History
A different building on approximately the same site was commandeered by George Washington during the American Revolutionary War, as it strategically overlooked Hell Gate. That building was called Belview Mansion and was the country residence of Jacob Walton, a New York merchant. The British destroyed this house during that war.
Archibald Gracie then built another building, what is now known as Gracie Mansion, on the site in 1799, and used it as a country home until 1823, when he had to sell it to pay debts. In the fall of 1801, Gracie hosted a meeting there of New York Federalists, called by Alexander Hamilton, to raise $10,000 for starting a newspaper, the New York Evening Post, which eventually became the New York Post.
Other people lived in the house until 1896, when the municipal government seized it and made its grounds part of Carl Schurz Park. It served various functions as part of that park (at various times it housed public restrooms, an ice-cream stand, and classrooms) until 1924. From 1924 until 1936 it housed the Museum of the City of New York, and from 1936 until 1942 it was shown as a historical house.
In 1942, Robert Moses convinced Mayor Fiorello H. La Guardia to appropriate the house as a mayoral residence. Its main two floors are open to the public on a limited basis for guided tours, and serve as a small museum.
It was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1975.
Read more about this topic: Gracie Mansion
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“To care for the quarrels of the past, to identify oneself passionately with a cause that became, politically speaking, a losing cause with the birth of the modern world, is to experience a kind of straining against reality, a rebellious nonconformity that, again, is rare in America, where children are instructed in the virtues of the system they live under, as though history had achieved a happy ending in American civics.”
—Mary McCarthy (1912–1989)
“It would be naive to think that peace and justice can be achieved easily. No set of rules or study of history will automatically resolve the problems.... However, with faith and perseverance,... complex problems in the past have been resolved in our search for justice and peace. They can be resolved in the future, provided, of course, that we can think of five new ways to measure the height of a tall building by using a barometer.”
—Jimmy Carter (James Earl Carter, Jr.)
“Social history might be defined negatively as the history of a people with the politics left out.”
—G.M. (George Macaulay)