Behind the Iron Fence and Between the Grid: The UWS Remains of an 18th Century Lane

By Pam Tice

Tucked in between West 91st and 92nd streets just east of Riverside Drive, protected from public access by an iron fence, is a short, seemingly unremarkable pathway – all that remains of a city roadway with a 250-year history.

The roadway began life as Apthorp Lane in 1765, when Charles Ward Apthorp, a wealthy merchant who prospered in New York but remained loyal to Britain, purchased 268 acres of what’s now our Upper West Side neighborhood. Apthorp built his grand mansion, Elm Park, on the hill at about what is now Columbus Avenue, between West 91st and 93rd streets.

The western portion of Apthorp Lane ran down to the Hudson River. The eastern part ran slightly to the north and then across land that became Central Park, joining up with the Eastern Post Road at about Fifth Avenue and East 96th Street. 

After Apthorp died in 1797, leaving his estate to various heirs, William Jauncey, a wealthy Englishman, bought the home and the remaining land. Apthorp Lane became Jauncey Lane. Elm Park lived on, first as a private home and later as a hotel with the surrounding land called Elm Park. There’s more about that history here. 

According to Suzanne Wray and Jim Mackin, who researched the lane’s history for the Bloomingdale Neighborhood History Group, in the early 19th century, the city began to lay out its grid street plan, which ultimately spelled the end of Jauncey Lane. The lane’s route ran in between two streets created by the new city map, and in the 1890s, the city closed the lane.

But the land bordering parts of the lane had increased in value as city development moved northward. Jauncey Lane, often referred to as Apthorp Lane in news reports, became the bete noire of real estate men on the west side because of a legal dispute between the Apthorp heirs and the Astor family over ownership. Development of the land required resolving the ownership issue, and in a 1903 decision, Judge O’Gorman of the Supreme Court ruled that the roadway belonged to those who owned property on either side of the lane.

That still didn’t resolve things, though. Soon, the Jauncey Lane issue was in the courts again, with plaintiffs charging that the Apthorp heirs had not properly filed ownership transfers – and that the city’s closure of the lane was not legally sound. That case was finally closed in 1913, with the remaining Apthorp heirs receiving $150,000 from those who, at that time, held the property on either side of the lane. 

There’s no marker today for the little that remains of Jauncey Lane. But if you’d like to see that short pathway, go to the block on Riverside Drive between West 91st and 92nd streets and look for “the crack,” all that’s left of the 250-year-old roadway. 

Pam Tice is a member of the Bloomingdale Neighborhood History Group www.upperwestsidehistory.org.

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