<P> In 1842, water was piped from a reservoir to supply the city for the first time . </P> <P> The Great Irish Famine (1845--1850) brought a large influx of Irish immigrants, and by 1850 the Irish comprised one quarter of the city's population . Government institutions, including the New York City Police Department and the public schools, were established in the 1840s and 1850s to respond to growing demands of residents . </P> <P> This period started with the 1855 inauguration of Fernando Wood as the first mayor from Tammany Hall, an Irish immigrant - supported Democratic Party political machine that dominated local politics throughout this period and into the 1930s . Public - minded members of the old merchant aristocracy pressed for a Central Park, which was opened to a design competition in 1857; it became the first landscape park in an American city . </P> <P> During the American Civil War (1861--1865), the city was affected by its history of strong commercial ties to the South; before the war, half of its exports were related to cotton, including textiles from upstate mills . Together with its growing immigrant population, which was angry about conscription, sympathies among residents were divided for both the Union and Confederacy at the outbreak of war . Tensions related to the war culminated in the Draft Riots of 1863 by ethnic white immigrants, who attacked black neighborhood and abolitionist homes . Many blacks left the city and moved to Brooklyn . After the Civil War, the rate of immigration from Europe grew steeply, and New York became the first stop for millions seeking a new and better life in the United States, a role acknowledged by the dedication of the Statue of Liberty in 1886 . </P>

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