Dr. Jeffrey A. Kroessler, School of General Studies, Adelphi University, and History Department, Queens College, CUNY; Dr. F. Daniel Larkin, Professor of History and Chairman of the Histo- ry Department at SUNY Oneonta; and Roger Panetta, Professor of History at Marymount College. Daniel Walkowitz, Professor of Urban and Labor History in New York State and Director of Metropolitan Studies Program, New York University, served as editor. Others who participated in the symposium include Judy Brewton; William Lee Frost; Kenneth Lutters, Senior Landscape Architect, New York State Office of Parks, Recreation, and Historic Preserva- tion; and Carl Oeschner, Educator, Ossining. Rusty Russell produced and Judy Brewton scripted a video which has been integrated into the exhibit. In addition to Ms. Hardin, all staff members from the Museum's Curatorial and Education departments contributed in many ways to the project, particularly John Matherly, Director of Design, and Margo Williams, Registrar. I wish to thank all of those individuals and oi^anizations which made loans to the exhibition and provided additional research materials. All lenders are listed elsewhere in this catalogue. Finally, I wish to acknowledge and thank those funding sources which generously supported the project through both its plan- ning and implementation phases: the National Endowment for the Humanities, a federal agency; the New York State Council on the Arts; and the New York Council for the Humanities. Philip Verre, Director figure 3: James Renwick, Jr., Frontispiece of report by Jolin B. Jervis to Water Commissioners, c. 1837-40. watercolor on paper in "Letter Book of John B. Jervis" (vol. Ill), (not in exhibition) Courtesy Jervis Public Library. Photo: G. R. Farley figure 4: C. Bachman. New-York (Croton water fountain and view to tip of Manhattan), 1849. lithograph of Sarony & Major. NY. published by John Bachman. NY The Hudson River Museum of Westchester, 74.0.49. Photo: J. Kennedy Kroessler During the first half of the 19th century New York City emerged as the nation's pre-eminent metropolis. The 1810 census revealed that New York had passed Philadelphia to become the nation's largest city, and by 1830 it had surpassed IVIexico City to become the most populous city in the hemisphere, a fact which would hold true for more than a century. By 1850, the population of Manhattan approached half a million.^ But more than sheer numbers put Manhattan atop the country's hierarchy of cities. Gotham — a term first used by the era's celebrated man of letters, Washington Irving— set the pace, and its vitality both fascinated and repelled American and foreign visitors. In the decades before the Civil War, New York's merchants dom- inated the trans-Atlantic trade as well as most of the nation's domestic commerce. Whether measured in ship tonnage or the total amount of imports and exports, New York was clearly the hemisphere's busiest port. The City rushed ahead of its rivals im- mediately after the War of 1812, when British merchants dumped lo manufactured goods that had piled up during the war. The introduc- tion of regularly scheduled packet service to English ports, begin- ning with the Black Ball Line in 1818, enhanced New York's posi- tion by allowing merchants to ship their goods in a timely fashion, rather than waiting until a vessel had a full cargo (figure 5). Completion of the Ehe Canal in 1825, which linked New York directly to the Great Lakes and Ohio, and the City's domination of the cotton trade from southern ports, also factored into the City's rise to commercial power. Agents representing New York firms han- dled all aspects of the cotton trade, from insurance and financing to shipping and sale at the other end. Most of the bales were shipped on New York bottoms to Europe and New England, and manufactured goods passed through the port in the opposite direc- tion. In banking and insurance, too. New Yorkers held national supremacy. New York's banks set the rates for smaller ones in the south and west, and events in the City had financial repercussions across the country. New York grew faster than any other American city. Adoption of the Commissioners Plan in 1807, which set a street grid over Manhattan from 14th to 155th Streets, facilitated the rapid devel- opment and leveling of the island, without regard for such topo- graphic features as hills, swamps, streams, springs, or natural drainage. Conspicuously absent, of course, was any provision for public parks, and it is truly one of the triumphs of the 19th century that the City had the energy and foresight to create Central Park in the 1850s. By mid-century, the built up portion of Manhattan extended four miles along each river, and across the river on Long Island, Brooklyn and Williamsburgh grew at an equally rapid pace. Be- tween 1820 and 1850, Brooklyn's population increased from 7,715 to 96,838, and Williamsburgh exploded in the