Posts tagged as:

boat

“Pop” Seeley: The Old Man of the River

Pop Seeley cabin, Inwood, NYC

Sometime before the turn of the twentieth century, on the northernmost tip of Manhattan, a folksy, business savvy and somewhat mischievous fellow named “Pop” Seeley set up shop in a quaint little cabin in the shade of a mighty tulip tree on the shores of a then meandering and muddy creek called the Spuyten Duyvil. [...]

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Inwood’s Forgotten Houseboat Colonies

Ship Wheel

During the 1920’s and 30’s an intrepid group of amphibious New Yorkers thumbed their noses at urban living, and high city rents, and took to dwelling in houseboat colonies along the perimeter of the Island of Manhattan. Two of those colonies, consisting of a ragtag group of artists, electricians and even police officers, were right [...]

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Inwood Arts Pioneer: Aimee Le Prince Voorhees

Inwood Pottery Works

  In the early part of the twentieth century a pioneering woman named Aimee Le Prince Voorhees and her husband Harry built a pottery works in the shadow of Inwood hill. In this pastoral setting, lacking any modern conveniences, Voorhees created a world-class pottery studio and inspired a future generation of artists, ceramicists and sculptors. [...]

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Inwood Hill in the 1920′s

Inwood Hill boat colony 1904

There is a turn of the century photo of a small boathouse on the water’s edge in what is now Inwood Hill Park.  The boathouse, run by “Pop” Seeley, supported a houseboat colony far from the noise and bustle of downtown.  It would be many years before these house-boaters, artists and assorted eccentrics were given [...]

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Columbia in Inwood

The Columbia University

Baker Field, the Columbia boathouse and the giant aqua-marine “C” painted on the rock wall of the Spuyten Duyvil…all are neighborhood landmarks and part of the social fabric that make Inwood so special. But how did Columbia University, with its main campus over 100 blocks away, wind up with a sprawling sporting complex in Inwood?

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