ose
fortunes tumbled with the market, and he was obliged to sacrifice his
estate. The villa was torn down, and the grounds levelled. "I remember,"
"Fifth Avenue" quotes Mr. John D. Crimmins as saying, "very vividly the
old Waddell mansion. I was taken into it by my father the day they began
to dismantle it, and remember very distinctly the courteous manner in
which we were received by Mrs. Waddell, and how she regretted the
destruction of her home. At that time the Reservoir was an attraction
for the view it furnished. There were no buildings high enough to
interfere, and visitors could get a bird's-eye view of the entire city
and the Palisades. The neighbourhood at that time is well illustrated
in the old New York print showing the Reservoir and the Crystal Palace,
1855. There were no pretentious houses north of Forty-second Street. It
was interesting to see the drovers--tall men, with staffs in their
hands, herding eight, ten, or twenty cattle--driving the cattle to
market, generally on Sunday, as Monday was market day."

[Illustration: THE TERRACE OF THE PUBLIC LIBRARY. TO-DAY 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"]

About the time that the Waddell villa was being pulled down there was
going up, two blocks to the north, a New York residence that has endured
to the present day. The original Wendell and the original Astor were
partners in the fur trade, and at the time of the death of the late John
Gottlieb Wendell his holdings in Manhattan real estate were second only
to those of the Astors. There was a General David Wendell, known as
"Fighting Dave," who fought in the War of the Revolution. The first
Wendell and the first Astor, his partner, married sisters, and they
bequeathed to their descendants the sound principle of buying land and
buying beyond. The John Gottlieb Wendell of recent memory, a
great-great-grandson of the founder of the family fortune, was
distinguished for his eccentricities. Although he collected his own
rents, would never give more than three-year leases, and could not be
persuaded to part with a foot of his land holdings, he was
characterized as "one of the squarest landlords in the city." In the
old-fashioned brick and brown-stone house he lived in extreme
simplicity. From the top of a passing bus may