CHAPTER XI.
_The Slope of Murray Hill_ Stretches of the Avenue--Murray Hill: a Slope in Transition--Early Astor Land Purchases--The Brunswick Building--A Deserted Clubland--Churches of the Stretch--The Marble Collegiate--The "Little Church Around the Corner" and its Story--When Grant's Funeral Procession Passed--The Waldorf and the Astoria--On the Hill in 1776--When the Red-Coats Loitered.
After its half-mile journey between the great, square sordid mountains of stone and steel that lie to the north of Fourteenth Street, Fifth Avenue emerges into the sunshine of Madison Square.

There it draws in deep breaths of pure ozone before resuming its way as a canyon at Twenty-sixth Street.

Reverting to the past, from the Square to Thirty-first Street, the lane runs through what was the Caspar Samler farm.

North of that were the twenty acres that John Thompson bought in 1799 for four hundred and eighty-two pounds and ten shillings.

A little later, a more familiar name appeared on the maps.