Javascript Console (⌥ + ⌘ + J) Buildings:
Bartow-Pell Mansion Museum
Nestled deep in the woods of Pelham Bay Park and only a mile from a network of bustling highways in the Bronx, the Bartow-Pell Mansion Museum is a rare example of country elegance in New York City. The Greek Revival house, originally occupied by publisher Robert Bartow and family in 1842, sits on an estate that dates back to 1654 when Thomas Pell, an English doctor from Connecticut, bought the land from the Siwanoy Indians. The property was acquired by the City in 1888, and the mansion was used by Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia as a summer office in 1936. It opened as a museum in 1946.
Edgar Allan Poe Cottage
The tiny Poe cottage in the Bronx, built by John Wheeler in 1812, was the last home of Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849), the great American poet and author. Set in a small park on the Grand Concourse, it is the only house left from the old village of Fordham. Poe leased the one-and-a-half-story cottage for $100 a year and wrote many of his classic works there including "The Bells," "Eureka" and "Annabel Lee." The cottage, saved from destruction in the 1890s by the Shakespeare Society and moved from its original location on the other side of Kingsbridge Road in 1913, preserves a precious chapter of New York's literary heritage.
Lefferts Historic House
Located six blocks north of its original site on Flatbush Avenue near Maple Street, Lefferts Historic House in Prospect Park is one of the few surviving Dutch Colonial farmhouses in Brooklyn. Pieter Lefferts owned the house when it was built between 1777 and 1783 to replace an earlier family home burned during the battle of Long Island in 1776, and it served as home to at least three more generations of the Lefferts family, including his State Senator son John Lefferts and his granddaughter. In 1917, the estate of John Lefferts offered the House to the City of New York, and in 1920, it was opened as a museum by the Fort Greene chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution.
Valentine-Varian House
The second oldest house in the Bronx, the Valentine-Varian House was built by blacksmith and farmer Isaac Valentine in 1758, a time when carriages traveled the nearby Boston Post Road through a Bronx that was still mostly farmland. During the Revolutionary War, Valentine and his family had to abandon their two-story fieldstone home, which was occupied by British, Hessian, and American troops. Though close to several fierce battles with cannons clustered on a nearby hill, the house miraculously survived. In 1965, the house was donated to The Bronx County Historical Society, moved diagonally across the street to its present location on a new foundation, and now operates as the Museum of Bronx History.