The Kopper's residence in East Harlem, on 167-177 East 124th Street, was considered the oldest house in all of Harlem back in the first half of the 20th Century. Built in 1790 by architect Johann Hermann Raub and the colonial style home would only be bested uptown by the Morris Jumel Mansion which was built in Washington Heights circa 1776. The top photo shows the house in 1920 and one can see the detached house on its manageable country-like estate. Fast forward twelve years and it seemed that nature had taken over (center photo). The neighborhood kids sneaking in and out the gate only reconfirm the accounts that some folks at the time considered the home haunted. There wasn't much else listed on what happened in between the depression years and now. We walked by on East 124th Street between Lexington and Third Avenue this past week and all we found was the tail end of Pathmark and a post office. Archival photos by NYPL. Lower photo by Ulysses.
The Kopper's residence in East Harlem, on 167-177 East 124th Street, was considered the oldest house in all of Harlem back in the first half of the 20th Century. Built in 1790 by architect Johann Hermann Raub and the colonial style home would only be bested uptown by the Morris Jumel Mansion which was built in Washington Heights circa 1776. The top photo shows the house in 1920 and one can see the detached house on its manageable country-like estate. Fast forward twelve years and it seemed that nature had taken over (center photo). The neighborhood kids sneaking in and out the gate only reconfirm the accounts that some folks at the time considered the home haunted. There wasn't much else listed on what happened in between the depression years and now. We walked by on East 124th Street between Lexington and Third Avenue this past week and all we found was the tail end of Pathmark and a post office. Archival photos by NYPL. Lower photo by Ulysses.
Don't recall this house at all. Grew up at 157 E. 124th street between Lexington and 3rd Ave. Our brown stone (which had to be over 100 years old in 1960) was 2 or 3 brownstones down from the post office shown above..closer to Lexington. If the house shown was on that site from 1958-1972, I certainly don't recall seeing it, which would be very strange given it would have been on my block. Are you sure that picture is not from 125th Street, as our back yards didn't have any neighbors backing up against our fence from the 125th street side. I remember there was a bakery on the corner of Lexington and 124th and diagonally across on the other corner was my fathers business Robles Travel Agency (which is now a nail salon, or at least it was on my last trip to NYC 2 years ago), the other corner had a bar and I'm not sure what was on the 4th corner. Memory fades! Anyway, just wanted to be sure you've got the correct address for the photo of the old house shown above. Maybe I'm wrong, but there's no way that the line of old brownstones that ran from the post office to the bakery on the corner of Lexington were any less than 100 years old, so it couldn't be that the house was torn down and brownstones erected. And there weren't any "gaps" between the brownstones that would have held such a house. Now I really don't remember what was on the other side of the post office. Could it be that the house was between the post office and 3rd Ave? You can contact me with any comments at isaf0420@yahoo.com
ReplyDeleteThis house was probably torn down by the late 1930's or early 1940's. The address provided are from various public records so that's all we have to go by. Thanks once more for all the background about the neighborhood!
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