NYC #5: Edgar Allan Poe on Upper West Side

'UPON THIS SITE
FORMERLY STOOD THE BRENNEN MANSION
IN WHICH RESIDED
FROM MARCH 1844 TO AUGUST 1845
EDGAR ALLAN POE
AND HERE DURING SUCH RESIDENCE HE PRODUCED
AND GAVE TO AMERICAN LITERATURE AND TO IMMORTALITY
THE RAVEN
IN COMMEMORATION OF THE POET AND OF THE POEM
THIS TABLET IS PLACED MCMXXII BY
THE NEW YORK SHAKESPEARE SOCIETY'

This plaque is at West 84 Street, otherwise called Edgar Allen Poe Street, and there is (was?)  a sign in opposition to this claiming a different address which is supposed to be opposite this plaque, although no amount of looking turned anything up: perhaps it's been taken down in admission of defeat?

Edgar Allan Poe in the Bronx, NYC

The above photo of the cottage of Edgar Allan Poe (1809–49) in the Bronx, NYC, was taken in 2008 and we were disappointed that it wasn't open at the time of our visit. We vowed to return at some future date, so I took the opportunity to drive there from our hotel in White Plains, NY, yesterday. We certainly weren't disappointed this time. Many thanks to P. Neil Ralley for his hospitality.

Ever since our earlier visit this photo has occupied prime position on my blog's masthead because my partner Penny loves it, and she has always challenged any intentions I've had of removing it to give the blog a refreshing makeover with the admonishment: 'If it ain't broke, don't fix it!' Until, that is, I took a newer photo of it yesterday, complete with open door and light inside.

I've often wondered how many people looking at my blog know they are looking at Poe's Cottage, and I've received some interesting emails on the subject. One person thought it was in the Appalachians, another in the exclusive estate The Park in Nottingham, and my friend David Guillaume – a distant relative of the bizarre but brilliant writer Lionel Britton (1887–1971) – even wanted to know the name of the black cat to the far right of the photo by the railings: if memory serves me right, I believe David even had an idea that the 'cat' almost looked like a raven. Although I'm pretty certain it's not a cat but a black bin bag, the indefatigable ancestor-chaser Robert Hughes – occasional contributor to this blog, great-nephew of Lionel Britton and both receiver of countless emails from me and sender of countless emails to me  – put in a small plea for the retention of the 'cat'. But Penny likes the new photo and her word must remain final: in any case, the cat can still be seen on this blog post.

(Persons unfamiliar to this blog will not have heard of the writer Lionel Britton: I'm the guilty party who resurrected knowledge of him by earning a PhD on his work in 2007, I wrote the Wikipedia article on him, and if that whets your appetite then anyone can easily find much more information on this blog, which contains the entire (if sometimes unformatted – computers behave oddly at times – contents of the PhD).)

Poe's Cottage is now at the corner of Kingsbridge Road and the Grand Concourse, although it was originally about two hundred yards away. It was constructed about 1812 and Poe, his wife Virginia Clemm and mother-in-law Maria moved into the cottage in Fordham in about April 1846.

A view from the rear.

The kitchen, now also the entrance room to the museum. Almost all of the furniture in the house is of the period, although only a very few items originate from Poe's time here.

The sitting room.

This rocking chair originally belonged to the Poe household.

The ailing Virginia died of tuberculosis at the end of January 1947, and this is the original bed in which she died. When Poe died in October 1849 he was still living here, although the place of his death was Baltimore, MD. Some of the works Poe wrote during his relatively short time here include 'Annabel Lee', 'The Bells' and 'Eureka'.

This bronze bust of Poe was sculpted by Edmond T. Quinn.

The links below are to other Poe-related posts I've made:

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Poe in Richmond, VA

Poe in Stoke Newington, England
Poe in Boston, MA

Edgar Allan Poe in Stoke Newington: London #12

The Fox Reformed restaurant and wine bar, Stoke Newington Church Street, Hackney, London.

 

'EDGAR ALLAN POE

1809–1849

Writer and Poet

Was a pupil at the

Manor House School (1817–1820),

Which stood on this site.'

 

'POE

 

unveiled by Stephen Berkoff

on 4 June 2011

 

the flicker club

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The Edgar Allan Poe Society'

 

Edgar Poe was born in Boston, Massachusetts, and became an orphan in 1811, when he was fostered by the self-made merchant John Allan and his wife Frances of Richmond, Virginia, which is how his middle name came to be 'Allan'. In 1815 the Allans, including Edgar, left for England where John Allan had business, and after eventually settling in London Edgar had three years' education in Chelsea. After that he continued at the Rev. John Bransby's school in the then small village of Stoke Newington, where he was very much an outsider: his accent and lack of skill at sport were laughed at, he had his own sleeping accommodation away from the dormitory, but his skills in literature and French  surpassed those of even older students. Bransby thought John Allan spoiled Edgar, but with Allan's business failing (temporarily as it happened), the family were forced to leave England and return to the States in May 1820.

 

(The photo at the top of my blog is, of course, Poe's Cottage in The Bronx, New York City.)

 

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Richmond, Virginia: Edgar Allan Poe Museum

Edgar Allan Poe in Boston, Massachusetts

H. P. Lovecraft and Other Writers in College HIll, Providence, Rhode Island: Literary New England #14

'SAMUEL MUMFORD

HOUSE

1823-28

Moved from College St. 1959'

This house, now at 65 Prospect Street, was Lovecraft's last home, and was moved to make room for the Art List Building. He described this as Robert Blake's home in 'The Haunter of the Dark'.

 The Lovecraft monument, Prospect Street.

'Howard Phillips Lovecraft

(1890 – 1937)

U.S. Author

I never can be tied to raw new things,

For I first saw the light in an old town.

Where form my window huddled roofs sloped down

To a quaint harbour rich with visionings.

Streets with carved doorways where the sunset beams

Flooded old fanlights and small window-panes,

And Georgian steeples topped with gilded vanes –

These are the sights that shaped my childhood dreams.

Dedicated on the centennial of his birth

August 20, 1990

by

The City of Providence

Brown University

and

Friends of H.P. Lovecraft'

'Built for
HENRY SPRAGUE
                         1902'

100 Prospect Street is the address Lovecraft uses as 'Ward House' in 'The Case of Charles Ward Dexter'.

88 Benefit Street is the former home of the poet Sarah Helen Whitman.

The Stephen Harris House on 135 Benefit Street is the model for Lovecraft’s 'The Shunned House', which he called the Babbitt House.

144 Benefit Street has been mentioned as a possible model for Dr. Elihu Whipple's house in 'The Shunned House'.

But it's now called The Old Court, which offers bed and breakfast.

161 Benefit Street is to the left of the photo, and was the home of Lillian D. and Franklin C. Clark, Lovecraft's aunt and uncle.

Lovecraft greatly disliked the Colonial Apartments at 175–185 Benefit Street, which had replaced the countryside.

The funerals of both Lovecraft and his aunt Lillian took place here, at the former Knowles Funeral Home on 187 Benefit Street.

The Providence Athenæum at 251 Benefit Street was a favorite of Lovecraft's, and where Poe courted Sarah Helen Whitman.

Both Lovecraft and Edgar Allan Poe were fascinated by the graveyard of the Cathedral of St John on North Main Street.

Lovecraft often went to the small park in Congdon Street, where a huge statue of Roger Williams (1603–83), the founder of Providence and the author of A Key to the Language of America (1943), overlooks the city.

Williams was originally from Cowley, Middlesex, England, with a great interest in Native American languages.

Edgar Allan Poe in Boston, Massachusetts

'EDGAR ALLAN POE

POET   STORYWRITER   CRITIC

BORN ON CARVER STREET JANUARY 19, 1809,

TO DAVID AND ELIZABETH (ELIZA) POE,

ACTORS AT THE BOSTON THEATRE.

IN 1827 PUBLISHED HIS FIRST BOOK,

TAMBERLAINE AND OTHER POEMS,

AT A SHOP ON THE CORNER OF WASHINGTON

AND STATE STREETS AND ENLISTED IN THE

U.S. ARMY AT FORT INDEPENDENCE,

BOSTON HARBOR. LECTURED IN BOSTON

OCTOBER 16, 1845, PUBLISHED "LANDOR'S COTTAGE,"

HIS LAST TALE, IN BOSTON'S

FLAG OF OUR UNION, JUNE 9, 1849.

DIED AT BALTIMORE OCTOBER 7, 1849.'

Richmond, Virginia: Edgar Allan Poe: Literary Landmarks of the Southern United States, #20

The Edgar Allan Poe Museum, 1914 West Main Street, Richmond, Virginia. Poe lived in perhaps nine houses in Richmond, but all have long since been demolished. The Old Stone House was standing in Poe's time, though, and Poe lived in Richmond for 13 of his 40 years.

'The oldest house still standing in Richmond. Probably built 1737 by Joseph Ege. A gift in 1912 from Mr. and Mrs. Granville C. Valentine to the Assocation for the preservation of Virginia antiquities. Restored by Mr. and Mrs. Archer G. Jones. In 1924 placed in custody of the Edgar Allan Poe Shrine (now the Edgar Allan Poe Foundation, inc.'

This bust of Poe stands in the Poe Shrine in the Enchanted Garden, and is a copy of one donated by the Bronx Historical Society: the Poe Cottage in the Bronx, of course, is the photo at the head of this blog.

A plaque in the Enchanted Garden: 'In grateful memory. Richard Turner Arrington 1901–1960 President and faithful benefactor of the Edgar Allan Poe Museum "Gone proudly friended".'

The Enchanted Garden seen from the Poe Shrine.

A view of the Enchanted Garden, facing the Poe Shrine. The garden was landscaped in 1921, and modeled after the description of the garden in Poe's poem 'To One in Paradise'. Bricks from the offices of the Southern Literary Messenger were used for the Poe Shrine and some of the garden. As 1909 marks the centenary of Poe's birth, the chairs are there for a series of events celebrating the occasion.

The Exhibits Building was acquired in 1929. Once the tea room, this two-story building now houses changing exhibits.

Engulfed by vegetation so impossible to photo adequately, the Elizabeth Arnold Poe building, named after his mother, contains first editions of Poe's work donated by Dr John Robertson, a psychiatrist who wrote Poe: A Psychopathic Study. Unfortunately, photographing of the interior – even without flash – is not allowed.

The statue of Edgar Allan Poe in the grounds of the Capitol, Richmond.

Literary New York City (Mainly)

I may have taken all of these images of New York City, although I'd have been unaware of the existence of most of them without Kevin Walsh's Forgotten New York, a real mine of information on many of the more obscure aspects of New York City's history. One of the most interesting things about this book is that it doesn't just cover what many people – North Americans included – often refer to as New York City: Manhattan tout court: Manhattan, of course, is only one New York's five boroughs: all too often, we forget that Staten Island, Brooklyn, Queens and the Bronx are also a part of New York City.

Many thanks, too, to my partner Penny Atkinson, who assisted me in finding many of these places.

'We were very tired, we were very merry—

We had gone back and forth all night on the ferry'

Edna St Vincent Millay's famous words, from her poem 'Recuerdo', evoke the hedonism of the 1920s. She is speaking, of course, of the Staten Island ferry, still one of the greatest free rides in the world.</> This is a view of Manhattan financial district from the ferry.

It is worth exploring Staten Island itself, and a frequent train service will take you to the bottom of the island in about forty-five minutes.

In the early part of the previous century, the land on which these structures now stand in Flushing Meadows–Corona Park, near the town of Flushing in Queens, was an ash disposal heap. In The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald describes it as 'a fantastic form where ashes grow like wheat into ridges and hills and grotesque gardens'. That quotation is my excuse for showing these three weird images. New York's two World Fair's were in 1939 and 1964, and the remains of these occasions still, gloriously, litter the park.

The above structure was part of New York State Pavilion. This was the Tent of Tomorrow, showing the sixteen 100-foot columns which supported the roof. Sky Streak capsule lifts took people to the top.

Rocket Thrower, showing a giant hurling a rocket through a constellation.

Above is Theodore Roszak's Forms in Transit, one of the most difficult exhibits to find.

The bust above is of Harriet Beecher Stowe, and is one of a number of writers, politicians, etc, in the Hall of Fame at the Bronx Community College.

This statue is in a prominent position, in the Literary Walk in Central Park, Manhattan. Here, Shakespeare, Robert Burns and Walter Scott stand: all very famous men. Above, though, is a forgotten man of American poetry: Fitz–Greene Halleck (1790–1867). Rather than paraphrase someone else's description of Halleck's work and life, the reader is best directed to The Fitz–Greene Halleck Society web pages.

A rather odd thing for a person from Nottingham, England, to find a plaque dedicated to fellow Nottinghamian William Booth, the founder of the Salvation Army, in Battery Park, Lower Manhattan.

This blog supports Barack Obama in his battle to become President of the United States: at least he didn't vote for the war on Iraq, and he represents hope to so many in a deeply divided country. But he has a fine juggling act to perform, and he also supports the neo-liberal ethos which causes poverty: even if he wins two terms, how much will he have achieved in that time?

The photo above and the one below were taken in Alphabet City, Manhattan.

Poe Cottage in the Bronx is the farmhouse where Edgar Allan Poe lived between 1846 and 1849. Now a museum, the building was closed for general renovations when visited in June 2008.

Almost impossible to read because situated so high up the wall, this plaque in the Upper West Side at Broadway and 84th Street marks the site where Poe spent the summer of 1844 on a farm. The building is a café.

Patchin Place, Greenwich Village, Manhattan, once home to several literary figures, among them E. E. Cummings and Djuna Barnes.

Coney Island, Brooklyn, is now a shadow of its former self (and still under threat), but many New Yorkers continue to flock to the beaches. The occasion here was the Mermaid Parade, 21 June 2008. Literary references? How about Styron's Sophie's Choice?

Inevitably, Brooklyn Bridge evokes thoughts of Whitman's ferry crossing and Hart Crane's poem, but also, of course, the wonderful Marianne Moore.

The entrance to New York Public Library, home of, among many others, manuscripts by such diverse writers as Shelley and Kerouac.