Two hundred and eighty tons of American history were on the move Saturday in Harlem.
The home of Alexander Hamilton, who conceived the country's banking system and was killed in a duel with a political rival, rolled inch by inch down a Harlem hillside to its new location overlooking a park.
"This was the only home Hamilton ever owned," said Steve Laise, a National Park Service official dressed in a vest, tie and pants typical of the 1800's. "It represented the consummation of Hamilton's lifelong dream _ a successful social position for a man who came to the American colonies as a penniless 17-year-old born out of wedlock in the West Indies."
But the brilliant, charismatic Hamilton, who became a lawyer, helped pen the Constitution and served as the country's first treasury secretary, structuring taxation and government bonds. He eventually moved to New York, where he founded the New York Post and the Bank of New York.
Earlier this month, Hamilton's house _ squeezed between a church and an apartment building _ was hoisted 40 feet (12 meters) into the air, with steel beams and cribbings helping it clear the portico of St. Luke's Episcopal Church. Starting at about 7 a.m. Saturday, it rolled slowly down West 141st Street, taking three hours to travel a block and a half.
There, the 206-year-old structure will be secured into its third spot, overlooking the bucolic city-owned St. Nicholas Park.
Urban affairs expert Myron Magnet explained the importance of the pale yellow, Federalist-style house as the chimneyed structure hovered above the ground on a mammoth hydraulic dolly, elegant drapes still hanging in the windows.
"Hamilton was the founder of the financial system that made New York the economic engine of the world," Magnet said. "This is a monument to his legacy _ the America we have now."
When he built Hamilton Grange in 1802 for his family, what he called his "sweet project" was a 33-acre (13-hectares) country estate at the highest point of upper Manhattan, with sweeping views of the Hudson and Harlem rivers. The home was designed by architect John McComb Jr., who also created New York's City Hall.
The house is now part of Harlem's Hamilton Heights neighborhood of brick rowhouses, an area quickly being gentrified.
Because of development, the house was initially moved in 1889. Then, it traveled a few blocks from its original site to the spot it occupied until Saturday, on Convent Avenue.
The three locations where Hamilton's house has been set since 1802 were all part of his original estate.
He left home for the last time in 1804 for Weehawken, New Jersey, to face political nemesis and Vice President Aaron Burr in a duel that took Hamilton's life. The faceoff capped a period of the temperamental Hamilton's life in which "he was sidelined, he had no national office, while all his friends had been president," Magnet said.
Congress made the home a national memorial in 1962, but talks about moving it to a better setting dragged for decades. The move and restoration is expected to cost at least $8.4 million. Plans include bringing back the original tables, chairs, a piano and a silver wine cooler.
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On the Net:
http://www.nps.gov/hagr
