Neighborhoods

Gramercy Park

Gramercy Park^[2] /??ræm?rsi ?p?rk/ is a small, fenced-in private park^[3] in the borough of Manhattan in New York City, United States.^[4] The park is at the core of both the neighborhood referred to as either Gramercy or Gramercy Park^[5][6] and the Gramercy Park Historic District.^[7] The approximately 2 acre (0.8 hectare) park is the only private park in New York City,^[8] and one of only two in the state;^[9] only people residing around the park who pay an annual fee have a key,^[8] and the public is not generally allowed in – although the sidewalks of the streets around the park are a popular jogging, strolling and dog-walking route.

When the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission created the Gramercy Park Historic District in 1966, they quoted from John B. Pine's 1921 book, The Story of Gramercy Park:

The laying out of Gramercy Park represents one of the earliest attempts in this country at 'City Planning'. ... As a park given to the prospective owners of the land surrounding it and held in trust for those who made their homes around it, Gramercy Park is unique in this City, and perhaps in this country, and represents the only neighborhood, with possibly one exception, which has remained comparatively unchanged for eighty years -- the Park is one of the City's Landmarks.^[7]

Calling it "a Victorian gentleman who has refused to die", Charlotte Devree in the New York Times said that "There is nothing else quite like Gramercy Park in the country."^[10]

The neighborhood around Gramercy Park, which is divided between New York City's Manhattan Community Board 5 ^[11] and Manhattan Community Board 6,^[12] is generally perceived to be a quiet and safe area.