New York then knew the device as "the vertical railway." [Illustration: "THE TOWER OF THE METROPOLITAN BUILDING.

WHATEVER ARTISTS MAY THINK OF IT THE TOWER IS, STRUCTURALLY, ONE OF THE WONDERS OF THE WORLD.

EXACTLY HALFWAY BETWEEN SIDEWALK AND POINT OF SPIRE IS THE GREAT CLOCK WITH THE IMMENSE DIALS"] But between the time when Solomon Peters received his grant and the day when the opening of the Fifth Avenue Hotel ushered in a new era, the land experienced many vicissitudes.

In the last years of the eighteenth century it was a Parade Ground, at one time extending from Twenty-third to Thirty-fourth Streets, bounded on the east by the Eastern Post-road and on the west by the Bloomingdale Road.

At the southern end a Potter's Field was opened in 1794, and there were buried the victims of the frequent yellow-fever epidemics.