The James E. Dillon House - 510 East 87th Street

 

Born on June 25, 1842, Celinda Jane Porter had an impressive American pedigree.  She descended from Dr. Daniel Porter who arrived in Connecticut in the first half of the 17th century.  She married Henry C. Robinson, and when the couple moved into the newly-built house at 510 East 87th Street in Yorkville around 1872, they had three children, Henry Porter, Edith, and Irene.

The Italianate style house was one of a long row of identical, brownstone-clad homes on the south side of East 87th Street, between York and East End Avenues.  Three stories tall above an English basement, its arched, double-doored entrance featured a faceted keystone and an impressive pediment supported by scrolled brackets.  Prominent cornices sat above the upper story windows, and a cast metal cornice crowned the design.

A fourth child, Joseph Royal, was born in July 1874.  More than two decades earlier, on November 26, 1851, The Boston Medical and Surgical Journal had published an article by Dr. A. I. Cummings titled "Cholera Infantum."  It said in part, "Of all the diseases to which children, and especially infants, are liable, particularly in summer and the first months of autumn, cholera is by far the most fatal...It is the scourge of childhood."  Tragically, the affliction arrived at 510 East 87th Street.  On June 30, 1875, little Joseph Royal Robinson died of cholera infantum at the age of 11 months.  His funeral was held in the parlor on July 1.

No. 510 East 87th Street would have two more owners before the turn of the century.  By 1878, the Kelly family occupied the house.  Their children, Nathaniel C., Edward C., and Emma S. were all well-educated.  Nathaniel enrolled in Free Academy in 1878, followed four years later by his brother.  And Emma almost assuredly attended the Normal College, which prepared women for teaching.  In 1883, she taught in the Girls' Department of Grammar School No. 53 on East 79th Street.

John C. Betjeman purchased 510 East 87th Street on October 31, 1883 for $8,250 (just under $250,000 in 2024).  Following his death, his son, John Jr., sold the property to James E. and Mary J. Dillon on March 30, 1905.

Dillon was born in New York City in 1862 and joined the New York City Police Department on March 18, 1885.  Two years before purchasing the 87th Street house, he was promoted to captain.  A life-long member of the Irish-American Historical Society, he and Mary had ten children.

James E. Dillon, image via Sparrow Cop: Honest Jim Dillon and the Square Deal for New York.

One month after buying 510 East 87th Street, Dillon made headlines.  On April 20, 1905, The New York Times titled an article "Capt. Dillon Rescues Six."  At the time, Dillon was attached to the Central Park Precinct.  He was on his way home when he noticed smoke pouring from the apartment building at 415 East 86th Street.  As he ran in, he called to a pedestrian to turn in a fire alarm.  The article said in part:

As the Captain reached the top stair, he tripped over the body of Mrs. Carson.  She was picked up and carried to the street by firemen.  Capt. Dillon, pushing open the doors  of the Carson family rooms, found three children unconscious.  He carried them to the roof, where all were revived.

Returning he broke open the door leading to the rooms of Mrs. Mary Grigneen and her daughter Jennie, who had been ill for a month.  Both were lying on a bed unconscious, and he carried them to the roof.

Dillon was promoted to inspector in January 1907.  Only four years later he was elevated again.  On June 7, 1911, The New York Times reported he "was picked yesterday to be the first member of the uniformed police ever removed directly from the force to occupy a desk in Headquarters as Deputy Commissioner."  The article noted, "There is no more popular man in the department than Dillon...He has the reputation of being fair and capable."  With the promotion, his salary was raised to $6,000--a comfortable $191,000 by today's standards.

Dillon's new status within the Police Department exacted a quiet revenge on an old adversary.  Years earlier, while a roundsman (or patrolman), he had been disciplined for being absent from his post.  Dillon had been unjustly accused.  In April 1915, he told a reporter from the New-York Tribune, "I said that I would make the man responsible for it salute me, and I did, for before that man died I became his superior officer."

Two years later, on December 21, 1917, Dillon was promoted again.  Police Commissioner Arthur Woods resigned and named James E. Dillon to fill his position.  A month earlier, when the decision was announced, The Sun reported that the police force not only gave "three rousing cheers" for Wood and for Dillon, but "a lot of whoops for themselves in general in their joy of Mr. Wood's choice of a chief inspector to boss them."

Bouquets of congratulations were brought into Dillon's office.  He told a reporter, "Oh, I'll send 'em to the poor devils in the hospitals.  But first, of course, I'll have to have them carted up home so my lassie can see them."  At the time America was embroiled in World War I.  The article added, "Chief Inspector Dillon is the pardonably chesty father of ten young American citizens, two of whom wear the uniform of Uncle Sam's new army, while his lassies knit socks and sweaters for their brothers and their brothers' bunkies."

Around Christmas that year, Dillon was afflicted with a painful skin infection.  On January 3, 1918, The New York Times reported, "Police Inspector James E. Dillon was confined to his home at 510 East Eight-seventh street yesterday by an attack of erysipelas.  He will be unable to resume his duties for two weeks."  

While he was away from his desk, a new mayor, John Francis Hylan, was installed.  Like most new mayors, he made changes in personnel.  When Dillon returned to work, according to The New York Times on March 2, his temporary replacement, Inspector John Daly, "told Dillon that there was some question about the return of the Chief Inspector."  The article continued, "Dillon went at once to Commissioner Enright and on the same day called upon Mayor Hylan.  After several other visits to the Mayor and the Commissioner, it was announced that Chief Inspector Dillon would have a leave of absence for twenty days."

On March 1, 1918, the day before the leave of absence was to expire and less than three months after his promotion, Dillon retired.  The New York Times noted, "He had not served a day under the new administration."

The headstrong Irishman did not hold back when interviewed by the newspaper.  He said in part:

I was appointed Chief Inspector by Commissioner Woods and I'm very proud I was appointed by him.  I have known Commissioner Enright for many years and I hope he succeeds in this Police Department.  But I am very glad to get out, and I did ask for retirement, because it wasn't pleasant for me to stay.  They say that when a soldier is knocked unconscious by a shell over in the trenches, the rats run over his face.  You know I was a very sick man in January.  I wasn't able to stand up to fight for myself.

The New York Times concluded the article saying, "Inspector Dillon will enter the insurance business at once with his son at 11 Broadway."  Describing him as "fifty-five years old, of massive build and vigorous, the New York Herald noted that Dillon would receive a yearly pension of $3,000, or about $58,300 today.

As had been the case with Dillon and the policeman who wrongly accused him decades earlier, the enmity between him and Mayor Hyland simmered.  As elections neared in 1925, Dillon wrote an appeal "to members of the Police Department to vote for Senator Walker to 'drive Hylanism out of the Police Department'," according to The New York Times.  He got his jabs at Police Commissioner Richard E. Enright, as well, saying that under Hylan-Enright, "vice and gambling were not checked."

Enright fired back.  The New York Times quoted him on September 7, 1925, saying, "James E. Dillon, who will be remembered solely because he held the assignment and rank of Chief Inspector of this department for a shorter time than any other person who ever held the office, and who left the service not altogether of his own accord, is evidently trying to re-enter the department through the cellar."

The Dillons' summer home was in Belle Harbor Queens where, on October 9, 1925, James and Mary hosted a family reunion.  Eight of their children and spouses came.  "Mr. Dillon's twenty-two grandchildren were also present," said The New York Times.  The article explained, "A son, Lieutenant Joseph Dillon, a graduate of West Point, was unable to obtain leave from his post in Fort Ruga, Honolulu, and a married daughter living in Chicago was unable to make the trip."  As the children and grandchildren left, Dillon "bade them good-bye with an expression which he had in his long service in the police department made famous, 'Good-bye, good luck and God bless you.'," said article.

Four days later, Dillon left home for a meeting of the Arcanum Club.  In the early hours of the following morning, a patrolman wondered why the driver of an automobile stopped on First Avenue near 115th Street had kept his motor running so long and decided to investigate.  He discovered James E. Dillon dead.  His body was taken in his automobile to the stationhouse and word was sent to 510 East 87th Street.  Mary Dillon arrived shortly after with her son Raymond and they positively identified the body.  It appeared that Dillon had suffered a heart attack around midnight.

Dillon received an impressive police funeral on October 16.  The New York Times reported, "The procession from the house, 510 East Eighty-seventh Street, to the Church of St. Ignatius Loyola, Eighty-fourth Street and Park Avenue, was headed by four automobiles filled with flowers, followed by the police band playing a funeral march, thirty companies of patrolmen comprising 320 men, 150 mounted policemen, ten Captains, twenty Lieutenants and twenty Sergeants, all under the command of Deputy Chief Inspector Coleman."

The Standard Union reported, "The funeral arrangements, so far as the Police Department was concerned, were among the most impressive and elaborate ever accorded to a member of the force," adding, "Hundreds of policemen and many firemen attended the funeral."

Dillon's exemplary service and fascinating story resulted in the 2016 book, Sparrow Cop: Honest Jim Dillon and the Square Deal for New York by Bernard Durning.

By the early years of the Great Depression, Joseph Weil owned the former Dillon house.  Perhaps his most colorful tenant in 1934 was Ellen Holmsen, who came from an affluent Southampton, Long Island family.  She rented what the New York Sun described as "a furnished room with a kitchenette" after leaving her husband M. Tilton Holmsen.  

Despite her family's social standing, Ellen's demeanor was considered shocking by some.  Early in September 1934, Ellen went to Reno to obtain a divorce.  She immediately caused a sensation there.  Describing her as "a slender attractive blonde," on September 20, The New New York Sun reported, "She has attracted considerable attention on the streets of Reno since she arrived here.  In shorts and shirt, she is seen daily astride a bicycle."

The windows of the rooming house were open in the summer heat when this photo was taken in 1941.  image via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services.

It was too much for head waiter Les Lerude of the Wigwam Restaurant.  According to Ellen Holmsen, she was "virtually chased out of the restaurant" by an "unbelievably rude chief waiter."  She said his "views of modesty and morality" did not jibe with hers.  The United Press interviewed Lerude, who explained "Mrs. Holmsen entered the establishment minus shoes and stockings and attired only in men's shorts and a shirt."  He continued, "Her conduct was provoking.  She insisted on carrying on a flirtation with men who ordinarily wouldn't give her a tumble, except for her efforts to attract them with near nudity."

Ellen was equally critical of the waiter.  "It just so happens that I come from one of New York's very best families...but even if he doesn't know a lady when he sees one, no decent creature would treat another one in such a way."  She called Lerude "just a prude" and described herself as "a modern, up-to-date girl with no use for old-fashioned convention."

Despite being operated as a rooming house for a period, 510 East 87th Street was never officially converted to apartments.  It is externally nearly unchanged since the Robinson family moved in a century and a half ago.

photographs by the author

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