Yorkville "All Those Years Ago"

Coming out of the subway station at 59^th Street and Lexington, turning east, I see the north sidewall of Bloomingdale’s and my mind skips to the past. Just the name of the store lights up the part of my brain that listened to all the stories told to me or around me when I was a boy. At Third Avenue, I turn north and I begin to get it, fresh again, like I’ve never felt this before. I ascend a hill all the way to 65^th Street that tapers off between 66^th St and 67^th Street.  Standing on the corner of 65^th I am within a block where British military records indicate Nathan Hale was captured near “The Dove,” an inn situated near the five-mile stone, a mark from lower Manhattan. On the top of the hill, I spin in all directions and see a strategic high point that had a stunning 360-degree view. Of course, this is where you would rest your horse, hitch your coach, eat, drink ale and repose before you travel on to Harlem or other points north. This is where the military would stake its grounds and easily see intruders.

On a cold Sunday morning last week, I took photos from the corner of 59^th Street, into the 70s where there are old stable houses and other shots into the sky at the Bloomberg building. Yorkville’s past still haunts and presents its timeworn self in interesting ways. Certain avenue frontages retain their low-rise tenement charm.  Two blocks here: “Bark Place” my friend’s pet & grooming store at 1371 First Avenue between 73^rd & 74^th Street and stretch of three story buildings on York Avenue at 81^st Street. 

Here is a link to a Facebook photo album from my walk.


Monday night @ 8pm, I'm telling a story @ Bar 82, part of We Three Productions Bi-weekly Reading series. Here's a piece I wrote on We Three's last show at Telephone Bar.

Tuesday @ 6pm, I'll be at Cornelia Street Cafe @"City Stories: Stoops to Nuts," this month hosted by the incomparable Barbara Aliprantis, co-founder of second Tuesday storytelling at the Cafe.

"Yorkville: Stoops to Nuts" storytelling show is coming back to Ryan's Daughter on Wednesday, April 3rd.

Last fall we had a standing room only crowd that cheered us on and it's time to do it again. 
Our artists: Michele Carlo, Abbi Crutchield, Luke Thayer, Eric Vetter, Adam Wade and other persons of interest. Ryan's Daughter is located at 350 E. 85th Street, fun starts @ 7pm.

Here is a link to a public album of Yorkville Full Moon photos from last week.

Please drop by Cornelia Street Cafe to see my photo exhibit "New York Scenes from a Bicycle," on view through March 31st. Framed work and my book "River to River: New York Scenes from a Bicycle," are for sale at the Cafe, my prints are for sale at Thomas R. Pryor Photography, my book is available online through Amazon.

The section below was written in 1898 by an author unknown about an 1858 fishing trip he made north up Manhattan’s east side that took him through Yorkville:

Speaking of old buildings reminds me that I have received a friendly criticism, by post, for not giving more details of the Third Avenue, through which I passed on my stolen fishing excursion of forty years ago. At that time, after leaving Astor Place, there was nothing compact in the way of buildings until we reached Bull's Head Village, which extended from Second to Fourth avenues and from Twenty-third to Twenty-seventh streets. Here was the great cattle mart of the city, and here it had been for twenty years. But soon after it was removed to Forty-second Street, and thence to Ninety-fourth Street, from which point it was transferred to the Jersey shore a few years since. The people of old Bull's Head Village worshipped in the Presbyterian Church, now standing in Twenty-second Street west of Third Avenue; at the Twenty-seventh Street Methodist Church, and at the little Episcopal Chapel of St. John the Baptist, on the east side of Fourth Avenue, near Twenty-third Street, which was demolished thirty years ago on the completion of the fine church of the same name at Lexington Avenue and Thirty-fifth Street.

After leaving Twenty-seventh Street and Third Avenue the traveller was in the country. There was no other settlement until Yorkville was reached, nearly two miles beyond. Scattered farmhouses, distant villas, green fields, and bits of woodland made up the landscape. The commodious country-seat of Anson G. Phelps on the East River was reached from Twenty-seventh Street. In the vicinity of Thirty - second Street the inhabitants imported from the river the name of Kip's Bay, and lent it to the Thompson and Henderson homesteads thereabout, and to the grocery store that was for many years owned and conducted by a brother of Peter Cooper, a very worthy gentle-man, who died not long ago, having passed his ninetieth birthday. Sunfish Pond, famous for its eels, as well as sunfish and flounders, occupied the site of the Fourth Avenue stables at Thirty -second Street, and extended westward to Madison Avenue. From this pond a brook ran to the East River, following very nearly the line of Thirty-second Street. The brook was almost dry in summer, but, in times of freshets, it overflowed its banks and spread from the foot of Rose Hill at the South to Murray Hill on the north. When it was in a desperately angry mood, the residents of houses that are still standing could reach the avenue only in boats.

The residence of Peter Cooper-of rare and blessed memory always in this city of ours-stood then and still stands at the south-west corner of Fourth Avenue and Twenty-eighth Street. It was a plain and unpretending structure, and yet substantial withal, as befitted its builder. In front of his residence the Eastern Post Road passed to nearly the present line of Lexington Avenue, which it continued to follow until near Forty-second Street, when it joined Third Avenue. On its western side stood several large and fine residences owned by opulent Knickerbockers, embowered in gardens, half hidden by trees, and buried in deep lawns-the realization to weary travellers of an earthly paradise. On Third Avenue there were no dwellings until we reached the point at which the old " Cato " Road stretched out towards Second Avenue from Forty-third Street to Fifty-first, and thence circled around to the " Turtle Bay "region and the famous hostelry kept by Cato. Tradition does not tell whether he had any other name besides Cato. A great cloud of witnesses, principally gray-haired; still survive to testify that his dinners and suppers were simply incomparable. Everybody who owned or could hire a "rig" drove out there at least once a week and feasted himself. Burnham, on the Bloomingdale Road at Seventy-fourth Street, was Cato's only rival, but a formidable one.

At Forty-ninth Street and Third Avenue was a tiny hamlet known as Odellville, which owed its patronymic to Mr. Odell, who kept a country tavern at the corner first named, and with whom life agreed so well that he nearly lived out a century. Just across Third Avenue and above Fiftieth Street was the old potter's field, which next followed those of Washington and Madison squares; and, strange to say, not far from its northern borders was a spring of soft, pure water which was extensively carried away in carts to supply the distant city. This water readily commanded two cents a pail, and its sale was not discontinued until some time after the introduction of Croton water-many old people having a preference for it as. Well as a decided distaste for new-fangled aqueducts and water brought in pipes. Between Odellville and the Five; mile public -house at Seventy-second Street there were a few scattered country-houses, many fields, some considerable forest tracts, and then came the village of Yorkville. Half a century ago this was quite an extensive settlement, reaching from Eighty-third to. Eighty-eighth streets, compactly built on both sides of Third Avenue and to Second and Fourth avenues on the intersecting streets. The village must have numbered more than a hundred houses, with three or four churches and a dozen stores. It never was a pretty place, but down towards the East River, and facing that picturesque stream, were some superb country residences in those days-such as the Schermerhorn mansion at the foot of Seventy-third Street, and the Riker homestead at the foot of Seventy-fifth Street. Elegant lawns stretched down to the riverfront, and from the ample piazzas the scene was a panorama of beauty.

The Six-mile Tavern awaited the thirsty pilgrim at the corner of Ninety-seventh Street and Third Avenue. Our excellent forefathers always placed a milestone and a tavern together, by a gracious instinct which held that the dust of which our mortality is composed needed moistening at the end of a mile's march. It was a good doctrine to stick to. The newest imported idea allows three saloons upon a single block on our busiest avenues. But our progenitors were be-hind the times--good men, but they did not under-stand human nature. They believed in a man owning as much land as he could manage comfortably, and only taking as much drink as was good for him. The new doctrinaires deny man's right to own any land, and insist that he shall impose no restriction on his own or his neighbor's right to drink all that he wishes. Thus we live and learn. But this is a digression. From the Six-mile Tavern we begin to descend the valley towards Harlem. It is a rough road. To the left is an abrupt stone ledge that runs up into Mc-Gowan's Pass; to the right are the marshes of Harlem Commons, through which the East River extends up to the avenue for the distance of a mile. There was not a house to be seen until One Hundred and Second Street was reached, at which point a lane turned down to the celebrated Red House at First Avenue and One Hundred and Sixth Street, where a trotting course called together the owners of fast horses, especially on Sunday afternoons.