New York

There’s a C-Town Supermarket across the street and the A train a few blocks away. Yet looking down on the cacophonous street is the Dyckman Farmhouse, a reminder that Uptown Manhattan once existed for agriculture rather than commuting. The cozy stone and clapboard house, with wide porches and low ceilings, was built on the Dykman family’s 250-acre farm in 1784. In the lush back garden is a log military hut used by Revolutionary War soldiers, and behind it austere brick high-rises. With the lot so tightly hemmed in by the modern city, it’s hard to envision cattle or buggies walking by, or even the texture of the soil below the concrete. Yet this quiet little house, and others like it, founded our roaring city, and perhaps visiting it is to say a sort of thank-you.

Photo:  Becky Dalzell