photo by Alice Lum |
Brooklyn-born William Wickes Rossiter had three brothers
and, like him, all were eminently successful.
Walter K. Rossiter was Assistant Secretary of the Brooklyn Union Gas
Company, and Clinton L. Rossiter, was President of the Brooklyn Heights
Railroad. But it was E. V. W. Rossiter
who would be most instrumental in William’s new business, The Terminal
Warehouse Company. E. V. W. Rossiter
was the Treasurer of the New York Central Railroad—the railroad that ran down
the middle of 11th Avenue and the only with a direct rail link into
Manhattan.
In 1890 William W. Rossiter purchased the entire block from
11th to 12th Avenues, and 27th to 28th
Streets and began construction of the mammoth Central Stores complex of the
Terminal Warehouse Company. George B.
Mallory designed a 7-story brick behemoth the somewhat resembled a hulking
fortress. Using what has been called the
“American Round Arch” style, he melded what was actually 25 separate buildings
into a unified structure. The gigantic edifice, completed in 1891, enclosed a full 24 acres of warehouse space
within what the AIA Guide to New York City would, over a century later, call “somber
monumentality.”
A freight train exits the giant arch onto 11th Avenue -- King's Handbook of New York 1895 (copyright expired) |
An 1895 advertisement reflected the long list of services -- King's Handbook of New York (copyright expired) |
C. Leonard was, in fact, Dr. Walter H. Keyes who claimed to
be the head of the Mississippi Medicine Company. The pottery was purchased using funds obtained
“under false pretenses and converting partnership property to his own use,”
according to the Pennsylvania police.
The scheming doctor was arrested and his pottery confiscated.
Later that year, on April 30, just six years after his ambitious project was completed, William Wickes Rossiter died. The 49-year old executive had complained of stomach pain and was taken to the Seney Hospital in Brooklyn for an emergency appendectomy. When the operation was started the surgeons realized the real cause for the pain. Rossiter was suffering from advanced intestinal cancer. He died after spending two days in a coma.
The resourceful plan of constructing the Central Stores as
separate buildings within one proved itself when fire broke out on September
20, 1900. It was the first fire since
the buildings’ construction and, according to The New York Times the following
day, “Two floors of Sections 1 and 2, forming the Eleventh Avenue front, were
ravaged, but the other twenty-two sections escaped damage owing to the solid
construction of the building and the intrepidity of the firemen.”
Unfortunately, the “ravaged” sections included some irreplaceable
items—some of which were destroyed not by the flames, but by the deluge of
water from the hoses.
For decades the Schmitt Brothers were among the preeminent
antiques dealers in Manhattan, operating from No. 523 Madison Avenue. When wealthy Queens resident John J.
Halleran died in 1897, the firm purchased his 50-year collection of ceramics,
antique furniture, books, paintings, bronzes and silver. Schmitt Brothers had the entire collection in
storage on the 7th floor and it was all lost. The firm valued it “on an artistic basis,” at
$50,000.
Also lost in the fire was $30,000 worth of furniture by the
Thonet Brothers manufacturers—famous for their bentwood rockers and
chairs. Ehrich Brothers, the large
department store on 6th Avenue at the end of The Ladie’s Mile, lost $20,000 in “suites of furniture and toys” on the fourth floor.
The warehouse had been built with special accommodations for
large, hand-painted canvas stage scenery.
Polish-born actress Helene Anna Held who would within a few years become
the mistress of Florenz Ziegfeld and a millionaire in her own right, had stored
the scenery for her play “Papa’s Wife” here.
On the same floor was scenery for “Barbara Frietchie,” stored by actress
Julia Marlowe, an English actress well known for her Shakespearean roles. The scenery was all lost.
The popular actress Anna Held lost scenery in the 1900 fire -- photo Library of Congress |
On November 19, 1904, electrical workers from the Edison
Company accidentally severed a cable while working in a manhole at 8th
Avenue and 35th Street.
Unfortunately the cable connected 96 fire alarm boxes to the Fire
Department, which were rendered inoperative for about four hours. Even more unfortunate was that the Terminal
Warehouse caught fire again on that day.
When Police Officer Peter Hogan saw smoke coming from the
iron shutters of Warehouse 18, he rushed to the fire box at 11th Avenue and 29th
Street. When no firemen appeared after
five minutes, he ran to 10th Avenue and 27th Street. He pulled that alarm box. When no firemen appeared again, he ran to 12th
Avenue and 31st Street, pulling that alarm.
Finally the frustrated policeman called the station house
from the police signal box and his sergeant phoned Police Headquarters. An officer at Headquarters telephoned the
Fire Headquarters, which telephoned Engine 34 on 10th Avenue.
By now a second alarm was necessary. But once again the construction of the
building held. “Only the fire-proof
character of the building is believed to have averted a great conflagration,”
reported The Times.
The fire destroyed $5,000 worth of merchandise intended as
trading-stamp premiums stored by the Sperry & Hutchinson Company.
Renowned architect Stanford White traveled the world in
search of interesting architectural and interior design items to embellish the mansions
and buildings he designed. These artifacts
were shipped to New York and stored at the Terminal Warehouse until they were
matched with the right client and the right building--that is, until Harry Kendall Thaw fatally shot
White at Madison Square Garden on June 25, 1906.
On December 10, 1907 the American Art Association held at
auction at the Warehouse. The New York
Tribune listed among the articles “antique marble and stone mantels,
sarcophagi, fountains and other valuable objects.” An antique Italian marble fountain carved
in the shape of a shell and resting on an elaborately-carved base brought
$525. T. Jefferson Coolidge, who had traveled
from Newton Centre, Massachusetts for the sale, took home a haul. He spent $410 on a Renaissance stone mantel,
$320 for an Italian Renaissance marble sarcophagus, $105 for three antique
stone vases, $90 for five jars and two vases, and $75 on two frames of wall
tiles.
Joseph Pulitzer’s wife was on hand, purchasing stone lions,
red pottery finial ornaments and a pair of mounted crocodiles. The reptiles cost her $5. Among the other famous New York names who
had come to the warehouse and freight district that day were architect Thomas
Hastings and I. N. Phelps Stokes. The
auction realized over $92,000.
photo by Alice Lum |
Another giant retailer, John Wanamaker, had leased at least
one entire building since 1898. In
October of 1915 the store signed a two-year lease on two full buildings of the
complex, approximately 120,000 square feet.
By 1983 the 11th Avenue rail line was long gone and the West Side freight area, once vibrant and bustling, was essentially a memory. The Terminal Warehouse had been altered several times, noticeably losing its corner towers and gaining floors in some sections. That year a group of investors purchased the massive Terminal Warehouse for $12.3 million and converted over half of the building into a colossal mini-storage operation. In the huge arched space facing 12th Avenue where trains once picked up and unloaded furniture and pottery, The Tunnel nightclub was opened.
As the 21st century dawned, the scruffy far-west
section of Chelsea was reinvented by art galleries. By 2012 over 200 galleries had found homes
in the warehouses and lofts along the district’s cobblestone-paved back streets. Where the Tunnel nightclub had been, the long
corridor now sheltered art galleries. And
in May 2012 DeLorenzo 1950 leased around 4,000 square feet on two floors for
its furniture store.
Where freight trains once passed, now art collectors and furniture buyers enter modern glass doors -- photo by Alice Lum |
nice
ReplyDelete"The painted brick walls of the $650,000 warehouse"
ReplyDeleteMr. Miller,
Do you think the original walls were painted? I'm flipping through historic photos and I never thought the original seemed painted. But now that I've read your post it has me looking twice and scratching my head a little!
While it would be unexpected that a utilitarian brick structure would be painted, the King's photograph seems to support that this one was.
Delete