Becca Milfeld
New York - As much as I really want to see the awe-inspiring, bayonet-bearing, knee-sock-wearing, hip-hop phenomenon that is the musical Hamilton, I've been having trouble justifying the equally phenomenal price of tickets.
So I created my own front-row Hamilton experience - which, unlike the play, involves almost no sitting. Instead, I spent a day and a half walking from one end of Manhattan to the other on what I've termed a Hamilthon. I was trying to catch a glimpse of perhaps the world's first consummate New Yorker: the real Alexander Hamilton, the one who doesn't sing.
And I was hardly alone.
From Hamilton's Harlem home to his grave in the Financial District, his new, musical-induced fans are everywhere - many with tickets.
With the Tony, Pulitzer and Grammy-winning musical sold out through May of next year, it's hard to find tickets going for anything close to face value at secondary agencies such as Ticketmaster.
With delusions of paying far less, I signed up, fingers crossed, for the near-daily online lottery for $10 (about R150) front-row seats. On average, more than 10 000 people enter for 21 tickets, but at the advice of Hamilton,”I was not throwing away my shot.
I started my tour of Hamilton's life in reverse order, at his grave-site, in Lower Manhattan. Nestled in the modern cityscape at Broadway and Wall Street is Trinity Church and its ancient graveyard, where the dead date to the 17th century and tombstones read like a who's who of Hamilton characters, on whose graves people now place rocks, coins and other mementos. A succulent houseplant was at the foot of Hamilton's grave on the April morning of my visit.
It's no wonder so many people love Hamilton, which has won 11 Tony Awards and catapulted its creator and original star, Lin-Manuel Miranda, to fame.
The musical tells the story of the $10 Founding Father, born illegitimately in the Caribbean and orphaned after his dad left and mom died. Despite his rough start, Hamilton would go on to become George Washington's right-hand man in the Revolutionary War, the first secretary of the Treasury (largely credited with creating the nation's financial system) and one of America's top Founding Fathers. The cast is multi-ethnic, and a portion of the plot, told via hip hop and other musical genres, centres on two women, Hamilton's wife, Eliza Schuyler Hamilton, and her sister Angelica.
At Trinity, Eliza's grave is next to Hamilton's and Angelica is thought to be in a nearby vault belonging to the influential Livingston family. Hamilton's friend, the improbably named Hercules Mulligan, is several plots away.
“We don't have the official numbers, but we anecdotally know that there's more people that we see in the churchyard” since the musical opened, Trinity spokeswoman Lynn Goswick told me. Case in point: Our conversation was interrupted by a woman inquiring where Hamilton's son Philip is buried. (He died in a duel more than two years before his father. The church doesn't know whether he's in an unmarked grave or plot somewhere nearby.)
My logical next stop was the ancient duelling grounds in Weehawken, New Jersey.
A quick Uber ride through the Lincoln Tunnel brought me to the cliff-top Hamilton Park, which stretches along the Hudson River and overlooks the bank where Hamilton was mortally wounded by Vice President Aaron Burr. The exact spot - approximately where Philip also was shot - is lost to history. But the picnic-perfect park reveals a phenomenal Manhattan skyline and a nearby bust of Hamilton marks the rough location where the statesman fell. Placed beside the bust is a rock that, according to legend, Hamilton leaned upon after being shot. People now throw pennies on it.
I asked a man who lives in the house directly opposite the bust whether he had witnessed the same Hamilton mania I had observed at the graveyard in Manhattan. No, he said, because New Yorkers think New Jersey is impossibly far away.
“Hamilton did not die in New Jersey, thank God. That is the worst thing that can happen to a New Yorker. They got him back into a boat. He did make it across to the West Village,” said Jimmy Napoli, who leads Hamilton walking tours, including a Hamilton's Wall Street walk I went on. (For the record, I, too, took a boat back across the Hudson, in a ferry named Alexander Hamilton.)
At $50, the walk is a fraction of the musical's price. And unlike Miranda, who gave his final performance as Hamilton on July 9 (the role is now played by his former understudy, Javier Muñoz), Napoli isn't going away anytime soon. In fact, he has been giving Hamilton tours for decades.
“I have great vision and foresight. Twenty years ago, when I became a tour guide, I said to myself, 'It's just a matter of time before somebody writes a hip-hop musical about Alexander Hamilton, and I'm going to be on the ground floor when that happens,' “ Napoli told my tour group of seven with a laugh. He then went on to pull history from the pavement for three hours, explaining where critical events happened and the founding fathers once lived, spots now mostly covered by high-rise buildings.
With his fast-paced New York gusto, Napoli's could be the second best Hamilton show in town.
His favourite tour spot is Federal Hall, site of the First US Congress, as well as the first Supreme Court and executive branch offices. But for me, the highlight was the room where it happens, the very location where Thomas Jefferson, James Madison and Hamilton held a private meeting in which the two Virginians agreed to round up congressional support for Hamilton's plan for national assumption of state debts in return for Hamilton rounding up support to move the capital to Washington. The room, which was in Jefferson's house, no longer exists, built over by yet another office building.
My next stop would be a house with rooms where a lot of things happened: the only home Hamilton ever owned, his Grange estate. But not before saying goodbye to my tour at Fraunces Tavern, where the nascent Treasury Department once leased rooms and both Burr and Hamilton attended a meeting one week before their duel.
Over lunch, William Carter, a dad from Fredericksburg, Virginia, who brought his teenage daughter, Kayla, told us how at first he had doubts: “I said 'Rap and Hamilton? How dare you,' “ but then was won over.
As Napoli put it, not only has Miranda “made Hamilton cool with the kids, I've got 80-year-old women from the South rapping in my face, which is really surreal.”
With that, I headed uptown to the Grange, Hamilton's Federal-style house in Harlem in the shadows of what today is the City College of New York.
The house, originally located on approximately 32 acres, is named after the ancestral manse of Hamilton's Scottish father and was completed in 1802, back when Harlem was a rural community nine miles from today's Financial District. However, Hamilton was only able to enjoy the home for two years before he died. Since then, the Grange has been moved twice and now rests on a green hillside in St. Nicholas Park, not far from its original location.
A group of four women, three wearing Hamilton T-shirts, were on their way out as I arrived.
“Our visitation numbers have skyrocketed since the play came out and the demographics of the people have changed,” said park guide Gregory Mance, who explained that history majors and school groups have given way to “everybody.”
In the first half of last year almost 11, 00 people visited, a number that nearly quadrupled to more than 40 000 in 2016, according to the National Park Service. The spike is no doubt due to Hamilton, which opened off-Broadway in February 2015 and on Broadway in August of the same year.
Little is known about the home's interior, so only three rooms have been restored, including the dining room, where there's a replica of the four-bottle wine cooler that Washington sent as a token of friendship during the nation's first major political sex scandal - a torrid affair with Hamilton at its centre.
After receiving an email notification that I did not win the Hamilton lottery, I stopped by the Richard Rodgers Theatre some 20 minutes before a show and took a spot in the cancellation line, where a lucky few might nab an affordable seat if the Founding Fathers were to smile down.
Standing towards the back, I didn't stand a chance. And I wasn't going to buy a ticket from the several questionable men hawking them at outrageous prices. For a moment, I even wondered after so many jogs to the beat of “Yorktown” and morning bus rides furtively jamming to The Schuyler Sisters: What if the show wasn't . . . as good as I imagined?
“I was concerned when I saw it it wouldn't live up to the hype . . . and it blew away the hype,” Napoli the tour guide, who has seen it twice, said.
Okay, so it apparently is awesome.
But with tickets selling in the high triple digits, as Burr would say, I was willing to wait for it.
The Washington Post
* Milfeld is a Washington-based journalist. After writing this article, she finally nabbed tickets - for May 2017 - at just $199. Find her on Twitter: @becca_milfeld.
If you go...
Where to eat
Fraunces Tavern
54 Pearl St.
212-968-1776
frauncestavern.com
This blast from New York's past is a restaurant, bar and museum all in one. Grab a sandwich, beer or whisky, then head upstairs to a museum about New York's colonial, Revolutionary and Early Republic periods. The stately brick building nestled among the Financial District skyscrapers dates to the 18th century but is largely reconstructed. Dinner courses begin around $20; lunch sandwiches start at $15.
The Grange Bar & Eatery
1635 Amsterdam Ave.
212-491-1635
thegrangebarnyc.com
Conveniently located a couple blocks from Hamilton's Grange home, this pleasant neighbourhood spot (think exposed brick, wooden accents and lots of natural light) is ideal for a quick nosh or libation after a long day of touring. Dinner entrees average around $20.
What to see
Hamilton Grange National Memorial
414 W. 141st St.
646-548-2310
nps.gov/hagr
Completed in 1802, this house was enjoyed by Hamilton just two years before he died. It is believed to be the only home he ever owned and features prominently in the song It's Quiet Uptown. Visitors can go on a ranger-led or self-guided tour, depending on the time of day. The Federal-style structure has been moved twice from its original location and sits in St. Nicholas Park. Free.
Trinity Church
120 Broadway
212-602-0800
trinitywallstreet.org
Alexander Hamilton, Eliza, Hercules Mulligan and perhaps Angelica are all here in the Trinity graveyard. Visitors are free to walk through, take pictures and even leave a penny or small stone on their favourite character's grave.
Hamilton Park
John F. Kennedy Blvd. E. at Hudson Place
Weehawken N.J.
A phenomenal view of the Manhattan skyline greets visitors to this park, located atop a palisade on the other side of the Lincoln Tunnel. Nearby on the cliff top, a bust of Hamilton commemorates the spot where he and Burr carried out their bloody duel.
Information
Hamilton's New York tours
hamiltonsnewyork.com
Take a walking tour of Hamilton's Wall Street or Hamilton's Harlem, with the fast-paced Jimmy Napoli, who has been leading Hamilton-related tours for decades. His encyclopedic knowledge of the founding father and New York-style humour (expect a New Jersey joke or two) makes for a highly entertaining three-hour experience. Days and times vary. $50.