his name) was on Greenwich Street,
between Warren and Chambers Streets. It fronted on the North River,
affording a beautiful view up the Hudson. Starting as the Bowling Green
garden, it changed to Vauxhall in 1750.

Ranelagh was on Broadway, between Duane and Worth Streets, on the site
where later the New York Hospital was erected. From advertisements of
the period (1765-69) we learn that there were band concerts twice a week
at the Ranelagh. The gardens were "for breakfasting as well as the
evening entertainment of ladies and gentlemen." There was a commodious
hall in the garden for dancing. Ranelagh lasted twenty years. Coffee,
tea, and hot rolls could be had in the pleasure gardens at any hour of
the day. Fireworks were featured at both Ranelagh and Vauxhall gardens.
The second Vauxhall was near the intersection of the present Mulberry
and Grand Streets, in 1798; the third was on Bowery Road, near Astor
Place, in 1803. The Astor library was built upon its site in 1853.

William Niblo, previously proprietor of the Bank coffee house in Pine
Street, opened, in 1828, a pleasure garden, that he named Sans Souci, on
the site of a circus building called the Stadium at Broadway and Prince
Street. In the center of the garden remained the stadium, which was
devoted to theatrical performances of "a gay and attractive character."
Later, he built a more pretentious theater that fronted on Broadway. The
interior of the garden was "spacious, and adorned with shrubbery and
walks, lighted with festoons of lamps." It was generally known as
Niblo's garden.

Among other well known pleasure gardens of old New York were Contoit's,
later the New York garden, and Cherry gardens, on old Cherry Hill.

[Illustration: TAVERN AND GROCERS' SIGNS USED IN OLD NEW YORK

Left, Smith Richards, grocer and confectioner, "at the sign of the tea
canister and two sugar loaves" (1773); center, the King's Arms,
originally Burns coffee house (1767); right, George Webster, Grocer, "at
the sign of the three sugar loaves"]

CHAPTER XIV

COFFEE HOUSES OF OLD PHILADELPHIA

_Ye Coffee House, Philadelphia's first coffee house, opened about
1700--The two London coffee houses--The City tavern, or Merchants
coffee house--How these, and other celebrated resorts, dominated
the social, political, and business life of the Quaker City in the
eighteenth century_

William Penn is generally credited with the introduction of coffee int