Hugh J. Grant
88th Mayor of New York City (from 1889 to 1892)
Hugh John Grant (September 10, 1858 – November 3, 1910) served as the 89th mayor of New York City for two terms from 1889 to 1892. First inaugurated in 1888 at age 30, he remains the youngest mayor in the city's history. He was one of the youngest mayors of a major American city, and was the second Roman Catholic mayor of New York City.
Life and career
Hugh Grant, whose father John Grant had grown rich in politics and real estate, was born on West 27th Street in Manhattan, New York City, on September 10, 1858. He was orphaned young and raised by his guardian, a man named McAleenan. He attended both public and private schools, spent two years at Manhattan College, another year studying in Germany, and two more at Columbia Law School. Though the earliest data, including the United States census of 1860 and 1870 and Grant's 1878 passport application, establish his birth year as 1858, early in his political career he began to present himself as born several years earlier in 1852 or 1853, perhaps to avoid calling attention to his youth. A Tammany Hall Democrat, he began his political career as a city alderman from 1883–1884, where he was one of only two aldermen not caught up in a financial scandal related to the Broadway Surface Railroad. For the remainder of his public career, however, he was a compliant member of Tammany under the patronage and control of its leader Richard Croker.
Grant lost the race for mayor as Tammany's candidate in 1885, but won the office of sheriff in 1886.
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Hugh J. Grant” as 88th Mayor of New York City (from 1889 to 1892). Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
Why this record matters
The subject matters to the places & architecture register because the source frames it as 88th Mayor of New York City (from 1889 to 1892). Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.
The strongest evidence will usually combine a dated visual record with documents produced by the authority responsible for the place. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jul 29, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q5931233. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1858, 1910, 1889 and 1892.
A single description cannot reconcile every naming convention, rebuilding phase or administrative transfer associated with a place. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Treat names, boundaries and functions as historically changeable. Maps, plans, inventories and administrative records can clarify what the place meant at different dates.
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Contemporary maps, plans, listed-building records, estate papers and the responsible local or national archive.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “Hugh J. Grant”, its source revision and the description used here.
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Questions for further research
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This entry incorporates text from “Hugh J. Grant” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.