The Altered Charles Steele Carriage House - 107 East 61st Street

photograph by the author

Born in 1857, Charles Steele was the son of esteemed attorney Isaac Nevett Steele and the former Rosa Londonia Nelson.  He graduated from Columbia Law School in 1880 and married Ann Gordon French five years later.  The couple had three daughters, Eleanor Herndon, born in 1893; Nancy Gordon, born the following year; and Kathryne Nevitt, who arrived in 1896.

In the last decade of the 19th century, Steele did legal work for Charles H. Coster, a partner of J. P. Morgan, in reorganizing the firm's railroad interests.  Coster died in March 1900 and, reportedly, during his funeral J. P. Morgan offered Steele a partnership within the firm. 

Charles and Ann (known as "Nannie) erected an English Tudor-style country place in Southampton, Long Island in 1899.  The couple's financial and social status was further exemplified when they purchased the magnificent Edith and Ernesto Fabbri mansion at 11 East 62nd Street in 1912.

By 1916, it appears that the Steeles had given up their horses and carriages in favor of motorcars.  On January 12, 1916, The New York Times reported that Charles Steele had purchased the property at 107 East 61st Street from Francis Muldoon.  The high-stooped brownstone had been the home of Edward and Anne Miller in the early 1880s.  It would not survive much longer.

Two months later, on March 25, 1916, the Record & Guide reported that George E. Wood was preparing plans for a "three-story brick garage" for Charles Steele.  It would cost $20,000 to construct, or about $573,000 in 2025.

Wood's charming neo-Tudor-style garage was completed within the year.  A stone base with a centered garage bay supported two floors of gray brick trimmed in limestone.  A grouping of three small-paned windows at the second floor sat within a quoined frame.  A quartet of arched openings on the third floor, also with small panes, shared a continuous stone eyebrow.  The attic floor took the form of a steep, metal-clad mansard.  Its acute gable held a blind lancet window.

image via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services.

Unlike carriage houses, which required space for bales of hay and tackle and such, garages needed much less storage.  The upper floors held apartments, originally for the Steeles' driver and, perhaps, a mechanic.  

But as early as 1921, James McCormick and his wife occupied the upper floors.  The couple's avocation was breeding Boston Terriers.  In 1921, for instance, they registered Rival's Lady None Such; and that year James McCormick advertised in the Brooklyn Daily Eagle, offering three of his male dogs--Captain Altawood, Altawood's Boy, and Rival's Surprise--at stud.  (Captain Altawood came with the priciest fee, equal to about $350 today.)  The advertisement added, "Puppies for Sale."

Nannie Steele died in the couple's East 62nd Street mansion on December 18, 1932.  (By then the couple had a second Long Island estate, this one in Old Westbury.)  Charles died seven years later, on August 5, 1939.  

Four decades later, in 1982, a massive, three-year renovation began.  The ground floor was given a sleek remodeling that harkened to the former carriage bay.  Two addition floors, with no attempt to honor George E. Wood's Tudoresque design, were added.  The result was what one realtor described as an "reverse house," meaning that the living areas were on the top.  The ground floor of the single-family mansion now had a two-car garage, recreation room and swimming pool.  The second and third floors held bedrooms and a greenhouse.  On the fourth floor were a "den" and one bedroom.  The fifth floor held a "gallery," dining, living room, and kitchen.  What was described as a mezzanine level housed a studio.

The renovated structure in 1988.  via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services.

In marketing the $6.9 residence in 1990, broker Phyllis Gallaway told The New York Times, "This place appeals more to show business people who are a little more avant-garde."  The new owners initiated an exterior remodeling the following year.  The base and upper two floors were given a sleek, white facade.

The Charles Halbe House - 529 Manhattan Avenue

 

Brothers Joseph Warren and Abraham Alonzo Teets were responsible for erecting scores of rowhouses in Upper Manhattan in the 1880s.  In 1887 they filled the western blockfront of Manhattan Avenue from 121st to 122nd Street with three-story-and-basement homes, and the following year completed a similar row along the block from 122nd to 123rd Streets.

Architects Cleverdon & Putzel lightened the neo-Grec design of the latter row by adding fanciful terra cotta hoods, molded to simulate fish scale tiles, to the parlor and second floor openings.  The architrave frames of the windows were decorated with incised carvings, and the elaborate metal cornices included pressed fans between the prominent brackets.

The row engulfs the entire blockfront.

The house at the southern corner of the row, 529 Manhattan Avenue, was highly desirable because of the southern wall of additional light and ventilation.  It became home to the Frederick Charles Halbe family.  Halbe was born in Germany on March 30, 1830 and came to America at the age of 17.  While he was in the upholstery business, he dealt in Manhattan real estate as well.  He owned, for instance, the valuable property on Sixth Avenue on which the Adams Dry Goods emporium was built.  He often used only his middle name professionally.

Halbe and his wife, the former Sophia Hiedelhouse, had at least three children, Bertha, William A., and Charles G. H.  William was listed as a clerk in 1889, and Charles G. H. Halbe as a merchant at 30 Front Street.  The affluent family was annually listed in Dau's New York Social Blue Book.

Bertha H. Halbe died on November 15, 1901.  Her funeral was held in the parlor on the 17th. 

A second funeral was held there ten years later.  Frederick Charles Halbe died on June 3, 1911 at the age of 81.  He left an estate of about $8.67 million by 2025 conversions.

William still lived with his mother at the time of Frederick's death.  Sophia survived her husband by a decade, dying in the Manhattan Avenue house on February 26, 1921.  Hers was the last of the Halbe funerals to be held here.

Five months later, Joseph Goodfellow, a contractor, purchased 529 Manhattan Avenue for $16,000, according to The New York Times (the price would translate to about $272,000 today).

It continued to be a single-family home until 1958, when a renovation resulted in one apartment each in the basement and parlor levels, and two each on the upper floors.

Among the tenants by the early 1970s were Clifford A. Scott and his wife, the former Mary Myles.  Born on January 15, 1918 in Monroe, Louisiana, Scott was a 1942 graduate of Southern University and received his Bachelor's and Ph.D. degrees from Brooklyn Law School.  While living here in 1974, Scott was elected a Justice of the New York State Supreme Court.  The January 14, 1991 issue of New York Magazine listed him as one of the five toughest judges in New York State.

A renovation/restoration completed in 2019 returned the former Halbe house to a single-family home.

photographs by the author

The 1851 Henry P. Marshall Residence - 214 East 17th Street

 

Developer James Foster erected five upscale, high-stooped residences in 1850-51 on the southern blockfront of East 17th Street between Rutherford Place and Third Avenue.  The Greek Revival-style homes were three stories tall above English basements.  Faced in red brick and trimmed in brownstone, they originally exhibited the distinctive entrances of the style, with sturdy pilasters upholding a heavy entablature.

Foster originally leased 115 East 17th Street (renumbered 214 in 1867).  The De Marcarty (sometimes spelled Demacarty) family were the first occupants.  Gustave de Marcarty was a teller with the Bank of New York.  The family of Ebenezer R. Duplignac, Jr., who operated a varnish business on Peck Slip, lived here in 1855 and 1856.

Henry Perry Marshall next leased the house, finally buying it from Foster in 1859.  Born in Woodbury, Connecticut in 1814, he married Cornelia E. Conrad on November 28, 1840.  The couple had five small children--Julia Perry, Blandina Tappan, Frederic Panet, Henry Rutgers and Cornelia Ellsworth.  They ranged from 3 to 14 years old in 1859.  (The couple's first child, John Henry, had died in 1850 at the age of nine.)  The family's country homes were in Hastings-on-Hudson, New York and Woodbury, Vermont.

Henry P. Marshall started out in the importing business.  In 1840, he was appointed American Consul in Muscat, remaining there until 1843 when he joined the Seamen's Bank for Savings.  As the cashier of the bank, his highly responsible position tasked him with tracking its transactions and balancing its books.  

Henry Perry Marshall.  (original source unknown)

The two Marshall boys attended Columbia College.  By 1879, Frederic was an attorney and Henry was an architect and author.  Henry married Julia Robbins Gillman in 1881.  Among his designs would be Rudyard Kipling's home, Naulakha, in Vermont, and the original Brearley School in New York City.

Frederic Panet Marshall was in Thomasville, Georgia in the winter of 1886.  He died there from Bright's Disease on December 30.  Marshall's body was brought back to New York for his funeral in the nearby St. George's Church on January 2, 1887.  (Henry P. Marshall, incidentally, had been treasurer of the St. George Episcopal Church Society for years.)  

There would be two more Marshall funerals within a short period.  The family was at Hastings-on-Hudson on September 7, 1887, when Cornelia died at the age of 72 "after a lingering illness," according to The New York Times.  

The following summer, Henry Marshall "suffered an attack of malaria," as reported by The New York Times on November 17, adding that he "had not been the same man since."  On November 16, Marshall was busy at his office until 2:00, when he and William C. Sturges, the bank's president, went to the dining room adjacent to the two men's offices for lunch.  Their food was served and, according to The New York Times, Marshall said to Sturges, "Mr. Blank called this morning," and then "his head fell forward on his breast and he was apparently dead."

In reporting his death, The New York Times said,

Perhaps no bank Cashier in this city was known to more people than Mr. Marshall...Not only did he know most of the New-York financiers of to-day, but through his long banking career had a fund of personal reminiscences of great speculators whose doings on the street are now only a memory.

Just weeks after Marshall's funeral, his sterling reputation was tarnished.  On January 19, 1889, The Sun ran the headline, "Mission Moneys Missing / $20,000 That The Late Henry P. Marshall Held Vanished."  In addition to the St. George's Episcopal Church Society, Marshall had been treasurer of the Protestant Episcopal Church Missionary Society for Seamen.  The Sun explained, "Other church societies came to him with their money, until he cared for the funds of half a dozen of the largest and richest of Bishop Potter's societies."

After Marshall's death, the books of the Missionary Society were audited.  Although they showed a balance of $20,000, there was no money in the society's account.  The following day, The New York Times reported that the deficit had risen to $60,000 (about $1.9 million in 2025 terms).  The article was titled, "A Great Trust Betrayed."

The two unmarried daughters, Julia and Cornelia, continued to live in the East 17th Street house at least through 1891.  That year Julia was a trustee of the New York Infirmary.

At the turn of the century, Dr. David D. Jennings and his wife, who was a nurse, rented 214 East 17th Street.  They remained until April 1903, when Julie Faversham and her mother, Mary Opp, purchased the house.

Julie and William Faversham were well-known to theater audiences.  Born in New York City in 1873, Julie Opp began writing in 1893, focusing on theater journalism.  She traveled to Paris to interview the world famous opera singer Emma Calvé and actress Sarah Bernhardt.  According to Who's Who on The Stage in 1908, "Both urged her to adopt the stage as a profession, offering their advice, influence and support."

Julie Opp made her debut in 1896.  At the turn of the century, she first played opposite English born William Faversham.  The couple was married in 1902.  Julie continued to use her maiden name on the stage.  

Julie Opp, The American Stage of To-Day, 1910 (copyright expired)

William Faversham's matinee idol looks made him a favorite leading man.  At the turn of the century, he was one of the highest paid actors in the country, reportedly earning as much as $5 million a year.

William Faversham in 1907.  from the collection of the New York Public Library

What today would be called a power couple, the Favershams maintained a Long Island residence and a sprawling estate, The Old Manor, in Chiddingfold, England.  The Jacobean-style mansion was built in 1503 and held 14 bedrooms and was surrounded by "25 acres of park land," according to The New York Times.

On May 6, 1908, The Evening Post reported that plans had been filed for adding a fourth story to the East 17th Street house "to be made for Mary Opp as owner."  Designed by Hunt & Hunt, the new floor took the form of a steep mansard punctured by three dormers.  The architects added sheet metal lintels to the lower floor windows, those of the parlor floor including dentils and egg-and-dart moldings.

The parlor floor cornices with their intricate details, are unusual.

Entertainments in the Faversham house included a blend of theater, musical and society figures.  On February 13, 1911, for instance, The New York Times reported on a dinner party the previous evening "in honor of Mr. Faversham's birthday."  Among the guests were conductor and violinist David Mannes and his wife, novelist Princess Troubetzkoy, and socialite Mrs. John Alexander.

Julie and William pose in the Rosemary Open-Air Theatre in Huntington, Long Island in 1917 with sons William and Philip.  from the collection of the Library of Congress.

At some point, Julie took full ownership of the East 17th Street house.  Perhaps revealing the strained relationship between William and his mother-in-law, the couple charged Mary Opp rent--$800 per year.

In 1915, Faversham first appeared in motion pictures.  He continued to accept Broadway roles, and in 1921 was appearing at the Selwyn Theatre in The Prince and the Pauper.  

When he and Julie arrived home on February 13 that year, after being guests of a dinner party for his birthday, "they thought burglars were in the house," according to the New York Herald.  Instead, the parlors were filled with friends throwing a surprise birthday party for William.

It would be the last large entertainment in the house for the Favershams.  In 1915, Julie had appeared with William in The Hawk.  But illness ended her career after that.  Shortly after the party, William traveled to Columbus, Ohio with The Prince and the Pauper.  On April 8, 1921, he received a telegram that Julie had died that day at the Post-Graduate Hospital following an operation.  The New-York Tribune called her, "one of America's stage favorites."

The following month, William advertised Julie's 1918 Cadillac landaulet for sale, saying, "the car is now as good as new; property of the late Mrs. William Faversham."  

The acrimony between Faversham and Mary Opp soon became public.  In August 1922, Faversham sued Opp for $100,000 "for her support [during] twenty years at the East 17th Street home," reported The Evening World.  Mrs. Opp told the court "that she is in dire circumstances as a result of transactions in which the actor was concerned," said the article, explaining that she had loaned the couple $11,000 over the years.  Faversham insisted that the loans, "were actually advanced to his wife, Julie Opp Faversham, and that he made no promises to repay them."

In 1924, the once sumptuous residence was converted to a rooming house by the new owner, B. Leavin.  The Department of Buildings cautioned, "not more than 15 sleeping rooms" in the building.  In the renovation, the stoop was removed, the entrance lowered to the English basement level, and a fire escape attached to the facade.  

image via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services

Leavin advertised in The New York Medical Week in September 26, 1925, "Ground floor in newly altered house.  Will alter floor to suit responsible physician."

That ground floor space would remain a physician's office for decades, first occupied by Dr. Joseph S. Stovin.  In the mid-1930s Dr. Max K. Silverman's office was here.

In 1959, the building was converted to apartments, two per floor except the top floor, which held one.  Living here in the 1960s was well-known artist and designer Douglass Semonin.  His paintings were shown at the Graham Galleries in New York and the De Young Museum in San Francisco.  In 1964, the American Institute of Decorators awarded him the International Design Award for his "Town and Country" design.  He died in his apartment on October 26, 1971 at the age of 45.

A renovation completed in 1999 resulted in a total of four apartments in the house.  Even without its stoop, the building looks much as it did when two stars of the theater remodeled it in 1908.

photographs by the author

The Gershom Nathan House - 73 Bedford Street

Joshua Isaacs owned considerable land in Greenwich Village in the decade following the Revolution.  In 1799 he began construction of his substantial free-standing home at the corner of the recently opened Bedford and Commerce Streets.  Two years later, Isaacs transferred title of 77 Bedford Street and the abutting vacant lots to his son-in-law, Harmon Hendricks.  Following Hendricks's death in 1821, the Bedford Street properties were left in trust to his daughter, Hettie, who was married to Aaron L. Gomez.

Charles Oakley was perhaps the most prolific builder in the district in the 1830s.  In 1836 he leased the lots at 73 and 75 Bedford Street from the Hendricks-Gomez family.  He erected two Greek Revival style homes on the sites, each two-and-a-half stories tall and faced in Flemish bond brick.  

The doorway of 73 Bedford sat above a short stoop and was flanked by narrow sidelights.  A squat attic level took the place of the dormers that would have been seen in the Federal style of a few years earlier.  The ends of the paneled, brownstone lintels were given modified Greek key designs.

The first occupant of 73 Bedford Street was silversmith Charles M. Williams.  He had been a partner of John I. Monell in the mid-1820s in Monell & Williams, but seems to have been working alone by now.  

The silver top of this cut glass canister in the collection of the Philadelphia Museum of Art is stamped with Charles M. Williams mark.

Charles M. Williams disappears from directories in 1837, suggesting he died that year or shortly afterward.  The house became home to Henry and Eliza Haines.  Their only son, John Henry, died on February 4, 1839.  His funeral was held in the parlor the following day.

The next year, Deborah Coley, the widow of William G. Coley, and her son William Jr. occupied 73 Bedford Street.  William ran a fruit business at 195 Washington Street.  The Coleys would remain into the late 1840s, after which another widow, Diana Traphagen, leased the house.

Diana was the widow of William D. Traphagen.  Living with her was her daughter Ellen D., who became a teacher in the early 1850s.  In 1854 she taught in the primary department of School No. 41 on Greenwich Avenue at Charles Street, earning $175 a year (about $6,500 in 2025).

Not surprisingly, Diana Traphagen took in boarders.  In 1851, for instance, they were Charles W. Juhnke, a varnisher, and Elizabeth Van Pelt, a nurse.  Elizabeth was the widow of John Van Pelt.

Hettie and Aaron L. Gomez still owned the land on which 73 Bedford Street sat.  On October 28, 1853, their daughter Rosalane (known as Rosalie) was married to Gershom Seixas Nathan.  Diana Traphagen's lease apparently expired in 1858 and the following year Rosalie and Gershom Nathan moved into the Bedford Street house.  (Diana did not move far away.  In 1859 she was living at 67 Bedford Street.)

Like his wife's family, Gershom's had supported the American Revolution.  His father, Simon Nathan, arrived in the colonies in 1773 and immediately threw his support to the cause.  He also was active in the Jewish community and was a trustee of Shearith Israel Congregation.  

Gershom was born on September 26, 1821.  He and Rosalie had seven children, Frances, Clarence Seixas, Stella, Edgar Joshua, Benjamin, Elvira and Solis.

Gershom Seixas Nathan (original source unknown)

Shortly after moving in, Rosalie advertised for domestic help.  Her ad on October 4, 1859 read, "Wanted--A cook; one who understands plain cooking, making bread and to do the washing of a small family; wages $7 per month."  (The broad list of duties would earn the servant the equivalent of $265 a month today.)

On July 12, 1864, five years after the family moved in, Gershom died at the age of 42.  It is unclear how long Rosalie and the children remained at 73 Bedford Street.  She eventually moved far north to 113 West 87th Street where she died on April 16, 1890.

As early as 1871, the former Nathan house was home to Hudson W. Ball, a real estate agent, his wife, the former Katherine Kane, and their son Hudson H. Ball, who was a clerk.  The family rented the house until 1887 when they moved to 51 Morton Street.

Terrence H. Forrest leased 73 Bedford Street in the 1890s, paying $187.50 per quarter, according to Gomez documents.  The rent would translate to nearly $26,000 per year in today's money.  Forrest ran a laundry business on the East Side of Manhattan.  On June 4, 1896, The World said, "In Bedford street, where many of the old settlers still dwell, despite the attractions of Harlem and other newer neighborhoods, Terrence is a man of influence, both social and political."

For several years, according to the article, Forrest had suffered from dropsy (known today as edema).  Nothing had alleviated the condition and, "with each relapse his strength faded away, until he retained hardly any of his former strength."  Finally, in the spring of 1896, Forrest's condition was dire.  The World reported, "It was decided that the last sacraments of the Catholic Church should be administered to the dying man."  

Father McCabe of the Church of St. Anthony of Padua arrived at the house.  Along with the items for administering extreme unction, he brought a relic of St. Anthony in a gold case.  The World reported, "He anointed the sick man's body with it while all around prayed, with heads bowed."  

On June 4, The World recounted, "Almost immediately, it is said, the man rallied, and from that moment grew stronger and stronger until now, his family declare, he enjoys his former health."  Neither Father McCabe nor Terrence Forrest would discuss the matter.  "In the neighborhood, however, the case is much talked about, and Mr. Forrest is looked upon by many as one saved from the grave," said the article.

Forrest's name was back in the newspapers the following year when his turnout (a two-wheeled carriage) ran down bicyclist Annie W. Browne uptown on 62nd Street.  The New York Journal and Advertiser reported, "Her bicycle was wrecked, but she was not injured."  Forrest was initially arrested, "but upon his promise to pay for the damage he was liberated."

The Forrest family remained at 73 Bedford Street through 1899, after which it was operated as a boarding house for more than a decade.  Interestingly, in 1917 Rosalie and Gershom Nathan's son, Clarence Siexas Nathan, leased his childhood home "for a term of years."

In October 1923, the Gomez family began liquidating about a dozen properties, including 73 through 77 Bedford Streets.  On November 18, 1923, The New York Times reported, "Greenwich Village has a new community art center.  It is in Bedford and Commerce Streets, where the noise of motor traffic on Seventh Avenue never penetrates."  A group of artists, writers and performers had bought up the Bedford Street houses and hired architect Ferdinand Savigano to remodel them.

Savigano raised the attic to a full floor, its vertical wall composed of more glass than brick.  Artists' studio spaces like this were highly popular in Greenwich Village.  Seven years later, Bedford Street was widened, requiring the removal of the stoop.  The entrance to 73 Bedford Street was moved to the rear, accessed through a gateway on Commerce Street.

Shorn of its stoop, the former entrance of 73 Bedford Street hovered above the sidewalk in 1941.  image via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services.

Living in the remodeled house were Warren C. Clark, an investment statistician and graduate of Williams College; Joseph Cox, the managing editor of Adventure magazine; and Kathleen Keenan (known as Katy to her friends), who was a dietician for Child's Restaurants.  In October 1927, The Lyre of Alpha Chi Omega described Kathleen's "cozy little apartment at Greenwich Village."

Another remodeling in 1938 resulted in one apartment in the basement and two each on the upper floors.  One of the units was rented by actress and dancer Joan McCracken in 1944.  Her husband, Jack Dunphy, had been called to military duty.  In her 2003 biography of McCracken, The Girl Who Fell Down, Lisa Jo Sagolla writes:

McCracken focused on settling into her ground-floor garden apartment at 72 Bedford Street.  To McCracken, home was a haven in which to escape.  She had a knack for turning her urban apartments into snug little oases, filled with plants and flowers.  She papered her apartment walls herself, made her own slipcovers, and filled her home with the products of her favorite hobby--antique furniture shopping.  One of her prized pieces was an antique Pennsylvania Dutch cupboard.  Collecting seashells and unusually shaped pieces of driftwood was another of McCracken's hobbies, and her New York apartment sported specimens she and Dunphy had picked up along the shore during their honeymoon in Provincetown.

McCracken had a contract with Warner Brothers, but had been allowed to return to New York to work on the Broadway play Bloomer Girl.  

Joan McCracken as Daisy (right) in the Broadway production of Bloomer Girl.  Life magazine, November 6, 1944.  

Jack Dunphy would never join his wife at 73 Bedford Street.  In 1948 he met Truman Capote at a cocktail party and the two would have a relationship until Capote's death.  Joan McCracken went on to film, Broadway and television roles to general acclaim.  But health complications brought an end to her career.  She died in 1961 at the age of 43.

In 1985, the house was renovated again, at which time the stoop was refabricated.  There are now a duplex apartment in the basement and first floor, and one apartment each on the upper floors.  

photograph by the author

The Walter E. Strobel House - 317 West 103rd Street

 

Around 1888, Daniel Hallecy and John J. Egan, established the Egan & Hallecy Construction Company.  They quickly became a force in Manhattan development, erecting scores of rowhouses.  In 1891 they began construction of five upscale homes at 315 to 323 West 103rd Street designed by Martin V. B. Ferdon.  Completed the following year, each of the brownstone faced, three-story-and-basement homes had cost $16,000 to erect, or about $553,000 in 2025 terms.

The residences were designed in the Renaissance Revival style.  At 317 West 103rd Street, the wing-walled stoop spilled down to beefy stone newels, each girded with foliate carvings with a face in profile.  The double-doored entrance featured an elegant fan light and sat within an elaborate framework.  Caryatid-like brackets supported fruit-carved capitals.  The arch included a fearsome portrait keystone and foliate spandrels.  A full-height, rounded bay rose tower-like to the denticulated cornice.

The house was purchased by Richard Albert and Helena Waples Babbage.  The couple had two children, Helena Maude and Richard.  Their residency would be relatively short-lived.  On March 4, 1895, an advertisement in the New York Press read:

317 West 103d St.--A superior 3 story and basement brownstone house, 20x55, with an extension, on the upper side of the street, and commanding charming views of the beautiful Riverside Drive and the Hudson; it is near the palatial residences on the drive and is in all respects desirable.

The Babbages sold the house to Eva P. and Abraham M. Graff on September 20, 1895, sparking a rapid-fire turnover of the property.  Three days later, the Graffs sold 317 West 103rd Street to George E. and Florence E. S. Weyl.  They remained just over two years, advertising it in January 1899 as being "in one of the choicest blocks up town."

It was next home to educator and author James E. Russell, dean of Teachers' College at Columbia University.  Born in Hamden, New York, he graduated from Cornell University and did post-graduate studies in Jena, Berlin and Leipsic.

Journal of Education February 27, 1902 (copyright expired)

Finally, starting around 1905, the house had long-term residents with the Strobel family.  Following his graduation from the College of the City of New York in 1896, Walter E. Strobel entered Strobel & Wilken Co.  It was co-founded by his grandfather, Charles Strobel in 1849 (at the time, the firm was "devoted to the manufacture of pocket books," according to the Crockery and Glass Journal decades later).  Strobel's father, Emil, was president of the firm when the family moved into the 103rd Street house.  (Emil and Elsa Strobel lived four houses away, at 309 West 103rd Street.)

Strobel & Wilken Co. had greatly diversified since its inception.  In 1878 it advertised, "importers and wholesale dealers in Fancy goods, Druggist, Sundries, Smokers' articles & Toys."  But by the turn of the century, it was mostly known for its German-made bisque dolls marked with the initials SWC.

image via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services

While Walter managed the business, his wife busied herself with more social pursuits.  On March 10, 1907, for instance, The New York Times reported, "A pretty bridge party was that given recently by Mrs. Walter E. Strobel in her home, 317 West 103d Street."

Upon the death of Emil Strobel in 1916, Walter became vice-president.  He briefly was president, and then in February 1926 was elected as a member of the board.

Walter retired in 1936.  By then, the couple spent their summer months in Tarrytown, New York, where they were visible members of summer society.  The Daily News of Tarrytown, for instance, reported on June 29, 1938, "Today, Mrs. Walter E. Strobel of New York City is entertaining at the club at a lunch for 20 guests."  "The club"  mentioned in the article was the Sleepy Hollow Country Club.

It is unclear when the Strobels left 317 West 103rd Street.  It was converted to apartments, two per floor, in 1960.  Among the tenants that year was Krythia Helen Reid.  She was a documents assistant within the New Zealand Mission to the United Nations.  

A rooftop addition was added to the Strobel house around the turn of the 21st century.  

photographs by the author

The Lost Daniel Ransom House - 16 West 21st Street

 

from the collection of the New York Public Library

Daniel Ransom and his brother, Warren A., operated the boot and shoe business W. A. Ransom & Co.  Daniel and his family lived at 152 Second Avenue when an advertisement appeared in the New-York Tribune on March 20, 1851:

For Sale--the new 3-story and attic house, with freestone front, 16 West Twenty-first-st. 25 by 65 feet, built in the very best manner, and can be immediately occupied.

The newly-built residence was similar to the opulent homes being constructed on Fifth Avenue, just steps to the east.  The ornate cast iron area and stoop railings morphed to a full-width cast iron balcony at the parlor level.  The classical pediment above the arched, double-doored entrance was supported by foliate brackets.  Handsome molded lintels above the segmentally arched openings sat upon scrolled brackets.

Daniel Ransom married Esther A. Jones in 1842.  When they moved into 16 West 21st street, they had three children:  Helen, Frank, and Kate, who were eight, seven and four years old respectively.

In 1864, Daniel Ransom fell ill.  He died at the age of 51 on April 30.  His funeral was held in the parlor on May 2.

In an interesting turn of events, five years later the widow and her brother-in-law, Esther and Warren A. Ransom, were married.  Warren's wife, Mary Elizabeth Leavitt, had died in 1855.  Esther and Daniel's children were still unmarried and living in the house when their mother and uncle wedded.

The Ransom family's social position was reflected in Helen's, Frank's and Kate Ransom's being invited to the wedding of the Spanish Minister, Señor Mauritio Lopez Roberts to Angela Terre on November 28, 1870.  Others in the church that afternoon were the Ministers of Russia, Prussia, Portugal and Italy, the French Charge d'Affaires and high-level socialites with surnames like Fowler, Hewitt, Skidmore, and Sherman.

The following year, Helen was married to Celestin Astoin and the couple headed to Europe.  Tragically, Helen's honeymoon voyage turned to grief.  The 33-year-old groom died on  the steamer Pereire on October 25.  Helen arrived home with the body a month later and his funeral was held in St. Patrick's Cathedral on Mott Street.

(When Helen's father-in-law, Felix Astoin, died in January 1884, he left her a substantial amount of Manhattan real estate, including the famous Knickerbocker Cottage on Sixth Avenue.)

Ironically, Kate suffered a similar fate.  She married William Lowndes on May 22, 1875.  Less than four years later, on April 23, 1879, William died at the age of 35.  Kate moved back into her family's 21st Street home.

Kate Ransom Lowndes spent the summer of 1891 at the exclusive Grand Union Hotel in Saratoga, New York.  She died there at the age of 44 on August 17.   

By the time of Kate's funeral, Warren A. Ransom had retired.  Possibly a victim of a stroke, he was described by The New York Times as an invalid.  

The family's home was, by now, hemmed in by commercial buildings.  Stubbornly resisting the northward migration of their neighboring millionaires, the Ransoms' house was an anachronism of a more refined era.  Possibly because of  those changes, Kate's funeral was not held in the house.

Warren A. Ransom died at the age of 79 in the West 21st Street house on March 26, 1900, and his funeral was held in the Church of the Holy Communion on March 28.

Now only Esther and Frank, who never married, occupied the vintage residence.  Esther died here on October 15, 1903 at the age of 80.  Her funeral, too, was held in the Church of the Holy Communion.

Six decades after the family moved in, the last Ransom died on April 27, 1912.  Frank J. Ransom left an estate equal to about $14.6 million in 2025 money.  The New York Times said, "He was a bachelor and left no near relatives."  He left much of his fortune to institutions, like the St. Luke's, Roosevelt, and New York hospitals, and $200,000 to the Church of Holy Communion.  

He was generous to his domestic staff.  His coachman, Thomas Hart, and Francis Dawson, "who worked around his house," both received $1,000 (about $32,400 today).  Ransom left the same amount to two maids, Julia Cunningham and Maggie Burke; and $500 and $25,000 in trust each to servants Sabrina McGrath and Bessie Kane.

Two years later, on March 22, 1914, The New York Times reported that the Frank J. Ransom estate had sold 16 West 21st Street, mentioning that it, "has been in the family ownership since 1851."  L. Napoleon Levy paid $20,000 for the property, about $629,000 today.

The house was converted to the headquarters of the Waistmakers' and Dressmakers' Union.  By 1919 the name was changed to the International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union.  During a sweeping labor strike, on February 11 that year, the New-York Tribune reported, "A bank for the payment of strike benefits to 20,000 striking dress and waist workers is to be opened to-day at 16 West Twenty-first Street."   

In the 1920s, other unions joined the ILGWU in the house.  On December 19, 1929, The Daily Worker reported, "A pre-convention membership meeting of the New York District of the National Textile Workers Union will be held this evening at 8 o'clock at 16 West 21st St."

The stoop was removed by the time this photo was taken in 1941.  via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services.

All of the organizations were closely scrutinized by Congress's Special Committee on Un-American Activities.  In 1938, the Workers' International Relief was in its crosshairs.  The Committee noted that the group was founded in 1921 "on Lenin's suggestion."

In 1942, the venerable Ransom residence was demolished, replaced with a one-story truck garage.  

image via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services.

That building was replaced in 2005 with a 14-story apartment building.

J. M. Felson's 1942 223 East 61st Street

image via compass.com

Born in Russia in 1886, Jacob M. Felson received his architectural training at Cooper Union, opening his office in 1910.  At the time, the Sixty-First Methodist Episcopal Church, organized during the Civil War, worshipped in the distinctive Victorian Gothic building it had erected in the 1870s.  

When this photograph was taken in 1941, the church's days were numbered.  via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services.

The Sixty-First Methodist Episcopal Church merged with Christ Church Methodist at 60th Street and Park Avenue in 1933.  The following year, the congregation of the French Episcopal Eglise du Saint-Espirit moved into the church.  Just over a decade later, on October 7, 1941, The New York Sun reported that the Valcourt Realty Corporation had purchased the building.  "A six-story apartment house to contain forty-nine suites and 124 rooms and estimated to cost $200,000 will be erected on the site," said the article.  (The construction cost would translate to about $4 million in 2025.)

Throughout the Depression years, J. M. Felson had kept busy designing Art Deco and Art Moderne-style apartment buildings.  His design for 223 East 61st Street would be different--a 1940s take on Georgian architecture.  While Felson's fenestration--casements and tripartite windows--was distinctly modern, he gave the red brick facade details inspired from early American precedents.

The arched, double-doored entrance sat within a Georgian frame of fluted Doric columns, topped with an elegant swan's head pediment and stylized pineapple.  The end windows wore splayed brick lintels with stone keystones.  The building was crowned by a brick pediment decorated by a central shield flanked by swags.

photograph by Lowell Cochrane

The apartments, eight per floor, became home to middle- and upper-middle class tenants.  Among the initial residents were Faith B. LeLacheur and Clarissa Cooper.  A graduate of Wellesley College, Faith was a nurse.  Clarissa was a teacher of French and a translator of French literary works.  She received her master and doctorate degrees from Columbia University.  In the 1920s she obtained her pilot license and was an award-winning driver for the American Women's Voluntary Service during World War II.  The couple decorated their apartment, according to The New York Times later, with an "extensive array of antiques."

Other early residents were journalist Robert Simpson and his wife, the former Luz Rudolph.  Born in 1896, Simpson was the son of a journalist.  Like his father, Robert worked for newspapers in Charleston and Huntington, West Virginia before relocating to New York and joining The Evening World.

photograph by Lowell Cochran

In 1929, Simpson joined The New York Times on the city desk.  He would eventually focus on scientific issues, especially plant genetics and world problems.  While working at The Times, he contributed many articles to other popular and trade periodicals, like his scathing article for The Saturday Review that rebutted claims of Soviet geneticist, T. D. Lysenko.

Simpson left The New York Times in 1959 and joined the public relations firm of Thomas J. Deegan Company.  He was public relations director for the Preakness at Pimlico Race Track in 1962, and was publicity consultant for Pan American Airways.

Typical of the Simpsons' neighbors in the building were Russell P. Kantor and his wife, the former Mabel Chamberlain.  Kantor was president of Victor Gloves, Inc. and grand director of ceremonies of the Masonic Order's Grand Lodge of the State of New York.

Clarissa Burnham and Faith B. LeLacheur still occupied their apartment in 1979.  Clarissa died on June 29 that year at the age of 84.

Vivian Williams cleaned the couple's apartment once a week.  Three months after Clarissa's death, on October 17, 1979, Williams entered and immediately noticed a grandfather clock knocked to the floor in the entry hall.  She discovered Faith LeLacheur's body in the bedroom.  The 81-year-old had been murdered by "multiple stab wounds," according to police, who would say only, "that she had 'possibly' been raped," reported The New York Times.  The apartment had not been ransacked and, apparently, not robbed.  There were indications, however, that the elderly woman had valiantly struggled with her attacker.

There are still eight apartments per floor and, outwardly, little has changed to J. M. Felson's reserved design.

many thanks to reader Lowell Cochran for suggesting this post.