Overview

Miracle on Fourth Street is the story of the preservation of a family home that belonged to one of the early merchants of New York City. Lived in by one family for almost 100 years, the house was preserved as a museum upon the death of the last family member. The book recounts the struggle of the founder of the museum to realize his quixotic vi- sion, the critical intervention of an architect who devoted his life to an authentic struc- tural restoration, and the dedication of a group of women who would not give up their goal of reclaiming the beauty of the original furnishings.It is a story of creative solutions to structural calamities, heartbreaking setbacks, dis- appointing personality conflicts, and the current stewards' triumph over a final brutal assault on the building that quite literally could have brought the house down.Now known as the Merchant's House Museum, the landmarked site affords over 15,000 visitors a year a unique window into mid-nineteenth domestic life of the merchant elite of New York City.

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9780997164626

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Mary Knapp has been affiliated with the Merchant's House Museum since 1995. She is the author of An Old Merchant's House: Life at Home in New York City, 1835-65 (Girandole Books, 2012) and co-author with her husband, Herb, of One Potato, Two Potato: The Folklore of American Children (W.W. Norton, 1976) and Red, White, and Blue Paradise (Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1984), a memoir of the couple's years living and teaching in the Panama Canal Zone. She lives in New York City and blogs at www.hintsandechoes.wordpress.com.

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