History of the Association

Murray Hill is a unique neighborhood where 2 residential historic districts co-exist with dense commercial areas in the center of midtown Manhattan. Named after Robert and Mary Lindley Murray, the farmland property, formerly called Inclenberg, is where their estate was located in the 1750s. The property covered the area from Lexington Avenue to Madison Avenue to the east and west, and from 39^th to 33^rd Street to the north and south. Their home, known as Belmont, was located on a hilltop at Park Avenue and 37^th Street. A bronze plaque honoring Mary Murray was installed at the site of Belmont by the Daughters of the American Revolution for her role in the Revolutionary War. The plaque is located on the mall at East 37th Street. Another plaque is located at 16 Park Avenue, marking the geographic center of Inclenberg. 

The preservation of several blocks of historic buildings in this dynamic part of Manhattan is largely due to the Murray Hill Restriction, a document registered in 1847 with the City of New York by the descendants of the Murrays. By this time, the street grid, along with row houses and mansions had replaced the Murray property, and the New York and Harlem Railroad had blasted an open trench through the neighborhood on Fourth Avenue from 33rd to 40th Street, where Park Avenue is now. The city was expanding northward. The Murray Hill Restriction was a covenant written into property deeds that made it illegal to build anything other than a “brick or stone dwelling” and allowed existing buildings to be used only as residences. No commercial uses of any kind were permitted. In 1851, the Fourth Avenue railroad tracks were covered over and landscaped, and the street was renamed Park Avenue. 

The protection of the historic and residential character of the neighborhood was later taken up by the Murray Hill Association. Formed in 1914, its original directors were J. Pierpont Morgan Jr. and other prominent men of the time. By the early 20^th century, multi-family high-rise apartment buildings and large commercial buildings were replacing low-rise residential buildings in midtown, and the group brought many legal battles to court to limit the location of high-rise and commercial buildings in the neighborhood. The Murray Hill Restriction held sway during this period and lasted for more than a century. Murray Hill is now protected by zoning laws and its Historic Districts have their own protection.

The historic buildings of Murray Hill include a range of periods and styles, from the Church of the Incarnation in the Gothic style, to various town houses built in the mid-1800s, to the Gilded Age mansions of the late 19^th-early 20^th century. Prominent families such as Havermeyer, Rhinelander, Belmont and Pell built mansions and lived in Murray Hill in the Gilded Age, during the period from 1877 to 1900 and were listed in the famous Blue Book. The legendary Waldorf Astoria Hotel located at 34th and Fifth Avenue was the venue for Mrs. Astor’s Ball held for the Blue Book 400 (the 400 most fashionable people in New York Society).  The hotel was demolished to make way for the Empire State Building.  

World famous architects such as McKim, Mead and White, C.P.H. Gilbert, Hoppin & Koen, Emlen T. Little, William Adams Delano and Horace Trumbauer designed many of the Murray Hill buildings in which notable people lived. The streets of Murray Hill are graced by many architectural styles such as Beaux Arts, French Renaissance, Empire, Formal Palatial, Gothic, Georgian and Romanesque Revival, Regency and Anglo- Italianite. There were also carriage houses and stables located east of Lexington Avenue that provided transportation for mansion residents. The northern part of the area developed as a commercial and transportation hub, following the opening of Grand Central Depot in 1871, now Grand Central Terminal. This also led to the creation of nearby high-rise club hotels, which give a distinctive character to the neighborhood.

Murray Hill is home to a Historic District of 88 structures between Park Avenue and Lexington Avenue and Sniffen Court, a mews of 10 former stables, which is its own Historic District.  There are 14 individual NYC Landmark Structures in Murray Hill and 239 structures listed on The National Register of Historic Places between Madison Avenue and Third Avenue and 34th-39th Streets. 

The current Murray Hill Neighborhood Association (originally called the Murray Hill Committee) was formed in 1960 to oppose Robert Moses’s plan to widen East 36^th and East 37th Streets between 3^rd and 11^th Avenue for the Mid-Manhattan Expressway (unbuilt). This would have required removing the stoops of historic buildings along East 36^th and East 37^th Streets in Murray Hill, and would have changed the character of this residential neighborhood. Since then, the MHNA has been working continuously to preserve historic Murray Hill and to advocate for the neighborhood as a historic district and for landmark designation for its significant buildings. The MNHA also works to protect, preserve and beautify the community with greening projects, and works to promote civic engagement, to reach out to the Murray Hill community through its website, eblasts and social media.  It is a voice for the neighborhood on issues such as safety, noise, traffic and transportation. The MHNA also works to protect, preserve and beautify the community with greening projects, and works to promote civic engagement by reaching out to the Murray Hill community through its website, eblast and social media. Our goal is to keep Murray Hill a highly desirable place to live, work and visit.