Delancey Farm
The pre-Revolutionary farm of James Delancey to the east of the post road leading from the city (The Bowery) survives in the name of Delancey Street and, dimly, in Orchard Street. On the modern map of Manhattan the Delancey farm is represented in the grid of streets from Division Street north to Houston Street. In response to the pressure of a growing city, Delancey began to survey streets in the southern part of the "West Farm" in the 1760s. A spacious projected Delancey Square intended to cover the area within today's Eldridge, Essex, Hester and Broome Streets, was eliminated when the Loyalist Delanceys' property was confiscated after the Revolution. The city Commissioners of Forfeiture eliminated the aristocratic planned square for a grid, effacing Delancey's vision of a New York laid out like the West End of London and establishing the resolutely democratic nature of the neighborhood forever.
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Famous quotes containing the word farm:
“I respect not his labors, his farm where everything has its price, who would carry the landscape, who would carry his God, to market, if he could get anything for him; who goes to market for his god as it is; on whose farm nothing grows free, whose fields bear no crops, whose meadows no flowers, whose trees no fruit, but dollars; who loves not the beauty of his fruits, whose fruits are not ripe for him till they are turned to dollars. Give me the poverty that enjoys true wealth.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)