A couple years ago, we sent Untapped Cities editor Benjamin Waldman on a quest to track down places that memorialize Edgar Allan Poe. In the process, one particular item that gave him trouble was locating the mantel in front of which Poe wrote his famous poem “The Raven.” According to documentation Waldman tracked down, Columbia University had acquired the mantel in 1908 from a Colonel Hemstreet who had saved the mantel from destruction during the demolition of the Brennan farmhouse, where Poe had lived on what is now 84th Street and Broadway. Columbia University was given the charge to ensure that the artifact was “appropriately placed and sedulously cared for,” but there had been very little documentation available since the donation, apart from a 1954 photograph in the Raymond Biswanger Slide Collection at the University of Pennsylvania. A tip came from a website that stated the mantel was in Philosophy Hall, but a quick trip… Read More