Andrew Haswell Green: New York's forgotten hero

Atop a seldom visited hill in Central Park sits the monument to perhaps the most instrumental founding father of New York, Andrew Haswell Green. Close by, a jogger stretches, oblivious to the presence of the man responsible for the park he enjoys today.

Green was responsible for not only the planning and development of Central Park but also The Natural History Museum, The Met, The Ny Public Library, The Bronx Zoo and the consolidation of the five boroughs which make up the New York City we know today. He was a New Englander who started out from humble middle-class beginnings. He had had several small time jobs during the economic crash of the 1840s (caused by the same reasons as the most recent financial meltdown). And he had even spent time in Trinidad where he worked  as a manager on a sugar plantation before returning to the states where he would eventually go to law school and become a successful attorney. He would travel to Europe and be inspired for his vision for new york. He would meet me Samuel J Tilden, a lawyer and politician who later became governor of New York and even a Democratic Presidential candidate who got so close to winning the presidency that the election of that year would remain one of the most controversial in US history. He had won the popular vote but would lose the electoral vote to Rutherford B Hayes. Green shared his home with Tilden until Tilden’s death in 1886. Seeing that he reportedly never showed any interest in women and like Tilden, was a confirmed bachelor till his death, he was probably gay.

Andrew Haswell Green c. 1840s

When Green had first traveled by boat with his sister from Worcester Massachusettes, New York was a brutish collection of slums and shanties. Central Park, one of Greens greatest achievement was a shantytown in a swamp like area.

 His life ended outside his Park Avenue brownstone when a deranged black man, Cornelius Williams, mistook him for another man who had been seeing his love interest, Hannah Elias, a prominent high-class call girl. She was a mulatto who had come from poverty to become one of the wealthiest and most sought- after women in New York. Her clients included prominent political magnates at the time. He was 83 years old.

The city we know today was his vision. He was a total micro-manager who saw through the execution of everything from the planning of the streets to the budget to the annexation of lands into new York. His work became a model for urban planning throughout the US and Europe. Yet all that remains of his memory is this lonely, austere bench built in 1928 by architect  John V. Van Pelt who had attended l’Ecole des Beaux Arts in Paris.  

The bench is typical of the Second Empire Baroque style architecture that was trendy in the days of General U.S Grant. Van Pelt was no doubt influenced by his education at the Beaux Arts in Paris when he designed this bench. You can see from the hand rests, an opulent baroque flair while the rest of the bench seems to indicate the bureaucratic, utilitarian nature of the man who shaped New York at the time.