City, Village, and Country: The Fever of 1822

A Lecture by Susan DeVries

Explore Manhattan as it was in the 1820s when the city was concentrated in the southern tip of the island, Greenwich Village was indeed a village, and the northern tip was a rural outpost. At a time when the total population of the island was just under 125,000, the last major yellow fever epidemic hit the city in the summer of 1822, impacting all three of these neighborhoods. Architectural witnesses to this history still remain—from federal-period rowhouses in the fenced-off fever zone of Lower Manhattan, to those built in Greenwich Village to house people and businesses moving northward, and finally uptown, to the home of a doctor and health commissioner. Join Susan De Vries, Director of the Dyckman Farmhouse Museum and former Village Preservation staff member, for an exploration into architecture, fever, intriguing personalities, and one summer in the life of the early 19th century city.