William B. Crosby in Madison Street. The Madison Street
property had been part of the estate of Colonel Henry Rutgers, of
Revolutionary fame, after whom the college was named. In 1855 certain
buildings known as "The House of Mansions," or "The Spanish Row," were
erected opposite the Reservoir by George Higgins, who thought "that
eleven buildings, uniform in size, price, and amount of accommodation,
of durable fire-brick, and of a chosen cheerful tint of colour and
variegated architecture," would suit the most fastidious home-seeker. In
his prospectus to the public he informed that the view from the windows
was unrivalled, as it commanded the whole island and its surroundings.
But either "The House of Mansions" had some defect, or the situation was
still too remote from the city. The project was not a success, and in
1860 the Rutgers Female College, incidentally the first institution for
the higher education of young women in the city, moved from its downtown
home and occupied the neglected buildings. Then there is the story of
the great square opposite, running from Fifth to Sixth Avenues, between
Fortieth and Forty-second Streets. The Public Library holds the eastern
half of it now and Bryant Park the western. Like Washington Square and
Madison Square the land once served as a burial place for the poor and
the nameless dead. Between the years 1822 and 1825 that northern square
was the Potter's Field. Then, on October 14, 1842, the massive
Reservoir, which remained to see almost the dawn of the twentieth
century, was opened with impressive ceremonies. The distributing
reservoir of the Croton Water system, it occupied more than four acres,
and was divided into two basins by a partition wall. The enclosing
walls, constructed of granite, were about forty-five feet high. This
vast structure, resembling an Egyptian temple, contained twenty million
gallons of water. The Reservoir had been there eleven years, when the
Crystal Palace, modelled after the London Crystal Palace at Sydenham,
was formally opened July 14, 1853, by President Franklin Pierce. Six
hundred and fifty thousand dollars was the cost of the building, which
was shaped like a Greek cross, of glass and iron, with a graceful dome,
arched naves, and broad aisles. Upon the completion of the Atlantic
Cable in 1858 an ovation was given in the Palace to Cyrus W. Field.
Beyond the Palace, to the north, was the Latting Tower, an observatory,
three hundred and fifty feet h