Walkabout: “The Great Mistake,” Part 2

Read Part 1, Part 3, and Part 4 of this story.

On January 1, 1898, the City of New York officially rose from the collection of cities, towns and neighborhoods that made up Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens, Staten Island and the Bronx. For those who had worked for close to twenty years to make this happen, it was a glorious day.

For the common folk of New York, business probably just went on as usual. One could argue that Queens remained a collection of towns, loosely connected, and pretty independent, with much of it suburban in nature. One could certainly say that about Staten Island as well, which to this day doesn’t seem to really be a part of New York City.

The Bronx has had a closer relationship with Manhattan, at least the southern part of the Bronx, just across the Harlem River, which Manhattan had already annexed, but the rest of the Bronx would also remain a collection of neighborhoods, much later, simply passed over by Robert Moses’ highway system. Northernmost Riverdale has always been more suburb than city. And then you have the relationship between Manhattan and Brooklyn.

Unlike the other boroughs, Brooklyn had already organized its towns and neighborhoods into one independent city, with a strong internal political, economic, and cultural infrastructure, in many ways equal to Manhattan’s.

At the end of the 19th century, we had two strong cities, separated only by a river, with people, goods and business flowing back and forth across that river. In 1883, the Brooklyn Bridge formed a physical link between these two great cities, and the talk suggesting that they should become one larger city began again in earnest.

As early as 1873, the leading citizens and politicians of both New York and Brooklyn began talking about joining the two cities. Just these two cities, Queens, Richmond and Bronx counties were not even in the picture at that time. The union was always presented as the annexation of Brooklyn by Manhattan, not a true merger of equals.

Simon Chittenden, one of Brooklyn’s leading citizens, was one of the first serious proponents of this annexation, and he held meetings in his Brooklyn Heights home, successfully getting the proposal to the 1874 State Legislature, but it was just too early, and the measure did not pass.

Well past the opening of the Brooklyn Bridge, in 1883, Brooklyn was more interested in annexing its towns and communities into greater Brooklyn. The far-flung outposts of Kings county liked being independent and it took time and effort to bring them into the fold. By the time the last part of Brooklyn was added to the city, that being Flatlands, in 1896, annexation to Manhattan, and the creation of Greater New York City was almost a done deal.

By the 1890’s, the commission overseeing this matter, called the Greater New York Commission, had come to the conclusion that just annexing Brooklyn would do little for New York City. Brooklyn had its own debt and financial obligations, and the joining of the two cities would skew towards advantage: Brooklyn.

It would get more tax dollars and Brooklyn property values would rise. The joined cities would not have the tax revenue, or the overall growth needed to keep New York the first city in the nation. That title would be taken over by Chicago, which was growing far faster than New York, threatening to become America’s largest and most prosperous city.

In order for Greater New York to generate the tax revenues needed for continued growth, it needed to think bigger. It needed to add the Bronx, Richmond and Queens counties, so the idea of a truly Greater New York City was now in the hands of legislative committees.

The chief mover of the Consolidation movement was Andrew Haswell Green, a Manhattan lawyer, city planner, and visionary. Some historians refer to him as the 19th century’s Robert Moses, for his vision and determination in changing the face of New York. He was born in 1820 in Massachusetts and by 1854, was already a lawyer under the tutelage of Samuel Tilden, and had become a member of the NYC Board of Education, of which he later became president.

Through the course of his career prior to consolidation, he had worked tirelessly on city planning projects, and his name is associated with the creation of Central Park, Riverside, Morningside and Fort Washington Parks, a widened Broadway, the circle at Columbus circle, and the creation of the Metropolitan Museum and Museum of Natural History, all through the auspices of the proto-Parks Commission, which he chaired.

It was also his idea to join the endowment of his mentor, Samuel Tilden, with the Astor and Lenox funds, to facilitate the creation of the New York Public Library. Green was appointed by the State to be the head of the consolidation committee. Many non-binding referendums were passed, with the opposition to consolidation becoming less and less. The main opposition came from Brooklyn, where Green’s efforts were derided as “Andy Green’s hobby”.

For many of Brooklyn’s elite, consolidation was a matter of Brooklyn getting taxed for Manhattan’s problems. They saw their taxes rising. They also saw Brooklyn losing its identity and civic pride, an identity many had worked hard to create. And they were afraid of Manhattan’s Tammany Hall. An advertisement in the Brooklyn Eagle, run several times, in October of 1894, read:

“Every voter can vote ‘for’ or ‘against’ the consolidation of Brooklyn with New York. He should vote against it this year, for now is not the time for it. Brooklyn is a City of Homes and Churches. New York is a city of Tammany Hall and Crime government. Rents are twice as cheap in Brooklyn as in New York, and homes are to be bought for a quarter of the money. The price of rule here is barely more than a third of what it is in New York. Government here is by public opinion and for the public interest. If tied to New York, Brooklyn would be a Tammany suburb, to be kicked, looted and bossed as such. Vote against consolidation now and let the speculators wait till a better time, when New York will offer something like fair terms.”

The battle continues. The conclusion next week.