Old Buildings Of New York, With Some Notes Regarding Their Origin And Occupants

Old Buildings of New York City

OLD BUILDINGS OF NEW YORK CITY WITH SOME NOTES REGARDING THEIR ORIGIN AND OCCUPANTS NEW YORK BRENTANO’S MCMVII Copyright, 1907, by Brentano’s THE TROW PRESS, NEW YORK...

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Subjects

Old Buildings of New York City...

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Introductory

Recently a writer in a periodical stated that “No one was ever born in New York.” It can be safely said that this is an exaggeration. Nevertheless it showed the confidence of the writer that the statement was not likely to startle his readers very greatly. Probably not one in a hundred of the men in the street know or care anything about the town of fifty or sixty years ago. Still the number of those who were familiar with it then is large, however small in comparison with the whole number. In f

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Number Seven State Street

In the year 1806 he was living in the house here presented. His sister had married the celebrated merchant and ship owner, Archibald Gracie. His children were: (1) Sarah E. Rogers, who married the Hon. Samuel M. Hopkins; (2) Benjamin Woolsey Rogers, who married Susan, daughter of William Bayard; (3) Archibald Rogers, who married Anna, daughter of Judge Nathaniel Pendleton; and (4) Julia A. Rogers, who married Francis Bayard Winthrop. 8 In the year 1826 Benjamin Woolsey Rogers was living in the n

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Fraunces’s Tavern

On November 25, 1783, the day of the evacuation of the British, a grand banquet was given by Governor Clinton to General Washington and the French minister, Luzerne, and in the evening the “Queen’s Head” and the whole town were illuminated. More than a hundred generals, officers, and distinguished personages attended the banquet and thirteen toasts were drunk commemorative of the occasion. Ten days later Washington here met his generals for the last time. After a slight repast Washington filled

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Sub-Treasury and Assay Office

The Assay Office is the oldest building in Wall Street, having been built in 1823, for the New York branch of the Bank of the United States. It became the Assay Office in 1853. The oldest bank in the country is the Bank of North America in Philadelphia, incorporated by act of Congress, December, 1781, and by the State of Pennsylvania a few months afterwards. Very great losses had occurred from the repudiation of the Continental bills of credit. All the States had issued bills of their own and ke

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Bank of New York

On March 15, 1784, the following officers were chosen: General Alexander McDougal, president; Samuel Franklin, Robert Bowne, Comfort Sands, Alexander Hamilton, Joshua Waddington, Thomas Randall, William Maxwell, Nicholas Low, Daniel McCormick, Isaac Roosevelt, John Vanderbilt, and Thomas B. Stoughton, directors; and William Seton, cashier. The bank commenced business at what was formerly the old Walton house in St. George’s (now Franklin) Square. It stood on the east side of Queen (now Pearl) St

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St. Paul’s Chapel

George W. P. Custis, who was one of Washington’s family, spoke of St. Paul’s as being “quite out of town.” No doubt the great fire of 1776, which stopped when it got to the Chapel yard, left the Chapel standing isolated from buildings below it; but Custis, to get there from St. George’s (Franklin) Square, must have had to go some distance “down town.” It tends to show that the water front of the city was covered with buildings before the central part. The fact that the commissioners for making a

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The City Hall

The Common Council of that day, instead of being obtuse on the subject were quite the other way, and show by their records that they took a highly optimistic view of what they call the city’s “unrivaled” situation and opulence. They state their belief that in a very few years the hall that they were about to build would be the center of the wealth and population of the city. It was at first arranged to build entirely of brownstone, and the contractors got their work done as far as the basement,

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Astor Library

In 1881 another wing was added by his grandson, John Jacob Astor. This house was usually called the Langdon house, although it was never occupied by the family of that name. Mr. Walter Langdon’s house, directly opposite, was built much later. About 1845 the first John Jacob Astor wished to present his daughter, Mrs. Walter Langdon, with a city residence and built this house for her during her absence abroad. He built merely the shell of the house, and on his daughter’s return gave her the sum of

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The Langdon House

The property had a frontage of about two hundred and fifty feet on both Astor Place and Lafayette Place (now Lafayette Street), from which it was shut off by a high wall. The enclosed courtyard was laid out as a garden, with large trees, and the rear was occupied by the stables. The garden contained a ring large enough for riding purposes. Of course during the Forrest-Macready riot in 1849 the house was almost in what might be called the storm center. In the midst of it one of the servants, who

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St. Mark’s in the Bowery

In building the church Stuyvesant’s remains were removed and placed in a vault beneath the walls of the new edifice. The stone which may be seen fastened to the outer wall bears the following inscription: “In this vault lies buried Petrus Stuyvesant, late Captain General and Governor in Chief of Amsterdam in New Netherlands, now called New York, and the Dutch West India Islands, died A.D. 1671–2, aged 80 years.” In July, 1804, the church was draped in mourning for the death of Hamilton, and was

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Second Avenue Former Residence of the Late Lewis M. Rutherfurd

He was an associate of the Royal Astronomical Society, president of the American Photographical Society, and was the American delegate to the International Meridian Conference at Washington in 1885, preparing the resolutions embodying the results of the labors of the conference. He received many decorations and honors from the learned societies of the world, but his dislike of ostentation was such that he was never known to wear one of the decorations, emblems, etc., that were conferred upon him

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The Keteltas House

This house was formed by uniting two of the fine old residences on the north side of Washington Square. The interior has been admirably reconstructed. The house was formerly occupied by Edward Cooper (son of the late Peter Cooper), who was, at one time, Mayor of the City....

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Washington Square Residence of Eugene Delano

This church, representing the oldest Presbyterian organization in the city, was formed in 1716. The building was erected in 1845....

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First Presbyterian Church, Fifth Avenue

James Lenox was born in New York in 1800, and was the son of Robert Lenox, a wealthy Scotch merchant. He graduated from Columbia College in 1820 and entered upon a business life, but on the death of his father in 1839 he retired and devoted the rest of his life to study and works of benevolence. The collection of books and works of art became his absorbing passion, and eventually he gathered about him the largest and most valuable private collection of books and paintings in America. In 1870 he

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An Old Fifth Avenue House Former Residence of the Late James Lenox

Prior to the Civil War, the principal merchants and bankers were among the most prominent men in the city. The multimillionaire had not then appeared. The ships of Howland &amp; Aspinwall, N. L. &amp; G. Griswold, A. A. Low &amp; Brother, and Grinnell, Minturn &amp; Co. carried the flag to the farthest quarters of the globe, where their owners’ credit stood second to none. For speed the American clipper was unsurpassed. These “vessels performed wonderful feats—as when the Flying

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Another Old Fifth Avenue House Former Residence of the Late Robert B. Minturn

Mr. Minturn was a philanthropist and one of the best citizens the town ever had. The house is now the residence of Thomas F. Ryan. In the year 1700 the Public Library of New York was founded under the administration of the Earl of Bellomont, and seems to have progressed as the city grew, being aided from time to time by gifts from interested persons on the other side, several folio volumes now in the Society Library having been presented by friends in London in 1712, and in 1729 the Rev. Dr. Mil

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The Society Library

In December, 1788, a meeting of the proprietors was called, trustees were elected, and the library again resumed operations. The library was kept in a room in the Federal Hall in Wall Street and was used as the library of Congress. The first building put up for its use was on the corner of Nassau and Cedar streets in 1795, but the growth of the city compelling a change, a new building was erected in 1840 on the corner of Broadway and Leonard Street. The Library has occupied the present building

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Cruger House

The peculiarity of the Greenwich section of the town is that it has retained an individuality that no other section has retained. It is very much of an American quarter. The streets are lined with well-kept, comfortable brick houses, dating back sixty years or more, many of them with the elaborately ornamental iron railings and newel posts that are disappearing so rapidly. There is a marked paucity of the conventional tenement house, and although factories and warehouses are crowding it on all s

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Abingdon Square—Greenwich

The region was always noted for its healthfulness and when an epidemic of smallpox broke out Admiral Warren invited the Colonial Assembly to meet at his house. This made Greenwich the fashion, and for nearly a century when epidemics occurred the people flocked out of town to that village. At one time the Bank of New York transferred its business there. No history of this part of the city can be written without some reference to that bold Irish sailor, Admiral Sir Peter Warren. Post captain at th

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Gramercy Square

Now that St. John’s Park has been destroyed, Gramercy Park is the only private park in the city—that is, one restricted in its use to owners of houses facing it. Fifty years ago it had more seclusion. A high and dense hedge surrounded it on the inside of the iron fence. For some reason this was removed and never replanted. Now people in the park might almost as well be in the middle of the street. The figure on the fountain was then a Hebe perpetually filling her cup with water. In former days t

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Gramercy Square Residence of John Bigelow

While at Paris he published “Les États Unis d’Amerique.” This work corrected the erroneous views of the French as to the relative commercial importance of the Northern and Southern States and was effective in discouraging the supposed desire of the French Government for the disruption of the Union. Mr. Bigelow also conducted the negotiations leading to the withdrawal of the French army from Mexico. In 1875 he was elected to the office of Secretary of State of New York. He has published “The Life

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Gramercy Square Former Residence of the Late Luther C. Clark

Mr. Gerard was an eminent lawyer. Born in this city in 1794, of French ancestry on his father’s side, he graduated from Columbia College in 1811, and in 1816 took the degree of M.A. and was admitted to the bar. A man of great public spirit, he, in 1824, procured the incorporation of the House of Refuge for Juvenile Delinquents, the first institution of the kind in the country. Formerly, the police or “watchmen,” as they were called, wore no uniforms. Occasionally, an ordinary looking man would b

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Gramercy Square Former Residence of the Late James W. Gerard

Mr. Gerard devoted much of his time to charitable institutions and was especially interested in the public schools of the city. He was a capital speaker. His speeches were witty and always in good taste. That he was in constant demand, in his prime, at dinners both public and private, is readily perceived by looking through the pages of Mayor Philip Hone’s diary. Gramercy Park was founded in 1831 and this is said to be the oldest house facing it. Edwin Booth , perhaps the most distinguished Amer

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Gramercy Square “The Players”

He was crushed by the affair of the assassination of President Lincoln and retired from the stage for a year, but never lost his personal popularity. He opened Booth’s Theater in Twenty-third Street in 1869 and for thirteen years maintained the most popular revivals of Shakespeare’s tragedies ever known in the city. Although forced into bankruptcy in 1873, he retrieved his fortunes by earning two hundred thousand dollars in fifty-six weeks. In 1882 he went to Europe and was received with the gre

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Gramercy Square Former Residence of the Late Samuel J. Tilden

The gardens in the rear of these two houses were the largest in the row, extending through the block to Nineteenth Street, a part near the Belden house being formally laid out with box-edged walks and flower beds, while the rest was turfed and shaded by large trees, a few of which survived until a year or two ago, when they were cut down to make way for the new building of the National Arts Club, the present owner. Mr. Tilden, joining with the other owners on the square and the owners of the hou

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Gramercy Square Former Residence of the Late Rev. Dr. Henry W. Bellows

Dr. Mott was a distinguished surgeon, and one of the best-known citizens of the small town of sixty or seventy years ago. He previously lived at the easterly end of Depau Row. For many years Dr. M. resided in Paris, during the reign of Louis Philippe, whose physician he was. In 1841 26 a ball was given for the Prince de Joinville at the Depau Row house, and during the Civil War the Comte de Paris and brothers were entertained at the Gramercy Square house....

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Gramercy Square Former Residence of the Late Dr. Valentine Mott

This rectory has been the home of many clergymen celebrated in the community. One of the early rectors was Dr. Francis Lister Hawks. Born at Newbern, N. C., in 1798, he was ordained in 1827 and was conspicuous in the church up to the time of his death in 1866. In 1844 he became rector of Christ Church, New Orleans, and president of the University of Louisiana, and in 1849 he became rector of this parish. Being of Southern birth, he, at the outbreak of the Civil War, withdrew to the South, but re

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Gramercy Square Rectory of Calvary Parish

In 1844 he became rector of Christ Church, New Orleans, and president of the University of Louisiana, and in 1849 he became rector of this parish. Being of Southern birth, he, at the outbreak of the Civil War, withdrew to the South, but returned after the close of the war. He published many works on ecclesiastical and other subjects. He declined the bishopric of Mississippi and also that of Rhode Island. The Rev. Dr. Arthur Cleveland Coxe was at one time rector. He afterwards became the Bishop o

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Gramercy Square Former Residence of the Late Stanford White

Cyrus W. Field was a business man until about 1854–56, when with Peter Cooper, Moses Taylor, and others he organized the Atlantic Telegraph Company. Although the first cable was laid in 1858, it was not until 1866 that the enterprise was entirely successful, after Mr. Field had crossed the ocean thirty times in the prosecution of the work. He received the thanks of Congress and many other honors. His brother, David Dudley Field, was conspicuous at the New York bar for over fifty years. For forty

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Gramercy Square Former Residence of the Late Cyrus W. Field and the Late David Dudley Field

His brother, David Dudley Field, was conspicuous at the New York bar for over fifty years. For forty years of this time he devoted all his spare moments to the subject of the reform of the law and obtained a marked success. The new system of civil procedure has been adopted in many States and substantially followed in Great Britain. In 1873 he was elected the first president of an association for the reform and codification of the law of nations formed at Brussels in that year. 27 The two houses

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Former Residence of the Late Peter Cooper and the Late Abram S. Hewitt

Mr. Cooper made many inventions in connection with this business. He became associated with Cyrus W. Field in his efforts to lay the Atlantic Cable, and the final success of that enterprise was in great measure due to his coöperation. Mr. Cooper is perhaps best known as the founder of the Cooper Institute, of which he commenced the construction as early as 1853. The objects of this institution were to furnish free schools in art and science and a free reading room and to provide free lectures on

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The General Theological Seminary Chelsea

It has been thought that the name of Greenwich was given to the neighboring estate by Admiral Warren for a corresponding sentimental reason, but Mr. Janvier, in that very entertaining book, “In Old New York,” shows that the name of Greenwich was in use long before the admiral’s advent. Captain Clarke, unfortunately, was not destined long to enjoy the house he had built. During his last illness, the house caught fire and the captain came very near being burned with it, but he was carried out by n

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Church of the Transfiguration

George Holland was a short, thickset man with a rather large head, who was seldom cast for a very prominent part, but his humor and his evident geniality and honesty made him a favorite with the public. Consequently when the story of his funeral became public, there was some indignation expressed. It is fair to the Rev. Dr. Sabine, however, to say that it is claimed that when approached by the parties having charge of the funeral, he told them that the Church of the Incarnation was undergoing re

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Former Residence of the Late Edwin D. Morgan

He was a most generous benefactor to charitable institutions during his lifetime and also by virtue of his last will and testament. 31 The grounds attached to this house are extensive for New York City. The view of the Hudson, on a fine day, to a person looking northward from Claremont is one of the best on the river. Being on a high point that juts out somewhat into the stream, the spectator appreciates the river’s breadth. In former days the site of Claremont was remarkable for its magnificent

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Claremont

Pollock endeavored to improve the place by clearing and cultivation, as is shown by the statement in a letter mentioned below, in which he says: “I have long considered those grounds as of my own creation, having selected them when wild, and brought the place to its present form.” He named the place “Strawberry Hill.” After living there for some years and after the loss of a child (said to have occurred by drowning) he withdrew to England. Almost everyone who has visited Grant’s Tomb remembers t

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Hamilton Grange

This house was built in 1758 by Captain (afterwards Colonel) Roger Morris of the British army, who had been an aide of General Braddock. Morris married a daughter of Colonel Philipse. The Philipse estate embraced a great part of the present Westchester and Putnam counties. The manor hall erected about 1745 (the oldest part probably about 1682) now constitutes the City Hall of Yonkers. 44 In that house, on July 3, 1730, was born Mary Philipse, and in the drawing-room on Sunday afternoon, January

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The Jumel House

“While they were feasting a tall Indian, closely wrapped in a scarlet blanket, appeared at the door of the banquet hall, and with measured words said: ‘Your possessions shall pass from you when the eagle shall despoil the lion of his mane.’ He as suddenly disappeared.... The bride pondered the ominous words for years ... and when, because they were royalists in action, the magnificent domain of the Philipses was confiscated by the Americans at the close of the Revolution, the prophecy and its fu

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Gracie House—East River Park

There was an old house at Gracie’s Point belonging to Mrs. Prevoost, and this he either altered and enlarged or else removed entirely and built the present structure, but at what time it is not known. In the year 1805 Josiah Quincy was entertained there at dinner. He describes enthusiastically the situation, overlooking the then terribly turbulent waters of Hell Gate. He said: “The shores of Long Island, full of cultivated prospects and interspersed with elegant country seats, bound the distant

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The Gouverneur Morris House49

He was soon recognized as applying a clear brain to the solution of any important question submitted to him, and we find him writing a memoir for the guidance of the king and the draught of a speech to be delivered before the National Assembly. The Monciel scheme, usually mentioned in the biographies of Morris, was a well-conceived plan to get the king out of Paris. Monciel, one of the ministry, consulted Morris as to the details of the plan, and the king deposited with him his papers and the su

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Van Cortlandt House

Washington slept here the night before the evacuation of the city by the British, November 25, 1785. The estate has been bought by the city and is now known as Van Cortlandt Park. It contains 1,070 acres. There is a lake covering sixty acres and a parade ground for the National Guard on a level meadow of 120 acres. The house is used as a museum and is crowded with interesting relics....

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The Bowne House—Flushing

This house was built in 1661 by John Bowne, a native of Matlock, Derbyshire, England, in whose church he was baptized in the year 1627. About 1672 George Fox, founder of the sect of Quakers or Friends, visited Flushing and held meetings there. Bowne’s wife 63 frequently attended the meetings, and after a time joined the sect. As a result of this, Quakers were often entertained at the house. Governor Stuyvesant had Bowne arrested for “harboring Quakers,” and he was thrown into jail. Prior to this

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The Billop House

After the battle of Long Island, Howe thought it an opportune time to offer favorable terms to the colonists if they were willing to lay down their arms. Accordingly he dispatched General Sullivan (then a prisoner) to Congress requesting them to send a committee to negotiate. This committee, composed of Benjamin Franklin, Edward Rutledge, and John Adams, met Howe at the Billop house. “Along the sloping lawn in front of the house, long lines of troops that formed the very flower of the British ar

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