page_title: Charlton–King–Vandam Historic District
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Charlton–King–Vandam Historic District / History
caption_attribution_description: "Richmond Hill House, Varick Street, between Charlton and Vandam Streets" from Haswell, Charles Haynes (1809-1907) Reminiscences of an octogenarian of the city of New York, 1816-1860. (New York&#160;: Harper, 1897)
context_page_description: The Charlton–King–Vandam Historic District is a small historic district in Lower Manhattan, New York City. Designated by the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission in 1966, the district contains "the city's largest concentration of row houses in the Federal style, as well as a significant concentration of Greek Revival houses." It is sometimes included as part of the South Village or Hudson Square, though it is historically distinct from both neighborhoods.
  The district includes parts, but not all, of Charlton, King and Vandam Streets between the Avenue of the Americas and Varick Street, as well as the block bounded by King, MacDougal and Houston Streets and Sixth Avenue. In its designation report, the NYCLPC emphasized that this area was not a modern creation but had once been part of a larger "distinct and separate neighborhood" that was generally developed between 1820 and 1829 and originally extended from the Hudson River to MacDougal Street, and from Vandam Street to King Street.
  In 1973, the district was added to the National Register of Historic Places.
context_section_description: The Charlton–King–Vandam area was part of the estate of Richmond Hill, a Georgian mansion built in 1767 and said to be one of the most beautiful mansions in Manhattan. It was used by George Washington during the American Revolution as a headquarters and later became John Adams' Vice Presidential Mansion when the new country's capital was New York City. Aaron Burr bought the mansion, and after living in it for a time and using it as the site of lavish parties, it was Burr who, in 1797, mapped the property, dividing it into lots and laying out the grid of three streets, which would become Charlton, King and Vandam. After Burr's duel with Alexander Hamilton, he lost control of the estate to John Jacob Astor, the leading land developer of the time, who paid off Burr in 1817 and proceeded to develop the area.
  Astor had the mansion moved from the top of the hill it stood on to the corner of Charlton and Varick, and the hill was levelled; the mansion was subsequently used as a theatre. Builders bought the majority of the lots Astor laid out, so that much of the construction in the neighborhood took place in the early and mid-1820s, although some Greek Revival houses date from the 1840s, replacing houses destroyed by fire. After the mansion was razed in 1849, the neighborhood name "Richmond Hill" fell into disuse.
caption: The Richmond Hill mansion
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