The Amiable Child

On this cool, overcast last day of August, out walking the beagle, with Johnny Cash singing Engine One Forty-Three (yet another cautionary tale of a young man failing to heed his mama's words) on repeat play on the headphones, I decided to visit, as I do from time to time, the monument to An Amiable Child. This small memorial is just off Riverside Dr., down a few steps and a bit north from that much more imposing monument, Grant's Tomb. It overlooks a stand of trees and beyond that, of course, the Hudson. The child was St. Claire Pollock and he was five when he died on July 15, 1797, most likely -- the accompanying historical sign back up on the sidewalk reports -- from a fall off the bluffs above the river. The memorial is of marble, square and simple, topped with an urn. Once when I visited someone had laid a spray of carnations on the marble. Another time there was a used condom on the pavement outside the fence. Today the area had been freshly groomed (it is often a bit raggedy), but the wild rose that grows inside the fence was flowerless. Here is a link from the City Parks about the site:

http://www.nycgovparks.org/sub_your_park/historical_signs/
hs_historical_sign.php?id=6417

and here is another that includes a picture of the monument from about 1900:

http://www.morningside-heights.net/amiable.htm

The monument is inscribed on one side "Erected to the memory of an Amiable Child St. Claire Pollock Died July 15 1797 in the fifth year of his life." On the other there is this from the Book of Job: "Man that is born of a woman is of few days and full of trouble. He cometh forth like a flower, and is cut down: he fleeth also as a shadow, and continueth not." So I think of little St. Claire, happily incorrigible, curiosity leading him to skinned knees and scoldings from his doting mother, and then, one day, accidentally too far. Hearts broke over this Amiable and sorely missed Child. He came to rest here, in what NYC Parks describes as one of the few private graves on public land in the city, because when his father or uncle sold the property in 1800 he wrote to the new owner, "There is a small enclosure near your boundary fence within which lie the remains of a favorite child, covered by a marble monument. You will confer a peculiar and interesting favor upon me by allowing me to convey the enclosure to you so that you will consider it a part of your own estate, keeping it, however, always enclosed and sacred."

It says something good and special about this huge, amazing, annoying city that this modest request has now been honored for more than two centuries.

Come visit the next time you are in Morningside Heights.