steamboats, and ships that clogged the slips. “New York was changing with disruptive speed,” writes historian Allan Horlick. “It was becoming strange where it had been familiar, and mysterious where it had been predictable.” At mid-century Joseph Scoville looked back to his youth and recalled a time when an average New Yorker “of no very extended acquaintance” could point out all the leading merchants, even direct a visitor to their homes.31 That memory faded rapidly as new faces arrived daily to rent apartments, find work, or start businesses.
