We’ve just added over 350 images to our historic image archive, bringing it to more than 5,000 images of our neighborhoods and great landmarks of New York City. The latest additions are from our new Susan De Vries — Federal Rowhouses in Lower Manhattan and Architecture Collection, Part II, which comes from an architectural census conducted of surviving Federal-era (1790–1835) rowhouses in Lower Manhattan in 1995 by former Village Preservation staff member and highly respected historian, researcher, and photographer Susan De Vries. They are a fascinating snapshot in time of Lower Manhattan architecture three decades ago, before a period of tremendous change and transformation.

These images show an exhaustive survey of the surviving examples of what is in many ways the earliest distinctly American architectural style and building type in Lower Manhattan. It was conducted in 1995, as preservationists were taking a fresh look at those historic buildings in the oldest part of New York, which had been overlooked in the first great wave of landmark designations in the area in the 1960s and ’70s, and as more and more of these rare historic structures were disappearing. This work helped inform Village Preservation’s successful efforts in the 21st century to secure landmark designation and National Register of Historic Places listing of hundreds of these structures. 

Want to donate your own images to the Village Preservation Historic Image Archive or learn more about how to do so? CLICK HERE.