* No. 303 East 18th Street – a/k/a Fanny Fern House, this Italianate brownstone-front row house was built in 1858/59 and sold to the most famous—and most highly paid—columnist in the country at the time, Mrs. Fanny Fern. Fern championed equal rights for women and was, thus, acquainted with many of the personalities of the day. Indeed, she would have many of them visit her home. From time to time, the likes of Henry Ward Beecher and Horace Greeley—along with a number of other luminaries—would find themselves within her parlors. The house, located near several hosptials, would be most associated, however, with the medical profession, as doctors and dentists would use the ground floor for their offices and the stories above for their families. Two individuals, not connected to the medical profession, however, lived here, as well – the immigrant who designed the logo for the Universalist Church and a British athlete who competed in the 1956 Olympic Games. The house, originally labelled No. 182, it would be given its present number about a decade after it was built.
