The Abused 1894 Bilger Stable - 49 Market Street

Market Street was lined with handsome, brick-faced homes by the late 1820s.  The family of Irish-born Thomas Dunphy occupied 49 Market Street in 1865.  Living in the house with Dunphy and his wife, Julia, were their daughter, Annie, and her husband, Charles Henry Hawkins.

A tragic and bizarre incident happened on December 13, 1865.  The New York Times reported that the 50-year-old Dunphy, "attempted to turn a summersault in his hallway, but fell heavily to the ground instead, fracturing his spinal column, and causing death to ensue."

Charles Hawkins was a butcher at 55 Market Street.  He and Annie continued to reside with Julia.  The couple would have five children, William, Sarah, Anna, Thomas and Richard.  

Following Julia Dunphy's death, the title to the house passed to Annie.  At the time of Annie's death in 1893, the neighborhood of her childhood had severely changed.  Private homes were being razed and replaced with tenement buildings.  In 1894, Charles H. Hawkins hired architect M. Muller to design a three-story stable building on the site of the former Dunphy house.  The structure would cost $10,000 to erect (about $365,000 in 2025).

image via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services

Above the expected configuration of the ground floor--a centered carriage bay flanked by a door and a window--Muller flexed his architectural skills.  Incised vertical lines in the brickwork below two bandcourses created the impression of double-height, fluted pilasters.  The cornice was a tour-de-force of the bricklayer's art.  Mimicking an ornate cast metal example, the brackets, dentils, paneled parapet and triangular pediment were all executed in brick.  Identifying the building as a livery stable was a carved horse's head.

Hawkins leased the property to James Bilger.  The lessee, most likely, had little or nothing to do with the business.  He was an established attorney and almost assuredly rented the stable to a proprietor.  In 1902, Thomas Hawkins sold the building to Lowenfeld & Prager.  (Interestingly, James Bilger acted as Hawkins's attorney for the transaction.)

Although in 1920 motorized vehicles had greatly replaced horses in New York City, when Lowenfeld & Prager sold 49 Market Street to Nicosia Bros. Company in August that year, it was described as a "modern stable."  Nicosia Bros. Company dealt in dairy products.  The building housed its delivery vehicles, horses, and its office.

Substantial change came in 1949.  With Prohibition in the rear view mirror, 49 Market Street was converted to a "restaurant, bar and grille" on the ground floor and an American Legion "clubroom" on the second.  In a slipshod attempt at a Mid-Century modernization, a red brick veneer obliterated M. Mullen's 1894 design.  Glass blocks filled the upper portions of the ground-floor openings, a brick diamond-patterned band separated the first and second floors, and the masterful cornice was removed.  The architect was apparently unwilling to destroy the sculpted horse's head, which now poked through the brick veneer.

image via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services

In the 1980s and '90s, the former bar space was home to a surprising tenant, Manhattan Custom Tackle.  Here anglers could purchase equipment for fly fishing.

In the early years of the 21st century, the 2,400-square-foot former American Legion space become home to the studio of multimedia artist Spencer Sweeney.  In the summer of 2017, Sweeney moved his studio to West 18th Street with a year left on his lease.  On November 12, 2018, The New York Times journalist Ben Detrick, reported that to make use of the now vacant space, Sweeney and artists Brendan Dugan and Urs Fischer "began inviting friends to the studio to make illustrations of human heads."  Detrick said the "Sunday night salon called Headz resurrected the spirit of Andy Warhol's Factory, the art club area and creative gatherings of yore in a gentrifying downtown where such avant-garde pockets are on the precipice of extinction."

Headz spread by word of mouth.  Nine months after the first gathering, it was "populated by contemporary artists including Kembra Pfahler, Joe Bradley and Alex Bag, improvisational jazz legends, night-life lurkers, skateboarders and Lower East Side teenagers."  At the end of the lease, the art parties ended on July 22, 2018, closing a colorful chapter in the many lives of 49 Market Street.

Today Happy Medium, an "arts club for casual artists," occupies the building.  And after more than 130 years, the stone horse above it all continues to survey the street.

photographs by the author

The 1887 Edward Morrison, Jr. House - 373 West 123rd Street

 

In March 1886, Samuel H. Bailey purchased "the lots of the northeast corner of Ninth avenue and One Hundred and Twenty-third street," as described by the Record & Guide.  Bailey was a developer and builder, and his wife, Mary, E., seems to have been the business end of the partnership.  When Bailey completed a row of houses on the site on April 30, 1887, the titles were listed in Mary's name.

The identical residences were designed by Charles E. Baxter.  Faced in brownstone and three-stories tall above English basements, they were a blend of the neo-Grec and Queen Anne styles.  The double-doored entrances above the sturdy, stone stoops sat within columned porticoes.  The parlor and third floor windows had architrave neo-Grec frames.  Colorful stained glass transoms graced the parlor and second-floor openings.

Baxter introduced Queen Anne at the second floor with curved metal oriels capped with delicate iron cresting.  The metalwork was embossed with jaunty bosses.  Elaborate multi-level, pressed metal cornices completed the design.

via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services.

The Baileys rented the houses for a year, before selling the group to Michael Hughes in April 1888.  The price of each of the 16-foot-wide residences was $17,000, or about $562,000 in 2025 terms.

No. 373 West 123rd Street became home to the Edward Morrison, Jr. family.  Morrison was a director in the Central Pacific Railroad.  He and his wife had two children, Beatrice and Edward 3d.

The parlor was the scene of a society wedding at 8:00 on the night of April 4, 1894.  The New York Herald reported, "Miss Fannie Fielding Stewart, daughter of the late Alexander T. Stewart, was married to Mr. William Wallis Young, of Orange, N. J., last evening...at the home of her sister, Mrs. Edward Morrison Jr."  (The sisters' father should not be confused with millionaire drygoods merchant Alexander Turney Steward.)  The article noted, "Little Beatrice Morrison, the bride's niece, was maid of honor, and Masters Edward Morrison, 3d, and Lyle Wallis were pages."

Edward's father visited the family on June 13, 1897.  Edward Morrison, Sr. was a respected stockbroker, having first worked on Wall Street as a clerk when he was 13 years old.  He acquired his seat in the Stock Exchange in 1869.  

Around 5:00 that afternoon, the two Edwards went for a walk.  At the corner of Amsterdam Avenue and Morningside Drive, "the elder Morrison fell to the sidewalk unconscious," according to The Sun.  The 75-year-old was taken to Manhattan Hospital where doctors said he was "suffering from nervous collapse."  The article mentioned that the patient was "well to do."

Morrison, Sr. was sent to his home at West 39th Street to recover.  After a week of convalescing, he was expected to return to his office on Monday, June 21.  But on Saturday, reported The Sun, "he again became very sick and continued to fail."  The broker died two days later.

The following year, on May 5, 1898, 373 West 123rd Street was sold to John and Mary Johnson for $15,500 (about $587,000 today).  The couple had a 14-year-old daughter, Helen.  Living with the family was Mary's niece, Eleanor Frances Weiss (who went by her middle name), who was also 14.  The Sun explained, "Miss Weiss's mother died two years ago and she came to live with Mrs. Johnson."  Frances's father, John Weiss was "a well-to-do wine merchant," as described by The Sun, and lived in Trenton, New Jersey.  The newspaper said that she and Helen "became inseparable companions [and] both attended Public School 14, at 117th street and St. Nicholas avenue."

On Friday March 11, 1899, the two girls asked Mary if they could go downtown to shop after school.  Oddly, that afternoon Frances left school early.  She told Helen she had something to do and asked her to wait for her after school.  Helen waited for an hour, but Frances never returned.  She came home and told her parents what had happened.

Mary Johnson sent a telegraph to Frances's grandmother in the Bronx.  A returned message said she was not there.  At midnight, Mary sent a telegraph to Frances's father.  He had not seen her, either, and asked "for full particulars of his daughter's absence," reported The Sun.

The next morning, a postcard was delivered to the Johnson house.  It said succinctly, "I am alive and well.  Good-by."

Although the card, sent from the post office at 105th Street and Columbus Avenue, was in Frances's handwriting, Mary Johnson was certain she had been abducted.  She told reporters,

Frances was a good girl and I don't believe she is staying away of her own free will.  She had no countenance with any men so far as I know and she was always home with me except when she was at school, and then she was with my daughter.  My own opinion is that some men and women have kidnapped the girl and are keeping her somewhere in the neighborhood of 105th street and Columbus avenue for purposes of their own.

As it turned out, Frances had answered an advertisement and was hired as a chambermaid in a house on West 105th Street.  Her new adventure, however, quickly came to an end.  The detailed description of the teen that was published in all the newspapers caught the eye of her employer, who turned her over to the police.  Frances's foray ended badly for her, and her life with the Johnsons was over.  On March 14, The Sun reported that her infuriated father, John Weiss, "took her to the Harlem Police Court yesterday.  On his statement that his daughter was incorrigible, Magistrate Brann committed her to the Home of the Good Shepherd."

The Johnson family left West 123rd Street that year, renting the house to George A. McDowell and his second wife, the former Jane Carpenter.  George had three children from his former marriage, Fannie, Fred and Alexander H.  (Two other children, Ella and George, had died.)  Moving in with the McDowells was Harry A. Hawkins who, like the McDowells, were members of the Religious Society of Friends, commonly known as the Quakers.

Both men were on the executive committee of the First-Day School Association of the Society of Friends.  The "New York Yearly Meeting of Friends" in 1899 was held in the McDowell house.

By 1903, Alexander H. McDowell was a member of the Society of Chemical Industry.  His scientific profession did not interfere with his religious affiliations and that year he was listed as secretary of the Young Friends' Aid Association.  The New York Charities Directory explained it, "Gives relief in food and clothing to the worthy poor families brought to their notice."  George A. McDowell was the treasurer of the group.

In September 1905, the International Peace Congress was held in Lucerne, Switzerland.  Pacifism is a major proponent of the tenets of the Society of Friends and on July 8, 1905, Friends' Intelligencer reported, "It is desirable that the society of Friends should be represented at the International Peace Congress."  The article said those who wished to contribute funds to sending a delegation should be sent to "Harry A. Hawkins, 373 West 123d Street, New York city, who is treasurer of the General Conference."

George A. McDowell had a scare on December 6, 1912.  The New York Times reported, "A collision between two elevated trains on the sixty-foot high S curve of the Sixth Avenue line in Columbus Avenue near 110th Street, at 10 o'clock yesterday morning caused the injury of ten persons."  The article said, "The three-car train plunged directly into the rear platform of the five-car train, and simultaneously there was a shower of electric sparks and much screaming by the passengers on both trains."  Aboard one of those trains was 72-year-old George McDowell.  The Sun reported he suffered, "nose cut and faced bruised."

Jane McDowell was also involved with charitable work.  An article in The Evening Post on February 15, 1914, explained that the Friends' Employment Society "gives sewing to needy women without regard to race or creed."  The group, organized in 1862, provided unfinished garments to needy women who then completed them.  The women received $1 or $2 per week for their work, which was used in hospitals and day nurseries.  The article said, "please send all contributions to the Treasurer, Mrs. Geo. A. McDowell, 373 West 123rd Street."

In May 1921, the Johnson family sold the house to Delia Trainor.  She leased it to George B. Kiely (who was organizing a girl's semi-pro baseball team in April 1922), before selling it in February 1923 to Louisa G. Hargrave.  The following month, Hargrave sold 373 West 123rd Street to Anna Stroetzel.  The notice in The Sun remarked that she "will occupy."

Wedged between modern structures today, the Morrison house survived as a single-family residence until 1999 when an apartment was installed in the basement.

photographs by the author

many thanks to reader Ted Leather for prompting this post.

Emery Roth's 1931 275 Central Park West

photo by Danifel

In the first years of the 20th century, upscale residence hotels and apartment buildings lined Central Park West.  In the 1920s, a wave of modernization swept the thoroughfare, replacing the dowager structures with modern apartment buildings.

Between 87th and 88th Streets were two seven-story residential hotels--the Minnewaska and the Mohonk.  Despite the crippling Depression, real estate developer Louis E. Kleban demolished them in 1930 and commissioned architect Emery Roth to design a replacement.  The 19-story structure was completed in 1931.  Faced in gray brick, Roth's nod to the Italian Renaissance was reserved.  The entrance sat within an imposing, double-height limestone frame.  Two paneled pilasters rose to a broken pediment that extended into the third floor.  Two faux balconies clung to the Central Park West facade at the eleventh floor.  Modest setbacks at the 16th floor resulted in corner pavilions.

image via streeteasy.com

On September 5, 1931, The New York Sun described the Art Deco buildings rising along Central Park West that "proclaim an unashamed modernity as to outward design and trim."  The article said, "The exception is the nineteen-story Kleban structure at 275 Central Park West, which asserts its difference by a facade and lobby definitely Georgian in design."  (Modern architectural historians would argue with the writer only regarding the style.)

Unlike most Upper West Side apartment buildings, Kleban did not give this one a name, following the lead of upscale structures on the opposite side of Central Park.  Apartments ranged from four rooms with two baths to seven rooms with four baths.  An advertisement called it, "an apartment masterpiece!" and touted, "mansion-sized rooms flooded with sunshine."  (That sunshine would pour into the vast casement windows Roth had designed.)  The ad smacked of snob appeal by saying, "every appointment breathes exclusiveness."

The New York Sun remarked, "A special feature is an 'economy type' apartment of five rooms, containing three master bedrooms, living room, kitchen and separate dinette measuring 10x14 feet."  Rent for the six- and seven-room apartments ranged from $2,500 to $3,200--or about $5,300 per month today for the more expensive.

Among the initial residents were Archibald and Estelle Roemer Gold and their six-year-old daughter, Carolyn.  According to The Shalvi/Hyman Encyclopedia of Jewish Women, Gold was a "destitute, Yiddish-speaking child" when he had arrived in New York City from Russia around 1900.  Estelle was born in America, one of seven children to Austrian-Jewish parents.

The couple married in 1919--both 27 years old.  By then, Archibald Gold had become an accountant and partner in a brokerage firm.  The family relinquished their Jewish roots and became members of the Divine Science Church of the Healing Christ around the time they moved into 275 Central Park West.

Carolyn Gold attended Sunday school and was educated in a private girls preparatory school before entering Wellesley College.  She married James Heilbrun in 1945, earned her Ph.D. from Columbia University in 1959 and went on to become a prolific academic feminist author under her real name, Caroline Gold Heilbrun, and of mystery novels under the pseudonym of Amanda Cross.

Carolyn Gold Heilbrun, from the collection of James Logan Courier archives.

Also among the original tenants were attorney Abraham Kaplan and Esther Helen Gilmore.  Kaplan was born in 1887 "in midocean," according to The New York Sun.  His wife had died in 1921.  It was possible that trips in the same elevator in the building sparked a romance.  On July 8, 1932, The Sun reported that the couple had been married that day.  

Living among the accountants, brokers and lawyers in the building in 1935 were newlyweds singer Connee Boswell and her manager-husband, Harry Leedy, a part-owner of Decca Records.  The couple was married on December 14, 1935.  Connee was born in Kansas City, Missouri in 1907 and performed in the 1920s with her sisters, Martha and Helvetia (known as Vet) as The Boswell Sisters.  Harry Leedy was the manager of the trio.  Although the group was successful, making recordings and appearing in motion pictures, Martha and Vet disbanded the group around the time that Connee and Harry married.  

A month after Boswell's and Leedy's marriage, on January 12, 1936, the Washington D.C. Evening Star began an article saying, "Nothing like having a business manager in the family."  It explained that Connee Boswell "married hers" and they had "set up housekeeping up at 275 Central Park West."  Their honeymoon had to be postponed.  The Evening Star reported, "They bundled the groom up and hustled him to the hospital for an operation the day after he said, 'I do.'" 

Connee Boswell, from Kraft Music Hall program, 1941

Connee Boswell's solo career soared.  She became a co-star on NBC Radio's Kraft Music Hall in 1940 and had her own radio show, The Connee Boswell Show in 1944.  She sang in several motion pictures, including the 1934 Moulin Rouge, the 1937 films It's All Yours and Artists and Models, and the Swing Parade of 1946.  Unknown to most audiences was that Boswell was confined to a wheelchair, attributed either as the result of a bout of polio in childhood or a fall from a wagon.  Like the President at the time, Franklin D. Roosevelt, her disability was carefully disguised and she was often filmed sitting.

Among the Leedys' neighbors at 275 Central Park West were State Supreme Court Justice J. Sidney Bernstein and his wife, Ida.  Educated in Ontario, Canada, Bernstein obtained his law degree at New York University Law School.  He was a member of the State Assembly in 1905 and was appointed a supreme court judge in 1938.  In the first week of December 1943, he suffered a heart attack.  He died in the apartment a few days later on December 9 at the age of 66.

Resident Jacob M. Felson was born in Russia in 1886 and received his architectural training at Cooper Union, opening his office in 1910.  His choice of 275 Central Park West as his family's home is somewhat ironic.  Felson specialized in designing apartment buildings, including the 1938 Southmoor House three blocks to the south of 275 Central Park West.  

In May 1960, Clement Greenberg and Janice Van Horne moved into an apartment here.  An art critic and essayist, Greenberg was born in the Bronx in 1909.  He had worked as an editor for Partisan Review, the art critic of The Nation in 1942, and associate editor of Commentary from 1945 through 1956.  At the time of the couple's moving into 275 Central Park West, he was an influential figure in the modern art movement.

Actress Janice Van Horne, born in New York City, studied at the Actors Studio and appeared in many Off Off Broadway plays.  She co-founded and was editor-in-chief of Madison Avenue magazine in 1974.  

Clement Greenberg died on May 7, 1994.  Van Horne donated his extensive annotated library of exhibition catalogues and publications on artists to the Portland Art Museum.  She posthumously edited two of Greenberg's works, Homemade Esthetics and The Harold Letters.  She died in the couple's apartment on October 14, 2015.

By 1966, humorist, author and publisher Roger Price occupied an apartment in the building.  Born in Charleston, West Virginia in 1918, his education was far flung.  He graduated from the Greenbrier Military School in 1934, attended the University of Michigan from 1934 through 1936, and the American Academy of Art in Chicago in 1936 to 1938.  As a writer, he worked on the staff of The Bob Hope Show, and as an actor appeared in Tickets, Please! on Broadway in 1950.  He hosted the television panel show How To in 1951.

Price invented Droodles in 1953, described by him as "a borkley-looking sort of drawing that doesn't make any sense until you know the correct title."  It grew into a book in 1953, and a Droodles television game show in 1954.  In the 1960s, he opened the first New York art gallery expressly for cartoons.

Living here at the time were attorney George J. Mintzer and his wife, the former Shirley Rubin.  Born on the Lower East Side, Mintzer worked to pay for his tuition at Fordham Law School.  He was admitted to the bar in 1921 and appointed chief of the criminal division of the office of the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York in 1926.  The New York Times would recall he, "prosecuted numerous loan sharks, gangs, counterfeiters, white-slave rings and drug smugglers and peddlers."  In 1975, he was appointed as a hearing officer by the Department of Justice to rule on certain conscientious-objector cases.

It might have been Mintzer's humble beginnings that prompted a highly publicized encounter with a waiter in the Hawaii Room of the Roosevelt Hotel that year.  He and Shirley had dinner there on August 20.  Afterward, Shirley ordered a cup of tea.  It arrived cold.  The replacement cup was no warmer.  The New York Times reported that when the third cup was "judged to be tepid, if not cold, [Mintzer's] patience snapped."

The 77-year-old attorney deducted $1.50 from his bill and paid the $14 tab, adding $2 for the tip on his credit card.  As he and Shirley left the restaurant, the manager stopped them and demanded the $1.50.  Mintzer (a veteran arbitrator) explained he would not pay for the unsatisfactory tea.  The manager threatened to call the police.  "Before I knew it, two cops were there and they arrested me," Mintzer told The New York Times.

In Criminal Court, Mintzer pointed out to Judge Milton Samorodin, "you don't pay for tea in a Chinese restaurant."  The manager, Ray Chen, countered that the restaurant was not Chinese, but Hawaiian and, "We charge for tea."  Samorodin considered the arguments, then ruled, "In the interest of justice, the case is dismissed."

The following year, on May 6, 1976, Mintzer died in his sleep.  In reporting his death, The New York Times recalled, "He was especially known for his largely successful adjudication of disputes, ranging from his role as impartial chairman of the ladies' garment workers industry to his arbitration of issues raised by laundry workers, blouse makers, longshoremen and printers."

image via northernarchitecturalsystems.com

Emery Roth's reserved design survives intact, including the all-important casement windows, sympathetically replaced in 2019 by Northern Architectural Systems.  

The Lost William Maginnis House and Store -- 513 Greenwich Street

 

On June 13, 1913, when this photograph was taken, a restaurant occupied the ground floor.  Colonial Architecture in New York City, 1913 (copyright expired)

In 1815, homes and shops were appearing along Spring Street between Greenwich and Hudson Street.  It was around that year that the two-and-a-half story house-and-store was erected at the southeast corner of Greenwich and Spring Streets.  The Federal-style structure was faced in brick on the front, or Greenwich Street elevation, and in clapboards on the side.  The attic, under a high gambrel roof, featured two tall dormers at the front, and an arched window on the side flanked by quarter-round openings.

The residential entrance was at 318 Spring Street, while the commercial address was 513 Greenwich Street.  In 1816, the shop was occupied by the Henry A. & C. Heiser candle store.  By 1850, the ground floor was divided into two shops.  William Maginnis and his family lived upstairs, and he ran his "willowware" (i.e. baskets) shop here.  The enterprising businessman ran a fruit market next door, at 316 Spring Street, as well.  The other shop was home to Thomas Dean's tinsmith business.  Previously, he worked and lived a block away at 324 Spring Street.  (He and his family now lived at 76 Charlton Street.)

Thomas Dean would operate his tin shop here through 1858.  In 1851, Maginnis moved out, relocating his family to 573 Greenwich Street.  (He kept his fruit business next door, however.)  James Clinton took over the vacant store for his boots and shoe shop.

Ann Mulligan, the widow of Bernard Mulligan, seems to have operated the upper floors as a boarding house in the mid-1850s.  Listed at the address in 1853 were John McCool, a builder, and Levi Hyer, a clerk.  Both men volunteered as fire fighters at the National Hose Company, No. 24 nearby at 315 Spring Street.  (John McCool would become a significant developer in the years after the Civil War, erecting long rows of brownstone residences in the burgeoning Upper East Side.)

from the collection of the New York Public Library

Sharing the ground floor with Thomas Dean in 1858 was John Jones's carpet weaving shop.  On December 16 that year, a fire was sparked by a "candle in dust," according to the The United States Insurance Gazette and Magazine.  The building was owned by Dr. Samuel M. Valentine, who lived at 159 Madison Avenue.  In repairing the damages, Valentine further separated the ground floor, which now held three stores.  It was likely that the reduction of space prompted Thomas Dean to leave, moving his business to 533 Canal Street.

Valentine's ground floor tenants were now John Jones's carpet weaving business, Joseph Watson's tinsmith shop (it is possible he had worked for Thomas Dean), and David Orr's boot and shoe shop.  Just after midnight on November 27, 1861, another fire broke out "in the carpet weaving shop of John Jones," according to the New York Herald, which said, "The flames extended into the tinware store of Joseph Watson, adjoining, before the fire was extinguished."

This time, the Fire Marshal's Semi-annual Report deemed the cause, "carelessness."  The damage to the building was estimated at $100.  Jones suffered the same amount (equal to about $3,570 in 2025).  Watson's loss was half that amount, but he had no insurance coverage.  Although the fire did not spread into David Orr's shop, he suffered the worst.  The New York Herald noted that his "stock of boots and shoes...was damaged by water to the extent of about $150."

It appears that Valentine restored the ground floor to two spaces.  Not surprisingly, after two fires in his shop, John Jones was no longer a tenant.  Joseph Watson now shared the ground floor with John and Elizabeth Collins.  John shared his basket store with Elizabeth's "home furnishing" business.  The couple lived nearby at 311 Spring Street.

In the meantime, boarders came and went in the upper floors.  J. Flinger's residency was cut short in August 1863, when he was drafted into the Union Army.  An unmarried woman, E. Connell, lived here the following year.  She advertised for a job in The New York Times on November 18, 1864, "Wanted--By a young American woman, a situation to travel as a companion to an invalid or as lady's maid; can furnish the best reference."

from the collection of the New York Public Library

Elizabeth and John Collins remained in their store as late as 1874.  By then, John had added crockery to his basket offerings.  Around 1867, Thomas Gallagher had taken over the former Joseph Watson tin business.  John Gallagher, presumably his son, ran the business in 1879. That year Philip Scheurer ran a crockery store in the former Collins space.  Scheuer and his family shared the upper portion of the building with "pumpmaker" John Ivans.

In 1888, D. Parrata obtained a permit to operate a "fruit and soda water stand" on the sidewalk.  Living upstairs at the time was the Ferris family.  Charles Ferris listed his profession as "pedlar," and Joseph Ferris as a driver.

The frame building survived another fire that broke out at 10:25 on the morning of October 27, 1903 in the office of Ledyard Avery & Co., commission merchants.  The ground floor was returned to a single commercial space, home to a restaurant by 1913.  It was replaced in the post World War I years by Star Art Glass Co.

The Glaziers' Journal, August 1923 (copyright expired)

The Star Art Glass Co. was still in the unlikely surviving relic on June 29, 1938 when photographer Berenice Abbott photographed it.  In the shadow of the rumbling elevated train, a notice plastered on the building's facade offered "This Corner Plot" for sale, noting, "Will Alter or Erect New Building."

from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York

Within three years the venerable structure was gone.  In its place, a single-story building was erected, which survives.

image via Googlemaps

George F. Pelham's 1904 Mon Bijou -- 210 East 17th Street

 

Among the several husband-and-wife teams in the real estate business at the turn of the last century were Charles and Wilhelmina Bohland.  Charles was a builder and Wilhelmina seems to have handled the administrative end of the business.  In 1903, they purchased the former refined residences at 210 and 212 East 17th Street, a block west of elegant Stuyvesant Square.  Architect George F. Pelham was hired to design a modern apartment building on the site.

Completed in 1904, the Mon Bijou ("My Jewel") was a blend of Renaissance Revival and Beaux Arts styles.  Sitting behind tall, iron fencing, the building's entrance sat within a portico with polished granite Ionic columns.  The rustication of the limestone base emanated like sunrays from the oval windows on either side of the entrance.  Pelham divided the upper portion, clad in beige Roman brick, into three vertical sections by slightly recessing the central, two-bay portion.  The windows of the end bays were paired by limestone frames, the center of which were carved with Renaissance carvings.  Their ornate, foliate keystones were flanked by swirling volutes.  Terra cotta bandcourses relieved the verticality of the building, which terminated with a prominent, bracketed cornice.

The tenants of the Mon Bijou were professionals.  Among the first was journalist Arthur S. Hoffman, an 1897 graduate of Ohio State University.  In 1903, he started at The Smart Set as an assistant editor.  Just before moving into the Mon Bijou, he was hired at Tom Watson's magazine as assistant editor.

Also initial residents were Congressman William Bourke Cockran and Magistrate Joseph Edward Corrigan, who shared an apartment.  The Tammany Times later said, "they lived [here] for a year and a half until both married."

William Bourke Cockran, from the collection of the Library of Congress.

The colorful Congressman Cockran was a close friend to the Churchill family in England, and was reportedly a one-time lover of Jennie Churchill.  When Jennie's 29-year-0ld son, Winston Churchill, first visited America, it was Cockran who introduced him to Manhattan society.  He gave up his roommate status with Magistrate Corrigan when he married Anne Ide in 1906.  His two previous wives had both died.

Other initial residents were G. H. Bernstein and his wife (who was corresponding secretary of The New York Equal Suffrage League); and Francis Le Roy Satterlee, Jr.  

Satterley was the son of Dr. Francis Le Roy Satterlee, a well-respected physician and professor, and the former Laura Suydam.  A 1903 graduate of Columbia University, the younger Satterlee worked as a radiologist.  

Francis Le Roy Satterlee, Jr.   from The Odontologist, February 1909 (copyright expired)

By 1909, Satterlee had an impressive resume.  In introducing himself in his article "What Radiology Means to You" in the February issue of The Odontologist that year, he listed: "Assistant to the Professor of Physics, Chemistry and Metallurgy; Lecturer on Physics and Radiology; Director of practical physics laboratory; Director of X-Ray laboratory."

Born in 1843 in Currituck County, North Carolina, Jerome Baxter had operated a tobacco business in Norfolk, Virginia until retiring in 1897.  Upon the death of his wife, Mary Ellen Hill, in 1906, he and his 26-year-old daughter, Florence, moved to New York City and into the Mon Bijou.  Florence taught mathematics in Washington Irving High School.

On October 6, 1912, Florence Baxter returned after an evening with friends to find her father was not home.  She inquired about him among the neighbors, who said he was seen leaving the building around 3:00 that afternoon.  When Jerome had not returned by 11:30 the next night, Florence "drove down in a taxicab to Police Headquarters," reported The New York Times, to report him missing.  According to the article, he "was given to long walks, and his daughter fears that he met with an accident."  Florence gave the police an astoundingly detailed description.  The Evening World said he was "five feet five inches tall, weight 125 pounds, brown left eye and blind right eye, with gray hair, beard and mustache.  He wore a gray suit, gray soft hat and tan shoes."

Somewhat surprisingly, newspapers did not follow up with Baxter's case.  He was, however, found and was still living with Florence (who never married) when he died on August 9, 1920.

At the time of Baxter's disappearance, a four-room apartment rented for $408 per year, and a five-room unit for $480.  The more expensive rent would translate to about $1,250 per month in 2025.

By 1917, artist John H. Alger lived and worked here.  Born in Boston in 1879, he studied at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Dowell School of Design in Boston.  He was a member of the Society of Independent Artists and had exhibited in the famous 1913 Armory Show.  Alger would remain in the Mon Bijou at least through 1923.

In the meantime, Florence Baxter remained here following her father's death, and took in a roommate, Jeanette Allen.  A spectacular drama that unfolded on November 23, 1921 began inside the women's apartment.  A resident in the St. George Memorial House directly behind the Mon Bijou at 207 East 16th Street telephoned to the East 22nd Street Station that, "he could see two men robbing the apartment occupied by Jeanette Allen and Florence Baxter," as reported by The New York Times.

Six detectives sped to the building, four surrounding it and two, Detectives August Gilman and David Lambert, went to the roof through the adjoining building.  "On the roof they discovered two men, one of them carrying a satchel," said The Times.  The New-York Tribune reported that Herman Fishman and Jack Klein, "had in their possession clothing and valuables stolen from the apartment of Miss Florence Baxter."

A heart-pounding battle ensued, "witnessed by hundreds of tenants in the opposite apartment building...and an excited crowd congregated in the street," said the New-York Tribune.  Fishman, described by the newspaper as "six feet tall and powerful," engaged with Lambert on the fire escape.  The article said, "in their struggles they rolled down another flight.  The combatants narrowly escaped plunging through a railing sixty feet to the ground."  

In the meantime, Gilman engaged Klein on the roof.  The New York Times said, "Gilman and Kline [sic] in wrestling about the roof at one time came perilously near the edge."  The New-York Tribune added that Klein attempted to jump to the roof of an adjoining building, but was "at last brought to a halt by repeated shots."  The article said, "Gilman handcuffed Klein and compelled him to descend the fire escape with the muzzle of a pistol pressed between his shoulder blades."  The writer said the two burglars had been subdued "after fierce clubbing and the firing of several shots."

The sensational arrest rescued the women's valuable articles.  The New York Times said that the bundle left on the roof by the burglars contained eight furs valued at $30,000--more than half a million dollars today.

Dr. Jacob Lanes occupied the medical office on the ground floor in 1925.  That year, on September 1, three armed men barged into the office as Lanes was treating a patient.  The New York Times reported, "They took $160, a watch and chain and a diamond ring, the physician said, and then bound and gagged him and took him into another room."

After hearing the gunmen leave, Lanes freed himself and unsuccessfully tried to chase them.  Upon returning, he discovered a wounded patient, Benjamin Siciliano, lying on the floor of the waiting room.  The 22-year-old was seriously injured, "a bullet having passed through the upper part of his chest," according to The New York Times.  When police arrived, Siciliano told police that the doctor had shot him, and Dr. Lanes was arrested.

As it turned out, Siciliano was not one of Lanes's patients, but was part of what the newspapers called the "Cowboy Gang," and had been shot in the confusion.  Happily for Lanes, the facts came to light, the doctor was freed, and on November 4, 1925, the entire gang was arrested.

Frederick Allen King lived here during the Depression years.  Born in 1865, he earned his Bachelors and Masters degrees from Wesleyan University.  Beginning in 1909, he was literary editor for the Literary Digest, a literary, humorous and cultural magazine.  He retired in 1934 as head of the arts and letters department.  King was still living in the Mon Bijou when he died of heart disease in 1939.

By the second half of the century, the Mon Bijou had declined to what the NY Amsterdam News described as a "24-family tenement."  But a turn-around came in 1976 when the building was converted to 24 cooperative apartments.  Prominently carved into its entablature, the portico still announces "Mon Bijou."

photographs by the author

The Transformed 1847 684 Sixth Avenue

 

In the mid-1840s, as sumptuous Greek Revival and Italianate-style mansions crept up Fifth Avenue, a block to the west much humbler residences were being erected.  In 1847, a three-story house at 350 Sixth Avenue (renumbered 684 in 1925) was completed.  Although they were separated by just a block, the proletarian inhabitants of the house--like the building itself--were a world away from Fifth Avenue's high society.

It seems that the house always had a store at street level.  The working-class residents in 1850 were almost all in the construction business.  They included Michael Dowling, a mason; carpenter William Custis; and John Alexander, a plasterer.  The one tenant not involved in building was Philip Kenney, a bootmaker.  It is possible he also occupied the store.

Around 1853, 33-year-old Michael Ronan installed his tailor shop in the store and lived with his family upstairs.   They shared the space that year with Denis Broderick, a stonecutter.

In February 1861, the Ronans welcomed a baby boy, Augustus M.  Sadly, the toddler died on July 24, 1863.  His funeral was held in the second floor of 350 Sixth Avenue the next day.

The couple shared the upper floors with George and Mary Le Caitel and John McCreery in 1867.  Le Caitel was a hairdresser and McCreery was in the shoe business.  The following year, Michael Rowan (whose name was confusingly similar to Michael Ronan) and Richard New opened their M. Rowan & Co. "ice cream depot" (i.e., ice cream parlor) in the store space.  It is unclear to where Michael Ronan temporarily moved his tailoring shop.

The ice cream parlor moved a block south to 334 Sixth Avenue the following year, and Ronan regained his shop.  Before long, Michael Ronan's health began to decline.  By the spring of 1872, he was no longer able to operate his business.  On April 19, an auction was held of: 

...the selected Stock of the long established Tailor Store 350 Sixth avenue, between Twenty-first and Twenty-second streets: Cloths, Cassimeres, Vestings, &c.; also custom made Pants, Coats and Vests, together with Counters, Fixtures and large size Singer Sewing Machine.  The attention of the trade invited.

Michael Ronan died on August 16, 1872 at the age of 50, "after a long illness," according to the New York Herald.  Unlike his son's funeral, Michael's was held in St. Francis Xavier's Church the following day.

Ronan may have held out hope that he would recover.  Not everything had been sold at the auction.  On September 8, an advertisement in the New York Herald offered, "For Sale, Cheap--A lot of new French Cloths and a Singer's Sewing Machine; almost new.  Apply at hall door 350 Sixth avenue, New York."

Mary and George Le Caitel still lived here.  George died "after a long and painful illness," as reported by the New York Herald, on December 17, 1873.  He was 42 years old.

Stephen E. England installed his "variety store" in the shop in 1875.  Among those living upstairs were Mary Maccarran, who made caps; William Powell, a stove dealer; Jacob W. Aeppli, whose barber shop was on Fourth Avenue; and tailor Christopher Postera.  (Mary Maccarran and William Powell would remain at least through 1880.)

Sisters Elizabeth M. Ritter and Agnes J. Ritter each owned 50 percent of the property in 1888.  When Agnes married Edward T. McCoy, she divided her portion with her new husband.

A Mrs. Bacon ran a domestic employment agency here in the early 1890s.  She and other agencies faced a crisis when the Chicago World's Columbian Exposition opened in 1893.  On April 29, The Evening World began an article saying, "Housekeepers and the proprietors of New York employment agencies are becoming not a little alarmed at the unusual scarcity of servant girls just now prevalent in the metropolis."  In anticipation of the throngs of visitors to the fair, Chicago hotel managers were depleting Manhattan's workforce with seductive offers.  The article said, "Mrs. Bacon, of 350 Sixth avenue, has many applications for Chicago situations, but has sent no servants there and invariably discouraged such applicants."

Robert T. Dowling occupied the store by 1899.  The following year, architect David P. Miller remodeled the storefront.  On February 4, 1902, Edward T. McCoy and Elizabeth M. Ritter renewed Dowling's lease for 10 years at $6,000.  (The rent would translate to about $1,675 per month in 2025.)

Dowling's residency would not last through the term of the lease.  In 1905, the architectural firm of Buchman & Fox was hired to convert the building to commercial use and remodel the facade.  Any trace of the 1847 house was eliminated in the architects' vaguely commercial take on neo-Classical architecture.  

Above the cast iron storefront, two-story paneled brick piers flanked the metal infill.  Double-height fluted Ionic pilasters created three bays, the floors separated by paneled spandrels.  Vast show windows flooded the interior with natural light.  A molded cornice and low parapet finished the design.

via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services.

The new tenants were Daniel J. Healy, maker of skirts and patterns; the Singer Sewing Machine Company; and a branch of J. Ehrlich & Sons.  

A 1905 advertisement announced the store's opening.  The World, June 12, 1905 (copyright expired)

J. Ehrlich & Sons' optical business was founded in 1862.  The firm operated its own glasses factory.  In the summer of 1908, an advertisement cautioned New Yorkers, "Don't risk your vacation pleasure without extra glasses."  The ad promised, "Bring your glasses to us NOW.  We can duplicate them EXACTLY without the original prescription and at a very moderate cost."

J. Ehrlich & Sons remained here until 1912, when McCoy and Ritter made interior renovations.  Architects Schwartz & Gross designed the reconfiguration of walls.  At the same time, toilets were installed.  In 1914, S. Miller & Sons, a women's apparel store, moved into the ground floor shop.

In the 1940s, L. Radin's occupied the space, offering female shoppers "corsets, brassieres, and blouses."

Today there are apartments on the third floor of the venerable building.  Buchman & Fox's 1905 storefront was obliterated in the second half of the 20th century, but, overall, the building's appearance has not changed.

photographs by the author

The Joseph Sibbel Studio - 214 East 26th Street

 

Around 1852, Harned & Rothery, housesmiths, moved its operation into the three-story, brick-faced factory at 180 East 26th Street (later renumbered 214).  Originally, a window sat between two bay doors on the ground floor.  In the rear yard was a stable. 

Housesmiths forged the ironwork used in construction.  By 1857, the firm dropped the term, now listing itself as Harned & Rothery Foundry.  By then it had expanded into the buildings at 126 through 132 East 26th Street.  It remained until January 1860, when an auction was held that included, "a large quantity of Pig Iron, Wrought Iron, Cast and Wrought Scrap Iron, Wooden and Iron Patterns, Wooden and Iron Flasks, and various other articles of value to housesmiths and iron-founders."

The building became home to Alexander Stewart's and Edward M. Corbett's carriage factory.  Theirs were not the usual vehicles turned out in carriage shops.  Stewart & Corbett manufactured miniature, "children's carriages," as well as hobby horses and perambulators.  On February 11, 1869, Stewart & Corbett advertised for additional help: "Wanted--At 214 East 26th st., between 2d and 3d ave, men and women trimmers for children's carriages; also a few handy boys."

On Christmas Eve that year, a fire broke out in the factory.  The Philadelphia Age reported it damaged "the building, stock, and tools largely.  The amount of loss cannot yet be ascertained, but it is heavy and is well covered by insurance."

The former stable building in the rear yard was occupied by Edward Crockett, "bone manufacturer."  (The term referred to makers of bone buttons.)  Less than two months after the Stewart & Corbett fire, on February 5, 1870, the New York Herald reported that a fire had damaged Crockett's building.  The damage was slight, and police suspected the fire was "of incendiary origin."

By 1872, Edward M. Corbett had a new partner and the company was renamed Corbett & Coe.  At 1:00 on the morning of April 27 that year, Police Officer Byrne noticed "something wrong with the grating in front of Corbett & Coe's children's perambulator manufactory," according to the New York Herald.  A century before hand-held radios, police summoned help from nearby officers by rapping their nightsticks on the pavement.  Officer McDonald responded to the alarm.  Byrne's sharp eye upset the plans of two notorious burglars.  The article said the two policemen searched the building and discovered William Davis, "better known as 'Billy Doherty,'" and James S. Smith, "alias Jimmy Mundo," hiding inside.

Corbett & Coe left East 26th Street around 1877.  When Pierrot Julien purchased the property from the bank on December 31, 1879 for $6,000, it was described as a "three-story brick shop and three-story brick stable in rear."  The price would translate to $189,000 in 2025.

Within a decade, the property was transformed to an artistic center.  German-born sculptor Joseph Sibbel established his studio here by 1888.  Born on June 7, 1850, Sibbel worked exclusively in ecclesiastical work, creating statues and carved decorations for churches.

Joseph Sibbel at work in his studio on Our Lady Comforter of the Afflicted for St. Francis Xavier College Church.  from the collection of the Saint Louis University Archives.

By 1893, Anton Kloster was listed here (possibly operating from the rear building).  He designed and sculpted or carved church furnishings, like altars.  Anton would increasingly focus on designing church buildings, and by 1901 had turned his business over to Charles B. Kloster and devoted himself solely to designing architecture.  (The 1918 Byzantine Revival-style Church of St. Anselm and St. Roch in the Bronx is attributed to Anton Kloster.)

The Lithuanian Weekly, March 11, 1901 (copyright expired)

Working with Joseph Sibbel was Joseph Lohmüller, who exhibited his sketch for the grouping Holy Family on the Way to Egypt in the Architectural League of New York's annual exhibition in 1906.  In his 1916 German Achievements in America, Rudolf Cronau explained that Sibbel and Lohmüller,

...were very prolific during the latter part of the 19th and the beginning of the present century in beautifying the cathedrals and churches of America with reliefs and Biblical scenes and the statues of Madonnas, Martyrs, Saints and Apostles.

Christian Art, December 1908 (copyright expired)

Also listed here in 1906 and working cooperatively with Sibbel was Munich-born artist Gustav Kinkelin.  The two worked together in the decorations of St. Patrick's Catholic Church in Lowell, Massachusetts, for instance.  Joseph Sibbel designed and executed the marble altar, and Kinkelin did the mural work.

One of the murals executed by Kinkelin in St. Patrick's Cathedral in Lowell.  image via johncanningco.com

Sibbel's main altar for the same church.  image via st.patricklowell.org.

Joseph Sibbel died on July 10, 1907.  The Joseph Sibbel Studio continued here under Lohmüller and Armin Sibbel as late as the mid-1920s.  

At mid-century, the occupant of the venerable building was much less artistic.  It was home to the Johnson Electrical Corporation, a wiring contractor.  

The two entrances and central window survived in 1941.  image via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services.

In 1964, Country Floors, Inc. occupied the ground floor.  The shop imported floor and wall tiles from Italy, France, Spain and Portugal.  Change came when a renovation completed in 2019 resulted in two apartments within the venerable building.

photograph by the author