Here's a sight to make you stop short in Manhattan: Wooden houses! There are a few of these dotted around the city, and these two charming examples of 19th Century clapboard architecture can be found at 120-122 East 92nd Street. These houses were built in 1859 and 1860 and the land they sit on was once part of Waldron's Farm.
I just read a little bit of evocative history about the roads in the area from the website
carnegiehillneighbors that I'll share:
"In 1811, when Carnegie Hill was still very much farmland, the city commissioners began a long-term plan to develop Manhattan above 14th Street in a rectangular grid, but streets and avenues were not cut into this area until late in the century. Until then, individual houses were scattered on lots designated on the grid plan.
At that time there were only two major thoroughfares in the upper part of the island: the Boston Post Road on the east side and the Bloomingdale Road on the west. An east-west road that would later become 86th Street connected with the two. The only traffic on Fifth Avenue was the drovers who used the old dirt road to travel down to the Bowery."
I am trying to imagine only one road on the Upper East Side....and can't.
I'd love to know how the interiors of these houses have been decorated, wouldn't you?
