In the Weeds, with Matthew Gallaway: Jumel Terrace
The best route to Jumel Terrace is by way of a small staircase located on St. Nicholas Avenue just north of 160th Street, on the east side. Before you get to the garish teal awning of the adjacent supermarket, turn right and walk up the fifteen or so steps to the top. The ghetto behind you—the housing projects, the dealers, the 99-cent stores, the tinted-window SUVs roaring up and down Amsterdam Avenue and the (faggot-hating) iglesias pentecostales—will instantly recede as you are delivered into one of the city's most forgotten landscapes.
Often this street (Sylvan Terrace) will be empty or you might meet a first-time visitor walking around in circles, dazed by the incongruous setting. 'Do you know what this is?' a woman asked me the other day. I understood what she meant and gave her my stock response: the houses were originally built in the late 1800s for the servants of the mansion, which you can see at the other end of the street. 'I heard there used to be a brothel here,' she breathlessly informed me. 'I saw it on Channel 13.'
I approached the Morris-Jumel Mansion, which is the oldest house in New York City Manhattan. According to the New York Post, it may or may not be literally haunted….
….and not just by the specters of poverty, governmental ambivalence, crime and corruption that are the hallmarks of this part of Washington Heights.
I stood under a black locust tree and read the plaque: George Washington, our first non-heterosexual President of the United States 'slept' here with some of his soldiers during the Revolutionary War.
I went through the gate onto the empty grounds and sat for a few minutes with the ghosts on the park benches.
There is a dilapidated quality to the mansion and the surrounding estate that is both maddening—from a gentrification historical-interest perspective—and comforting to the extent one is inclined to a Schopenhauerian ethos of pessimism and resignation.
Two hundred years ago, the grounds were spectacular. A volunteer working on a restoration showed off some autumn crocus and explained that these were just one of hundreds of species of plants that would eventually be cultivated to replicate the original four quadrants of flowering herbs and perennials in the sunken garden: culinary, fragrance, medicinal and hallucinogenic.
The sundial seemed to point in one direction: the past.
I examined the stump of a magnolia tree that—according to the volunteer—was poisoned with chemicals a few years ago by some thoughtful person.
There is still one left, however.
I spent a few minutes strolling the crumbling brick paths, the borders of which—though in obvious need of organization and resources—have an overgrown charm. I stopped to admire a few things, such as a small patch of aster.
The creeping cotoneaster also had lovely orange berries.
Back out on the cobblestone street, I noted a rare 'Firebird' bush.
Approaching Amsterdam, I felt exhausted by my walk, as if I were carrying 200 years of neglect on my shoulders. I set down my cane and paused to rest for a few minutes on a railing. 'How to survive on an island,' I thought, and wished that I knew.
Previously: Gardening Is My Blank
Matthew Gallaway is a writer who lives in Washington Heights. His first novel, 'The Metropolis Case,' will be published in 2010 by Crown.
While the Morris-Jumel mansion is terrific, it is not the oldest house in New York City. It is the oldest house in Manhattan. The oldest house in NYC is located in Brooklyn — the Wyckoff House. I love your travelogue & hope you will bring us all there in the near future.
My herb garden is lacking in the hallucinogenic quadrant.
Severely so.
Too many/not enough weeds.
It is the Schrodinger's cat of laziness.
Thanks for the correction, Dr. Pipt — I'll definitely put the Wyckoff House on my list!
Beautiful post, Matthew. Any idea where I can get one of those 'Firebird' bushes? White Flower Farm seems to be all out.
I look forward to your novel. I love to read your pieces.
Love this. Particularly the line about the sundial! Who lives in those houses in the first picture?
They are actually just private houses now — you could probably pick one up for between $___ and $____ (renovated). I've been inside a few and they are totally adorable (if you like that kind of thing). The houses on Jumel Terrace are really amazing — twenty feet wide, crazy details, limestone facades, etc etc.
Man, I was in the mood for exactly this. so weird how the voice that guides me through the walking tour is NOT YOUR VOICE.
I want to go to all of the theres pictured. (Well, maybe not the helpful railing. I get a pee vibe even from here.)
Also, Paul Robeson!
http://www.forgotten-ny.com/COBBLESTONES/Jumel/jumel4.html
…it that the same Firebird in one of the photos?
I used to live on 160th and see the mansion every day. I really miss it now. This little two block area is a real oasis. Thanks for this.
I cant do what you do…I live in Southern California. I miss things built before steam.
Just last night I tried to explain to my bartender about this feature. And today, you post another gem! Thanks!
Matt, that tree stump made me so sad!
<3 this.
Yes, it's really sad and actually a pretty big problem around the city — add it to the list! — a few years ago someone 'girdled' one of the oldest/largest trees in Fort Tryon Park and it slowly died; if you want to be more depressed, you can read about other examples in the NYT City Room:
http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/04/04/arborcide-he-wrote/
This was a lovely post. Thanks so much.
I was at a 2 day board retreat and we held it at the Morris Jumel manison. It was thrilling to be able to hang out in there and imagine when that was out in the countryside, miles away from New York City at the other end of the island, back in the days when Greenwich Village was truly a separate village.
Kudos to your board for holding your retreat at the mansion! (Did you see any ghosts?)
I love this one, except for that it makes me want to read all of your blog now. And I'm on a stupid deadline.