A Mews off Washington Square

Ivy, carriage houses and cobblestones

Dear Postcards from New York Reader,

One of my favorite places to research the letters and diaries of people who lived in 1480's Florence for a book I am writing is the New York University Library because I can work there until midnight. Everytime I walk across Washington Square to the entrance of Bobst Library the uniform beauty of the handsome red brick brownstones that line the North side of the park give me a reason to pause and gaze. Then for a moment those buildings known as "The Row" whisper images of turn-of-the-last-century New York.

In the 1890's Washington Square was the hub of high society. Every affluent family maintained horses and carriages to transport them around town. No parking lots around the corner or blocks away, their carriage houses were behind their homes.

You will find this narrow archway opens to a mews of converted carriage houses just behind the Squares brownstones. Step through and let your imagination recreate life as it was more than a century ago: the clip clop of horse shoes against the uneven cobblestones, the screech of carriage wheels, stable boys scurry to open heavy double wooden doors beneath double-arched carriage house entranceways. Servants come and go while young boys in knickers play hop scotch and ring-a-levio between passing carriages, a world Martin Scorsese so brilliantly brings to life in The Age of Innocence.

Now for a reason to visit Washington Square, how about the annual music festival through July 29 at 8 PM? Visit www.washingtonsquaremusicfestival.org/ for performance details and mark your calendar.

Find the Mews and see if it doesn't force you to pick up a novel by Henry James (who was born in one of the brownstones on the Square in 1843), or Edith Wharton or both. My suggestion: Edith's The Age of Innocence and Henry's Washington Square.

Jacqueline Cable

For Postcards from New York

Address to Remember: Washington Square Mews, University Place across from Waverly Place, New York, NY 10012

Directions: From Times Square MTA 1 to Christopher Street, walk east pass Avenue of the Americas to Washington Square, A, C, or E to West 4th Street, walk east one block to Washington Square. N, R or W to 8th Street, walk west to University Place, turn left to Washington Square.

Photo by Joseph Knight

©Copyright 2008 The Cable Group