1 reply on “kensington-house-opposite-actually-mt-vernon-hotel-e-61st-st”
In NYC in 2007, I got (via Treo) a tip from a fellow baseball historian about Kensington House being connected with Mount Vernon. With a couple of hours to kill in mid-day, I went over to the Mount Vernon Hotel Musem & Garden, as it is now styled (it had been, since 1939, the Abigail Adams Smith House, managed by the Colonial Dames of America) and I had a fine tour from the docent. She advised that this 1799 fieldstone building–amazingly nestled by the Queensborough Bridge, on the north side of 61st Street off First Avenue, was constructed as the carriage house for the larger Smith estate to the southwest, which burned in 1826. The carriage
house was then purchased by one Joseph Hart and transformed to a hotel and country resort catering especially to trotting devotees, as this was on the course from the Bowery, past Cato’s, and on up to the Red House at 102nd Street and Second Avenue. Incidentally, this resort was located in Jones’ Wood, the original preferred locale of planners for Central Park ca. 1850 and a ball ground for the New York Base Ball Club and others.
Asked where William Niblo’s Kensington House, where baseball had been played in 1821, might have been located, the docent pointed across 61st Street … to a Bed, Bath & Beyond.
john thorn
The Bowery Boys: New York City History
1 reply on “kensington-house-opposite-actually-mt-vernon-hotel-e-61st-st”
In NYC in 2007, I got (via Treo) a tip from a fellow baseball historian about Kensington House being connected with Mount Vernon. With a couple of hours to kill in mid-day, I went over to the Mount Vernon Hotel Musem & Garden, as it is now styled (it had been, since 1939, the Abigail Adams Smith House, managed by the Colonial Dames of America) and I had a fine tour from the docent. She advised that this 1799 fieldstone building–amazingly nestled by the Queensborough Bridge, on the north side of 61st Street off First Avenue, was constructed as the carriage house for the larger Smith estate to the southwest, which burned in 1826. The carriage
house was then purchased by one Joseph Hart and transformed to a hotel and country resort catering especially to trotting devotees, as this was on the course from the Bowery, past Cato’s, and on up to the Red House at 102nd Street and Second Avenue. Incidentally, this resort was located in Jones’ Wood, the original preferred locale of planners for Central Park ca. 1850 and a ball ground for the New York Base Ball Club and others.
Asked where William Niblo’s Kensington House, where baseball had been played in 1821, might have been located, the docent pointed across 61st Street … to a Bed, Bath & Beyond.
john thorn