Ghosts of the Underground Railroad

The antebellum wood-frame house at 857 Riverside Drive, at 159th Street, is the only surviving Washington Heights home shot by the celebrated photographer Berenice Abbott for her 1939 book, “Changing New York.” Built in a transitional Greek Revival-Italianate style, the house was owned between 1852 and 1854 by the fiery abolitionist minister and sugar refiner Dennis Harris.