Thursday, December 3, 2015

Three Homes in the Village

I recently made a trip to New York City and so have several photo-heavy posts in the waiting. Today it's just three from the pile, focusing on the homes of people of the past whom I admire. Lucky for my feet, these women all lived not too far from each other in lower Manhattan.

Jane Jacobs


I assume that Jacobs, one of the key activists who saved our cities from urban renewal, lived in one of the upper floors here at 555 Hudson Street. The first-floor shop is now a real estate office (irony?).

Ellen Raskin


Raskin lived in this brick colonial townhouse at 12 Gay Street during her novel-writing years, which means it's the place where she wrote The Mysterious Disappearance of Leon (I Mean Noel), The Westing Game, The Tattooed Potato, and Figgs & Phantoms. I wonder if she worked in that third-floor dormer or not?

Margaret Wise Brown


Brown, the writer of Goodnight Moon and many other picture books, lived in this tiny farmhouse at 121 Charles Street. It was moved once and almost torn down several times. (I guess that makes it a real Little House.)

1 comment:

Michael Leddy said...

Maeve Brennan wrote about that farmhouse in 1967, in “The Farmhouse That Moved Downtown.” It’s in The Long-Winded Lady and can be found in Google Books. She doesn’t mention the Margaret Wise Brown connection.