McGowan's Pass
Coordinates: 40°47′36″N 73°57′18″W / 40.79333°N 73.95500°W
McGowan's Pass (sometimes spelled "McGown's") is a topographical feature of Central Park in New York City, just west of Fifth Avenue and north of 102nd Street. It has been incorporated into the park's East Drive since the early 1860s. A steep hill descending into a switchback road, it is a popular training route for competitive bicyclists and runners.
Although the name is usually omitted from maps today, McGowan's Pass was clearly marked on charts of the region from the Revolutionary War until the early 20th Century. It acquired its name from the McGowan or McGown family who kept a tavern (initially named "The Black Horse," but popularly called "McGowan's") near there from 1756 through the Revolutionary period, and owned the surrounding property until the 1840s.
The area was incorporated into Central Park after 1860, when the Park's boundaries were extended north from the line of 106th Street to 110th Street, and the Harlem Meer was built in the Park's northeast corner. At this time a new section of East Drive was made to veer sharply to the west and south and again to the north, bypassing the Meer.
In Dutch Colonial days, this area of north Manhattan was part of the "commons," land administered by the community of Nieuw Haarlem as a whole. During the 1660s-1690s, as Manhattan passed back and forth between the Dutch and English, the colony of New Harlem lost its autonomy. Common Lands were sold off in 1712. Much of this property in upper Manhattan passed to members of the extensive Benson and Dyckman families, who would continue to own much of northern Manhattan well through the 1800s.
In the 1740s Jacob Dyckman, Jr. purchased the lands along the Pass from his Uncle George. He planted orchards and built a house and outbuildings, including a public house, "At the Sign of the Black Horse." During a yellow fever epidemic in 1752, the Colonial Assembly decamped from downtown New York and met in the Black Horse tavern, while boarding a half-mile east at the farm of Dyckman's cousin, Benjamin Benson.
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