"The site of the old Lenox Library is now occupied by the house of Mr. Henry C. Frick, one of the great show residences of the Avenue and the City. A broad garden separates the house, which is eighteenth century English, from the sidewalk" 218 The terrace of the Public Library. Today the spot is the scene of the activities of those engaged in the work of speeding America's Answer. Once it was far uptown, and on the eastern side of the Avenue were the residences known as "Spanish Row," or "The House of Mansions". 248 Commerce, with giant stride, is marching up the stately Avenue. The story of a business house that began in the neighbourhood of Cherry Hill, migrated to Grand Street, thence to Broadway and Union Square, and again to the slope of Murray Hill, is, in epitome, the story of the city itself. 260 "On the site of the old Croton Reservoir the cornerstone of the Public Library was laid November 10, 1902, and the building opened to the public May 23, 1911. To it were carried the treasures of the Astor Library and the Lenox Library" 268 Entrance to the Public Library. The Library, 590 feet long and 270 deep, was built by the City at a cost of about nine million dollars. The material is largely Vermont marble, and the style that of the modern renaissance 274 "O beautiful, long, loved Avenue, So faithless to truth and yet so true."--JOAQUIN MILLER 280 South of where "St. Gaudens's hero, gaunt and grim, rides on with Victory leading him," may be seen the Fountain of Abundance, and, in the background, the new Plaza Hotel 290 The Metropolitan Museum of Art, on the site of what was once the Deer Park, had its origin in a meeting of the Art Committee of the Union League Club in November, 1869 304 FIFTH AVENUE CHAPTER I _The Shadow of the Knickerbockers_ The Shadow of the Knickerbockers--An Old-time Map--The Beginnings of the Avenue--Watering Place Life--The Beach at Rockaway--Coney Island--Newspapers in the Thirties--Early Day Marriages--The Knickerbocker Sabbath--Home Customs--Restaurants and Hotels--The Leather-heads--Conditions of Travel--Stage-coaches and Steamers--The Clipper Ships--When Dickens First Came. Boughton, had you bid me chant Hymns to Peter Stuyvesant. Had you bid me sing of Wouter. (He! the Onion-head! the Doubter!) But to rhyme of this one-mocker, Who shall rhyme to Knickerbocker? --_Austin Dobson_.