NY judge: Likely too late to switch historic house

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NEW YORK — It may be too late to change the position of Alexander Hamilton's 206-year-old house, which is hovering over a new foundation near an upper Manhattan park, a judge said Monday.

A neighborhood group, the Friends of Hamilton Grange, sued the National Park Service on Friday over the orientation of the pale yellow, Federalist-style house, which was moved over the weekend from its longtime spot about a block away.

The Friends of Hamilton Grange argued that the front of Hamilton's home should look out on grass and trees as it did when he built it — not toward the street as the park service planned.

U.S. District Judge Denise Cote said that if any delay will damage the house, "then it seems to me we're just too late in the day to consider a reorientation."

The government has argued that switching the direction would delay final placement of the house for months and that cracks in the house already are expanding.

The judge told the two sides to talk to one another and she scheduled further arguments in the case for June 17. She said she would rule the next day. The park service wants to move the building on or shortly after June 19.

The new location of the home overlooking St. Nicholas Park is similar to the look of the neighborhood when Hamilton moved there in 1802.

The plaintiffs say they want the house facing the same direction it did when Hamilton was alive before he was fatally wounded in a duel with Aaron Burr in 1804.

Congress made the home a national memorial in 1962. Hamilton was an author of the Federalist Papers, a leading intellect behind the U.S. Constitution and the country's first Secretary of the Treasury. He also founded the New York Post and the Bank of New York.

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