Fraunces Tavern Block

Sixteen brick and stone buildings from the 18th and 19th centuries make up this block in Lower Manhattan, bounded by Pearl, Water and Broad Streets and Coenties Slip. Fraunces Tavern, at the corner of Broad and Pearl Streets, gives the block its name. It was heavily reconstructed in 1907 and now holds a restaurant and a museum devoted to George Washington and the Revolutionary War. The land was granted to the Van Cortlandt family around 1686, and Stephen de Lancey built a house here in 1719 that Samuel Fraunces bought in 1763. As harbor commerce grew, the former houses became stores, factories and warehouses, and Pearl Street was widened in the 1820s. The surviving buildings show granite piers, carved capitals, brick upper stories and uniform cornice lines. Their small scale stands in sharp contrast to the surrounding office towers. The block is valued as a cohesive streetscape and as a rare record of the old seaport.