This address was the former location of The Evening Mirror and The Weekly Mirror- George Pope Morris and Nathaniel Parker Willis, editors & publishers.

Edgar Allan Poe worked here from October, 1844, to February, 1845. Willis was a well-paid ($1,500 a year) and popular writer, but he recognized talent in Poe.

On January 29, 1845, Willis published "The Raven" in the Evening Mirror. Poe had recently left the Mirror to join Charles Briggs as co-editor at The Broadway Journal. The poem became an immediate success, and Poe's fee had dramatically increased to $50 a poem.

Of the poem's success, Poe wrote a friend:

‘The Raven’ has had a great ‘run,’ Thomas—but I wrote it for the express purpose of running—just as I did the ‘Gold-Bug,’ you know. The bird beat the bug, though, all hollow.

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The Sun was a New York broadsheet newspaper that was published from 1833 until 1950.

Later in its life, The Sun became a reputable paper. It was considered the most conservative voice of the big three NYC papers- The New York Times and the New York Herald Tribune being the others.

In its earlier years, while it was headquartered at this address, The Sun would occasionally fabricate hoaxes to draw readership. One such successful hoax was the Great Moon Hoax of August, 1835, which was a series of six articles that told fantastic stories of forests and oceans on the moon, inhabited by bison, goats, unicorns, bipedal tail-less beavers and bat-like winged humanoids ("Vespertilio-homo").

Edgar Allan Poe had written a story two months prior (in June of 1835) called The Unparalleled Adventure Of One Hans Pfaall for the Southern Literary Messenger, where an adventurer takes a balloon to the moon and encounters many similarities. Poe complained that the Great Moon Hoax was at least partially plagiarized from his story (which is considered one of the earliest examples of science-ficton).

Poe would have his own successful hoax for The Sun in 1844: "The Balloon-Hoax." Poe's fictional (yet factual-sounding) article disclosed that famous European balloonist Monck Mason had crossed the Atlantic Ocean in 75 hours. The details of the article included a diagram and specifications of the craft. The newspaper was swarmed with people to get copies of the paper, and even though the story was retracted two days later, readership had massively increased.

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This address if the former location of Gowan's Antiquarian Bookstore, a store dealing in "Historical Americana". The proprietor was William Gowan, and the shop would often be visited by writers living in the area. Edgar Allan Poe was known to shop here while he was living at a boarding house in the neighborhood.

Herman Melville probably exchanged greetings with Poe here; they were acquainted through a mutual editor. Melville once purchased a copy of Robert Burton’s Anatomy of Melancholy here that his father had once owned.

He stated: "I bought this book more than four years ago at Gowen’s Store in New York. Today, Allan in looking at it, first detected the above pencil signature [A. Melvill] of my father’s; who, – as it now appears – must have had the book, with many others, sold at auction, at least twenty-five years ago. – Strange!"

Gowans, a Scotland-born American, might well be considered America's earliest complete bookman- he not only sold books to walk-in customers but issued at least one catalog a year between 1842 and 1870.

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On April 6, 1844, Edgar Allan Poe arrived in New York City with his wife, Virginia, who was suffering from tuberculosis. Poe had left a successful post as the editor of the magazine Graham’s Magazine in Philadelphia, and was in New York City without a residence or income. His goal was to escape periodicals of "a nambypamby character" and establish his own magazine.

The family settled in a boarding house at the corner of Cedar and Greenwich Streets. Of the location, Poe said:

"The house is old and looks buggy. . . The landlady a nice, chatty old soul—gave us the back room on the third floor—night & day attendance—for 7$—the cheapest board I ever knew, taking into the consideration the central situation and the living...

Today, the corner is home to O'Hara's Restaurant and Pub.

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Louis C.K. shot the stand-up interludes for his tv show Louie at the Comedy Cellar in Manhattan's Greenwich Village. If you want to eat like he does in the show's opening, you can stuff your face with a slice at Ben's Pizzeria around the corner on 3rd Street and MacDougal.

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