31 Bond Street: Fact, Fiction, and Digging into the Past: A Lecture with Ellen Horan

In the winter of 1857, New York was shaken by the murder of society dentist Dr. Harvey Burdell. According to the lurid newspaper reports of the day, Burdell was found strangled by rope, brutally stabbed fifteen times, and nearly decapitated in his own house on Bond Street in NoHo. New York was fascinated by the murder and the ensuing investigation into who could have possibly committed such a violent crime. To this day, the crime remains unsolved.

First-time author Ellen Horan delves into the story and history of Burdell’s house in NoHo in her new novel, 31 Bond Street. Join Ms. Horan for a discussion of how researching the place and time for the novel was like embarking on an archaeological dig and how buildings offer buried narrive windows into the past.