Greenwich Village

								

moved away for a time, but he invariably gravitated back to it and to
his old friends there. It was in Carmine Street that he wrote his
"Arthur Gordon Pym," with Gowans the publisher for a fellow lodger; it
was on Sixth Avenue and Waverly Place that he created "Ligeia" and
"The Fall of the House of Usher." After Virginia's death, he took a
room just off the Square, and wrote the "Imp of the Perverse," with
her picture (it is said) above his desk. It was at these quarters that
Lowell called on him, and found him, alas! "not himself that day." The
old Square has no stranger nor sadder shade to haunt it than that of
the brilliant and melancholy genius who in life loved it so well.
Poe's friend Willis published many of his stories and articles in the
Sun, still a newcomer in the old field of journalism. Willis has his
own connection with the tale of the Square, though not a very
glorious one. The town buzzed for days with talk of the sensational
interview between Nym Crinkle and Edwin Forrest, the actor. Mr.
Willis made some comments on Forrest's divorce, in an editorial, and
that player, so well adored by the American public, took him by the
coat collar in Washington Square and exercised his stage-trained
muscles by giving him a thorough and spectacular thrashing.
Somewhere in that neighbourhood, much earlier, another editor, William
Coleman, founder of the Evening Post, and Jeremiah Thompson,
Collector of the Port, fought a duel to the death. It was indeed to
the death, for Thompson was wounded fatally. But duels were common
enough in those days; we feel still the thrill of indignation roused
by the shooting of Alexander Hamilton by Burr.
The old University of New York--where Professor Morse conducted his
great experiments in telegraphy, where Samuel Colt in his tower
workroom perfected his revolver, where the Historical Society of New
York was first established and where many of our most distinguished
citizens received their education--was never a financial success. For
a time they tried to make it pay by taking tenants--young students,
and bachelors who wished seclusion for writing or research. Then, in
the course of time, it was moved away to the banks of the Hudson. On
the site now stands a modern structure, where, to be sure, a few of
the old University departments are still conducted, but which is
chiefly celebrated as being the first all-bachelor apartment house
erected in town. It is appropriately called the "Benedick," after a
certain young man who scoffed at matrimony,--and incidentally got
married!
And a few of the families stay beneath the roofs their forefathers
built, watching, as they watched, the same quiet trees and lawns and
paths of the most charming square in all New York: De Forest,
Rhinelander, Delano, Stewart, De Rham, Gould, Wynkoop, Tailer,
Guinness, Claflin, Booth, Darlington, Gregory, Hoyt, Schell, Shattuck,
Weekes,--these, and others are still the names of the residents of