Pleasure Palace Of Fireworks And Music

— Bowery to Broadway between 4th & Astor Place —

In 1805, the land between Bowery, Broadway, 4th Street and Astor Place became the fashionable Vauxhall Garden. Established by Joseph Delacroix on land owned by John Jacob Astor, it featured gravel walks amount shrubs trees, flowers, and equestrian statue of George Washington and an open-air theatre for concerts, plays and hot-air balloon launches. According to one source, its dazzle of music, fireworks, lamp-lit arbors, ice cream and juleps made it "as gay a place of recreation as was to be found at the period of an evening anywhere in the civilized world."
In 1826, Astor cut Lafayette Place through the garden's middle, selling the lots to its west at great profit. In 1840 and 1841, P.T. Barnum leased the Vauxhall's saloon, presenting variety acts. The Garden's decline was hastened by the bloody 1849 Astor Place Riot, during which some of the bloody bodies were laid across the Vauxhall's Saloon billiard tables. Vauxhall Garden closed in 1859, after over 50 years of existence at this spot.
-David Mulkins, Historian/Educator

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