Roosevelt Island used to be home to countless hospitals, chances are if you were the victim of an infectious disease in the 1800s, you would end up there. On the south of the Island there was, and still is, the Smallpox hospital, to the north, was Mercy Hospital which became City Hospital. In 1892, the Strecker Memorial Laboratory was built as the first bacteria and pathogen research facility in the country. It was designed with a morgue, autopsy room, as well as examination rooms, and a library. Like most older buildings in New York, it fell into disrepair in the second half of the 20th Century. Unlike the Smallpox hospital however, it was restored in the early 2000s by the City. It was made a landmark on March 23rd, 1976.

Happy Halloween, if you are heading to the village for the parade tonight you might find yourself walking past this building. Throughout the 20th Century, residents of 14 West 10th Street complained of multiple paranormal sightings. Many mediums and ghost hunters were brought in to confirm these suspicions which gave it the name the House of Death. So is this a fancy place to be haunted or a bit hyperbolic? #hauntedhouse #nychistory

It is so easy to walk up Madison Avenue on the Upper East Side and totally miss the beauty of some of its buildings. That’s by and large due to the fact that many of the former homes that were built at the turn of the 20th Century generally have had the first floor or two converted into retail. That’s exactly what happened here at 817 Madison Avenue, which used to be the beaux-arts home of Dr. Christian Herter. Dr. Herter hired the firm of Carrère and Hastings, who went on to design the New York Public Library, to build this home in 1892. Dr. Herter had quite the impressive resume: he worked at Johns Hopkins, was a professor of pathological chemistry at NYU, and was appointed attending physician at the Rockefeller University Hospital, which he would also serve on the board of from its founding to his death. He passed away at 45 from pneumonia in 1910. His wife would remain in the house until the 1920s, when Carrère and Hastings were brought in again to redo convert the home into office space, and according to the designation report, is likely when the storefront was added in. There were attempts at enlarging the building in 2013 by eliminating the courtyard in the back, but that was firmly rejected by the local community board and the Landmarks Preservation Commission. It remains office and retail to this day. 817 Madison Avenue was landmarked as part of the Upper East Side Historic District on May 19th, 1981.

I don’t mean to sound jaded, but after photographing buildings throughout the five boroughs for well over six and a half years, it’s hard for a building to catch my surprise; chances are I’ve seen it already. But somehow, despite having lived on the Upper East Side for almost a decade, I had never came across this building at 40 East 68th Street. I ended up seeing this on social media and had to track it down for myself, and I’m glad I did. This house has a fascinating story. It was initially two rather standard brownstones; the one that makes up the right portion of the house was built in 1879 and for John Crimmins. Crimmins’ father had started a very successful construction business which would be involved in the construction of the subway, the Croton Water Works, elevated trains, etc. John began working for the family business at the age of 20 and became incredibly successful. After living in the home for over a decade, Crimmins purchased the neighboring brownstone on the left and hired architect William Schickel to merge them together. By 1898, the renovations were complete, and this massive beaux-arts mansion stood in their place. Despite being on the Upper East Side during the height of the Gilded Age and being successful, the Crimmins family were Catholic and would not have been members of what we think of as Gilded Age high society. This actually led me down a slight rabbit hole trying to figure out if there were any Catholics that were part of the 400, and the answer is kind of. It looks like two families were, or used to be, the Learys, who were long-time friends of the Astors, and some members of the Drexel family. The Crimmins family did a lot to raise money for the construction of St. Patrick’s Cathedral, including funding an entire chapel, as well as donating to the Roman Catholic Orphan Asylum. His contributions to the church would attract the attention of Pope Leo XIII, who made John a knight of St. Gregory. When John Crimmins passed away in 1917, his body was brought in a procession from the home to St. Patrick’s Cathedral for his funeral mass.

I was lucky enough to get a hard hat tour of the Hendrick Lott House, located in Marine Park Brooklyn. This is one of the oldest homes left in New York City, with the original portion dating back to Johannes Lott in 1720, and the rest of it added on by his grandson Hendrick in 1800. The home was also the single longest continuously occupied home by the same family in New York City history. There was a lot to digest from this tour and from over 250 years of family history but what struck me the most was two diametrically opposed practices that took place here. The original Lott family used enslaved labor to work their farm, while their descendants would use the same home to help people escape that same practice. The home was both a space of enslavement and a stop on the Underground Railroad. The home is currently run by the non profit Friends of the Lott house who are currently trying to restore the interior to turn it into a working museum. Currently the house is off limits but they hope to change that. If you want to help make that happen feel free to make a donation on their website Lotthouse.org. I would love to know if you’ve ever seen a home or other historic site that was both a stop on the Underground Railroad and a plantation effectively. Let me know in the comments. If you have any other questions on the house itself, leave them there and I’ll try to make some follow up videos.

This charming little house in Cobble Hill Brooklyn is also the neighborhood’s oldest. It was constructed in 1833 in the first wave of residential development in the area. Prior to this, Cobble Hill was largely full of farmland and estates. The land this house is on was owned by Ralph Patchen, a native of Connecticut. After his death, the land was split between his children who began selling off lots to built houses. 122 originally was a greek revival frame house, the mansard roof was added on later. Along with other farms and estates being broken up, Cobble Hill began to grow as more people used the Fulton Ferry to commute back and forth from Brooklyn to Manhattan. 122 Pacific Street was landmarked as a part of the Cobble Hill Historic District on December 30th, 1969.

I love seeing adaptive reuse in buildings, like this former church in Rhinebeck NY, Now home to Terrapin Restaurant. It was built 200 years ago in 1823 as the First Baptist Church of Rhinebeck by a man named Richard Scott. The founding of this church had some major names behind it. Scott was invited to start the congregation by Margaret Beekman Livingston. Margaret was born into the Beekman family, the European founders of the town, and married into the Livingstons, another old New York family that included a signer of the Declaration of Independence. On top of that, the land it was on was donated by Janet Montgomery, the widow of General Richard Montgomery, who was tasked with conquering Canada during the Revolutionary war, and was the first person honored by a war memorial by the United States, which can still be found at St. Paul’s Chapel in Lower Manhattan. The church was quite a bit smaller when construction wrapped up in 1825, according to the National Register of Historic places, it appears that the left hand chapel was first and the larger portion of the church on the right was expanded in 1890. On the restaurant’s website it says that the right came first and the left came in 1905. Like most things in history there can be some conflicting stories and I unfortunately am having some trouble finding additional sources on it. What we do know is it was used as a church well into the 20th Century, when it moved a little further north up Route 9, and the old building turned into a restaurant. Since 2003 it has been occupied by Terrapin which is a great restaurant which is in no way sponsoring this post, but if they would like to I would be so down. The former First Baptist Church of Rhinebeck was added to the National Register of Historic Places on August 8th, 1979.

I’m upstate this weekend so let’s talk about some upstate landmarks. Albany generally gets a bad rap, some of it deserved, some of it overblown, but what it does have is beautiful buildings and in my opinion, this might be one of the most beautiful in New York State. This is the headquarters of the State University of New York (SUNY) system, who has occupied the building since 1978. This was originally home to the Delaware & Hudson Railroad company which began construction in 1914. The building went up in phases, with the tower and one wing being the first portion. The location of the building at the bottom of State Street was part of an early 1900s urban renewal project, designed to create more park space. It was designed to block the view of the river and train yards which were determined to be unseemly and too industrial. Other portions of the plan included a bridge that would lead to massive gates to enter the city which was never realized. Architect Arnold Brummer took inspiration for the building from Nieuwerk annex of the Cloth Hall in Ypres Belgium and added a weathervane in the shape of the Halve Maen, the ship Henry Hudson captained when made his expedition to what would become Albany in 1609. The building underwent a multimillion dollar restoration that lasted from 1996-2001. It was added to the National Register of Historic Places on March 16th, 1972.

Whitby Castle is one of the many former 19th Century mansions in Westchester that is accessible to the public. Built in 1852 for financier William Chapman and designed by architect Alexander Jackson Davis, this castle overlooks Long Island Sound and served as a magnificent country getaway. Davis would design many estates including the Litchfield Villa in Brooklyn, and.Lyndhurst in Tarrytown. You can swipe to see these other homes. The building is named after Whitby England, as it allegedly was built with some stones from the abbey there. The majority of the gray stone comes from the far closer town of Greenwich Connecticut. The castle remained a private residence until the 1920s when it was converted into a golf course. In 1965 it, and a neighboring estate were purchased by the town of Rye to make the Rye Country Club. While the course requires dues, the castle is open to the public. It was added to the National Register of Historic Places on December 31st 1981 as a part of the Boston Post Road Historic District.

Greenpoint Brooklyn has such a wide variety of housing from the 19th Century, but these two just might be my favorites. Nos. 148 & 150 Milton Street were built in 1868 by Thomas C. Smith. Smith was responsible for a lot of the development in the mid 1800s of Greenpoint after coming into possession of a bankrupt porcelain factory in the area. He built these two houses in the French Second Empire style, with its notable mansard roof with dormer windows. Smith sold both houses, No. 148 to George H. Stone, who was a lumber dealer and No. 150 for William Webb who was the nephew of a local shipbuilder who created the first shipbuilding yard in Greenpoint. They were both landmarked as a part of the Greenpoint Historic District on September 14th, 1982.

One year ago today, my book Hidden Landmarks of New York came out. Thank you to the thousands of you who purchased it and for the many thousands of you who made this possible. I literally would not have gotten a book deal without this incredible community of old building enthusiasts. It was such a pleasure to meet so many of you on my book talks and tours in the past year. I hope to continue writing for you all so we can keep doing this because it’s a ton of fun. And if you haven’t bought the book, I hear it’s amazing so you totally should. Also that website that crashed the internet has it half off right now, but I’m sure your local book shop would be just as happy to order it for you. Anyway, thank you all for your incredible support and allowing me to achieve my goal of being an author.

The story of the development of Crown Heights is one familiar to most neighborhoods in Brooklyn. It started out as farm land owned by a guy name Leffert Lefferts Jr., clearly from a creative family, who owned the land until the 1850s. By the 1880s, with increased transportation options including the Brooklyn Bridge, it became a fashionable neighborhood for Manhattanites to own second homes or to commute from. Almost half of the south side of Sterling Place between Nostrand and New York Avenue was built by developer Joseph P. Peuls in 1889 to cater to these new residence. However, Peuls was not the greatest businessman in the world, and in 1899 literally fled New York to avoid his creditors. He would spend the rest of his life hiding throughout the western United States. The houses he built were landmarked as a part of the Crown Heights North II Historic District on June 28th, 2011.

The Center for Brooklyn History in Brooklyn Heights has one of the best Gilded Age interiors of any public building left in New York. Completed in 1881, the library was ahead of its time, with advanced construction techniques and fireproofing methods. The Library is largely original to how it was in the 19th Century, with the exception of the auditorium on the ground floor. It is one of the few interior landmarks in New York City. There are roughly 130 of them compared to the 38,000 exterior landmarks. Because the Center for Brooklyn History is part of the Brooklyn Public Library system, this is open to the public so check out their operating hours and pay this a visit next time you’re in the neighborhood. Let me know if there are any other buildings that you’d like to see inside of.

Could you imagine if banks today were as ostentatious with their buildings as they were in the 1800s? In the late 19th Century, ornate was the name of the game for the City’s banks, not as a display of wealth per se, but stability. They were designed to show potential depositors that their money was in safe stable hands. This is the former Manhattan Savings Institute, later known as Manhattan Savings Bank located on a Bleecker and Broadway. It was built in 1891 and designed by Stephen Hatch to replace the bank’s smaller original building that had occupied the site since the 1850s. After merging with two other banks in the 40s, the company closed its branch here. It was used as commercial space for another 30 years until it was converted into apartments in the 70s. It was landmarked as a part of the NoHo Historic District on June 29th, 1999.

New York has one of the most altered landscapes anywhere in the world. This isn’t unique to Manhattan though, almost all the boroughs have been affected by landfill including Queens. This street in Hunters Point would have been very close to the water in the 17th Century, as the point was an actual ridge jutting out into the east river. This house located at 21-34 45th Avenue was built in 1877 during a wave of development in the area.The owner of the home was a Mr. Burnell, who built it as a gift for his wife. Hunters Point was the terminus for the Long Island Railroad and the County seat of Queens. It decided that it wanted to break away from its more rural neighboring towns and even considered joining Brooklyn, but ended up merging with the newly formed Long Island City instead. The house as well as the rest of the block that it’s on was landmarked as a part of the Hunters Point Historic District on May 15th, 1968.

Atlantic Avenue in Brooklyn developed rapidly in the mid 1800s with the opening of ferry service between it and Whitehall Street in Manhattan. Many of the commercial store fronts along it serviced the harbor, such as the lofts here at 164 and 168 which where John Curtin had his sail making business. I unfortunately wasn’t able to find out much about him or his business. The building says 1859 but No. 164 was built in 1864, while 168 was two buildings put together between 1850-1860. The building was restored in the early 2000s and converted into condos. It was landmarked as a part of the Cobble Hill Historic District on December 30th 1969.

Ever wish your factory had the same prestige as a Central Park West apartment Building? Of course you haven’t, but in this scenario, you’d have to look no further than the Schermerhorn building on Lafayette Street. When it was built in 1888, this building was considered massive for the neighborhood and was rented to a company that manufactured clothing for boys. Its architect was Henry Hardenbergh, who designed both the Dakota and the Plaza Hotel further uptown. The building get’s its name from its owner, Peter Schermerhorn, who had it built on the site of the old family mansion. It was landmarked by The City of New York on May 17th, 1966.

When 205 Prince Street was built in 1834, New York was beginning to experience an architectural shift. The old Federal Style, which was similar to the English Georgian Style, was going away. Its replacement was Greek Revival. The popularity of Greek Revival came from American’s search for their own distinct identity separate from the British. The one that they settled on was a combination of Greek and Roman inspired architecture. The popularity of this came in part because we viewed ourselves as the natural successors of Greece and Rome with our Republican form of government, we just didn’t bother to look if there were any other republics in the 1800 years that had elapsed. That’s what makes this building so interesting to an architecture nerd like me, this house merged the older federal style with this Greek revival style. How did they do that you asked? They took your standard federal style house, which would have only been two stories with an attic, the mansard roof was added much later, slapped a few columns up front and boom, it’s Greek. The home was one of two built by a guy named John Haff, the other one is just next door. In 1875 the ground floor was modified to add a store front. It was landmarked as part of the Sullivan Thompson Historic District on December 13th, 2016.

I know what you’re thinking, wow that’s an ugly photo of an ugly Dunkin’ Donuts, and the owner of that Jetta did scratch out part of their license plate to avoid tolls because they’re a schmuck. All true observations, but what you might not know is that this one of the oldest buildings in all of Soho. 303 Canal Street dates back to 1808. For some context, the Canal that the street is named after hadn’t been dug yet, and Broadway, the avenue it intersects with got paved a year after its construction. This was built for Thomas Duggan, who owned multiple plots on that street, Canal Street was known as Duggan Street at this time in his honor. Duggan owned a tannery which inadvertently would lead to the canal being dug. At the beginning of the 19th Century, there used to be a large pond, one of the only freshwater drinking sources on the island, known as the Collect Pond roughly where the courthouses are today. Heavy industry began to spring up in this area of the city including leather tanneries which ended up dumping waste into the pond. The result was the body of water became basically a giant sewer. Additionally, the land in this area was swampy, so a canal was proposed to drain the pond and the swamps to make the land more usable. The canal on Canal street however, would never have sufficient water flow, as it attempted to drain this extra water to the Hudson, which also made it a giant sewer. Eventually the canal was covered to create Canal Street but the stench was so bad that many of these properties fell into disrepair. If you’re sad that this one seems to be in such bad shape, according to the 1940s tax photo, it was still ugly. Despite it’s age, it is not the oldest in the district, which dates back to 1806, stay tuned for a future post on that. 303 Canal Street was landmarked as part of the Soho Cast-Iron Historic District on August 14th, 1973.

There is a single landmarked dedicated to the people who called New York home for thousands of years prior to European colonization. That landmark is the Aakawaxung Munahanung or Island Protected from the Wind Archaeological Site, and it sits at the bottom of Staten Island within Conference House Park. The site has artifacts dating back 8,000 years including hearths, pottery, and hunting equipment. This area was an active indigenous settlement on and off until the late 1600s. It is unclear what the original inhabitants called themselves, but by the age of European colonization, the Raritan Tribe inhabited much Staten Island. The first excavations began here in the 1850s, without the input from the tribal nations and prior to modern day archaeological standards. The site had also been looted multiple times . As a result, the landmarking of this land is meant to preserve the integrity of the archeological site as well as serve as a link to the history indigenous peoples of New York. Again, this is the only indigenous landmark out of more than 37,000. It received its designation on June 22nd, 2021.