The 1855 Mount Morris Watch Tower

 

photograph by Rolando Melendez

On September 4, 1839, the city purchased 20 acres far uptown on a rocky knoll that had been known by the Dutch as Slang Berg, or Snake Hill.  The cost of the remote, undeveloped land was $25,778, or just under $700,000 in 2025 terms.  The Snake Hill property was bounded by what today would be Madison and Mount Morris Avenues and 120th and 124th Streets.  It was a strategic spot--the hill's elevation gave sweeping, 360 degree views for miles.

An important feature of fighting fires in early 19th century Manhattan was bell (or watch) towers.  Manned around the clock, the tall structures were dotted around the city.  When a watcher caught sight of smoke or fire, he rang the alarm.

In 1853, Julius H. Kroehl had the position of "Engineer of Crystal Palace."  The massive cast iron-and-glass structure in what today is Bryant Park would contain New York's world's fair.  Kroehl's expertise in cast iron construction would be tapped by the city two years later for a project on Snake Hill.

James Bogardus had submitted a design for the Crystal Palace in 1852, which was rejected.  Now, in 1855, the city hired him to design a watch tower on Snake Hill and Julius H. Kroehl was contracted to execute the plans.  Bogardus designed an octagonal, four-story structure of cast iron.

Completed in 1857, The Evening World described it three decades later as "not a very attractive specimen of architecture."  The article continued, 

The lowest story is of closed sides, clapboarded and painted an olive green.  The second and third stories are open.  Eighty fluted iron columns support them.  The fourth story has the octagonal room.

The wooden room on the top floor was used by the watchman "to shield himself from the storm or chill of winter," said the article.  The Evening World explained, "When the tower was built it was a good way off from New York, and the whole country round was marsh and fields."  From the top, the viewer could see "The old Rhinelander Mansion...also the John Jacob Astor residence."

The first "bell-man" was Christopher Sieman, who had a crew of two.  "It was a political position which the Mayor had the disposal of," explained a successor later.  The three men's eight-hour tours guaranteed 24-hour vigilance.  

One of Sieman's "ringers" was Hugh Masterson, who was appointed just before the mayoral election in 1857.  He would not hold the job for long.  The New-York Tribune reported on January 7, 1858, "He was charged with having made a bet of $20 that Mayor [Daniel Fawcett] Tiemann would be defeated, for which he gave a bad $20 bill and refused to make the amount good."  The article said, "the Mayor concluded to remove him."

In 1860, James McCusker replaced Christopher Sieman.  His yearly salary was $1,000, or about $38,900 today.  In 1887, he reminisced to The Evening World:

Some one had to be there all the time.  It was not very comfortable, for it is cold up there in winter and hot in summer, and then a man was altogether to himself.  We used to be glad enough to welcome visitors.  They broke the monotony.

When a watcher, or ringer, saw smoke or fire, he pulled a lever that rang the massive bell that hung at the second level.  "They used to hear it in Westchester village, and that is six miles away," described McCuster in 1887.  He was the last ringer to toll that particular bell.  "I broke the bell once sounding the alarm for a fire over in Bloomingdale," he said.

The lonely room in which the watcher remained for eight hours at a stretch can be seen in this photo. Gas Logic, January 1922 (copyright expired)

In 1863, McCusker discovered that, "Barnum's circus, at Elm Park, was on fire."  He recalled, "At the second stroke of the fourth alarm I noticed that the bell was cracked."  Three months later, the Fire Commissioners installed a new bell, one-quarter of the size of the original.  Nevertheless, "The present bell can be heard as far as Fordham," said The Evening World on October 13, 1887.

With the establishment of the professional Metropolitan Fire Department in 1865, New York City's network of volunteer companies was abolished and the tower here was updated with "the new fire-alarm system," that incorporated a telegraph line.  Now the watcher pushed a button that would communicate to as many as eight uptown fire stations.

In its September 1908 issue, The Scrap Book recalled, "With the advent of the paid fire department the use of the structure as a watch-tower was abandoned, and it was turned into a curfew-tower."  That new purpose did not come right away, however.  The Evening World explained, 

The bell was not run for nearly a year, since it no longer served any purpose.  But the people complained.  They had been used to hearing it and liked the sound.  So it is now run three times a day by a fireman from the engine-house on One Hundred and Twenty-fourth street.  

As the "curfew tower," its bell tolled at 8 a.m., at noon, and at 9:00 p.m.  "Thus it served for long as a time-regulator for the district," said The Scrap Book.

The vacant tower took on another purpose, as well.  The Scrap Book recalled, "Then seats were arranged around the base, and the spot became a favorite rendezvous for the belles and beaus of the neighborhood...It was said that one-third of the marriages which occurred in upper New York were brought about at this lovers' rendezvous."

While the other watch towers throughout the city were demolished one-by-one, this one remained.  On October 13, 1887, The Evening World remarked, "So it stands there, the relic of the past system, without the hoariness of age to make it a moving spectacle.  There is no reason why it should ever be removed.  It adorns the hill top, and the young people sit on the seats around it in these pleasant October days."

In 1903, the Fire Department decided that the cost of sending a fire fighter to the tower three times a day was wasteful.  On December 2, The Evening World began an article saying, "The famous old bell tower in Mount Morris Park may not toll again.  For half a century it has sounded alarms of fire and it has tolled the death of famous men and women.  Never once has it failed in its purpose."

But now, said the article, the Fire Department had told the Park Department "that the bell is too expensive" and "has passed its day of usefulness."  The locals, however, had a say on the matter.  The article said, "The people of Mount Morris Park don't want to lose the old bell.  They want it perpetuated and kept standing as a ringing memory of old times."  And they voiced their opinions strongly at a meeting of the Board of Aldermen on December 4, 1903.  

The clapboarding was intact as late as 1908.  The Scrap Book, November 1908 (copyright expired)

Five years later, The Scrap Book recounted, "A storm of protest went up, however, from persons living in the neighborhood, and from lovers of the picturesque and historic in New York City, and it is probable that the old tower will be repaired and preserved for future generations."

The clapboarding had been removed by the Great Depression.  image by the Historic American Engineering Record from the collection of the Library of Congress.

And, indeed, it was.  During the Great Depression, the Works Progress Administration funded a restoration of the tower and its surroundings.  A plaza was created with walls and broad steps.  

The new plaza was called by locals "The Acropolis."    image by the Historic American Engineering Record from the collection of the Library of Congress.

The second half of the 20th century was unkind.  Although it was designated an individual New York City landmark in 1976, the tower was neglected.  Without proper maintenance, it suffered severe rusting, the loss of treads and the decay of the original copper roof.  Dilapidation made the structure unsafe and a security fence was erected around it.

photograph by Jim Henderson

Then a grass roots effort in 2013 raised $4 million for restoration.  The project, begun the following year, necessitated disassembling the 160-year-old Bogardus-Kroehl structure.  Missing items were refabricated, and each element restored.  The reassembled tower was reopened in December 2019.