14 Facts About Gramercy Park

Gramercy Park is the name of both a small, fenced-in private park and the surrounding neighborhood that is referred to as Gramercy, in the New York City borough of Manhattan in New York, United States.

Irving Place commences at the southern end of Gramercy Park, running to 14th Street, and Lexington Avenue, a major north-south thoroughfare on the East Side of Manhattan, terminates at the northern end.

Gramercy Park then laid out "Gramercy Square", deeding possession of the square to the owners of the 66 parcels of land he had plotted to surround it, and sought tax-exempt status for the park, which the city's Board of Aldermen granted in 1832.

Gramercy Park brought about the creation by the state legislature of Lexington Avenue and Irving Place, two new north-south roads laid out between Third and Fourth Avenues and feeding into his development at the top and bottom of the park.

Gramercy Park was enclosed by a fence in 1833, but construction on the surrounding lots did not begin until the 1840s, due to the Panic of 1837.

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In 1863, in an unprecedented gesture, Gramercy Park was opened to Union soldiers involved in putting down the violent Draft riots which broke out in New York, after conscription was introduced for the Civil War.

Gramercy Park itself had been protected with howitzers by troops from the Eighth Regiment Artillery, while the 152nd New York Volunteers encamped in nearby Stuyvesant Square.

At No 34 and No 36 Gramercy Park are two of New York's first apartment buildings, designed in 1883 and 1905.

Calvary Church on Gramercy Park North has a food pantry that opens its doors once a week for one hour, and the Brotherhood Synagogue on Gramercy Park South served as an Underground Railroad station before the Civil War, when the building was a Quaker meeting house, established in 1859.

The mansion at No 16 Gramercy Park was purchased by Booth and renovated by Stanford White at his request to be the home of the Players' Club, which Booth founded.

Gramercy Park turned over the deed to the building on New Year's Eve 1888.

On September 20, 1966, a part of the Gramercy Park neighborhood was designated an historic district, the boundaries of which were extended on July 12, 1988.

Since December 31, 1831, Gramercy Park has been held in common by the owners of the 39 surrounding structures.

Gramercy Park is served by two New York City Fire Department fire stations.