FRIDAY, OCTOBER 9, 2020 – A MONUMENT TO WASHINGTON THAT NEVER WAS

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FRIDAY, OCTOBER 9 ,  2020

The

178th  Edition

From Our Archives

HAMILTON SQUARE

AND

JONE’S WOOD

Upper East Side 

Unknown History

The demise of the East Side’s Hamilton Square

Until 1869, amid the huge farms and estates that occupied today’s Upper East Side, a little neighborhood called Hamilton Square existed.

“On the old map of the city streets as laid out by the commission in 1807, from which came the present system of rectangular streets, an Alexander Hamilton Square was laid out on an extensive tract of city lands comprising the area bounded by Third and Fifth Avenues, 66th and 69th Streets,” a 1921 New York Times article explains.

There’s not a lot out there about Hamilton Square, so it’s hard to get a sense of what kind of neighborhood it was. An illustration of a church (below) exists, as do newspaper accounts of a proposed monument to George Washington in 1849.

Then, soon after Central Park opened in the 1859, it was wiped off the map, according to the Times piece:

“The western half, including the blocks west of Park Avenue with the Fifth Avenue frontage, was sold and the eastern portion was alloted by the city to various charitable and philanthropic institutions.”

These included Normal College (now Hunter College), the Seventh Regiment Armory, and Mt. Sinai Hospital.

Uptown, the city hosts another, newer Hamilton Square, at the junction of Hamilton Place, 143rd Street, and Amsterdam Avenue.

“Public Squares, Parks, and Places, 1852” Via New York Public Library Digital Collections.

Until the 1860s the City did little to improve Hamilton Square in what was then the outskirts of the City though it did allow a church to be constructed at the north end of the square. In 1847, a ceremony was held in Hamilton Square to place the cornerstone for a planned 425-foot tall monument to George Washington. However, that project never advanced further. In the 1850s Hamilton Square was used as the site for special events such as Cattle Shows.

With the decision in 1853 to create Central Park, a large public square nearby was seen as redundant and the City provided the land to public institutions instead. This included a home for the Normal College, a new institution for the training of women teachers, which was established in 1870 under its first president, Thomas Hunter. (In 1914 Normal College was renamed for Hunter.)

As Hamilton Square was being developed in the 1870s,Thomas Hunter and other local leaders attempted to preserve the last remaining undeveloped block. They signed a petition in 1879 stating that the empty block “is now a public nuisance covered with shanties and occupied by the lowest class of people, their dogs, goats and swine” and they urged the state legislature to “pass an act converting the aforesaid square into a public park to be named Hamilton square.”

JONE’S WOOD

Jones’s Wood

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Jones’s Wood was a block of farmland on the island of Manhattan overlooking the East River. The site was formerly occupied by the wealthy Schermerhorn and Jones families. Today, the site of Jones’s Wood is part of Lenox Hill, in the present-day Upper East Side of New York City.

History

Tomb of David Provoost (1857)

The farm of 132 acres (53 ha), known by its 19th-century owners as the “Louvre Farm”, extended from the Old Boston Post Road (approximating the course of Third Avenue) to the river and from present-day 66th Street to 75th Street.  It was purchased from the heirs of David Provoost (died 1781) by the successful innkeeper and merchant John Jones, to provide himself a country seat near New York.  The Provoost house, which Jones made his seat, stood near the foot of today’s 67th Street.After his death the farm was divided into lots among his children. His son James retained the house and its lot. His daughter Sarah, who had married the shipowner and merchant Peter Schermerhorn on April 5, 1804, received Division 1, nearest to the city. On that southeast portion of his father-in-law’s property, Peter Schermerhorn, soon after his marriage, had first inhabited the modest villa overlooking the river at the foot of today’s 67th Street.

19th century

In 1818, Peter Schermerhorn purchased the adjoining property to the south from the heirs of John Hardenbrook’s widow Ann, and adding it to his wife’s share of the Jones property—from which it was separated by Schermerhorn Lane leading to the Hardenbrook burial vault overlooking the river at 66th Street—named his place Belmont Farm. They at once moved into the handsomer Hardenbrook house looking onto the river at the foot of East 64th Street; there he remained, his wife having died on April 28, 1845. The frame house survived into the age of photography, as late as 1911. It survived an 1894 fire that swept Jones’s Wood almost clear and remained while the first building of The Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research, now Rockefeller University, was erected to its south. The block of riverfront property now occupied by Rockefeller University is the largest remaining piece of Jones’s Wood. The house was razed after 1903.

Behind the Facades

Tucked behind 65th and 66th Streets, just west of Third Avenue are a dozen townhouses that share a communal yard.  Instead of each house fencing off their yard, there is one community garden area with a small fountain in the center of the area.  There is no way to see the splendid oasis from the street.*

You can read more on Ephemeral New York about the garden.

FRIDAY PHOTO OF THE DAY
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THURSDAY  PHOTO  OF THE DAY

the Squibb Bridge to Brooklyn Bridge Park, a pedestrian shortcut 
to the waterfront.
Bill Schimoler was the winner!

CLARIFICATION
WE ARE HAPPY TO GIVE WINNERS OF OUR DAILY PHOTO IDENTIFICATION A TRINKET FROM THE VISITOR CENTER.
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EDITORIAL

For years my parents apartment looked out over part of the Jone’s Wood  houses and the garden.  It is a secret joy of living in the City.

My favorite part of being (working in one for years)  in a Manhattan high rise was looking into the secret gardens and backyards.  We were in luck that no high-rise obstructed views of the world below.

We should be so appreciative of our openness and views from our Island homes.

Judith Berdy

Text by Judith Berdy
Thanks to Bobbie Slonevsky for her dedication to Blackwell’s Almanac and the RIHS
Thanks to Deborah Dorff for maintaining our website
Edited by Melanie Colter  and Deborah Dorff
Roosevelt Island Historical Society
MATERIALS USED FROM:
EPHEMERAL NEW YORK
NEW YORK HISTORICAL SOCIETY
WIKIPEDIA

FUNDING PROVIDED BY ROOSEVELT ISLAND OPERATING CORPORATION PUBLIC PURPOSE GRANTS
CITY COUNCIL REPRESENTATIVE BEN KALLOS DISCRETIONARY FUNDING THRU DYCD

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