Fraunces Tavern

In front of you is a brick building that looks like a survivor: three stories, a sloping roof and dormers, surrounded by office towers. Pearl Street, which runs beside it, once traced the shoreline of the East River; all the land between here and the water was filled in later.

1From merchant's house to tavern

The house was built in 1719 for the merchant Stephen DeLancey, with small yellow bricks shipped from Holland. In 1762 Samuel Fraunces bought it and turned it into a tavern, the Queen's Head, one of the liveliest meeting places in town, where the Sons of Liberty also gathered.

2Washington's farewell

On December 4, 1783, nine days after British troops left New York, George Washington gathered his officers in the Long Room on the second floor. He raised a glass with them and said goodbye one by one before leaving. Witnesses remembered that he could barely speak for emotion. Later, the building housed the young government's departments of Foreign Affairs and War.

According to an oft-repeated tradition, Fraunces's daughter Phoebe saved Washington from a dish of poisoned peas in 1776.

That story has no documentary support. What is known is that the house went through fires and alterations, and that the Sons of the Revolution restored it in 1907. For years it was thought to be almost entirely a reconstruction; a 2021 study found more original brick than anyone expected.

3What to look for

• The yellow brick of the facade, of the Dutch type.
• The second-floor windows: that is where the Long Room is.
• The corner with Broad Street, which follows the line of an old Dutch canal.