CHAPTER III

again he gets rights of land under water. He constantly solicits the Board of Aldermen for this or that right or privilege and nearly always succeeds. No property or sum is too small for his grasp. In 1832, when Eighth avenue, from Thirteenth to Twenty-third streets is graded down and the earth removed is sold by the city to a contractor for $3,049.44, Astor, Stephen D. Beekman and Jacob Taylor petition that each get a part of the money for earth removed from in front of their lots. This is considered such a petty attempt at defrauding, that the Aldermen call it an "unreasonable petition" and refuse to accede.²¹ In 1834 the Aldermen allow him a part of the old Hurlgate road, and Rhinelander a part of the Southampton road. Not a year passes but that he does not get some new right or privilege from the city government. At his request some streets are graded and improved; the improvement of such other streets as is not to his interest to have improved is delayed. Here sewers are placed; then they are refused. Every function of city administration was incessantly used by him. The cumulative effect of this class use of government was to give him and others a constant succession of grants and privileges that now have a prodigious value.