People gather every Christmas Eve in Clement C. Moore Park to read his holiday classic, “The Night Before Christmas” (photo by twi-ny/mdr)
Sunday, December 19, Church of the Intercession, 550 West 155th St. at Broadway, free, 4:00
Friday, December 24, Clement C. Moore Park, West 22nd St. at Tenth Ave., free
www.nycgovparks.org
www.audubonparkperspectives.com
On Christmas Eve, 1822, Clement Clarke Moore wrote the holiday poem “A Visit from St. Nicholas” for his wife and children, who lived on an estate called Chelsea in the neighborhood that later became the Chelsea of today. A native New Yorker, Moore (1779–1863) has two city parks named after him, the half-acre Clement C. Moore Park on Tenth Ave. & 22nd St. and the Clement Clarke Moore Homestead in Newtown, Queens. Every Christmas Eve, people gather at the Chelsea park to read Moore’s famous story, which is better known as “The Night Before Christmas,” right near where it was written. Although Moore is most closely associated with Christmas, he also compiled a Hebrew lexicon and was fluent in six languages. The Moore mansion itself was located at what is now a doctor’s office at 420 West 23rd St. between Ninth & Tenth Aves. Moore is buried in Trinity Cemetery in Audubon Park, where, on Sunday, December 19, actor Malik Yoba will read Moore’s most famous poem in the Church of the Intercession, celebrating the 100th anniversary of the public reading, which will be followed by a lantern-lit procession and wreath-laying ceremony. “Happy Christmas to all, and to all a good-night.”