This is a Message Board Post that is gatewayed to this mailing list. Classification: Query Message Board URL: http://boards.ancestry.com/mbexec/msg/rw/YRB.2ACE/889.1 Message Board Post: At http://www.nypl.org/branch/man/blr.html I found this: "Manhattan Libraries: Bloomingdale Regional Branch Before the Revolutionary War, the Dutch who settled in the beautiful countryside, now known as the Upper West Side, called the area "Bloemendaal," meaning valley of flowers. Anglicized as Bloomingdale, this rural community was connected to the lower part of Manhattan by the Bloomingdale Road, its route largely echoed today by Broadway. In 1898, the community had its first library, the Bloomingdale Branch of the New York Free Circulating Library, which was consolidated in 1901 with The New York Public Library...." I found nothing on Harensville. In the late 18th Century and into the very beginning of the 19th, northern Manhattan was still pretty rural and there were hamlets and communities here and there which are no more. There's quite a bit of history that was lost as the island was developed into the big city we think of today, especially some Rev War battlefields and Colonial Period cemeterys. -steve-