Andrew Haswell Green

Andrew Haswell Green

Andrew Haswell Green (1820 - November 13, 1903) was a New York lawyer, city planner, civic leader and agitator for reform. Called by some historians a hundred years later "the 19th century Robert Moses," he held several offices and played important roles in many projects, including Riverside Drive, Morningside Park, Fort Washington Park, and Central Park. His last great project was the consolidation of the "Imperial City" or City of Greater New York from the earlier cities of New York, Brooklyn and Long Island City, and still largely rural parts of Westchester, Richmond and Queens Counties. He chaired the 1897 committee that drew up the plan of amalgamation. He is the brother of Samuel Fisk Green, a pioneering medical missionary of the American Ceylon Mission in Sri Lanka.

Timeline

• 1820 Andrew Haswell Green, one of eleven children, was born in Worcester, Massachusetts to a prominent family.
• 1835 Green moved to New York, where two of his sisters ran a school for young girls.
• 1845 Green became a lawyer under the tutelage of railroad attorney and future Democratic governor and presidential candidate, Samuel J. Tilden.
• 1854 Green was elected to the New York City Board of Education. He soon became its president.
• 1857 The Republican-led New York State Legislature began to institute measures to control the municipal affairs of the largely Democratic metropolitan region. One act created the Central Park Commission (CPC). Green was appointed to the CPC, eventually becoming its head.
• 1858 Olmsted and Vaux’s Greensward Plan for Central Park was chosen by the CPC, thanks largely to Green’s influence. The CPC’s work would proceed under Green’s leadership, despite resistance from resentful local Tammany Hall politicians who have little control of the project.
• 1859 With Green’s coaxing, the legislature began to expand the CPC’s authority, transforming it into the city’s first comprehensive planning body. In the next decade the CPC planned and/or proposed improvements in northern Manhattan, the Harlem River and today’s Bronx. Projects included Riverside, Morningside and Ft. Washington Parks; the street plan above 155 Street; a widened and straightened Broadway; a Grand Circle at 59th Street and Eighth Avenue, and more.
• 1868 Green proposed municipal consolidation of the entire metropolitan region to aid city planning, but his idea was viewed as premature. (Others had suggested various consolidation schemes as early as the late 1820s.)
• 1869 Envisioning Central Park as the cultural center of NYC, Green got approval for the CPC to create the American Museum of Natural History, and then the Metropolitan Museum of Art, two prototypical public-private institutions.
• 1870 A new home-rule (“Tweed”) charter ended the state-run CPC. However, the city’s Departments of Public Works and Public Parks would eventually execute most of the CPC’s unfinished plans.
• 1871 The Tweed Ring was exposed. Green was made Comptroller to sort out the ring’s crippling theft and graft. He used his personal credit to obtain funds to cover the city payroll. He cut waste and halted most public works to spare the city from bankruptcy. Critics claimed his retrenchment policy was too arbitrary and severe. Green served until 1876.
• 1874 The City formally expanded beyond Manhattan Island when the southwestern corner of Westchester County was annexed. It was called the Annexed District, later to become the West Bronx.
• 1883 Brooklyn Bridge opened. Much public talk of formally uniting NYC and Brooklyn, but nothing came of it.
• Niagara (Falls) Park Commission was created to establish New York’s first state park and defend the falls. Green soon became president of the commission and would serve until his death.
• 1886 Samuel J. Tilden died, leaving a vast fortune to create a public library for NYC but his will was contested by relatives. The executors – Green and two others – had to make do with fewer funds. Green would propose consolidating the Tilden Trust with the Astor and Lenox Libraries, leading eventually to the New York Public Library.
• 1889 The Washington Bridge, a span over the Harlem River that Green had long championed, was completed.
• Sentiment built in the business community for municipal consolidation of the metropolitan region to protect the mismanaged port. The NYS legislature created a commission to explore consolidation, with Green at its head. Green immediately proposed an ambitious consolidation plan that would be rebuffed a number of times, mostly by Brooklynites who call the movement “Green’s hobby.”
• 1894 Changing his approach, Green got a nonbinding consolidation referendum on the ballot. Most surrounding municipalities voted in favor of consolidation, but Brooklyn’s pro-consolidation majority was razor thin – only about 0.2%! Alarmed by the results, opponents would lobby to thwart subsequent bills by Green and others.
• Green rallied preservation-minded New Yorkers against the proposed destruction or removal of the New York City Hall building. The next year he formed the city’s first formal preservation and conservation group, called the American Scenic and Historic Preservation Society. The society created parks and rescue endangered sites throughout New York City and State before folding in the 1970s.
• 1895 The astern portion of today’s Bronx waannexed by NYC.
• Motivated by politics, Republican Party boss Thomas C. Platt embraced Green’s consolidation plan. He pushed the measure through the legislature in 1896. A Greater New York charter was passed in 1897.
• 1898 Consolidation took effect January 1. New York City expanded from approximately 60 square miles (160 km²) to over 300, and became the “World’s Second City,” behind only London in population.
• An island at Niagara Falls was named for Green.
• 1902 Cornerstone was laid for the New York Public Library.
• 1903 Green was murdered in a case of mistaken identity. He was buried in Worcester. In 1905 his family estate in that city was turned into a public park.

Memorial bench

• 1929 The Andrew H. Green Memorial Bench was dedicated in Central Park. It is surrounded by five elms, representing the five boroughs.
• In the 1980s the bench was moved to another hill at 40.79512°N 73.95428°W / 40.79512; -73.95428, overlooking Harlem Meer, and new maples were planted in 1998.

External links

• Biography
• Andrew Haswell Green Collection,1843-1911, New-York Historical Society
• A.H. Green papers, 1790-1923, [New York Public Library, Manuscripts and Archives Division]
• AH Green collection found, to be auctioned Boston Globe September 5, 2010