Nooks and Corners of Old New York — Part 42

Clement C. Moore's estate was included within the present lines of Eighth Avenue, Nineteenth to Twenty-fourth Streets and Hudson River. These are approximately the bounds of Chelsea Village which grew up around the old Chelsea homestead. It came to be a thriving village, conveniently reached by the road to Greenwich and then by Fitzroy Road; or by the Bowery Road, Bloomingdale, and then along Love Lane.

In 1831 the streets were cut through and the village thereafter grew up on the projected lines of the City Plan. It was for this reason that Chelsea, when the city reached it, was merged into it so perfectly that there is not an imperfect street line to tell where the village had been and where the city joined it. There are houses of the old village still standing; notably those still called the Chelsea Cottages in Twenty-fourth Street west of Ninth Avenue, and the row called the London Terrace in Twenty-third Street between Ninth and Tenth Avenues.

The block on which the General Theological Seminary stands was given to the institution by Clement C. Moore, and was long called Chelsea Square. The cornerstone of the East Building was laid in 1825, and of the West Building, which still stands, in 1835.

It was this Clement C. Moore, living quietly in the village that had grown up around him, who wrote the child's poem which will be remembered longer than its writer--"'Twas the Night before Christmas."

The Oliver Street Baptist Church was built on the northwest corner of Oliver and Henry Streets in 1795. It was rebuilt in 1800, and again in 1819. Later it was burned, and finally restored in 1843. The structure is now occupied by the Mariners' Temple, and the record of its burning is to be seen on a marble tablet on the front wall.

Oliver Street--that is, the two blocks from Chatham Square to Madison Street--was called Fayette Street before the name was changed to Oliver in 1825.

James Street was once St. James Street. The change was made prior to 1816.

Mariners' Church, at 46 Catherine Street, was erected in 1854, on the southeast corner of Madison Street. Prior to that, and as far back as 1819, it had been at 76 Roosevelt Street.

Banker Street having become a byword, because of the objectionable character of its inhabitants, the name was changed to Madison Street in 1826.