The holdout houses on a former colonial-era farm by the East River meet the wrecking ball in 1914

As the colonial outpost once known as New Amsterdam transitioned into the city of New York, vast tracts of land were sold and parceled out to new owners and developers—who built urban neighborhoods to accommodate the booming population and surge in commerce and industry.

One by one, as the city expanded northward in the late 18th and 19th centuries, farms in today’s Greenwich Village, Murray Hill, Gramercy, Chelsea, and Midtown were sold off—disappearing into a cityscape of new homes, factories, mass transit hubs, and business spaces.

But farmland in the upper reaches of Manhattan held out for much longer, thanks to their relative remoteness. One of these was the farm of Peter Schermerhorn, which stretched from today’s 63rd and 67th Streets on York Avenue along the East River.

You know the old-money Schermerhorns. The patriarch of this Knickerbocker family arrived in New York from Holland in the 17th century and made his home in the Albany area. A century later, a branch of the family relocated to Gotham, becoming merchants, shippers (Schermerhorn Row on South Street is named for them), and landowners in Manhattan and Brooklyn (see Schermerhorn Street, which runs from Flatbush Avenue to Brooklyn Heights).

Source: The holdout houses on a former colonial-era farm by the East River meet the wrecking ball in 1914