Читать книгу The Story of the Sun: New York, 1833-1918 онлайн

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A Very Small Metropolis Which Day and His Partner, Wisner, Awoke by Printing Small Human Pieces About Small Human Beings and Having Boys Cry the Paper.

How far could the little Sun hope to cast its beam in a stodgy if not naughty world? The circulation of all the dailies in New York at the time was less than thirty thousand. The seven morning and four evening papers, all sold at six cents a copy, shared the field thus:

MORNING PAPERS

Morning Courier and New York Enquirer 4,500 Democratic Chronicle 4,000 New York Standard 2,400 New York Journal of Commerce 2,300 New York Gazette and General Advertiser 1,500 New York Daily Advertiser 1,400 Mercantile Advertiser and New York Advocate 1,200

EVENING PAPERS

Evening Post 3,000 Evening Star 2,500 New York Commercial Advertiser 2,100 New York American 1,600 Total 26,500

New York was the American metropolis, but it was of about the present size of Indianapolis or Seattle. Of its quarter of a million population, only eight or ten thousand lived above Twenty-third Street. Washington Square, now the residence district farthest down-town, had just been adopted as a park; before that it had been the Potter’s Field. In 1833 rich New Yorkers were putting up some fine residences there—of which a good many still stand. Sixth Street had had its name changed to Waverley Place in honor of Walter Scott, recently dead, the literary king of the day.