Alexander Hamilton

A Brief History of Hamilton, the Sculpture

This Hamilton was commissioned for the Hamilton Club in Brooklyn Heights, which an 1895 New York Times article darkly suggested was "a Republican game under a non-partisan cover."

Above: Hamilton at Remsen and Clinton Sts., Brooklyn

The statue stood in Brooklyn until 1936, when the Club's Italianate headquarters was razed. The statue was donated to Hamilton Grange, the "country house" that was almost completed when Hamilton dueled with Burr in the summer of 1804.

Lifesize sculptures in New York move more often than one might expect, but in this case, the sculpture held still while the building next to it moved. In 2008, the Grange was levered out of its site next to a church and trundled a block south to St. Nicholas Park, where it has undergone a glorious renovation. The sculpture of Hamilton, alas, was left on Convent Avenue, for lack of funds to move it. 

Cross References

• The four sculptures of Hamilton standing outdoors in New York are this one, one in Central Park, one on the campus of Columbia University not far from Jefferson and Alma Mater, and a fourth on the facade of the Museum of the City of New York, near De Witt Clinton.
• Hamilton worked closely with George Washington when he was commander in chief (see Washington Arch) and president (Washington at Wall St.). Jefferson, who was also in Washington’s first cabinet, had a bitter feud with Hamilton.
• The New York Evening Post, which Hamilton founded, was guided for much of the 19th c. by William Cullen Bryant. Today the Post is the nation’s oldest continuously published newspaper. The New York Times, established 1851, comes in a distant second for longest-running newspaper in the city of New York.
• For sculptures relating to the Revolutionary War, see Washington (at Wall St., Washington Square Park, and Union Square), Lafayette, Jefferson, Hamilton near the Grange, and Nathan Hale.
• See Dianne L. Durante, Ale xander Hamilton: A Brief Biography, with extensive quotes and profuse illustrations.
• Outdoor Monuments of Manhattan compares the pose of this Hamiltonwith the other sculptures of Hamilton in Manhattan and describes Hamilton's remarkable achievements as Washington's secretary of the Treasury.