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"An Opinion As Is An Opinion"
Old Obelisk. "This is the worst state of affairs I can remember since I was young, and then we had the plague; and if they don't have it here, it won't be the Commissioners' fault--that's all."
This Harper’s Weekly cartoon by Bernhard Gillam caricatures
Manhattan as an ancient Egyptian obelisk who gripes about the
foul-smelling and supposedly disease-causing vapors emanating from the
factories’ smokestacks across the East River at Hunter’s Point in
Long Island City, Queens, New York.
As late as 1858, there were only a few streets in Hunter’s Point,
and for years its relatively rural setting attracted thousands of
picnickers every Sunday. It soon began to expand around the railroad and
ferry depots, and to attract businessmen and real-estate developers, so
that in the early 1870s, Hunter’s Point became a boom town. More rail
lines connected to its terminus; businesses, banks, and warehouses
relocated from Brooklyn; and new hotels and saloons opened. It also
became a center for numerous oil refineries (including Standard Oil),
kerosene refineries, coal yards, varnish manufactures, fertilizer
plants, ammonia works, and other factories. Consequently, Hunter’s
Point became a Mecca for blue-collar workers, further stimulating the
construction of family houses, boarding houses, schools, and churches.
In 1870, it was incorporated with the more affluent Ravenswood and
Astoria into Long Island City, which became the county seat in 1876.
By the early 1880s, however, the pollution from the factories at
Hunter’s Point, as well as other industrial spots in the metropolitan
area, had become a contentious issue. A March 19, 1881, editorial,
entitled "The Plague of Smells," announced the findings of a
special committee of the newly-established (May 1880) New York State
Board of Health. The report detailed how the banks of the East River
"were covered with liquid filth, manure dumps, etc.," and how
"these useful but unpleasant industries … had been established
… within rifle-shot of the upper half of New York," which
receives its offensive stench. Editor George William Curtis deems Hunter’s
Point a "nuisance and pest" which may "make the upper
part of the city of New York uninhabitable" if no action is taken.
In August and September 1881, Harper’s Weekly published
three editorials on the pollution from Hunter’s Point. In the August 6
issue, editor Curtis decries that the factories "generate impure
gases and foul and dangerous effluvia of every kind, smearing the banks
… with vile mud and slime, and pouring the stench of the whole in
poisonous vapors over densely populated parts of the city." The
cartoon above depicts not only "Sickening Smells" from the
factories’ smokestacks, but also "Diphtheria,"
"Cholera," "Diseases," and "Fever."
Although the germ theory of the transmission of human diseases was
understood in Europe and accepted by the better physicians in the United
States, most American physicians still attributed contagious disease to
poisonous vapors or other atmospheric factors. Germ theory was not even
mentioned in the leading medical textbook in the United States until the
1881 edition, and then, it was linked only to the spread of anthrax and
relapsing fever.
In these late-summer editorials, Curtis again returns to the findings
of the Board of Health’s investigation, which "showed that many
of the worst nuisances are absolutely preventable, and are the result of
the most wanton and criminal negligence; … and that at least
nine-tenths of all the matters complained of were controllable by
perfectly simple and practicable means." In response to the study,
Governor Alonzo Cornell issued a proclamation on April 22 for the
factories to control and abate the source of the pollution by June 1.
After two months, the editor despairs, the corporations "have
not taken even the trouble to snap their fingers at the Governor’s
warning. They have continued without intermission to poison the air
which a large part of the city breathes." Curtis, whose editorials
helped topple the Tweed Ring in 1871, was so upset that he not only
compared the companies’ attitude to "Tweed’s famous sneer, ‘What
are you going to do about it?’"; but believed they were worse.
"Tweed at least did plant flowers about the City Hall Park."
As late as 1889, however, Curtis was still writing about "the
pestiferous nuisance of … Hunter’s Point .. [which] was now greater
than ever."
The cartoonist’s choice of an Egyptian obelisk to represent
Manhattan was prompted by a gift from Egypt to the United States in
commemoration of the Suez Canal’s opening in 1869. The 70-foot,
193-ton obelisk and its 50-ton pedestal arrived in New York in July
1880. After installation of the pedestal, the obelisk was dragged slowly—97
feet per day for 112 days—by teams of horses to Central Park. In
January 1881, the shaft was elevated onto its base before a cheering
crowd of 10,000. The use of such an ancient symbol may also be meant to
suggest the older age of Manhattan (compared to Hunter’s Point) or the
older and discredited theory of disease transmission through vapors
(since the complainant is treated somewhat lightly by the artist).
Robert C. Kennedy
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