In 1830, Cornelius Tiebout Williams built a large, four-story Greek Revival mansion with a carriage house and stables on the northwest tip of his 33-acre farm, which was about three blocks north of Union Place (today’s Union Square). When he died five years later, all his heirs drew lots out of a hat. A daughter, Mrs. Julia C. Miner, drew the 96- x 168-foot lot with the mansion on 19th and Broadway. Peter Goelet, a wealthy merchant who had inherited much of his father's real estate, paid the Miner family $22,500 for the property on January 1, 1844. The Goelet Mansion at 890 Broadway was considered extremely elegant in its day. It had a peak copper roof–which Peter replaced with a flat roof—cast iron balconies along the parlor-floor windows, and a large glass-enclosed conservatory that extended into the back gardens.

The mansion was surrounded by a grassy yard and gardens, which were under the care of Thomas Crimmins, Peter’s gardener. Peter filled the yard with exotic birds from around the world—Pheasants from India, storks from Egypt, birds of paradise, cranes, and other brilliantly plumed fowl with clipped wings would feed from his hand as New Yorkers and tourists alike gazed in astonishment through the iron fence. (It was a standing joke to tell passengers on the stage coaches that the yard was an annex to the Central Park menagerie.) In winter, the cow and the birds would take shelter in the stone Gothic Revival carriage house.

One New Yorker who loved to watch Peter’s exotic birds was Theodore Roosevelt Jr., who lived with his family one block over at 28 East 20th Street. From their third-floor back porch, where Theodore and his siblings played, Theodore could look down over the private garden and watch Peter feed his birds and milk his cow.

In 1849, Peter’s sister Hannah Green Gerry lost her husband, Naval officer Theodore Russell Gerry. She and her twelve-year-old son, Elbridge, and her nine-year old daughter, Almy, moved from their home at 48 Broadway into the old house at 890 Broadway with their bachelor brother and uncle. Rural life went on as normal, save for during the Draft Riots of 1863, when Eldbridge reportedly ordered the family’s coachmen to pull all the feathers from the peacocks so as not to attract attention.

In the years that followed, particularly after the Civil War, many of the city’s dry goods and specialty merchants relocated to northern Broadway in the area of Union Square. For example, directly across the street from the Goelet mansion was the retail store for the Gorham Silver Manufacturing Company at 889-191 Broadway, pictured here. Still, Peter Goelet continued to demonstrate that rural living was possible within a busy metropolis. (Some say he kept the cow and the birds in defiance to the encroachment of uptown improvements.)

Peter Goelet died in his home on November 21, 1879. Although many of the peacocks and other birds had long disappeared, the cow and the remaining birds were allowed to live out their lives in the yard (the cow was last seen around 1886). Peter also stipulated in his will that the house should not be destroyed for as long as Hannah Gerry lived. The family did not pressure Hannah to leave and she remained on with her two servants. Hannah passed away at the age of 89 on September 13, 1895. Her daughter, Almy Gallatin, now the wife of Frederick T. Gallatin, inherited the property. By that time, the stone carriage house had fallen into ruin, the iron fence was rusty and all the gates were held fast by rusted padlocks. The window panes in the stable where Peter once kept his horses were broken and the grass where cows and chickens once grazed was gone. In April 1897, the Peter Goelet mansion was demolished. A year later, in June 1898, plans were filed by Mrs. Gallatin for an eight-story brick structure on the site at 892 Broadway and 27 East 19th Street.