At the Five Corners are several interesting old houses; Riker's Tavern on the southwest corner of Newark and Summit avenues, and Coulter's general store, now a grocery store and dwelling house, on the southeast corner of Newark and Summit avenues. Coulter's Tavern was on the site now occupied by the Avenue House; the old stone house built for a tavern by Mr. John Tise, on the northwest corner of Newark and Summit avenues, and the old building, formerly a store kept by Nicholas and Justus Jerolaman, on the northeast corner of Summit and Hoboken avenues. It is said that at the Corners, just in front of the point where stands the Avenue House, there was formerly a Liberty pole, probably erected about 1812-14, but at a St. Patrick's celebration, not long before the Civil War, there was found in the early morning a St. Patrick hung in effigy upon it; the indignant Irishmen cut the pole down and it was never replaced. Many of these old houses are a story and a half, some fronting the street, others with the gable end to the street, with dormer windows in the sloping roof which extended out over the porch, sometimes upon both sides of the house; in others the porch was only in front, and in the rear the roof sloped to within a few feet of the ground. One peculiarity in many of these early houses is that instead of using lathes, the "brown coat" of plaster was mixed with straw and thickly plastered on to the stone. Almost invariably an extension was built at one end, with the roof a few feet lower than the main part. In later days this was the kitchen, but in olden times the kitchen was a detached building, and the slaves slept in the loft. In the main part there was a wide hall, usually through the center of the house, but sometimes at one end, with the Dutch half doors at either end. During the summer months the family meals were usually served in the hall; they used a "comfore," a sort of chaffing dish with hot coals, upon which the kettle was set to boil the water for the tea. During the winter the living room was also the dining room. There are still preserved in some of these old houses, choice heirlooms of quaint furniture, rare old Delft, Prints, Psalm books with great silver clasps, a few old Dutch Bibles with board covers, and interesting relics of many kinds, of which an occasional glimpse is given at some loan exhibition, but usually they are carefully guarded from profane eyes.