Manhattan Square History

No place in New York City quite captures the essence of the upside/downside process of the construction/destruction of environmentally important institutions as well as Manhattan Square, a seventeen-acre parkland bounded by Central Park West and Columbus Avenue, and by West 77th street and West 81st street. Known since 1958 as Roosevelt Park, Manhattan Square has become home to American Museum of Natural History since the land was ceded to that fledging institution by the Commissioner of Central Park in 1872. The museum’s first building opened to the public in December 1877. Manhattan Square was a result of an 1877 law mandating the laying out most of the island in streets and avenues – the familiar rectangular grid of roads north of Canal

Manhattan Square was one of the few chunks of land to escape the surveyors’ thirst to impose a grid that disregarded obstacles in its projected path. The square was originally laid out within the boundaries of the grid, but because it was to be a park, one of the several created on a grid plan, it was not subdivided by streets since the square contained three prodigious hills and a pond. Hence, Manhattan Square was designated nearly fifty years before Central Park was founded in 1857. David Wagstaff owned around 90-percent of land selected for the square. He purchased it from Ms. Rebecca Apthorp who had inherited the land from Charles Ward Apthorp, whose mansion was located around the corner what is now the 91st street and Columbus Avenue. In 1832, Wagner’s portion was purchased by the city and included in Manhattan Square. In 1850, all the land was acquired and valued at $54,657. The American Museum of Natural History located in Manhattan Square, was initially the dream of its founder, Albert Bickmore. New York had long wrestled with its bouts of poverty and lawlessness – the draft riots of 1863 was still fresh in