Mount Morris Park Historic District

Until the mid-19th century, much of Harlem remained a rural, sparsely settled, farming area. However, the opening of the elevated railroad in 1872 encouraged speculative development around the Mount Morris Park area by businessmen William B. Astor and Oscar Hammerstein; U.S. Ambassador Henry Morgenthau and others. Restrictive covenants found in many of the land deeds helped to ensure that the area around Mount Morris Park would be developed as a primarily residential neighborhood.

The district's residential architecture, including both townhouses and apartment buildings, represents diverse styles, including Romanesque Revival, neoclassical, French neo-Grec, Queen Anne as well as a number of styles popularized by the World Columbian Exposition of 1893 in Chicago. These elegant houses, occupied by prominent political figures, professionals and businessman of the period, and designed by prominent New York architects, were favorably compared by the New York Herald with mansions on Fifth Avenue.

The churches in this district include St. Martin's Episcopal Church and Rectory (1888) on Lenox Avenue, one of the best representations of the Romanesque Revival style in Manhattan. The modified neoclassical Mount Morris Presbyterian Church and the Ephesus Seventh-Day Adventist Church, with its lofty spire, are also impressive.

This historic district was also house to Mount Morris Park Hospital, the second interracial, voluntary hospital to open in New York during the period of segregation. Opened in 1948 and located at 10 Mount Morris Park West, the hospital provided many African American physicians, who were denied staff privileges at other city hospitals, the ability to ensure that their patients received access to private care without having to surrender them to other doctors. The hospital closed in 1965. ©2014