Lagrange Terrace
Lagrange Terrace
Photo Credit: The Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Division of Art, Prints and Photographs: Picture Collection, The New York Public Library. "La Grange Terrace, La Fayette Place, City Of New York." The New York Public Library Digital Collections. https://digitalcollections.nypl.org/items/510d47e0-d4b0-a3d9-e040-e00a18064a99
FALSE FACE, FALSE HEART, my YA Historical fiction project, set in the Bowery Theatre in New York City during the tumultuous year of 1849 has sent me on a journey Combing Through Research.
Over twenty years ago, I took a student group to see the Blue Man Group show in the East Village of NYC. At the time, I didn’t realize that the Astor Place Theatre is located on the lower level of one of the remaining townhouses originally named Lagrange Terrace built in the mid-1830’s. It wasn’t until I started researching this area of the city for my historical fiction novel, FALSE FACE, FALSE HEART, that I made the connection. I’d been there before and wanted to use this location in my story!
The remaining Lagrange Terrace Townhouses and home of the Astor Place Theatre. Photo Credit: Sarah A. Combs, 2019.
Photo Credit: Sarah A. Combs, 2019.
Located on Lafayette Place between Astor Place and Great Jones Street, this row of nine town houses became the home to some of New York City’s most prominent, social and cultural elites including Sara and James Roosevelt— parents of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, John Jacob Astor, Charles Dickens, Edgar Allan Poe, and Julia Gardiner the wife of John Tyler, the tenth president of the United States.
Nicknamed Colonnade Row by New Yorkers, Lagrange Terrace sported large Corinthian marble columns quarried by convicts from the Sing Sing prison. Grand staircases rose up from the sidewalk entrances leading to the main floors. Tall French doors opened onto balconies with wrought-iron work between the massive columns. Each residence had twenty-six rooms, central heating, indoor toilets, and hot and cold running water—amenities that wouldn’t become standard until almost a century later. Mahogany doors with silver hinges, marble mantels and carved Grecian columns separated the parlors. A nearby stable housed the resident’s horses and carriages.
Only four of the original townhouses remain, but these have been landmarked by the city of New York and are listed on the National Register of Historic Places. In 1854, the Astor Library opened across the street and in the mid-1970’s became the Joseph Papp Public Theatre which still operates today.
Astor Place Library opened in the mid 1850’s. Now the home of the Public Theatre. Photo Credit: The Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Division of Art, Prints and Photographs: Photography Collection, The New York Public Library. "Astor Library, Lafayette Place." The New York Public Library Digital Collections. 1870. https://digitalcollections.nypl.org/items/510d47e0-2008-a3d9-e040-e00a18064a99
Sources:
Homberger, Eric. Mrs. Astor’s New York. Yale University Press. 2002.
