The Forgotten Hamilton

It's pretty common knowledge that Alexander Hamilton, despite all of his numerous accomplishments, considered his large family one of his most important legacies of all. He considered himself a family man and, fittingly, had an absolute army of children. There were 8 biological children in all, though the oldest and the youngest never got to meet one another:

1. Philip (born 1782)
2. Angelica (1784)
3. Alexander Jr. (1786)
4. James Alexander (1788)
5. John Church (1792)
6. William Stephen (1797)
7. Eliza (1799)
8. Philip (1802)

Now, it seems that the further we go down this list of children, the less people know about them. Everyone has heard of the first Philip, of course - he's the one who died in a duel. Angelica got her own entry on this blog, and even Alexander Jr. sometimes gets remembered for the fun piece of trivia that he represented Eliza Jumel as her divorce lawyer when she divorced Aaron Burr.  Some people know the name of child #5, John Church Hamilton (named not after John Laurens, but after Angelica Schuyler Church's husband) as the man who wrote the first biography of Alexander Hamilton, and who commissioned what a friend of mine calls "the weirdly sexy Hamilton statue in Central Park".

But what about child #8, Philip the second? It seems people only remember him as a footnote - even my tours at the Grange only mention him as the baby named after the son who died in a duel. But the guy did lead a life beyond just being a baby. 

This is what he looked like as an adult

So let's learn a little bit about Philip Hamilton number two - or, as his family called him, "Little Phil".

I'VE MOVED TO BROOKLYN!

So I have to make a confession, you guys.

I'm sure you all have noticed that I haven't exactly been the most active on this blog lately... (No, it's not just because I've been obsessively playing "Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp" since November.) The truth is, the last month or so has been one of turmoil and upheaval, for a bevy of personal reasons that I don't really feel comfortable sharing publicly. But this all ended up leading to one thing, a big piece of news that I have to share with all of you...

SARAH AND I HAVE MOVED TO BROOKLYN.

We're on the border of Flatbush and Prospect Lefferts Gardens

It hasn't exactly been the smoothest adjustment, as moving is never easy, especially in the middle of winter, but we did it and I am so proud of us.

And you know what? As my months-long depressive spell starts to lift, I'm coming to find that... I actually quite like Brooklyn.

There's No Place Like Home for the Holidays

The weird thing about visiting my parents in California for a week is that sitting here in my big comfy bed with my orange cat Momo laying by the foot of it snoring, the heat running without me having to worry about paying for it... it honestly almost feels as if the past year and three months of living on the East Coast never happened. As if it was all some long, crazy dream.

I've had a lot of fun the last few days, and if I'm being completely honest with myself, there's a part of me that doesn't want to go back. Seven days hasn't quite been long enough for my emotional brain to remember that living with one's parents isn't quite as fun as having them spoil you for a week because they never see you. Despite my logic brain trying their best to remind my emotional brain, emotional brain just drowns out logic and sings:

Oh there's no place like home for the holidays... For no matter how far away you roam... If you want to be happy in a million ways... For the holidays, you can't beat home sweet home...

Look, I know no one does Christmas/Hanukkah/Yule/What have you like New York City. But the truth is, California will always be my home in my heart. You can keep your White Christmas - give me 65-degrees-farenheit all December, please. The Silicon Valley is the Valley of my Heart's Delight, and if I had it my way, I'd have taken a month off to visit rather than just a week. A week just isn't long enough to do everything I want to do, to see everything I've missed and some things I never got the chance to see. I'm already counting down the days until the next time I return to the Bay Area (next June for my high school reunion) and I don't even fly back east until Sunday!

I do miss my three-legged cat back in New Jersey, though. 

At the same time, though, New York is consistently in the back of my mind. San Jose is just as sweet and quaint and cool in its own way, but I've changed. I'm less of an easy-going pushover now. And okay, I'm a little more snobby sometimes - there has been more than one stop this trip where I've been like, "okay, it's cute, but in New York we have this similar thing that's so much bigger!" Honestly, I don't know how my family doesn't think I'm completely insufferable.

I can cook a lot better now, too - look at this fondue spread my mom and I made!

 I think, on some level, I will be happy to return to the East Coast. I do want to go to Hamilton Grange next weekend, I am curious about the axe-throwing place they just put in Brooklyn (expect my Viking ass to do a future entry on that), and I am eager to take my GRE and get a head-start on working towards the future that I moved to the east coast for in the first place. I just... don't want to leave California yet.

Honestly, if I had it my way, I'd live half the year in New York and half in California. Perhaps do spring and autumn in NYC and winter and summer in the Bay Area. But unfortunately, I'm not rich, that kind of lifestyle is just way beyond my means.

Anyway, I'm just rambling about how happy I've been the last few days, compared to the last few months (I had been, frankly, quite miserable for the latter half of October and almost the entirety of November and December - Seasonal Affective Disorder, you guys. It's a real hell and a half). But if you want, read on for a day-by-day summary of this little week of heaven. If not, I'll see you all in New York!

An Adventure in the Old School East Village

Tonight is the night, folks! Tonight, I board a plane (ew, a red eye flight) back to San Jose to spend a week back home! Meaning today I get to finish packing and cleaning up my room which has, in the course of packing, become an absolute mess! (Okay, okay, my cat Alice is part of that messiness too, since she likes to kick her litter up out of the box!!!) This, of course, means I am not leaving New Jersey today - which means that yesterday was my last day in New York City for the entirety of 2017.

And, since it's me, of course I wanted to do something that reminds me of my one true love, history. But rather than cavort in the 18th century, I decided I'd rather be a flapper for the day - after all, my love of the 1920s New York City scene is well documented, and I've been in a 20s mood lately. And unlike the 18th century, there are actually quite a few 1920s NYC haunts still around, if one knows where to look.

Having already agreed to meet a friend for my last NYC hangout of the year, we decided we'd make an afternoon out of it and planned the whole thing around visiting the Museum of the American Gangster in the East Village, a neighbourhood I know well (since I've been working in that neighbourhood for over a year).

Of course, we had some time to kill beforehand...

Living That Bicentury Life

In my continuing to update you all on everything that I should have been blogging about during the ongoing crisis that was the entire month of November (which may or may not qualify as a midlife crisis - hey, I don't know how long I'm going to live!), I feel like I should tell you all about two of the good experiences that did manage to make their way into my life and nestle between all of the anxiety.

And of course, as usual for me (I'm beginning to expect that my normal does not at all resemble that of the general population's...), last weekend and the weekend before that both involved hopping back in time for a bit to the 18th century - to the 1780s, to be precise, and the end of the American Revolutionary War.

Thank you Eliza for the photo! (Also features Cheney of Not Your Momma's History)

It seems that, try as I might (lmao I'm not gonna try to stop), I just can't stop living that bicentury life. I just can't help but live with one foot firmly planted in the 18th century and one in the 21st. (Which I guess means my crotch is right over 1899? Maybe don't think about this image too hard...)

So I decided to do a brief overview of my jaunts back into the 1780s the past two weekends for anyone who wants to live vicariously through me, as I understand we can't all be time travelers part time.

On Friday, 24 November, I attended the Evacuation Day festivities at Federal Hall National Memorial, just down the street from Trinity Church. And on Sunday, 3 December, I attended an event at Fraunces Tavern to commemorate George Washington's farewell speech to the Continental Army that was given in the Long Room in 1783 - complete with a very special guest.

Do You Know the Way to San Jose? (On Homesickness)

First off, before I begin answering the "WHERE HAVE I BEEN FOR OVER A MONTH" question (the short answer is "having a month-long existential crisis"), I'm gonna request you all listen to this classic song:

If you substitute NYC for LA, that's just about how I've been feeling for the entire month of November. I mean...

"Dreams turn into dust and blow away
And there you are without a friend
You pack your car and ride away
I've got lots of friends in San Jose
Do you know the way to San Jose?"

Let's back up just a bit, shall we?

Ghost Stories of New York City

Who is that in the study's window...?

Yesterday at the Grange, I heard phantom whistling at the back of the house after one of my tours.

This is not the first time this has happened to me. In fact, I made a comic about the first time I experienced it, even though Sarah and I determined it was probably an auditory hallucination:

But now that it's happened again, 2 months later, I'm not so sure anymore. Is it possible it could be a ghost?

Logically, I'd have to say no. I don't believe Hamilton Grange is haunted. There'd be a lot more stories about Hamilton's ghost if he were still sticking around. I'm fairly certain the guy has no unfinished business keeping him on this mortal plane. And even if he were to stick around in the house that meant so much to him, the building has been moved from its original location. Twice.

But it's fun to think there might be a paranormal explanation to the whistling. Is it likely? Not really. But imagining I might come face-to-face with a ghost is fun, especially this time of year! It's happened before, after all - back at Winchester I had quite a few paranormal encounters. I never got a bad vibe from the ghosts of the Winchester house. The spirits there are pretty benign, and will respect you if you respect them.

The Winchester Mystery House is, of course, notorious for its hauntings. Hamilton Grange is not. But that's not to say New York City doesn't have its fair share of ghosts, Aaron Burr being only one of the most famous. And that shouldn't be too surprising. It's had a very large population for centuries. That's a lot of people dying. Statistically, if ghosts are real, there should be a higher-than-average number of them in New York City. And there are. If you know where to look.

I'm going to give you three New York City ghostly tales, starting with one with a connection to Hamilton and Burr. But I encourage you to look up more yourself. New York has a fascinating paranormal history, and I'm barely scratching the tip of the iceberg here. And hey, if you have a ghost story of your own you'd like to share, be it NYC-related or not, please tell me in the comments or on my facebook page.