Herman Melville's Home, Victoria Pichardo

"Wow, it's so tall!"
Side view of tall shiny building that now stands at 6 Pearl
View of Battery Park across the street
Though Herman Melville's home looked nothing like this skyscraper, this is what has replaced his birthplace.
Building is behind us.
Herman Melville, one of the most famous American authors, was born here in New York City. His home was located on 6 Pearl Street in Manhattan. As a young man in search of adventures, Melville shipped out on a boat as a cabin boy. When he returned home he wrote about his adventures. Melville loved the sea and it is appropriate that he lived across the street from the East River. Many of his works were about adventures at sea. Melville wrote a novel which was ignored in his time but is now known as a masterpiece. Moby Dick, a novel about whaling adventures became recognized 30 years after his death.
Visiting Herman Meleville's birth place was a great experience for me. Pearl street is one of the most historical places in Manhattan. Many of the buildings and even the stones on the ground, have been there for many years. Not until I visited the literary site did I realize that Pearl street is a historical site in Manhattan. Especially because Melville the author of Moby Dick lived there. It's interesting and always fun to learn the historical significance of different areas within walking distance of my home. the area and surroundings are beautiful, especially across the street. If you walk by the East river you can see Staten island, New Jersey, and the Statue of Liberty.

- Victoria Pichardo, 16

PACE High School

100 Hester Street

New York, NY 10002

NY Public Library and Exhibits, Spring 2009 -Ashley Cortez

St. John the Divine - Saadia Hammond

                                 St. John the Divine, Upper West Side, Manhattan

Located in Saint John Divine, a famous Catholic Church on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, the poet's corner is set as a memorial. The American poet's Corner was created in 1984 to memorialize American writers of high repute, modeled after a similar alcove for writers at Westminster Abbey in London. As you walk into the church the poet's corner is to your left. The poet's corner is made up of stone slabs on the wall and on the floor. Each stone has the writer’s name, their date of birth and death, and a memorable quotation from the writer's work. To date, there are thirty writers with stone slabs and the list will expand yearly. Visiting the Poet's Corner opened my eyes to many aspects. I realized although i have lived in New York City all my life I never made an effort to explore Saint John's and what it has to offer. I seen not only the poets corner but also the memorial to the F.D.N.Y. and the beautiful chapel.  Visiting the American Poet's Corner at Saint John the Divine helped me appreciate American writers that helped alter my learning ability as an aspiring writer and also helped me contribute toward their memorable honor. - Saadia Hammond, 16 years old PACE High School, Chinatown, NYC

Literary Sites in New York City

So for the next leg in my literary road trip, I will be working a little closer to home:  New York City!  Since I do teach in Chinatown and my students live all around the five boroughs, I asked their assistance in seeking out places of literary importance in the city.  Here I will post their descriptions of the sites they visited and the pictures they took while there.  They will receive extra credit for their footwork and submissions.  Enjoy!

Frost Farm

Robert Frost's house from his "yard." 
   This is the wall from "Mending Wall," Frost's favorite poem.  Kind of exciting.  
This is a picture of the big guy.
A certain slant of light pours into the barn, which is made into a sort of central meeting point and museum lobby, which also displays pictures of group visits and Frost memorabilia.

Robert Frost's home, where he lived for eleven years from 1900 - 1911, is located in Derry, New Hampshire, and is a quaint place to visit.  In addition to the inside tour, complete with furniture from the time period and a well-versed Robert Frost guide, there is also a poetry walk that you can do outside around the grounds.  There is an actual wall, the one that perhaps inspired the poem "Mending Wall," and a path through the woods.  At certain intervals you can see a number placed besides some plants, etc., and in your Frost pamphlet, next to that corresponding number, there is some information about the significance of the location, and also a poem or part of a poem to read when you stop there.  I liked this a lot. 

Jack Kerouac, Lowell, MA

Jack Kerouac was born in Lowell and there are many locations in the city that speak of his presence.  On this trip I visited Kerouac's first home, his birthplace, at 9 Lupine Road.  He was born there on March 12, 1922, right in the house, on the second floor of the duplex.  In Doctor Sax Kerouac wrote, ""It was in Centraville I was born, in Pawtucketville saw Doctor Sax."  Kerouac claimed a stellar memory and actually recalled details of the day he was born on Lupine Road.  

The next stop on the Lowell tour was the public library.  The following is excerpted from the web site  http://ecommunity.uml.edu/jklowell/jkdtt.html, a guide to Kerouac's Lowell: 

"The Lowell Public Library is a fine place to begin a walking tour of Jack Kerouac's Lowell. Today it's called the Pollard Memorial Library, after Samuel S. Pollard, a prominent Lowell politician, but the library looks the same as it did when Jack Kerouac scoured the shelves in the 1920's and 30's.

In Maggie Cassidy and Vanity of Duluoz, Kerouac writes of skipping school "at least once a week" to read Shakespeare, Victor Hugo, William Penn, and scholarly books on chess. "It was how I'd become interested in old classical looking library books," he writes in Maggie Cassidy, "some of them falling apart and from the darkest shelf in the Lowell Public Library, found there by me in my overshoes at closing time."

Halfway between "downtown" and Centralville, there is a Jack Kerouac park that highlights his written work.  On giant granite (I think that's the material) rocks, excerpts from Kerouac's books are engraved and displayed in the middle of this little escape.  Visitors can sit on benches and read parts of On The Road, Lonesome Traveller, Book of Dreams, Mexico City Blues, Doctor Sax and others.  

Just outside of the downtown area, a short drive away, is the graveyard where Kerouac and his wife are buried.  Allen Ginsberg and Bob Dylan visited Jack Kerouac's grave.

That video is available at the link above.  It's also on the DVD, "The Life and Times of Allen Ginsberg."  It was exciting to visit Kerouac and to literally follow in the footsteps of these great artists.