By Stan Solomon
Greenwich Village’s Washington Square was named for President George Washington, and the Flatiron District’s Madison Square was named not for a sports arena but for President James Madison. Thus, isn’t it safe to assume that the Upper West Side’s Lincoln Square must have been named for President Abraham Lincoln?
Well…yes-s-s…sort of! Until one does some research, discovering that not only: (1) is there no definitive explanation about the origin of the name, but (2) its very boundaries sometimes seem as flexible as Spiderman.
Among those in the “Can’t Positively Say It’s Abe” camp are some pretty astute people, including: Christopher Gray, the man behind The New York Times’ Sunday Real Estate section’s “Streetscapes”; Judith Johnson, Lincoln Center Archivist; and Hans Holzer, an expert on President Lincoln.
In his October 2, 2005 “Streetscapes” column, Gray explains that the “double-triangle formed by Broadway, Columbus Avenue, 63rd Street, and 66th Street” had been known, in the late 19th Century, as Empire Square or Empire Park. Until May, 1906, when the city’s Board of Aldermen passed a resolution, sponsored by West Side Alderman John J. Hahn, renaming the area as “Lincoln Square.”
But was the “Lincoln” of Lincoln Square actually the 16th President, whose assassination had occurred a full 41 years earlier? The Aldermen left no explanation of their decision and, according to Gray, his search of the archives of both The New York Times and of The Brooklyn Eagle revealed … nothing. Furthermore, there was no reason why Lincoln’s popularity should have suddenly blossomed before the Aldermen’s 1906 vote. In fact, as “Lincoln and New York,” a 2009/10 exhibit at The New-York Historical Society revealed, Lincoln had never been overwhelmingly popular with those here whose business involved dealings with Southern plantation owners.
So perhaps it wasn’t named to honor President Lincoln after all! Perhaps the Aldermen were really honoring some former local land-owning family, surnamed Lincoln? Nope! According to Johnson, a search of city records revealed local property owners named Hall, van Bruch, de Lancey (several), and even a Somerindyck. But not one Lincoln. Thus, in the words of the Lincoln Bicentennial Commission Co-Chairman and Civil War expert Hans Holzer, “it is truly bizarre that there is no record of why it was named Lincoln Square.”
But the name stuck, almost immediately. According to Gray, in July, 1906, a 1,600-seat theater then under construction just west of Broadway on W. 65th by Empire Square Realty was acquired by the Schubert organization, which renamed it “The Lincoln Square.” And a six-story loft building of artist studios adjacent to the theater was named The Lincoln Square Arcade. Today the Juilliard School of Music occupies the site of those buildings, torn down in 1958 as part of the then-new urban re-development project to be called…Lincoln Center.
Yes, almost exactly 53 years after the area was formally named Lincoln Square (for whatever reason), on May 14, 1959, then-President Eisenhower led a formal ground-breaking for the very formal performing arts complex which would take its name from that surrounding area. But not from “San Juan Hill,” the run-down area it replaced (between Amsterdam and West End from 59th to 65th) that the New York City Housing Authority, perhaps to justify its Robert Moses’-planned elimination, once called the “worst slum.”
Of course, “slum” is a word nevermore to be associated with “Lincoln Square,” especially because of the super-pricey real estate located within its somewhat amorphous boundaries. As noted above, the original area was bounded by Broadway and Columbus from 63rd to 66th. But Wikipedia shrinks it somewhat to “the intersection of Broadway and Columbus Avenue, between West 65th and West 66th streets.” A 2006 New York Times profile did the opposite, expanding it to include everything from “Central Park West to the Hudson River and from West 59th Street to West 72nd” – thus including in its boundaries such super-luxurious properties as 15 Central Park South, the Time Warner Center, the Riverside Boulevard towers.
A slightly smaller geographic area, basically from Central Park West to Amsterdam and from 58th to 70th, is under the care of the Lincoln Square Business Improvement District, or B.I.D. Anyone who has enjoyed the festivities associated with the annual Winter’s Eve tree-lighting, relaxed in Dante or Tucker Squares, or just admired the plantings on Broadway’s medians owes a silent debt of gratitude to this little-known organization whose mission is to keep “cleaner, safer, and more beautiful” the area possibly named for a former President.
Honest Abe himself stands on the steps of the Central Park West entrance to The New-York Historical Society (which, at 77th Street, is way outside the area that bears the Lincoln name). So perhaps that is why he is on the steps, not far from the M-10 bus stop! He could be planning to take a southbound bus down to “his” neighborhood, perhaps to take in a play at Lincoln Center.
Ummm…honestly, Abe, do not go if they’re doing Our American Cousin. Remember how badly that worked out the last time?
