NYT: Handle History With Care: Alexander Hamilton’s House Is Moving

[DeepModem Mom]

Handle History With Care: Hamilton’s Home Is Moving
By DAVID W. DUNLAP
Published: July 12, 2006


Map: Alexander Hamilton's House, Manhattan

Peering into spaces that have not seen the light of day for two centuries, architectural archaeologists are dissecting Alexander Hamilton’s country home, the Grange, to figure out how to take it apart and put it back together again.

The National Park Service plans to move the Hamilton Grange National Memorial from Convent Avenue and 141st Street, where it is so boxed in by neighboring buildings that two of its porches had to be cut off, to St. Nicholas Park, about 300 feet to the southeast.

There, it can be reassembled in a form that Hamilton would have recognized, with porches — and trees — all around.

Designed by John McComb Jr., an architect of City Hall, the Grange was the seat of a 32-acre Manhattan estate that commanded views of both the Hudson and Harlem Rivers. Hamilton had only two years to enjoy it, however. He left the Grange on the morning of July 11, 1804, for a duel with Vice President Aaron Burr from which he did not return.

Many admirers of the Grange have long hoped to extract the wooden house from its cramped berth between St. Luke’s Episcopal Church, which it once served as a chapel and rectory, and a six-story apartment house. Now, financing for the $8.4 million restoration project seems close....

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/12/nyregion/12grange.html

[onehandle]

1. We can move Alexander Hamilton's home, but we can't find Osama?

He's sixty feet tall and is hooked up to one hundred and seventy five dialysis machines.

I bet Aaron Burr could find Osama.

[DeepModem Mom]

2. Burr could, indeed! And probably speedily dispatch him. nt