5. The Mantel in front of which Edgar Allen Poe Wrote The Raven is at Columbia
Located in Butler Library at Columbia University, the Raven Mantel, in front of which Edgar Allen Poe wrote “The Raven” was located in Poe’s room at the Brennan farmhouse. It was saved when the farmhouse was demolished because it had a cameo in the poem and Poe even allegedly etched his initials into it. Check out our previous coverage of the Mantel’s odyssey from farmhouse to Columbia, where Untapped Cities’ editor Benjamin Waldman discovered it lying fallow in a storage room. It was later moved to a more visible location in the Rare Book & Manuscript Library, after articles by Untapped staff in Columbia Magazine and The New York Times. See 9 other places to remember Edgar Allen Poe in NYC.