Daily News from New York, New York • 31

DAILY NEWSNYDailyNews.com Tuesday, November 3, 2009 31 GRACIE MANSION ARCHIBALD GRACIE, the prosperous shipping magnate and distinguished civic pillar and co-founder with his chum Alexander Hamilton of the New York Evening Post, had a fine view of Hell Gate from the big country house he built on an East River promontory a day's ride up from South and the mansion was a center of federal New York's social life of the early 19th century until Gracie's fortunes turned and he had to sell it off. A succession of subsequent wealthy owners all went broke in turn as well and Gracie Mansion was passed down from family to family until, by the 1920s, having somehow escaped the wrecking ball that had knocked down much of everything else in what was now the East 80s and 90s, it was in the hands of the city's Parks Commission, chiefly in use as a storage shed for lawnmowers and such. And then, late in the 1930s, the Board of Estimate decided that Mayor of the City of New York was an office of such stature that its holders deserved an Official Residence no less than did the President of the United States. Fiorello LaGuardia, for his part, wasn't all that keen on the idea, but in the spring of 1942 he reluctantly agreed to move his family into their new digs for the sake of municipal appearances. William O'Dwyer, perfectly happy in Brooklyn, wanted to live there even less, and basically he had to be dragged into Gracie Mansion kicking and screaming.

Notwithstanding longtime cries from critics that the place is a useless drain on the budget, it remains the Mayor's House, if sometimes only nominally, and, much refurbished under Robert Wagner, John Lindsay and Edward Koch, Archibald Gracie's getaway cottage remains a good place to see Hell Gate from. Every week we'll bring you spectacular photos from our amazing photo library..