Gramercy Park, Historic neighborhood in Manhattan, US.
Gramercy Park is a neighborhood in Manhattan with red-brick 19th-century townhouses arranged around a small private park enclosed by a tall iron fence. The streets are lined with trees, and many facades show stucco ornamentation or cast-iron stoops.
The neighborhood developed in the 1830s on drained swampland that a developer turned into an upscale residential district with a central communal park. Most of the houses were built between 1840 and 1880, when wealthy families sought the quiet residential setting close to the growing city.
The name Gramercy comes from the Dutch word for crooked swamp, reflecting the land's original landscape before the streets were laid out. The neighborhood maintains a quiet, residential character with few commercial businesses along its outer edges, while the streets around the park are defined primarily by the houses and the people who live in them.
Most visitors walk through the neighborhood between 14th Street and 28th Street, as the streets around the park are relatively short. The corner of Lexington Avenue and Park Avenue South provides access to several subway lines that run in different directions.
The park gates still carry signs prohibiting public entry, and the few keys are passed between households or sold when a resident moves. Some houses on the south side of the park retain old lamp holders on the facades that once lit the sidewalks.
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