Merchant's House Museum

I often visit the Merchant’s House Museum because I can’t get enough of its architecture, collections, mission, and the light it sheds on a seminal period in New York City history. It is a way-cool historic house, simply the best. History with a sense of humor. Not stuffy but fun and uplifting. That it survives at all amidst the tear-it-down-and-build-something-bigger ethos of “the city that’s never finished” makes it a treasure of the first magnitude, something every one who calls themselves a New Yorker, either by birth, by address, or by desire, can boast of as a jewel in the crown of this superb city. That’s why, to anyone who’s ever been there, this one of the most beloved and fascinating “secret treasures” in the treasure trove that is New York.

The Merchant’s House Museum is a cute little museum in the East Village. A one-family home for more than a century, it is now preserved as a glimpse into late Victorian life in the city. You can wander around three floors of the house and sit out in the backyard garden. I saw an interesting exhibit on mourning in the Victorian era there last autumn, and they’d taken out mourning clothes and jewelry from their collection to display.