Bill Nye

A Guest at the Ludlow Bill Nye

We are stopping quietly here, taking our meals in our rooms mostly, and going out verylittle indeed. When I say we, I use the term editorially. We notice first of all the great contrast between this and other hotels, and in severalinstances this one is superior. In the first place, there is a sense of absolute security whenone goes to sleep here that can not be felt at a popular hotel, where burglars secretethemselves in the wardrobe during the day and steal one's pantaloons and contents atnight. This is one of the compensations of life in prison. Here the burglars go to bed at the hour that the rest of us do. We all retire at the same time, and a murderer can not sit up any later at night than the smaller or unknown criminal can. You can get to Ludlow Street Jail by taking the Second avenue Elevated train to Grandstreet, and then going east two blocks, or you can fire a shotgun into a Sabbath-school. You can pay five cents to the Elevated Railroad and get here, or you can put some otherman's nickel in your own slot and come here with an attendant. William Marcy Tweed was the contractor of Ludlow Street Jail, and here also he died. Hewas the son of a poor chair-maker, and was born April 3, 1823. From the chair business in1853 to congress was the first false step. Exhilarated by the delirium of official life, and thefalse joys of franking his linen home every week, and having cake and preserves frankedback to him at Washington, he resolved to still further taste the delights of office, and in1857 we find him as a school commissioner. In 1860 he became Grand Sachem of the Tammany Society, an association at that timemore purely political than politically pure. As president of the board of supervisors, head ofthe department of public works, state senator, and Grand Sachem of Tammany, Tweed hada large and seductive influence over the city and state. The story of how he earned a scantylivelihood by stealing a million of dollars at a pop, and thus, with the most rigid economy, scraped together $20,000,000 in a few years by patient industry and smoking plug tobacco, has been frequently told. Tweed was once placed here in Ludlow Street Jail in default of $3,000,000 bail. How fewthere are of us who could slap up that amount of bail if rudely gobbled on the street by thehand of the law. While riding out with the sheriff, in 1875, Tweed asked to see his wife, andsaid he would be back in a minute. He came back by way of Spain, in the fall of '76, looking much improved. But the malariaand dissipation of Blackwell's Island afterwards impaired his health, and having done timethere, and having been arrested afterwards and placed in Ludlow Street Jail, he died hereApril 12, 1878, leaving behind him a large, vain world, and an equally vain judgment for$6,537,117.38, to which he said he would give his attention as soon as he could get a pavingcontract in the sweet ultimate