MUSEUM HAPPENINGS By Clint Brownfield
he stretch of 61st Street between 1st and York Avenues in Manhattan is nestled among high-rise apartment, and office buildings and hospitals. Just to the south, the Roosevelt Island Tramway can be seen gliding along the horizon. But the main feature here is one of New York’s true—and possibly under-discovered—gems the Mount Vernon Hotel Museum (MVHM), one of only about eight 18th-century structures remaining in Manhattan. Today, it’s difficult to imagine that this area was once farmland.
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Built in 1799 as a carriage house, the stone-covered house museum today is owned and operated by the Colonial Dames of America, a hereditary society whose members can trace their ancestry back to people who lived in the colonies before the Declaration of Independence in 1776. For many years, the historic building was open to the public as the Abigail Adams Smith Museum and was part of a 23-acre estate owned by John and Abigail Adams Smith. Her parents were John and Abigail Adams. The museum’s name was a bit of a misnomer since the Adams never actually lived in the structure—they resided in the main house on the property, which was lost to fire in the early 1800s. In the mid-1980s the Federal-style home was retooled and reopened as the Mount Vernon Hotel Museum and Garden, reflecting how the building appeared when it began operating as a day hotel in 1826. Eight period rooms are now on view, in addition to the beautiful gardens surrounding the museum—providing an oasis in 21st-century Midtown Manhattan. In 1826, when the hotel opened, the city’s population was concentrated below Canal Street and, with the opening of the Erie Canal; the city’s population grew exponentially, from 100,000 to more than 200,000 in just a few years. To escape the hustle and bustle of the city downtown, people would travel to such hotels as the Mount Vernon to live it up for a day. They arrived either by boat on the East River or carriage via the Old Boston Post Road—roughly where 1st and 2nd Avenues are today. They would spend the day overlooking the East River meet new friends, dine and would be back home before sunset.
NOVEMBER 2017 | NEW YORK LIFESTYLES MAGAZINE | 95