Rose Hill, Manhattan

Rose Hill is a recently-revived name for a neighborhood in the New York City borough of Manhattan. [Harrison, Karen Tina. [http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=950CE7D7153FF932A35757C0A9679C8B63&scp=1&sq=%22rose%20hill%22%20%2223rd%20street%22&st=cse "NEIGHBORHOOD REPORT: ROSE HILL; It's the Final Furlong For a Loved OTB Parlor"] , "The New York Times", April 1, 2001. Accessed August 18, 2008.] It is bounded by 23rd Street and 30th Street on the south and north, and by First Avenue and Broadway on the east and west.Fact|date=July 2007 It straddles Manhattan Community Boards 5 and 6.

The Watts farms "Rose Hill"

The designation "Rose Hill" has been until recently more prominent in The Bronx, where Rose Hill Park is a vestige of a far larger estate once called "Rose Hill" by its owner, Robert Watts, and Rose Hill Campus is part of the site of Fordham University. According to the New York City Department of Parks, [ [http://www.nycgovparks.org/parks/X042/ NYC Parks: Rose Hill Park] : The Watts are called "Watt". Robert added the "-s", according to James Duff Law ("Here and There in Two Hemispheres" 1903:6), who traced the site of the original "Rose Hill"] in 1775 [The double wedding of Col. Thomas H. Barclay and John Watts, Jr. to two daughters of Peter DeLancey, at "Union Hill" in Westchester (a property of Cadwalader Golden< dElancey's father-in-law), was recorded in "Rivington's New-York Gazetteer" (R. Burnham Moffat, "The Barclays of New York" 1904::104 note 13).] Robert's brother John married his cousin Jane DeLancey, whose family lived on the adjacent property, which is now Bronx Park. Prior to his marriage, John Watt had lived on his Manhattan properties. He purchased the Bronx property in 1787 from the estate of Andrew Corsa. Archival research by Roger Wines, professor of history at Fordham, has shown that the original owner of the manor was a Dutchman named Reyer Michaelson. Benjamin Corsa married Michaelson's daughter and was deeded the house and land in 1736. John Hughes, Roman Catholic Bishop of New York, purchased Rose Hill in 1839 as the future site of Fordham's forerunner, St. John's College. [ [http://www.fordham-tradition.org/sep89.htm "Fordham Tradition", September 1989, on-line text] ).] Shortly afterwards, John transferred the property to his brother Robert, who named it "Rose Hill". [The name was transferred to property at Tivoli, New York of John Watts de Peyster, whose father, Frederic De Peyster, had married Mary Justina Watts (died 1821), youngest daughter of the Hon. John Watts, in the front parlor at 3, Broadway, in 1820 (Frank Allaben, "John Watts de Peyster" (1908:25); see also the description in Arthur G. Adams, "The Hudson River Guidebook" 1996:233, at mile 96.00.]

According to a historical genealogical source, [William M. MacBean, "Biographical Register of Saint Andrew's Society of the State of New York." Vol. I 1756-1806 (1922), "s.v." "(47) Watts, the Hon. John" ( [http://www.bklyn-genealogy-info.com/Society/1785.St.Andrew.Bio.html on-line text] ).] the first "Rose Hill" was the farm acquired in 1747 by the Hon. John Watts (1715-1789), who represented the city for many years in the Colonial Assembly. It contained over 130 acres which lay on the East River between what were to become 21st and 30th streets and between the future 4th Avenue and the water. Watts' residence in town was at 3 Broadway, facing Bowling Green. Watts was the son of Robert Watts, of "Rose Hill", near Edinburgh, and Mary, eldest daughter of William Nicoll, of Islip, Long Island; he named the farm in commemoration of his father's house. In July 1742, he married Ann, youngest daughter of Stephen DeLancey. As Loyalists, they left for Britain in 1775 and never returned, leaving "Rose Hill" and the house at 3 Broadway in the hands of their son John Watts (1749—1836).

The main house at Rose Hill burned in 1779, but a deed from the 1780s mentions "houses, buildings, orchards, gardens" on the land. [ [http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/02/realestate/02scap.html Christopher Gray, "a house that's shy about revealing its age", "The New York Times", ] ] Christopher Gray reports that parts of Rose Hill Farm were being sold off in the 1780s: in 1786, Nicholas Cruger paid "144 pounds" for a lot at the north edge of the property, consisting of most of what is now the block bounded by 29th and 30th Streets and Second and Third Avenues. The Cruger parcel was subdivided into building lots by the time the Commissioners' Plan of 1811 was adopted, establishing Manhattan's present street grid.

Just to the southwest corner of the "Rose Hill" property, Gramercy Park was laid out in 1831, on the axis of what became Lexington Avenue.

Institutions of Rose Hill

Today's community is home to the core of the Baruch College and School of Visual Arts campuses and the New York University College of Dentistry. Madison Square anchors its southwest corner, bounded by 23rd Street, 26th Street, Fifth Avenue and Madison Avenue.

The original Madison Square Garden was located at, and derived its name from, Madison Square, at the corner of Madison Avenue and 26th Street, and stood at the site from 1879 to 1890. The second Madison Square Garden, located at the same site, was designed by Stanford White, who would later be killed at the Garden's rooftop restaurant. This second incarnation of Madison Square Garden stood at 26th Street from 1890 to 1925, when the Garden was relocated to the West Side at 50th Street and Eighth Avenue. [Bagli, Charles V. [http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/12/nyregion/12garden.html?n=Top/Reference/Times%20Topics/Subjects/O/Office%20Buildings%20and%20Commercial%20Properties "Madison Square Garden's Owners Are in Talks to Replace It, a Block West"] , "The New York Times", September 12, 2005. Accessed August 18, 2008.]

White kept an apartment in the tower of Madison Square Garden; there are conflicting accounts of whether the famous "red velvet swing" was in that apartment, or in a nearby building on 24th Street which White rented. In 2007, the building on 24th Street collapsed due to damage from a fire that occurred in 2003. [cite web|url=http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/04/nyregion/thecity/04swin.html|title=The Girl, the Swing and a Row House in Ruins|last=Dworin|first=Caroline H.|date=2007-11-04|work=New York Times|accessdate=2008-08-19] [cite web|url=http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/28/nyregion/28collapse.html|title=Building in Flatiron Collapses, Causing a Mess but No Injuries|last=Williams|first=Timothy|date=2007-10-28|work=New York Times|accessdate=2008-08-20]

The square is dominated by the former headquarters (until 2005) of Metropolitan Life Insurance Company and the headquarters of New York Life Insurance Company, located on the site of the original Madison Square Garden.

Those buildings are designated New York City landmarks, as is the Appellate Division of the New York Supreme Court of New York State, between them. The blocks immediately north of the park were designated the Madison Square North Historic District in 2001, a delineation which covers sections of three blocks on the west side of Broadway as well. [ [http://www.nyc.gov/html/lpc/downloads/pdf/maps/madison.pdf Madison Square North Historic District] , New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission, designated June 26, 2001. Accessed [{August 18] , 2008.] The historic district is the site of the Museum of Sex, located at Fifth Avenue at 27th Street. [Rothstein, Edward. [http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/05/arts/design/05sex.html?scp=1&sq=%22museum%20of%20sex%22&st=cse "What’s Latex Got to Do With It?"] , "The New York Times", October 5, 2007. Accessed August 18, 2008.] It is also the site of a hip haven in what was once Tin Pan Alley, [http://www.gershwinhotel.com/ The Gershwin Hotel] .

The community has several single room occupancy supportive housing ventures, among them [http://www.friendshousenyc.org/ Friends House in Rosehill] , a Quaker venture which in effect recovered the neighborhood's old name, and the [http://www.gothamgazette.com/article/fea/20050912/202/1565 Prince George Hotel] sponsored by Common Ground - a neighbor of the Gershwin and the Museum of Sex.

Transportation

Rose Hill is served by four subway stations. The 23rd Street and 28th Street stations on the BMT Broadway Line offer service on the N, R and W lines at Broadway. the 23rd Street and 28th Street stations of the IRT Lexington Avenue Line are both located on Park Avenue South, offering all day service on the 6 and late night service on the 4 line.

The area is also served by north-south bus lines on the avenues and Broadway and the M23 east-west crosstown bus service on 23rd Street. The district to the east of Lexington Avenue never developed fashionable quarter. To the north it abuts Kips Bay.

References