Clement Clarke Moore
New York, New York, New York
Marker Inscription
In the Moore Mansion, which stood on this site, in 1822, Clement Clarke Moore, (1779-1863), penned the immortal poem, "A Visit From Saint Nicholas", (T'was The Night Before Christmas), as a gift for his children. Scholar and developer of modern Chelsea, he gave the land for St. Peter's Church and the General Theological Seminary, where he was Professor of Greek and Hebrew.
Erected by Native New Yorkers' Historical Association
The Story
In 1822, in a mansion that once stood on this site, scholar Clement Clarke Moore wrote "A Visit from St. Nicholas" as a Christmas gift for his children—the poem that gave America much of its modern image of Santa Claus. A professor of Greek and Hebrew, Moore also helped shape the neighborhood of Chelsea, donating land for St. Peter's Church and the General Theological Seminary.
Why it matters
A private family verse penned here grew into one of the most beloved and enduring works in American holiday tradition.
Plan your visit
NearbyMake a day of it — museums, food, and places to stay near this marker.
Museums & culture
- 81 Leonard Gallery2.0 mi away
- Gerben Fine Art2.1 mi away
- Bureau2.2 mi away · 112 Duane Street
- Cloud Gallery2.3 mi away
- Hall des Lumières2.3 mi away · 49 Chambers Street, New York, NY
- 9/11 Memorial & Museum2.5 mi away · 180 Greenwich Street, New York, NY
Attractions
- The River Project Wetlab1.4 mi away
- FDNY Ladder 81.9 mi away · 14 North Moore Street, New York
- Dream house2.0 mi away
- Sherman Zwicker2.0 mi away
- Cortlandt Alley2.0 mi away
- Textile building2.0 mi away
Food & drink
- Maman2.8 mi away
- Sweetgreen2.8 mi away
- Semicolon Cafe2.8 mi away
- Greene Hook Bar & Kitchen2.8 mi away
- Rumi Turkish Grill2.9 mi away
- Bluestone Lane2.9 mi away
Places to stay
- Conrad2.3 mi away · 102 North End Avenue, New York
- DoubleTree2.4 mi away · 455 Washington Boulevard, Jersey City, NJ
- Sonesta Simply Suites Jersey City2.4 mi away · 21 2nd Street, Jersey City, NJ
- M Social Hotel New York Downtown2.5 mi away · 55 Church Street, New York, NY
- Hyatt Regency Jersey City on the Hudson2.6 mi away · 2 Exchange Place, Jersey City, NJ
- Residence Inn New York Downtown Manhattan/World Trade Center Area2.6 mi away · 170 Broadway, New York, NY
Places data © OpenStreetMap contributors. Hours and details change — call ahead.
Own a business near here? Add it to the map.
Related people
- · Clement Clarke Moore
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Charles Ives
New York, NY
Charles Ives (1874–1954) led a double life at this address from 1908 to 1911: a successful insurance executive by day and one of America's most daring composers by night. Drawing on hymns, marches, and folk tunes, his adventurous works—like the Concord Sonata and the Fourth Symphony—stretched rhythm and tonality far beyond the conventions of his era. Long underappreciated, his music later won recognition as strikingly ahead of its time.
Thomas Wolfe
New York, NY
The sprawling, autobiographical novelist Thomas Wolfe (1900–1936) spent the last years of his short life at the Chelsea Hotel, the Manhattan haven for writers and artists. Author of Look Homeward, Angel and Of Time and the River, he poured out prose of enormous ambition and emotional force before dying at just thirty-seven. His American publishers, Scribner's and Harper, placed this plaque to honor him where he had lived and worked.
Dylan Thomas
New York, NY · est. 1964
At the storied Chelsea Hotel, long a haven for writers and artists, the Welsh poet Dylan Thomas spent his final creative days before collapsing and dying in New York in 1953. This plaque, dedicated on what would have been his fiftieth birthday, casts his last months in the elegiac language his own poetry made famous. The Chelsea's rooms had sheltered a parade of literary figures, and Thomas became among the most mourned of them.
General Worth Monument
New York, NY
This granite obelisk at the crossing of Fifth Avenue and Broadway honors William Jenkins Worth, a soldier from Hudson, New York, whose career traced the young republic's expanding military ambitions. He earned his commission in the War of 1812, spent the 1820s shaping the officer corps as Commandant of Cadets at West Point, and won his greatest fame in the hard-fought campaigns of the Mexican-American War of the 1840s. When he died in 1849, the city he served brought him home, and the monument that rose over his grave became one of the very few burial sites in Manhattan marked by a public memorial.