FIFTH    AVENUE
 

51
 


 


 

From a photograph.                                                                             Collection of J. Clarence Davies.

WINDSOR HOTEL, FIFTH AVENUE, 46th TO 47th STREETS,  1898.

or injured by leaping from the windows of the burning structure.
In 1869 part of the block later occupied by the Windsor was a
small skating pond. On the north half of the block now stands the
palatial building of W. & J. Sloane.

The story of the Elgin Botanical Gardens which occupied the tract
from 47th to 51st Streets between Fifth and Sixth Avenues begins in
1793 in the garden of Professor Hamilton near Edinburgh, where
Dr. David Hosack, a young American, who was studying with the
professor, was much mortified by his ignorance of botany, with which
subject the other guests were familiar. Hosack took up the study
of botany so diligently that in 1795 he was made professor of botany
at Columbia College, and in 1797 held the Chair of Materia Medica.
He resigned to take a similar professorship in the College of Physicians
and Surgeons, where he remained until 1826. For over twenty years
he was one of the leading physicians of New York, bore a conspicuous
part in all movements connected with art, drama, literature, city or
state affairs, and was frequently mentioned as being, with Clinton
and Hobart, "one of the tripods upon which the City stood." He
was one of the physicians who attended Alexander Hamilton after
his fatal duel with Burr. While professor of botany at Columbia he
endeavored to interest the State in establishing a botanical exhibit
for students of medicine, but failing to accomplish this he acquired
 

Elgin

Botanical

Gardens

Prominence

of Dr.

David

Hosack,

their

Founder