Cover photograph: North side of West 29th Street, Christopher D. Brazee, 2009 Lamartine Place Historic District Designation Report Prepared by Virginia Kurshan and Theresa Noonan Edited by Mary Beth Betts, Director of Research Photographs by Christopher D. Brazee Map by Jennifer L. Most Commissioners Robert B. Tierney, Chair Pablo E. Vengoechea, Vice-Chair Frederick Bland Christopher Moore Stephen F. Byrns Margery Perlmutter Diana Chapin Elizabeth Ryan Joan Gerner Roberta Washington Roberta Brandes Gratz Kate Daly, Executive Director Mark Silberman, Counsel Sarah Carroll, Director of Preservation Lamartine Place Historic District Lamartine Place Historic District West 31st St Borough of Manhattan, NY Landmarks Preservation Commission Calendared: December 16, 2008 Public Hearing: January 13, 2009 Designation: October 13, 2009 Boundary of Historic District Tax Map Lots in Historic District West 30th St e v e v A A h t h h t n g i i E N 355 333 West 29th St Existing Historic Districts Historic District West 28th St Manhattan Queens Brooklyn 100 Feet Graphic Source: MapPLUTO, Edition 06C, 2006. October 15, 2009. OTK. Landmarks Preservation Commission October 13, 2009, Designation List 419 LP-2324 LAMARTINE PLACE HISTORIC DISTRICT Testimony at the Public Hearing On January 13, 2009 the Landmarks Preservation Commission held a public hearing on the proposed designation of the Lamartine Place Historic District (Item No. 3). The hearing was duly advertised according to the provisions of Law. There were 23 speakers in favor of designation including representatives of Council Speaker Christine Quinn, Borough President Scott Stringer, Assemblyman Richard Gottfried, and numerous individuals and representatives of civic organizations.1 There were no speakers in opposition. The Commission has also received a statement of support from State Senator Thomas Duane and numerous petitions and letters in support of designation. Boundary Description The Lamartine Place Historic District consists of an area bounded by a line beginning at the southeast corner of the lot of No. 333 West 29th Street, extending northerly along the eastern side of the lot to the northern property line of No. 333 West 29th Street, then extending westerly along the northern property lines of No. 333 to No. 355 West 29th Street, then extending southerly along the western property line of No. 355 West 29th Street, to the southern curb line of West 29th Street, then easterly along the southern curb line in front of Nos. 355 to No. 333 West 29th Street, to a point in said curb line formed by a line extending southerly from the eastern property line of No. 333 West 29th Street, then northerly across the sidewalk, to the point of beginning. 1 Speakers at the public hearing included representatives of Save Chelsea, Friends of Lamartine Place, the Real Estate Board of New York, the Chelsea Reform Democratic Club, the Landmarks Conservancy, Community Board 4, the Metropolitan Chapter of the Victorian Society in America, the Historic Districts Council, the Municipal Art Society, the Four Borough Preservation Alliance, and the Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation. Letters in support of designation were read from the Mt. Morris Park Community Development Corporation, the Society of Friends, 15th Street Meeting, a descendent of Abigail Gibbons, the Society for the Architecture of the City and several individuals. 1 Summary The Lamartine Place Historic District, on the north side of West 29th Street between 8th and 9th Avenues is an intact group of twelve buildings that have a strong link to an important and dramatic period of the city’s history and also have a close association with several important individuals who had a significant impact on 19th century New York. Constructed in the mid 19th century, these buildings were part of a block-long row created by developers William Torrey and Cyrus Mason. As part of the development they also built a small park on the south side of the street, making the row quite desirable and attracting a number of influential New Yorkers. Among the most prominent were Abby and James Sloan Gibbons. Important abolitionists in the period before the Civil War, their house was used as a meeting place for influential people in the movement and as a documented stop on the Underground Railroad, where they helped escaping slaves get to Canada. The house was attacked and burned during the Draft Riots of 1863. Their house at No. 339 West 29th Street is one of the very few extant sites to be associated with the pivotal events of those days. While this building was the prime target of the rioters on this block, other houses in the row played an important role in these events. Abby Gibbons’s sister and her family lived at No. 335 Lamartine Place and members of the Hopper family took refuge there during the attack. Two of Abby and John Gibbons’ daughters escaped the fire and mob by climbing over neighboring roofs to a waiting carriage on Ninth Avenue, descending through the house at No. 355. Although the houses in the row have experienced alterations over time, this small group of houses continues to exist as the city changes around them. Chelsea remained primarily rural until the middle of the 19th century and even after development the character varied widely from block to block. The Gibbons family was perhaps attracted to this area because of the variety of people who lived in the neighborhood. While some streets (such as Lamartine Place) were developed with substantial rowhouses geared toward upwardly striving middle-class families, a block to the west, near the Hudson River, there were factories and tenements for their workers. To the east of Lamartine Place was a small community of free African-Americans who had settled there during the first half of the 19th century. After the Civil War, the area west and north of 23rd Street and Fifth Avenue evolved into an entertainment district, with restaurants, theaters and early nickelodeons. It seems to have attracted bohemians, artists and free-thinkers, and a small French expatriate community developed in the area during the early 20th century. During much of the 20th century, Chelsea became less desirable. With the construction of Pennsylvania Station just to the north, in the first two decades, more factories and warehouses located nearby and residential units were taken over by less affluent residents. The dilapidated houses south of Lamartine Place were demolished in the early 1960s and replaced by the towers of Penn South, overshadowing the small houses on West 29th Street. In spite of these changes, this district has remained an enclave in the changing city and has survived as a rare extant physical reminder of a dramatic and unfortunate chapter in the city’s history. 2 THE HISTORICAL DEVELOPMENT OF LAMARTINE PLACE HISTORIC DISTRICT Development of Greater Chelsea Neighborhood2 Although prior to the arrival of European fur traders and the Dutch West India Company, Manhattan and much of the modern-day tri-state area was populated by bands of Native Americans from the Lenape tribe, there were no indications of Native American habitation in the Chelsea area.3 In the late 18th century, as the city of New York began to grow northward along the east side of Manhattan, the section that would become Chelsea remained rural, with small farms and large estates providing the only suggestion of future settlement.4 Thomas Clarke, who had served the king of England in the French and Indian War was given 94 acres of land on the western side of Manhattan, north of Greenwich Village. He built a large house near what became 9th Avenue and 23rd Street, naming his estate Chelsea, which was an old soldier’s retreat in England. After his death, his wife and later his son and then his grandson inherited the property.5 His grandson, Clement Clarke Moore extended the family holdings as far north as approximately 28th Street6 and was the owner of the estate when the Commissioners’ Plan was unveiled in 1811, laying out the street grid that would promote development and growth throughout Manhattan. Clement Clarke Moore, whose father (Benjamin Moore) was president of Columbia College, received an advanced degree there in 1801. He inherited the estate in 1809, living the life of the landed gentleman, enjoying his extensive property, and dabbling in politics through the writing of several political pamphlets, as well as the first American-produced lexicon of the Hebrew language. As the owner of a large estate, Moore held slaves at this time. In 1819 he donated the land between 8th and 9th Avenues, 20th and 21st Streets for the construction of a campus for the General Theological Seminary (where he later became a professor of Oriental and Greek literature).7 When Moore realized that development would come to his extensive lands whether he wanted it or not, he decided to try to control it. In 1822 he teamed with James N. Wells, whom he had met when the latter was a young carpenter in the neighborhood. Wells helped Moore develop Chelsea, devising property restrictions for Moore’s projects that required tree planting and mandated no stables or rear buildings. These details suggest that Moore was trying to create a first-class residential district.8 A newspaper article in 1846 confirmed this, stating, “The 2 The part of Manhattan that is defined as Chelsea is generally thought to include the area bordered by the Hudson River on the west, 6th Avenue on the east, 14th Street on the south and 30th Street on the north, about one square mile. 3 Historical Perspectives, Inc. and The Louis Berger Group, Archaeological Documentary Study No. 7 Line Extension/ Hudson Yards Rezoning (April 13, 2004), III, A-1-6.