September 16, 2011
Alexander Hamilton's house reopens after renovations
NewYorkology contributor Sam Meyer commits journalism by night, edits Cocktailians and explores NYC by day. He’s especially interested in the infrastructure, transit, architectural wonders, drinking establishments and hidden corners of the greatest city in the world.
Alexander Hamilton has always been one of the most interesting Founding Fathers of our country. From his origins on the Caribbean island of Nevis and emigration to New York as an orphan to his tenures as aide-de-camp to George Washington and Secretary of the Treasury to his death in a duel with Vice President Aaron Burr in Weehawken, his stormy, principled life invites closer examination. The small museum on the ground floor of his newly reopened house in Harlem, Hamilton Grange, is a good start.
Hamilton built his summer house in 1802, but only enjoyed it for two years before his death. It’s a modest yet gracious home, with well-proportioned, airy rooms. The National Park Service, which has operated the Grange as a National Memorial since 1962, is reopening the house Saturday after five years of closure, renovation, and a move: the house used to sit a block away from its present perch on a bluff in St. Nicholas Park. The new site is still within the original grounds of Hamilton’s estate, which was laid out along the old Bloomingdale Road before Manhattan’s street grid extended to Harlem.
 The move involved extensive study and architectural detective work, and culminated in the house’s extraction from its tight-fitting lot near the corner of 141st St and Convent Avenue, its being lifted 18 feet in the air so it could clear the porch of the adjacent St. Luke’s Episcopal Church, and its sliding to its eventual home on rollers. The detective work also helped the Park Service accurately restore the period rooms on the house’s main floor — workers found original layers of paint and were even able to reconstruct the main staircase, which had been partially disassembled and repurposed elsewhere in the house by a prior owner.
“We’re pleased to have been able to make the house into something that Hamilton would recognize as his gracious family home,” NPS spokeswoman Mindi Rambo said during a tour of the house this week. Many items in the house are either originals, period pieces, or exact replicas of Hamilton’s furnishings. The prominent bust of Hamilton in the hall is a copy of one that his widow placed there, where she talked to it after his death.
The fortepiano in the parlor is original to the house — originally imported from London — and Hamilton’s daughter used to play it, especially when mourning her brother, who had died in a duel before Hamilton.
For the house’s Saturday reopening, “Alexander Hamilton” himself (in the person of Hamilton re-enactor Ian Rose) will arrive in a horse-drawn carriage and ceremonially present the house’s keys to the National Park Service before making a presentation in character. There will also be cooking and artillery demonstrations (Hamilton and some other Sons of Liberty stole cannons from the British and dragged them uptown, where they set up their own rebel artillery company,) and other events through the weekend. The period rooms will be open to the public Saturday from noon to 5 p.m.
After the grand re-opening Saturday, the house and museum will be open from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Wednesdays through Sundays. Admission is always free.
Picture credits: Sam Meyer for NewYorkology except (inset) picture of the house mid-move, provided by the National Park Service.
Earlier: Alexander Hamilton’s house moved to St. Nicholas Park
Hamilton Grange literally up in the air for June 7 move
September 16, 2011 1:34 PM in Architecture, Cheap Stuff, History, Museums, Upper West Side
Comments (0)
®Copyright 2004 - 2011, All Rights Reserved
|
