On the flight back from a trip to Seattle a few days ago, I finished The First Tycoon, a biography of Cornelius Vanderbilt. For much of his life, he lived on West Fourth St, where NYU is now located. In one passage, the book describes his route up into the area of Manhattan that used to be rural farmland. When I was on my Manhattan Hike the weekend before last, I walked some of the same route, and took the photos below at the same spots described in the book.

“This week, like most weeks, Vanderbilt ordered a pair of his fastet horses harnessed to a light, open-air racing rig, then climbed aboard, took the reins in hand, and smartly whipped his team down the cobblestone passage into West Fourth Street. A left turn, then another left onto Broadway…”

“…and uptown he went, past aristocratic Grace Church…”

“…past Union Square, out of the city to where Broadway became Bloomingdale road.”

Over the latter half of the 19th century, Bloomingdale Road gradually morphed into Broadway (midtown and uptown sections) as development in Manhattan spread northward.

One more note: since walking much of Manhattan during the early morning hours on Sunday, I’ve been struck by how few people were really out and about at that time. For example — 18th and Broadway. I took the photo on the left at 8am Sunday. The photo on the right, at roughly the same spot, I took at 5:15pm the following Wednesday: