If you live in the area bound by Varick, Charlton, MacDougal, and King Streets on the western edge of SoHo, then you’re a resident of a neighborhood once called Richmond Hill.
The name comes from the circa-1760 colonial mansion and bucolic estate that once stood nearby.
The Richmond Hill mansion (below right) was really something. “The big house, a massive wooden structure of colonial design, had a lofty portico supported by Ionic columns,” reports a Villager article from 1945.
“A long curving driveway led up to the house which was built on a wooden mound. Fretted iron gates guarded the entrance.”
It hosted a succession of famous names: George Washington, John Adams, and Aaron Burr.
Abigail Adams described the estate’s beauty: “On one side we see a view of the city and of Long Island. The river [is] in front, [New] Jersey and the adjacent country on the other side. You turn a little from the road and enter a gate. A winding road with trees in clumps leads to the house, and all around the house it looks wild and rural as uncultivated nature. . . .”
Burr sold it to John Astor around 1807. He subdivided lots for development, and the Richmond Hill neighborhood sprang up in early 19th century—small Federal-style homes, many of which are still on Charlton, King (above), and other blocks off lower Sixth Avenue.
The old mansion operated as a resort, roadhouse, and theater until it was razed in 1849. With the house gone, the neighborhood name died too.
Tags: Colonial New York City, Greenwich Village history, Richmond Hill Manhattan, Richmond Hill New York, Richmond Hill Aaron Burr, Richmond Hill mansion, Federal style houses New York City, New York in 1760, Aaron Burr duel, Abigail Adams, John Astor real estate
November 3, 2011 at 4:58 am |
Aaron Burr: My ancestor Thomas Malone, Sr. (son of Bute/Warren Cos, N.C., Ens Wood Malone, son of John Malone of Malone’s Bridge, Dinwiddie Co., Va.) arrived Ft. St. Stephens, Alabama, as U.S. Land Office agent, U.S. Magistrate, Asst. Indian Agent, and Clerk of Court.
Malone and Capt. Edmund Pendleton Gains were playing cards one rainy night, when Aaron Burr in disguise was reported in the area. Supposedly Burr was dressed as a peasant, but Burr’s mount was that of a gentlemen. Something was ‘fishy’?
Malone did not want to leave, but Capt. Gaines and Malone found Burr and took Burr to trial, Richmond, Va. (Pickering’s Alabama Biographies).
At a crossroads, Burr’s Rock, South Carolina; Burr escaped and sought sucker from the inhabitants.. Possibly they did not recognize him? Seeing the futility of his escape, Burr surrendered to Malone. Malone wept at the fallen plight of this once great man, head of Princeton University.
November 3, 2011 at 9:47 am |
Usually when an important building is torn down, we are left with a parking lot or some hideous replacement, so those handsome brick houses are quite a pleasant consolation prize.
Your recent posts seem to turn into song lyrics:
The Lass of Richmond Hill.
On Richmond Hill there lives a lass
More bright than May-day morn,
Whose charms all others maids’ surpass,
A rose without a thorn.
This lass so neat,
With smiles so sweet,
Has won my right good will.
I’d crowns resign
To call thee mine,
Sweet lass of Richmond Hill.
I often hum this, with its oddly equivocal lyrics–was she the most charming or the least? (The song refers to a Richmond Hill in England)
–Road to Parnassus
November 4, 2011 at 6:14 pm |
Thanks for the post. It’s right around the corner and I never knew.