One Broadway

Kennedy occupied the house until 1776, during the American Revolutionary War, when he fled to New Jersey after the Americans lost the Battle of Brooklyn. Washington and his army fought to hold Manhattan but retreated in early October. The Kennedy house then served briefly as headquarters for Continental Army generals Henry Lee III and Israel Putnam and possibly for General George Washington, as well as high-ranking generals of the British army. The Commander-in-Chief, America, Sir Henry Clinton, and Sir Guy Carleton (Lord Dorchester) (1782-3). The British made Manhattan their headquarters in America during the war, with One Broadway as the Commander's Headquarters.