Dear Neighbor,
This Women’s History Month, we’re looking at the women who lived and worked around Gramercy Park: writers, performers, teachers, reformers and a hostess determined that her guests should never be bored.
Edith Wharton knew the society she would write about. Emma Thursby brought fellow musicians to her apartment at No. 34. The Cary sisters paid for their house with their writing and opened its doors to other writers and campaigners for women’s rights. Their stories take us from the houses on the Park to the surrounding streets.
Schools and residences offered other routes into city life. The Miss Haines School, the Manhattan Trade School for Girls and the Parkside Evangeline gave generations of women places to study, learn a trade or make a first home in New York.
Sincerely,
The Inimitable Mamie Fish
Marion Graves Anthon Fish (1853–1915), known as Mamie, called herself a “fun-maker.” In a society governed by elaborate rules of entertaining, she preferred surprise, spectacle and a sharp joke.
Alongside her husband, Stuyvesant Fish—a prominent railroad executive, descendant of Peter Stuyvesant, and a Trustee of Gramercy Park—she transformed 19 Gramercy Park South into a center of avant-garde entertainment. In 1887, they commissioned the famed architect Stanford White to remodel the house, adding a grand marble staircase and a top-floor ballroom specifically designed for the elaborate, often outrageous, parties that Mamie preferred.
Mamie was famous for her "fifty-minute dinners," a revolutionary departure from the typical three-hour multi-course marathons of the era. She had no patience for boredom and was legendary for her caustic wit. She frequently greeted guests with the invitation to “Make yourselves at home,” before adding with a wink, “and believe me, there is no one who wishes you were there more than I do.”
Mamie also insisted on changing the house’s address from 86 Irving Place to 19 Gramercy Park South. The Irving Place house became, by name as well as location, a house on the Park.
Aunt Bee on Gramercy Park
To television viewers, Frances Elizabeth Bavier (1902–1989) was Aunt Bee of The Andy Griffith Show. Before Mayberry, there was Gramercy Park.
Bavier grew up at 46 Gramercy Park North, the daughter of a stationary engineer. She first planned to teach and attended Columbia University, then turned to acting and the American Academy of Dramatic Arts.
Broadway and film work preceded her television career, which included Amy Morgan on It’s a Great Life. Her performance as Aunt Bee earned an Emmy for Outstanding Supporting Comedy Actress in 1967.
Her journey from a quiet brownstone on the Park to becoming "America's Aunt" is a proud chapter in our neighborhood’s rich cultural history.Lady Mendl on Irving Place
Elsie de Wolfe (1859–1950), later Lady Mendl, made a career out of replacing dark, crowded Victorian rooms with light colors and space to breathe. Her own home at 49 Irving Place helped her put those ideas into practice.
De Wolfe famously "warred against the Victorian," replacing velvet and clutter with her signature light colors, mirrored surfaces, and floral chintz. In 1905, she achieved a historic milestone by winning the commission to design the interiors of the Colony Club, New York’s first elite social club for women.
For nearly forty years, she shared a home and a "Boston Marriage" with the pioneering literary agent Elisabeth Marbury. Together, they hosted "Sunday afternoons" that became the center of the neighborhood’s intellectual life. Whether known as Elsie or Lady Mendl, her philosophy remained simple: "I believe in plenty of optimism and white paint."
The Manhattan Trade School for Girls
Founded in 1902 by Mary Schenck Woolman, the Manhattan Trade School for Girls was a revolutionary institution—the first vocational school for women in the United States. Established by philanthropic reformers, its mission was to provide young women with the technical skills needed to enter trades like garment manufacturing and millinery, offering them a path toward financial independence.
In 1915, the school moved to a grand new building at 127 East 22nd Street (at the corner of Lexington Avenue). This architectural gem remains a landmark of our neighborhood today. If you look closely at the exterior, you can still see the original terracotta plaques depicting young women engaged in various trades—a permanent tribute to the building's history of empowering women through education.
The building now houses the School of the Future, a New York City public middle and high school. Its terracotta panels still show the trades taught to the girls who studied here.
Edith Wharton: The Voice of Gramercy Park
Edith Wharton (January 24, 1862 – August 11, 1937) was perhaps the most astute chronicler of the Gilded Age, and her roots were firmly planted in our neighborhood. Born Edith Newbold Jones at 14 West 23rd Street, she was a daughter of the very "Old New York" aristocracy she would later both celebrate and satirize.
Wharton drew on that upbringing in The House of Mirth and The Age of Innocence. The latter won the 1921 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, making her the first woman to receive it.
Wharton also co-wrote The Decoration of Houses, arguing for proportion and simplicity in interiors. During World War I she organized relief for refugees in France and was appointed a Chevalier of the Legion of Honour. Her work took her far beyond the New York society of her novels.
The "Thursby Thursdays" at 34 Gramercy Park
Emma Thursby (1845–1931) sang to audiences in Europe and America. At 34 Gramercy Park East, she could bring an audience into her own drawing room.
After moving to 34 Gramercy Park East in the late 1880s, Thursby became known for her weekly “Thursby Thursdays.” Guests included tenor Enrico Caruso, poet Rabindranath Tagore and dancer Isadora Duncan.
Margaret Hamilton: A Neighbor of Heart and Courage
Margaret Hamilton (1902–1985), the Wicked Witch of the West in The Wizard of Oz, also lived at 34 Gramercy Park East. Neighbors knew a gentler figure than the one who frightened generations of children on screen.
Before acting in films, Hamilton taught kindergarten. She continued to support children’s literacy and animal welfare throughout her career.
Phoebe & Alice Cary: The Literary Salon of 20th Street
In the mid-1800s, sisters Phoebe and Alice Cary achieved a rare feat for women of their era: they purchased their own home at 53 East 20th Street entirely with income earned from their poetry and contributions to the popular press. Their residence became the site of one of New York’s most influential weekly gatherings.
Their Sunday evening receptions were a magnet for the leading thinkers of the day. Horace Greeley, the legendary editor of the New-York Tribune, was a regular fixture, often stopping by for "two cups of sweetened milk" before heading to his office to pen his Monday editorials. Even the great showman P.T. Barnum was frequently found there, regaling guests with his trademark tall tales.
Most significantly, the Cary sisters’ home served as a vital hub for the burgeoning women’s rights movement. Frequent guests included Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton, who were already fixtures of the neighborhood through their work at the Women’s Bureau on 23rd Street. Funded by a wealthy female philanthropist, the Bureau served as the headquarters where Anthony and Stanton published their weekly journal of social protest, The Revolution.
The Miss Haines School for Girls: A Pioneer in Education
Established as early as 1851 at 10 Gramercy Park South, the Miss Haines School for Girls was one of the most exclusive and elite private institutions in the country. Under the leadership of headmistress Henrietta B. Haines (1816–1879), the school became a cornerstone of progressive education for young women in the 19th century.
The school was a site of significant educational milestones. In 1872, Maria Kraus-Boelté, a pioneer of the Fröbel method, established a kindergarten training program here, helping to introduce the concept of early childhood education to the United States.
The school also holds a fascinating place in literary and cinematic history. It was once the home and workplace of Mlle. Henriette Deluzy-Desportes, a French teacher whose life in Paris was marked by a sensational trial. Her story was later immortalized by her grandniece, Rachel Field, in the bestselling novel All This and Heaven Too, which was adapted into a 1940 film starring Bette Davis.
The Parkside Evangeline: A Sanctuary on the Park
Murgatroyd & Ogden designed the building at 18 Gramercy Park South in 1927. From 1963 to 2008, the Salvation Army operated it as the Parkside Evangeline, a residence for young women.
Nearly 300 women could live here at a time. For newcomers finding their feet in New York, the Parkside offered an affordable room and the company of other young working women, with Gramercy Park across the street.
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