Merchant's House Museum

Photograph of the rear parlor by Madeleine Doering
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Home (in Old New York)

What Life Was Really Like in 19th-Century NYC

The Merchant's House Museum is New York City's only family home preserved intact — inside and out — from the 19th century.

Built in 1832 just steps from Washington Square, this elegant red-brick and white-marble row house on East Fourth Street was home to a prosperous merchant family for almost 100 years.

Complete with the family's original furnishings and personal possessions, the house offers a rare and intimate glimpse of domestic life in New York City during the three decades before the Civil War.

Here's what The New York Times says:

"The distinction of the Merchant's House and it is a powerful one is that it is the real thing.  One simply walks through the beautiful doorway into another time and place in New York." 

"Of the estimated 300 Federal houses in Manhattan, the best preserved is the 178-year-old Merchant's House Museum." 

And ... "Manhattan's most haunted house."

photograph of the Museum's facade

Facade by Jook Leung

photograph of the Museum's front parlor

Front Parlor by Madeleine Doering