Rose Hill, Manhattan
40°44′31″N 73°58′59″W / 40.742°N 73.983°W
Rose Hill is a neighborhood in the
The
Rose Hill in the Bronx
The name of the Manhattan neighborhood is derived from a locale in the Bronx. Rose Hill Park[6] is a vestige of a far larger estate once called "Rose Hill" by its owner, Robert Watts, and Rose Hill Campus is part of the site of Fordham University. According to the New York City Department of Parks,[7] in 1775[8] Robert's brother John married his cousin Jane DeLancey, whose family lived on the adjacent property, which is now Bronx Park.
Prior to his marriage, John Watt had lived on his Manhattan properties. He purchased the Bronx property in 1787 from the estate of Andrew Corsa. Shortly afterward, John transferred the property to his brother Robert, who named it "Rose Hill".[9]
Archival research by Roger Wines, professor of history at Fordham, has shown that the original owner of the manor was a Dutchman named Reyer Michaelson. Benjamin Corsa married Michaelson's daughter and was deeded the house and land in 1736. John Hughes, Roman Catholic Bishop of New York, purchased Rose Hill in 1839 as the future site of Fordham's forerunner, St. John's College.[10]
Rose Hill on the Watts Farm
Watts' ownership
According to a historical genealogical source,
Watts was the son of Robert Watts, of "Rose Hill", near
The main house at Rose Hill burned in 1779, during the British occupation, but a deed from the 1780s mentions "houses, buildings, orchards, gardens" on the land. Parts of Rose Hill Farm were being sold off in the 1780s: in 1786, Nicholas Cruger paid "144 pounds" for a lot at the north edge of the property, consisting of most of what is now the block bounded by 29th and 30th Streets and Second and Third Avenues.[14]
Sale
Having been rebuilt and refurbished after the Revolutionary War, Rose Hill Farm was put up for sale in 1790. As Advertised in the New-York Daily Advertiser:[15]
A Farm for Sale. That very elegant and pleasantly situated FARM, Rose Hill, lying on the banks of and adjoining the east river, three miles from this city,[16] containing 92 acres of valuable land, in the highest cultivation, chiefly in mowing ground, the whole well inclosed, principally with stone fences of a superior construction, bounding on the public road 1175 feet; a pleasant avenue through the orchard in front of the house, also a good road that comes out into the bowery land, next to the honorable James Duane’s; on the premises there is an elegant dwelling house of 50 by 37 feet; a commodious farm house of 50 by 20 feet; an excellent barn with carriage houses and stable, 20 by 40 feet, a hovel with a large hay loft over the whole 96 by 15 feet, corn crib, fowl house &c. all the buildings are new and well finished in the most commodious manner, a fine bearing orchard of 260 engrafted apple trees of the most approved sorts, and a great variety of other kinds of the best English and American fruits, a thriving nursery of upwards of 9000 young fruit trees, numbers of which are inoculated and engrafted; an elegant garden, with the finest collection of flowers, flowering shrubs, strawberry, asparagus beds, etc. ten acres in wheat and rye:
The whole with all farming utensils, cattle, and stock of all kinds, will be sold, either together or separately; the buildings, with orchard, fruit trees, garden; etc. with as many acres of the land as may suit a purchaser, to whom the conditions will be made convenient, by a length of time for the payment. Apply on the premises, or at No. 5 Stone Street.
NB: If the above farm is not disposed of by the first of May, it will then be leased for a number of years. –Among the stock there is some valuable cattle imported from Holland, and a fine large breeding mare from England.
Revolutionary War General Horatio Gates acquired part or all of the Watts property in 1790 and established a country seat in a mansion at the present corner of Second Avenue and 22nd Street. He died at his estate in April 1806, whereupon his home became a boarding house.[17]
The Cruger parcel was subdivided into building lots by the time the Commissioners' Plan of 1811 was adopted, establishing Manhattan's present street grid.
Just to the southwest corner of the "Rose Hill" property, Gramercy Park was laid out in 1831, on the axis of what became Lexington Avenue. The map made in 1866 by John Bute Holmes, of "Rose Hill Farm Gramercy Seat, and the estate of John Watts" is conserved in the New York Public Library.[18]
Locations and surroundings
Structures in Rose Hill
The Baruch College and School of Visual Arts campuses and the New York University College of Dentistry and Rose Hill Montessori Preschool are all located in Rose Hill.
The community has several
Madison Square
Madison Square is dominated by the
"Curry Hill"
A number of
Transportation
Rose Hill is served by four
The area is served by the
See also
References
- ^ Harrison, Karen Tina (April 1, 2001). "Neighborhood Report: Rose Hill; It's the Final Furlong For a Loved OTB Parlor". The New York Times. Retrieved August 18, 2008.
- ^ Reichl, Ruth (April 15, 1998). "Restaurants; Helping to Put Rose Hill on the Map". The New York Times. Retrieved November 21, 2014.
Rose Hill ... is the oddly incongruous name for the East Side area between Gramercy Park and Murray Hill...
- ^ Sternbergh, Adam (April 11, 2010). "Soho. Nolita. Dumbo. NoMad?". New York. Retrieved December 25, 2014.
- ISBN 978-0-19538-386-7.
- ^ Rose Hill Revealed, By Cole Rosengren, Realcity (accessed January 29, 2018)
- ^ "Rose Hill Park". New York City Department of Parks & Recreation. Retrieved January 24, 2011.
- ^ NYC Parks: Rose Hill Park: The Watts are called "Watt". Robert added the -s, according to James Duff Law (Here and There in Two Hemispheres 1903:6), who traced the site of the original "Rose Hill"
- ^ The double wedding of Col. Thomas H. Barclay and John Watts, Jr. to two daughters of Peter DeLancey, at "Union Hill" in Westchester (a property of Cadwalader Golden, Delancey's father-in-law), was recorded in Rivington's New-York Gazetteer (R. Burnham Moffat, The Barclays of New York 1904::104 note 13).
- Frederic De Peyster, had married Mary Justina Watts (died 1821), youngest daughter of the Hon. John Watts, in the front parlor at 3, Broadway, in 1820 (Frank Allaben, John Watts de Peyster (1908:25); see also the description in Arthur G. Adams, The Hudson River Guidebook 1996:233, at mile 96.00.
- ^ Fordham Tradition, September 1989, on-line text).
- ^ MacBean, William M. (1922). Biographical Register of Saint Andrew's Society of the State of New York. Vol. I: 1756–1806.
- ^ (John Watts), Dorothy C. Barck, ed., "Letter book of John Watts: merchant and councillor of New York", New-York Historical Society Collections, 61 (1928:xiii).
- ^ John Watts' will is abstracted in "New York gleanings in England", The New -York Genealogical and Biographical Record (April 1905:116f).
- ^ Gray, Christopher (April 2, 2006). "A House That's Shy About Revealing Its Age". The New York Times. Retrieved July 16, 2010.
- ^ February 9, 1790, page 4
- ^ The three-mile stone on the Boston Post Road was set at the corner of what became 26th Street and Madison Avenue
- OCLC 862849155.
- ^ NYPL Bulletin, 1 (1897), "Principal Book Purchases and Gifts" p. 141, s.v. "Holmes (John Bute)".
- ^ Friends House in Rosehill official website
- ^ Casatagnaro, Kelly (September 12, 2005). "An Elegant Old Hotel Gives New Lives to the Homeless". Gotham Gazette. Retrieved July 16, 2010.
- ^ Bagli, Charles V. (September 12, 2005). "Madison Square Garden's Owners Are in Talks to Replace It, a Block West". The New York Times. Retrieved August 18, 2008.
- ^ Dworin, Caroline H. (November 4, 2007). "The Girl, the Swing and a Row House in Ruins". The New York Times. Retrieved August 19, 2008.
- ^ Williams, Timothy (October 28, 2007). "Building in Flatiron Collapses, Causing a Mess but No Injuries". The New York Times. Retrieved August 20, 2008.
- ^ Madison Square North Historic District, New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission, designated June 26, 2001. Accessed August 18, 2008.
- ^ Rothstein, Edward (October 5, 2007). "What's Latex Got to Do With It?". The New York Times. Retrieved August 18, 2008.
- ^ James New York – NoMad website
- ^ Evelyn Hotel website
- ^ Ensminger, Kris (October 10, 2008). "Good Eating Curry Hill More Than Tandoori". The New York Times. Retrieved January 19, 2014.
- ^ Sietsema, Robert (October 21, 2013). "Sietsema's Old and New Curry Hill Favorites". Eater. Retrieved June 25, 2018.
- ^ "Little Armenia, New York". The Armenite. March 17, 2014. Retrieved March 29, 2020.
- ^ "Subway Map" (PDF). Metropolitan Transportation Authority. September 2021. Retrieved September 17, 2021.
- ^ "Manhattan Bus Map" (PDF). Metropolitan Transportation Authority. July 2019. Retrieved December 1, 2020.
External links
- Media related to Rose Hill, Manhattan at Wikimedia Commons