neighborhood, the latest suburb for New York's wealthy merchant class. Nearly two centuries later, most of the neighborhood's original houses have been demolished. 29 E. 4th Street remains, however, much as it did when hardware merchant Seabury Tredwell moved his family and their four Irish servants into the house 179 years ago.
That remarkable perseverance is very much thanks to the tireless work of the staff of the Merchant's House Museum, the not-for-profit organization that maintains the house and keeps it open to the public as a museum. Pi Gardiner is the executive director. "When you walk into the parlor, you feel the nineteenth century," she explained of her initial attraction to the house. "I fell in love with it."
Similarly, actor John Kevin Jones loved the period atmosphere and thought it would be the ideal setting for a solo performance of Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol. "Doing A Christmas Carol in a Victorian home seemed so perfect," he recalled of the initial idea. So Jones and Summoners Ensemble Theatre contacted the museum to set up a private performance in early 2013.
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