The five-cent fare bill has made the elevated railroads lately special objects of public interest, and this reminds me that nearly half a century ago an elevated road was talked about, and more than a generation ago a now forgotten genius had really projected one. His name was John Randel, and he was a smart as well as a queer chap generally. He had a taste for surveying and for mechanics, and he was a great believer in the future of New York and in public improvements.
It is even said that he once told a friend that before the last quarter of the century should begin, New York would take in all from the Harlem River to the junction of the North and East rivers, and that New York and Brooklyn would be united by bridges and would constitute one city. It really looks as if he had come nearer the mark than most prophets, a good deal nearer than Wiggins. On one point he was firm, and New York can never be thankful enough that he was firm, in insistin’ that the city in future, from his time on, should be laid out differently, and after a better plan than the way it had been laid out up to his time. Old New York from the battery to Washington Square is all helter-skelter, cross and cut-cross, crooked and windin’ streets, but from Washington Square on towards Harlem new New York is more regularly laid out, and the streets run at right angles like decent respectable streets. And for this fact there is one man chiefly to thank, and his name is John Randel. He was employed for several years–fifteen, I think–as a sort of city surveyor under De Witt Clinton and others, and he worked upon the street “lay-outs” and their grades, honestly and intelligently, and every property owner uptown ought to bless his memory to-day.
Clinton in employin’ this man Randel, showed his usual good sense. Clinton was one of three men who had been appointed by the State of New York as a commission to “lay out” New York, and he hit upon Randel as the very best man to carry out the details. Gouverneur Morris and John Rutherford, who were in the commission along with Clinton, yielded to his superior ability and practical knowledge, and confirmed Randel’s appointment.
Randel conceived the idea of givin’ New York straight, wide streets, crossin’ at right angles to each other, and as far as he could carried out this idea, and impressed it on those comin’ after him.
He was a warm admirer of Broadway, and conceived the idea of an elevated street railroad for that thoroughfare. Accordin’ to his notion an L road would help, not hurt, Broadway, and his plan was to relieve the pressure on the street by havin’ the business done as it were in the second story, along the line of the L road, a platform extendin’ along this line by which people could enter the shops, leavin’ the street service beneath for a promenade and wagons and carriages. This idea came to the front many years afterwards, but it really originated with John Randel.
This Randel, however, differed in one very important respect from most of the geniuses who have ideas, which get carried out afterwards for the benefit of other people. He made money himself for himself, but strange to say he never made it by his ideas after all, but by litigation. He got into a row with the Chesapeake and Delaware Canal company and got, after nearly a dozen years’ fightin’, heavy damages, which enabled him to do what very few original geniuses ever can do, die a rich man.
[Editor’s notes: The Commission that appointed Randel included Gouvernor Morris, John Rutherford, and Simeon De Witt (a cousin of De Witt Clinton). Simeon De Witt held the office of New York State Surveyor General for 50 years.
Ezekiel Stone Wiggins, mentioned above in passing, was an amateur scientist and educator who predicted a huge storm to hit the Atlantic seaboard in March, 1883. Fishing fleets heeded his warnings, but the weather catastrophe failed to materialize.
A 2013 biography on Randel does a much better job of explaining the career of this interesting individual: The Measure of Manhattan: The Tumultuous Career and Surprising Legacy of John Randel, Jr., Cartographer, Surveyor, Inventor by Marguerite Holloway.
