THE CHELSEA HISTORIC DISTRICT Inal Bakery for Protect and Preserve the Antique Equipment for the Future
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Across the street from St. Peters, you will ment, and with the help of their teachers and support of both the school’s The PS11 HANDS ON HISTORY WALKING TOUR GUIDE see a plaque on the building at 337 West Principal, Bob Bender, and Deborah Osborne, Director of the Afterschool of 20th Street, referred to as the Muffin House. Program, wrote and received a Margot Gayle Education grant from the Met- Reading further, you will see that ropolitan Chapter of the Victorian Society, a well know preservation advo- this was the orig- cacy organization. The grant is for a protective sheet of plexi-glass that will THE CHELSEA HISTORIC DISTRICT inal bakery for protect and preserve the antique equipment for the future. Thomas’ English The Hands On History Afterschool class Muffins from Among its new projects, Hands on History was invited in 2013 to participate Uni Project, May, 29th, 2013 1855 – 1919 in The Uni Project, an initiative dedicated to expanding a culture of learn- in Clement Clark Moore Park ing beyond the walls of schools and libraries and into public space. They #11 provide Uni Cubes which act as outdoor reading rooms and classrooms. For this project, the HOH students and their teachers created a Chelsea Historic District Walking Guide, for which they did research by touring the district, Clement Clarke Moore Park, learning about the history of numerous buildings, and taking photos of the located at 10th Avenue and sites and buildings that are in the guide book. Especially because the May 22nd Street, is named after PS11 Hands On History: Preserving the Past in the Present 29th Uni Project takes place in the Clement Clarke Moore Park on 22nd Clement Clarke Moore, and Street and 10th Avenue, the book also focuses on Moore’s life, his author- originally opened in 1968. It is ship of the famed holiday poem, A Visit from St. Nicolas, and the many sig- also known as the “Seal Park,” The PS11 “Hands On History: Preserving because of the seal statues that the Past in the Present,” created and taught nificant contributions he made to the neighborhood still known as Chelsea neighborhood, which was once his family’s country estate. spray water in summer. In 1995 by Lesley Doyel, with 5th grade teacher renovations to the Park includ- Jessica Griffith, has been offered as an after ed a new perimeter fence and Since beginning in 2011, the Hands On History class has met with school class since the fall of 2011. PS11 is play equipment, safety surfac- distinguished preservationists, including Tenzing Chadotsang of the located on West 21st Street in Manhattan’s ing, as well as plantings and NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission, Julie Finch and Fern Luskin, Chelsea neighborhood. transplanted trees. Every De- Co-Presidents of the Friends of the Hopper-Gibbons House Underground cember local residents gather The class engages elementary school stu- Railroad Site & Lamartine Place HD, Jean Arrington, specialist on NYC dents from the 2nd to 5th grades in the C.B.J.Snyder Schools (of which PS11 is one), Frampton Tolbert, Deputy in the park on the last Sunday study of their Chelsea neighborhood and Director of the Historic Districts Council, Urban archeologist, Alyssa of Advent for a reading of Twas emphasizes the importance of preserva- Loorya, from the NYC Department of Construction and Design. the Night Before Christmas, authored by Clement tion and adaptive reuse at after-school ses- Clarke Moore, whose family’s country estate is sions with visiting preservationists, urban archeologists, and field trips We wish to acknowledge the following for their support: the present day Chelsea Neighborhood. to historic sites. This past year the Hands On History class has visited sites in Chelsea including the General Theological Seminary, the oldest PS11 Principal, Robert Bender Moore’s estate, Chelsea, was on the west side of dwelling within the Chelsea Historic District, the Starrett-Lehigh and Deborah Osborne, Director, PS11 Afterschool Program Manhattan island above Houston Street, where Terminal Warehouse Buildings in West Chelsea, the Chelsea Piers and The Victorian Society in America, Metropolitan Chapter, of which Hands the developed city ended at the time, and was Maritime Pier 66, and learned about the history of each and how they On History is an Education Initiative bringing awareness of history mostly open countryside.[5] It was once the prop- have been preserved through landmarking and repurposing. Recently, and historic preservation to elementary school children. erty of Major Thomas Clarke, Clement’s maternal the students headed south of 14th grandfather and a retired British veteran of the Street to the Gansevoort Market His- Many thanks to the Spring Semester 2013 Hands on History students: French and Indian War. Clarke named his house toric District, where they discovered Diana Araujo, Lina Fana, Charn Hong, Giovanni Sanchez, Ethan Larson for a hospital in London that served war veterans. Giovanni Diaz, Valentina Huayhua and made rubbings of foundry marks The estate, which on the doorways of cast iron buildings also came to be dating from the 19th century. called Chelsea, was Sources: Chelsea Historic District, Borough of Manhattan later inherited by Last semester HOH students discov- New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission Designation Report Thomas Clarke’s ered previously unknown gym equip- September 15th, 1970, LP-O666 daughter, Char- ment dating from the 1920s in a closet The Greatest Grid: The Master Plan of Manhattan, 1811-2011 by Hilary Ballon, ity Clarke Moore, in the 5th floor gymnasium of PS11. Published by The Museum of the City of New York (2011), and ultimately by The students researched the equip- Turn West on 23rd Street: a toast to New York’s Old Chelsea by Robert Baral, grandson Clement Fleet Publishing, NYC, 1965. and his family. When New York City laid down the street grid called for in the Commissioner’s Plan of 1811, the #1 Chelsea Historic District was the first of new Ninth Avenue went through the middle of CLEMENT three such districts in the Chelsea neigh- the estate, city blocks were laid out. The shoreline CLARKE MOORE borhood, and was designated by the NYC of the Hudson River that was originally at what is PARK Landmarks Commission in 1970, and of- now 10th Avenue, was extended with landfill made ficially extended in 1981. of the earth from the flattening the once hilly area. Like all others, the historic Eventually, Moore began to develop Chelsea, divid- District can be identified by ing it up into lots along Ninth Avenue and selling the brown Historic District them to wealthy New Yorkers. #1 street signs. The red line on the map shows the bound- Eventually, Moore began to develop Chelsea, aries of both the Chelsea dividing it up into lots along Ninth Avenue #2 #6 and selling them to wealthy New Yorkers. Historic District and the extension. The other two His- Moore also donated to the Episcopal diocese toric Districts are the West Chelsea Industrial District and an apple orchard consisting of 66 tracts for use Larmartine place on West 29th Street. A plaque describing the Chelsea as a seminary, construction on which began HD can be found on the side of a federal style building at 401 West 23rd in 1827. This became the General Theological Street, just west of 9th Avenue. #7 Seminary... #2 James N. Wells established his real estate busi- ness in 1819. By 1833 he was living and run- ...where Moore served as the first professor of ning the business dealings from the quaint brick Oriental Languages, and which still survives on house at 183 9th Avenue, also 401 West 21st the same site, taking up most of the block be- #3 Street. As Clement Moore broke his sprawling tween 20th and 21st Streets and Ninth and Tenth estate, Chelsea, into plots he collaborated with Avenues. It is oldest seminary of the Episcopal Wells on the sale and development of the sites. Church in the United States. As you can see in #10 Originally from Hudson Street in the Village of an 1838 print showing the West Building (1836), #9 #5 Greenwich, now Greenwich Village, Wells was which is still stands on the grounds of the Gen- instrumental in transforming Chelsea from eral Theological Seminary, the shoreline of the #8 meadows and farmland into a rapidly grow- Hudson River was originally where 10th Avenue ing residential and commercial section. And it made him a small fortune in the meantime. is today. You can see a sailboat in the near dis- #7 tance. Visitors are welcome on the grounds from In 1835 Wells completed his own grand town 10 to 3 Monday through Saturday house at No. 414 West 22nd Street, just about a #8 #3 block from his office that was in 401 west 21st Street. Its Greek Revival de- sign was just appearing and its exceptional width stretching five bays across Most of the original buildings at the General Seminary campus were designed is over twice the size of an average townhouse lot. by Charles Coolidge Haight (1841 – February 9, 1917), an American architect who practiced in New The 400 Block of West 20th Street, also in the York City. A number of his buildings survive includ- Chelsea Historic District. ing at Yale University and Trinity College in Hartford, Near the east end of the block, the Donac apart- Connecticut. ment building at #402 negotiates the transition Ten years later, Moore also gave land on Ninth and to garden setback by way of a gracefully curved 20th Street, east of the avenue, for St. Peter’s Episcopal #4 facade. It was commissioned by a daughter of Church.