Alice Austen (1862 -1952), one of America’s earliest and most prolific female photographers, lived most of her life in Clear Comfort, a Victorian Gothic cottage on the shores of the Verrazano Narrows.

Thomas Pell purchased the land on which the Bartow-Pell Mansion now sites in 1654 from the Siwanoy Indians. Four generations of Pells lived on the manor until it was divided after the Revolutionary War. In 1836, Pell family descendant Robert Bartow and his wife, Maria Lorillard, purchased part of the old manor and built a fashionable three-story Greek Revival mansion, with a dramatic freestanding spiral staircase connecting the elegant parlors on the ground floor with the bedrooms above.

Built c. 1661, the Bowne House is a microcosm of social, cultural, and political history. It is one of the oldest surviving structures in New York City and the oldest in Queens.

Christopher Billopp’s grand stone manor is named in memory of the 1776 conference convened at the House in an attempt to end the Revolutionary War.

Manhattan’s last Dutch colonial farmhouse has looked over bustling Broadway for more than 200 years. Today it reflects the diverse and energetic populations that call Inwood Home.

Edgar Allan Poe, one of America’s greatest writers, spent the last years of his life in this modest cottage in the Bronx. The Cottage was built in 1812 and was typical of the working-class houses that filled the old village of Fordham. It has only five rooms: a kitchen, parlor, and bedchamber on the main floor, and two tiny rooms in the attic.

Built in 1799 by shipping merchant Archibald Gracie is the last of the elegant country homes that once lined Manhattan’s East River shore.

Still standing in its original orientation on its original site, the Hendrick I. Lott House is a rare surviving Dutch-American house in New York City.

Historic Richmond Town is a remarkable living-history village and museum complex that evokes 300 years of the history and culture of New York City.

King Manor takes its name from Rufus King, a member of the Continental Congress, a framer and signer of the Constitution, one of the first senators from New York State, the ambassador to Great Britain under four presidents and an outspoken opponent of slavery.

Home of the Queens Historical Society, Kingsland Homestead is a farmhouse typical of those in the 18th Century. It was built circa 1785 for Charles Doughty, the son of Benjamin Doughty, a wealthy Quaker who purchased land on the old turnpike in Flushing. The two-and-a-half-story Homestead was built in a style once common in the area – the Long Island half-house.

Lefferts Historic House Museum is one of a small number of farmhouses surviving from Brooklyn’s Dutch settlement period. Pieter Lefferts built the house around 1783, four generations after his ancestors arrived in the New World.

Manhattan’s only remaining lighthouse acquired its affectionate nickname from Hildegarde H. Swift’s 1942 children’s classic, The Little Red Lighthouse and the Great Gray Bridge.

Built in 1832 in the fashionable Bond Street area just steps away from Washington Square, this elegant red brick and white marble row house was home to Seabury Tredwell, a prosperous merchant, and his family, and their Irish servants for 100 years.

Perched on a commanding rise with spectacular vistas south across Manhattan and east toward Long Island, Morris- Jumel Mansion was built as a country retreat by Roger and Mary Morris in 1765.

Originally built by Claes Vechte in 1699, this house – constructed solidly of stone, with high brick gables and tile roof is a landmark in American military and sports history. Today it is the center of a vibrant, diverse community of engaged citizens.

A rare survivor from Queens County’s agricultural past, the Queens County Farm Museum is one of New York City’s last operating farms and is the longest continually farmed site in New York State.

A monument to the borough’s agricultural and industry history Seguine Mansion is one of the grandest 19th-Century homes on Staten Island. By 1786, James Seguine had purchased a large parcel of land overlooking Prince’s Bay. His grandson, Joseph Seguine, built the current Greek Revival-style house in 1838.

The Marionette Theatre was designed as Sweden’s pavilion at the 1876 Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia. Impressed by the ornament and utility of the Swedish School House, Frederick Law Olmsted, designer of Central Park, secured an appropriation from the City of New York to purchase it

Built in 1758, Valentine-Varian House is the last of the farmhouses that once lined the Boston Post Road. Isaac Valentine, a prosperous blacksmith and farmer from Yonkers, built the two-story Georgian house out of the native stone on his land.

Van Cortlandt House is the centerpiece of a 1,000-acre urban park that encompasses what was once the Van Cortlandt family’s estate. Merchant Jacobus Van Cortlandt began purchasing land in the Bronx in 1694. Gradually, he developed the property into a wheat plantation with extensive milling operations. Jacobus’ son Frederick inherited the estate and commissioned the present house in 1748.

Built circa 1652, the original portion of the Wyckoff House Museum is the oldest structure in New York City and a National Historic Landmark.