Relocation and Reorientation
In 1876, Commissioner William Wood contributed the following remarks at the groundbreaking ceremony of the Normal College of the City of New York’s new 68th Street location: “No locality could be more admirably adapted for such an institution... ‘— the air / Nimbly and sweetly recommends itself / Unto our gentle senses.’” Wood’s quotation comes from act one, scene six of Macbeth, when King Duncan arrives at Macbeth’s Inverness Castle. Wood summoned the line to depict a romantic, naturalistic harmony between the Normal College and its new location. Yet, an audience familiar with the play might find this to be a peculiar choice. In the play, Duncan’s appraisal brims with dramatic irony: before the night is over, he is murdered by his host on the very grounds that he had previously judged so favorably. Wood’s speech, therefore, inadvertently imbues the ceremony with a portending tone; one which enables us to consider what such a genteel appraisal may have been overlooking during this historic moment for the Normal College.
In this case, the notion of harmony between place and function is neglectful because it disengages present action from the history of the land in question. From whom and under what circumstances the land was acquired take a backseat to the arrogant intentions of the present. By 1869, the land upon which the Normal College relocated was already a palimpsest. As such, the goal of this project is to better understand the relationship between the Normal College – and thereby, present-day Hunter College – and the land it occupies. Through an analysis a commissioner’s speech, various maps, and the development of Central Park, I argue that the Normal College’s relocation to 68th Street implicated the institution within a history that was non-native to its own origin: namely, New York City’s forcible displacement of Seneca Villagers prior to the construction of Central Park.
The Normal College: Relocation Plans
The Normal College only operated at its original 694 Broadway location for a few years. In this same speech as cited above, Commissioner Wood recalls a dinner party at Isaac Bell’s W 22nd Street mansion in October of 1869. During that dinner, members of the Board of Education engaged in a lively discussion about the Normal College’s progress and future. Of all the suggestions raised, the most significant was to “acquire suitable premises in which to carry on the school” (340). According to Wood, Board of Education officials were not only proud of the school’s initial success; they were also grateful that “No breath of scandal [had] tarnished the fair fame of the college during the two years of its existence in not the best neighborhood of New York” (343). The remark suggests that the decision to relocate the Normal College was due at least in part to school board officials’ negative perception of the original neighborhood around 694 Broadway. Their push, therefore, was to relocate to a safer, more desirable neighborhood Yet, finding a suitable location in an already developed part of the city would have been an extraordinary expense and one the college likely could not have afforded, given Wood’s remark that the original location was “the only one where the requisite accommodation could be obtained” (338). Thus, the new land needed to be cheap.
The Board of Education’s search for a new home for the Normal School luckily coincided with the City of New York’s push to get rid of a plot called Hamilton Square. By 1852, Hamilton Square was the fifth largest public park in New York City, stretching from 66th Street to 68th Street and Park Avenue to Fifth Avenue, and occupying a total of 649,890 square feet (see figure 1).
In July of 1870, The New York Times published that “Commissioners of the Sinking Fund have, as empowered by law, given the plot of ground bounded by Sixty-eighth and Sixty-ninth streets, Fourth and Lexington avenues, as a site for a Normal College and Training School” (“Board of Education: The Normal College”). Only a few months after the Board of Education’s search began in 1869, it had concluded: the Normal College would be granted a section of Hamilton Square by the city, free of charge. But why would the city give this land away for free?
Figure 1. Top Left: Assemblage of New York City’s public parks in 1852. Top right: The site of Hamilton Square. Left: Square footage and acreage of each public park. Lionel Pincus and Princess Firyal Map Division, The New York Public Library. "Public squares, parks, and places in the City of New York." The New York Public Library Digital Collections. 1852. https:// digital collections.nypl.org/items/3d7 c42c0-f39f-0130-18 67-58d 385a7b928.
Nearly a decade before the city gave the Normal College part of Hamilton Square, The New York Times published a series of articles regarding the “question of title or right of the City to sell Hamilton-square for private purposes” (“News of the Day”). That question was rooted in general uncertainty regarding the legal ownership of Hamilton Square. One New York Times article from 1861 states that “no claims [had] been made by private citizens to any portion of said square...and no question of title or right of the City to sell said property for private purposes could arise” (“New-York State Legislature”). The city was concerned that if they sold the land too hastily and a claimant stepped forward after the fact, it could encounter significant legal trouble.
This considerations were further complicated given that the previous owner of Hamilton Square was speculated to be the late Alexander Hamilton. A New York Times article from 1861 describes “a bill to make a present of many hundred thousand dollars…to the heirs of Gen. Alexander Hamilton, by whom the [Hamilton Square] was originally deeded to the City for the purpose of forming a Park or Military Parade ground, with a provision that, on ceasing to be so used, it should revert to his general estate, and be divided amongst his heirs” (“Yelverton Trial”). If Hamilton had owned Hamilton Square, then according to this provision, his heirs would have been entitled to the property. A separate New York Times article from 1861 writes that, based on information the author received from “a source entitled to full credit,” reports identifying Alexander Hamilton as the previous owner of Hamilton Square were unfounded (“Hamilton-Square”). Clearly, there were conflicting narratives pertaining to Hamilton Square’s history. Since the current research has not uncovered additional documentation to either support or dispute a link between Hamilton and Hamilton Square, that potentiality is reserved for brief discussion in the concluding “Future Research” section.
Despite the City of New York’s uncertainty, it did eventually choose to give Hamilton Square land to the Normal College at no cost, and that remains a point of interest. It is conceivable that the decision was influenced by the emergence of Central Park. Starting in at least the early 1860s, there was a sense that the smaller parks located along Central Park’s perimeter had become redundant and no longer contributed the economic or social value they once had. One of the articles that The New York Times published regarding the “question of title or right of the City to sell Hamilton-square for private purposes” states that in January of 1862, a bill was before the State Senate to decide whether the city had legal permission to parcel Manhattan Square, a park located between 77th & 81st Street and Eighth & Ninth Avenue (see figure 1). The report states that the bill “simply proposes to convert so much idle and pointless land, which the gigantic proportions of the neighboring Central Park have rendered useless as a public resort, into a source of municipal revenue” (“The Sale of Disused Parks”). The argument for Manhattan Square’s obsolescence is then applied to Hamilton Square at the end of the article: “If [the sale of Manhattan Square] be followed by a similar sale of Hamilton-square...the public, so far from raising a voice of complaint, will hail the present Legislature as public benefactors” (“The Sale of Disused Parks”). Like Manhattan Square, Hamilton Square was no longer considered the valuable entity it once was, as Central Park now outshined it as both a beacon of commercial and recreational interest. But Hamilton Square still did have something going for it: ironically, its proximity to Central Park.
Central Park, The Normal College, and Upper East Side Real Estate
The Board of Education considered the acquisition of Hamilton Square to be a huge win, not least because of its proximity to Central Park. During Commissioner Wood’s opening speech at the groundbreaking ceremony, he proudly declared that “splendid [Central] Park itself is close by the college, and not even the groves of Academus themselves could rival this noble and stately ‘pleasaunce’” (314). While prone to rhetorical flourishes, Wood’s comment here hits the mark. Central Park was a benefit to the Normal College not simply because of the verdant respite it offered students and faculty. The park drastically influenced the neighborhoods that would come to surround it, increasing property values by incredible magnitudes. A 1912 advertisement in the New-York Tribune references this property boom, albeit with an eye toward driving public interest for lots surrounding Van Cortlandt Park in the Bronx. The ad references Lenox Farm, a 30-acre plot adjacent to Hamilton Square. At the time of the ad’s publication, Lenox Farm was allegedly worth $30MM (see Figure 2). A century prior in 1818, Robert Lenox purchased the land from Archibald Gracie at the Tontine Coffee House Auction for a staggeringly low price of $6,920 (“Death of James Lenox”).
Figure 2. Left: An advertisement for Van Cortlandt Estate lots. Right: A drawing of Lenox Farm. New-York Tribune.
(New York, NY) 4 Jun. 1912, pp. 12. Retrieved from the Library of Congress, www.loc.gov/item /sn83030214/1912-06-04/ed-1/.
Central Park clearly inspired tremendous economic growth in the neighborhoods bordering its perimeter. It also seems to have greatly affected the experience of at least some students at the Normal College. Ruth Limmer’s 1987 article “The Dim Ages: Early Years at Hunter’s College,” she reports of an anonymous student’s “paean” to Central Park that was included in an 1891 publication of the student magazine, Echo:
What is more distinctly American in our city than Central Park. [sic] Its ample grounds, its unstinted luxuriance, its alternation between primeval grandeur and the cultivation of today, its half-natural, half-artificial spots of verdure, are they not typical of our country? Often we feel tempted to hang our heads in shame at the mention of the faults of New York City. We feel scarcely a throb of that pride of native place, which so marks many of the greatest ancients and moderns. Yet if we stand at the side of our Park...can we not feel a thrill of pleasure in the possession of this priceless gift?” (13-14).
The student felt that Central Park had both a material and nonmaterial effect on their campus experience, but also on their relationship to New York City as a whole. Their commentary brings into focus the relationship between land possession (even indirect, as in the case of a student) and one’s sense of ownership over and nativeness to that space. While the author does not explicitly state any particular “faults” of New York City, it can be inferred from the subsequent sentence (i.e., “We feel…) that nativeness and cultural longevity were two preoccupations. The student therefore positions both as staple conditions for the student’s sense of pride for and belonging within New York City. An alternative reading that interprets “faults” more broadly still retains potency; it would present a relationship between fault and pride in which attention toward one has the ability to shroud the other. Specific to this scenario, the student’s pride for Central Park could be read to overshadow any faults that might exist within it or because of it.
Conclusions: Seneca Village & The Normal School
One such “fault” in the Normal College’s history emerges when the school is studied through its relationship to the land it occupies. From 1824 until 1856, Seneca Village thrived as the largest community of Black homeowners in New York City (New-York Historical Society, pp. 3-4). When the city declared eminent domain in the Summer of 1853 in order to begin construction on Central Park, nearly 1,600 people living in the area were forced to leave; about 300 of them lived in Seneca Village (New-York Historical Society, pp. 4). It comes as no surprise, but the city’s approach to handling land acquisition in the cases of Seneca Village and Hamilton Square could not have been more different. In the case of Hamilton Square, the city deliberated, publicly even, about what it could reasonably and legally do with a park that appeared to have no clear owner. And while the park was eventually repossessed by the city, no records suggest that it was seized through a forcible act of eminent domain. The city did not grant Black homeowners and Black settlers living in Seneca Village nearly the consideration that it offered to speculative figures in the case of Hamilton Square.
The connection between the Normal College and Seneca Village materializes when analyzed through their mutual, yet clearly opposite relationships to Central Park. The construction of Central Park included the seizure of Seneca Villagers’ land. Once Central Park was completed, it was unmatched in size and grandeur by any of New York City’s existing parks and it rendered those like nearby Hamilton Square obsolete. The city, unsure whether it could legally sell Hamilton Square, granted it to the Normal College at no cost as a gift to the institution and an investment in its continued success.
The documentation provided in this report does not amass a case to indict the Normal College as a direct perpetrator of violence against the Black community of Seneca Village. It does, however, support the claim that without Central Park’s construction (and thereby, Seneca Village’s destruction), the Normal College would not have been afforded the space that its successor, Hunter College, continues to call home today.
Future Research: Alexander Hamilton
As discussed previously, there appears to be an unsettled debate in the archive about whether Alexander Hamilton actually owned Hamilton Square. Further investigation into this question could be very beneficial to better understanding the Normal College’s and Hunter College’s ties to slavery, the slave trade, and abolition.
In addition, there is present debate as to whether Alexander Hamilton was an enslaver. John Jay’s online New York Slavery Record Index has a page dedicated to presenting the intricacies of the question. It opens by explaining: “Until recently, the New York Slavery Records Index did not list Alexander Hamilton as an enslaver because we had no record to support this designation…However, this year, we discovered a document that caused us to reassess the decision” (“Alexander Hamilton the Enslaver?”). The document in question is an account of New York City’s Yellow Fever epidemic of 1798. It lists everyone in New York known to have died from Yellow Fever. Alexander Hamilton’s name appears, not regarding his death, but rather alongside the designation: “the black man of” (“Alexander Hamilton the Enslaver?”). Based on an analysis of all entries, researchers at John Jay concluded that this is plausibly the author’s methodology for stating that the individual who died was enslaved by the person listed next to them. If corroborated, that would result in a direct indictment against Hamilton.
But even if the evidence does not support that conclusion, there is little denying that Hamilton benefited immensely thanks to the wealth of those involved in the slave trade. In Ebony & Ivory: Race, Slavery, and the Troubled History of America’s Universities, Craig Wilder succinctly identifies the various moments when Hamilton’s access to opportunity overlapped with his proximity to slavery. On page 48, Wilder notes:
A job with a slave trader had rescued him from poverty. Donations from slave traders saved him from
despair. His new life began with his arrival on a slave trader’s ship. His New York and New Jersey
sponsors included Crugers, Livingstons, Boudinots, and other elite families who enrolled him at a
college funded and governed by merchants. His tuition and fees were paid from the sale of barrels of
rum, manufactured on slave plantations, that Cruger’s firm sent to New York.
Hamilton’s proximity to wealth accrued from slavery and the slave trade accounted for many of the formational events of his life. Whether he was an enslaver himself, his life was enmeshed within an economic system that was heavily predicated on slavery. This presents another significant opportunity for further research.
References
“Alexander Hamilton The Enslaver?” New York Slavery Records Index, www.nyslavery.commons.gc.cuny.edu/alexander-hamilton- enslaver/. Accessed 24 May 2021.
“Board of Education—The Normal College.” The New York Times, July 21 1870. The TimesMachine.
“City Again has Hamilton Square.” The New York Times, May 15, 1921. The TimesMachine.
“Death of James Lenox: The End of a Philanthropic Life.” The New York Times, 19 Feb 1880. The TimesMachine.
“Hamilton-square.” The New York Times, 26 Mar 1861. The TimesMachine.
Limmer, Ruth. “The Dim Ages: Early Years at Hunter’s College.” The Hunter Magazine, Summer 1987, pp. 12-15. www.library.hunter.cuny.edu/old/sites/default/files/pdf/archive_articles/limmer_the_dim_ages_early_years_at_hunter_college_ sum1987.pdf. Accessed 25 May 2021.
N-YHS Education Department. “Seneca Village: A Teacher’s Guide to Using Primary Sources in the Classroom.” New-York Historical Society, 2nd ed. 2010. https://www.nyhistory.org/sites/default/files/Seneca_Village_NYHS.pdf.
“News of the Day.” The New York Times, 3 Apr 1861. The TimesMachine.
“New-York State Legislature.” The New York Times, 3 Apr 1861. The TimesMachine.
“Old Hamilton Square.” The New York Times, 6 Nov 1921. The TimesMachine.
Randel, Jr., John. The City of New York as Laid out by the Commissioners [map]. 1820. Manhattan; watercolor. https://thegreatestgrid.mcny.org/greatest-grid/randel-map-gallery.
Reuben, Jeff. “The Past Life of CUNY’s Hunter College: The Lost Hamilton Square in NYC.” Untapped Cities, www.untappedcities.com/2015/08/18/the-past-life-of-cunys-hunter-college-the-lost-hamilton-square-in-nyc/. Accessed 21 May 2021.
Staples, Brent. “The Death of Black Utopia.” The New York Times, 28 Nov 2019, www.nytimes.com/2019/11/28/opinion/seneca- central-park-nyc.html.
“The Sale of Disused Parks.” The New York Times, 18 Jan 1862. The TimesMachine.
Vermilye, Jacob D., et al. Thirty-Fourth Annual Report of the Board of Education of the City and County of New York for the Official Year Ending December 31, 1875. New York, Press of Cushing & Bardua, 1876. HathiTrust Digital Library.
Wilder, Craig Steve. Ebony & Ivy: Race, Slavery, and the Troubled History of America’s Universities. New York, Bloomsbury Press, 2013.
“Yelverton Trial.” The New York Times, 25 Mar 1861. The TimesMachine.