NATHAN Hale Court is one of a number of apartment houses on Eastyern Parrkway near Franklin Avenue with patriotic names; the Thomas Jefferson is nearby. The name Nathan Hale is synonymous with American patriotism. A volunteer for a dangerous spy mission in enemy territory on Manhattan Island during the Revolution, the young officer carried several incriminating reports, including his Yale diploma, when he was captured by the British and executed in 1776 at age 21. Many historians now agree that he did not utter the famous line, “I only regret that I have but one life to lose for my country” before his hanging. Hale, according to some accounts, was executed at what is the present corner of East Broadway and Market Street on an apple tree in Henry Rutgers’ farm, though in other renderings he was killed near what is now the United Nations complex.
Hale is the second youngest person memorialized by a statue in Manhattan; Joan of Arc is the youngest. He has a statue in City Hall Park, within the cordoned-off section near City Hall itself, by Frederick MacMonnies installed in 1903, with the pedestal designed by Stanford White, himself a murder victim.
Is it time to move Nathan Hale to the public section of City Hall Park?
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9/19/24