Alice Austen House, Dutch Colonial Revival house in Rosebank, Staten Island, United States.
The Alice Austen House is a Dutch Colonial Revival residence in Rosebank, Staten Island, with white wood-clad walls, wide porches, and windows facing New York Harbor. It is listed as a National Historic Landmark and a New York City Landmark, and today operates as a museum open to the public.
The building dates to 1690, when it was constructed as a small dwelling, and was significantly enlarged and reshaped after the Austen family acquired it in 1844. Alice Austen lived there until 1945, when she was forced to leave, and the house later became a museum in her honor.
The house carries the nickname "Clear Comfort," a name Alice Austen gave it herself, still visible at the entrance today. Inside, visitors can see photographs she took of friends, neighbors, and strangers, showing how she turned everyday moments into a personal record of life around her.
The house sits on the waterfront in Rosebank and can be reached by public transit from the Staten Island Ferry terminal. The garden around the building is mostly flat, though some areas near the water's edge may be uneven underfoot.
Alice Austen took up photography at the age of 10, an activity that was very unusual for women at the time, and she continued it for most of her life. Many of her original glass plate negatives were found by chance at a dump, shortly before they would have been lost permanently.
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