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 1840s from only 5,094 to over 30,000: Population New York City Brooklyn Williamsburgh 1800 60,489 2,378 1810 96,373 4,402 1820 123,706 7,175 1830 202,589 15.394 1840 312,710 36.233 5,094 1850 515,547 96,838 30,780 Note: The city of Williamsburgh was created in 1839 from part of the town of Bushwick, and was annexed by Brooklyn in 1854. Source: Census of the State of NetL- York for 18ii (Albany. NY, 1857) The growth of industry in the rising commercial entrepot required a labor force, and immigrants who passed through the City provided an ample and cheap supply. More than half of all immigrants land- ed in the City, and though most of them moved on, the influx cer- tainly added an ethnic dimension to the urban scene. ^ By 1830 figure 5, above: C. Burton, Steam Boat Wharf, Whitehall Street (New York), 1831, engraved by George W. Hatch and James Smillie, printed by James R. Burton, published by G. Melksham Bourne The Hudson River Museum of Westchester (not in exhibition) Photo: J. Kennedy figure 6, right: Nicolino V. Calyo. The Great Rre of 1835 ... Burning of the Merchants Exchange, NY, Dec. 16, 17, 1835, gouache on paper Courtesy Museum of the City of New York, Bequest of Mrs. J. Insley Blair, in Memory of Mr. and Mrs. J. Insley Blair, 52.100.7 New York City held 16.5% of all the aliens in the country, and al- most half of the nation's total lived in the Empire State. The 1860 census would reveal the majority of New York's population to be foreign born, and fully three-fourths were of foreign stock. ^ With the Irish accounting for over a quarter of Manhattan's pop- ulation in the 1830s, native-born Americans not surprisingly saw the ethnic, and religious, characteristics of the newcomers as a threat to their control over the metropolis. Thus, the decades of the Jacksonian era saw commercial growth amidst new social cleav- ages along racial, ethnic, and class lines. This was the city which built the Croton Aqueduct. The lack of an adequate water supply obviously did not hinder the spectacular growth of the metropolis, but the citizens of the nation's largest city had to endure a dirty, smelly, disease-ridden, and fire-prone environment. Fire and disease were the twin demons of cities, and a ready supply of water promised to vanquish them both. Since the build- ings were built of wood, and fireplaces were used for cooking and heating, fires rapidly spread to disastrous proportions. One fire in 1776, during the British occupation, destroyed almost a quarter of the entire city, and almost every year saw a conflagration which took the better part of a block; there were 110 fires in 1834 alone. But the fire of December 1835 was by far the most destructive. It consumed 17 blocks and parts of several others, destroying 654 stores, residences, and public buildings, among them the Merchants Exchange, the South Reformed Dutch Church, and most of the structures surviving from the Dutch era (figure 6). Although fire companies arrived on the scene and manfully fought the blaze, their efforts were futile. The night was so cold that water froze in the fire hoses. The fire wiped out businesses, leaving thousands of New Yorkers without jobs, and caused the failure of most of the City's insurance companies, a major cause of the disastrous Panic of 1837." An adequate water supply also promised to improve the City's disease environment. Epidemics regularly visited the metropolis, and medical experts drew the obvious connection between living conditions and contagion. Yellow fever broke out repeatedly in the 1790s and early 1800s. The epidemic of 1798 took the lives of 2,000 New Yorkers. Writing to Noah Webster, Dr. Samuel L. Mitchill, one of the City's leading men of science, blamed urban conditions for the outbreak: "New York tliis time has a plague indeed. The scourge is applied severely and cuts deep.... It seems to be admitted on all sides to be a home-bred Pestilence. The inhabitants have really poisoned their city by the accumulation of Excrement, putrid Provisions, and every unclean thing." Prominent citizens who investigated that epidemic offered a series of recom- mendations for preventing similar outbreaks in the future, and