church

Where Cobwebs Thrive on Manhattan Isle

Libby Castle

When New York Tribune reporter Eleanor Booth Simmons explored the hills of Inwood and Washington Heights in 1921 she discovered a quaint country community rapidly being swallowed by the big city. In this article she gives us a guided tour of the still standing homes of once rich and powerful families including Nathan Straus, James [...]

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A Band of Gypsies

Gypsy

Today northern Manhattan is home to thousands of gypsy cabs, but step back a century in time and you would find a sleepy little farming community inhabited by, among others, real life European gypsies. As early as 1887, according to a New York Times article, Mr. J. Hood Wright allowed a full blown Romany encampment [...]

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Turn of the Century Inwood

1892 photo of young woman in Inwood, New York.

Inwood at the turn of the century was a neighborhood in flux. Old sketches capture a frontier-like atmosphere, where dirt roads,  saloons and churches seem to be the only infrastructure. The churches were in fact the glue that held this fragile little community together and some of the best descriptions we have of the era [...]

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