2553 Sage Place ca. 1936 This Spuyten Duyvil store was approximately 100 years old, and from the 1850s to the early 1930s housed a barber shop. One of the daughters of barber Peter Tarantino turned the shop into a luncheonette called “Ye Olde Country Store,” but the store failed, a victim of the Depression. The store was closed when Abbott visited, but she was able to photograph the store’s exterior and interior. The exterior view, which Abbott discarded, shows the rural character of the neighborhood, which lacked paved roads and sidewalks. The interior view shows the store’s original beaded wooden sealing board and hand-planed oak floors. The potbelly stove, wall clock, and wire-back chairs date from the turn of the century. The light streaming in from the windows casts a warm glow, lending the illusion of stability and order to the scene. Sage Place no longer exists. In the 1960s, the area was cleared for apartment buildings and a high school.

Kingsbridge Power House, ca. 1905. Built by the Third Avenue Railway Company, the Kingsbridge Power House provided electricity for the large network of trolleys that traveled through Manhattan. Called the "largest in the world" when it opened in the first years of the 20th century, the power generating station allowed for the replacement of cable-driven trolleys with electric powered street cars. The imposing Romanesque brick building was designed by engineer Isaac A. Hopper and measured 320 long by 250 feet wide. The building served the trolley system through the mid 1920s before its machines were turned off and the building abandoned. The structure was demolished sometime after trolley service was discontinued in 1948.

"West 214th street, east from Seaman Avenue to Park Terrace West, showing this street being opened. Steps will be installed for pedestrian use only. Under construction at the left us the Isham Gardens Apartment House. Isham Park is on the right and the manor is atop the hill, 1924."

Seaman-Drake Arch on Broadway between 216th and 218th Streets, 1927. In 1855 John Ferris and Valentine Seaman, the sons of Dr. Valentine Seaman, bought the land for and had built a large marble mansion at the top of a hill in Inwood. The large home and surrounding land, which stretched all the way to Spuyten Duyvil Creek, was meant as a country house for the family, who lived full time elsewhere in the city. The marble archway was the street-level entrance to the road which led to the mansion. Both the mansion and the house were constructed from stone mined from a quarry at the foot of the hill along Broadway. The 40-foot wide, 35-foot-high, 20-foot-deep arch has still half-dozen window openings, which suggests that a gatekeeper might have occupied the structure while it was active as an entryway. The mansion transferred from the Seaman to the Drake family in the late 19th century. By 1905 it was sold again to a contractor who lived in the house and used the arch for his business. It was during his ownership in the 1910s that low brick buildings began to surround the arch. The estate was sold off and the home demolished for residential development in the 1930s. Only the arch remained and it has seen a succession of automobile related businesses from dealerships to auto body shops.

Seaman House, 1923. In 1851, two brothers (sons of early 19th-century medical innovator Dr. Valentine Seaman) purchased a hillside property near the top of Manhattan and began to erect a substantial summer home constructed with locally-quarried white marble. The resulting house was a grand 30-room Italianate villa with a gatehouse at the bottom of the hill. The gatehouse was, in fact, a massive marble arch that served as the entranceway for the steep driveway that led up to the home. John F. Seaman also constructed greenhouses and sprawling gardens, as he was fond of that pass time. The house was willed to a relative, Lawrence Drake, following the death of John's widow in 1878. While the widow spread her wealth out between 36 heirs, most of the other heirs believed that Lawrence had "unduly influenced" a senile old woman. The heirs sued the man but lost the suit. Less than 20 years later Lawrence sold the property to the Suburban Riding and Driving Club. The membership of the club was the crème de la crème of New York society, and the mansion served as its opulent clubhouse. In 1905 the estate was sold to a construction developer who lived in the home and used the gateway arch as his office. The land was sold once again in 1938, and the large mansion and outbuildings were razed for a new apartment complex. The arch still stands at 5065 Broadway, having been boxed in by an auto body shop decades ago. It lost its roof to a fire in the 1970s and has seen many better days but is hidden right there in plain sight.

William D. Hassler was a photographer working in New York in the early 1900s. He shot all around the city, but let's take a look at his images of his own life in the upper Manhattan neighborhood of Inwood.

William Bradley Isham, a prominent leather merchant who later worked in the banking industry, rented the land that is now Isham Park from the estate of Dr. Floyd T. Ferris in 1862 as a summer residence. Around 1864 Isham bought the property which had beautiful views of the Hudson River and the Harlem River as it was situated on a hilltop. Upon his death in 1909, parcels of the estate went to members of the Isham family. Starting in 1911 and roughly through 1922 various members gifted lots to the city to create and expand the park. The city also purchased lots throughout the area originally intended to be added to Isham park, but eventually, it was decided to add the extra lands to the newly created Inwood Hill Park and maintain the boundaries of the original Isham estates. Current day Isham Park is a 20-acre park bordered by Seaman Avenue, Isham Street, Broadway, and 214th and 215th Street. Originally the park extended out to the Harlem River but with the creation of Inwood Hill Park in 1926, the lands were reallocated. It is said that Peter Minuit purchased the island of Manhattan from the Lenape Native Americans in Inwood Hill Park. The site is currently marked by a boulder known as Shorakkopoch Rock. The area originally intended to be added to Isham park, but eventually, it was decided to add the extra lands to the newly created Inwood Hill Park and maintain the boundaries of the original Isham estates.

Isham Park Dedicated September 28, 1912 Isham Memorial, ca. late 1930s In 1911, land for the purpose of a public park was offered as a gift to the city by Julia Isham Taylor. Newspaper accounts reveal that Mrs. Taylor’s gift was intended to preserve green space and views from her father‘s land—a central, natural high point in the area. A bit later, Julia’s aunt Flora bought and added land to the gift “just to preserve the view” to the Hudson River. The gifts of land from the Isham family are detailed on a bronze plaque in the stone wall surrounding a circular paved terrace situated above Broadway between 214th and Isham Streets. Samuel Isham, Julia’s brother, is quoted in the New York Times on March 24, 1912: “My father . . . re-graded the whole hill from top to bottom, planted nearly all of the trees that now remain . . . .” So the enormous gingko tree still seen at the Broadway entrance just above Isham Street, the former entrance to the estate, may have been planted by William Isham in the late 1860s.

In 1851, two brothers (sons of early 19th-century medical innovator Dr. Valentine Seaman) purchased a hillside property near the top of Manhattan and began to erect a substantial summer home constructed with locally-quarried white marble.

Seaman-Drake Mansion, 1933. The Seaman-Drake Mansion can be seen in the distance up the hill, while the upper corner of the entranceway arch can be seen at left. The mansion would be torn down five years after this photo was taken.

Construction on the southern end of the Broadway Bridge spanning the Harlem River Ship Canal, March 21, 1906.