Remembering a Vile Civil War Act, on Fifth Avenue
Were more hateful words ever howled by a mob in New York history?
“Burn the niggers’ nest.”
This was one of the cries taken up by a crowd that descended on the Colored Orphan Asylum
during the first night of the draft riots in July 1863. The sentiments
left no doubt about the attackers’ goal: to kill African-American
children.
Providence
and quick thinking spared the 233 youths from death or injury, though
the riots would claim more than 100 lives. But the asylum, a Greek
Revival building that sat prettily atop a hillock off Fifth Avenue,
between West 43rd and 44th Streets, was destroyed by the mob.
“Some 500 of them entered the house,” the asylum managers reported on July 25, 1863, in a record book now kept at the New-York Historical Society.
“After despoiling it of Furniture, Bedding, Clothing, &c. &c. —
they deliberately sat fire to it, in different parts — simply because
it was the home of unoffending colored Orphan Children.”
It
has always been painful to contemplate the sack of the orphanage. It is
difficult even to picture it, at what is now a busy intersection in
Midtown Manhattan, next to the Century Association clubhouse and across
West 43rd Street from a Joe Fresh store and an Elie Tahari showroom in
the former Manufacturers Hanover bank, a landmark of the International
style.
For
now, however, the south half of the asylum site is vacant, nothing more
than a 10,625-square-foot lot strewn with rubble, including brick
fragments. Many brick fragments. So many brick fragments that you begin
to wonder: Could any of these have been used to build the asylum?
If so, could there be artifacts strewn among them, plowed under the charred rubble long ago?
A broken hair comb?
An inky pen nib?
A small shoe buckle?
The moment has come to ask such questions because the developer Louis Ceruzzi plans to redevelop the site with a tower more than 70 stories tall that will certainly have retail space at the base and is likely to include a mix of hotel rooms and apartments above.
An
opportunity is at hand to examine the site closely in the hope of
finding some tangible remnant of the asylum. Even if there are no
archaeological finds, there is certainly a chance to commemorate the
asylum and memorialize its pillage in some form at the new building.
The New-York Historical Society has a trove of documents from the Association for the Benefit of Colored Orphans,
founded in 1836, including admissions records that would make it
possible to create a roster of the children who were living in the
asylum at the time of the draft riots.
There was, for instance, Lucinda Ann Brown,
7, who had been brought to New York from New Orleans by one Catherine
Flint. Lucinda’s father was dead at the time. Her mother, though alive,
had remained in Louisiana. Lucinda was admitted on May 16, 1863.
Sarah Jones
was admitted to the asylum 13 days later, on her seventh birthday.
Because her adopted mother was working as a stewardess aboard the
steamship Ocean Queen, which traveled to Colón, Panama, Sarah was
institutionalized by the Commissioners of Public Charities.
Nine-year-old Irving R. White;
his younger sister, Martha Ann White; and their younger brother, Robert
Cooper White, were all admitted on June 2. Their mother was dead and
their father was in a temperance house in Albany run by Edward C. Delavan.
Then, on July 6, just a week before the riot, came William H. Judson, age and circumstances unrecorded.
Lucinda,
Sarah, Irving, Martha, Robert and William were all presumably there
when mobs protesting the inequitable military draft began to vent their
fury on any African-American unlucky enough to be in their way. Soon
enough, the rioters chose a target where they must have known resistance
would be unlikely: an orphanage.
“The
destruction of this Asylum, supported, as it was, solely by charity, is
certainly one of the worst and wickedest of crimes that were
perpetrated during this memorable day,” The New York Times said two days later,
“and clearly shows that resistance to the draft is but a cry raised to
cover the most atrocious crimes that human nature is capable of
committing.”
All that is believed to have survived intact is a Bible that an 8-year-old girl rescued by returning to the burning building. It, too, is in the hands of the New-York Historical Society.
Having
been sheltered in a police precinct house, the children were removed
safely to Blackwells Island (now Roosevelt Island). Though the
institution’s mission, name and location have changed since the Civil
War, its work is continued today by the Harlem Dowling-West Side Center for Children and Family Services.
To judge from his blog, Mr. Ceruzzi is fascinated by New York City history.
Whether that translates to support for an archaeological dig and
permanent memorial at 520 Fifth Avenue is another question. He did not
respond to emails for comment.
The
Landmarks Preservation Commission said through a spokeswoman that it
had reviewed the site in 2008 and determined that it was “unlikely to
contain intact archaeological resources.”
But 35 years of covering — and uncovering — the layers of New York City history have taught me that traces of the past are seldom eradicated entirely. And the story of the Colored Orphan Asylum seems too important to forget.
