Once a farm with a bay
The history of Turtle Bay dates back to 1639 when the Dutch governor
gave two Englishmen a land grant of forty acres, crossed by a creek
that emptied into a bay of the East River. Some historians attribute
the name to the turtle-filled creek, while others say it had nothing
to do with turtles, that the name was more likely a corruption of
the Dutch word "deutal" (a bent blade), which referred
to the shape of the bay. Regardless, the turtle feasts of the day
prevailed and so did the name, Turtle Bay Farm.
"MOUNT
PLEASANT" James Beekman (1732-1807), who built his famous mansion,
Mount Pleasant, in 1763, acquired the northern part of Turtle
Bay Farm. In 1840, with the opening of First Avenue, the house
was moved to 50th Street to make way for the opening of 51st
Street. It was finally torn down in 1874, but a parlor and bedroom
from the house can be seen at The New-York Historical Society.
PICTURE CREDIT: New York's Turtle Bay Old & New by Edmund T.
Delaney, Barre Publishers, 1965
From the early days of European settlement and through the Revolutionary
War, the bay offered sailing ships a safe haven from winter gales
and the capricious currents of the East River, making it important
to the commerce of Manhattan. Shipbuilders established a thriving
business in Turtle Bay, and by the time Robert Fulton tested his
steamboat on the East River in 1808, the wharf area was filling
up with breweries, carpentry shops, mills, and small industries.
Country squires
As the city grew in the mid-1800s, Turtle Bay saw its share of squalor
as well as squires. Among the country gentlemen were Horace Greeley,
founder of the New York Tribune."The house," he wrote,
was located on eight acres of ground including a wooded ravine
or dell on the East River at Turtle Bay, nearly opposite the southernmost
point of Blackwell's Island (now Roosevelt Island).
Edgar Allan Poe, a friend and neighbor of Greeley, wrote of the
pleasures of rowing a small boat around the island and bemoaned
the city's plan for a grid system, which doomed the natural landscape.
In his commentary for the Columbia Spy newspaper, Poe wrote of his
exploration around Turtle Bay cove:
I procured a light skiff and made my way around Blackwell's Island
on a voyage of discovery and exploration. The chief interest lay
in the scenery of the Manhattan shore, which is here particularly
picturesque. The houses are, without exception, frame and antique...I
could not look on the magnificent cliffs and stately trees, which
at every moment met my view, without a sigh for the inevitable
doom--inevitable and swift.
Poe was right; the grid system would transform
Manhattan into a neat pattern of squares, which would be subdivided
into lots and developed for housing. From 1840 to 1850, large
avenues continued to be opened up to the north, and the hilly
landscape was graded to form cross streets.
Turtle
Bay and Blackwell's Island about 1840 at the foot of what
now is 49th Street. In the back is the Beekman house and to
the right the rocks where Edgar Allan Poe went for his afternoon
swim. PICTURE CREDIT: New York's Turtle Bay Old & New
by Edmund T. Delaney, Barre Publishers, 1965
James W. Beekman saw the city expanding, and he embarked on an
ambitious plan to develop his property through the sale of small
plots for private residences. On 50th Street he acquired various
plots to round out his holdings, then moved out of the Mt. Pleasant
mansion. In 1859, he gave land and financial assistance for a church
(Dutch Reformed) on 50th Street, with a deed that contained a covenant
that should the property not be used as a church, it would revert
to the Beekman heirs. The Reformed Episcopal Church stands at this
site today. The Turtle Bay area south of the Beekman holdings was
developed on a more haphazard basis since it was not restricted
to residential use.
Civil war draft riots
In March 1863, the first Draft Act was passed and an enrollment
office was established at Third Avenue and 46th Street. No sooner
had it opened than an angry mob marched on the office and burned
it down. The July 13 uprising started as a protest against a conscription
act that allowed draftees to be exempted from military service by
payment of $300. To impoverished immigrants, that figure translated
to a rich man's war fought with poor men's blood. Within hours,
the entire blocks between 45th and 46th Streets were destroyed.
The rioting went on for more than three days before troops managed
to contain the mobs, which burned and looted whole sections of the
city. In August, thousands of soldiers, cavalry patrols, and artillery
were sent by order of President Lincoln. New draft offices were
opened, but enforcement was lax because of widespread opposition
to the Civil War by local government and the press.
Commerce and cheap housing
After the Civil War ended, the building of brownstones transformed
the once bucolic landscape, block by block, while the waterfront
became a commercial sinkhole. By 1868, the beautiful bay was filled
in, its charms sullied by slaughterhouses, packing sheds, cattle
pens, rotting wharfs, and railroad piers.
As waves of immigrants poured onto Manhattan's shores and the El
trains commenced operations on Second and Third Avenues, Turtle
Bay drifted into the decay of crumbling tenements and tawdry rooming
houses. In addition to Italian, German, Irish and Jewish immigrants,
the area attracted the city's night people: actors, musicians, stagehands,
and waiters who worked in the fine restaurants near Broadway.
Resurgence begins with turtle bay gardens
There was much ambitious building and renovation in the 1920s, which
restored many of the brownstones into fashionable townhouses. Turtle
Bay became popular with the literati, and it was then that Turtle
Bay Gardens was born as a large communal garden in the backyards
of houses bounded by 48th and 49th Streets between Second and Third
Avenues. Since its inception, the garden community has attracted
a long list of prominent New Yorkers: Tyrone Power, Dorothy Thompson,
Maxwell Perkins, Mary Martin, and Katharine Hepburn, to name a few.
(See Turtle Bay Places of Interest: Beekman Place and Other Famous
Haunts.)
Abstract
sculpture by Barbara Hepworth - Secretariat building
United Nations,
modernization and development
Not until six city blocks of slaughterhouses along the East
River were razed in 1946 for the United Nations was the blight
of First Avenue transformed into an international enclave
of modern architecture.
Since the deafening rattle of the last "El" train was
silenced, Turtle Bay has seen a building boom of unprecedented growth,
filling the area with towering office buildings, high-rise apartments,
and condominiums.
As this surge of growth began to alter the course and character
of Turtle Bay, it became clear that its residents needed a voice
in how development affected their neighborhood. Thus, in 1957, the
Turtle Bay Association was born. At the time, the purpose was to
protest the widening of East 49th Street to become a high-speed
traffic thruway. That battle was won, along with many others, but
the organization's work goes on, striving to preserve the beauty
of this distinctive neighborhood while seeking a good accommodation
for the demands of the future.
