3. Brennan Farmhouse Site, Upper West Side
It is believed that Poe composed his famous poem The Raven while in residence at the Brennan Farmhouse, located at 84th and Broadway. Two competing plaques commemorate the site of the farmhouse. Both are located on 84th Street (with an honorary street name of Edgar Allan Poe Street) and Broadway, though one is east of Broadway and the other west.
The Raven was first published in an edition of The Evening Mirror, which was headquartered at 25 Ann Street in Manhattan. That building is now a residential structure that has been rechristened as the Edgar House. There is a plaque memorializing Poe in the building, but it is inaccessible to the general public.
Poe took his wife and mother-in-law to live with Patrick Brennan, his wife, Mary Elizabeth, and their many children at the farmhouse, in hopes that the clean country air would help Virginia cope with her tuberculosis. The home stood atop a rocky outcropping and Poe enjoyed rambling on the grounds and taking in views of the Hudson River. He especially enjoyed a spot just inside Riverside Park that he dubbed Mount Tom, after one of the Brennan’s sons. While the rock remains, the wooden farmhouse was demolished in 1888.