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Tag: Bouwerie

A Marriage Leads to Construction of Manhattan’s Oldest Residence

On January 31, 1795, Nicholas William Stuyvesant, descendent of Director-General Petrus Stuyvesant, married Catherine Livingston Reade, herself a descendant of New York royalty of sorts (the family name can be found on streets in Lower Manhattan and Brooklyn). While clearly this was a significant date for these two early New Yorkers, why should we care […]

The Origins of St. Mark’s-in-the-Bowery Church

One of my favorite places in New York has always been St. Marks Church-in-the-Bowery on 2nd Avenue and 10th Street. Long before I actually stepped inside it’s peaceful courtyard or impressive interior, I was so charmed by the way it sits diagonally on its lot – an obvious vestige of a bygone, pre-grid era in New […]

When Greenwich Village was farmland

Here in Greenwich Village, we are surrounded by history.  So sometimes when I walk the streets, I try to imagine what life was like at different times in the past. When I see modest Federal style houses, I imagine a time in the early 1800’s when fresh water didn’t come from a faucet, but was […]