Hamilton Grange on the move again

[tmg]

The New York Times
Hamilton Grange National Memorial in Harlem Closes in Preparation for Move
By DAVID W. DUNLAP
Published: May 12, 2006

The National Park Service has closed the Hamilton Grange National Memorial in Harlem until the 204-year-old house can be moved to nearby St. Nicholas Park next spring and then restored.

Architectural probes now under way make the building unsafe for visitors, said Steve Laise, the chief of cultural resources for the Park Service's Manhattan sites.

Sunday was the last day that the Grange — the Federal-style country home of Alexander Hamilton — was open to the public.

In its new setting, the house will regain its front and back porches, which were removed after it was transported in 1889 to its current site at Convent Avenue and 141st Street.

[tmg]

All about Hamilton Grange:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hamilton_Grange_National_Memorial
http://www.nps.gov/hagr/

[infoshare]

the 204-year-old house can be moved to nearby St. Nicholas Park next spring and then restored.


I recently visited this site. I look forward to watching this relocation project, it will be a delicate undertaking: as the saying goes "the only reason that house has not fallen apart is because the termites are holding-hands". :eek:

This is a beautiful historic structure which had ample surrounding space on it original site: St. Nicholas Park will be an excellent site for this house.

http://www.upimages.net/upload/a50c96ed.jpg

[ablarc]

Interesting where it is, sandwiched between urban buildings --but inauthentic in both setting and actual location.

More conventional location in the park will allow restoration of porches, more breathing room, and will attract more visitors. But the setting will still be inauthentic.

Ideally, it would be back where it was built originally, but there's probably a big apartment building occupying that site.

Where was it originally, anyway?

[ManhattanKnight]

Ideally, it would be back where it was built originally, but there's probably a big apartment building occupying that site.

Where was it originally, anyway?

237 West 141st Street

http://img93.imageshack.us/img93/1563/237w141st2te.jpg

[ablarc]

Permanently uprooted, I guess, like London's Globe.

[infoshare]

Permanently uprooted, I guess, like London's Globe.

This will - I surmise - be the final move for this house. My guess is that the relocation and restoration will take a few years. I think this will be an interesting project to follow: especially since this wooden structure is so old and tightly fitted between two other buildings.

I will try to post some additional photos as soon a the project begins.

[ablarc]

London's Globe Theatre couldn't be rebuilt at its original location, now occupied by bigger buildings. So it was exiled a few hundred yards from where it was first born.

How far from its first home will Hamilton Grange repose ?

[infoshare]

How far from its first home will Hamilton Grange repose ?

The new site in St. Nicholas Park is about a quarter mile from the its original location (http://www.wirednewyork.com/forum/showpost.php?p=99660&postcount=5) at 237 West 141st Street: and only one block from the current site.

Nice Rendering of the house on the original site: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/9d/Hamilton-Grange-perspective.jpg

http://www.upimages.net/upload/1597ff55.jpg

[ManhattanKnight]

July 12, 2006
Handle History With Care: Hamilton’s Home Is Moving

By DAVID W. DUNLAP

Peering into spaces that have not seen the light of day for two centuries, architectural archaeologists are dissecting Alexander Hamilton's country home, the Grange, to figure out how to take it apart and put it back together again.

http://graphics10.nytimes.com/images/2006/07/12/nyregion/granger.650.jpg

The National Park Service plans to move the Hamilton Grange National Memorial from Convent Avenue and 141st Street, where it is so boxed in by neighboring buildings that two of its porches had to be cut off, to St. Nicholas Park, about 300 feet to the southeast.
There, it can be reassembled in a form that Hamilton would have recognized, with porches — and trees — all around.
Designed by John McComb Jr., an architect of City Hall, the Grange was the seat of a 32-acre Manhattan estate that commanded views of both the Hudson and Harlem Rivers. Hamilton had only two years to enjoy it, however. He left the Grange on the morning of July 11, 1804, for a duel with Vice President Aaron Burr from which he did not return.

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2006/07/12/nyregion/0712-met-webGRANGEmap.gif

Many admirers of the Grange have long hoped to extract the wooden house from its cramped berth between St. Luke’s Episcopal Church, which it once served as a chapel and rectory, and a six-story apartment house. Now, financing for the $8.4 million restoration project seems close.
“We’re delighted that the president put it in the budget and the House of Representatives supported it,” said James Pepper, the superintendent of national parks in Manhattan. Action by the full Senate is pending, he said.
Although the three-story house was moved once before, in 1889, it has not left the original boundaries of the Grange. Its intended destination in the park is within what was once the estate’s southeast corner.
“The aim is to reconstruct the house to its original form as much as possible,” said Nazila Shabestari of the architectural firm Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, which is working on the project with John G. Waite Associates.
The Grange was closed to the public on May 7. That has allowed architects to pry up floorboards and cut into walls to determine which parts of the house are original and which come from subsequent renovations.
The structural analysis has led the architects to recommend that the best way to pull the house out of its constricted site — without harming the elegant curved loggia of St. Luke’s, which partly blocks the way — is to divide the southern section (entry hall and library) from the rest of the structure.
“The south bay is where most of the changes have occurred since 1889,” said the architect, John G. Waite. “We’re going to have to dismantle much of it anyway, in order to restore the building.”
This is preferable to cutting the house in half, which would require the sacrifice of structural fabric in the Grange’s two most distinguished rooms: the parlor and the main dining room, both of them octagonal.
It will be much less expensive than jacking the entire house over St. Luke’s, said Stephen Spaulding, the chief of the architectural preservation division in the park service’s northeast region. And it will be less complicated than trying to disassemble the church loggia.
The entire project might be completed in late 2008 or early 2009, Mr. Pepper said. Meanwhile, the architects are digging away.
Uncovering a thick horizontal timber in the south wall, they found recesses (known as mortises) that corresponded precisely with the projecting posts (or tenons) of the original front doorway, which was switched to the west side of the house after the 1889 move. The doorway will be restored to its original position.
Upstairs, they found traces of an original bedroom door hidden behind a plaster wall. It was possible to tell that the door opening was blocked up after Hamilton’s time because it was filled with wood lath that had straight edges, meaning they were cut by saw. At the turn of the 19th century, lath was split rather than sawed, giving it irregular edges.
Insights have also been gleaned from what the architects did not find, like evidence of a dumbwaiter that was once supposed to have existed. Mr. Waite interpreted this as a sign that much of the Hamiltons’ family life took place downstairs, close to the kitchen.
“This house was built to be operated without slaves,” he said.
Trying to trace the course of the original front staircase, the architects found a priceless bit of information under the floor boards: a pocket hewn out of a horizontal timber that would have received the wooden tongue at the base of a newel post.
The staircase was relocated and reconfigured in 1889. The question was whether this altered staircase bore any traces of the original.
In this case, the evidence was hiding in plain sight. The existing newel post does not appear to date from the late 19th century, when Victorian extravagance was in vogue. Rather, it is a plain cylinder, circled by a few simple moldings.
“What does this look like?” Mr. Waite asked. “A cannon.”
Why is that important? Because Hamilton — though best known as the first Treasury secretary, the principal author of the Federalist Papers and the face on the $10 bill — was also an officer in the Revolutionary War.
“And he was very proud of that,” Mr. Waite said.
Perhaps a cannon-shaped newel post was Hamilton’s way of commemorating his military service.
“We thought, with all the changes, that we had lost the stairway,” Mr. Waite said. “But the stairway is really here. In pieces.”


Copyright 2006 (http://www.nytimes.com/ref/membercenter/help/copyright.html) The New York Times Company (http://www.nytco.com/)

[BrooklynRider]

I visited the National Historic Site last fall. They have a great architectural model showing the house restoration and its situation in the park. They said that the project needed $12M to go forward, but I guess $8M gets it started. Once moved, I think this will become a major uptown attraction - beyond its current stop on the bus tours.

[infoshare]

Streetscapes: Hamilton Grange; A Move to Move A Historic House
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9F0CE7DA1E30F932A15750C0A9659582 60


By CHRISTOPHER GRAY NYtimes
Published: March 21, 1993

SHOULD it be a pristine memorial to one of the founders of the nation or a delightful surprise crowded onto a New York City street?

Alexander Hamilton's 1802 house was moved from its original site in 1889 to where it is now, on Convent Avenue just north of 141st Street, to make way for real estate development. Now structural deterioration gives the National Parks Service, which owns the clapboard house, an opportunity to proceed with 40-year-old plans to move it to a more pastoral setting, a plan long opposed by the house's neighbor.

In 1795, Hamilton left a distinguished career in public service to make some money. None of his work as a developer of the Constitution, as George Washington's Secretary of the Treasury or as a leader of the Federalist party provided well enough for his wife and four children, and he began private law practice.

In 1798 he conceived of "a sweet project," a country house in upper Manhattan, which he built in 1802. Probably designed by John McComb Jr., later one of the architects of City Hall, what Hamilton called Hamilton Grange was on a woody hilltop at what later became the southwest corner of 143d Street and Convent Avenue.

The Hamiltons occupied it in the warmer months and Hamilton could even commute daily to his office in downtown Manhattan, a three-hour round trip by carriage. It originally was a two-story squarish structure with wide porches on each side and the chaste detailing typical of the Federal style.


I would like to see this building de-constructed and moved to the nearby park (http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2006/07/12/nyregion/0712-met-webGRANGEmap.gif): in my opinion (http://www.wirednewyork.com/forum/showpost.php?p=99249&postcount=3) this structure being wedged between the church and the apt building is not exactly " a delightful surprise crowded onto a NYC street". The lead question in the above NYT article is a good one, but it seems to me a bit disingenuous - this current "site" is clearly not an option. Any other views on this topic?

[infoshare]

A Home for the Grange.(The City Weekly Desk). Ron Chernow.
The New York Times (Sept 19, 2004 p11(L) col 01 (21 col): p11(L).
About this publication | How to Cite | Source Citation |


Full Text :COPYRIGHT 2004 The New York Times Company

A DISAPPOINTED politician, you know, is very apt to take refuge in a garden,'' a melancholic Alexander Hamilton advised a friend in 1802, two years before his fatal duel with Vice President Aaron Burr. His marathon feuds with the Jeffersonians had taken their toll. ''Accordingly, I have purchased about 30 acres nine miles from town, have built a house, planted a garden, and entered upon some other simple improvements.'' By christening this house in Harlem Heights (http://www.hamiltonheights.org/history.htm) the Grange, the new owner paid tribute to the Hamilton clan's ancestral home in Scotland.

Today the National Park Service operates the house, now at 141st Street and Convent Avenue, as a national memorial. But, sadly, the Grange attracts little attention, and few tourists visit the only surviving dwelling of the nation's first Treasury secretary. This month, the New-York Historical Society opened a lavish tribute to Hamilton that will adorn its corridors for six months. The best sequel for New York voters and politicians would be to support a federal budget request proposed for fiscal year 2006 that would belatedly allow the fulfillment of Congressional plans to move the Grange 400 feet southeast to the more scenic St. Nicholas Park.

Before building the Grange, Hamilton and his wife, Elizabeth Schuyler Hamilton, had occupied several houses in the dense maze of Lower Manhattan, but it is uncertain whether they ever owned any of them. Where George Washington could take refuge in the grandeur of Mount Vernon and Thomas Jefferson of Monticello, Hamilton, a busy, self-made lawyer, had no such majestic abode. Hence, he doted on this new woodland property, fairly bursting with homeowner's pride as he informed his wife on one business trip, ''I remark as I go along everything that can be adopted for the embellishment of our little retreat.''

Now in his late 40's, Hamilton sorely needed a retreat. His political career had been feverish, his quarrels legion, his accomplishments prodigious. During his tenure as Treasury secretary alone, he had devised the first federal tax and budget systems, initiated the customs service and Coast Guard, conceived the first central bank and financed the Revolutionary War debt. At the Grange, Hamilton could savor the pastoral tranquility while commuting by stagecoach to his thriving law practice downtown.

As architect for his rural home, Hamilton recruited John McComb Jr (http://www.nyc-architecture.com/SCC/SCC026.htm)., who had recently designed Gracie Mansion. McComb fashioned an elegant Federal house distinguished by the exquisite symmetry of its porches, balustrades and four chimneys. Its charming interior had two octagonal rooms; by flinging open a pair of doors, the Hamiltons could join them to form an ideal space for entertaining guests.

It may be hard to picture the chief author of the Federalist Papers pottering about in a garden, yet Hamilton delighted in his rustic grounds. En route to the Grange, he often stopped at the botanical garden created by his friend, Dr. David Hosack, and gathered bulbs and seeds. He drew up detailed diagrams to guide his ornamental plantings and even honored the original 13 colonies by lining up 13 sweet gum trees at the entrance to his house. At the Grange, Hamilton prayed outdoors with his family, held garden parties and composed editorials for The New-York Evening Post, of which he was a founder.

After the 49-year-old Hamilton was gunned down by Burr on July 11, 1804, his widow and children stayed at the house for many years. Its subsequent history is a dreary tale of botched chances and shabby neglect by the country that Hamilton had done so much to forge. By the late 19th century, the Grange -- which was then at 143rd Street, west of Convent Avenue -- was threatened with demolition by spreading row houses and a new street grid. To spare the historic structure, St. Luke's Episcopal Church bought it in 1889 and moved it several hundred feet south to its present site, installing it beside the church as a rectory. In 1924, the American Scenic and Historic Preservation Society, bolstered by a $50,000 gift from J.P. Morgan Jr., took possession of the house, converting it into a Hamilton museum. Then, in 1962, Congress passed legislation that enabled the National Park Service to assume control of the house and commemorate Hamilton's contribution to the nation.

One must applaud these well-meaning efforts while simultaneously deploring their gross inadequacy. Tourists who marvel at the Washington Monument or Jefferson Memorial in Washington must be disheartened by their first glimpse of the Hamilton Grange in Harlem. To fit into the available space, Hamilton's delicate house was rudely squashed between the Romanesque-style St. Luke's Church and a nondescript brick apartment building; the front porch had to be swung around to the side of the house, where it now serves as the entrance. Not only did this shatter the graceful harmony of McComb's design, but the medley of modern, Federal and Romanesque styles is jarring.

It would take the satirical pen of a Dickens to capture the political procrastination that condemned the Grange to this unlovely fate. As early as 1908, the New York State Assembly approved a plan to transfer the house to nearby St. Nicholas Park, where it was to be restored to its original appearance; the plan was stillborn. In the late 1990's, after 90 years mulling over the matter, the state finally ceded the land for this project. In urging Congress to approve this property transfer, Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan thundered, ''Whereas no obelisk, monument or classical temple along the National Mall has been constructed to honor the man who more than any other designed the government of the United States, Hamilton should at least be remembered by restoring his home in a sylvan setting.'' Amen.

The time has come. Let us return the house to its pristine glory and render long-deferred justice to Alexander Hamilton, New Yorker extraordinaire.

[Stern]

This is a win win. I never liked Hamilton Grange where it was, I felt like it was lost and out of place. Besides this part of Convent Avenue doesn't need any help, its one of the nicest blocks in the whole city, St. Nicholas Park on the other hand, while beautiful is one of the most dangerous parks in the city. To quote a secuity officer during orientation at CCNY "I don't mean to sound politically incorrect, but don't go through St. Nicholas Park, just don't go there." I would cut through St. Nicholas Park and had no "real" problems, I would always get leary though when the sun started to set. This will help make St. Nicholas Park a destination and a family-friendly place to be and it will look perfectly in place.

As for the current site of Hamilton Grange, does anyone know its destiny? As I said this part of Convent Avenue is one of the nicest in the city, I want to see a gem put here whether its modern or traditional.

[Gulcrapek]

Still waiting for this..

Also, if the graphic is correct, it will be right behind CCNY's Steinman Hall - I don't know if having a (relatively) massive modern building in the direct background of the house is such a good idea.

[infoshare]

As for the current site of Hamilton Grange, does anyone know its destiny? As I said this part of Convent Avenue is one of the nicest in the city, I want to see a gem put here whether its modern or traditional.

I think this building is currenty undergoing some sort of structural inspection (http://www.wirednewyork.com/forum/showpost.php?p=109022&postcount=10) to determine how (or if) it can be relocated to the new site. If I hear any other news on the project I will be sure to post here: as is obvious my activity on this thread - this is a project that I am following closely.


http://img89.imageshack.us/img89/4105/images1nyplorgmj4.jpg (http://imageshack.us)

[infoshare]

The Hamilton Grange relocation: http://stnicholaspark.blogspot.com/2007/12/preparations-for-hamilton-grange-move_27.html

Rendering here - http://bp3.blogger.com/_2b5Zl5M5Eg4/R3QPJjy7jHI/AAAAAAAAAYI/TgiAo9_TTJQ/s1600-h/HG_renderingWeb.jpg

Recent photo of the house here - http://www.flickr.com/photos/21452177@N04/2140897547/in/set-72157603561674851/

Excerpt
A chain link fence has been installed around the construction perimeter of the park where the Hamilton Grange will be moved into St. Nicholas Park. Preparations of the area include taking down the large trees where the house will eventually be reconstructed. Ground breaking on the area for the foundation may take place on Alexander Hamilton's Birthday - January 11th.

For the move, the Grange will be cut in half and transported from its current spot on Convent Avenue (between 141st and 142nd streets) to the area of St. Nicholas Park within the boundaries of Hamilton's original estate land. The move will take place along Hamilton Terrace and across 141st street into St. Nicholas Park.

[antinimby]

FLIP THIS HOUSE
HISTORIC HARLEM HOME REHAB


http://www.nypost.com/seven/04282008/photos/news017a.jpg
CHANGE OF ADDRESS: Workers survey
and transport parts of the house on
141st Street where Alexander Hamilton
lived. It will be moved around the corner
and restored.


By JEREMY OLSHAN

April 28, 2008 (http://www.nypost.com/seven/04282008/news/regionalnews/flip_this_house_108483.htm) -- Alexander Hamilton's Manhattan home has come close to suffering a fate similar to that of its famed owner over the years.

But instead of getting killed off, the historic 1802 house is about to be nursed back to glorious health.


http://www.nypost.com/seven/04282008/photos/news017c.jpg
Alexander Hamilton


Few visit Hamilton Grange at its current location on Convent Avenue and 141st Street - and many New Yorkers are not even aware it exists.

But National Park Service officials say that will all change in June, when the 18-room home is removed from the location where it was cast aside in 1893 to make way for the street grid in Hamilton Heights.

Crews are preparing to lift the building up 45 feet so that it can be moved past the neighboring St. Luke's Episcopal Church.

It will then be transported around the corner to the 141st Street side of St. Nicholas Park.

"The beauty is that it will still be on what was Hamilton's land," said Stephen Spaulding, chief of architectural preservation for the Park Service.

After conducting extensive research and a forensic investigation of the construction to determine the original layout and design of the home, Spaulding said the agency hopes to restore it to its former luster so it can become a museum and memorial in 2009.

Hamilton built the Grange - the first and only home he ever owned - after he had mostly retired from public life.

He designed it around the same time he was founding the New York Post, with the help of architect John McComb, Jr., the man behind City Hall.

Hamilton only enjoyed the home for two years. He slept there - or perhaps tossed and turned there - the night before he was killed in his duel with Aaron Burr.

When the home was given to the church as part of a deal in the 1890s, its porches, original front door and staircase were either removed or reconfigured.

The city granted an easement to the National Park Service to allow the house to be moved onto its parkland, in what Parks Commissioner Adrian Benepe described as a complicated legal agreement that took years to hammer out.

"St. Nicholas Park has come a long way, but we are enthusiastic that the move of the house will bring a steady stream of visitors into a part of the park which is not all that heavily used," he said.


http://www.nypost.com/seven/04282008/photos/news017b.jpg
CHANGE OF ADDRESS: Workers survey
and transport parts of the house on
141st Street where Alexander Hamilton
lived. It will be moved around the corner
and restored.


Copyright 2008 NYP Holdings, Inc.

[infoshare]

FLIP THIS HOUSE
HISTORIC HARLEM HOME REHAB


By JEREMY OLSHAN

April 28, 2008 (http://www.nypost.com/seven/04282008/news/regionalnews/flip_this_house_108483.htm) -- Alexander Hamilton's Manhattan home has come close to suffering a fate similar to that of its famed owner over the years.



Article from the "Eye witness to history" website (http://www.eyewitnesstohistory.com/duel.htm).

[brianac]

Hamilton Home Heads to a Greener Address

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2008/06/07/nyregion/grange.600.jpg David W. Dunlap/The New York Times
Interior of the Grange, Alexander Hamilton's country home, braced for the impending move.

By DAVID W. DUNLAP (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/d/david_w_dunlap/index.html?inline=nyt-per)
Published: June 7, 2008

No matter that Alexander Hamilton (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/h/alexander_hamilton/index.html?inline=nyt-per)’s country home, the Grange, is 206 years old. Until now, it had been in a perfectly contemporary Manhattan real estate bind: not enough space.
Multimedia

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2008/06/06/nyregion/07Grange.wide.jpgInteractive Feature (http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2008/06/06/nyregion/20080607_GRANGE_GRAPHIC.html)Moving a Historic Home (http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2008/06/06/nyregion/20080607_GRANGE_GRAPHIC.html)

Enlarge This Image (http://javascript<b></b>:pop_me_up2('http://www.nytimes.com/imagepages/2008/06/07/nyregion/07grange.ready.html', '07grange_ready', 'width=470,height=600,scrollbars=yes,toolbars=no,r esizable=yes'))
http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2008/06/07/nyregion/07grange.pop.jpg (http://javascript<b></b>:pop_me_up2('http://www.nytimes.com/imagepages/2008/06/07/nyregion/07grange.ready.html', '07grange_ready', 'width=470,height=600,scrollbars=yes,toolbars=no,r esizable=yes'))Robert Caplin for The New York Times
The Grange, Alexander Hamilton's historic home was moved to greener pastures.

What to do? Move, of course.

So on Saturday, the two-story, 298-ton wood-frame house will be rolled conspicuously — and slowly — from its cramped site on Convent Avenue to an appropriately verdant new location a block away in St. Nicholas Park, facing West 141st Street. That is as close as it can get these days to the rural setting for which it was originally designed.

Once new foundations are completed, a yearlong, $8.4 million restoration and reconstruction will undo decades of unsympathetic alterations to the house, known formally as the Hamilton Grange National Memorial.

Stephen Spaulding, chief of the architectural preservation division in the National Park Service (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/n/national_park_service/index.html?inline=nyt-org)’s Northeast region, said the 500-foot move on Saturday should take three to six hours.

But in a sense, the journey has taken almost half a century. In 1962, President John F. Kennedy (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/k/john_fitzgerald_kennedy/index.html?inline=nyt-per) authorized the Interior Department (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/i/interior_department/index.html?inline=nyt-org) to assume ownership of the house on the condition that it be moved to a suitable location.

As redevelopment sagas go, the story of the Grange ranks among the most protracted. For want of money and almost any concerted political will to get the deed done, at least until recent years, the Grange languished in near-obscurity as other historical landmarks gained a higher profile.

Visitors have found the Grange jammed between a six-story apartment house and St. Luke’s Episcopal Church, its formal front facade abutting the church and all but invisible. Nor is this even its original location. Until 1889, when it was moved for the first time, the house was on 143rd Street, west of Convent Avenue.

Lost in the intervening years was any public sense that the founding father on the $10 bill, the nation’s first treasury secretary, had lived in Harlem; that a creator of the federal government passed his last two years in a refined country estate designed by John McComb Jr., an architect of City Hall, from which he departed in 1804 for the duel with Aaron Burr (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/b/aaron_burr/index.html?inline=nyt-per) that cost him his life.

Now, in the house he left behind, Hamilton is again coming to life. To their joy, National Park Service officials have discovered that the front stairway, though much modified over time, is essentially the one built for Hamilton, complete with original risers, treads, balusters, ornamental scrollwork and support structure. It will be rebuilt in its original form.

“Alexander Hamilton ran up those very treads!” said Steve Laise, chief of cultural resources of Manhattan sites for the National Park Service, which owns and runs the Grange. “It just puts you in such close proximity with the past. For those of us who really wish we were living back then anyway, it’s probably more of a stimulus to our imagination than we really ought to have.”

Lovely exterior details are also evident for the first time in more than a century, including a triple-hung sash window. Smaller windows on either side have an alternating star-and-circle tracery. “That kind of pattern is well rooted in 18th-century Anglo-American design practice,” said Seth Joseph Weine, a fellow of the Institute of Classical Architecture and Classical America.

Last week, the Grange was raised up and over a loggia, or side porch, at St. Luke’s and now sits on steel beams atop nine dollies in the middle of Convent Avenue. On Saturday, it will be rolled down the avenue; turned east onto 141st Street; rolled down a hillside with a 6 percent grade, past Steinman Hall of City College; turned south at Hamilton Terrace; then rolled into the park.

Windows, especially those at the corners, will be among the most vulnerable areas. To reduce any chance that the structure will shift out of shape, it is being bound tightly with wire rope and tied diagonally to the beams on which it is now supported. The chimneys are also to be braced.

Twice during the move, the house will be inspected. Windows will be tested to ensure that they are operable, meaning that no undue pressure is being exerted against the frames. Existing plaster cracks, already documented, will be checked to make certain they are not widening. If problems do arise, Mr. Spaulding said the house can be releveled by adjusting the blocking between the steel beams and the frame of the structure.

For now, he does not anticipate any need to halt the move outright.
As for that 6 percent slope on 141st Street, Mr. Spaulding said the contractor “is very confident that the grade is not going to be a problem.”
“He’s moved houses down grades like that before,” he added. The move itself is being done by Wolfe House and Building Movers of Bernville, Pa. The general contractor is Integrated Construction Enterprises of Belleville, N.J.

Each of the nine dollies has its own propulsion and braking system, Mr. Spaulding said, powered electrically and hydraulically. “If there’s any failure of the systems,” he said, “the brakes lock up.” There are four brakes on each dolly, for a total of 36 brakes.

Mr. Spaulding and his colleagues will breathe easier on Saturday night, but given the reconstruction and restoration ahead, they will not have much chance to relax. “Our goal for reopening the house would be the fall of next year,” he said. “There’s a lot more work to do.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/07/nyregion/07grange.html?_r=1&ref=nyregion&oref=slogin

Copyright 2008 (http://www.nytimes.com/ref/membercenter/help/copyright.html) The New York Times Company (http://www.nytco.com/)

[infoshare]

I viewed This (http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2008/06/06/nyregion/20080607_GRANGE_GRAPHIC.html?#step1) interactive graphic: terrific. Good find - thanks. According to the article the building will be moved today, I plan to go there this morning and see the site/sight: stand by for upcoming site photos.!

[The Benniest]

Very interesting. Thanks infoshare. :cool:

[brianac]

Look forward to your photographs INFO.

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2008/06/07/nyregion/07grange.600.jpg
David W. Dunlap/The New York Times
After being raised over a church’s side porch, Alexander Hamilton’s country home was perched on Convent Avenue. Its journey to St. Nicholas Park on Saturday should take three to six hours.

[The Benniest]

...and the fun starts. :cool:

[infoshare]

Only a few bits of the old foundation remain at the site: the house was moved about an hour before I arrived.

http://img258.imageshack.us/img258/5083/img0006pz4.th.jpg (http://img258.imageshack.us/my.php?image=img0006pz4.jpg)

http://img258.imageshack.us/img258/5083/img0006pz4.jpg (http://imageshack.us)


The house now sits in a park located about one block from the former site. The new foundation is clearly not completed yet; so my guess is that the house will stay in the current spot - for at least today.

http://img511.imageshack.us/img511/1709/img0039je5.th.jpg (http://img511.imageshack.us/my.php?image=img0039je5.jpg)

http://img511.imageshack.us/img511/1709/img0039je5.jpg (http://imageshack.us)

[brianac]

Well done, good shots INFO.

[brianac]

Witnessing a House, and History, on the Move

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2008/06/08/nyregion/08grange.span.jpg Andrew Henderson for The New York Times
After 119 years on Convent Avenue, Alexander Hamilton’s country home made a well-documented move around the corner to St. Nicholas Park.

By DAVID W. DUNLAP (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/d/david_w_dunlap/index.html?inline=nyt-per)
Published: June 8, 2008

With surpassing dignity and surprising agility — for a 206-year-old — Alexander Hamilton (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/h/alexander_hamilton/index.html?inline=nyt-per)’s country home, the Grange, lumbered down the West 141st Street hillside on Saturday morning to its new setting in St. Nicholas Park.

Under the eyes of neighbors from Harlem and Hamilton Heights, a moving crew composed mainly of German Baptist Brethren from Pennsylvania, often mistaken for Amish in their plain dress, guided the two-story, 298-ton house on a 3 hour 40 minute trip from its former site on Convent Avenue.

It turns out that the Grange, whose architect also worked on City Hall, is capable of doing about 0.04 miles per hour. (It is unclear how quickly City Hall can move.)

In its new setting, the house will be restored by the National Park Service (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/n/national_park_service/index.html?inline=nyt-org) and reopened to the public next year. The project’s cost is $8.4 million.
On Convent Avenue, the Grange’s formal front facade was jammed so close to the abutting St. Luke’s Episcopal Church that it was invisible.

Visitors had to approach the house from the side, through a makeshift entrance, if they bothered to come at all. Though the Grange is a national memorial, it was almost forgotten.

“To the residents of the community, it’s like our brother from the Virgin Islands has come back home,” said Representative Charles B. Rangel (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/r/charles_b_rangel/index.html?inline=nyt-per), the Democrat from Manhattan who has been involved for decades in efforts to restore the Grange. Hamilton’s boyhood home was on St. Croix in the Virgin Islands.

Watching the proceedings from St. Nicholas Park, Winston Walker said much the same thing about Hamilton. “He’s an immigrant, and that’s important,” said Mr. Walker, who was born in Jamaica and now lives at Convent Avenue and 148th Street. “He was one of us.”

A personal and proprietary sense of Hamilton, co-author of the Federalist Papers and the first treasury secretary, was evident among neighbors.

Sheryl Lee, 29, a musician and music producer who lives next door, said: “It was nice to look out my window and see Alexander Hamilton’s home. It’s been here for so long. That’s what makes Convent Avenue Convent Avenue.”

Larry Butler, 52, a hospital security officer, was walking his dog past the newly open lot. His view has improved without the Grange, but he said he approved of the move for other reasons. “Now that it’s in the park, it’ll be able to exhibit its full glory,” Mr. Butler said.

One question hangs over the final situation of the Grange, however. A lawsuit filed last week by Friends of Hamilton Grange, an association of community groups, property owners and preservationists, seeks to prevent the park service from reorienting the house so that its front faces 141st Street. Instead, the group insists that the house be oriented as it was on its original site on West 143rd Street, where it stood from 1802 to 1889, when it was moved to Convent Avenue.

The suit, in federal district court, did not seek to halt the move itself.
That began at 7:30 a.m. The house had already been jacked up so that it could pass over the top of the loggia of St. Luke’s. It was then set down on nine dollies controlled by a remote unit mounted at the front of the assembly. The move was performed by a team from Wolfe House and Building Movers of Bernville, Pa., led by the brothers Jamin, Mark, Nathan and Nevin Buckingham.

Wolfe was chosen in part because it was the only bidder with experience in lifting landmark buildings high off the ground, said Sid Raman, the president of Integrated Construction Enterprises of Belleville, N.J., which is the general contractor.

At 9:35 a.m., the house cleared Steinman Hall of City College with about 18 inches to spare. On reaching the park, it was turned around to its intended orientation. Maria Burks, the commissioner of the National Parks of New York Harbor, called the move “a work of art” in its own right.

Watching from the sidelines was James Wyckoff. In 1652, his ancestors built what is now known as the Pieter Claesen Wyckoff House Museum, at Clarendon Road and Ralph Avenue in Brooklyn. That makes it 150 years older than Hamilton’s house.

“This isn’t really an oldie,” Mr. Wyckoff said, as the Grange rolled downhill in his direction. “But it’s a goodie.”

Colin Moynihan contributed reporting.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/08/nyregion/08grange.html?_r=1&ref=nyregion&oref=login

Copyright 2008 (http://www.nytimes.com/ref/membercenter/help/copyright.html) The New York Times Company (http://www.nytco.com/)

[brianac]

Harlem Hybrid

A photoblog of Harlem, New York.


http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3012/2999158177_6d59e586af_o.jpg


And it looks like the ghost of Alexander Hamilton is settling in nicely in his new location!


http://harlemhybrid.blogspot.com/



yojimbot. Any later photo's of this?

[yojimbot]

that pic is from this past Saturday, so none more recent. Looks like they still have a lot of work to do, but it appears as though all the major hurdles have been cleared. One Hell of a Project in terms of complexity...no way everyone was going to come out happy on this one. They even brought in the Amish at one point. As an aside, does anyone else see a ghost in the lower right hand window of the house?

Y

[infoshare]

Yes, nice blog: some recent photo coverage over at the Harlem Hybrid site - Hamilton Grange, High Bridge and Wonder Woman. Funny, but true!