The avenues on the eastern and western extremities of the city are the abodes of poverty and want, and often of vice, hemming in the wealthy and cleanly sections on both sides. Poverty and riches are close neighbors in New York. Only a stone’s throw back of the most sumptuous parts of Broadway and Fifth avenue, want and suffering, vice and crime, hold their courts. Fine ladies can look down from their high casements upon the squalid dens of their unfortunate sisters.
Broadway is the principal thoroughfare. It extends from the Battery to Spuyten Duyvel Creek, a distance of fifteen miles. It is built up compactly for about five miles, is paved and graded for about seven miles, and is lighted with gas along its entire length. There are over 420 miles of streets in the patrol districts, and eleven miles of piers along the water. The sewerage is generally good, but defective in some places. Nearly 400 miles of water-mains have been laid. The streets are lighted by about 19,000 gas lamps, besides lamps set out by private parties. They are paved with the Belgian and wooden pavements, cobble stones being almost a thing of the past. For so large a city, New York is remarkably clean, except in those portions lying close to the river, or given up to paupers.
The city is substantially built. Frame houses are rare. Many of the old quarters are built of brick, but this material is now used to a limited extent only. Broadway and the principal business streets are lined with buildings of iron, marble, granite, brown, Portland, and Ohio stone, palatial in their appearance; and the sections devoted to the residences of the better classes are built up mainly with brown, Portland, and Ohio stone, and in some instances with marble. Thus the city presents an appearance of grandeur and solidity most pleasing to the eye. The public buildings will compare favorably with any in the world, and there is no city on the globe that can boast so many palatial warehouses and stores. Broadway is one of the best built thoroughfares in the world. The stores which line it are generally from five to six stories high above ground, with two cellars below the pavement, and vaults extending to near the middle of the street. The adjacent streets in many instances rival Broadway in their splendors. The stores of the city are famous for their elegance and convenience, and for the magnificence and variety of the goods displayed in them. The streets occupied by private residences are broad, clean and well-paved, and are lined with miles of dwellings inferior to none in the world in convenience and substantial elegance. The amount of wealth and taste concentrated in the dwellings of the better classes of the citizens of New York is very great.
The population of New York, in 1870, according to the United States census of that year, was 942,337. There can be no doubt that at the present time the island contains over 1,000,000 residents. Thousands of persons doing business in New York reside in the vicinity, and enter and leave the city at morning and evening, and thousands of strangers, on business and pleasure, come and go daily. It is estimated that the actual number of people in the city about the hour of noon is nearly, if not fully, one million and a half. According to the census of 1870, the actual population consisted of 929,199 white and 13,153 colored persons. The native population was 523,238, and the foreign population 419,094. The nationality of the principal part of the foreign element was as follows:
| From | Number of persons. |
| Germany | 151222 |
| Ireland | 201999 |
| England | 24432 |
| Scotland | 7554 |
| France | 8267 |
| Belgium | 328 |
| Holland | 1237 |
| British America and Canada | 4338 |
| Cuba | 1293 |
| China | 115 |
| Denmark | 682 |
| Italy | 2790 |
| Mexico | 64 |
| Norway | 373 |
| Poland | 2392 |
| Portugal | 92 |
| Russia | 1139 |
| South America | 213 |
| Spain | 464 |
| Sweden | 1569 |
| Switzerland | 2169 |
| Turkey | 38 |
| Wales | 587 |
| West Indies | 487 |
Besides those mentioned in this table, are representatives of every nationality under heaven, in greater or less strength. It will be seen that the native population is in the excess. The increase of natives between 1860 and 1870, was 93,246. The Germans increased in the same period at the rate of 32,936; while the Irish population fell off 1701 in the same decade. The foreign classes frequently herd together by themselves, in distinct parts of the city, which they seem to regard as their own. In some sections are to be found whole streets where the inhabitants do not understand English, having no occasion to use it in their daily life.
In 1869, there were 13,947 births, 8695 marriages, and 24,601 deaths reported by the city authorities. The authorities stated that they were satisfied that the number of births was actually over 30,000; the number reported by them being very incomplete, owing to the difficulty of procuring such information.
Its mixed population makes New York a thoroughly cosmopolitan city, yet at the same time it is eminently American. The native element exercises a controlling influence upon all its acts, and when the proper exertion is made rarely fails to maintain its ascendancy.
The number of buildings in the city is from 60,000 to 70,000. In 1860, out of 161,000 families only 15,000 occupied entire houses. Nine thousand one hundred and twenty dwellings contained two families each, and 6100 contained three families each. After these come the tenement houses. At present, the number of houses occupied by more than one family is even larger.
It has been well said that “New York is the best place in the world to take the conceit out of a man.” This is true. No matter how great or flattering is the local reputation of an individual, he finds upon reaching New York that he is entirely unknown. He must at once set to work to build up a reputation here, where he will be taken for just what he is worth, and no more. The city is a good school for studying human nature, and its people are proficients in the art of discerning character.
In point of morality, the people of New York, in spite of all that has been said of them, compare favorably with those of any other city. If the darkest side of life is to be seen here, one may also witness the best. The greatest scoundrels and the purest Christians are to be found here. It is but natural that New York, being the great centre of wealth, should also be the great centre of all that