The Faux Poe House

Location:   Greenwich Village
Year:   1844-1846

Edgar Allan Poe lived at 85 West Third Street in Greenwich Village from 1844 to the early months of 1846 before moving to a cottage in Fordham in The Bronx. Poe wrote and revised and published "The Raven" during his time on Third Street. 

Poe's bedroom in the tiny, narrow house on West Third Street was a casketlike 9 1/2 feet wide. The original house was demolished by New York University in the year 2000 when they expanded Furman Hall. In a hideously clumsy attempt at "preservation" they added a facade to one part of Furman Hall that is "suggestive" (at a stretch) of the original 19th Century house. The facade covers a portion of Furman Hall that is a half a block away from the original structure. Only a few of the original exterior bricks were used to decorate the interior of the faux Poe house.    

The Poe House, before and after