St John’s Park

A Spot of Eden Loveliness

550 Washington sits on the site of what was once New York’s first development of townhouses around a private park. In its heyday from 1825-1850, St. John's Park was an elite, fashionable address, and home to many of the City's most powerful and wealthy denizens. The Evening Post called it "a spot of Eden loveliness... It seems as if retiring from the din and tumult of the noisy town to enjoy its own secret solitude.” In the wintertime, residents often flooded the Park to create their own ice skating rink.

A print from St. John's Park's time as a fashionable neighborhood.

Completed in 1807, St. John’s Chapel and nearby St. John’s Park (or Hudson Square, as it was supposed to be called originally) were the centerpieces of the booming city’s new St. John’s Park neighborhood.