Category Archives: Uncategorized

Yet another fantasia on McGowan’s Pass, as conjured up at the time of Central Park’s opening. As usual, we are supposed to be looking at a pastoral scene of about 1814-1816. By 1858 Fort Fish (top of the photo) was … Continue reading →

Another fine John Joseph Holland watercolor from the latter half of 1814, retrieved from the “emuseum” link at the New-York Historical Society. What is unusual about this image is that it looks east over the Harlem Creek leading to the … Continue reading →

We noted earlier how the McGowan’s Pass gatehouse radically changes shape as we go from one illustration to another. Stranger still is how the McGown house up on the hill seems to be re-imagined in each depiction. This lovely view … Continue reading →

Occasionally one comes across mention of “Koch’s New Mount St. Vincent’s Hotel,” a quasi-rural roadhouse that opened in the vicinity of Hamilton Heights around 1883 or 1884, after the old Mount St. Vincent’s Hotel in Central Park burned down (in … Continue reading →

Off in the desert developments of Murrieta, in California’s Riverside County, there is a posh McMansion enclave called Central Park. And at the northernmost reaches of this development, beyond such roads as Turtle Pond Lane and Boat House Drive, and at … Continue reading →

We just came across this remarkable etching of Mount St. Vincent’s Academy in an 1880s book on the school’s history (A Descriptive and Historical Sketch of the Academy of Mount St. Vincent… New York, Appleton & Co. 1884) . We … Continue reading →

Here again is that McGowan sledge we saw earlier, in a Valentine’s Manual etching: Full description reads: Andrew McGowan, of Harlem, New York, has an old sledge, dating as far back as 1783. On the back panel are the letters … Continue reading →

Through the magic of Googlebooks and archive.org, it is possible to find bits and pieces about McGowan’s Pass and the Black Horse Tavern, though these often contradict each other. In the excerpt below, the elderly Mr. S. Benson McGown (1797-1882?) … Continue reading →

The 1814 fortifications and gatehouse were thrown together in a few weeks, and this led to some higgledy-piggledy construction (as can still be seen in the last-surviving structure, Blockhouse No. 1 in the North Woods). It also led to a … Continue reading →

In the early 1860s the New York City Park Commission extended the northern boundary of Central Park from the line of 106th Street to 110th Street. It was a region of steep hills, cliffs, ravines, a marshy creekbed, and the … Continue reading →