Fort Amsterdam Walking Tours Blog

"Most of our readers have witnessed a dog fight in the street. Let them imagine the animals surrounded by a crowd of brutal wretches whose conduct stamps them as beneath the struggling beasts, and they will have a fair idea of the scene at Kit Burns's."  - Secrets of the Great City,  Edward Winslow Martin Just down the block from the Hole in the Wall is a three-story brick building at 273 Water Street. Built in 1773, 273 Water is the third-oldest building in Manhattan, behind only St. Paul's Chapel on lower Broadway and the Morris-Jumel Mansion in Harlem Heights. The first resident was a mahogany trader named Joseph Rose. Captain Rose built a comfortable two-story home with a steep-pitched roof, three fireplaces, a wooden sidewalk out front, and a dock out back where he moored his brig, the Industry . Later occupants would include tenant Abraham Walton, a vestryman at Trinity Church and a delegate to the First Provincial Congress in 1775, and son Isaac Rose,...

279 Water Street has been known by many names since it was built in 1794. It started life as a waterfront grocery run by Newell Narme. (At the time, Water Street marked the eastern edge of Manhattan, much like Beaver and Pearl before it and Front Street after.) The property changed hands many times in the 19th century, notably to attorney Charles G. Ferris, who leased the property to a host of saloons. The most famous of these was the Hole in the Wall, owned by the aptly named One-Armed Charley Monell. Hole in the Wall was what's known as  a "pull joint." Rather than use glasses, a thirsty patron would pay three cents to drink as much as they could in one breath from rubber tubes connected to barrels of rotgut behind the bar. One-Armed Charley also kept a glass jar full of pickling juice next to the barrels. Waterfront brawlers would return from fights and deposit their "trophies" of severed ears, fingers, and noses into the jar.