Manhattan Square and the beginnings of the Upper West Side
In 1865, members of the Board of Commissioners of Central Park were the ones who decided what was to go where in the brand new park. When it came to determining what should go on the land that is now Theodore Roosevelt Park, this band of prominent New Yorkers decided that it should be a zoo.
Topographical map of Manhattan Square drawn when it was nothing more than a plot of land with a few outcroppings. (Museum of the City of New York)
Why a zoo?
At the time that the Commissioners made their decision, there was already a zoo in the park at the Arsenal but it was getting crowded. The odd menagerie of animals that had accumulated in that space had run out of room; the random mix of abandoned pets, animals that had belonged to the army and the navy, retired circus animals and exotic creatures gifted to the city by diplomats from all over the world, needed a new home.
The Commissioners decided that the menagerie should go west, to the area then known as Manhattan Square. They figured that the Square, the land that is now the site of the American Museum of Natural History and Theodore Roosevelt Park, would be the perfect place to build the new and expanded zoo. In 1865, an article in the New York Times announced that “The Zoological Gardens are about to be commenced at Manhattan-Square, and the commissioners fully expect to have this valuable garden completed before the Summer wanes.”
Change of plans for the site
As with many other proposed city planning projects before and since, the west side zoo never happened. Instead, seven years later, the Commission decided to use the Manhattan Square land to build a new, world-class natural history museum. At the time, New Yorkers were eager to prove that their city was every bit the equal of the capitals of Europe and they wanted a natural history museum that would compete with the ones in Paris and London.
The site had been purchased by the city in 1839 with the thought that the acreage would become a strolling park to be called Manhattan Square. In the mid 1800s, this slice of the city was sparsely populated and difficult, if nearly impossible, to reach. The Upper West Side was made up of farms and stately homes that belonged to well-established New York families, and, at the other end of the economic spectrum, homes owned primarily by African-Americans in an area called Seneca Village. (The Village, just north of Manhattan Square, was razed when the park was created.)
Mayor Fernando Wood’s Mansion on West 77th Street and Broadway, typical of the homes of the wealthier West Siders in the mid 1800s. (NYPL)
A run down and sparsely settled spot
Eventually, the area around Manhattan Square became highly desirable real estate and luxurious apartment houses began to spring up around it, but in the last quarter of the 19th century, the area was far from being considered as valuable, even habitable.
According to a Bowery Boys podcast about the establishment of the Museum (we highly recommend the Bowery Boys podcast), one of the museum’s most enthusiastic founders, Albert S. Bickmore, sat on a rock overlooking the soon-to-be site of the museum and wrote that his “only companions were goats”.
The first building of the American Museum of Natural History in the middle of Manhattan Square, 1870s.
A group of movers and shakers get in the act
But all that was about to change. A New York Times article from 1872 headlined “Manhattan Square: West Side Property-Owners Anxious for its Improvement” reported on a meeting of property owners who had gotten together to “agree, if possible, upon some method of remedying the present disgraceful condition of Manhattan-square…”. This group of influential New Yorkers resolved that, because the improvement of the whole west side district depended on the improvement of the Square, an appropriation of $50,000 should be granted to “put Manhattan Square in order...” In support of their request, they cited the “near opening of two elevated steam railroads” that would soon open “nearly the whole of that district to improvement”. As we now know, their prediction was right on.
Their request was granted and a New York Times article written ten years later reported that what was “originally unsightly and unattractive” land, had been repurposed “by the skill of the landscape gardener who has transformed it by means of a series of winding walks..."
What happened to the good old neighborhood?
Once Manhattan Square had been cleaned up and had become a much-sought-after location for apartment buildings that lined the Park, some of the wealthier residents of the area, the ones who had lived there before the area was “carved up, paved over, and urbanized”, became nostalgic for the “good old days”.
Some of the men (and there were only men) formed a group called Ye Old Settlers’ Association of Ye West Side that got together once a year to eat a huge dinner and reminisce about the neighborhood that had changed so dramatically. Their meeting place, appropriately enough, was Ye Manhattan Square Tavern, on 77th Street, opposite the museum. The New York Times described the meeting as one where “members give reminiscences of the days when houses were few, apartments were none, and transportation on the West Side was chiefly accomplished by old-fashioned horse cars on Eighth Avenue.” It’s not a stretch to imagine a group of seniors sitting in a cafe on the Upper West Side today bemoaning the “good old days” of the neighborhood, much the same way the Old Settlers did.
The menu from the 10th Annual Dinner, Ye Old Settlers’ Association of Ye West Side
According to the Bowery Boys, Manhattan Square is the oldest developed section of the Upper West Side. As you sit in the park that surrounds the Museum, give yourself time to think about what came before and about the fact that you are sitting in exactly the spot where the Upper West Side, as we know it, began.