Blackwell House
500 Main Street | also 475 Main Street | Roosevelt Island | built 1975
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The city photographed every building for its tax records around 1940 and again in the 1980s. NYC Municipal Archives.
Written with AI from the source each entry cites, then fact-checked.
- 1673
Disgraced Captain John Manning retreats to the island that later holds Blackwell House
Captain John Manning won a patent on the island from Governor Nicolls in 1668. In 1673, after mishandling his command of the fort during a Dutch attack on New York, he was court-martialed and publicly disgraced. He retreated to his island, where the Reverend Charles Walley wrote in 1701 that he had often visited the captain and was commonly offered a bowl of rum punch.
- 1782
American prisoners of war are quartered on the occupied island
During the Revolutionary War the British occupied the island, then called Blackwell's Island, years before the farmhouse was built on it. In 1782, while peace negotiations were under way, American prisoners of war were quartered there.
“…in 1782, when peace negotiations were in progress, American prisoners of war were quartered there.”
- 1784
James Blackwell advertises the 107-acre island for sale and finds no buyer
After the Revolution, James Blackwell and his brother Jacob, short of money, tried to sell their island. His 1784 advertisement described 107 acres about four miles from the city, with two small dwellings, a barn, a bake house, a fowl house and a cider mill, plus a large orchard, stone quarries and running springs. No buyer could be found.
- 1796
Jacob Blackwell builds a farmhouse on his family's island
Jacob Blackwell built this house in 1796. He was the great-grandson of Robert Blackwell, who took ownership of what was then called Manning's Island in 1686, after which it became known as Blackwell's Island; it is now Roosevelt Island. The house was designated a city landmark on March 23, 1976.
Source: Wikipedia
- 1828
New York City buys Blackwell's Island for a penitentiary and almshouse
New York City purchases Blackwell's Island from the Blackwell family, ending more than a century of private ownership. The city builds a penitentiary, then an almshouse, workhouse, and hospitals for people with smallpox, mental illness, and other incurable diseases. The 18th-century Blackwell farmhouse survives amid this institutional development and remains standing on the island that still bears the family's name.
Source: Ephemeral New York
- 1969
A 1969 survey and a Hitchcock report find the decayed house worth restoring
In 1969 the historian Loring McMillen surveyed the island's existing structures, part of the state's redevelopment program, and the architectural historian Henry-Russell Hitchcock wrote a report the same year. On that basis the Blackwell House was judged worthy of preservation and restoration, and architect Giorgio Cavaglieri was then commissioned to evaluate the island's buildings of special interest.
“…a survey by historian Loring McMillen in 1969, and a report... by Henry-Russell Hitchcock, the Blackwell House was assessed worthy of preservation…”
- 1973
The farmhouse is restored and reopens as a history museum
After decades of institutional use on what is now Roosevelt Island, the 18th-century farmhouse undergoes restoration, including the removal of one deteriorated wing. Preservationists reopen the rehabilitated building as a small house museum displaying artifacts and documents from the island's long history as a site of hospitals, asylums, and almshouses.
Source: Ephemeral New York
- 1976
New York City designates Blackwell House a landmark
The Landmarks Preservation Commission designates the farmhouse an individual New York City landmark, a few years after its restoration. Already listed on the National Register of Historic Places since 1972, the building is recognized as one of the city's few surviving 18th-century farmhouses, built by Jacob Blackwell on his family's East River island.
Source: Wikipedia
Further reading
- Blackwell HouseWikipedia
- One of New York’s last 18th century farmhouses sits on an East River islandEphemeral New York
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