Hamilton cast performs "Alexander Hamilton" at White House
Historic sites connected to Alexander Hamilton are getting a lot more visitors than they used to, thanks to a little Broadway show you might have heard about.
Fans of the musical Hamilton, which won 11 Tony Awards on June 12, are hunting down every Hamilton spot they can think of, from his home in Harlem, to his burial site in Lower Manhattan, to Hamilton Park in Weehawken, N.J., near the dueling grounds where he was shot by Aaron Burr.
Kerissa Bearce, 35, an instructional technology coach from Fort Worth, visited all those sites and many more when she came to New York to see the show with two friends.
I pretty much dont remember anything about the founding of my country, but now Im learning all of it, Bearce said.
Bearce is among thousands of Hamilton fans boosting visitor numbers at historic sites that in the past were barely on tourists radars. Hamilton Grange, his Harlem home and a National Park Service site, had as many visitors in the first five months of this year as it did in all of 2015 more than 35,000 people. And thats a 75 percent increase over the 21,000 visitors who toured the Grange in 2014, the year before Hamilton opened.
Artifacts at the site include a piano that Hamiltons daughter Angelica played. A replica of the instrument is featured in the show.
But fans are also finding their way to more obscure spots, like the Schuyler-Hamilton House in Morristown, N.J., where Hamilton courted his wife, Eliza.
We have 5-year-olds, 16-year-olds, 30-year-olds coming here now. We did not have that audience in our museum before. We had 60-year-olds
Pat Sanftner, Schuyler-Hamilton House tour guide
We have 5-year-olds, 16-year-olds, 30-year-olds coming here now, said Pat Sanftner, who gives tours of the Schuyler-Hamilton House. We did not have that audience in our museum before. We had 60-year-olds. Its wonderful to have these conversations now with visitors. Were not just teaching. Theyre questioning us and theyre thinking.
Tourists have always visited Hamiltons tomb in the graveyard at Trinity Church in Lower Manhattan. But now, not only are more people paying their respects, but theyre also looking for the graves of Hamiltons wife, sister-in-law, son and his buddy Hercules Mulligan.
Visitors also now leave flowers, stones, coins, notes, even a potted plant, at Hamiltons monument and on Elizas stone just in front of it, said Trinity spokeswoman Lynn Goswick.
The shows star and creator, Lin-Manuel Miranda, wrote part of Hamilton at the Morris-Jumel Mansion in Manhattans Washington Heights. The mansions executive director, Carol Ward, estimates that half of their visitors now come because of the show.
The show has gotten people interested in history in a completely new, fresh way
Carol Ward, Morris-Jumel Mansion executive director
Weve been riding the wave, Ward said. The show has gotten people interested in history in a completely new, fresh way.
The Morris-Jumel Mansion is known for a dinner party hosted there by President George Washington for his Cabinet, attended by Hamilton, John Adams and Thomas Jefferson. (A different dinner party depicted in the shows song The Room Where It Happens took place at Jeffersons residence, now marked with a plaque at 57 Maiden Lane in Lower Manhattan.) But the mansion has a Burr connection, too: Burr married the rich widow who owned the house. She later divorced Burr, and her lawyer was Hamiltons son.
A truly obscure spot on the Hamilton trail is a well where a womans body was found in 1800, located in Manhattans SoHo neighborhood. Hamilton and Burr defended the womans lover against a murder charge, and while the well isnt mentioned in the musical, the trial is referenced in one song. That was enough to send Bearce and her friends looking for the well, now located inside the COS clothing store on Spring Street.
We were in pursuit of that well, said Bearce.
Other pilgrimage sites include Hamilton statues in Central Park and at Columbia University. A sign outside 82 Jane St. in Greenwich Village marks the site where Hamilton was taken to die after the duel left him mortally wounded.
Some destinations are advertising in the Broadway Playbill for Hamilton, including the Caribbean island of Nevis, where Hamilton was born, and the Museum of American Finance on Wall Street, where Hamilton founded the Bank of New York. The museum has an Alexander Hamilton Room.
The I Love NY tourism campaign is pitching sites from a Path Through History trail using lyrics from the show.
The Alexander Hamilton Awareness Society (AHA) has been holding Hamilton celebrations since 2012, but bigger turnouts are expected this year for AHAs Celebrate Hamilton programs. Events scheduled for July include the Young Immigrant Hamilton Tour, July 7-8, in Elizabeth, N.J., where Hamilton attended prep school, and a July 7 talk about Hamilton as Spymaster, focusing on his espionage work, at Fraunces Tavern in Lower Manhattan.
The New-York Historical Society launches Summer of Hamilton July 4 with a variety of programs, plus artifacts like the pamphlet admitting Hamiltons affair with Maria Reynolds. Hamilton items already on display at the society include a pair of statues depicting him and Burr facing off in the duel, along with replicas of their pistols.
The I Love NY tourism campaign is pitching sites from a Path Through History trail using lyrics from the show. For example, as Washingtons right-hand man, Hamilton was a guest at the Van Wyck Homestead in Fishkill, N.Y. Elizas sister Angelica sings shes always by your side at Elizas wedding to Hamilton at the Schuyler Mansion in Albany.
And at the Dutchess County Courthouse in Poughkeepsie, Hamilton argued for ratification of the Constitution, as in, Were making history.
Source: http://www.star-telegram.com/living/travel/article83925887.html
