GRAMERCY PARK
1831-1919

John B. Pine

eRAMERCY Park can hardly boast antiquity as
one of its charms, but it is interesting to know
that its name dates back to the days of Dutch oc¬
cupation, when the "little crooked knife" brook which
meandered from Madison Square to the East River near
18th Street acquired the designation of "Crommessie,"
which has been modernized into "Gramercy." The name,
which is variously spelled Krom Messie, Crummashie and
Crommesshie, certainly can claim a respectable age, for it
appears in a deed made in 1674 by Judith Stuyvesant, the
widow of Governor Peter Stuyvesant, which refers to "a
parcel of land lying beyond the fresh water (Collect
Pond) nigh the Bowery beyond the neighborhood of
Crommessie," and occurs in the Minutes of the Common
Council of September 16, 1692, when it was "Ordered,
that Alderman Kipp and Alderman John Merritt, Capt.
Tennis de Key and Mr. Gerritt Douw do view the high¬
ways from the fresh water unto Crummashie hill."

On a map of old farms prepared for Valentine's
Manual in 1853 by Cornelius De Witt, the farm which
included what is now Gramercy Park is designated as

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