Alexander Hamilton's "Country Home" on the Move in New York City

Posted May 30th, 2008 by Kurt Repanshek

The Hamilton Grange, Alexander Hamilton's home, is moving to a new location in New York City. The accompanying sketch shows how the Grange appeared in its original location. NPS photo and sketch.

A tricky move, one some see as controversial, is under way to move Alexander Hamilton's "country home" less than two blocks to a new location in New York City.

This is not the first time the home, officially known as the Hamilton Grange National Memorial, was relocated. In 1889 it was moved from its original location in upper Manhattan to Convent Avenue. The decision to relocate the home once again stemmed from the neighboring buildings that sandwiched the Grange and towered above it. The new location, in 23-acre St. Nicholas Park, will be roomier and, while not duplicating the home's original bucolic, 32-acre setting, will be more park-like than the Convent Avenue setting.

Crews earlier this week lifted the Hamilton Grange off its foundation and will use massive dollies to roll the two-story building down Convent Avenue to its new resting place in St. Nicholas Park. If things go as planned, on Saturday morning, June 7, the Grange will move south on Convent Avenue, turn east onto 141st Street and then right into the northwest corner of St. Nicholas Park, where preparations will begin to place the Grange onto its new foundation.

Mr. Hamilton, the nation's first Treasury secretary and one of the Founding Fathers, commissioned architect John McComb Jr. to design a Federal style country home on his estate in upper Manhattan. This house was completed in 1802 and named "The Grange" after the Hamilton family's ancestral home in Scotland.

However, Mr. Hamilton only lived in the home two years, as he was shot and killed on July 11, 1804, in a duel with Vice President Aaron Burr.

The National Park Service has been working closely with the New York City Department of Parks & Recreation, NYPD, FDNY, City College of New York, the Department of Transportation and others, to ensure the safety of the Grange’s valued neighbors and to minimize disruptions during the move.

Now, about the controversy. It seems that the original orientation of the Hamilton Grange had the front door facing to the southwest, but due to circumstances involving the land the home is being moved to the front door will face northeast. According to a story that ran in the New York Times,

This is a grave concern to some preservationists, who believe the government is squandering a chance to authentically restore the home of a towering founding father.

“It’s Preservation 101 that the house should be retained in its original orientation,” said Ron Melichar, president of the Harlem Heights-West Harlem Community Preservation Organization. Orientation affects not only the exterior appearance but the way that light plays within the house’s octagonal parlor and dining room.

Park Service officials, though, say it wouldn't have made sense to orient the front door to the southwest in the new location as that would have had the house facing a hillside.

Once the move is complete, Park Service crews will continue to work on restoring the home. Studies have been done to determine how the house looked in Hamilton's time, and the Park Service intends to fully restore the exterior and make it possible to view the entire Grange. The interior of the house will re-open to the public in 2009.

Comments

JimInNewYork (not verified)

On May 30th, 2008

Thank you, Kurt, for this great story !

We have only been able to see the side of this once-beautiful building, as the front and back were pinned against adjacent buildings, and the graceful front and back porches torn away.

Hamilton is the symbol of New York and was as responsible as anyone in lifting New York from the economic devastation caused by the British attack and occupation of the City. The British attack in 1776 was followed by a fire that destroyed much of the town, and an enemy occupation that did not end until days AFTER the peace treaty was signed. For years afterward, New York did not regain its former vitality, in the same way other cities destroyed by the British, such as Providence, RI, NEVER recovered their prominence destroyed in those attacks. New York citizens were also economically destroyed by buying bonds to support the American Revolution, bonds that after victory were worth pennies on the dollar.

What Hamilton did was cut a deal with Thomas Jefferson. The U.S. Government agreed to back the bonds, to provide a flood of currency and restored credit in New York and throughout the new nation, and Jefferson extracted the agreement that the U.S. Capital would be removed from New York -- hated by Jefferson -- to the slave states of the south.

Hamilton opposed slavery and he and John Jay and even Aaron Burr collaborated with others to found an anti-slavery society to rid New York of slavery. Legislation was passed that slowly extinguished slavery from New York in timed thresholds. This compromise was a painfully slow process, but slavery was eliminated from New York long before it was eliminated from Maryland and Virginia, where Jefferson 'safely' ensconced the new capital.

As a boy of no family abandoned by his father, mother dead, Hamilton rose by sheer ability and sometimes-frightening intensity. This house, The Grange, reflected his belief that in America everyone should have the opportunity to rise by their ability, and not by the condition of their birth.

Anonymous (not verified)

On May 30th, 2008

You know there no real good reason to once again to be moving the hamilton house.people need to let good things alone.Instead they need to focus on more important htings like running new york city without corruption.