Haunting Edgar Allan Poe in Manhattan: A Travelogue

Once upon a time there was a girl who couldn't get enough Poe.

That girl was me.

Is me. 

I'm obsessed with Edgar Allan Poe.

So much so that I have a goal to visit every single location he lived in. I've been to his birthplace in Boston, his house in Philadelphia, and even (by coincidence) a bed and breakfast he stayed at in Scotland. 

I've also been to his house in the Bronx (Poe Cottage), and seen the bed in which his wife died. I've walked the Highbridge, which is a short distance from Poe Cottage, and which Poe used to walk--almost manically--at all hours of the day. 

Poe Cottage in the Bronx, New York

The Highbridge in the Bronx, New York

But Poe also lived in Manhattan. In about 60 different locations.

OK, that may be an exaggeration, but he certainly got around the city a lot.

This summer, I decided to track down every single site in Manhattan that Edgar Allan Poe once lived at and visit all of them--in one day.

I compiled my list from several websites and planned out my route. Then I grabbed my pocket-sized Poe book off the shelf and went on an adventure.

I kept a travelogue of my journey.

Here, as we kick off the absolute best month of the year and get ready to read scary stories and go to haunted houses, is a record of my adventure haunting the steps of Edgar Allan Poe.

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Erin's Ex-Poe-ration of Manhattan

Today I embark on my long anticipated Edgar Allan Poe tour of New York City. One day. 12 locations.* Anything could happen.

(*Excepting Poe Cottage and the Highbridge as I’ve already visited and they’re a little out of the way. Both are in the Bronx and could be done on the same day.)

First stop: Broadway and W 84th St. 

From 1844 to 1845, when the Upper West Side was still farmland, Poe and his wife lived on this corner in a house on a rocky outcropping. The street looks quite different now, but there is a memorial plaque on 84th between Broadway and Amsterdam. 

It was at this site that Poe finished writing "The Raven." So let's just pretend this strange eagle statue is actually a raven, shall we?

Now down to the end of 84th St for a location that reportedly helped Poe find inspiration for "The Raven."

Walk to the end of 84 St and enter Riverside Park. Looking down toward 83rd St, you will see a mound of rock that seems “a swelling of the ground.” Framed by trees and bushes, it feels almost like a hidden woodland shrine. Approach via the dirt path.

When he needed a quiet spot to ponder, surrounded by the beauty of nature, Poe would walk to this rocky hill overlooking the Hudson. He christened the spot “Mount Tom.”

It’s a windy place, a place that, given the right imagination, could be called Romantic and windswept and even gothically sublime. How much more sublime it must have been surrounded by countryside and without the murmur of cars, when you could stand atop Mount Tom and see the Hudson River sparkling below.

As it is, it’s a good place to sit and read “The Raven” which Poe wrote just a few blocks away.

Poe spoke delightedly of the rockiness of Upper Manhattan. It must have inspired him like the moors inspired the Brontes. But he suspected that all too soon, the dramatic landscape would be flattened and paved to make way for buildings.

Next stop is 154 Greenwich St.

It’s a longish ride on the 1 line, so let’s get into some background, shall we?

Poe moved to Manhattan in the 1830s. When he arrived, he was a struggling writer who had yet to publish any big hits. If I’ve calculated correctly, he lived in 10 different locations around the city until he moved in 1847 to Baltimore, where he died two years later. It was in Manhattan and the Bronx that he wrote and published The Raven and nursed his young wife Virginia, who died of tuberculosis in their Bronx farmhouse in 1847.

The next three stops have changed so radically since Poe’s time that it’s nigh impossible to even locate the addresses in question. 154 Greenwich St is now part of the World Trade Center area. 

 O’Hara’s Pub is fairly picturesque; Poe lived where the restaurant now stands, and there is something vaguely Poe-ish about the building’s red brick and wood paneling.

Ann St, on which Poe lived (4 Ann St) and worked (25 Ann St) isn’t much to look at. As far as I can tell, Zara’s now stands where his residence was.

Another of Poe’s residences, 195 E Broadway, is now part of the Manny Cantor Center. Across from it is a beautiful New York Public Library building.

Now to Greenwich Village. It seems only natural that Poe would have lived here, in the charming place so many writers and artists have called home.

At Waverly Place and Christopher St, in the middle of a street triangle, is the Northern Dispensary, founded in 1827. It was here during Poe’s time and he (supposedly) once visited to buy medicine for a cold. The old brick building is still intact and conjures up Poe’s Manhattan better than any of the other buildings seen on this tour so far.

Just steps away is Waverly Place and 6th Avenue, where Poe resided at one time.

From there, it’s a short walk to 85 W 3rd St, where Poe lived in 1845. Here he wrote “The Facts in the Case of M Valdemar” and revised and published “The Raven.” The original building is no longer here, but NYU (pressured by preservationists) has made some attempt to replicate the facade of Poe’s building.

It’s definitely the best preserved of Poe’s residences I’ve seen today, but then again that’s not saying much. Still, it’s charming. The building is open to the public from 9 to 11 AM on Thursdays, but honestly I doubt it’s worth going into, as it’s now simply NYU offices. The banister of the original staircase has been preserved.

The intriguing 113 1/2 Carmine St (reputedly another of Poe’s residences) no longer exists, but a walk down Carmine St is nice regardless.

Now to the last stop on this tour of non-existent locations: 

E 47th St and 2nd Ave. 

What I’ll find there is anyone’s guess. Probably nothing.

At E 47th St and 2nd Ave is a rather nice park, as urban parks go. It features a long mall framed with benches and tall, slender trees—their wispy branches reveling in the wind.

There’s also a black structure like a skeletal Greek temple, and a series of fountains that look vaguely Gothic. 

As I watch, a pigeon lands on the edge of the fountain’s dish and I just manage to snap one photo before it flies away, beating its wings and rising upward.

It’s not a raven, but I’ll take it.

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In case anyone is wondering, I have only two Poe cities left to visit before my goal is complete: Richmond, Virginia; and Poe's house and grave in Baltimore, Maryland.

Happy October!

Until tomorrow.