This blocked up doorway on a subway station holds a secret that is still felt on the streets of New York today.
The Astor Place subway station on the IRT Lexington Avenue line is home to some of the most distinctive tile work on the New York metropolitan subway system. One of the original 28 subway stations, the walls are decorated with plaques depicting beavers, in honour of the pelt trade in which John Jacob Astor made his fortune.
But often overlooked on the south bound entrance is a bricked up doorway which recalls the tale of one of the most unusual events in New York history. Above the blocked off door, is a lintel inscribed "Clinton Hall." At one point this led directly into the old New York Mercantile Library in the former Astor Place Opera House. The library, known as Clinton Hall, at 21 Astor Place, was created for the growing number of clerks in the city. With a membership of 12,000, the library held over 120,000 volumes, one of the largest periodical subscriptions in the city, cabinets of curiosities, and held lectures by such luminaries as Ralph Waldo Emerson, Frederick Douglas, and Mark Twain.
But the address named after America's once richest man, was the site of one of the most bizarre events in New York history. The library building's previous tenant was the Astor Place Opera House, and in 1849, there took place an evening of violence, whose after effects are still felt today: the Shakespeare Riots!
On May 7th 1849, a riot broke out at the Opera House over a simmering dispute over whether English actor William Charles Macready or American born Edwin Forest could better perform Shakespeare's principal characters, Hamlet and Macbeth. At the heart of the riot was a long standing discord dating back to the Revolutionary War, between the American born natives, and their former colonial overlords. Pamphlets were handed out asking "SHALL AMERICANS OR ENGLISH RULE THIS CITY?" Edwin Forest was championed by the Bowery gangs of the infamous Five Points, whilst Macready was championed by the more Anglophile upper classes. As violence broke out on the night of the performance the city ordered armed militia to quell the riots. Firing into the crowds of over 10,000 protestors, at least 25 civilians were killed. The Tribune reported that, "as one window after another cracked, the pieces of bricks and paving stones rattled in on the terraces and lobbies, the confusion increased, till the Opera House resembled a fortress besieged by an invading army rather than a place meant for the peaceful amusement of civilized community."
The Opera house closed soon after, becoming the Mercantile Library. The original building was replaced in 1904 with the 11 story structure that is there today. The library created for the cities clerks became the non-profit Centre For Fiction and moved to East 47th Street; its former headquarters were turned into apartments, and its private members entrance leading from the Astor Place subway station was bricked up. If it was open today, it would lead up into a ubiquitous Starbucks. But the Shakespeare Riots themselves had a lasting effect which is still felt in New York today; it led to the creation of the city's first armed police force. But as to whether who between Macready and Forest was the better Shakespearean actor, we will never know.