How New York invented Santa Claus

It’s not really a stretch for New Yorkers to claim the jolly, red-suited dude as one of our own. “Sinte Klaas” was the nickname Dutch settlers gave St. Nicholas, a serious figure depicted in bishop’s robes celebrated every December 6.

Legend had it that St. Nicholas gave gifts to the poor, and he also rewarded children who had behaved all year.

St. Nicholas evolved closer to the Santa we know now in Chelsea resident Clement Clarke Moore’s 1823 poem “A Visit From St. Nicholas.”

Here he’s depicted with a white beard and a sack on his back, climbing down the chimney to fill stockings.

Rather than a big guy in red, St. Nick is elfin, a “little old driver” in a “miniature sleigh” decked all in fur.

He finally became today’s large, red-suited hero thanks to Thomas Nast, the 19th century cartoonist for Harper’s Weekly. In 1863, Nast drew a plump character in a fur-trimmed coat with a stocking cap giving out presents to soldiers.

An 1865 Santa illustration by Nash for Harper’s Weekly has him holding a pipe, that familiar twinkle in his eye.

Whatever happened to Manhattan’s 13th Avenue?

It’s true, there really once was a 13th Avenue on Manhattan’s West Side—built on landfill in the 1830s starting at about 11th Street and going to 25th Street. Here’s part of it on an 1899 map from the New York Public Library digital collection.

It seemed to exist as a dreary access road to shipping piers, ferry terminals, dumping grounds, and factories, according to several articles in the New York Times archive.

“There are no sidewalks to speak of on Thirteenth-avenue and no surface indications of pavements,” one 1886 article reported. “A foot path winds through it, showing the course pedestrians take to dodge the deeper mud holes in wet weather.”

An 1883 story reported, “[Thirteenth Avenue] begins in a very humble and unpretentious way, but during its brief course of about a dozen blocks it gradually improves in width and general appearance.

“Unfortunately, however, at the very point where it begins to promise great things, and the casual pedestrian feels inclined to fancy it, the avenue ends abruptly in a high board fence, which proves an impassable barrier to all except the most accomplished acrobats.”

The article goes on to describe some of the people who hung around 13th Avenue: Italian immigrant women who pick through trash, night watchmen, and lumbermen.

Exactly when 13th Avenue was de-mapped for good is a mystery.

The NYPD’s infamous “Clubber” Williams

Alexander “Clubber” Williams was an NYPD inspector in post–Civil War New York City; as captain of the precinct on 35th Street, he’s credited with breaking up the fearsome Gas House Gang that lorded over the East 30s, then known as the Gas House District.

In 1876 he was transferred to a precinct on West 13th Street, where he’d have jurisdiction over a high-crime area centered around Broadway from the 20s to about 42nd Street thick with theaters, gambling dens, and prostitutes.

Remarking on his new assignment, he supposedly told a friend, referring to the protection money he was likely to receive from gambling operators and madams, “I have had chuck for a long time, and now I’m going to eat tenderloin.”

The name Tenderloin stuck for this seedy neighborhood. Formerly known by the fantastically colorful moniker Satan’s Circus, it was one of the city’s worst. Williams earned the title “Czar of the Tenderloin” for his rough and ready crime-prevention tactics.

Brought up on corruption charges several times over the years, Williams always beat the rap. And when accused of using excessive force, he replied, “There is more law at the end of a policeman’s nightstick than in a decision of the Supreme Court.”

In 1895, Police Commissioner Theodore Roosevelt had him retire. Williams insisted until his death in 1917 that he’d never clubbed anyone “that did not deserve it.”

A crowd forms on Sixth Avenue and 14th Street

“Ashcan School” artist John Sloan really had a thing for the Sixth Avenue El. Several of his paintings depict the El at Third Street or Eighth Street; Jefferson Market Courthouse can often be seen in the distance.

Here he highlights the next stop on the El, at 14th Street. It’s still a major shopping crossroads. Currently a Starbucks and Urban Outfitters occupy the Southeast corner, past the “Shoes” marquee in the painting.

The building across the street with the pointed turret is still there. Down toward Seventh Avenue looms the Salvation Army headquarters, also still in existence.

The wrought-iron flowers on the Chelsea Hotel

The Chelsea Hotel’s aesthetic appeal is pretty obvious: This 1883 structure—originally one of the city’s first apartment houses—has gothic-Victorian turrets, short corinthian columns, and a deep red brick facade.

It’s all the more striking considering how unremarkable the rest of the stretch of 23rd Street between 7th and 8th Avenues is.

But have you ever really noticed the balconies, with their wrought-iron flowers, stems, and leaves all woven together? They’re really lovely, and easy to miss amid the hotel’s other beautiful design touches.

A stained-glass surprise on West 14th Street

The ground floor of the dingy walkup at 203 West 14th Street, off of Seventh Avenue, houses a neighborhood donut joint. A nail salon is on the second floor.

The remaining storefronts on the northwest corner of the block are pretty ugly—they help give West 14th its grimy, discount-store vibe.

But this colorful window on the second-floor fire escape at 203 must have been beautiful at one time. It’s one of those hidden gems New York is famous for; you could walk by it a million times and not realize it was there.

And then one day, you finally see it. Too bad the glass panels are falling in and the window is so dirty, it’s hard to tell what it depicts.

The stenciled address above it is a nice touch. Whoever lived here then seemed to take some pride in the building.

The opening of the West Side Express Highway

Planned in the 1920s to ease New York’s traffic hell, the West Side Express Highway opened in various stages beginning in 1930. Also known as the Miller Elevated, it stretched from downtown to 72nd Street.

It looks pretty and spotless in this 1930 postcard. By the 1960s, it was rusted out and in disrepair, and huge chunks occasionally fell onto the streets beneath it. Wisely, the city tore it down in the 1970s and 1980s.

Shopping along Ladies’ Mile: then and now

The Bed Bath & Beyond store on Sixth Avenue and 18th Street isn’t an ordinary big-box retail structure. Take a look at the massive bronze columns and huge lanterns flanking the entrance; they tip you off to the building’s elegant retail past. 

It originally housed the Siegel-Cooper Department Store, opened in 1896. Until World War I, it was one of the city’s premier shopping destinations.

Carrying the latest fashions, gourmet foods, and furnishings, Siegel-Cooper was a star along Ladies’ Mile, the department-store district between 14th and 23rd Streets on Sixth Avenue that also featured retail giants such as B. Altman’s, McCreery’s, the Simpson Crawford Company, and the Hugh O’Neill Store.

All of these retailers are out of business now, though B. Altman’s moved to midtown as the city—and its main shopping district—inched northward. 

This turn of the last century photo shows the same view of the building’s entrance as the first photo. The bronze columns and lanterns greeted customers then just as they do now.

The master mixologist of the Gilded Age

Cocktail aficionados owe a lot to Jerry Thomas, aka The Professor, a showman of a bartender who wrote the first definitive handbook on mixing drinks, “The Bar-Tender’s Guide,” in 1862. (It’s also called “The Bon-Vivant’s Companion,” a much lovelier title.)

His guide included the first written recipes for the Tom Collins and the Tom and Jerry, among hundreds of other concoctions.

But Thomas is probably most famous for the Blue Blazer, which involves lighting whiskey on fire and then passing it back and forth in metal mixing glasses. Looks like he’s mixing a blue blazer in the illustration at right.

Thomas had a saloon in the 1850s downtown; he soon left New York to work in hotel bars across the U.S. before returning to work at the Metropolitan Hotel, on Broadway and Prince Street.

In 1866 he opened his own place on Broadway between 21st and 22nd Streets (where Restoration Hardware is today). He updated his bartender’s guide several times before dying in 1885, after which The New York Times described him as “at one time better known to club men and men about town than any other bartender in this city.”

The man on the moon on West 21st Street

This iron fence outside a residence between Eighth and Ninth Avenues pays homage to the iconic image from A Trip to the Moon, a 1902 French sci-fi film in which a spaceship from Earth lands in the moon’s eye.

The film—only about 8 minutes!—is pretty wild. Watch it here. The rocket in the eye scene happens about 4 minutes in.