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| photo by Alice Lum |
At the turn of the last century, Supreme Court Justice James
A. Blanchard lived at 17 East 80th Street with his wife, Sallie,
and their son, Medbury, who was attending Yale University. The prim brownstone house, architecturally
out of fashion, was in stark contrast with the ebullient Beaux Arts mansion of
Paul and Nina Warburg nearby at 3 East 82nd Street.
The extended Warburg family was well-known in New York
banking circles and the neighborhood was dotted with handsome Warburg mansions.
Born in Hamburg, Germany in 1868, Paul
Warburg had arrived in New York in 1893.
Two years later he married Nina, the daughter of one of the city’s
foremost bankers, Solomon Loeb. The
Loeb-Warburg family ties were strong and not only Paul, but his brother Felix,
became members of Kuhn, Loeb & Co.
It was Solomon Loeb who presented Paul and Nina with the
house on East 82nd Street in 1901.
The couple would not stay long in their new home however. Warburg purchased the two houses at Nos. 15
and 17 East 80th Street, including the Blanchard residence, and
began planning a magnificent new home.
As the 1906 summer social season drew to a close, the
Warburgs moved temporarily abroad while work commenced. On September 7 The New York Times announced
“Architect C. P. H. Gilbert has filed plans at the Building Department for a
six-and-one-half story residence to be built at 15 and 17 East Eightieth Street
for P. Warburg, who is now living in Hamburg, German. The house will have a frontage of 45 feet, with
a façade of white stone. The work of
demolishing the dwellings now on the site is underway, and the erection of the
structure will be begun immediately.”
Construction of the French Classic-style mansion took two
years to complete. But it was worth the
wait. The result was five stories of
understated taste and refinement.
Kate Simon, in her Fifth Avenue, A Very Social History,” points out that among the very wealthy Jewish New Yorkers an unspoken rule was “live
and comport yourself at the height of respectability so that ‘they’ might have
no handle for criticism.” For the same
reason, Jacob Schiff, the father-in-law of Paul’s brother Felix, objected to
the over-the-top French chateau Felix was building at the same time (and by the
same architect). It was ostentatious and
drew attention.
No such criticism could be made regarding 17 East 80th
Street. Fluted Roman columns upheld the
entrance portico, a few steps above sidewalk level. There was no froth, no elaborate carvings—just
elegant bracketed cornices over the second story openings, a Juliette balcony
at the fourth floor, and handsome pedimented dormers at the fifth. But if the self-assured design was not ostentatious, neither
was it timid.
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| photo by Alice Lum |
In the early years of the 20th century servants
dealt with the cleaning of expensive wool and silk garments with a home version
of dry cleaning. Unfortunately, the
cleaning agent of choice—gasoline—did not mix well with the common lighting
method of the time, gas-fed flame.
On the evening of March 23, 1909, months after the Warburgs
moved in, a servant set to work on cleaning a garment in the pantry. The
gasoline fumes reached the lighted gas jet and ignited. Nina quickly called the fire department; but
by the time they arrived, her dinnerware was in ruins.
“Blazing gasoline started a fire in the pantry, which broke
all the glass and ruined many of the dishes,” reported The New York Times the following
morning. “The police estimated the
damage at $500.” (That would amount to about $10,000 today.)
In July 1914 President Woodrow Wilson butted heads with the
Senate Committee on Banking and Currency regarding the nomination of Paul
Warburg to the Federal Reserve Board. Reportedly,
Warburg and Thomas D. Jones, another nominee, were negatively targeted by the
Committee because of their involvement in what was considered “big business.”
When Warburg was summoned to appear before the Senate
committee, he refused, saying that he and Jones had been singled at ‘to be
heckled by the committee.” A deadlock
ensued that The Sun, on July 9, 1914, said threatened to become “historical.”
Wilson rebuked the committee and The Sun reported “The
President issued a statement to-day indicating very clearly that he will insist
on the confirmation of both Warburg and Jones.”
Calling Warburg a patriot, Wilson said “It would be particularly unfair
to the Democratic party and to the Senate itself to regard it as the enemy of
business, big or little. I am sure that
it does not regard a man as an object of suspicion merely because he has been
connected with great business enterprises.”
In the end Warburg gained his seat on the Federal Reserve
Board. But the war with Germany would
bring his position to an end. As Warburg’s
four-year term drew to a close, he wrote to President Wilson. The letter assured Wilson of his devotion to
his adopted country, but noted “Certain persons have started an agitation to
the effect that a naturalized citizen of German birth, having near relatives
prominent in German public life, should not be permitted to hold a position of
great trust in the service of the United States. (I have two brothers in Germany who are
bankers. They naturally now serve their
country to the utmost of their ability, as I serve mine.)”
Warburg went on “Much to my regret, Mr. President, it has
become increasingly evident that, should you choose to renominate me, this
might precipitate a harmful fight, which in the interest of the country I wish
to do anything in my power to avoid, and which, even though resulting in my
confirmation, would be likely to leave an element of irritation in the minds of
many whose anxieties and sufferings may justify their intense feelings.”
Paul Warburg left room in his resignation letter for Wilson to renominate him and made it clear that he would accept a new term
gladly. The return letter from the
White House, however, did not take advantage of the opening.
In part it read “Your retirement from the board is a serious
loss to the public service. I consent to
it only because I read between the lines of your generous letter that you will
yourself feel more at ease if you are left free to serve in other ways.”
The Warburgs returned to East 80th Street with Paul,
reportedly, changed. In his book “The
Warburgs: The Twentieth-Century Odyssey of a Remarkable Jewish Family,” Ron
Chernow notes “Like other incorruptible young idealists, he reacted to keep
disappointment by becoming cynical and pessimistic.”
With the war’s end Warburg again involved himself in notable
financial matters. In 1920 he was the
Chairman of the United States delegation to Chile for the Second Pan American
Financial Conference.
The decade of the 1920s was comparatively relaxed in the 80th
Street house. The Warburgs entertained
and daughter Betinna attended medical school.
In 1927, now holding the title “doctor,” she began her internship at the
new Strong Memorial Hospital.
But the 1920s and peace for the family came to an end. The Great Depression crippled the nation; but it was the least of the
Warburg problems.
On New Year’s Eve 1931 The New York Times noted that Paul
had been “confined to his home at 17 East Eightieth Street, for more than a
week, but his secretary said yesterday his condition was not considered
serious.” The newspaper attributed his
condition to eye strain and being “generally run down.”
Two weeks later the New York Evening Post reported on the
63-year old banker’s condition. Still in
bed he had developed pneumonia. Warburg’s condition worsened. He
suffered what The New York Times called a “stroke of paralysis” and finally, at 10:00 in
the morning of January 26, 1932, he died surrounded by his family. The following morning the coffin, covered
with lilies-of-the-valley and pansies, was removed from the mansion. Warburg left an estate valued at at least $50
million.
In the meantime, events in Germany were terrifying. In 1933 Adolf Hitler was elected chancellor and
transformed the Weimar Republic into the Third Reich. Jews, like the Warburgs, were on the dictator’s
twisted agenda.
The eldest brother of Paul and Felix, Aby who remained in
Hamburg, had been amassing an enormous library of books. Somewhat eccentric, he had offered his brothers
an arrangement—he would give up the family banking business and step down as
first-born son if they would agree to finance his library. Having accepted the offer, the four brothers
were informed that Aby’s goal was 350,000 volumes.
The wide-flung collection included books on heraldry, philosophy,
art history, etc. The library, the
Kulturwissenschaftliche Bibliothek Warburg, grew by 1933 to a vast, priceless
collection. And on April 6 of that year
Hitler began his book-burning campaign. On May 10 students burned some 25,000 volumes
of “un-German” works. The Warburg
collection was in imminent danger.
The books were quietly packed up—531 boxes of them—by carefully
selected anti-Nazi movers. They were
secreted onto two small ships, the Hermia and the Jessica, which slipped them
across the North Sea to London. The New
York branch of the family toyed with converting the now-vacant house at 17
East 80th Street into the Warburg Library. Felix Warburg offered $500,000 to create the
library as a memorial to Paul and Aby. The
family was advised by State Department that moving the library to the Warburg
mansion could create an anti-German reaction in New York. The books remained, for a time, in London.
Nina Warburg had left the East 80th Street
mansion shortly after Paul’s death. In
1937 Arts Magazine reported that “New York University has purchased the
five-story residence of the late Paul M. Warburg at 17 East Eightieth Street,
New York, to house an institute of fine arts.”
The newly-founded Institute of Fine Arts was established to train
researchers and scholars in the area of fine arts.
The university converted the elegant interiors to “reading
and social rooms, conference rooms and offices, etc.” according to Department
of Building documents. It would use the
house for two decades before selling to the Catholic Charities of the
Archdiocese of New York in 1958. The
Archiocese announced that it “will open a center for mentally retarded children
of pre-school age” in the house.
The admirable plan never took shape, however, and two years
later, in November 1960, the building was sold for cash to the Iona Holding
Corporation.
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| photo by Alice Lum |
Paul and Nina Warburg’s magnificent white mansion was
converted to apartments in 1973. Despite
replacement windows and somewhat commercial-looking entrance doors, the house
is wonderfully preserved.
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