Under Mayor Philip Hone (1826) fine dwellings, public build ings and mercantile establishments multiplied ; wealth increased and the continuing influx of immigrants made evident the need for greater educational opportunities. The University of the City of New York was established in a splendid new building opened in 1835. There were now over 200,000 people in the city, and transportation was a pressing problem, only partly solved by the horse-drawn street cars. Another great fire broke out below Wall street on Dec. 16, 1835, and the succeeding months saw great dis tress. Croton water was furnished the city July 4, 1842. Black well's (now Welfare) island, purchased in 1828 for $5o,000, was made the site of the city's correctional institutions and hospitals. The New York Sun, whose issue by Benjamin H. Day was begun in 1833, sold for a penny. The Herald of James Gordon Bennett appeared in 1835, the Tribune of Horace Greeley in 1841, Henry J. Raymond's Times in 1851. The theatre was thriving, business was rapidly spreading uptown, and Union square was the residen tial centre. Beyond Union square, there was little but open fields at the middle of the century. The World's Fair at the Crystal palace on Murray Hill was the outstanding event of 1853 ; in 1856 Central park was purchased. But in 1857 business was par alysed, thousands thrown out of work, and over goo merchants failed ; riots and disturbances of all kinds ensued. The same year, the State legislature laid the basis for the modern metropolitan police force, and a new regime of law and order was begun. The city recovered quickly from the depression of 1857, and at the outbreak of the Civil War was again thriving; it authorized a loan of $1,000,000 for defence of the Union, and hundreds of thousands more were privately pledged. New York was again filled with soldiers. Rioting broke out in July 1863 as a protest against army drafts and for five days there was turmoil. More than 5o buildings were burned and several hundred people killed or wounded. Mayor Opdyke, in 1863, reported that the people of New York had contributed up to that time $300,000,000 for war purposes, and had furnished over 8o,000 men. During the war, the establishment of schools, scientific and literary associations, libraries, museums, and clubs went on apace, and at its end New York was still able to find resources for great public works. Brooklyn bridge was begun in 1870, and sanitary conditions, which in 1865 had been thoroughly studied by a citizens' committee and found deplorable, were on their way to betterment. New public improvements opened fresh opportunities for "graft" by public officials. Under the Tammany mayor, A. Oakey Hall, in 1872, a gigantic conspiracy for looting the city, known as the "Tweed Ring," was exposed by the New York Times and a citizens' com mittee. The thefts of the "ring" ran into hundreds of millions, the "graft" in the erection of the county court-house alone amounting to about $8,000,000. "Boss" Tweed and many of his followers were tried and sent to prison, and Tweed died there. Then followed a reform administration, but in 1874 Tammany regained control. The corporate limits of the city were extended in 1874 to include about 13,000 ac. across the Harlem river, in the Bronx, and in 1895, a still further extension in the same county was made which brought the city limits to the southern boundaries of Yonkers and Mount Vernon. In this same year, Col. George E. Waring, representing a reform administration under Mayor William L. Strong, was made commissioner of street cleaning and with his "white wings" inaugurated the mod ern system of street cleaning and refuse collection. The city was still further increased in 1898 by the annexation of Kings, Richmond, and a part of Queens, counties, and a new charter was enacted for the Greater New York. During all this period of ad ministrative reconstruction, Tammany Hall continued the great political power, although occasionally defeated for the mayoralty. In 1897, Tammany again got control of the mayor's office by the election of R. A. Van Wyck, but was defeated in 1901, because of its abuse of power. Seth Low, a reform mayor, served during 1902 and 1903 when Tammany regained control. During the past 25 years Tammany has generally maintained its political power. Mayors George B. McClellan (1904-1o) and William J. Gaynor (1910-14) were both elected by Tammany and both were able men and strove to give the city good government, even under the handicaps of the Tammany political system. In Mayor McClellan's administration, however, a citizens' civic agency, the New York Bureau of Municipal Research (organized in 1906), disclosed and published a report on irregularities in the admini stration of the office of Borough President Ahearn of Manhattan. Mayor McClellan appointed as a special counsel, John Purroy Mitchel, who secured sufficient evidence of these irregularities to warrant Governor Hughes in removing Borough President Ahearn for incompetency. In Mayor Gaynor's administration, a police lieutenant was arrested, tried and later found guilty of complicity with gangsters in the murder of a New York merchant, who was on the point of making disclosures of police corruption to the district attorney. Mayor Gaynor, wounded in an attempt upon his life, failed in health and died Sept. 1o, 1913, almost at the end of his term. The police scandals of Gaynor's administra tion swung popular sympathy against Tammany, and John Pur roy Mitchel, candidate for mayor on a "fusion" ticket, was elected and took office in 1914. In Sept. 1914, a special aldermanic com
mittee of investigation undertook a complete survey of police ad ministration and methods. The facts finally brought out by this committee furnished clear evidence of police incompetency and corruption. Mayor Mitchel's administration from 1914 to 1918 is now regarded as the most efficient in the last quarter century because of the administrative reforms which he instituted. Yet in the next election, he was defeated for re-election by an over whelming vote, and John F. Hylan, another Tammany mayor, took office in 1918, on a platform of outspoken repudiation of the Mitchel administration. Mayor Hylan held office for two terms during which time there was continuous wrangling among the superior officers of administration to the extent that little of importance for the city's betterment was accomplished. One of the outstanding features of government in the period covered by the administrations of Gaynor, Mitchel and Hylan, was the enor mous increase of budget from $163,130,270.37 in 1910, to in 1921. In 1925, Mayor Hylan, denounced by many of his own Tammany supporters, was refused party support, and James J. Walker,a representative of the "new Tammany," who had made a good record in the State senate, received the Democratic nomination. He was well supported by Governor Alfred E. Smith who was everywhere recognized as the actual leader of Tammany Hall, and, without much opposition from the Repuoiicans, Walker was elected with the endorsement of a great popular vote. The great issues of the Hylan administration, rapid transit and sub way fares, continued paramount under the new Mayor without however, reaching a satisfactory solution. In 1932 Mr. Walker was summoned before Governor Roosevelt to answer charges of graft brought by Mr. Seabury, counsel for the Hofstadter com mittee ; and failing to halt these proceedings for his removal, he chose to resign from office. After an interim under Joseph V. Mc Kee (Sept. I—Dec. 31, 1932) and John P. O'Brien, during which the city's credit became badly strained, a reform candidate on a fusion ticket, Fiorello LaGuardia was elected Mayor in 1933• Dur ing his four year term, the new mayor balanced the city's budget by means of a drastic economy act, a 2% sales tax, and generous federal assistance. The period has been marked by such features as the resumption of school construction, the establishment of new parks, playgrounds and beaches, the completion of the munici pal subway and Triborough bridge, and the development of plans for a world's fair in 1939. As a candidate for reelection in 1937, the mayor will be opposed by rivals headed by Tammany's selec tion, United States Senator Copeland.