In 1827 Lambert Suydam planted a grape vine in the garden behind his new three-and-a-half story home at No. 433 Broome Street. In the years following the War of 1812 development in the new suburb was sluggish but by the time Suydam’s brick home was constructed in the 1820s, Broome Street was seeing a building boom.
Like his neighbors, Suydam was well
respected in the community. A member of
what The New York Times would later deem one “of the oldest Knickerbocker
families,” he could trace his roots in America to 1663. A son, Lambert Jr., was born to him and his wife, Eliza Lawrence Suydam, at about the same time he planted his grapevine. Years later the boy’s obituary would mention
that he was born “in the family homestead on Broome Street, then part of the
fashionable residence section of old New York.”
On Tuesday, September 7, 1830 the
New-York Horticultural Society judged “a very large collection of Fruits,
Plants, and Flowers” at its annual Festival. The New-York Farmer commented on
Lambert Suydam’s submission. “A basket
of very delicious Grapes, the White Sweet-water, from a vine planted in 1827,
and which has borne this year upwards of a hundred clusters.”
It was somewhat fitting that the
Suydam residence became home to Sebastian C. Dortic within the next
decade. Doric was a partner in Dortic
& Castillon, an importer and seller of “brandies, wines and fruits,” doing
business at No. 102 Front Street. His
family would live in the Broome Street house as least from 1841 through 1843.
But by 1846 the house changed
hands again, this time to nobility. William O’Brien was born in 1768 in Ireland and was Lord O’Brien,
Earl of Inchiquinn at the time of the Irish Rebellion of 1798. A Catholic, his title and estate had been
confiscated by the British and turned over to the Protestant branch of his
family.
O’Brien sailed to America on a
ship commanded by Captain John Stevens.
Also on the vessel was Stevens’ half sister, Eliza West. The voyage was long enough for romance to spark. On January 27, 1810
the couple was married—despite the remarkable differences in their ages. O’Brien was 42 and his bride was 15.
William O’Brien became a
successful insurer of ships and the Broome Street house was a center of
entertainments. Decades later, in 1870, Joseph A
Scoville remembered “He was very jovial and social, and held his levees
regularly once or twice a week. His
house was always open to his friends. No
Irish gentleman of any note ever passed through New York without making his
appearance at the residence of Mr. O’Brien in Broome Street. The best wines and liquors in the United
States could be found in perfection upon Mr. O’Brien’s good old-fashioned,
mahogany sideboard.”
The couple had several children,
one of whom, William Jr., went into business with his father at No. 33 Wall
Street. William O’Brien died in the
house on Monday August 31, 1846, at the age of 78. His family remained in the house for several
years and would retain possession of it for decades; but by the last years of
the 1850s it was converted to the Broadway House Hotel.
The former house was still a hotel
on July 7, 1868 when a small fire broke out at around 10:30 p.m.; but a year
later O’Brien family began renovations to convert it to a modern loft building,
in keeping with the trend overtaking the neighborhood. The attic was raised to a full floor and a
cast iron façade replaced the former Federal-style front. No. 433 Broome, with its clean lines and
engaged columns with ornate Corinthian capitals, was little different from many
of the cast iron-fronted structures that would fill the neighborhood within the
next decades; however its ambitious cornice and pediment set it apart.
Here graceful scrolled brackets (two of them cleverly sitting
sideways) upheld the cornice. The arched
pediment was filled with shallow brackets and a handsome stylized antefix. Above it all was an lovely bulbous finial.
The renovated building filled with
firms connected to the millinery, upholstery and apparel trades. Importer Clarence F. Moulton had offices
here, as well as cloth dealers Gilbert & Weaver, and Clapp, Braden &
Co. importers of artificial flowers and feathers.
 |
| Clapp, Braden & Co. operated its main office in Paris -- Millinery Trade Review, January 1876 (copyright expired) |
In January 1876 the Millinery
Trade Review reported that “Clapp, Braden & Co. have just received all the
latest novelties in artificial flowers from Paris, including new styles and
colors…Mr. J. J. Braden, being a resident of that city, superintends in person
all commission entrusted to said firm.”
By 1893 suit and cloak maker
Philip Bouton was in the building. That
year he advertised for a dress form. “Figure
Wanted, bust measure 36.” He would
remain here for several years.
In 1887 John O’Brien had leased
the first floor and basement to William Brenglemeyer whose restaurant would be
a familiar spot for local businessmen for years. It would become part of a murder mystery in
1894.
Gottlieb Grob worked for Brenglemeyer
as a cook, earning $7 a week. From this
salary he managed to save a small nest egg in the Bowery Savings Bank. Grob, described by The Evening World as “an
inoffensive German about forty years old,” lived in a tenement apartment in the
rear of No. 221 William Street. He had
lived alone here for over a year, after being granted a divorce from his wife
who had “eloped with a man named Christ,” according to The Evening World. Among his few possessions was his pocket
watch.
Grob’s apartment could be seen from
that of John Hartman’s across the air shaft.
On the evening of May 2, 1894, Hartman noticed him at the window and hollered
across, asking Grob over to play a game of cards. Grob declined, saying he wanted to go to bed early.
When Hartman went to bed an hour
or two later, he noticed that Grob’s windows were closed. The following morning Mrs. Hartman casually
mentioned that Grob’s windows were now opened.
It did not seem like a matter of concern.
But Grob did not report to work at
the restaurant that morning. When
nothing had been heard from him by nightfall, an associate cook George Rampft,
was sent to check on him. When Rampft
arrived, he found Grob’s door locked and there was no response to his knocks.
He entered a vacant room next door and climbed out onto the fire escape,
entering the apartment through the still-opened window.
The cook was not prepared for what
he found. The Evening World reported “Grob
was found on his bed dead. His throat
was cut and skull crushed. A woman’s
coat was thrown over the body.”
Police surmised that the murderer
had gained entrance to the apartment through the window by means of the fire
escape, and then left by the front door.
The only item missing from the apartment was Grob’s watch. “Everything else in his rooms was in perfect
order. The police do not take to the
theory of robbery as a motive.”
With no known enemies, the motive
for the brutal murder was puzzling. “The
presence of a woman’s cloak thrown over the body was additional mystery to the
murder” said the newspaper.
In 1901, having owned No. 433 for
well over half a century, the O’Brien family sold it at auction. It continued to house apparel-related firms,
including Rayvid Moss & Co., and Leishin & Dorf, both manufacturers of
suits and cloaks, in 1904.
As the decade progressed, other types
of firms would move in; such as the Fiberide Sample Trunk Co. in 1913 and the
Kaldenberg Trading Co. in 1915. Kaldenberg
not only operated from the building, but owned it.
In 1918 G. W. Augustin Co., “dealers
in Meerschaum and amber goods,” was in the building. That year Kaldenberg leased the former Brenglemeyer
space to the St. Regis Restaurant.
Throughout the rest of the century
the building would continue to house a variety of tenants, like Combined Hotel
China, Inc. which took the store and basement in 1951. Around
1965 it was purchased by David Novros when the neighborhood was still filled
with small factories. That would all
change as the 20th century drew to a close.
What would become known as the
Soho Cast Iron District was discovered by artists who transformed the vast
lofts into studio space, and the street level shops into galleries and
cafes. In 1996, two years after the
upper floors of his own building had been converted to artists’ studios and
joint living, work quarters for artists, Novros noticed that the wholesale
produce industry was elbowing its way onto the neighborhood.
He lamented to Andrew Jacobs of
The New York Times on April 14, 1996 that when he purchased No. 433 three
decades earlier “you could walk down the middle of the street and not have to
worry about getting hit by a car.” He
noted that within the past few years at least a dozen produce firms had moved
on to the street.
“This kind of industry doesn’t
belong in a neighborhood of artists,” he complained. “We just have differing visions of what this
place should be. It’s a classic case of
the bourgeois butting heads with new immigrants.” Most likely the produce dealers would counter
that it was the artists who were the newcomers to the neighborhood.
Navros retained ownership of the
building and in 2010 proposed an interior remodeling and a rooftop addition for
another artist’s studio. The plans,
which preserved the façade and resulted in a penthouse unseen from street level
were approved by the City Planning Commission.
Today the building is lovingly maintained. Remarkably preserved (including the ground
floor storefront where Victorian businessmen grabbed lunch) appears much it did
when the O’Briens remodeled it in 1870.
But deep inside remain the bones of the old house where Lambert Suydem planted
his garden grape vine in 1827.
photographs by the author
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