Historic houses in NYC: eight things you didn’t know

The Bronx dwelling where Poe spent his final years is the birthplace of the author’s freakiest works—“The Bells,” “Annabel Lee” and “The Cask of Amontillado,” among others. And there are even creepier elements: Mysterious artifacts were found in the wall of a room where Poe’s young wife, Virginia, slept, and visitors can view the bed frame that she died on.

John Turturro narrates the audio tour at this Park Slope site, where parts of the Battle of Long Island—the largest of the Revolution—took place. The park itself was the location for the original clubhouse of the Brooklyn Dodgers.

George Washington famously slept at this manse on at least two occasions during the Revolutionary War, as well as once on his way back into Manhattan to reclaim the city from the British. It was also the first historic house in NYC to open as a museum, in 1896.

This Victorian Gothic cottage was home to photographer and noted badass Alice Austen, who was known for her gritty street photography—and for being the first woman on Staten Island to own a car.

At 255 years old, this is the second-oldest house in the Bronx, and serves as the current Museum of Bronx History. The building was moved from Boston Post Road in 1965 with two giant cranes.

When you visit the oldest farmhouse in Manhattan, ask to see the still-visible board used for nine men’s morris, a strategic game dating back to the Roman Empire. It’s carved into the giant rock outcropping on which the home was built, and while theories have been floated over the years as to the etching’s provenance, so far it’s a mystery.

The preserved village plays host to costumed blacksmiths, shoemakers and tinsmiths as well as the Voorlezer’s House, the oldest wooden elementary schoolhouse still standing in America.

Run by the Urban Park Rangers and originally called Jeffrey’s Hook Lighthouse, the Fort Washington Park landmark earned its nickname in 1942 with the publication of Hildegarde H. Swift’s The Little Red Lighthouse and the Great Gray Bridge.