Edgar Allan Poe Farmhouse Site - New York City

Edgar Allan Poe’s home in New York City is located at the intersection of West 84^th Street and Broadway.  It was here that the author moved in the summer of 1844, with his wife Virginia Clemm, and his aunt, Maria Clemm, to escape the congestion of downtown New York City.  At that time upper Manhattan was countryside and it was felt that the country air would be good for Virginia, who suffered from tuberculosis.  They were taken in by the Brennen family, Patrick, Mary Elizabeth and their six children, and rented a double room on the second floor of their farmhouse which was located near here on the Bloomingdale Road.  It would be several years before the street name would change to Broadway.  While living here Poe worked on, and completed, “The Raven,” which was published in the New York Mirror in January 1845.  Poe would eventually move to a cottage in the Bronx where Virginia would die in 1847.  Patrick Brennen and his family continued to live here until 1888, when the sadly deteriorated house was demolished.  The mantel which stood in Poe’s room was removed before the house was destroyed and eventually found its way to Columbia University, where it currently sits in their rare book library.  The area around 84^th and Broadway bears no resemblance to the area Poe would have known.  Today modern buildings and crowds of people surround the area which was formerly farmland.  However, there are two markers which note the importance of this location.  The first is here, on the northwest corner of 84^th Street and Broadway.  It was placed here in 1922 by the New York Shakespeare Society.  The plaque refers to the Brennen farmhouse as a mansion and says it stood on this spot.  The second marker lies on the northeast side of 84^th and Broadway, a few doors down, at the entrance to the Eagle Court building.  That plaque claims the farmhouse stood on that site.  Modern research of available evidence, based on photos, descriptions of the house, and maps of the period, suggests the farmhouse probably stood at neither of these spots, but instead on the southeast side of 84^th Street, opposite the Eagle Court building.  84^th Street from Riverside Drive to Broadway has been named Edgar Allan Poe Street.      

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