Postcard Thursday: New York City's Oldest Buildings

If you did not see it, James has a piece at CurbedNY this week in which he tracks down the oldest buildings in all five boroughs of New York City. This postcard, above, shows the Britton Cottage, which today is part of Historic Richmond Town, and is the second oldest standing building on Staten Island.

You can read the full story at http://ny.curbed.com/archives/2015/01/12/the_20_oldest_buildings_in_new_york_city.php

Each borough also gets an honorable mention: a building that is old, but didn't quite make the cut. For Manhattan, that building is Fraunces Tavern, which, according to The New York Times, is celebrating its birthday today. On January 15, 1762, Samuel Fraunces bought the house from the heirs of Stephen Delancey to open what was then called the Queen Charlotte or Queenshead Tavern. While only a few fragments of the building Sam Fraunces bought are still there, the tavern is an important relic nonetheless.

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Explore more NYC history in

Footprints in New York: Tracing the Lives of Four Centuries of New Yorkers

If you haven't had a chance to pick up a copy of Footprints yet,

you can order it from your favorite online retailers (Amazon, Barnes and Noble, etc.) or

from independent bookstores across the country.

And, of course, Inside the Apple is available at fine bookstores everywhere.