Audubon Park
the neighborhood Manhattan forgot...
AP
Detail from Grinnell Map 1865
When George Bird Grinell drew this map for his booklet, Audubon Park: The History of the Site of the Hispanic Society of America and Neighboring Institutions (published 1927) he was in his late 70s.  Though he had not lived in Audubon Park for more than fifteen years, his memories of more than six decades living there were vivid. 

This map is a composite of several different periods in the life of Audubon Park (and its predecessor Minnie's Land).  Laid over the general outline of Audubon Park as it looked in 1865 are present day numbered streets, as well as Riverside Drive, and Randall's 12th Avenue, the latter of which was never constructed. The winding road that existed when the property was called Minnie's Land gives an idea of the distance the Audubons needed to travel from the main road to get to their houses; the road, which Grinnell describes as a cart path, first ran uphill to the crest of the island, and then down the steep western side of Manhattan to the house that was situated near the Hudson River in a natural vale between the higher points at 153rd and 162nd Streets. In 1865, Broadway stopped at 59th Street, though plans were already afoot to extend it through Trinity Cemetery to 155th Street. The extension of Broadway, known as the Boulevard until after the New York Consolidation, bore was called The Boulevard until 1899. 

Although the Audubon houses existed in 1865, the two Audubon sons had died in the early 1860s and Lucy Audubon (Minnie) had moved south of Trinity Cemetery, where she and her granddaughter Harried boarded for several years before moving to Louisvile, KY, where Lucy died.  The recently widowed Mrs. Addison (Julia Gould) Jerome bought the J. W. Audubon house in 1864 and the Jeromes lived there through the remainder of the century.  Mrs. Victor G. (Georgianna) Audubon lived in the house her husband had built in 1851 until the 1870s, taking in borders to help with expenses.  William A. Wheelock, who assisted Lucy Audubon with financial advice, had owned propety in Audubon Park (the second lot from the north on the Hudson River side) and had a house there; however, within a few years, he purchased a larger plot, 661 West 158th Street, on the northern side of 158th Street (top of the map), where he built a large mansion, which remained well into the 20th Century.  Bernice Abbott, working on a WPA Federal Art Project, photographed the Wheelock  mansion shortly before it was demolished in the early 1930s.
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