The Rev. George Wm. Douglas Mansion - 5 East 88th Street

 

On December 20, 1902, the Real Estate Record & Guide reported that George C. Edgar's Sons had sold the 27-foot-wide house at 5 East 88th Street to Edward McVickar.  It was one of a trio of sumptuous Beaux Arts homes designed by Turner & Kilian.  While each was individual, they formed a unified composition.  The house just sold was mere steps from Fifth Avenue.  Five stories tall, its Doric marble portico supported a balustraded balcony at the second floor.  The limestone-faced base upheld four floors of deep red brick trimmed in limestone and marble.  A three-story bowed midsection provided an iron-railed balcony at the fifth floor.  A dignified stone balustrade crowned the design.

The house was sold twice before Rev. George William Douglas purchased it in 1909.  Born on July 8, 1850, Douglas traced his American ancestry to Deacon William Douglas and his wife Ann Mattle, who arrived in New England in 1640.  Highly educated, after graduating from St. Paul's School in Concord, New Hampshire, Douglas studied at Trinity College, Hobart College, the University of the South, the General Theological Seminary, Oxford, and the University of Bonn.  

On September 3, 1884, he married Cornelia De Koven Dickey, who also had Colonial roots.  The couple maintained summer homes in Tuxedo, New York and Jekyll Island, Georgia.  

Five years before moving into the East 88th Street house, Douglas became Senior Canon Residentiary of the Cathedral Church of St. John the Divine.  He did not accept a salary, The New York Herald explaining, "he is well to do in his own right, and Mrs. Douglas is wealthy."  His memberships in the exclusive Century, University, Union League, Grolier, and Tuxedo Clubs reflected his financial and social status.

On the literary side, Rev. Douglas had been associate editor of Youth's Companion since 1902.  In 1907, he published The Many Sided Roosevelt, and in 1912 wrote Essays in Appreciation.  He was also the author of Hints to Sunday School Teachers and Prayers for Children.

On May 1, 1914, the New York Herald reported, "The Rev. Dr. George William Douglas, noted clergyman and author, has severed his connection with the Cathedral of St. John the Divine, where he has been a canon since 1904...He has not officiated at a service at the cathedral for weeks and he never will again in an official capacity."

A journalist visited the East 88th Street house hoping for an explanation.  Douglas told him, "I have greatly enjoyed the work.  My work is now ended, and I am leaving the city for Europe next week to be gone until autumn."  Bishop David H. Greer was equally vague.  "There are no canons now.  Their terms have expired and no one has been re-elected.  Those who retain the title do so through courtesy."

The Douglases sold 5 East 88th Street in September 1925.  In the 1930s it was home to Arthur Hays Sulzberger and his wife, the former Iphigene Bertha Ochs.  Iphigene's father, Adolph Ochs, was the publisher of The New York Times.  A year after the couple married in 1917, Sulzberger began working at the newspaper.  By the time they moved into 5 East 88th Street, the couple's four children were young adults.

Arthur Hays Sulzberger from the collection of Columbia University

Adolph Ochs died in 1935.  Iphigene was made a trustee of The New York Times.  But, according to Susan E. Tifft in her 2000 The Trust: The Private and Powerful Family Behind the New York Times, she was deemed ineligible to inherit the newspaper because of her gender.  The following year her husband was elected publisher.

Iphigene Ochs, Barnard College Mortarboard 1914 (copyright expired)

Iphigene's substantial personal fortune was increased in 1937, following the death of her mother, Effie Wise Ochs, on May 6.  Seven days later, the Daily News of Tarrytown, New York reported, "Mrs. Sulzberger, wife of Arthur Hays Sulzberger, who inherited Mr. Ochs' interest in The New York Times, is the principal beneficiary, receiving the entire residuary estate." 

The Sulzbergers left sometime after 1940.  In 1944, the first and second floors of the mansion were converted to a school, while the upper floors continued to house a single family.  Just four years later, another renovation resulted in a doctor's office on the ground floor and upscale, cooperative apartments on the upper floors.

Living here in 1965 was stockbroker Joseph S. Clark, Jr. and his wife Felicia.  Clark was the son of Pennsylvania Senator Joseph Sill Clark.  He and Felicia started an unusual side business following a trip to Wyoming in July 1964--selling fish fossils.  "The fossils are op art," he told a reporter.  The Battle Creek [Michigan] Enquirer and News reported on August 2, 1965, "Clark sells the fossils from his apartment.  His wife, Felecia, handles the business end of the partnership."

A colorful resident was Kirk Lemoyne Billings.  Born in Pittsburgh in 1916, he was the roommate of John Fitzgerald Kennedy at Choate Rosemary Hall and then at Princeton before Kennedy transferred to Harvard.  The two men would remain best friends for life.  Known as Lem to the Kennedys, The New York Times said, "Although Mr. Billings never served the President in an official capacity, he was a frequent guest at the White House."  The newspaper noted that he "was active in all of John Kennedy's campaigns as well as those of Senator Robert F. Kennedy."

Billings in his apartment at 5 East 88th Street.  original source unknown

Following Kennedy's assassination, Billings became close friends with Robert Kennedy, Jr.  David Michaelis, in his article "The President's Best Friend" in American Heritage in 1983, said, 

A visit to 5 East Eighty-eighth Street was itself like touring a museum.  Every room was crammed full of carefully preserved treasures, overlapping collections of art and antiquities and early American furniture and personal mementos--all reminders that men in history had actually been alive.

Kirk LeMoyne Billings died in his apartment on May 28, 1981 at the age of 65.  The New York Times reported, "Senator Edward M. Kennedy will speak at a memorial service tomorrow morning at 10 A.M. at the Church of the Heavenly Rest."  

Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. and his wife, Emily Ruth Black, moved into Billings's apartment.   The following year, on Thanksgiving night, Emilie was walking home at 11 p.m. when she was mugged by three teenagers on Fifth Avenue between 88th and 89th Streets.  The teens stole her purse and ran, pursued by Emilie Kennedy.  A cab driver joined in the chase and all three were caught (Emilie later revealed that she personally had captured one of them) and held until police arrived.

Emilie, who was a criminal defense lawyer, worked for the Legal Aid Society.  Newsday reported, "when Mrs. Kennedy's purse was recovered and returned to her, she told police she did not want to press charges and left."  The article said she refused "despite police appeals."  Two days later, however, she relented and pressed charges against the boys--two 15-year-olds and one 14-year-old.

A renovation completed in 2012 did away with the doctor's office.  There are now seven apartments--one on the first floor, two each on the second and third, one on the fourth floor, and a duplex on the fifth floor and new penthouse level, unseen from the street.

photographs by the author

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