How Well Do You Know NYC Landmarks? (Poetry Edition)

 

 

Edgar Allan Poe, author of “The Raven,” often traversed High Bridge, a key piece in the Croton Aqueduct, connecting Manhattan with the Bronx. The Poe Cottage at 2640 Grand Concourse, where he lived from 1846-48, was the first landmark designated in the Bronx, in February 1966.

 

 

 

 

From "Annabel Lee", Edgar Allan Poe, 1849 (written while living in Poe Cottage in the Bronx)

 

 

 

A monument dedicated to Fitz-Greene Halleck is located in the Central Park Scenic Landmark, on the Central Park mall near 68th Street. A 19th-century writer of satirical and romantic verse, Halleck was influenced by Walter Scott and Robert Burns, who have statues close by.

 

 

From "The World is Bright Before Thee", Fitz-Greene Halleck

 

 

 

Emma Lazarus lived at 18 West 10th Street, in the Greenwich Village Historic District. Located on a bronze tablet in the pedestal of the Statue of Liberty, her 1883 sonnet “The New Colossus” declares:

 

 

 

 

 

 

Marianne Moore wrote the poem “The Camperdown Elm” in 1967, inspiring advocacy to protect and care for the tree planted in the 1870s within what is now the Prospect Park Scenic Landmark. Moore called this magnificent gnarly specimen, located behind the boathouse, “our crowning curio.” She lived in the Fort Greene Historic District.

 

From "The Camperdown Elm", Marianne Moore, 1967

 

 

 

Originally known as Reservoir Square, Bryant Park was renamed for William Cullen Bryant in 1884. A memorial to Bryant is located on the raised terrace behind the New York Public Library, featuring a monument designed by Thomas Hastings and a statue by the sculptor Herald Adams.

 

 

From "To a Waterfowl", William Cullen Bryant, 1818

 

 

 

The RCA Building, later known as the GE Building, and now the Comcast Building, is located at 30 Rockefeller Plaza, part of Rockefeller Center. Allen Ginsberg, author of Howl, dedicated his poem “My Sad Self” (1958) to another New York poet, Frank O’Hara.

 

 

 

The Chelsea Hotel honors Behan with a bronze plaque and this quote: "To America my new-found land: the man that hates you hates the human race."

 

 

 

Patti Smith first read her poems in public in February 1971 at the Poetry Project at St. Mark’s-in-the-Bowery Church, a New York City landmark on 10th Street in the East Village that was constructed in 1799.

 

From Patti Smith, Early Work 1970-1979

Image: Wikimedia Commons/Momos

Hart Crane wrote The Bridge, a series of lyric poems, about the Brooklyn Bridge while living in Brooklyn Heights during the 1920s.

 

From “The Bridge: To Brooklyn Bridge,” Hart Crane, 1930

Image: Ed Reed/Mayoral Photography Office

 

 

From 1972 to 1987, Audre Lorde lived at 207 St. Paul’s Avenue in the St. Paul’s Avenue-Stapleton Heights Historic District, where she wrote many of her most famous poems and books, including her third volume of poetry, From a Land Where Other People Live, which was nominated for a National Book Award in 1973. In 1991, Lorde was appointed as the Poet Laureate for New York State for her contributions to literature and activism. Her neo-Colonial-style house, which was constructed in 1898, was designated an Individual New York City Landmark in 2019.

 

 

From "Who Said It Was Simple", From a Land Where Other People Live, Audre Lorde, 1973

 

 

 

The author of canonical LGBT-themed novels and poems including “Guilt, Desire and Love,” James Baldwin grew up in Harlem and left New York for Paris in his mid-20s before returning to purchase the small apartment house at 137 West 71st Street in the Upper West Side/Central Park West Historic District. The house, designated an individual landmark last year, became a gathering place for writers such as Maya Angelou, Toni Morrison, Paule Marshall, and Rosa Guy.

 

From “Munich, Winter 1973 (for Y.S.)”, from Jimmy’s Blues, James Baldwin

Image: 137 West 71st Street, LPC

 

 

As a poet, columnist, novelist, dramatist, and activist, Langston Hughes (1902-1967) was one of the foremost creative voices of the Harlem Renaissance. He was a resident of the brownstone row house at 20 East 127th Street—now the individual landmark Langston Hughes House—from 1947-1967. Hughes wrote of his attraction to New York City: "More than Paris, or the Shakespeare country, or Berlin, or the Alps, I wanted to see Harlem, the greatest Negro city in the world."

 

 

From “Dreams”, Langston Hughes, 1932

 

 

 

Brooklyn resident Walt Whitman was probably describing his frequent trips between the South Street Seaport in Manhattan and Fulton Ferry in Brooklyn, both historic districts. The offices of the Brooklyn Eagle were located within what is now the Fulton Ferry Historic District when Walt Whitman worked there as editor; the Eagle Warehouse and Storage Company building was built on the site in 1893-94 and bears a plaque honoring Walt Whitman.

 

 

From “Crossing Brooklyn Ferry” Walt Whitman, 1860

 

The White Horse Tavern at 567 Hudson Street, corner of West 11th Street in the Greenwich Village Historic District, was frequented by James Baldwin, Allen Ginsberg, Jack Kerouac, Frank O'Hara, and Dylan Thomas, among others.