What constituted NYC before Manhatta, the Bronx, Brooklyn, Queens and Staten Island combined to form “Greater NYC.”
Was NYC just Manhattan. I know Brooklyn was an independent city before, were the other boroughs also independent cities?
Also why were they all combined? Most of the “common wisdom” says Chicago was going to overtake NYC in Population so NYC annexed Brooklyn to make sure it would stay number one. Seems kind of flimsy.
Also how was it decided what would be annexed to Manhattan. Why not more of Long Island or parts of “mainland NY State”
[as an aside to the population reason–>I read online in the Louisville Paper that Jefferson County voters voted AGAINST consolidation of the county with the city of Louisville, KY. consistantly, that is until Lexington KY overtook Louisville in population. Then the voters voted to combine the county of Jefferson with the City of Louisville. Now Louisville’s population rose from 251,000 to over 650,000 people vaulting it from like 63rd largest city to 17th largest city, so maybe that population thing ain’t so far fetched.)
Before the 1898 consolidation, NYC consisted of what is now Manhattan and the Bronx. The Bronx was annexed by New York City from southern Westchester County in seperate actions in 1874 and 1894. Brooklyn was a seperate city in Kings County, and Queens County was full of small towns, villages and cities, as was Richmond County (Staten Island).
While it’s true that Chicago was threatening to beat New York in population, the real reason for consolidation was to centralize the municipal governments of Brooklyn and New York, which has essentially merged into one city anyway. Adding Queens County and Staten Island would provide lots of room for expansion (this was in the middle of the second wave of mass-European immigration).
Eventually, after much politicing and arguing, the State approved a refferendum for the citizens of New York, Queens, Kings and Richmond counties to vote on consolidation. It passed, not without a fight (in Brooklyn it passed by only a couple hundred votes), and five boroughs were created in 1898: Manhattan The Bronx, Queens, Brooklyn and Staten Island. The Bronx got its to be its own county later.
The boroughs were not annexed to Manhattan; each borough is an equal political unit within the city government, but in practice they have very little autonomy these days.
stuyguy is our resident board expert on this subject, having made a documentary on it. He was recently profiled in the New York Times “Public Lives” column for his work to boost the recognition of Andrew Haswell Green, the father of consolidation.
Until he appears, let me refer you to this thread, which contained a detailed discussion of the subject between stuyguy and some others.
A nice post, friedo. Minor nitpick: I believe that there were still parts of the present North Bronx which were not part of NYC until the 1898 consolidation.
Culturally, Brooklyn preserved a great deal of autonomy from “Noo Yawk” for many decades past consolidation. Even when I was growing up 50 years later, 300 miles away, it was known that you didn’t refer to a Brooklynite as being from “New York City” – he was from “Brooklyn,” and never mind what the law of 1898 said.
Question: with NYC having been the wonder of the world, largest city and all, for so many years, and then having lost the title, is or was there any movement to unite it with Nassau County, Yonkers, White Plains, etc.? It seems the obvious next step in regional consolidation, but I’ve never heard anything of it.
It is interesting to note that today when addressing mail to “New York City”;
Manhatan is NYC, NY
Brooklyn addresses are sent to Brooklyn NY
Bronx – Bronx, NY
but Queens address are sent to places like Corona, Astoria, Ozone Park, NY still using the ‘town’ name that applies to the zip code.
Staten Island is usually a town name then S.I. NY
I recall hearing a couple politicians once blathering about the need to make Yonkers the “sixth borough,” but nothing ever came of that. I don’t think anyone took them seriously. Nassau would rather go down in flames than become part of NYC, and White Plains is too far away, (and already the county seat for Westchester.)
I’ve covered this ground before in that link that Bildo posted (and others) so I’ll refer you all to my posts there. Meanwhile I’ll address some particular points and questions already raised here.
First, today’s Bronx was annexed in two gulps the western portion in 1874, the eastern portion in 1895 (not 1894, Friedo – though the law effecting the change may have passed in 1894). Poly, I have never heard of your assertion that parts of the Bronx did not join NYC until 1898. Cites if you got 'em, please.
The reasons for the consolidation were numerous and changing. Remember, it took a decade to accomplish, from Andrew Green’s first murmurings in 1888. It began (with Green and his allies) as an economic and social gesture, but ended (with Republican Boss Thomas Platt) as a largely political one.
Green was a nut for economy and efficiency. One major reason (but certainly not the only one) he pushed the consolidation was that he realized that in order to administer and develop (plan and build bridges, transportation lines, port facilities, etc.) NY Harbor on a comprehensive scale it needed to be placed under one municipal jurisdiction. The harbor was NY’s economic engine and should not be run haphazardly by a patchwork of provincial, jealous and often corrupt municiplities.
The OP asked how it was decided what territory got annexed. Well, historian David Hammack (who has researched this topic more than anyone) concluded that Green chose the area of today’s five boroughs because it lassoed together all of the major port facilities in the metropolitan region. That’s why places like Staten Island and Jamaica Bay (in Queens) made the cut despite their being relative backwaters compared to the cities of Brooklyn and Long Island City.
One last thing about the referendum of 1894 that Friedo mentioned… and I bring this up because it is often cited in these discussions and it can be very misleading. The referendum was entirely non-binding. Though the count showed that most voters in the region favored consolidation (even in Brooklyn where it passed by only a whisker), the referendum may have done more to hurt the consolidation movement then to help it. It spooked the anti-consolidationists into fevered action; by mid-1895 they managed to successfuly block all attempts by Green and others to legislate the sentiment of the vote. It took the intense political strongarming of Thomas Platt, who essential hijacked the movement from Green and his allies, to finally push the measure through the legislature in 1896. A charter was passed in 1897, and Greater NY was born in 1898.
It was my understanding that part of the motivation for consolidation was an attempt to keep the reins of government out of the hands of minorities and immigrants.
Why not grab more territory in 1898? Well, as it was the consolidation was considered by many to be insanely ambitious. They asked, Why was NYC, this hotbed of cosmopolitan fast living, annexing the unsettled potato fields of Long Island? – and yes, there was little more than just potato fields out there at the time. Many NYCers had no love for the rubes out in the boonies and resented having to foot the bill of building their roads and sewers if consolidation passed. Meanwhile many farmfolk, especially way out on Long Islang where they identified themselves as New England Yankees, wanted nothing to do with the corrupt city slickers, foul smelling immigrants and papists.
While we’re discussing territory it’s interesting to note how the consolidation screwed up Queens for a year, until things got sorted out. In 1898 there was no Nassau County; Queens County went from Long Island City to the Suffolk line. When they created GNY, Queens County consisted of Queens Borough (part of NYC, of course) at its eastern end, and a handful of still-independent rural towns and villages on its western end! This insanity existed for a year. The rural Long Islanders went to Platt who pushed through the measure that created Nassau County in 1899.
Since 1898 most of the talk involves undoing the consolidation, not expanding it. Brooklyn, of course, has never stopped bitching since January 1, 1898. Rockaway tried to leave GNY as early as 1915, and nearly managed it too. Staten Island put up a good stink in the 1990’s, but Rudy put a lid on that by closing the Freshkills landfill and paying more attention to SIers in general. The irony of the SI seccessionist movement is that in the aforementioned referendum of 1894, SI voted for consolidation by the highest percentage of any district in the metropolitan region – nearly 4 to 1 in favor!
“It was my understanding that part of the motivation for consolidation was an attempt to keep the reins of government out of the hands of minorities and immigrants.”
Well, sort of yes, but in a very roundabout way. The consolidation question turned very political in late 1895 when Republican Boss Thomas Platt embraced the movement. Most historians have concluded that Platt’s motive was to dilute the Democratic (essentially Tammany) majority in Manhattan with the Republicans voters from the outlying areas, Brooklyn in particular. It is not unreasonable to presume that the vast majority of immigrants would be recruited to join Tammany. So in a way, yes, Platt wanted to keep the government out of the hands of the immigrants – but really out of the hands of the Democrats.
Now that’s not to say that individual voters did not think along the exact lines you suggest, acsenray. I have no doubt that some snooty, immigrant-hating Manhattanites favored consolidation because it would bring likeminded Brooklynites into the electorate (and, believe me, Brooklyn had plenty of immigrant-haters). Together they could keep the rabble out of City Hall.
Although it’s hard to know exactly how people saw the future, the numbers make this “common wisdom” to be very unlikely. Here are the census figures for the time:
Chicago New York County
1880 503,185 1,206,299
1890 1,099,850 1,515,301
1900 1,698,575 2,050,600
1910 2,185,283 2,762,522
Admittedly, New York County included the Bronx, but its population was negligible until after the subways were extended into it in the early 1900s.
I don’t see much evidence that anyone living in the increasingly immigrant-swollen Manhattan would have worried much about Chicago passing it in population in the 1890s.
Sorry, Exapno Mapcase, but you’re wrong. While the Chicago “threat” was not the top reason for the consolidation, it was, in fact, very much on the minds of proud New Yorkers and is often mentioned during the consolidation debate.
Remember, Chicago was the “miracle city” of the day, growing in leaps and bounds (largely through annexations) with room to expand. European immigration did not crank up to high gear until after the turn of the century, so it was no sure thing that NYC would fill up to keep ahead of Chicago; and remember, many of those immigrants were heading west to – you guessed it – Chicago. Add to that the fact that NYC was still smarting from having lost the Columbian Exposition to the Windy City. (Campaign literature of the period is filled with references to booting out the bums who let the upstart city get the Exposition.) So yes, lots of NYers favored consolidation on an emotional level because they essentially wanted to “show up” Chicago.
Alway remember, the pro- and anti-consolidation movements had numerous, complex and changing motives throughout the decadelong period it took to settle the matter.
It really is a fascinating topic that (unfortunately) most NYers know too little about.
When I went to school at Manhattan College, it was definitely “Riverdale, NY”; a girlfriend lived in “Throgs Neck, NY”, and a current friend of mine lives in “Parkchester, NY”. I can think of Woodlawn, Williamsbridge, Hunts Point, Baychester… Heck, there aren’t too many neighborhood in the Bronx that want mail addressed to “Bronx, NY” (OK, there are some…)
Example:
FOODTOWN of PARKCHESTER
1489 WEST AVE
PARKCHESTER, NY 10642
PHONE: (718) 822-2922
FAX: (718) 822-1376
FOODTOWN of the BRONX
283 E 204TH ST
BRONX, NY 10467
PHONE: (718) 882-7865
FAX: (718) 231-4450
Also note many Mill Basin residents in Brooklyn like to have mailed addressed to Mill Basin, not Brooklyn (and there are other areas in Brooklyn like this too: Bay Ridge, for one)
I grew up in the Bronx (near Parkchester, actually), and I would say that by far the most typical way for mail to be addressed is just “Bronx, NY.” I would never address mail to Parkchester as “Parkchester, NY,” and I don’t think I have ever seen it done in practice. Same goes for most of the other areas you mention. While we would say someone lives in Throgs Neck (my sister, brother, and many cousins live there), we would never include it in a mailing address. An exception is, however, Riverdale, and mail is frequently addressed “Riverdale, NY,” perhaps because of the affluence of the neighborhood.
The bottom line on addressing mail is that as long as you get the zip code right, your mail will most like get delivered to the right place.
Many NYers address mail to Manhattan as NY, NY, but an equal number address it as Manhattan, NY. I would wager a guess that how mail is addressed has more to do with your familial upbringing than which borough you are sending your mail to.
I have never seen anyone address a piece of mail as Manhattan, NY. Persons in Manhattan have given their mailing addresses as New York since before the Revolution.
To me visiting NYC, I go there a lot and love it, the people of Brooklyn and Staten Island seem to show extream distaste when I refer to them living in NYC. (I’ve learned to stop doing this.)
The Queens and Bronx people seem not to care as much.
