☞ REMEMBER: Harlem Lane

Harlem Lane was the original country road that present-day St. Nicholas Avenue follows. The above lithograph is from 1865 and shows just how rural Harlem was in the mid-19th century. Instead of having a house upstate or the Hamptons, one would just have a cottage in upper Manhattan. Driving one's carriage about seems to have been the popular sport. Many small, wood frame houses lined the road, as apparently did goat farms. Another nickname for Manhattanville up to 1909 was Goatsville. Archival photo NYPL