Two Hundred and Fifty Plus, 2

Fraunces Tavern was originally built in 1719, so if you ignore the massive changes to the building over the years, it’s the oldest extant building in Manhattan, constructed some 95 years after the Dutch arrived. In other words, we have nothing standing from the first quarter of our history. The next-oldest extant building in Manhattan is the Morris-Jumel Mansion uptown, and it was built in 1765. Note that there are older buildings elsewhere in the city – some of which will be discussed in this series – but they weren’t in the city in the eighteenth century. Only when “New York City” changed from Manhattan island to the island plus big chunks of adjacent land did the old buildings in the outlying areas become old buildings in NYC. That brings us to the third-oldest building in Manhattan, St. Paul’s Chapel at Broadway and Fulton Street. From HABS Note that it’s not a church. It was constructed as a chapel of Trinity Church, which is five blocks down Broadway, to reduce crowding at the…