Morris, who never used his first name, was born in New York City. His parents were Augustus Newbold Morris and Helen Schermerhorn Kingsland, who were married in 1896. He had two younger brothers, George Lovett Kingsland Morris, a painter, and Stephen Van Cortlandt Morris, a diplomat. His father, a cousin of the author Edith Wharton, and mother built Brookhurst in Lenox, Massachusetts on land bought in 1906. In 1986, when the home was sold by his relatives, "it was the first single-family home in town to be sold for $1 million and it was one of the last Gilded Age cottages still occupied by the family that built it." His paternal grandfather was Augustus Newbold Morris and Eleanor Colford Jones. His grandmother's parents were General James I. Jones and Elizabeth Jones, the older sister of Caroline Schermerhorn Astor, also known as "The Mrs. Astor." He was descended from the prominent Colonial-era Morris family of the Morrisania section of the Bronx. He was educated at Groton School and at Yale, where he was a member of the Scroll and Key Society.
On February 1, 1952, Morris was appointed special assistant to the Attorney General by Attorney General J. Howard McGrath to investigate possible corruption in the Department of Justice. After Morris distributed a questionnaire to senior justice officials and called for unlimited access to all of McGrath's personal records, McGrath fired Morris on April 3, 1952. Morris had spent a mere 63 days in the job. A few days later Howard McGrath was forced to resign his position by President Harry Truman.
Park Commissioner
Morris was appointed Parks Commissioner of New York City by Mayor Robert F. Wagner Jr. on May 24, 1960, succeeding Robert Moses, who had served as Commissioner for an unprecedented 26 years. In this role, Morris sought to save the famous Doric columns that adorned the main entrance to Penn Station. While Morris, in this respect, served as one of the few dissenting voices during the early planning of the destruction of the first Pennsylvania Station, widely considered to have been in terms of architectural substance an irreversible and traumatic loss to the city, he ultimately failed at preventing the columns from being slated for their ultimate destruction and discarding in the New Jersey Meadowlands. Sunday folk music was regularly played in Washington Square Park on Sundays until April 9, 1961 when Morris rejected the folkies' application for a permit with no explanation. A riot ensued with many of the folk singers being arrested by police and placed into paddy wagons. Some people suspected that local real estate interests were involved, wanting to rid the park of beatniks and other "undesirables," as some called them. But whether Morris had been influenced by such interests was never determined. The riot and arrests themselves got plenty of newspaper coverage, with one headline proclaiming "3,000 Beatniks Riot in Village." But the hysteria faded quickly. Morris served as Commissioner until January 15, 1966 when he retired. He was replaced by Thomas P. F. Hoving.
Personal life
In September 1925, Morris was married to Margaret Copley Thaw. She was the daughter of Josiah Copley Thaw and granddaughter of William Thaw Sr. and Mary Sibbet Copley. Before their divorce in 1940, they had two sons together:
Peter Van Courtlandt Morris, who married Carlotta Marie Noel, daughter of Auguste L. Noel and Theodora Noel, in 1960. He is a pianist and composer.
Newbold Morris, a member of the U.S. Marine Corps in 1966.
After their divorce in 1940, his first wife remarried in 1949 to Harry William Seckel. On August 1, 1942, Morris married Constance Jordan, youngest daughter of renowned American judge Learned Hand. She was divorced from Lt. Robert Jordan and the mother to actor Robert Anson Jordan and Constance Jordan. The wedding ceremony was performed by Mayor La Guardia in Gracie Mansion. Together, they were the parents of:
He died on March 30, 1966 in New York City two months after his term as Commissioner ended. He left an estate worth more than $1,000,000.
Descendants
Through his son Peter, he was the grandfather of Theodora Winslow Morris, a doctoral candidate at Yeshiva University, who married Jack Francis Marran, who worked for his family's oil distribution company in Patchogue, New York, in 1991.
