MURRAY HILL, MANHATTAN

'Murray Hill' is a neighborhood in the New York City borough of Manhattan that extends south from 42nd Street to meet the neighborhood of Gramercy (or Rose Hill as the northern half of Gramercy is often referred to) at 29th Street. Blocks on Lexington Avenue around 28th Street is sometimes known as "Curry Hill", for the high concentration of Indian restaurants. Some sources draw the southern border at 34th Street.
Its western border is at Fifth Avenue and eastern border now extends beyond Lexington Avenue, to meet the distinct waterfront neighborhoods of Kips Bay and Tudor City at Second Avenue.

Contents

Eighteenth century

Nineteenth century

Twentieth century

Twenty-first century

References

External links

Eighteenth century

Murray Hill derives its name from the Murray family, 18th-century Quaker merchants mainly concerned with shipping and overseas trade. Robert Murray (1721-1786), the family patriarch, was born in Pennsylvania and came to New York in 1753 after a short residence in North Carolina. He quickly established himself as a merchant, eventually owned more shipping tonnage than any other New Yorker. About 1762 rented land from the city for a great house and farm. His great house, which he named Inclenberg (or Belmont), but which was popularly termed Murray Hill, was built on a since-leveled hill at what is today Park Avenue and Thirty-Sixth Street. The great square house was approached by an avenue of mixed trees leading from the Boston Post Road; it was surrounded with verandahs, or "piazzas", on three sides and commanded views of the East River over Kip's Bay. The total area was just over 29 acres (117,000 m²). In today's terms, the farm began a few feet (metres) south of 33rd Street and extended north to the middle of the block between 38th and 39th Streets. At the southern end, the plot was rather narrow but at the northern end it went from approximately Lexington Avenue to a spot between Madison and Fifth Avenues.
The most illustrious member of the family was the oldest child, Lindley Murray (1745-1826). A New York lawyer, he was forced into exile after the Revolution as a loyalist, settling in York, England, where there was a Quaker community. In England, Lindley began writing school textbooks. He wrote 11 of them, beginning in 1798, and became the largest-selling author in the world in the first half of the nineteenth century. His textbooks were widely printed in Britain (particularly his ''English Grammar'') but had their greatest success in the new United States, partly because no international copyright agreement existed and the books could be reprinted without royalties being paid. Some 16 million copies of Murray's books were sold in America and another 4 million in Britain. His most popular work was his ''English Reader,'' full of selections from the liberal-minded writers of the Scottish Enlightenment, most notably the Rev. Hugh Blair. Abraham Lincoln praised the "English Reader" as "the best schoolbook ever put in the hands of an American youth." The ''English Reader'' utterly dominated the American market for readers for over a generation from 1815 into the 1840s. It was replaced mainly by the McGuffey Readers, a series of reading texts, which began to appear in 1836.

Mary Lindley Murray is credited with delaying William Howe and his army during General Washington's retreat from New York in 1776. As the story goes, Mrs. Robert Murray invited the group to tea at her mansion in Inclenberg (now Murray Hill), and, through feminine wiles, succeeded in delaying the British troops for a period sufficient to allow a successful American retreat.^[1] Although a further British advance may have been disastrous for the Americans, the legends arising from the incident--with Mrs. Murray playing the role of Circe or a Siren--are probably apocryphal. Evidence suggests the delay at Murray Hill was according to a prearranged British plan.
The standard work on the Murray family is "The Murrays of Murray Hill" (Brooklyn: Urban History Press, 1998) by Charles Monaghan.

Nineteenth century

During the nineteenth century, this neighborhood was "uptown" with the city ending with the reservoir at Fifth Avenue and 42nd Street covering what today is the New York Public Library and Bryant Park. To the north was for the most part farmland. When J. P. Morgan built his home on Madison Avenue at 36th Street, which is today a part of the The Morgan Library & Museum, it was considered a fashionable uptown address. Madison Square Park, at this time considered a part of Murray Hill was bordered by the fashionable ladies' shops of the day on Fifth Avenue.

Twentieth century

For much of the twentieth century, the neighborhood was a quiet and rather formal place, with many well-off older residents. Since the late 1990s, however, many professional New Yorkers in their twenties and thirties have begun to move into the area. The raucous restaurant-and-bar scene along Third Avenue on the weekends particularly reflects this change.

Twenty-first century

Though housing in the neighborhood is slightly cheaper than in fashionable nearby parts of Manhattan, prices for apartments here rose a great deal during the boom of the late 1990s and early 2000s--as much as 500% in a decade.
The area includes 10 East 40th Street, an example of art deco architecture.

References

1. McCullough, David. "1776", p. 216. "In explanation, a romantic story spread - a story that would become legendary - that a Mrs. Robert Murray, a Quaker and an ardent patriot, had delayed William Howe and his generals by inviting them to afternoon tea at her country home at Inclenberg, later known as Murray Hill."

External links

★ Close-Up on Murray Hill Christine Lagorio

★ If You're Thinking of Living In / Murray Hill; A Quiet Enclave Close to Midtown Jerry Cheslow

★ SOAPBOX; Onward and Upward on Curry Hill Jerry Cheslow

★ Charles Monaghan, "Lindley Murray and the Enlightenment"