Gramercy Park is the only private park in Manhattan (bounded by East 21st and East 20th streets, Gramercy Park West and Gramercy Park East) One needs a key to enter it, and to get a key, one must live in a building that has membership in the park. Samuel B. Ruggles made the park out of a swamp in 1831. It was part of the northward expansion of New York City. It was created as a speculative luxury real estate development. This is the view north from Irving Place. The Chrysler Building is in the background, right.
Samuel B. Ruggles
(b. 1800 New Milford, CT. – d. Fire Island, NY 1881)
was the developer of Gramercy Park. From a prominent family, he was a descendant of Brigadier General Timothy Ruggles, who fought in the Indian war of 1755-56. He graduated from Yale at the age of 14. Ruggles became a lawyer at the age of 21. His marriage to Rosalie Rathbone gave him access to Knickerbocker money. By 1831, he had abandoned law for business.He purchased the Gramercy land from former NYC mayor James Duane. Ruggles drained the swampy land, and from the British Trinity's St. Johns Park, he borrowed the idea of a private park. He gave the new lot owners a key to their own private tax-exempt park or 'pleasure ground,' as parks were then called. This enhanced the value of the surrounding land. (Housing was not built around the park until the 1840s.) Ruggles went on to develop Union Square. In 1838, he served one term in the state legislature. He was sponsored for the Canal Board by his friend Governor William H. Seward, and served on it for 18 years. He supported work on the Croton Aqueduct system. With Edward Curtis, he constructed warehouses on the Atlantic Docks in Brooklyn. This 1851 project was a financial failure, and it ended Ruggles' real estate career. He was a trustee of Columbia College from 1836 to 1881. As a businessman, he was a director and comptroller of the New York & Erie Railway Company. He was part of the board of directors of the Panama Railway Company in 1849. In 1862, he was appointed commissioner for the Union Pacific Railroad. Ruggles was a delegate of the United States to the International Monetary Conference at the Paris Exposition of 1866. In 1869, he represented the United States as delegate to the International Statistical Conference at The Hague. Ruggles served as the trustee of the Astor Library. He was the author of numerous reports on transportation, commerce and monetary policy, including 'Report upon the Finances and Internal Improvements of the State of New York' (1838) and 'International Coinage' (1867). He visited his lifelong friend and associate Peter Cooper regularly until his death. He is buried in Trinity Cemetery.
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1) Map [18]
