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:
“What is a farm but a mute gospel? The chaff and the wheat, weeds and plants, blight, rain, insects, sun—it is a sacred emblem from the first furrow of spring to the last stack which the snow of winter overtakes in the fields.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)