RECEIVED Environmen1al R'evi,EW

RECEIVED ENVIRONMEN1Al R'EVI,EW NOV 2. 9 '988 lANDMARKS PRESE~VAltOM COMMISSiON ~ h~ STAGE IA BLOCK .2172, LOT 64 60 Nagle Avenue Inwood,Manhattan for YM.-"YWHAof washington Heights CEQR No. 88 - 194- M Dr. Karen S. Rubinson, SOPA Dr. Frederick A. Winter, SOPA KEY PERSPECTIVES November 15, 19,88 TABLE OF CONTENTS Plate List ii Introduction 1 Topography General Area 3 Project Area 4 Prehistory 6 Historic Periods and Lot History 12 Conclusions and Recommendations 22 Plates 24 Table l:Lot Number Changes 32 Maps Consulted 33 Bibliography 35 i • PLATE LIST Plate 1 Map of New York City Landmarks Commis- sion Predictive Model, Project Area Plate 2 1980 Sanborn Map, Project Block Plate 3 Bolton Map showing Indian Sites Plate 4 Grumet Map showing Indian Names Plate 5 Photographic Views, Project Site Plate 6 Photographic Views, Project Site Plate 7 Plan, core borings Plate 8 Section, core borings ii INTRODUCTION • This study is designed to fulfill the requirement of a Stage IA documentary survey for block 2172, lot 64 in the Inwood section of Manhattan, as required by The New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission. This lot was flagged for study because it was viewed as being a potential source of significant remains dating to the prehistoric period of Amerind occupation in upper Manhattan. In addition, block 2172 is located in an area 'of significant activity during the historic period, particularly the Revolutionary War, and thus is a possible source of eighteenth century remains. The lot is planned to contain one hundred low- i·ncome units for the elderly and handicapped, developed by the YM-YWHA of Washington Heights, adjacent to its current facility at 54 Nagle Avenue. The new 14-story structure, like its low companion, will be set on piles and will have no basement.l This study consists of an examination, through maps and texts, of the history of the area of block 2172 and its natural topography. In addition, the building history of the site has been researched and the site visited and examined in its present condition. The information is analyzed to determine if a Stage IE archaeological survey should or should not be required~ and an appropriate recommendation is made. A Stage IE archaeological survey will be required if, on the basis of the Stage IA documen- 1 For the standing structure, Piling Report, 2 August 1955, New York City Department of Buildings; for proposed structure, CEQR Application 88-194-M , 2/2/88. 1 tary research, the site is determined to have the possibility of yielding significant archaeological materials. The research for this study was conducted at The New York Public Library, the Brooklyn College Library, the University Museum Library (University of Pennsylvania), The Buildings Depar- tment of the city of New York (Hudson Street) and in the authors' personal libraries. 2 TOPOGRAPHY GENERAL AREA (MAP, PLATE 1) Block 2172 lies in the Inwood district, within Manhattan Planning District 12 near the northernmost tip of Manhattan Island. The general area surrounding the site is dominated by the heights of Fort Tryon Park, which rise more than 200 feet above the site, on the west, cutting block 2172 off from the Hudson River. Access to the river is provided by the low ground at the northern edge of Fort Tryon Park, located about three-- eights of a mile north of the site. This low pass follows the line of rnodern Dyckman Street and Riverside Drive., extending from Broadway to the Hudson at Tubby's Hook. To the east of block 2172 rise the heights of Fort George. These heights are positioned just south of the point where Dyck- man Street runs to the Harlem River. North and northeast of block 2172 the ground is level, running to the now-drained mar- shes and partially filled inlet known originally as Half-Kill and more recently as Sherman's Creek. Block 2172 thus sits at the apex of a low, flat wedge of land that extends south from a "base" along the southern side of Sherman's Creek. To judge from eighteenth century renderings, this bottom land consisted of cleared, broadly fenced fields and 3 scattered farmsteads during the Revoiutionary War.2 The low area between Forts George and Tryon, which includes block 2172, is identified as "Poverty Hollow" on the 1851 Dripps/Jones map of northern Manhattan. A small brook or stream ran just southeast of block 2172 along the line of Nagle Avenue. The stream was one of a number of water courses that fed into Sherman's Creek. The stream does not appear to have had a standardized name. Bolton, the best known historian of Washington Heights and Inwood, calls it simply The Run.3 A more romantic name, Barrier Gate Creek, appears on the anonymous map prepared in 1860 for the Commission of Washing- ton Heights.4 The creek rose in the vicinity of Fort Washington Avenue and 180th Street and flowed north along the line of Ben- nett Avenue. It crossed Broadway at the point where Broadway, Nagle Avenue, Bennett Avenue and Hillside Avenue all meet and then proceeded northeast along Nagle Avenue. Lot 64 fronts on the former stream course. THE PROJECT AREA (MAP, PLATE 2, PHOTOGRAPHS, PLATES 5 & 6) The proposed development site consists of a now empty lot on 2 Kouwenhoven 1972:74, which reproduces the watercolor by Capt. Thomas Davies, 16 November 1776. 3. Bolton 1924:168. 4. Anon 1860. Although the map does not bear a signature, it is known that Frederick Law Olmsted received the nineteenth century commission for surveying Washington Heights and Inwood. The original Washington Heights and Kingsbridge section maps in the New York Public Library are therefore likely to be products of Olmsted or his staff. 4 block 2172, between a standing 3-story structure of the YM-YWHA and a new two-story commercial building, fronting on Nagle Ave- nue. To the northwest is a 6-stoty apartment building which faces onto Broadway, the road which follows the line of the early historic route to Kings Bridge. The lot is paved overall with a rough tar and granite-chip paving, except in the northeast, where there are remnants of a concrete slab. At present, the lot is surrounded by a chain-link fence and serves as a parking lot for YM-YWHA vehicles. The current surface of lot 64 is about one foot higher than the surface of Nagle Avenue and the cellar of the apartment building behind lot 64 is approximately the same elevation as the surface of lot 64, with the first story of that building at a level with its frontage on Broadway. Whether and how much al- teration of the elevation of lot 64 from the original Poverty Hollow surface can .be determined only by coring information, not the current topography. 5 PREHISTORY Prehistoric occupation in the northeast and New York City area has been divided into the following periods: Paleo-Indian, 10,500 - 8000 B.C., Archaic, 8000 - 1300 B.C., Transitional, 1300 - 1000 B.C., and Woodland, 1000 B.C. - historic occupation. The Archaic and Woodland periods have been subdivided into Early, Middle, and Late phases as follows: Early Archaic, 8000 - 6000 B.C., Middle Archaic, 6000 - 4000 B.C., Late Archaic, 4000 - 1300 B.C., Early Woodland, 1000 - 300 B.C., Middle Woodland, 300 B.C. - 1000 A.D., Late Woodland, 1000 A.D. - European contact. Each of these periods is characterized by particular settle- ment types. Paleo-Indian sites are often along areas of low, swampy ground or on very high, protected areas. 5.Within New York City, Paleo-Indian remains have been excavated at the Port Mobile site on Staten Island, and worked stone implements of Paleo-In- "dian type have been found at additional locations within that bo- rough. 6 Although Paleo-Indian materials have not yet been dis- covered in Manhattan, some portions of the island were, in the recent past, of the topographic type favored by the Paleo-Indian hunters. Thus, the Urban Archaeolo~ist's predictive model lists the Collect Pond area in lower Manhattan and Washington Heights 5Ritchie 1980:7. 6I b'dl .: pp. XVll.. f • and map, pp. 4f . 6 in the north as being potential areas for Paleo-Indian remains.7 In predicting the location of Paleo-Indian sites, it must be remembered that the topography of Manhattan and its surrounding region have changed since the beginning of the Neothermal period. The discovery of the remains of land-based megafauna such as mammoth and mastodon on the Atlantic Ocean floor along the Continental Shelf opposite the New York - New Jersey sea coast8 serves as a reminder that the geography of the New York area has been altered considerably since antiquity, and that microhabitats such as the stream that flowed adjacent to the project area may have been radically different during the earlier periods of prehistory. Barrier Gate Creek, Sherman's Creek and even the Harlem River have probably shifted course since PaleoIndian times. Without core borings and other geological tests, it is difficult to predict the form Poverty Hollow would have taken in this early period. The Early Archaic was characterized by small hunting camps. According to the Landmarks Commission study for a city-wide archaeological predictive model, such sites do not have great archaeological visibility, nor-are they likely to be associated with particular land forms.9 Finds from other portions of the u.S. Northeast indicate that during the Middle Archaic there was 7 Baugher et al. 1982:10. 8. Chesler 1982:20. 9. Baugher et al.

Load more