Lenox Hill
a neighborhood on Manhattan's Upper East Side. It forms the lower section of the Upper East Side—east of Park Avenue in the 60s and 70s.
A significant portion of the neighborhood lies within the Upper East Side Historic District designated by the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission in 1981 and expanded in 2010. The neighborhood is part of Manhattan Community Board 8.
Demographics
Based on data from the 2010 United States Census, the population of Lenox Hill and Roosevelt Island, which are combined into one census tabulation area, was 80,771, an increase of 4,140 (5.4%) from the 76,631 counted in 2000. Covering an area of 511.71 acres (207.08 ha), the neighborhood had a population density of 157.8 inhabitants per acre (101,000/sq mi). The median income for a household living in Lenox Hill was $92,219.[20]
The racial makeup of the neighborhood was 75.3% (60,831) White, 4.4% (3,571) African American, 0.1% (57) Native American, 10.6% (8,569) Asian, 0.1% (61) Pacific Islander, 0.3% (262) from other races, and 1.9% (1,558) from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino of any race was 7.3% (5,862) of the population.
The racial composition of Lenox Hill / Roosevelt Island changed moderately from 2000 to 2010. The most significant changes were the increase in the Asian population by 38% (2,346) and the increase in the Hispanic / Latino population by 22% (1,064). The White population remained the majority with a slight increase of 1% (360), while the small Black population increased by 2% (61 the even smaller population of all other races increased by 19% (309).
History
The neighborhood is named for the hill that "stood at what became 70th Street and Park Avenue." The name "Lenox" is that of the immigrant Scottish merchant Robert Lenox (1759-1839),[11] who owned about 30 acres (120,000 m2) of land "at the five-mile (8 km) stone", reaching from Fifth to Fourth (now Park) Avenues and from East 74th to 68th Streets. For the sum of $6,420 ($109,000 in current dollar terms) or $6,920 ($117,000) he had purchased a first set of three parcels in 1818, at an auction held at the Tontine Coffee House of mortgaged premises of Archibald Gracie, in order to protect Gracie's heirs from foreclosure, as he was executor of Gracie's estate. Several months later he purchased three further parcels, extending his property north to 74th Street. According to one source, "Thereafter these two tracts were known as the 'Lenox Farm.'" The tenant farmhouse stood on the rise of ground between Fifth and Madison avenues and 70th and 71st Streets, which would have been the hill, if the property had ever been called "Lenox Hill." The railroad right-of-way of the New York & Harlem Railroad passed along the east boundary of the property.
Robert Lenox's son James Lenox divided most of the farm into blocks of building lots and sold them during the 1860s and 1870s; he also donated land for the Union Theological Seminary along the railroad right-of-way, between 69th and 70th Streets, and just north of it a full square block between Madison and Fourth Avenue, 70th and 71st streets, for the Presbyterian Hospital, which occupied seven somewhat austere structures on the plot; He built the Lenox Library on a full block-front of Fifth Avenue, now the site of the Frick Collection.
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