46
 

FIFTH   AVENUE
 

From a photograph.                                                                             Collection of J. Clarence Davies.

" YE OLDE WILLOW COTTAGE," THE WILLOW TREE, AND TYSON'S MARKET, 1880.

Southeast corner of 44th Street and Fifth Avenue, now the site of the American Real

Estate Co.'s building.

for $170,000, and a lot was bought at Amsterdam Avenue and 143rd

Street, where a new building was erected.    Since 1907 the asylum has

been located at Riverdale,  N.Y.    Part of the site of the Colored

Orphan Asylum is now occupied by Sherry's.

Willow      At the time of the riot there stood near the southeast corner of

Tree Inn  Fifth Avenue and 44th Street a little frame cottage, named from the

and willow tree   which stood in front of it, the Willow Tree Inn.    At

Recollections ^^^ ^j^^^ ^]^'g ^^^g ^.^^ ^y. ^Q^n Hyer, the noted pugilist.    According

livid there ^? ^^- ^^^^ ^' ^^^^^' ^^'' ^^^^^ ^^^^^^ owned the cottage, the draft
rioters made it their headquarters during the riot. "My mother
planted the old willow tree," said Mr. Mills, "and I remember dis¬
tinctly the Orphan Asylum fire. The only reason our home was not
destroyed was that father ran the Bull's Head stages which carried
people down town for three cents, and the ruffians did not care to
destroy the means of transportation. There were many vacant lots
in this section of Fifth Avenue at the time of the Civil War, and a
small shanty below the Willow Cottage was the only building that
stood between Madison Avenue and Fifth Avenue. On the north¬
west  corner of Fifth Avenue   and 45th Street, then considered far