Posted on 06/08/2008 11:45:24 AM PDT by decimon
NEW YORK — Two hundred and eighty tons of American history were on the move Saturday in Harlem.
The home of Alexander Hamilton, who conceived the country's banking system and was killed in a duel with a political rival, rolled inch by inch down a Harlem hillside to its new location overlooking a park.
"This was the only home Hamilton ever owned," said Steve Laise, a National Park Service official dressed in a vest, tie and pants typical of the 1800's. "It represented the consummation of Hamilton's lifelong dream — a successful social position for a man who came to the American colonies as a penniless 17-year-old born out of wedlock in the West Indies."
But the brilliant, charismatic Hamilton, who became a lawyer, helped pen the Constitution and served as the country's first treasury secretary, structuring taxation and government bonds. He eventually moved to New York, where he founded the New York Post and the Bank of New York.
Earlier this month, Hamilton's house — squeezed between a church and an apartment building — was hoisted 40 feet into the air, with steel beams and cribbings helping it clear the portico of St. Luke's Episcopal Church. Starting at about 7 a.m. Saturday, it rolled slowly down West 141st Street, taking three hours to travel a block and a half to the northwest corner of St. Nicholas Park.
There, the 206-year-old structure will be secured into its third spot, overlooking the bucolic city-owned park.
On a sweltering Saturday, it was alive with families enjoying picnics.
The slope above was filled with men who might easily have lived in Hamilton's time, dressed in broad-brimmed black hats, cotton shirts and denim overalls. They are members of Pennsylvania's German Baptist religious group, which owns Wolfe House & Building Movers, the Bernville, Penn.-based company used for the high-tech relocation.
The workers operating the machinery, including bulldozers pushing mounds of earth, got a special exemption from a law requiring anyone at a construction site to wear a protective helmet. Their wives and children staged a picnic on a knoll near Hamilton's lifted house, with its old, wood-beamed basement ceiling visible, plaster peeling.
Urban affairs expert Myron Magnet explained the importance of the pale yellow, Federalist-style house as the chimneyed structure hovered above the ground on a mammoth hydraulic dolly, elegant drapes still hanging in the windows.
"Hamilton was the founder of the financial system that made New York the economic engine of the world," Magnet said. "This is a monument to his legacy — the America we have now."
When he built Hamilton Grange in 1802 for his family, what he called his "sweet project" was a 33-acre country estate at the highest point of upper Manhattan, with sweeping views of the Hudson and Harlem rivers. The home was designed by architect John McComb Jr., who also created New York's City Hall.
The house is now part of Harlem's Hamilton Heights neighborhood of brick rowhouses, an area quickly being gentrified.
Because of development, the house was initially moved in 1889. Then, it traveled a few blocks from its original site to the spot it occupied until Saturday, on Convent Avenue.
The three locations where Hamilton's house has been set since 1802 were all part of his original estate.
He left home for the last time in 1804 for Weehawken, N.J., to face political nemesis and Vice President Aaron Burr in a duel that took Hamilton's life. The faceoff capped a period of the temperamental Hamilton's life in which "he was sidelined, he had no national office, while all his friends had been president," Magnet said.
Congress made the home a national memorial in 1962, but talks about moving it to a better setting dragged for decades. The move and restoration is expected to cost at least $8.4 million. Plans include bringing back the original tables, chairs, a piano and a silver wine cooler.
___
On the Net:
National Park Service: http://www.nps.gov/hagr
The Clintons have an office in Harlem. Did they pay his house a visit and pilfer stuff like they did at the White House?
Hamilton Grange should be visited by anyone with time to spare while in Manhattan, followed by a ride up to the Morris Jumel Mansion.
Left unmentioned is that Hamilton helped win independence by fighting bravely as an officer on Washington’s staff. He was killed because he deliberately threw away his first shot at Burr, as he told his friends he would. He considered killing in duels immoral, but thought a gentleman could not dodge the challenge. His son died for the same reason in an earlier duel.
Thanks for the ping. Although I have been to Morris-Jumel, I have never visited The Grange. I shall put it on my list.
|
|
|||
Gods |
Thanks decimon.Earlier this month, Hamilton's house -- squeezed between a church and an apartment building -- was hoisted 40 feet into the air, with steel beams and cribbings helping it clear the portico of St. Luke's Episcopal Church. Starting at about 7 a.m. Saturday, it rolled slowly down West 141st Street, taking three hours to travel a block and a half to the northwest corner of St. Nicholas Park. There, the 206-year-old structure will be secured into its third spot, overlooking the bucolic city-owned park.To all -- please ping me to other topics which are appropriate for the GGG list. |
||
|
· Mirabilis · Texas AM Anthropology News · Yahoo Anthro & Archaeo · · History or Science & Nature Podcasts · Excerpt, or Link only? · cgk's list of ping lists · |
|||
Give a whole new meaning to the words, “mobile home.”
That's the story Hamilton's seconds told. Burr's seconds said differently.
Hamilton certainly was a great man and practically invented the America we know all by himself, but there had only been three presidents when he died, Washington, Adams and Jefferson. Only Washington was Hamilton's friend. Hamilton actively sought to undermine Adams and Jefferson worked assiduously to destroy Hamilton.
Don’t the winners always get to write the history? :-)
Jos. Ellis’ book Founding Brothers has a rather thorough discussion of the duel, but I can’t remember all the details. I think it concludes that Hamilton’s first shot went way over Burr’s head, breaking a tree branch, but Hamilton did fire twice. It also concludes that Burr may have been trying to wound H. in a non-lethal area. One positive effect of the duel is that it destroyed any remaining respect for Burr, who seems to have been an unprincipled political manipulator.
I've a couple of bios of both men and quite naturally the Hamiltonians stick with his story and the Burrites stick to theirs. We'll never know, but we do know that Hamilton knew he was baiting Burr and that he knew Burr was a dangerous man who would defend his honor.
Jos. Ellis comes out and says that Hamilton had been “slandering” Burr for quite some time. I will have to read Brookhiser’s Hamilton bio some time.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.