Rose Hill, Manhattan
[4] The president of the Rose Hill Neighborhood Association considers the eastern boundary to be the East River.
[9] Archival research by Roger Wines, professor of history at Fordham, has shown that the original owner of the manor was a Dutchman named Reyer Michaelson.
[10] According to a historical genealogical source,[11] the first "Rose Hill" was the farm acquired from James DeLancey in November 1747[12] by the Hon.
The farm contained over 130 acres (0.53 km2) which lay on the East River between what were to become 21st and 30th streets and between the future Fourth Avenue and the water.
As Loyalists, they left for Britain in 1775 and never returned, leaving "Rose Hill" and the Broadway house in the hands of their son John Watts (1749—1836).
Parts of Rose Hill Farm were being sold off in the 1780s: in 1786, Nicholas Cruger paid "144 pounds" for a lot at the north edge of the property, consisting of most of what is now the block bounded by 29th and 30th Streets and Second and Third Avenues.
That very elegant and pleasantly situated FARM, Rose Hill, lying on the banks of and adjoining the east river, three miles from this city,[16] containing 92 acres of valuable land, in the highest cultivation, chiefly in mowing ground, the whole well inclosed, principally with stone fences of a superior construction, bounding on the public road 1175 feet; a pleasant avenue through the orchard in front of the house, also a good road that comes out into the bowery land, next to the honorable James Duane’s; on the premises there is an elegant dwelling house of 50 by 37 feet; a commodious farm house of 50 by 20 feet; an excellent barn with carriage houses and stable, 20 by 40 feet, a hovel with a large hay loft over the whole 96 by 15 feet, corn crib, fowl house &c. all the buildings are new and well finished in the most commodious manner, a fine bearing orchard of 260 engrafted apple trees of the most approved sorts, and a great variety of other kinds of the best English and American fruits, a thriving nursery of upwards of 9000 young fruit trees, numbers of which are inoculated and engrafted; an elegant garden, with the finest collection of flowers, flowering shrubs, strawberry, asparagus beds, etc.
ten acres in wheat and rye: The whole with all farming utensils, cattle, and stock of all kinds, will be sold, either together or separately; the buildings, with orchard, fruit trees, garden; etc.
–Among the stock there is some valuable cattle imported from Holland, and a fine large breeding mare from England.Revolutionary War General Horatio Gates acquired part or all of the Watts property in 1790 and established a country seat in a mansion at the present corner of Second Avenue and 22nd Street.
[17] The Cruger parcel was subdivided into building lots by the time the Commissioners' Plan of 1811 was adopted, establishing Manhattan's present street grid.
Just to the southwest corner of the "Rose Hill" property, Gramercy Park was laid out in 1831, on the axis of what became Lexington Avenue.
The CURE.Innovation Campus, a life sciences tech incubator receiving financial support from New York State, is located at 345 Park Avenue South in Rose Hill.
