Monday, November 29, 2021 – ONLY VISIBLE TO A FEW, BUT WHAT A TREAT

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MONDAY,  NOVEMBER 29, 2021



The   532nd  Edition

JONES WOOD
HOMES AND GARDEN

FROM  EPHEMERAL NEW YORK

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.

A secret garden behind 12 East Side townhouses

April 16, 2018

New York has its very lovely public green spaces, playgrounds, and private parks.But some lucky residents have their own secret interior garden—a lush sanctuary of trees, flowers, and fountains hidden from the street between rows of brownstones and accessible only through the back doors of adjacent neighbors.

One of these magnificent gardens, Jones Wood Garden, lies between Lexington and Third Avenues and 65th and 66th Streets (above) on the same block as St. Vincent Ferrer Church.

The original Jones Wood was a 150-acre tract of high forested land that roughly spanned today’s 65th to 76th Streets from Third Avenue to the East River.

Named for a 19th century tavern owner and owned by prominent families, Jones Wood became a popular picnic and amusement spot. It was even in the running in the early 1850s to be the city’s first major public park. In the post–Civil War years after Central Park edged out Jones Wood, builders cut down the forests and put up blocks of brownstone residences in this Lenox Hill neighborhood, as thy did all over Manhattan. Demand for these private homes soured by the turn of the century, then picked up again after World War I. That’s when Jones Wood Garden got its start.

With well-to-do tenants in mind, developers purchased 12 brownstones (six on the north side of 65th Street, and six on the south side of 66th), then remodeled them by getting rid of their tall stoops and updating the amenities. They also designed a 100 by 108 feet sunken interior garden. “This will be paved with special paving brick and flagging, and will have a fountain with a pool,” explained a New York Times article from 1919. “Back of each house there will be a small and more intimate garden about 20 feet deep, upon which the dining room will open.” Shutters and trellises would be added to the back of each of these homes as well. Unless you live there or know someone who does, Jones Wood Garden is pretty much off-limits to most New Yorkers.

You can catch a glimpse of a few trees from the street, as I did below. But the garden sanctuary is very private, just as it was intended. Occasionally recent photos appear, particularly when one of the homes is up for sale. In 2015, the house at 160 East 66th Street hit the market for $12 million. Curbed has the photos, including one with the open dining room leading to the garden, as described in the 1919 Times piece. But to get a sense of the beauty and lushness of Jones Wood Garden, we have to rely on old images, such as these black and white photos from The Garden Magazine in 1922.

EDITORIAL

For over 30 year my parents lived in an apartment with a partial view of the Jones  Wood garden.  You could see the fountain in the center and the beauty of a communal area with no fences.

MONDAY PHOTO OF THE DAY

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rooseveltislandhistory@gmail.com.
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WEEKEND PHOTO OF THE DAY

Moshe Safdie’s Habitat 67 in Montreal, Canada.
Laura Hussey, Gloria Herman, M. Frank, Ed Litcher & Andy Sparberg
got it!!

SOURCES
Ephemeral New York

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

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