EP 6.10

The antagonists from a previous episode of All Aboard and the Astor Place Riot, the British actor William Charles Macready, and American actor Edwin Forrest, during this time, gently started stirring the pot. “Macready and Forrest each toured the others country twice before the riot broke out.” I can’t say exactly when these tours would begin and end, but I imagine it would take a year or more for actors to fulfill two tours in each others countries, losing favor-ability of the counterpart fan bases, with each pass. Until finally on May 7, 1849, a gang of Edwin Forrest supporters showed their love and admiration for the American hero, with projectile rotten eggs, potatoes, apples, and the like. Accompanied by groans of “Shame, Shame!” and “Down with the codfish aristocracy!”, all aimed at the British rival Macready. This incident having a great impact on Macready, planned to leave the country and call his tour early, but thank the lucky stars, our 48 most prominent citizens of New York came to the rescue with an article in the paper begging for his return to the theater on May 10, 1849. The night of Negredo, which once again, sets the print media a blaze. Many papers even calling the immediate cease and assist a “quite sensible movement… nothing can obliterate those stains of blood – nothing can banish those sad associations which have given the building so much disagreeable notoriety.” You know, we should just rezone the building, just use it for a different purpose, to attract different people. Many papers, inclining the originator, our friends at the New York Herald, falsely claiming the building is to be used for the late John Jacob Astor’s Library. This claim being directly refuted by the fact, the final place chosen in the aforementioned codicil 5 was arranged by Astor and the Trustees on March 3, 1841, 8 years before the riot. Though, blatantly false, this would have been a logical conclusion to come to, especially considering not even 1 month after the riot it was announced widely in the print media that the Trustees of the Astor Place Library had purchased the Opera House. This particular article being printed June 8, 1849. And it was widely reported in the print media at the time that the colloquially known Massacre Place was being renovated for the purposes of filling it with books, whether it be for the Astor Library, or someone else.

Reference EP 6.2 for articles covering the Astor Place Riot