It was just a day similar to other days that had gone before and to days that were to follow.  To feel the thrill of what were held to have been the great days of the past we must put ourselves in the mood of old New York, or at the very least think of the world as it was wagging along a brief four years ago.

“The national banquet-hall where heroes and statesmen have been feted, or the parade-ground toward which a nation has turned to witness great demonstrations in celebration of national events of a civic or military or mournful nature.  Along it have gone to the music of dirges and the sound of mournful drums the funeral corteges of many of the country’s leading statesmen and greatest men, and here, too, have occurred riots and disastrous fires which have startled the city and shocked the nation.”  So runs the introduction to a little pamphlet issued some years ago by the Fifth Avenue Bank.  One of the earliest and most notable visits, the brochure goes on to tell us, was that of the then Prince of Wales, later Edward VII., in the autumn of 1860.  He was then nineteen years old.  The city turned out to greet him.  On Thursday, October 11th, the revenue cutter, “Harriet Lane,” brought the Prince to New York from South Amboy.  Then, a day of blaring bands, of blended flags, of great transparencies, that eventually led to the Fifth Avenue Hotel.  He was still very young, still very much of a boy, very much bored with all the tumult and ceremony.  Once out of sight of the crowd he threw dignity to the winds and played leap-frog in the corridor with his retinue.  But once again, from his bed, to which he had gone with a bad headache, he was called at midnight to acknowledge the salutes of the Caledonia Club.  That organization, made up mostly of members of the Scotch Regiment commanded by Colonel McLeay, headed by Dodsworth’s Band, marched up Broadway to the hotel.  In the Prince’s honour a serenade was given, the band blared out with “God Save the Queen!”, “Hail Columbia!” and other national airs, and once more the sleepy and sorely tried royal visitor was obliged to appear to bow his thanks.

The next day, Friday, was given over to visiting such public buildings as the Astor Library, Cooper Union, the Free Academy, and in riding through Central Park.

A ball, famous in city annals, was given at the Academy of Music.  Among those who attended that ball and left a record of it was the late Ward McAllister.  “Our best people, the smart set, the slow set, all sets, took a hand in it, and the endeavor was to make it so brilliant and beautiful that it would always be remembered by those present as one of the events of their lives.”

The ball was opened by a quadrille d’honneur.  Governor and Mrs. Morgan, the historian Bancroft and Mrs. Bancroft, Colonel and Mrs. Abraham Van Buren, with others were to dance in it.  The rush was so great that the floor gave way, and in tumbled the whole centre of the stage.  Carpenters set feverishly to work to floor over the chasm.