That fine row of stately houses remains the symbol of dignified beauty and distinction and an aristocracy that is not old-fashioned but perennial.
Such names as we read associated with the story of Washington Square and its environs! Names great in politics and patriotism, in art and literature, in learning and distinction, in fashion and fame and architecture.

Hardly one of them but is connected with great position or great achievement or both.

Rhinelander, Roosevelt, Hamilton, Chauncey, Wetmore, Howland, Suffern, Vanderbilt, Phelps, Winthrop,--the list is too long to permit citing in full.

Three mayors have lived there, and in the immediate vicinity dwelt such distinguished literary persons as Bayard Taylor, Henry James, George William Curtis, N.P.Willis (_Nym Crynkle_), our immortal Poe himself, Anne Lynch,--poetess and hostess of one of the first and most distinguished salons of America--Charles Hoffman, editor of the _Knickerbocker_, and so on.

Another centre of wit and wisdom was the house of Dr.Orville Dewey,--whose Unitarian Church, at Broadway and Waverly Place, was the subject of the first successful photograph in this country by the secret process confided to Morse by Daguerre.
[Illustration: OLDEST BUILDING ON THE SQUARE.