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| Before: March 19, 2012 |
The photo above was taken a day or two before the 1st centennial event in Isham Park which took place last Saturday the 24th of March. On the same day 100 years ago, an extensive article was published in the New York Times:
Plans Park
for the North End of Manhattan
Island: Gift of Mrs.[sic]
Flora E. Isham Revives the Unfulfilled Dream of Andrew H. Green for Acquiring
Inwood Hill So the City Would Have a Park at Each End of the Island**see below
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| Salvaged Andromeda shrubs: Rockfeller Center, ferns: MOMA |
Copies of the Times article and other literature were distributed. Guests and volunteers sipped coffee, ate pastries, and shared their wishes for the park on a map and on slips of paper.
Hardworking volunteers then added depth to the border plantings around and near to the Isham memorial bench area with the help of the Parks Gardener.
Since the actual Centennial celebration planned will be held on Saturday September 29th 2012, we hope to add to the beauty of the park a bit at a time until then!
The next VIP event is planned for Sunday April 22nd, Earth Day. But please also attend the parade to pick up trash planned by the Rotary Club of Inwood in conjunction with I.S. 52 for Saturday the 21st of April! More soon on both events....
Until then have a look at the N.Y. Times article** about Isham Park from March 24, 1912:
"The generous gift by Miss Flora E.
Isham of several acres of valuable land for the extension of Isham Park near
Kingsbridge, which the Board of Examiners accepted on Thursday, has brought
into public notice one of the almost forgotten and still unfulfilled dreams of
the late Andrew H. Green known as the “Father of Greater New York.”
This dream which, Mr. Green hoped
to see a reality before he died, was the acquisition by the city of the high
wooded section at the extreme northern end of Manhattan
Island, where the Spuyten Duyvil meets
the Hudson,
known as Inwood Hill and the turning of the territory into a park. The dream came near being made a reality when
public attention was centered upon the locality a couple of years ago, when the
Hudson Memorial Bridge
over the Spuyten Duyvil was planned. The
ground was surveyed and a broad avenue, which would be a continuation of Riverside Drive,
was laid out as an approach to the bridge and then something went wrong. The park scheme seemed suddenly to have been
forgotten.
When, last
year, Mrs. Julia Taylor [sic] Isham (should be Mrs. Julia Isham Taylor)
daughter of the late William Isham, presented the old Isham homestead and its
broad acres at 213th street and Broadway to the city for a park,
Park Commissioner Stover at once set about to see if something couldn’t be done
to obtain Inwood Hill....
“It is a shame
if the city neglects to buy the hill,” said Commissioner Stover, “it is ideally
situated for a park for, if the present roads are extended, it will complete Riverside Drive, thus
furnishing a continuous drive along the Hudson
as far as the Spuyten Duyvil and extending through Isham Park
to Broadway. It is only a short distance
down Broadway to Dyckman Street
and the Speedway.
“If this
property is obtained by the city it will mean there will be a beautiful park at
both ends of Manhattan Island, Battery Park on the South and Inwood Park
on the north. Some day the city will
realize the advantage of having this arrangement, but the longer we wait the
more it will cost. Something ought to be
done at once.”
Inwood Hill
is in practically the same primitive condition it existed in when it was
discovered by Hendrick Hudson. In
describing the section, Reginald Pelham Bolton of the Washington Heights
Taxpayers Association and an authority on the historical region around Spuyten
Duyvil, once wrote:
“The hill not
only possesses the last remains of the wild woodlands which once covered
Manhattan Island but within them are hidden the actual rock shelters which once
formed the abodes of the original Manhattanites from which were taken only a
few years ago unmistakable evidence of Indian habitation and around which may
today be seen immense mounds of oyster and clam shells which formed the
kitchen-middens of primeval man. When
therefore, interest began to be evoked in the Tri-Centennial Celebration,
attention was drawn to the fact that within the confines of the borough of
Manhattan there still existed a priceless treasure of relics of by-gone times
and of primeval inhabitants, which the great metropolis would feel it a duty to
preserve. These were found to be directly
associated with the advent of Henry Hudson by reason of his conflict with the
natives then resident on the Indian stronghold of Nip-nich-sen which crowned
the summit of the Spuyten Duyvil hill and in every probability also with the
natives who were then resident under the shelter of the overhanging cliffs of
the east side of Inwood Hill.
This
interest has so far spread that a very general public demand has arisen for the
acquisition by the city of such of the lands of Inwood Hill as will preserve
these invaluable remains of the past as well as such of the scenic features of
the wild woodland as shall preserve to all future generations a reminder of the
original character of Manhattan Island.
Certainly no more appropriate memorial of the great event of the
discovery of this part of the world by Hudson
could be found than the preservation in the form of a park of this beautiful
locality.”
Isham Park
itself is historical ground. Samuel
Isham, the eldest son of William B. Isham, recalled some old memories of the
place:
“My father,” he said, “leased the
Kingsbridge place for the summer of 1862.
The next year we went to Newburg, but in 1864, he bought the place. It was then very rough, much of it a tangled
thicket of red cedars, but the lawns about the house had been carefully kept
up. He cleared it, moved the stable from
the top of the hill to its present place, regraded the whole hill from top to
bottom, planted nearly all of the trees that now remain, and in fact remade the
place into about what it is now. At
that time the surroundings were only beginning to be suburban. The Kingsbridge
Road was a good dirt country road—long regretted by us after it had been
graded and widened, for the new street remained for years unpaved a waste of
dust in dry weather and a slough of mud in wet.
One relic we got from the operation the old milestone twelve miles from
the City Hall had stood some hundred feet below our gate and when it was thrown
into the rubbish heap by the workmen, my father got it from the foreman and had
it built into the wall by our gate post.
It had been a well-known milestone, by the way. For many years, up to a comparatively short
time before we bought the place, the old Dyckman House just beyond it had been
the last stopping place of the drivers on their way to the city. The cattle pastured overnight in the meadows
east of the road and the next day were driven to the Bull’s Head at Twenty-third Street.
Our house, which was built I think
by the Mr. Ferris from whom we bought the place, has remained almost
unchanged. In fact, its peculiar plan
rendered extension practically impossible.
I suppose it dates from the fifties.
The older traditions of the place go back to the Revolution, when, like
all adjacent country, it was fought over.
There were traces of earthworks toward the creek and in the grading and
plowing there were cannon and musket balls turned up with old buckles and
buttons. The lime kilns, which were the
peculiar characteristic of the place, may have been pre-Revolutionary. From our gate up to the north end of the
island extends almost the only marble formation in Manhattan.
(I have the impression that there is one other.) Down by the creek there were kilns built to
burn the marble into lime. The old stone
building, now a barn, was used to store the lime which was shipped in sloops
from a dock in the creek. This end of
the place was probably its main center of activity a century ago. There was a small house there in 1862 used by
the gardener, and though that was comparatively recent, there were other signs
like apple orchards and the like which indicated that a farmhouse had stood
there. A stronger argument is a spring
of pure, cold water on the bank at the edge of the swamp. Near this spring still stands a cherry tree
which must now be well over 100 years old and which shows its age. It used to yield an abundance of dark sweet
cherries, and I suppose it may be the sole surviving specimen of the ‘Dyckman
Cherry’ a species famous in its day, but now supposed to be extinct.
“My
father’s farm was for pleasure and not for profit but he had been born and
brought up in the country and knew something about it, enough to take great
delight in managing his farm. After the
one of the more extensive grading operations, the hill was sown with wheat and
when the crop was harvested and thrashed, he drove himself with sacks of grain
to a grist mill that then stood on Spuyten Duyvil Creek near the old Kings
Bridge and brought back the flour so that he could boast that he had eaten
bread raised by himself on Manhattan Island.”
Mr. Bolton
again dug into the archives of the past and had this to say of its early
historical associations:
“Isham Hill
was the scene of some events of the Revolution, when in November 1776 the
Hessian advance parties took possession and erected on the edge of the park
looking south two redoubts. A sharp
encounter took place in November 8th, when the Pennsylvania troops, ensconced in the woods
of Inwood Hill, drove in the Hessian outposts and fired their quarters. The entire Hessian division moved over the
park area where on November 16, 1776, the assault on Fort Washington
was made.”
Isham Park
occupies a hill between Broadway, Isham
Street, the United States Ship Canal,
and 215th Street. The old mansion, still in a good state of
preservation, is on the summit of the hill, about 300 feet above the water and
commands a fine view of Inwood Hill, Cold Spring Hollow, and Spuyten Duyvil
Creek to the west and the Dyckman tract to the east and southeast. Between Inwood Hill and the Spuyten Duyvil
the prospect extends across the Hudson River to the Palisades
beyond. With Marble Hill adjoining to
the north, where stands the old mansion once owned and occupied by “Boss” Tweed. It covers a
space about one and a half miles in length and three quarters of a mile in
width.
The ground
comprising the park was the favorite haunt of the Wech-quas-keeks a local
Indian tribe, and many evidences of their existence have recently been
discovered. Human remains have been
disinterred on the south margin of the park at Isham Street, as well as many evidences
of the ceremonial----burials hard by at Cooper Street, while stone objects,
tools, and weapons have been dug from the soil all over the hill. As soon as the necessary money can be
obtained, those objects will be placed on view in the old mansion.
Borough
President McAneny is enthusiastic over the gift made by Miss Isham, and forsees
the time when the park will be a blessing to the population which is growing
rapidly within easy walking distance of it.
He said:
“The garden
site may be utilized as a shaded playground for little children by planting
clipped linden trees arranged formally with seats underneath on clean white
pebbled ground as the French have done in the Luxembourg
Gardens in Paris.
There might be a pool in the center, and shelters on the side. The old mansion however will be used as a
main pavilion, with perhaps refreshment accommodations for women and their
babies.
“A
stairway, in circular arrangement, leads down from Seaman Avenue to the long meadow which
drops to Indian Road. The water front from the bulkhead line to the
Cold Spring Road,
might be developed as a park dock or recreation pier with a cut-in boat basin
and landings and with some covered shelters low enough, of course, not to
interfere with the sight of the river from the hill.
“As the
population crowds around the park in commercial and residential buildings, this
breathing space of exceptional beauty, with its varied topography, will be more
and more appreciated and remain a constant reminder of the generosity of the
donors and the wisdom of the city officials in accepting and preserving such a
noble gift for the benefit of the people of the City of New York.
“There are
no other parks on Manhattan Island north of 181st Street except the
precipitous cliffs alongside the Harlem River Speedway, known as the High
Bridge Park, and even this park is not adapted for general public use, and is
not easily accessible to the people of Washington Heights or the Dyckman
tract. The streets in this territory are
almost entirely bare of trees, and, except for the cool and shady retreat
offered by Isham Park, there is no place where mothers
and children can find relief from the summer heat.
“There is a
large garden at the southeast corner of the park, elm and maple trees around
the mansion, and groves of fine trees all over the ground. A magnificent avenue of elm trees border the
carriage way leading into the park from the Broadway entrance; this carriage
way continues up to the mansion, which is surrounded by well-kept lawns, and
the grounds are traversed by numerous winding pathways. On account of the high elevation of the park,
there are uninterrupted views looking in nearly every direction. Access can now be had from Broadway and 212th Street
through the old iron gateway and thence by carriage road through the avenue of
elms and around the westerly slope of the hillside up to the mansion. There are large groups of maple and locust
trees along the boundary lines of the extension, and these form a most
beautiful natural frame or border for the Hudson River view from the hilltop.”
