City this attempt at bribery brings into question the outpouring of support from the newspapers and gives an unsavory appearance to the admissions and mistakes of the other transcripts in the centuries since the story has been told and retold with varying degrees of accuracy unfortunately Oma is often described as promiscuous or even a prostitute the well which still exists inside a clothing store at 129 Spring Street in SoHo it's believed by some to be haunted by Elmer's ghost Levi weeks fled New York eventually settling down in Natchez Mississippi where he had a family and designed the Auburn Mansion now a National Historic Landmark the Manhattan well-murder trials one of the earliest opportunities to examine the criminal justice system in the United States in 1800 Witnesses were encouraged to tell just a free-flowing narrative from their perspective to be interrupted by both the prosecution and the defense as necessary this is a an example of the development of criminal defense attorneys and the right of the accused a competent Council much has changed since in law and precedent and certainly the collection and presentation of evidence has changed dramatically since and that might have made a difference in this trial after Levi week's acquittal no other suspect was ever seriously identified Levi weeks died in Natchez Mississippi in 1819 at the age of 43. the winter of 1888 had been so mild on the U.S east Coast the mildest and nearly two decades that by early March the trees were already beginning to Bud the robins were returning to the city it was more than 50 degrees it was so clearly the coming of spring that in March March 10th Walt Whitman by then 78 years old living in New Jersey and the most celebrated poet in the country if not the world submitted a poem a quaint beautiful poem about the coming of spring called the first dandelion to the New York Herald for publication simple and fresh and fair from Winter's close emerging as if no artifice to fashion business politics had ever been fourth from its Sunny Nook of sheltered grass innocent golden calm as the dawn the Spring's first dandelion shows its trustful face the poem was published on March 12th by then it was comically ill-timed the Great Blizzard of 1888 struck March 11th the weather had previous to the Blizzard but unseasonably warm resulting in heavy rains when cold Arctic air ran into the warm wet air from the Gulf temperatures plummeted and the rain turned to snow the result did not just create mounds of snow up to 50 inches but sustained high winds that earned the storm the moniker the great white hurricane the nation's Weather Service then under the auspices of the army signal Corps knew of the winter storm coming from the west and the warm wet front coming from the Gulf but it had predicted that both would be spent before reaching the East Coast the weather forecast for March 11 was light rain the people had no warning at all the storm was in full swing on March 12th yet many New Yorkers still set off for work there were no worker benefits at the time to pay for days off for snow and surely the trains would keep running no one seemed prepared for what was to come the commuter trains at the time were on elevated rails they were first stalled due to ice and Slick rails with their small engines unable to find traction then by the depth of the snow and finally by the accidents as the trains that were still moving were unable to stop and collided with those that were not thousands of people were stranded in trains and stations enterprising New Yorkers brought out long ladders and charged a small feed to get people down from the elevated trains the Snows fell deep enough that the street cars came off their tracks and that service too was halted as Transportation was at a standstill Roscoe conkling a former U.S senator and aspiring presidential candidate still very fit and hail at the age of 58 set out on March 12 from his office to walk the three miles to his home he found himself stuck in Central Park with snow up to his arms he described it as as near giving right up and sinking down there to die as a man can do and not do it it took him three hours to walk those three miles to safety a harrowing tale but not the end of the story he contracted pneumonia and died six days later in all the storm and cold killed some 400 people along the coast from the mouth of the Chesapeake into Canada 200 of those in New York City the blizzard was unique the snowfall totals were not near records for the U.S Northeast previously or since the temperature lows were likewise no record nor were the winds what made the Great White blizzard of 1888 unique was a unique combination of snow wind and cold all at the same time snow drifted so high that in some places it covered fifth floor Windows hundreds of ships founded or ran aground in the storm some 100 of the victims who died were Sailors more died because efforts to fight the cold led to fires and the fire departments were unable to respond still people managed to carry on trapped in anyway the Ringling Brothers Circus performed two shows in Madison Square Garden as scheduled mostly to people who were stranded and seeking shelter while the Great Blizzard of 88 was one to remember its impact was larger than other statistically more powerful storms the growing thriving metropolises of the East at the time now that with electricity connected by telegraphs served by trains heated by gas had in their modernization become surprisingly vulnerable as all of these were above the ground for in fact the electricity wires broken by heavy ice and high winds were one of the greatest dangers to City dwellers more than any other single event the blizzard of 88 drove cities to move their utility lines and wires underground it was a large motivation behind the building of the phoenician's first Subway systems including the nation's very first system opened in Boston in 1897. the great white hurricane changed the very nature of a modern city it is my opinion that historians tend to give short shrift to culture we tend to talk about wars and battles politics Science and Technology while ignoring the fact that the true flow of history is the question of how people have changed the way that we live our lives over time the culture wars that natural give and take have often served as agents of cultural change but also as moderators of those change and debates over culture what behaviors should and should not be allowed have been among the most contentious in American history and still are to this day at the turn of the century the world was facing a host of changes industrialization mechanization and a transformation and the role of women in society and not everybody was always on board with all those changes the culture war came to a head in New York City in 1908 when the New York City Board of aldermen passed an ordinance making it illegal for women to smoke in public raising a debate that seems at once both remarkably anachronistic and shockingly familiar today it is history that deserves to be remembered New York at the turn of the century was a city of enormous growth City had added more than a million people between 1880 and 1890 another million between 1890 and 1900 and would add a million more by 1910. the growth was due in part to immigration and the city's growing importance was the center of trade and capital but also as a result of consolidation the five boroughs of Brooklyn Manhattan the Bronx queens and Staten Island had been United in 1898 the city had a growing sense of importance and pride as noted in an article on the webpage of the Library of Congress the Great Waves of European immigrants coming to New York the consolidation of the five boroughs into one vast City the development of the city's infrastructure and the incredible construction boom of the next 30 Years all contributed to the city's prominence commenting on a collection of early films of the city the webpage notes the best of these films convey the sense that the already sprawling city was in the process of becoming something much more than a squalid chaotic urban center there are skyscrapers going up the tallest in the world a great suspension bridge being opened the largest in the world in a new subway system the longest in the world notably the city had dramatically improved sanitation largely due to the efforts of the extraordinary sanitary engineer Colonel George E Waring who had been hired by the city in 1895 to deal with among other things the around estimated two and a half million pounds of manure 600 000 gallons of urine deposited in the city streets by horses every single day through a combination of new ordinances in the establishment of a new street cleaning Department Waring had transformed a city that in the 19th century had been known as much for the Hogs wandering its streets as its Urban nature and all this was ruled by the New York City Board of aldermen derived from the historic common Council the board of aldermen had been established as part of what was originally a bicameral governing board in 1824. under the city Charter of 1901 the city was governed by a single body the president of the board of alderman was elected city-wide and presided over a board of 73 Borough presidents being New York City much of this board was controlled by Machine politics including two notable Tims there is some disagreement over whether Timothy P Sullivan was born in Boston or New York City but at any rate the New York Times explains the boy was in New York down on the east side scratching around for himself when he was just 10 years old he took an interest in law and eventually became a lawyer although the times notes there is no information about the university class with which he was graduated he came upon his nickname little tan by coincidence given that he was not the times explains a physically small man by any means rather when he came from Boston he found a good many Sullivans already here one of these was a cousin Timothy D seven or eight years older Timothy D was a physically large man who came to be known as Big Tim or big fella and Timothy P who shared the same name therefore came to be known as Little Tim both however would have an outsized role in New York City Politics As Leaders The Machine politics of Tammany Hall the times explained being Irish they took to politics naturally and being Irish they succeeded in New York City politics extremely well the two Tims derive their political power from the Bowery burrow in the southern part of Manhattan they are time set of Little Tim in 1909 he was the leader of the most powerful Tammany District on the east side majority leader in the board of aldermen with all the powers those important places carry with them while there were various accusations of various kinds of corruption the time said of him his wit was Keen his industry a model to other assemblymen his judgment cooled and quick in his parliamentary training complete as to his political philosophy he wrote of the job of an alderman he knows everybody's troubles and is expected to remedy them as far as he is able and in 1908 there were troubles to be had while the Thames were both supporters of the growing demand for women's suffrage there were certainly points where the transforming role of women in society caused concern this shock of transformation was demonstrated in a fashion show in Paris in 1908 author Laura casely explains on the website little things for centuries women squeeze themselves into tight-fitting undergarments that whittled their waste into hourglass shapes often resulted in organ and Bone deformities along the way they also tended to wear lots of layers both for warmth and propriety but designer Jean Marjan Lacroix shocked the Whirlwind at the Fashion Event in Paris she showed Slinky dresses that left very little to the imagination worst of all it was evident that underneath was no underwear at all something that along with its low neckline and split skirt was shocking even in Paris that's right in 1908 even Paris was scandalized by the very idea that a woman might go out in public without being tied into a corset casely continues the fashion soon spread out of France and into other parts of Europe and stories of distracted men crashing their carriages soon followed this was the sort of social challenge faced by Little Tim and the board of aldermen and the turn of century New York City the most shocking Revelation came when the New York Times reported on December 30th 1907 that James B Martin proprietor of Cafe Morton let it be known that on New Year's Eve all ladies May smoke cigarettes in any of the rooms of the restaurant at 26th Street and 5th Avenue and that this privilege may become permanent thereafter the idea was not limited to Cafe Martin on January 2nd 1908 story and the times reported that rector's restaurant would also allow ladies to smoke and that a canvas of the city's prominent restaurants by a Times Reporter yesterday revealed that the Proprietors were inclined to grant women permission to please themselves Martin opined personally I think New York is ready to allow ladies to smoke in good restaurants but little Tim Sullivan was not so sure the issue of women smoking at all was relatively new while paper wrapped tobacco have been used in Europe at least since the 16th century and the name cigarette had been coined in France around 1830 ready-made cigarettes were an expensive luxury item and cigarettes didn't grow in popularity until 1881. an American inventor James Albert Bonsack revolutionized the cigarette industry by patenting a cigarette rolling machine that could produce more than 200 Cigarettes a minute oddly given that the health dangers of smoking were already being realized cigarettes were being referred to as coffin nails as early as 1888. the act of smoking was a sign of defiance and Independence for women seeking to expand women's roles in society when in 1904 a New York City Bicycle policeman asked that two women in an open car extinguish their cigarettes saying you can't do that on Fifth Avenue while I'm patrolling here the woman one Mrs William P Orr according to the New York Times Drew in a quantity of the smoke from the cigarette and then exhaled it in the policeman's face notably the smoking do no charges but one of the men in the car was arrested for being drunk and disorderly for her part the woman told the paper I don't see that I was doing any harm but the prospect of women being allowed to smoke openly in public establishments was a problem for Little Tim Sullivan a man that a January 6 1908 edition of the newspaper of the San Francisco call called the Bowery moralist and political Chieftain the paper reported nothing so shocked Little Tim as the order sent out around Christmas time to the effect that women would be allowed to smoke at Martin's famous French restaurant on Broadway in one or two other hustleries frequented by persons with liberal ideas the trend was disturbing the Washington DC Evening Star lamented since the new Plaza hotel opened and particularly since the orgy of New Year's Eve in the Fifth Avenue Broadway hotels and restaurants were described in graphic language in the newspapers there's been an epidemic of cigarette smoking among young women all over New York Little Tim responded on January 20th the New York Times reported on the 21st after today will be against the law for a hotel or restaurant proprietor or anyone else owning or managing a public place to allow women to smoke in public the proposal for the Sullivan ordinance came in a brief Hearing in the committee of laws of the board of aldermen the ordinance the paper explained does not make it an offense for a woman to smoke but it does make it a defense for the manager proprietor of a public place to allow her to smoke therein and for doing so he may suffer the revocation of his license and also be fined The Proposal was not without opposition when he spoke on behalf of his own ordinance Sullivan admitted that he had never seen women smoking in the public places in his district Alderman Charles Pease tried to amend the law to prohibit anyone smoking in a public place not to make the law consistent but because any woman present ought not be forced to inhale tobacco fumes Alderman John Henry Smith argued that it would be much better for the board to concern itself with our hardships of the poor than with such nonsensical things as smoking by a few women in a restaurant Alderman Brown and duel argued the ordinance was unconstitutional yet despite the objections the times reported that the ordinance would pass the board of aldermen without the slightest doubt and in fact it passed unanimously without objection in a roll call vote the Rochester New York democrat in chronicle was aghast several aldermen have contended and Sullivan has admitted that it is unconstitutional why the latter wanted to pass is a mystery why the other City father should meekly fall in line is not clear the evening star explained he dominates the Tammany majority in the board of aldermen and no ordinance can pass that body without his approval while on the other hand whatever he says goes hence when Little Tim Sullivan's ordinance forbidding hotels restaurants and Cafe owners to allow women to smoke in their public rooms was offered nobody voted against it the Democrat and Chronicle complaint for some reason known to themselves they deemed it advisable to permit him to have his joke with the board of aldermen even in the sensibilities of the day of the sexism of the ordinance was not missed an editorial in New York evening World noted they say that it is wrong for women to smoke in public places that is offensive for those who look on and detrimental to the character and dignity of the fair sex who say and do this why the Lords of creation men the editorial lover carries the great cause of the women's movement at the time prohibition why does he stop her the editorial asked from a little evil like smoking in public when there's a greater a violer a more scandalizing evil which he can and should remedy Mighty and gifted lawmaker that he is and that is drinking in public the Chicago Tribune noted that women who oppose the passage of little Tim's ordinance found unexpected support in the form of two women newly arrived in New York lady Juliet Duff and Miss Violet Vivian both ladies and waiting to Queen Alexandra wife of Edward VII noting that fully one half of the women on their Voyage to the United States were seen smoking it's not right they said women should be allowed the same privileges as man New York Times noted that neither woman had ever heard of reformer Little Tim and that neither appeared to be much impressed with what they heard but there were plenty who were willing to support the new ordinance responding to a letter asking if smoking be a vice is it not Vice equally vicious in both sexes the editors of the Buffalo Inquirer said just put your mind on the woman who stands out purest and noblest in your memory your own mother presumably does she not think it indecent for women to smoke in public would she not think so if she were living would you not hate to see her smoking anywhere with no apparent shame in lecturing as the Lords of creation the editors go on to say we think it is indecent that women would smoke in restaurants or anywhere else in public and you think so too although you probably don't know that you think so that's uh that's not a line I would try on your wife even the Democrat and Chronicle while calling the ordinance little Tim's bad joke Behind These remarks must not be construed as expressing approval of women lovely or otherwise smoking in public we don't like to see them do it but they continue we rather objected them wearing plug hats flourishing canes leading gorgeously uniformed dogs through the streets or making suffragette speeches to scoffing multitudes in business districts of a town but laws against such things are silly the first test of the law came on January 22nd the New York Times reports that a policeman Stern had seen a woman calmly take a cigarette from a package and light it striking a match on a house wall Madam you mustn't teach out it what would Alderman Sullivan say when taken to court 29 year old Katie mulcahey said I've never heard of this new law and I don't want to hear about it no man shall dictate to me despite the ordinance not outright Banning women smoking in public and not including any provision for a fine if they did Mulcahy was fined five dollars which she refused to pay the times reported in default to five dollars to pay the fine she went to a cell carrying her package of cigarettes Miss Mulcahy was the only person ever penalized under the Sullivan ordinance mayor George McClellan Jr vetoed the law on February 4th saying I know of no provision of law which gives the board of aldermen the power to enact an ordinance of this kind some papers implied that mayor McClellan was courting Women Voters in anticipation of women's suffrage the mayor's veto didn't end the controversy over women smoking in public and the supposed connection between women smoking and loose morals continued for decades after but the veto did say something about the limits of the board of Alderman's power when the board tried to ban women smoking again three years later the city's legal officer declared it against the law the move spurred the board to seek legal counsel to Aid the board on understanding its own legal Authority the board of aldermen was replaced by a smaller City Council in 1937 the entire heated debate over the Sullivan ordinance seems almost ridiculous today not just in the patronizing attitude towards women which would result in you end up sleeping on the couch today but also in the attitude towards cigarettes especially following the 1964 surgeon general's report about the effects of cigarettes on smoking during pregnancy which led to the Mandate that all cigarette packages have a surgeon general's warning on them citing the effects of secondhand smoke it's been illegal to smoke in restaurants in New York City since 1995. seems almost bizarre today that there was once a fight to allow exactly that and of course the debate over government regulation both of public morality and personal health choices still rages on today and it raises the question of why Little Tim Sullivan pushed this ordinance at all given that the Tammany Democrats tended to be rather liberal socially and were supporters of women's suffrage but you have to understand it wasn't about gender or sex it was about class as the evening star noted the argument was that the tendency of the submerged majority to imitate the Follies and vices of upper tandem is well known and appreciated realizing the consequences to the young women of his class who might Acquire The Habit he'd undertaken to check it by forbidding women to smoke in public places that is little Tim at least wanted to be seen as protecting his working-class constituents from the corrupting influence of the rich yet another debate that still rages on today [Applause] 40 years ago this summer four lightning strikes within an hour on critical electrical subsystems would leave the United States largest city without power for 25 hours the events that followed showed both the best and the worst of human nature represented the challenges of the time and forever changed the future of New York City at 8 37 pm on July 13 1977 a lightning bolt struck a critical substation along the Hudson River in Westchester County New York within an hour three other lightning bolts would strike critical lines efforts by Consolidated Edison to shed power failed and a Cascade of blown critical Breakers cut the city of New York off from the nation's power grid the city went dark at 9 34 pm this was not the first time that New York City had lost power in November of 1965 a major power outage had struck the American Northeast all the way up into Canada it was the largest power outage in the history of the United States and during that event New York had remained relatively calm even somewhat festive there were less than 100 arrests for crimes committed during the 1965 blackout it was even the setting for the 1968 comedy film with Doris Day called Where Were You When the Lights Went Out but 1977 was different the first reports of looting came into police stations within 10 minutes of the power going out and by the time the power came back on more than 1600 stores had been looted and more than a thousand fires had been set by arson 35 blocks of Broadway were destroyed thousands of people were injured including 550 police officers a congressional investigation determined that the cost of the Looting and fires alone exceeded 300 million dollars New York city mayor Abe beam called it a night of Terror compared to 1965 when less than 100 people were arrested more than 3 700 people were arrested for looting the jails were overfilled the police were swamped so why was 1977 so different well the mid-1970s were a difficult time in New York City years of deficit spending and a nationwide economic downturn following the energy crisis in 1973 had brought the city to the verge of bankruptcy in 1975. the city's credit rating had been declining since the mid-1960s and in 1975 they could no longer find creditors who were willing to purchase their bonds the state and federal government stepped in to rescue the city but only under the promise that the city get its financial situation in order in order to balance the budget the city shed 50 000 city employees in 1975 alone city services from libraries to garbage removal were cut back while fees were increased between 1975 and 1980 the New York City Police Department shrunk by 34 percent while crime Rose by more than 40 percent the Nationwide economic downturn and recession in the mid-1970s combined with broader trends like white flight and de-industrialization had struck New York City particularly hard in 1975 unemployment in New York City was a staggering 12 percent and two years later in 1977 it was still hovering around double digits the city's economic promise had seemed to fade and in its wake came the crime that was bred from despair New York City's crime index doubled between the mid-1960s and mid-1970s there were 830 violent crimes per hundred thousand persons in New York City in 1977. that number had been just 409 a decade earlier in 1977 there were an estimated 40 000 prostitutes in New York City and 200 000 heroin abusers in addition to its economic woes the city was in the midst of a terrible heat wave when the power killed the air conditioning in July of 1977. over a 10-day period the average high temperature in New York City was 97.1 degrees that's 15 degrees above normal and is still the hottest heat wave in the history of New York City and the city was on edge in fear of a single criminal the self-named Son of Sam The Vicious murderer had been committing random murders in New York City since July of 1976 and by 1977 had murdered six people and wounded seven others he had a little the largest Manhunt in the history of New York City and so people were both gripped by Terror and losing faith in their police force the criminal David Berkowitz would be apprehended August 10th less than a month After the Blackout to be clear it was not all Terror that night much of New York remained calm and reacted much as they had in 1965. New Yorkers pulled together thousands of people volunteered to help for example directing traffic or helping people navigate dark stairwells or Distributing candles and flashlights in some places it was even a festive atmosphere where bars remained open all night serving liquor even though they couldn't serve food millions of New Yorkers didn't even know about the rioting and looting until the next day and despite all the Mayhem some sort of Unwritten agreement between the police and the looters prevented escalation and so in all of the chaos only two people were killed the impact on the city was significant and many residents woke up to know that their neighborhoods would be forever changed many of the shops that had been looted or burned never reopened the violence changed politics in the city as the appearance of being out of control destroyed mayor beam's hopes for re-election and catapulted a relatively unknown candidate Congressman Ed Koch to win the mayoral election in the fall he had run to the right of other Democratic candidates on a Law and Order platform and while mayor Koch's 11 years in office were controversial he did help to restore the city's Financial stability and rebuild much of the damage from the looting in 1977. although crime rates in New York City would not reduce back to the levels of the early 1960s until 40 years later in the early 2000s one interesting claim is made by hip-hop music Pioneer Grandmaster Kaz who argues that the Looting that occurred in the 1977 blackout helped to catapult the hip-hop music craze to popularity by allowing more aspiring DJs and rappers to acquire music equipment according to online streaming service Spotify hip-hop music is the most popular genre in the world today in the end the response to the blackout in 1977 was the result of a culmination of many factors and long-term economic Trends whose impacts were magnified in the largest city in the United States but it is still startling how just four lightning strikes could be such a trigger and it begs the question was this explosion avoidable absent just one summer thunderstorm or was it inevitable in any case it was worth remembering I'm the history guy hope you enjoyed this edition of my series five minutes of History short Snippets of Forgotten history five to ten minutes long and if you did enjoy please go ahead and click that thumbs up button that is there on your left if you have any questions or comments feel free to write those in the comment section and I will be happy to respond and if you'd like five minutes more of Forgotten history all you need to do is click the Subscribe button that is there on your right [Music] [Applause] [Music]

Channel: The History Guy: History Deserves to Be Remembered

Views: 70,410

Keywords: history, history guy, the history guy

Id: DEXgY31fHLs

Length: 56min 9sec (3369 seconds)

Published: Mon Jul 17 2023