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585 West 214th Street: Artists in Residence
“Quite simply, my father had to make money to support his wife and children. … [He] had no pretensions about being artistic. Many of his designs … were products of ‘hack work.’ Nevertheless, respected...
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A collection of historic images that reveal a frightening Inwood set to the Halloween classic Monster Mash. Boo! The post Inwood Monster Mash appeared first on | My Inwood.
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Architect of Mercy: Henry Martyn Congdon
House of Mercy, designed by Henry Martyn Congdon, in 1932 photo, NYPL. More than a century after the House of Mercy closed its doors the former asylum for wayward girls, once located in what is now...
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Inwood in Autumn: Photo Gallery
A collection of Autumn Leaves from 2015. The post Inwood in Autumn: Photo Gallery appeared first on | My Inwood.
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Inwood’s Forgotten Slave Cemetery
“Slave’s Burying Place,” from Scrapbook of Reginald Pelham Bolton. (Source: Dyckman Farmhouse Museum) In March of 1903 workmen in the Inwood section of northern Manhattan made a startling discovery....
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Toadly Inwood: A Frog’s Tale
Not long after the turn of the century the Inwood region was discovered by the downtown crowd. Attracted by low rents and promises of clean, country living these former tenement dwellers flocked...
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Inwood by Gaslight: A Relic of a Bygone Era
One of two surviving gas lampposts in New York City. (Corner of Broadway and West 211th Street) Hiding in plain sight on the corner of Broadway and West 211th Street stands a relic of a bygone era when...
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Inwood on the Waterfront: The Shooting of Thomas Collentine
New York Post, April 29, 1948. Early in the morning of April 30, 1948 longshoreman Thomas Collentine was gunned down near his Post Avenue apartment building in the Inwood section of northern Manhattan....
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The General’s Son: A Scandal on Inwood Hill
Ulysses Grant family in 1870. Jesse Root Grant wearing white coat in center. In the decades before its dedication as a city park northern Manhattan’s Inwood Hill was the private retreat of wealthy...
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The Good Ship Tortoise: A Harlem River Houseboat Tale
“There isn’t a boy anywhere who wouldn’t envy the lot of the Plumb lads. Living in a houseboat is just like playing all the time to Franklin, who is fourteen, and to Ben, who is sixteen.” (The...
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Beneath the Signage: Layers of Inwood History
Recently a business on West 207th Street and Broadway gave their storefront a face lift. When the aging facade was peeled away a decades old sign from a health food store was revealed. An old sign was...
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Hot Wax: The Lionel Mapleson Story
Lionel Mapleson with Edison Home Phonograph and extra large horn, probably at the Metropolitan Opera House, circa 1901-1903, Source NYPL. On December 21, 1937 Lionel S. Mapleson, the longtime librarian...
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Inwood: Through the Lens of Percy Loomis Sperr
Miramar Pool, 9th Avenue and 207th Street, Percy Loomis Sperr, Source NYPL. Beginning in the 1920’s an aspiring Ohio writer named Percy Loomis Sperr began taking photographs of New York City. Sperr’s...
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Blizzard of 2016: Winter Storm Jonas
Ever positive Park Terrace Gardens porter James Rigual broke out in song the day after New York was slammed by a historic blizzard. Thanks James, and the rest of the crew, for digging us out. Check...
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Inwood’s Twin Houses: 112-114 Seaman Avenue
Twin Houses, 112 & 114 Seaman Avenue in 1931, Source: New York Municipal Archives. On Seaman Avenue, at the west end of 204th Street, sit twin houses that date back to the 1920’s. Twin Houses, 112...
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The Former Cold Spring Road: Now Indian Road
1916 map by G.W. Bromley & Co. shows both Cold Spring Road and Indian Road. On the northeast border of Inwood Hill Park runs a sleepy, two-block long street named Indian Road. Today the co-op lined...
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The Beekeeper of Inwood Hill
Beekeeper Mike Fesslian in Inwood Hill Park, 1932, photo by Percy Loomis Sperr. In 1925 five-year-old Fred Tarzian’s family moved into a rented apartment on Vermilyea Avenue between Academy and West...
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47 Seaman Avenue: The “Other” Houdini Home
47 Seaman Avenue, on right, May 28, 1925 , NYC Municipal Archives. The two-story, two-family brick home on 47 Seaman Avenue across from Beak Street was constructed in 1925. Real estate ad, 47 Seaman...
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Classic Inwood: Wurts Brothers Photography
Dyckman House, Broadway and West 204th Street, 1931, Wurts Brothers, Source: MCNY. In 1894 brothers Lionel and Norman Wurts founded an architectural photography firm in New York City. Broadway and...
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Hollywood on the Hudson: Early Uptown Westerns
Independent Motion Picture Company, Dyckman Street, circa 1910. Near the dawn of the Twentieth century, before the motion picture industry moved to Hollywood, New York City filmmakers churned out...
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