Astor's New York: Money and Social Power in a Gilded Age'' 2004 68 Elegant townhouses were built around the park which remained largely the private domain of the residents, though now some of the Tory patricians of New York were replaced by Republican ones; leading New York merchants, led by Abraham Kennedy, in a mansion at 1 Broadway that had a 56 feet facade under a central pediment and a front towards the Battery Parade, as the new piece of open ground was called.