Art Review: Alexander Hamilton, Trinity Church, and the Haunted Morris-Jumel Mansion

‘The Bronx is up and the Battery’s down,” sang three sailors in On the Town, as tuneful as a musical can be. There’s nothing about the Bronx here but a place close to it: Madame Jumel’s house on West 160th Street, now called the Morris-Jumel Mansion. It was Washington’s headquarters during the Battle of Harlem Heights and is still Manhattan’s oldest standing house. It’s linked with Trinity Church in odd and poignant ways.

Trinty Church, at the top of Wall Street and a short walk from Bowling Green Park and Fraunces Tavern, is a Gothic Revival pile from the early 1840s and very High Church Episcopal. Designed by the British-American architect Richard Upjohn, it’s a grand thing, with a soaring spire, lancet windows, sculptures of tall, skinny saints, pointed arches, trefoils, tracery, and finials aplenty. Its uninspiring stained glass from 1846, above the altar, is among the earliest in America.

About the Author

Brian T. Allen

Brian T. Allen is National Review’s art critic.

Featured Tags

‘The Bronx is up and the Battery’s down,” sang three sailors in On the Town, as tuneful as a musical can be. There’s nothing about the Bronx here but a place close to it: Madame Jumel’s house on West 160th Street, now called the Morris-Jumel Mansion. It was Washington’s headquarters during the Battle of Harlem Heights and is still Manhattan’s oldest standing house. It’s linked with Trinity Church in odd and poignant ways.

Trinty Church, at the top of Wall Street and a short walk from Bowling Green Park and Fraunces Tavern, is a Gothic Revival pile from the early 1840s and very High Church Episcopal. Designed by the British-American architect Richard Upjohn, it’s a grand thing, with a soaring spire, lancet windows, sculptures of tall, skinny saints, pointed arches, trefoils, tracery, and finials aplenty. Its uninspiring stained glass from 1846, above the altar, is among the earliest in America.