2. The Morris-Jumel Mansion, 65 Jumel Terrace (1765)

“There’s always something new at Manhattan’s oldest house” is the slogan of the Morris-Jumel Mansion Museum, and with a history so fraught with action, drama and scandal, it’s easy to see why. Far away from the usual tourist hot-spots, the Morris-Jumel Mansion lies in Upper Manhattan’s Washington Heights, and its Palladian style architecture recalls a time when New York was nothing more than a small colony. Built by Colonel Roger Morris, and abandoned when he fled during the American Revolution, the house served as a refuge for both sides of the front and was even the headquarters for General Washington and his troops in the autumn of 1776.

During the 1800s, the house was also the home of Eliza Jumel, a shrewd businesswoman who was once one of the wealthiest women in New York. Her difficult romantic history (she at one point married and quickly separated from the third vice president of the United States, Aaron Burr) has led many to believe that her troubled ghost still roams the halls of the home she died in, and the Morris-Jumel Mansion Museum even has ongoing paranormal investigations, among its many other planned events and exhibitions.