12. Stone Street Historic District
Location: Bounded by Stone, Pearl, and South William Streets and Mill Lane
Built: 1835-1929
Architects: multiple
National Register Number: 99001330
Listed: November 12, 1999
Visited: August 4, 2007
A tiny collection of commercial buildings built after The Great Fire of New York in 1835. Next to Sniffen Court, it is the cutest little historic district you ever did see.
A few words about the Great Fire seems appropriate here. It started a short walk away in a warehouse at what's now 25 Beaver Street, and after three days, finished off much of Lower Manhattan, including most of island's colonial-era architecture. The estimates I'm seeing for the damage vary widely, with numbers ranging between 500 and 700 buildings demolished, but multiple sources, including George J. Lankevich's New York City: A Short History, tell me the fire could be seen in Philadelphia. Philadelphia is a hundred miles away, motherfucker.
The buildings erected to replace fallen comrades were mostly Greek Revival in style and fairly simple in construction. Later, a couple of them had their facades altered to match the whims of owners and the architectural fashions of the day. The most charming of these are 13 and 15 South William Street, redone by C.P.H. Gilbert to make them look a little something like the step-gabled (and long gone) Dutch Renaissance buildings of Nieuw Amsterdam.
Next door is 9 South William Street, seven stories of human-scaled neo-Gothic office building that's now the Wall Street Inn.
When I first saw the Stone Street area in what must've been the fall of 2002, it immediately struck me as a little gem, its small buildings and narrow streets giving it an intimacy few Manhattan blocks could provide. Unfortunately, it was also so empty that its intimacy flipped over into claustrophobia: I can remember getting anxious when another person walked down the street, only to realize that they lived there. This in turn flipped my anxiety into alienation: well, this is somebody's home, practically their backyard -- what the hell am I doing here? Thanks to a redevelopment plan by the Praedium Group and Beyer Blinder Belle (them again), it's now a row of bars and restaurants, with crowds of people on tables spilling out into the street. This is a delightful and satisfying turn of events, even if the clientele is maybe a little too Wall Street for my tastes, especially after 5:00.
Built: 1835-1929
Architects: multiple
National Register Number: 99001330
Listed: November 12, 1999
Visited: August 4, 2007
A tiny collection of commercial buildings built after The Great Fire of New York in 1835. Next to Sniffen Court, it is the cutest little historic district you ever did see.
A few words about the Great Fire seems appropriate here. It started a short walk away in a warehouse at what's now 25 Beaver Street, and after three days, finished off much of Lower Manhattan, including most of island's colonial-era architecture. The estimates I'm seeing for the damage vary widely, with numbers ranging between 500 and 700 buildings demolished, but multiple sources, including George J. Lankevich's New York City: A Short History, tell me the fire could be seen in Philadelphia. Philadelphia is a hundred miles away, motherfucker.
The buildings erected to replace fallen comrades were mostly Greek Revival in style and fairly simple in construction. Later, a couple of them had their facades altered to match the whims of owners and the architectural fashions of the day. The most charming of these are 13 and 15 South William Street, redone by C.P.H. Gilbert to make them look a little something like the step-gabled (and long gone) Dutch Renaissance buildings of Nieuw Amsterdam.
Next door is 9 South William Street, seven stories of human-scaled neo-Gothic office building that's now the Wall Street Inn.
When I first saw the Stone Street area in what must've been the fall of 2002, it immediately struck me as a little gem, its small buildings and narrow streets giving it an intimacy few Manhattan blocks could provide. Unfortunately, it was also so empty that its intimacy flipped over into claustrophobia: I can remember getting anxious when another person walked down the street, only to realize that they lived there. This in turn flipped my anxiety into alienation: well, this is somebody's home, practically their backyard -- what the hell am I doing here? Thanks to a redevelopment plan by the Praedium Group and Beyer Blinder Belle (them again), it's now a row of bars and restaurants, with crowds of people on tables spilling out into the street. This is a delightful and satisfying turn of events, even if the clientele is maybe a little too Wall Street for my tastes, especially after 5:00.
Labels: C.P.H. Gilbert, Financial District
posted by Michael at
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