and North, Lexington Avenue, Park Avenue South, East 22nd and East 19th Streets, and Irving Place. Etymology The area received its name as an anglicization of Crommessie, which is derived from the Dutch , meaning 'little crooked swamp', or , meaning 'little crooked knife', describing the shape of the swamp, brook and hill on the site. The brook, which later become known as Crommessie Vly, flowed in a 40-foot gully along what is now 21st Street into the East River at 18th Street. / became corrupted to Crommessie or Crommashie. Mayor James Duane – for whom the city's Duane Street is named – acquired the site in 1761 from Gerardus Stuyvesant and named it Gramercy Seat. Gramercy is an archaic English word meaning 'many thanks'. History Origin and development The area which is now Gramercy Park was once in the middle of a swamp. In 1831 Samuel B. Ruggles, a developer and advocate of open space, proposed the idea for the park due to the northward growth of Manhattan. He bought the property, 22 acres of what was then a farm called "Gramercy Farm", from the heirs of James Duane, son of the former mayor, father of James Chatham Duane, and a descendant of Peter Stuyvesant. Ruggles then deeded the land on December 17, 1832 to five trustees, who pledge to hold 42 lots in trust to be used as parkland. To develop the property, Ruggles spent $180,000 to landscape it, draining the swamp and causing about a million horsecart loads of earth to be moved. He then laid out "Gramercy Square", deeding possession of the square to the owners of the 66 parcels of land he had plotted to surround it, and sought tax-exempt status for the park, which the city's Board of Aldermen granted in 1832. It was the second private square created in the city, after Hudson Square, also known as St. John's Park, which was laid out by the parish of Trinity Church. Numbering of the lots began at No. 1 on the northwest corner, on Gramercy Park West, and continued counter-clockwise: south down Gramercy Park West, then west to east along Gramercy Park South (East 20th Street), north up Gramercy Park East, and finally east to west along Gramercy Park North (East 21st Street). As part of his overall plan for the square, Ruggles received permission on January 28, 1833 from the Board of Alderman