περιπλάνηση: NYC Trip 10/23/18 Fraunces Tavern Museum

We're baaaack!

And today, the museum is open for business.

The Tavern itself is steeped in history, more than I could possibly due it justice and finally finish these trip posts, anyway. Read more here.

Suffice to say, this building before you has stood here since 1719 and has served as a Tavern since 1762. A cannonball came through its roof during the 1775 attempt to steal British cannons (now immortalized in Hamilton). In 1783 George Washington bid his adieu to his officers when he left New York for Mt. Vernon (until elected as the first President when he had to return).

The first stop on the second floor is the little film in the gift shop area (just historical books primarily) and the two rooms of the era, the Clinton Dining room, in which photography is allowed, and the Long Room, recreating the public tavern space of 1780, and in which no photographs are allowed. And somewhere in the room are doubtless several cameras at angles to catch anyone trying to sneak one.

But they are on the interwebs ;)

a cool view looking south from decades ago, when the table was out for restoration, of the fireplace and china cabinets.

Opposite that room in parallel is the Clinton Dining Room which has a much more genteel charm. Set for a formal dinner, the contrast between elegant and rustic is jarring.

Over the mantle is an Ezra Ames portrait of General George Clinton, an early patron of Fraunces Tavern and later elected the first governor of New York. His sword & scabbard are on the mantle. He served on the Continental Congress until his appointment as brigadeer general of the New York Militia and served as Vice President to both Thomas Jefferson and James Madison. He hosted the dinner celebration at the end of the War, on November 25, 1783 on Evacuation Day, when the British retreated from the city after occupying it since the Battle of Long Island in 1776.

The Federal Style is neoclassical in nature, with columns and urns.

Its wallpaper is one of only eleven sets surviving of the Zubar company's painted woodblock printing press method in which artists painted backgrounds of North America and allowed the customer to select whatever they wished to have in the foreground. 1674 wood blocks were painted and pressed to create this room's paper.

This version ("The American War of Independence) added figures of the Revolutionary War, General Washington and the Marquis de Lafayette can be spotted in a curious Where's Waldo game, since the backgrounds do no bear any historical connection to the foreground scenes they depict.

The British army is surrendering at the Passaic River in New Jersey.

One battle is taking place on the banks of Niagara Falls

from there we headed up to the third floor

Fort George and the entirety of New York City prior to the revolution

The earliest map was surveyed in 1766-67 and lists the landmarks of the city at that time, more than half of them places of worship.

The land the World Trade Center was built on was water.

The city itself went no further than Trinity Church.

A rotated section of today's Manhattan that roughly corresponds with the above entirety of NYC:

The various flags prior to the 13 Stars with Stripes

Handwritten correspondence regarding the Culper Ring from George Washington to Benjamin Tallmadge. If you haven't seen the AMC series TURN, you should get on that.