The Block That Refused to Update -- East 64th Street, Madison to Park Avenues

East 64th Street, between Madison and Park Avenues, was lined with speculative four-story brownstones by the late 19th century. -- photo by Alice Lum

The Upper East Side underwent a building boom in the 1870s and 1880s as comfortable brownstone homes were erected for middle and upper-middle class families.  But as the city’s millionaires moved northward along Fifth Avenue, these traditional, now-out-dated homes were demolished to make way for more lavish structures.

Most of them were, anyway.

As mansions were rising on the nearby avenues in 1898, Dr. William Horatio Bates was living contentedly at No. 50 East 64^th Street, between Madison and Park Avenues.  The narrow brownstone—only two bays wide—was a match to its next door neighbor at No. 48.  The twin houses had been built on speculation in a modified Italianate style.

Houses like Dr. Bates's at No. 50 (left) was built with successful, professional buyers in mind -- photo by Alice Lum

Dr. Bates’ house sat high above an English basement; eleven brownstone steps rose up to the parlor floor.   Oaken doors with a beveled glass transom sat snugly-protected by a carved stone entranceway.  A rigidly angled bay at the second floor was decorated with foliate panels.

Details of the Bates house were up-to-the-minute style-wise -- photo by Alice Lum

It was the perfect home for a successful yet not overly-wealthy professional.   And while the neighborhood changed, Dr. Bates’ house did not.  As the 20^th century dawned, Robert I. Jenks razed the old brownstone two houses away at No. 54 and replaced it with a stylish neo-Georgian home with an up-to-date American basement plan.  Directly across the street limestone-clad Beaux Arts and French Gothic residences rose.

When Robert Jenks built his neo-Georgian home where brownstones had been, he no doubt expected other millionaires to follow suit; they didn't. -- photo by Alice Lum

In the meantime, William Bates practiced his medicine and wrote.  Excerpts from his “Suprarenal Therapy” were printed in the March 24, 1900 issue of The Medical News and he was author of several other medical publications.

John Bradley Cumings purchased the house around 1904.  Cumings and his wife, the former Florence B. Thayer, moved to New York in 1902 from Boston.  The broker became a member of the firm of Cumings & Marckwald at 36 Wall Street.  Before long he held a directorship in the Subsurface Torpedo Boat Company, manufacturers of military submarines.  His financial success was mirrored in his several club memberships:  The Racquet, Metropolitan, Riding and the Knollwood Country Club.

Further down the block, other attractive residences hang on -- photo by Alice Lum

In January 1912 the couple sailed to Europe for a brief stay.  For their return voyage, they opted for the best.  On April 10^th they boarded a luxurious new ocean liner in Southampton that carried 2,200 passengers and was reportedly the last word in transatlantic travel. 

It was named the RMS Titanic.

Aida M. Seaman, who sometimes hyphenated her last name as Seaman-Bates, moved in next.  She was active in charities, including the New York Infirmary for Women and Children.  In 1914, quite surprisingly, the south side of the block where Aida lived still retained nearly all of its old, outdated brownstone houses.

Dr. E. Neustadt owned No. 50 in the 1945, when he sold it to Major Edward D. Stone.  It would be the end of the line for the house as a private dwelling.  Stone was an architect, the head of Edward D. Stone Associates, and he announced his intention to “remodel the four-story house to provide for his offices on the two lower floors and his residence on the upper floors.”

In 1958 the house became the design headquarters and showroom of Luten-Clarey-Stern, importers and interior designers.   By now the north side of the block was filled mostly with hulking, high-end apartment houses and the Hotel Plaza Athenee.  Yet No. 50 remained unchanged.

Rainbows of light fall on the foyer floor from the beveled glass overlight -- photo by Alice Lum

“A magnificent brass doorknob from India and a shiny brass plaque that spells Luten-Clarey-Stern are the only indications that a brownstone at 50 East Sixty-fourth Street differs from the many others in New York City,” reported Noelle Mercanton in The New York Times.

For a time in the 1960s the old house was home to the Royal Marks Gallery.  Today Dr. Bates’ comfortable brownstone house has been renovated into apartments, with a bookstore in the English basement.

photo by Alice Lum

While the great middle bulk of the south side of the block retains its 19^th century brownstones, most have been heavily altered.  Even the twin house next door has lost its stoop, its door frame and its oak doors.  That the houses should remain at all, however, in this neighborhood where wealthy Edwardians made fashionable improvements, is quite surprising.

The Lost Peter Goelet Mansion -- 19th Street and Broadway

Behind closed shutters with broken slats, the reclusive Hannah Gerry lived out her last years -- photo NYPL Collection

Broadway around 19^th Street had drastically changed in 1895.   Tall commercial buildings replaced the proud brownstone mansions that once lined the street and high-end emporiums lured wealthy shoppers who now lived further uptown.  There was no trace of the fashionable residential neighborhood of a generation earlier. 

Except for the brooding brown mansion at the northeast corner of Broadway and 19^th Street where a single elderly woman sat behind closed shutters in constant twilight. 

The house was built by Cornelius T. Williams around 1830; the same year that he fought the city’s plans to intersect his immense property with streets and avenues.   The hulking four-story mansion was designed in the relatively new Greek Revival style.  The handsome cast iron balconies that hugged the parlor-floor windows and the dignified, columned entrance were the only ornaments to the otherwise staid home. 

Williams’ house was nearly centered on the lot, surrounded by grassy yards and gardens and protected by a high iron fence.   To the rear, a large glass-enclosed conservatory extended into the gardens. 

Despite his protests, Williams would see his land developed.  He had already given up land for Union Square to the south and in 1831 he would sell land to Samuel B. Ruggles to become part of Gramercy Park. 

In the meantime another family was accumulating Manhattan property.  Brothers Peter and Robert Goelet inherited valuable land acquired by their father and grandfather.   They continued the family policy of investing in real estate, paying close attention to the trends of the city’s expansion and development.  Their property holdings would become among the most extensive and valuable in the city. 

After Cornelius T. Williams died, the bachelor Peter Goelet paid $22,500 for the mansion at Broadway and 19^th Street in 1836.  Reclusive and a bit eccentric, he filled the yards with exotic birds from around the world—peacocks, storks, pheasants, and other brilliantly-plumed fowl.  Henry Hall, in his 1895 “America’s Successful Men of Affairs,” noted that “During the summer time, some of these were to be seen stalking about the grounds surrounding the Goelet mansion.” 

To ensure a supply of fresh milk, Goelet kept a cow in the backyard.  During winter the animals were housed in the stone Gothic Revival carriage house.   

Preferring his solitude, the wealthy landowner would spend his evenings in his basement shop where he had a forge and machinery.  Henry Hall noted that here “he manufactured, after the fashion of one of the Kings of France, various sorts of machinery, but particularly locks and curious and intricate patterns.”  Goelet installed his inventions throughout the house, never seeking patents or outside manufacture of his ideas. 

The Goelets had two sisters, Hannah and Jean.  In 1835 Hannah married United States Naval officer Thomas R. Gerry, son of the former Vice President of the United States, Elbridge Gerry.  The couple had a son, Elbridge T. Gerry who would become Commodore Elbridge Gerry, founder of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children. 

When Thomas Gerry died in 1845, Hannah moved in with Peter and the two of them would live in mysterious seclusion for the rest of their lives. 

Peter embraced any form of money-savings he could muster.  Gustavus Myers wrote in 1910 that “His passion for economy was carried to such an abnormal stage that he refused even to engage a tailor to mend his garments…For stationery he used blank backs of letters and envelopes which he carefully and systematically saved and put away.  His house at Nineteenth street, corner of Broadway, was a curiosity shop…he had a law library of 10,000 volumes, for it was a fixed, cynical determination of his never to pay a lawyer for advice that he could himself get for the reading.” 

The New York Times would gently put it “In money matters Mr. Goelet was noted for his economy, which he practiced at all times, never allowing himself to spend a dollar the full worth of which he did not receive.” 

Myers called Goelet, “very melancholy and, apart from his queer collection of pets, cared for nothing except land and houses.”  Indeed, when not tinkering with his inventions he spent his time pouring over his ledgers of property.  He kept one cardinal rule:  never sell a foot of land. 

One by one, the mansions along Broadway fell victim to encroaching commerce until the house where Peter and his widowed sister lived was an isolated anachronism.  “The extraordinary spectacle of a cow, storks, guinea-pigs, and other animals, feeding quietly in the busiest and most bustling part of Broadway, was one that attracted every stranger’s curiosity, and during the fine days in Summer it was no uncommon thing to see a considerable crowd gathered in front of the house gazing through the iron railing at the unwonted sight within,” mused The Times years later, in 1879. 

Peter’s immense fortune, estimated at $6 million in 1861 had doubled in 1873, despite the crippling financial panic of that year. 

In 1878 Goelet’s physical condition declined.  The New York Times explained it, saying “His complaint, which was nothing more complicated than general decay consequent upon advanced age, confined him to his residence.”  A year later in late October he became seriously ill and he died in the house on November 22, 1879. 

Peter Goelet’s brownstone mansion was passed on to his niece, Mrs. Elbridge T. Gerry, Hannah’s daughter-in-law.   Unlike the rest of the family who, as The Lewiston Daily Sun noted on June 5, 1893, “have left the old Goelet homes and live in brownstone palaces farther up town in the ultra fashionable quarters,” Hannah stayed on in the house, tended to by two loyal servants. 

The family did not pressure the aged woman to leave and she remained on as if time had not already passed her and the old house by.  The cow and the peacocks had long disappeared.  The stone carriage house had fallen into ruin.  “Its once fanciful windows are shattered, its ornamented timbers are rotting and crumbling away, and the door on Nineteenth street has not swung on its hinges for a half dozen years or more,” said The Lewiston Daily Sun. 

“The house exists because its occupant lives,” the newspaper said. 

Truly, the once-magnificent mansion in which Hannah Goelet Gerry hid was neglected.  “The whole appearance of the edifice is that of an abandoned homestead,” The Sun said.  Hannah rarely left the house and the servants – an aged butler who had been hired by Peter 50 years earlier and an equally-old maid—were seen only sporadically.  The wooden shutters were kept closed with the slats partially opened to allow light inside.   Years later, in 1901, an article in The Book Buyer reminisced “…frequently the old lady’s face at an upper window surprised the careless glance of persons passing in the crowd of Broadway.” 

And yet, as one newspaper noted, “It is safe to say, however, that if the interest upon the ground rent which the property would command is considered Miss Goelet’s lonely home is more expensive than many of the palatial residences in the vicinity of Central Park.” 

Only the tenacious residency of Hannah Goelet Gerry kept the mansion standing.  In 1887 the travel guide “Brief Summer Rambles Near Philadelphia” said “This fine dwelling of a former day is almost smothered by the towering stores around it, and will soon give way to their advancing tide.” 

On September 3, 1895 The New York Times reported that the 90-year old widow was “dangerously ill from pneumonia at her home in the Goelet mansion…and it is feared that she cannot recover.” 

Within two weeks Hannah Gerry was dead.  

Not long afterward, the crumbling Gothic Revival carriage house was demolished “to make way for a business structure,” said The Times. 

But for over a year and a half the great mansion sat empty.  On March 14, 1897 The New York Tribune remarked on the disparity between the old relic and its new neighbors.  “The Lincoln Building, the Decker stone-and-terra-cotta structure, and a ten-story stone building, all of recent construction, are main features of the elevation and transformation of Broadway in Union Square.  The Sloane Building, at the southwest corner of Nineteenth-st., with its nine stories, stands in marked contrast with the old Goelet mansion opposite at the northeast corner.  This old house is one of the exceedingly few distinct landmarks of Broadway which have withstood the pressure of the last quarter of a century.” 

But two weeks later it would all end.  On April 2, the Tribune reported “With the filing of a set of building plans yesterday the passing of an old Broadway landmark becomes a certainty…It is not a great length of time since every stranger in the city, even those who had never heard of the house, stopped to look at it, being attracted by the strange sight of a cow that used to wander about the little patch of green behind the bars of the tall front fence.”

“But in time the cow disappeared,” said the article.  “Later the only evidence to be seen outwardly that the place was inhabited was the occasional sight at one of the front windows of the last occupant of the mansions, Mrs. Gerry.”

Later that summer Andrew C. Zabriskie, president of the American Numismatic and Archaeological Society, began an address by saying “While walking downtown on the bright and beautiful mornings of the past week, I have watched with feelings akin to sadness the demolition of that old landmark, the Goelet mansion, on the northeast corner of 19^th Street and Broadway.  Years ago it was a source of delight to me, a little child, when taken out for a walk, to stop and peer through the iron railings, at the cow, the peacock, and the golden pheasants and if perchance the peacock should spread his tail, my cup of joy would be full.”

Where an eccentric millionaire’s brownstone mansion had stood a massive eight-story brick-and-stone building arose.  And before long, the memories of peacocks, a cow, and the haunting visage of a lonely reclusive widow faded away.

The 1948 Millinery Center Synagogue -- No. 1025 6th Avenue

At the turn of the last century, the millinery trade was centered in the Broadway and Houston Street neighborhood.  But already it was slowly moving northward.  By the time World War I had ended, the millinery district had followed the migration of the apparel industry into the new Garment District.

Men’s and women’s wholesale hat manufacturers and related industries—trims, feathers, ribbons, etc.—were centered in a five-block area.  Between 5^th and 6^th Avenues, from 35^th Street to 40^th, were upwards of 600 hat firms with 15,000 employees; many of which were hard-working Jewish immigrants.

As the firms moved in, small houses and commercial buildings were replaced by factories and office space.  In the years between 1905 and 1930 more than two dozen multistory buildings went up.  Here workers toiled with felt and straw, ribbons and rhinestones, creating the hats that would keep America in fashion.

Religiously observant Jewish workers in the Millinery Center immediately faced a problem: living in Brooklyn or, in some cases, as far away as Long Island, they needed a local synagogue for daily minyan – prayer services – or for the prayers for the dead recited during the week.

In 1935 the Millinery Center Synagogue was founded to address this problem.  By now fully two-thirds of the hat makers in the United States were centered within the small Manhattan district.    The congregation made do, worshiping in a second-floor Millinery District loft for a decade.

But despite the Great Depression and the shortage of building materials after World War II, the determined congregation managed to raise $150,000 for the erection of its own building.  Then on October 7, 1945, the announcement was made that the property at 1025 6^th Avenue had been purchased as the site of an actual synagogue building.   The New York Times reported that “H. I. Feldman, architect, has been commissioned to prepare plans and supervise construction” of the three-story structure.

Feldman had begun his practice in 1921 and by now had almost single-handedly designed the Grand Concourse in the Bronx which was lined with his stunning Art Deco style apartment buildings.   By the time Feldman died in 1981 he had designed 2,500 apartment houses in the New York area.  The little synagogue on 6^th Avenue would be a unique commission.

The resulting synagogue, completed in 1948 was a somewhat severe Modernist design.  Faced in limestone, it boasted little exterior decoration—a centered magen david at the roofline, a frieze announcing the name of the synagogue in sleek mid-century lettering at the third floor, and a large rectangular stained glass window over the wide entrance doors.

Suddenly the small congregation had a building to be proud of—and even air conditioning.   The main floor of the temple would seat 128 worshipers and space was provided for social activities as well.  Here such groups as the Millinery Bowling League, the Millinery Salesman Union, the Millinery Textile Club and retailers convened.

photo by Martha Cooper, placematters.net

As the Millinery Center Synagogue was being completed, Joseph Guttman, a Czechoslovakian concentration camp survivor, was arriving in New York.    The young man--the sole surviving member of his family--brought with him a knowledge of the Jewish liturgy and a remarkable voice.

Guttman became cantor of the synagogue; a position he would hold for nearly four decades.  Reportedly it was here that he instructed two other young cantors the High Holiday liturgy.  Those young men would go on to fame outside their synagogues as the opera stars Richard Tucker and Jan Peerce.

Tucker reported the problems he had in reconciling his duties as a cantor with the demands of his profession.  Jewish groups were routinely offended by his singing at the Metropolitan Opera on Friday evenings or holy days.

Over half a century later the impressive little synagogue remains a mainstay for Jewish workers in the Garment District.  Its crisp Modernist façade sits in stark contrast with its dingy Victorian neighbors and serves as reminder of the rich cultural heritage of the area.

Many thanks to Keith Taillon for suggesting this post.  Non-credited photographs taken by the author.

The "Chelsea Firehouse" -- No. 323 West 21st Street

photo by Beyond My Ken

Before 1865 New York City’s fire fighting depended on an disorganized collection of volunteer companies.  When a fire broke out, young men in the neighborhood called “laddies” would scramble to the fire house.  Nearby fire houses would vie with one another to arrive at the fire first, or to become more skilled at extinguishing it.  The volunteer groups gained a reputation as rowdy, boisterous gangs whose fire houses were essentially social clubs.

The devastating fire that destroyed Barnum’s Museum in 1865 along with pressure on the State Assembly by reformers resulted in the Act of 1865 that coupled Brooklyn and New York with a paid, united “Metropolitan District” fire department.

It was about this time that a new fire house was constructed at No. 323 West 21^st Street in the burgeoning neighborhood that only thirty years earlier had still been part of Clement Moore’s family estate, Chelsea.   The red brick, four-story building pretended to be nothing more than it was:  a firehouse.  Trimmed in brownstone, the central opening was wide enough to accommodate a new horse-drawn steam pumper engine.

It would seem that by 1875 the fire house had already been given over to other uses.  William Livingston was a carriage driver who was living here on May 16 of that year.  Livingston was arrested after the horse and carriage he was driving ran over and killed 9-year old Jacob Levi.

Emma K. Beam became owner of the building in 1908 and continued leasing out the upstairs rooms.  The American Art Directory listed John Yeats as living here in 1918.  Yeats was perhaps the first tenant in the building with an artistic bent; he would certainly not be the last.

Anna Gerard sought refuge here in 1921 to escape her husband, William, who still lived in their furnished room down the block.  The pregnant woman had filed for divorce charging cruel and inhuman treatment.

In court she complained, “Each morning before leaving home [Gerard] would give me $1 with instructions that that was to provide for the house that day.  On his return he would require an accounting of the money given.  When told that the dollar had been spent for food for the house he told me I lied and that I had spent it on other men.”

Gerard, who was a worker at the Art Printing Company in Manhattan, accused her of abandonment and added that he never struck his wife.

It would seem Gerard had some control issues.

In 1929 Emma Beam sold the building to “an investor who plans to alter the structure,” according to The New York Times.    Those alterations did not happen until 6 years later, according to Building Department records, when the firehouse was converted to a “garage for more than five autos” with offices on the second floor; and one apartment each on the upper floors.

It was most likely at this time that the architectural detailing of the brownstone lintels and main entrance surround were shaved flat—a common practice in an age that viewed Victorian ornamentation as grossly passé.

Although the building plans called for offices on the second floor, they never materialized.  In 1933 dancer Franziska Marie Boas had established her studio and “Boas School” here on the second floor and stayed on for nearly two decades.

Boas lived here with her friend, Jan Gray, and a big, shaggy sheepdog, “Name.”   The edgy artist staged avante garde performances like the “by invitation only” program of dances and percussion music listed in The New York Times on June 8, 1941.  Noted as “assisting artists” were dancer Valerie Bettis, and “director of Chinese music,” Danny Seid.

Franziska Boas confronted racism in the arts with multiracial dance groups and by opening her classes to all races.   She constructed a proscenium arch in the West 21^st Street space for her shows and would sometimes invite artists to sketch the improvisational dancers.  The room was decorated with ethnic instruments from around the world collected by her anthropologist father, Franz Boas.

In the meantime, struggling artists Andy Warhol and Philip Pearlstein were sharing a subleased, vermin-infested apartment at Avenue A and St. Mark’s Place in the East Village.  When the lease was up, they searched the New York Times classifieds and found someone who wanted to share her space.

It was dancer Franziska Boas.

Warhol and Pearlstein moved in to No. 323 West 21^st Street in 1949.  Boas set the artists up on one side of the proscenium while she conducted her school and programs on the other.  Pearlstein later said that “we were able to write to our families in Pittsburgh and our friends in New York that we have moved from one roach-ridden apartment to another.”

Directly below the apartment, at ground level, was now a bus service garage and parts company.  The accommodations above were barely more tolerable.  According to Warhol’s biographer, Victor Bockris, “One of the biggest problems was the ongoing battle with the roaches, who went after the black paint they used for lettering.  Andy would leave his empty soda-pop bottle out after lunch every day and by the evening it would be full of them.”

Warhol and Pearlstein managed to pay their portion of the rent to Boas; however she was not passing it on to the landlord.  In March 1950 all four tenants and the big shaggy dog were evicted.

In 1955 the building saw its first change in ownership since 1929.  At the time of the sale The Times noted “a store” on the ground floor of the apartment building.

As the Chelsea neighborhood around it changed, the red brick firehouse did as well.  In 1998 it was converted to luxury housing with a single-car garage in the former steam engine bay, and three apartments.  The high-end conversion landed the interiors of the duplex apartment (extending from part of the ground floor through to the second) in a 1999 issue of Architectural Digest.

In the same apartment that Andy Warhol fought roaches and Franziska Boas staged dance performances, more successful tenants now live -- photo www.elliman.com

From firehouse to luxury apartments, with some cockroaches and bus parts thrown in between, the mid-Victorian building at No. 323 West 21^st Street has a rich and varied history.

The 1902 Hamilton Fish House -- No. 55 East 77th Street

photo by Alice Lum

Remaining in the house he had shared with his wife, Emily Mann Fish was possibly too painful for Hamilton Fish after her death in 1899.   Shortly afterward the former New York State Assemblyman purchased the lot at No. 55 East 77^th Street and commissioned Charles Brendon to design an exuberant townhouse. 

Brendon headed up the architectural firm of, Charles Brendon & Co. which is barely remembered today.  While designing the Fish house, he was working on the 11-story Hotel Brayton that would rise at Madison Avenue and 27^th Street.  For Hamilton Fish, he pulled out all the stops.

Working in the then-popular Beaux Arts style, Brendon pushed the limits.  The brick-and-limestone house, completed in 1902, rose five stories over an American basement.  The rusticated first floor included an oval window with carved framing, a rectangular window, a recessed entrance behind iron gates and robust scrolled-and-wreathed stone brackets upholding a balcony.  A carved cartouche announced the address.

photo by Alice Lum

Undulating balconies with sinuous iron railings in the central bay dripped with carved ornamentation.  Above it all a robust dormer sat above the cornice.

The Fish family moved in.  Hamilton Fish, Jr. was 10 years old and would go on to make his own mark in American politics.  Eldest daughter Janet was, according to The New York Times, “one of the best liked girls in society…She is extremely tall and willowy, a pronounced brunette with much vivacity of expression.”   Julia Kean Fish (“who has spent considerable time abroad,” noted The Times), Emily Rosalind Fish and Helena L. Fish completed the family.

Society took note when, four years later, the wedding plans of Julia were announced.   The debutante married William Lawrence Breese, who lived both in London and New York, in a private ceremony in St. James Church conducted by Bishop Courteney.  Later a reception was held in the East 77^th Street house.

The couple sailed off to England where the new Mrs. Breese was presented at Court by the Dowager Duchess of Roxburghe, the mother-in-law of William’s sister.

An ambitious dormer with scrolls, wreaths and a shell crowns the residence -- photo by Alice Lum

A year later Hamilton Fish was elected to the US House of Representatives and leased the house to the Plauchon family.  While living there, 15-year old John Plauchon underwent a tonsillectomy at 301 E. 85^th Street.  When complications arose, he was moved to the Manhattan Eye and Ear Hospital where he died from “bleeding following an operation,” according to the Coroners’ Office.

John W. Ellsworth leased the house the following year.  In 1910 he and his wife, Magee, and their two children had five live-in servants.   Mrs. Ellsworth, not content with immersing herself in teas and dances, was a member of the Academy of Political Science in the City of New York.

The Ellsworths stayed on until 1914, the same year that John, now 42 years old, bought his shiny new Reo automobile.   In their place came the successful, 34-year old Thomas Crimmins.   The Harvard graduate entered the contracting business of his uncle in 1900 as a partner in Thomas E. and Thomas Crimmins.  By 1903 he had organized the general contracting firm of Thomas Crimmins Contracting Co.  

The apparently tireless Crimmins was president of the Harvard Engineering Society of New York and a member of eight clubs and the Chamber of Commerce.    Crimmins and his family of four would stay here until around 1922.

Then, that year, the metallurgist Brent Nevill Rickard and his wife, Elizabeth, three children and their Irish terrier, Mickytwo, were living here.   Rickard came from a family of mining engineers and metallurgists and was Assistant Superintendent of the American Smelting & Refining Co. in Murray, Utah; a position that kept him away from East 77^th Street for periods.

The house that for three decades had garnered little attention was leased on January 22, 1932 by Dr. Otto C. Kiep, the German Consul .   With Adolf Hitler firmly in power in 1938 police guards were necessarily posted outside the house where, now, Consul General Johannes Borchers lived.  Threats to blow up the German Consulate General at 17 Battery Place were received by phone.

Protestors gathered outside the house on several occasions, including the Teachers Union on November 23.  Hamilton Fish, who still owned the house coincidentally, spoke out against the Reich; even while his Congressman son Hamilton Fish, Jr. was accused of supporting Hitler and his anti-Semitic policies.  Speaking of the German-American Bund, a propaganda tool, Fish told reporters “the Bund has no place in free America.”

After the United States entered World War II on December 7, 1941 the house on East 77^th Street was empty again.

When Fish’s niece, Patricia Rosalind Cutler was married to Ensign Robert Ludlow Fowler 3^rd, USNR in St. Mark’s-in-the-Bouwerie the reception was held in the residence.  The couple’s pedigree was sterling.  Patricia was descended from Colonel Nicholas Fish, Peter Stuyvesant, Peter Kean and Hamilton Fish.  Her husband was a descendant of Robert Livingston, first Lord of Livingston Manor.

In 1948 the house was sold and converted to high-end apartments.  Here Lois Balken was living in 1951 when 67-year old burglar Wllliam Hahn made off with $10,000 in jewelry from her apartment.   Hahn, whom The New York Times described as “tall, slender, conservatively dressed” and “ bespectacled,” was called by one detective, “probably the best jewel robber in the country.”  He was said to have stolen $1 million in gems in 1934 alone.

Among Lois Balken’s neighbors at the time was the wealthy Mrs. Henry Gansevoort Sanford.

The house served as CIA Centre in the 1975 film “Three Days of the Condor.”

Robert Redford rushes up the steps of No. 55 E. 77th in "Three Days of the Condor" -- photo http://onthesetofnewyork.com/threedaysofthecondor.html

No. 55 East 77^th Street was gently used by its high-end tenants and after being sold in 1988 was reconverted to a single family residence.  A year-long renovation was initiated by Renotal Construction Corp. in 2002 to bring the plumbing, electricity and HVAC systems up to date, as well as to repair the façade.

photo by Alice Lum

The mansion is little changed since its completion in 1902.  Its remarkable history is matched only by its over-the-top Beaux Arts façade—what the AIA Guide to New York City called “vainglorious architecture of its time.”

The 1913 Regent Theatre -- St. Nicholas Ave and West 116th Street

In 1915, for 25 cents, patrons would enjoy "vaudeville and feature films" -- photo Museum of the City of New York

1912 was an exciting year to be alive.   Technology was exploding with inventions like the telephone, automobile, and airplane becoming more and more common.   Electricity was changing the way people went about their daily lives and the gramophone replaced the music box in family parlors.   Europe was the romantic, idyllic travel spot for the well-heeled and no one could envision the horrors that a world war would bring in just two years.

By now silent movies had matured from short Nickelodeon diversions to “photo plays.”  The entertainment that had recently been deemed by many as immoral was becoming respectable as family entertainment.

It was time for the motion picture to have its own home.

Harlem was already a major center of entertainment with respected theaters and an opera house.  In April of 1912 New Yorker Robert S. Marvin joined with Baltimore-based businessmen Charles J. Kuhlmann, James McEvoy, Jr., and William H. Hudgins to form the St. Nicholas-Seventh Avenue Theatre Company.  Its sole purpose was to build and operate “theatres, halls and other places of amusement” which would include those specifically for “moving picture films or other motion pictures.”

Only two months later the new firm spent $100 on the lot at the southwest corner of 7^th Avenue, St. Nicholas Avenue and West 116^th Street.   The natural choice for its architect was Thomas W. Lamb—already renowned for designing legitimate theaters.   It would be a career-changing commission.  Of the over 300 theater designs Lamb eventually designed, the majority would be movie houses.

The resulting Regent Theatre, completed in 1913, was among the first, if not the first, monumental movie palaces that would flourish through the next decade.   While drawing on the established form of the legitimate Broadway theater, Lamb used an exotic, romantic blend of styles to lure patrons to the wonders inside.  Extensive multicolored terra cotta cast in Italian Renaissance, northern European and Mannerist styles exploded in exuberant arcades, loggias, balconies on a diamond-pattern base. 

The newly-opened Regent, before advertising would cover the parapet.

The interior was lavish.  Frescoes, ornate moldings and elaborate chandeliers took the movie goer from the street to a fantasy palace disconnected from the world outside.   The auditorium with its loosely-styled “Spanish-Moorish” motif, was carpeted in dark blue below framed wall panels of brocaded satin.   Artist Francisco Pradillo painted the grand mural above the proscenium arch, “The Surrender of Granada,” that enhanced the theme.  The immense space could seat 1,854 patrons.

The auditorium was decorated in red, blue and gold --photo Museum of the City of New York

On February 9, 1913 the New York Tribune reported on the opening of the $500,000 movie theater.  “Not only did uptown society attend, but many prominent people from all parts of the city witnessed the photo plays presented at the elaborate theatre…The Orpheus Quartet gave a concert of classic and popular selections, accompanied by Arthur Depew, of Brooklyn, the organist, and the full orchestra.”

Owner Henry Marvin intended from the start to separate his theater from its more tawdry predecessors.  “The Regent presents no vaudeville, selections from grand opera and symphony music being substituted,” said the Tribune.   The Sun reported on some of the important audience members who viewed Pandora’s Box that night.  “Among those in the boxes were Prince and Princess Jean Palealogue, Mr. and Mrs. Henry Neurington, Mr. and Mrs. Byron Fellows, Prince Jean Tapieha, Mr. and Mrs. Roland Hinton Corry, Mr. and Mrs. Frank Daniels, Col. William Washington, Rear Admiral and Mrs. Bradley Allen Fisk and Mr. and Mrs. J. J. Little and party.”

The pit was designed to accommodate a full symphony-sized orchestra and the electro-pneumatic organ was an innovation that would become a staple among the giant motion picture houses.   None of it went unnoticed by Harlem Magazine.  “Harlem’s latest and handsomest entertainment house, marks an altogether new era in the moving picture world, as it is without doubt the largest and most completely equipped motion picture playhouse yet opened.  For beauty and convenience it surpasses many of the Broadway theatres.  It has been the intention of the Regent management to give New York Theatre goers something individually new in its form of entertainment, in a combination of the finest selection of photoplays that can be produced and music of a high and pleasing quality.”

In keeping with the high-tone quality of entertainment they intended to offer, Marvin and his manager, Claude H. Talley, screened an extravaganza in March of that year.  The New York Times reported “As an appropriate feature for Easter Sunday, a motion picture entitled ‘From the Manger to the Cross,’ illustrating the life of Christ, will be shown at the Regent Theatre…This production is in five reels.  The scenes were photographed in the Holy Land, and a specially arranged musical programme will be played by full orchestra, organ and chimes.”

Oddly enough, the Regent struggled.  Within a year, Henry Marvin hired the flamboyant Samuel Lionel Rothapfel, later known simply as “Roxy,” as “director.”    Roxy was already well known in the Midwest for his genius in accompanying music to the silent films.  By December 1913 he had made some renovations of the interior—adding potted plants, changing details like the stage curtains and lighting—and was ready for the public.

The Regent was reintroduced with The Last Days of Pompeii.  An epic production, it featured custom stage settings, an organ prelude, an orchestra, singers and recitations by live actors.  The Motion Picture News was awed.  “It served very clearly…to portend for the first time the theatrical future of the picture…it was less than a revelation. “  Likewise, The Harlem News called Roxy, “a veritable genius in the art of staging moving picture plays.”

Roxy saved the day and the Regent thrived.  In 1916 patrons were lured back week after week with serials that accompanied the feature films.  One, that year, was The Strange Case of Mary Page.  An advertisement in The Evening World enticed audiences.  “You see Mary pursued by the ‘Brute.’  You see the lights and shadows of stage life.  You see the tremendous court scene, without doubt the most thrilling and realistic trial found in the fiction of any country.  You see Mary badgered by the prosecution—every man against her but one.

You see this one—her lover and attorney—fighting desperately to snatch his sweetheart from the death cell.  You hear testimony that makes you clench your fists.  You see vividly pictured both the chivalry and the brutality a young girl meets in her struggle to win success as an actress.  Through it all you follow the shimmering, golden, unbreakable thread of love.”

The theater was used not only for motion pictures; but like other grand spaces, was leased for events.  In June 1917 the “Jewish Billy Sunday,” Rabbi Herbert S. Goldstein held what he termed “a Jewish revival” meeting.

Nearly 2,000 patrons were given a scare on October 23, 1920 when fire broke out in the basement.  The New York Times reported that while the audience “was watching a vaudeville and motion picture show,” smoke began permeating the auditorium.  “The audience was told there was no danger, but that they could leave if they wished.”

They wished.

The crowd massed outside the theater while the blaze was quickly extinguished by firemen.  Those patrons who could prove they had been inside were readmitted and “the entertainment proceeded without further interruption.”

Although police and firefighters said the fire had started in the basement of the theater,  the manager, Joseph Connelly, insisted it was in an adjoining store.  His version made for better public relations.

 A year later the Pansy Amusement Corporation leased the theater and would run the Regent for decades.   In its 1937 lease extension, Pansy (now part of the RKO corporation), included television broadcasts.  The same year air conditioning was installed and the theater could be opened year-round for the first time in its existence.

The Regent Theatre Corporation, part of the RKO-Keith-Orpheum Theatres, Inc., purchased the theater in 1950.  But by the 1960s the Harlem neighborhood had changed drastically.  The 2000-seat movie theater was closed and the building sold to the First Corinthian Baptist Church on March 31, 1964.

An unfortunate scar remains where the marquee one hung, but the grandeur of the theater is still evident -- photo by Paul Lowry

The church, understandably, modified the auditorium to address the needs of a church rather than a movie house.  However, overall the interior and exterior of the grand movie palace remain intact, if a little careworn.  It is what the Landmarks Preservation Commission called in 1994 “one of New York City’s most significant surviving early motion picture theater buildings.”

Despite the renovation of the stage for religious purposes, the interior is largely intact. -- photo holy-ny.com

The 1927 East River Savings Bank -- Amsterdam Ave and 96th Street

photo by Alice Lum

John Leveridge was a prominent attorney in 1848.  His law offices were conveniently located in his row house at 145 Cherry Street, one block from the East River.  What was not convenient, however, was the lack of banking in the neighborhood.

To resolve the problem, Leveridge founded the East River Savings Institution, named after the nearby waterway.   On opening day Irish immigrant Mary Linny strode into Leveridge’s office, which now doubled as the bank, with perhaps a little trepidation.   Mary, who worked as a domestic servant, did what until a month ago was unthinkable.  She opened a bank account.

Until the passage of the Married Women’s Property Act bank accounts in a woman’s name were illegal.  The bank was the first savings bank to offer women the right to control their own funds deposited by them.

Mary Linny became not only one of the first clients of the East River Savings Institution, she broke ground as one of the first women in New York State to open a bank account.

The bank remained in Leveridge’s row house until 1851 when it moved to Chatham Square.  Only two years later its growth demanded new space at 3 Chambers Street with deposits now topping $1 million.   While other banks failed in the great Financial Panic of 1873, the East River Savings Institution survived and by 1895 deposits totaled more than $10 million.

In 1923, after the bank had moved two more times, a law permitting branch banks for savings institutions was passed.    The bank moved swiftly.  Two years later it purchased two tenement houses at the northeast corner of Amsterdam Avenue and West 96^th Street.   The same year the bank’s name was officially changed to the East River Savings Bank.

The architectural firm of Walker & Gillette was commissioned to design the new building and plans were filed that Fall.   The company was best known for residential designs – mansions and apartment buildings—however following the world war it received a series of bank commissions.

The tenement buildings were demolished in May, 1925 and construction began.  By the time of its completion on February 8, 1927 the new building would cost $265,000. 

Bank architecture had, for the most part, taken on monumental qualities following the financial panics of the late 19^th century.  Most depositors in savings banks had little or no money that they could afford to lose.  Earlier The Architectural Record had stressed “The effect of the structure must be one of great importance and simplicity.  It must make on the depositors the impression of being a perfectly safe place to leave their money and valuables.”

Walker & Gillette managed to do just that.  While Art Deco was shaping the look of Midtown buildings; the new branch would echo the classic temple design to which customers had become accustomed.   An Ionic portico of two immense columns faced the avenue while an imposing colonnade stretched along West 96^th Street.  Rather than imitate the more expected Roman protocol in which the columns would sit on stately pedestals; the architects sat them squarely on the sidewalk in the Greek fashion.

Double-height windows separated the engaged columns of 96^th Street, hinting at the soaring space inside.  Above  a hefty entablature hid the penthouse floor of the bank offices.  It was a limestone and marble temple to savings and thrift.

An armored car (left) sits before the newly-completed bank.  An addition five years later would double the size of the building -- photo NYPL Collection

The branch opened with little fanfare on March 5, 1927.  Despite the onslaught of the Great Depression two years later that crushed banks nationwide, the East River Savings Bank not only survived, but grew.   On April 12, 1931 The New York Times announced that “to provide additional facilities…the site occupied by two old five-story flats on the avenue adjoining the present bank building on the corner will be utilized for an addition to the building.”  The bank at the time had over $118 million in resources.

Walker & Gillette was called in again.  Construction began in June and was completed the following year.  The result was a seamless addition, dedicated on April 2, 1932, that doubled the size of the structure.   Costing $530,000 the extension stretched northward along the avenue, adding three matching columns.  Along the face of the parapet were carved quotations from Jefferson, “Save and teach all you are interested to save: Thus pave the way for moral and material success,” and from Lincoln, “Teach economy.  That is one of the first and highest virtues.  It begins with saving money.”

photo by Alice Lum

Things continued to go well for the bank, at lease for several decades.    In 1932 it absorbed the Maiden Lane Savings Bank and the Italian Savings Bank of the City of New York—both banks founded to serve the immigrant community. 

The branch provided the first major clue in the Lindbergh baby kidnapping case when detectives discovered a marked bill from the $50,000 ransom money deposited here.  “On April 4, 1932, the police got their hands on the first of the ransom notes,” reported The Times.  “It was a $5 red-seal note that had been put through the East River Savings Bank at Amsterdam Avenue and Ninety-sixth Street.”

Detectives traced the bill to the depositor, got a description, and the groundwork was laid for the kidnappers’ capture three years later.

High above the entrance doors is the bank's emblem. -- photo by Alice Lum

The 1930s was a time before Plexiglas teller windows and armed security guards.  Tellers often carried their own firearms not just to protect the bank, but for their own safety.  John E. Nilsen was one of them.

On July 24, 1936 as the 30-year old teller was preparing to close down his cage, he emptied the bullets from his pistol.   Around 4:15 pm, not realizing he had removed only five bullets from the .38-calibre weapon, he accidentally discharged it.  The sixth bullet struck him in the right eye.  The ten-year veteran of the bank tragically died two hours later.

Two decades later the country was overcome with fears of nuclear bomb attacks, as global tensions increased.   New Yorkers in 1951 were instructed regarding home bomb shelters—what essentials they should contain, and how to create them from coal cellars, interior halls, etc.  Two four-foot scale models of recommended home shelters were constructed by the Port of New York Authority and displayed in the lobby of the East River Savings Bank.

The success of the bank had lasted over a century and a half.   But by the 1970s things started going downhill.

Home loans and multifamily loans dropped off as interest rates skyrocketed.  When the bank acquired two savings and loans institutions, thereby taking advantage of new banking laws permitting S&L’s to invest five percent of their assets into real estate, it became attractive to real estate moguls.  One purchased the bank, changing it to the River Bank of America.

Bad loans forced the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. to issue a Cease and Desist order; and in 1995 the River Bank branches were sold to Marine Midland Bank.  Within two years Marine Midland decided to divest itself of the branch.

The New York Times joined the neighborhood in lamenting the move.  “The Marine Midland Bank on the northeast corner of Amsterdam Avenue and Ninety-sixth Street is the sort of solid, stately presence that nearby residents have come to assume is permanent.”

The noble financial monument was sold in 1998.  Before the year was up it had been renovated into a CVS Pharmacy, prompting the AIA Guide to New York City to comment, “temple to cosmetics?”

Today a pharmacy is enshrined in the classical structure -- photo by Alice Lum

Despite its retail use, the imposing granite bank retains its exterior grandeur.  Little has changed outwardly in the “stately presence that nearby residents have come to assume is permanent.”