This handsome townhouse on 127th Street is the former home of Langston Hughes, who spent the last twenty years of his life here. The townhouse was built in 1869 by Alexander Hanson for developers James Meager and Thomas Hanson. This Italianate brownstone was a very common style for post-Civil War New York. Though Langston was born in Missouri, he always dreamed of living in Harlem, “More than Paris, or the Shakespeare country, or Berlin, or the Alps, I wanted to see Harlem.” and participated in the Harlem Renaissance. Hughes moved here in 1947 when his “adopted” aunt and uncle, Emerson and Toy Harper, moved in. Hughes would occupy the top floor and have some of his most productive writing years here. Langston Hughes passed away in 1967, and the Harper family continued to own it until at least 1981. 20 East 127th Street sold most recently in 2003. The building was landmarked on August 11th, 1981. #blackhistorymonth
You may be familiar with 70 Willow Street from some of my previous posts or my book, probably most famous for being the home (partly) of Truman Capote when he wrote Breakfast at Tiffany’s and In Cold Blood. What you might be less familiar with is this home’s connection to the Abolition movement and the first Black graduate from Yale. When this home was built around 1839, it was purchased by Adrian Van Sinderen. Van Sinderen came from an old Dutch New York family, with his father being the pastor at the Dutch Reform Church in Flatbush. Van Sinderen was an early proponent of a form of abolition in the beginning of the 1800s. He was a member of The American Colonization Society, which advocated for the repatriation of Freed and recently emancipated Africans back to Africa. While Van Sinderen lived at this house, he employed a man named James Pennington. Pennington was an enslaved man in Maryland who escaped to Brooklyn. On his way, he was helped by Quakers in Pennsylvania who taught him how to read and write as well as provided him with a wage. When he arrived in Brooklyn, he was employed by Van Sinderen as a coachman. He attended night classes to teach himself Greek and Latin and was eventually employed as a school teacher in Newtown, Queens. While under the employment of Van Sinderen, Pennington attended an abolitionist convention in Philadelphia. He publicly denounced his employers’ efforts to remove African Americans to Africa and is credited with Van Sinderen moving his efforts away from the Colonization Society and to push for full and immediate emancipation. Caption continued in the comments.
Only a few buildings are left in New York from before the Revolutionary War. This is not one of them, but it was designed to look that way. Located at 215 East 71st Street, this house was built in 1929 by famous, at the time, architect Richard Dana Jr. Dana was a specialist in Colonial architecture and was commissioned to build this for the Colonial Society of Dames, who wanted a headquarters reminiscent of the 18th Century America. This building in particular mixes different styles from English and Dutch New York which became very popular at the end of the Gilded Age. It is a more recent landmark receiving its designation on June 11th, 2019.
ast 70th Street between Park and Lexington is an incredibly Instagrammed block, but sometimes overlooked is this house at No. 129. This Italianate townhouse was built in 1863, making it the oldest building in the entire Upper East Side Historic District. Just to be clear before you start yelling at me in the comments, the district and the neighborhood are not the same thing. There are older buildings on the Upper East Side, but not the district. With that technicality out of the way, let’s get back to the house. What makes this building rare is that construction in New York ground to a halt during the Civil War. The builders, Edmund and Japhet Mason Thorp from Connecticut, were able to continue working and built this as one of five speculative houses for a woman by the name of Sarah Mitchell. After completing the home, it was purchased by James Geddes and his wife, Helen. The building changed hands multiple times over its life, with a few modifications to the exterior; however, thanks to two different renovations, the last in 2008, the facade has been restored to its Civil War Era glory. It sold in 2005 for $6.35 million and was landmarked as a part of the Upper East Side Historic District on May 19th, 1981.
If you ever wanted to know whose statue was watching over the Frick collection, it would be Richard Morris Hunt, one of the most famous architects of the Gilded Age. #gildedage #gildedagehbo
I’m a sucker for old fire stations, and luckily for me, 11th Street in Park Slope has two! The building on the left is currently home to Ladder 122 and was built by the then-independent Brooklyn Fire Department in 1883 by architect Francis Norris. It was designed in what was the popular style at the time, Gothic Revival. I don’t exactly see any similarities between this and an old European cathedral, but hey, that’s why I’m not an architect. The neighboring building for Engine 220 was built in 1906 for the now-unified FDNY. Much like its neighbor, it drew its design from the popular Beaux-Arts Style that was all the rage. Beaux-Arts was basically the idea that maybe we should make our civic buildings look not ugly and vaguely Greek and Roman. I’d say it worked out. Engine 220 and Ladder 120 are on 11th Street between 7th and 8th Avenue in Park Slope. They were both landmarked as a part of the Park Slope Historic District Extension on April 17th, 2012.
Did you know that the Brooklyn Bridge used to have wine cellars?
It can be hard with an 18 month old to constantly do more research on buildings, so today we’re just going to enjoy some snowy photos of different boroughs I’ve taken over the year before I venture out and spam you with more snow content on my stories. What are you planning to do today and which of these photos are your favorite?
One of the things I like to point out on my tours is that generally speaking, if you see a two-story building in a neighborhood, there’s a good chance it’s among the oldest in the neighborhood. That’s the case here with 57 Willow Street in Brooklyn Heights. This 2 1/2-story home dates back to 1825 when it was built for (and possibly by) a merchant named Robert White. For context, when the Hicks Brothers, where Hicks Street gets its name, were subdividing their property, they only laid out Willow Place a few years earlier in 1818. Its neighbor at 55 Willow Street was built the same year. The only difference is it had a third story added to it sometime in the later portion of the 1800s. Tax records indicate it was owned by a J. D. Wright, although we don’t know what his profession was. What we do know is both of these houses would have borne witness to the John Quincy Adams administration and were both landmarked as part of the Brooklyn Heights Historic District on November 23rd, 1965.
This townhouse on Washington Avenue in Clinton Hill was built in 1860, thirty years before wooden houses were made illegal in Brooklyn. Anyone would be lucky to call this place home, but it is relatively modest in comparison to some other buildings on the street. This part of the borough saw a huge increase in development thanks to the Pratt family moving here in the 1870s. Charles Pratt, an oil executive, built his mansion on Clinton Avenue, followed by ones for his sons. Washington Avenue would see an increase in larger townhouses and mansions to cater to the ever-growing wealthy population. 419 Washington Avenue was landmarked as a part of the Clinton Hill Historic District on November 10th, 1981.
What’s better than one townhouse? Two, if you can afford it. This is the former Max Greene House on 91st Street between Madison and Park Avenue. Originally, this building was two separate townhouses in a development of three. They were constructed in 1884 and combined in 1908 by architect Edward I. Shire. Max Greene, who commissioned this merger, was a trimmings importer and clearly did quite well for himself at the turn of the century. Today, the building is occupied by The Dalton School. It was landmarked as a part of the Carnegie Hill Historic District on July 23rd, 1974.
Greenwich House doesn’t just operate community programs from its impressive Barrow Street headquarters; it also has smaller satellite buildings throughout the West Village. Just a quick recap, Greenwich House was founded in 1902 as a community center and outreach program for the poor and immigrant communities. One such outreach program is their pottery classes, which call 16 Jones Street home. This townhouse was built in 1928 first as a boys’ school. During the 30s, an addition was added that provided an area for woodworking and even a foundry. In 1948, Greenwich House Pottery moved in from Barrow Street and has been here ever since. Apart from providing great pottery classes, the building and the street it resides on might be one of the most charming in the West Village. Greenwich House Pottery was landmarked as part of the Greenwich Village Historic District Extension II on June 22nd, 2010.
Have you ever wondered why New York was called the Empire State? I honestly had no idea until I made this video and I’m very curious if any of you watching knew this?
In honor of MLK Day, I wanted to share the story of Riverside Church. The massive Rockefeller-funded church played home to one of Dr. King’s most controversial speeches, arguing against the Vietnam War in 1967. King was derided in the press and suffered losses in support from figures such as President Johnson, Billy Graham, and labor unions. King’s thesis was that a nation approaches its “spiritual death” when it spends more on war than anti-poverty programs. However, public opinion would eventually turn in favor of Dr. King’s position on the war. It became so unpopular that he was encouraged to run against Johnson in the presidential primaries, which he ultimately decided against. This is just one of the many places that Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. fought for civil rights in New York City. It was said his “Beyond Vietnam” speech given at Riverside Church was the one that he labored on most during his entire career. Riverside Church was landmarked on May 16th, 2000.
I hope you’re enjoying this snowy Sunday. When wandering through Brooklyn neighborhoods, Carroll Gardens stands out for its massive, well, gardens. This is the south side of President Street, between Hoyt and Smith Street, and each of these brownstones was built in 1881 by developer William Bedell, who built a majority of buildings in this small historic district. Each of these brownstones has front yards stretching 33.5 feet from the street to the house. These would be considered late Italianate in style. The neighborhood Carroll Gardens was considered part of Red Hook as recently as the 1960s, when it began to take on its new name. The name comes from Carroll Park, which in turn was named after founding father Charles Carroll from Maryland. While it might seem odd to have a park named after a Maryland slave owner, it was dedicated in honor of a Maryland regiment who fought here during the Revolutionary War. They were able to hold off British forces long enough to allow George Washington and the Continental Army to escape across the East River during the Battle of Brooklyn, which allowed the war to continue. 334 1/2 to 350 President Street were landmarked as a part of the Carroll Gardens Historic District on September 25th, 1973.
This townhouse at 73 Vanderbilt Avenue in Brooklyn was built in 1852 as part of the development surrounding the Brooklyn Navy Yard. At its peak, the Navy Yard employed over 75,000 workers. The building has gone through some pretty dramatic transformations; it had a porch added and removed, and had a radio store on the first floor. That store, as well as some asbestos siding, was fortunately removed in the 70s. This part of Brooklyn, specifically this stretch of Vanderbilt Ave, has the largest concentration of pre-Civil War wood-frame houses anywhere in the city. It was landmarked as a part of the Wallabout Historic District on July 12th, 2011.
This is Flushing Town Hall. For those of you not too familiar with New York City history, you might wonder why a neighborhood in a borough in a city has its own town hall? Flushing was one of the five original towns that made up Queens County. It was inhabited by the Matinecoc Indians before the arrival of Europeans. The first Dutch settlement was established in 1645 and named Vlissingen after the town of the same name in the Netherlands. Its population, however, was primarily populated by English Quakers fleeing persecution in Connecticut. This iteration of Flushing’s town hall was built in 1862 and was used until 1898. Over the years, it served as a town hall, courthouse, and police precinct for the 1964 World’s Fair. Today, it is owned by the city and leased by the Flushing Council on Culture and the Arts, who have done multiple renovations since 1990. Flushing Town Hall was landmarked on July 30th, 1968.
The Church Mission House, also known as the Protestant Welfare Agencies Building, was constructed as a part of the Episcopal Church’s increasing mission wing. The organization was conceived in the 1820s, but construction on their headquarters in New York didn’t start until 1888. Cornelius Vanderbilt was one of the backers of construction and helped acquire the land next to Calvary Church on Park and 22nd, the largest Episcopal Church in the city at the time. The building was completed in 1894 and included cutting-edge construction technologies for the time, such as using a steel skeleton to allow for greater height as well as terra cotta for accents, which recent renovations have accentuated. In more recent years, scam artist Anna Delvy tried to acquire the building to become a social club, and in 2019, the building was renovated and became the American Branch of Fotografiska, a Swedish Museum of Photography. Today, the building is for sale and was landmarked on September 11th, 1989.
This little house packs a historical punch. Located at 21 Stuyvesant Street, it was built in 1804 by Peter Stuyvesant, the great-grandson of the director general of New Netherland. The house is located on the site of the old Stuyvesant Family farm where the first Peter Stuyvesant spent his retirement after surrendering New Amsterdam to the British. The younger Stuyvesant, the one who built this house, built it for his daughter Elizabeth on her marriage to Nicholas Fish, a major during the revolution and a friend of both Alexander Hamilton and the Marquis de Lafayette who visited this house in 1826. Elizabeth and Nicholas’s son, Hamilton, would go on to be Ulysses S. Grant’s Secretary of State, and his son Stuyvesant Fish would be a prominent member of Gilded Age society with a home in Gramercy and the Upper East Side, both still exist. 21 Stuyvesant Street is one of the oldest buildings left in the East Village and was landmarked on October 14th, 1967.
As you wander east across Park Avenue on the Upper East Side, you’ll find quite a few carriage houses. This was to keep them close enough to Fifth Avenue mansions while keeping the smell of the horses far enough away. These two on 66th between Park and Lexington were built in 1881 and were purchased a few years later by William C. Whitney. Whitney lived in a fine mansion on 5th Avenue at the corner of 68th Street, which has since been replaced with apartment buildings. He was a financier and a member of the Whitney family, which traced its roots back to John Whitney, who arrived in Massachusetts in 1635. Whitney would go on to serve as Secretary of the Navy under Grover Cleveland and begin the modernization of the US fleet to steel vessels. When the Landmarks Preservation Commission began to write up information on the Upper East Side Historic District in 1981, members of the Whitney family still owned these two stables; now they are a residence and a plastic surgery office. They were landmarked on May 19th, 1981.