Photo: Nathaniel Popkin
As an architect, I’ve tromped through obscure places chasing a unique structure or historic location. In Paris, I sought the laboratory of Claude Bernard, the great 19th century physiologist, only to end up in some ordinary basement space that had become the precise location of history lost to history. Why it took me some 20 years of casually walking past that old pile of bricks at Fourth and Delancey called The Physick House, home of the first significant American surgeon Philip Syng Physick, I just don’t know.
But I know I’m not the only one. The Frank Furness-designed Emlen Physick Estate, Cape May home of Dr. Physick’s grandson, is a better known house museum than the Fourth Street Federal style mansion of Dr. Physick himself…
RelentlesslyCurious 