PETER WALSH PROJECTS - Case Study (BLock 88)

Major Sources:

[1] New York City Office of the Registrar of Deeds, 66 John Street, 13th Floor, Manhattan

[2] Iconography of Manhattan Island, 1498-1909, Volume 6, I.N. Stokes, Martino Fine Books, The Law Book exchange, Ltd., 1998 (1915-1928).

[3] Gotham: A History of New York City to 1898, Burrows, Edwin G. and Mike Wallace, New York: Oxford University Press, 1999.

[4] New York City Department of Records and Information Services Municipal Archives, 31 Chambers Street, Room 103, Manhattan

10,000 – 7,000 B.C.E. – The first people to arrive at the island of Manhattan appear to have been hunters who followed big game into the area as the Ice Age ended, glaciers receded, and the ocean rose. They also appear to have simply passed through the area moving south as the warming continued. [3]

5,500 B.C.E. – 1626 C.E. – A second group followed later, settling into a series of seasonal encampments at various locations throughout the region including a site just north of what is now City Hall Park (Block 122, Lot 1). Eventually known as the Lenape peoples, they consisted of about a dozen small groups who hunted small game, fished, gathered naturally occurring produce and planted small agricultural plots. Although estimates vary widely, there may have been 15,000 people in the area when Europeans first began to arrive. [3]

The Lenapes made use of a trail whose approximate route proceeded from Bowling Green and the Battery up Broadway, turning at the corner of Broadway and Ann Street and continuing up what is currently Park Row. [3]

In 1621, the States-General, the legislative body of the United Provinces of the Netherlands chartered Geoctroyerde West-Indische Compagnie, commonly known in English as the Dutch West India Company. Capitalized at 7.5 million Guilders, the Company was a corporate entity with sole Dutch rights to develop trade in West Africa and the Americas. It had its own structure of governance and its own military forces. Aside from trade, the Company was able to pay its shareholders massive dividends through the organized seizure of Spanish shipping vessels, a common practice during the seventeenth century when nations were at war. [3]

Unlike the purchase of Staten Island, which is detailed in an August 10, 1626 deed, there is no extant document of the purchase of Manhattan. Mythology (and a second-hand hearsay account contained in a contemporaneous letter) has Dutch West India Company Director Peter Minuit purchasing, on behalf of the Company, parts of Manhattan in May-June 1626 from on-site natives later determined to be simply traveling in the area. The price was apparently similar to the Staten Island purchase - a technology transfer of “Some Duffies [duffle cloth], kittles [kettles], Axes, Hoes, Wampum, Drilling Awls, Jew’s Harps and Diverse Other Wares” worth about 60 Dutch Guilders (the proverbial $24). [3]

Minuit likely believed he had purchased a clear, permanent deed to the land. It is unlikely that the Lenape leaders who participated in a later “re-purchase” agreement (after pointing out that the first deal was cut by non-Manhattan visitors) had any such conception of absolute property rights of the kind that Europeans had devised after a thousand years of argument, adaptations and precedents. [3]

What is now called Manhattan Block 88 Lot 1 was part of what was once known as the Bowerie (Farm) of the Dutch West India Company. The farm was laid out by Cryn Frederickson in 1625 - apparently before the purchase by Minuit. [2]

1664, March - [GRANT] King Charles II of England made his younger brother, James Stuart, the Duke of York (later King James II), proprietor of most of the lands then known as New Netherland. [3]

The duke sent troops to seize control of New Amsterdam, taking possession of the city from the Dutch West India Company on September 8, 1664. [3]

1664, September 8 - [ARTICLES OF CAPITULATION] By the terms of the surrender, Dutch settlers were allowed to keep their “Estate, life, and liberty.” However, property owned by the Dutch West India Company eventually become property of the English Crown. Block 88 Lot 1 then became known as the Duke’s (after the Duke of York), the King’s (when the Duke became King James II) and the Queen’s Farm. [2][3]

1705, November 23 - [GRANT] [2] Trinity Church’s title to land in Manhattan has been the subject of hundreds of years of debate with some vigorously challenging its claims.

1713, July 13 - [GRANT] [2] The Queen of England confirms Trinity’s holdings.

1786, June 8 - [DEED] Liber Deeds 43: 398 [1] This is not the complete plot known today as Lot 1. The 1790 U.S. Census lists George Stanton as having three slaves during the time he owned this part of Lot 1. There are no identified records that indicate whether they lived on the property.

In August of 1803, Rufus King resigned his Ambassadorship in London and returned to New York to run for Vice President. He lost to Thomas Jefferson and Aaron Burr. After selling his property to John Jacob Astor, he moved to Jamaica, New York.

1832, March 15 - [DEED] Liber Deeds 283: 86 [1] This parcel completed what is now known as Lot 1.

From 1834 to 1836, William Astor built the Astor House luxury hotel (architect Isaiah Rogers).