St. Clair Pollock was a young boy living in the wild areas of Manhattan back in the late 1700s. He is the person buried at the Amiable Child Monument. The monument is located in New York City’s Riverside Park. It stands west of the southbound lanes of Riverside Drive north of 122nd Street across from Grant’s Tomb. One side of the monument reads: “Erected to the Memory of an Amiable Child, St. Claire Pollock, Died 15 July 1797 in the Fifth Year of His Age.” The monument is a granite urn on a pedestal inside a wrought iron fence. The monument, originally erected by George Pollock, who was either the boy’s father or his uncle, has been replaced twice due to deterioration. The present marker was placed on the site in 1967 to replace a marble marker installed by the city in 1897.
The monument has inspired many poems from writers throughout NYC and beyond. The monument is thought to be the only single-person private grave on city-owned land in New York City. Nothing is known about the child or how he died at the age of 5.