CHAPTEE   ZZZVI.
 

<1800^>

Lower Broadway-—Ita Position as a Besidentiol Nt^hborhood—Places of

Historic Interest—Some of Its Eesidenta—Oyitsr Pasty Alley—

Bowlin; Green Inclosed—The City at the Century's Dawn,

It requires cousldorable Imagination on the part of the New Yorker ef
the twentieth century to remove the cloud capped buildings of lower Broad"
way and substitute therefor tho silent solitudes of tangled forests, weedy
creeks and sluggish ponds which wore there in the seventeenth century. Yet
such was the place early In the Dutch occupation, except that here and
there was a furrowed field or rolling pasture. With the arrival of Van
Twiller in 1633 tbis portion of the island was divided into farms, carefully
measured and numbered, to which the name known to every one was given
—'bouworles (land to he cultivated). There were six of these bouwerles.
The first Included, the ground on the west side of Broadway, between Wall
and Chambera streets; the second, fourth and ^xth Included the ground on
the east side of tho same thoroughfare up to City Hall Park; tho third and
Afth comprised the territory north of Chambers street and west of Broad
war up to tho borders of what later became Greenwich Village. South of
all these tracts of land was the "Company's Garden,'* Mretching from tbo
fort to Wall atreet on the wost of Broadway. It Is of this section wo will
treat, but particularly of the part surrounding Bowling Green.

In tbe times of the Dutch the first section of this world known thor¬
oughfare was laid out as far north as Wall street. It was next extended to
the park, and It may be said that It took nearly a century before It was built
up to that point- About the time of the Revolution Its development bad
reached Duane street, and toward the beginning of the nineteenth century
it was opened as far as tbe Meadows, or Canal street. In the first quarter
of the century It had crept to Astor Place, and then to the "Tulip Tree,"
above the present Union Square. With rapid strides It afterward advanced
to Its present extent.

That section of Broadway which faces the Bowling Oreen from the weat
was a popular part of Now Amsterdam. It was the court end of tbo town,
for hero was the Parade In front, which also served as the market place,
with the fort on one side, two leading popular taverns, a fashionable store,
the residence of the provincial secretary and tho home of the Dominie,
Megapolensis, on the southerly corner of tbe present Morris street. The
buildings In the neighborhood were substantial two story affairs, with two
to four chimneys In each. Some of them were built of brick and stood the
ravages of nearly a century and a half nf time.   On the westerly side of

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