View source for Elgin Botanic Garden

{{Short description|Former botanical garden in New York City}}
{{Infobox
|above=Elgin Botanic Garden
|image=[[File:Elgin Painting at NY Botanical Garden.png|320px|alt=Painting of the Elgin Botanic Garden]]
|caption=Painting of the Elgin Botanic Garden, {{circa|1810}}
|label1=Location
|data1=[[New York City]]
|label2=Area
|data2={{convert|19+3/4|acre|ha}}
|label3=Established
|data3=1801
}}
The '''Elgin Botanic Garden''' was the first public [[botanical garden]] in the United States, established in 1801 by New York physician [[David Hosack]]. By 1810, Hosack was no longer able to fund the garden's expenses, and sold the land to the State of New York. The property was given to [[Columbia College, Columbia University|Columbia College]] in 1814, and the gardens were abandoned. In the 1920s, it became the site of [[Rockefeller Center]].

==Establishment and development==
In 1801, New York physician [[David Hosack]] created the Elgin Botanic Garden, named for his father's Scottish birthplace.<ref name=leitch/> Hosack was among the leading medical practitioners of his time,<ref name=Brown/>{{rp|3}} and was later remembered primarily as the physician who attended the [[Burr–Hamilton duel|1804 duel]] between his friends [[Alexander Hamilton]] and [[Aaron Burr]], and who treated Hamilton's fatal injuries.

[[File:View of the Botanic Garden at Elgin.jpg|thumb|320px|Engraving ({{circa|1802}}) of a drawing by L. Simond, titled ''View of 
the Botanic Garden at Elgin in the vicinity of the City of New York'']]
Elgin was the first public botanical garden in the United States.<ref name=Bolton/> It was established with Hosack's purchase of {{convert|19+3/4|acres}} of "common lands" from the [[New York City|City of New York]] for approximately $4,800, equivalent to ${{Inflation|US-GDP|5000|1801|fmt=c|r=-3}} in {{Inflation-year|US-GDP}} dollars.<ref name=Brown/>{{rp|6,14}}{{Inflation-fn|US-GDP}} The location, {{convert|3+1/2|mi}} outside of what was then the city limit, is bounded by present-day [[47th Street (Manhattan)|47th Street]] on the south, [[51st Street (Manhattan)|51st Street]] on the north, and [[Fifth Avenue]] on the east, reaching nearly to [[Sixth Avenue (Manhattan)|Sixth Avenue]] on the west.<ref name=okrent/> It is now the site of [[Rockefeller Center]].<ref name=Schulz/>

The entire property "was intended by Professor Hosack for a botanical garden, the prime object of which was to be the collection and cultivation of native plants of this country, especially such as possess medicinal properties or are otherwise useful."<ref name=Wilbert/> At his own expense, Hosack landscaped the garden with a variety of indigenous and exotic plants, mostly of American origin. By 1805, the garden was home to 1,500 species of plants from all over the world, including some rare specimens contributed by [[Thomas Jefferson]].<ref name=okrent/> The following year, Hosack published ''Hortus Elginensis'' (1806), a catalogue and visitors' guide, containing an extensive list of the plants under cultivation at Elgin.<ref name=Wilbert/>

[[File:Elgin 1811 catalog engraving.jpg|thumb|left|320px|Drawing of Elgin by Reinagle, frontispiece of Hosack's ''Hortus Elginensis'' catalogue (2nd ed., 1811)]]
The grounds were fully enclosed by an imposing stone wall, {{convert|7|ft}} tall and {{convert|2+1/2|ft}} thick.<ref name=Brown/>{{rp|7}} Within the walls, a spacious greenhouse flanked by two hothouses presented a {{convert|180|ft|adj=on}} frontage running west from present-day Fifth Avenue, and encircled by what Hosack called a "belt of forest trees and shrubs judiciously chequered and mingled."<ref name=Brown/>{{rp|7}}<ref name=okrent/>

Hosack's funds were insufficient to support such a project indefinitely, and it was suggested that he was so preoccupied with his endeavors in the creation of a new medical school that he had neither time nor money to continue the garden.<ref name=Wilbert/> In 1808, Hosack was compelled to offer the property for sale, and for several years, he petitioned the [[New York State Legislature]] to purchase it and maintain it as an aid in medical education.<ref name=Brown/>{{rp|7}} Ultimately, in March 1810, the State of New York purchased Elgin for $75,000, leaving Hosack with a loss of $28,000 after his expenses to buy and develop the property.<ref name=Brown/>{{rp|8}}<ref name=okrent/><ref name=jeffe/>{{rp|55}}

Responsibility for the property was given to the [[Board of Regents of the University of the State of New York]],<ref name=Wilbert/> and in the 1811 second edition of the ''Hortus Elginensis'' catalogue, a frontispiece identified Elgin as "the Botanic Garden of the State of New-York".<ref name=hortus1811/> In a preface dated March 1811, Hosack wrote that Elgin had "been purchased by the State for the benefit of the Medical Schools of New-York",<ref name=hortus1811/>{{rp|vii}} and projected his expectation that it would remain a permanent institution.<ref name=Brown/>{{rp|11–12}} The catalogue concluded with a note that "improvements which may hereafter take place in this institution, and the additions which may be made to the collection of plants, will in future be regularly published, as an annual report to the Legislature, and the Regents of the University."<ref name=hortus1811/>{{rp|66}} Hosack continued to pay the garden's expenses until May 1811, when it was placed under the management of the [[Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons|College of Physicians and Surgeons]], which had not yet merged with [[Columbia College, Columbia University|Columbia]].<ref name=Brown/>{{rp|9}}

The [[Commissioners' Plan of 1811]] that laid out the scheme for New York City's future grid of streets and avenues gave names to the carriage road leading to Elgin's garden, which became [[Sixth Avenue (Manhattan)|Sixth Avenue]], and to the pathway that fronted Elgin's south-facing greenhouses, which became [[50th Street (Manhattan)|50th Street]].<ref name=okrent/>

==Abandonment and later uses==
In April 1814, the New York legislature voted to transfer the land to [[Columbia College, Columbia University|Columbia College]],<ref name=Wilbert/> with the provision that the college would be moved to the site, although Columbia successfully lobbied for the removal of that condition in 1819.<ref name=Brown/>{{rp|13–15}}<ref name=law1821/> Columbia had no interest in continuing to maintain the costly botanical garden, and turned over responsibility for the gardens to [[Clement Clarke Moore]], best known as a writer and light poet.<ref name=okrent/>

Beginning in March 1817, the property was leased to a series of individual tenants paying little or no rent, in return for obligations to maintain the grounds, while repeated applications from Hosack for a lease (in 1819, 1825, and 1828) were denied.<ref name=Brown/>{{rp|16–17}} By 1823, the property had sunk "into utter decrepitude", and the abandoned botanical gardens eventually fell into decay.<ref name=okrent/> Surviving plant specimens were shipped to [[Morningside Heights]] where they were replanted at the Bloomingdale Asylum, and Hosack's library of horticultural texts became part of the collection of the [[New York Botanical Garden]] in [[the Bronx]].<ref name=okrent/>

The property became known as Columbia's "Upper Estate," and by 1879, twelve acres had been fully developed for residential use, with 298 rowhouses in a then-stylish neighborhood.<ref name=designation/> By the mid-1920s, however, it had deteriorated into "an unseemly collection of boarding houses, nightclubs and speakeasies on the northern boundary of New York's theater district."<ref name=designation/>

In late 1928, [[Columbia University]] agreed to lease a three-block portion of the land to [[John D. Rockefeller Jr.]] for the [[construction of Rockefeller Center]], in return for approximately $3.5 million annual rent until 1952, followed by options for three 21-year renewals.<ref name=designation/> Rockefeller subsequently acquired additional lots from Columbia, as well as surrounding properties.<ref name=designation/> The original property was still owned by Columbia until 1985, when it was sold for $400 million.<ref name=nyt1985>{{cite news |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1985/02/06/nyregion/colombia-is-to-get-400-million-in-rockefeller-center-land-sale.html?pagewanted=all |date=February 6, 1985 |title=Columbia Is to Get $400 Million in Rockefeller Center Land Sale |first=Maureen |last=Dowd |newspaper=The New York Times }}</ref>

==In popular culture==
*[[File:Tabea Hosier, Elgin Botanical Gardens, c. 1936, NGA 22642.jpg|alt=Color depiction of the grounds and layout of the Elgin Botanical Gardens|thumb|Tabea Hosier, Elgin Botanical Gardens c. 1936, watercolor and graphite on paperboard, [https://www.nga.gov/collection/artist-info.7664.html The National Gallery of Art],  Washington, D.C. ]]In the 1930s, [[Federal Art Project|The Federal Art Project]] sponsored the [[Index of American Design]] which "produced a pictorial survey of the crafts and decorative arts of the United States from the [[Colonial history of the United States|early colonial period]] to 1900. Artists working for the Index produced nearly 18,000 meticulously faithful watercolor drawings, documenting material culture by largely anonymous artisans." Artist Tabea Hosier produced an enduring representation of Elgin Botanical Gardens. 
*In the 1960s, New York artist Frederick Elmiger (1890–1975) painted ''Elgin Botanic Garden'', part of a series of imagined scenes from New York City's early history. The brightly colored painting, in watercolor and gouache, depicts elegantly dressed New Yorkers strolling on a garden path on a sunny spring day, with Elgin's greenhouses in the background.<ref name="glazer" />

==References==
{{Reflist|30em|refs=
<ref name=Bolton>{{cite magazine |first=H.C. |last=Bolton |title=Early American Chemical Societies |page=822 |work=Appleton's Popular Science Monthly |volume=51 |date=October 1897 |location=New York |publisher=D. Appleton and Co. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=1yIDAAAAMBAJ&q=Hosack&pg=PA822 |access-date=June 8, 2010 |quote=Hosack ... was Professor of Botany and Materia Medica in Columbia College, but is best known as the founder of the first public botanic garden in the United States in 1801. He died under tragic circumstances—of shock at the disastrous conflagration in New York city which swept away his property to the value of $300,000. }}</ref>
<ref name=Brown>{{cite book |title=Elgin Botanic Garden, Its Later History and Relation to Columbia College, the New Hampshire Grants and the Treaty with Vermont in 1790 |last=Brown |first=Addison |year=1908 |location=Lancaster, Pa. |publisher=Press of the New Era Print. Co. |url=https://archive.org/details/elginbotanicgard00brow }}</ref>
<ref name=designation>{{Cite web |title=Rockefeller Center Designation Report |year=1985 |publisher=City of New York |author=New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission |author-link=New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission |url=http://www.neighborhoodpreservationcenter.org/db/bb_files/1985RockefellerCenter.pdf |url-status=live  |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171107113311/http://www.neighborhoodpreservationcenter.org/db/bb_files/1985RockefellerCenter.pdf |archive-date=2017-11-07 |pages=12, 14–15 }}</ref>
<ref name=glazer>{{cite web |title=Elgin Botanic Garden (Later Rockefeller Center): Painting by Frederick Elmiger |website=George Glazer Gallery |year=2007 |url=http://www.georgeglazer.com/prints/illus/elmiger/elgin.html |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150912002804/http://www.georgeglazer.com/prints/illus/elmiger/elgin.html |archive-date=2015-09-12 }}</ref>
<ref name=hortus1811>{{cite book |title=Hortus Elginensis, or A catalogue of plants, indigenous and exotic, cultivated in the Elgin Botanic Garden, in the vicinity of the city of New-York: established in 1801 |last=Hosack |first=David |year=1811 |publisher=T. & J. Swords |location=New York |edition=2nd |url=https://archive.org/details/2557025R.nlm.nih.gov }}</ref>
<ref name=jeffe>{{cite magazine |last=Jeffe |first=Elizabeth Rohn |title=Hamilton's Physician: David Hosack, Renaissance Man of Early New York |work=New-York Journal of American History |date=Spring 2004 |number=3 |pages=54–58 |url=http://www.alexanderhamiltonexhibition.org/about/Jeffe%20-%20Hamiltoss%20Physician.pdf }}</ref>
<ref name=law1821>{{cite book |title=Laws of the State of New-York, Passed at the 42nd, 43rd, and 44th Sessions of the Legislature: From January 1819 to April 1821, Vol. V |publisher=William Gould & Co. |location=Albany |year=1821 |page=26 |entry=Chap. XIX. An Act relative to Columbia College, in the city of New-York |orig-year=February 19, 1819 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=s0IwAQAAMAAJ&q=hereby+repealed&pg=PA26 }}</ref>
<ref name=leitch>{{cite book |first=Alexander |last=Leitch |title=A Princeton Companion |publisher=Princeton University Press |year=1978 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=iYR9BgAAQBAJ&pg=PA261 |pages=261–262 |isbn=9781400870011 }}</ref>
<ref name=okrent>{{cite book |title=[[Great Fortune: The Epic of Rockefeller Center]] |author-link=Daniel Okrent | first=Daniel |last=Okrent |publisher=Penguin Books |year=2004 |isbn=9781101666906 |pages=20–22}}</ref>
<ref name=Wilbert>{{cite magazine |first=M.I. |last=Wilbert |title=Some Early Botanical and Herb Gardens |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=9ekAAAAAYAAJ&pg=RA1-PA423 |work=American Journal of Pharmacy |access-date=June 16, 2010 |volume=80 |page=423 |publisher=Philadelphia College of Pharmacy and Science |date=September 1908}}</ref>
<ref name=Schulz>{{cite web|author1=Dana Schulz|title=The Country's First Botanic Garden Was on 20 Wooded Acres at Today's Rockefeller Center|url=https://www.6sqft.com/nyc-had-the-countrys-first-botanic-garden-and-it-was-founded-by-alexander-hamiltons-doctor/|website=6sqft|access-date=September 1, 2016|date=March 30, 2016}}</ref>
}}

==Further reading==
* {{cite book |title=Description of Elgin Garden, the property of David Hosack, M.D. |year=1802 |first=David |last=Hosack |url=https://archive.org/details/2557029R.nlm.nih.gov }}
* {{cite book |title=A statement of facts relative to the establishment and progress of the Elgin Botanic Garden, and the subsequent disposal of the same to the State of New-York |last=Hosack |first=David |year=1811 |location=New York |publisher=C. S. Van Winkle |url=https://archive.org/details/statementoffacts00hosa }}

{{Rockefeller Center}}
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[[Category:Botanical gardens in New York City]]
[[Category:Rockefeller Center]]
[[Category:1801 establishments in New York (state)]]
[[Category:1814 disestablishments in the United States]]