Pomander Walk: The Old English Street in the Heart of New York City



Pomander Walk is a little neighborhood on Manhattan that was designed to look like an London street composed of Tudor-era houses. Inspired by a popular 1910 play called Pomander Walk, it was built by a somewhat eccentric nightclub owner in 1921:

Named Pomander Walk (of course!), this little alley way goes unnoticed by most everyone not previously aware of its location. From the main street (see the 94th Street view here and the 95th Street view here), most passersby would walk by without ever thinking that this picturesque little mini-village exists in the Big Apple.

The houses are tiny. Each is divided into two one-floor apartments; each apartment measures roughly 700 square feet. By necessity, some have kitchenettes (instead of full kitchens), using a closet to house the refrigerator. And some of the houses have external dumbwaiters, designed (most likely) as makeshift garbage chutes.


Link | Photo by Curbed used under Creative Commons license

700 square feet is more than many apartments in the UK. I've certainly lived in 3-bedroom places which were smaller than that. Whilst the UK has smaller houses than most of Europe, the USA seems to be building its houses incredibly large compared to the rest of the world.
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Doesn't look particularly like any English street I've ever seen. Presumably an old English street designed by somebody who had never seen a real old English street. Kind of like all those totally unconvincing sets built on Holywood backlots of various different parts of the world.
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