The 1840 Samuel Martin House - 52 King Street

 

The original stoop railings wrapped around newels that perched upon the brownstone drums. 

On June 18, 1854, Elizabeth E. Martin married Albert G. Crowell.  The wedding may have taken place in the parlor of her parents' home at 52 King Street.  Well-to-do builder Samuel Martin's house was one of a row of identical Greek Revival style homes.  Built in 1840, the three-story-structure was faced in brick above the brownstone clad basement level.  Handsome iron stoop railings descended to wrap the short newels atop sturdy brownstone drums.  Within its heavy stone framework, the paneled door was flanked by narrow sidelights.  A delicately dentiled cornice originally ran along the roof life.

Albert G. Crowell, who was in the drygoods business, and his bride moved into the Martin house.  It became a bit more crowed when Elizabeth's sister Caroline married John G. Benson.

The parlor was the scene of Caroline's funeral on the afternoon of May 16, 1854.  She had died two days earlier "after a lingering illness," according to her death notice in the New York Herald.

A second funeral was held here in 1863.  Samuel Martin died at the age of 78 on February 13, and his funeral was held two days later.

Around 1875, Albert G. Crowell would be appointed the chief clerk in the municipal Government's Excise Department.  By then they had been gone from 52 King Street for about nine years.  It became home to the Mark and Catherine Redmond family.

The Redmonds were well known at the Washington Market.  James H. and Nicholas W. both worked in their father's butcher business, and their mother oversaw the Redmond & Co. fruit business there.

Like many of their neighbors, the Redmonds took in a boarder.  In 1868 it was John Meyer, whose name appeared in the newspapers for an embarrassing reason that year.

On March 12, the Evening Express reported that Meyer had appeared before the magistrate in the Jefferson Police Court and "related how he had been enticed into a den of iniquity by a fair but false one and then robbed of $150."  The "fair and false one" was a woman named Jennie Hess who lived on Bleecker Street.  According to Meyer, he met her on the street and she invited him to her room.  

While he and Jennie were in bed, three men entered the room.  "On arising, he found that his wallet, containing $150 in money, had been taken from his pantaloons," related the Evening Express.  The scheme was known to police as a "panel house game."  Perpetrators had little reason to fear that their victims--preferring to suffer the loss rather than face the humiliation and publicity--would go to the police.  But Meyer was different.  He immediately found a policeman who arrested Jennie Hess.  Although she pleaded not guilty, "she was locked up to await her trial at the General Session," said the Evening Express.

In 1872 the Redmond family moved to 120 East 23rd Street.  The King Street house became home to the extended Henry M. Scoble family, who moved here from Vestry Street.  Living with him and his family were his widowed mother Caroline Martyn Scoble and his brother John R., who was a firefighter.

Caroline Martyn Scoble died in the house at the age of 74 on March 14, 1874.

Henry and his wife had four sons Andrew Harvey, John M., William Henry and Thomas.  An attorney, Andrew ran for assemblyman in 1897.  The Evening Post noted described him as, "Lawyer; has been bank clerk and journalist; never before a candidate for public office."

William Henry was accepted into the College of the city of New York in May 1899.  It was no doubt a source of pride for the family.  The New York Herald noted, "more than thirteen hundred pupils of the public schools essayed to answer the puzzling questions put to them by the faculty of the college.  Of this number 630 reached the requisite percentage and will enter upon their duties the coming autumn."

The Scobel family lived on in the King Street house for decades, finally selling it in April 1907.  

At some point during the Depression years, the house was converted to unofficial apartments.  The stoop was removed and the entrance lowered to the basement level.

image via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services

Living here in 1959 were Glacinta Rubino, a widow, and her unmarried daughter, Annette.  Another daughter, Rosalie Rubino Weinstein, had died in an airplane crash in April 1958 "while returning to New York from a western mission for Boys Town," according to The Villager.  Rosalie's husband, attorney Charles Weinstein, had died three months earlier.

Glacinta and Annette Rubino had an impressive house guest in the summer of 1959.  The Villager reported, "Princess Gabrielle Pacelli, niece of the late Pope Pius XII, visited 84-year-old Mrs. Glacinta Rubino, at her home, 52 King St., in Greenwich Village, on Monday, June 1."  The article explained, "The Princess and her husband, Prince Marcantonio Pacelli, were dear and close friends of Mrs. Rubino's daughter, the late Mrs. Rosalie Rubino Weinstein."

No. 52 King Street was officially converted to apartments , one per floor, in 1977.  A subsequent renovation in 1988 resulted in two duplex apartments and the rebuilding of the stoop based on surviving examples along the row. 

photograph by the author

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Taylor & Masley's 1924 312 Fifth Avenue

 

In 1854, Benjamin Wheeler Merriam erected his brownstone-fronted mansion at 312 Fifth Avenue.  Born in 1803 in New Hampshire, Merriam had amassed a fortune importing mirrors and glass, and was one of the founders of Chatham National Bank.  He and his wife Adeliza had four daughters and a son.  Their summer home was at Scarborough-on-the-Hudson.  Merriam died in the house on April 25, 1884.

Members of the Merriam family remained at 312 Fifth Avenue for decades.  On December 27, 1915, the New-York Tribune reported, "Mrs. David Du Bois Sahler died yesterday at her home, 312 Fifth Avenue from pneumonia."  A widow, Adeliza Frances Sahler was the last of the Merriam siblings.  The article noted, "The house at 312 Fifth Avenue was built for Mrs. Sahler's father, Benjamin Wheeler Merriam, in 1854."

In the post-World War I years, the Fifth Avenue block between 31st and 32nd Streets would have been unrecognizable to Benjamin Merriam.  The few mansions that survived had been converted for businesses, the others razed and replaced with commercial buildings.  In 1924 the Houston Construction Company demolished the vintage brownstone and hired the architectural firm of Taylor & Masley to design what their plans described as a seven-story "brick store and office building," on the site.

The process of removing of the Merriam house was nearly catastrophic.  Unthinkable today, business continued downstairs as the upper floors were being demolished.  The Evening Post reported, "Scores of persons attending a jewelry auction sale on the ground floor of the building at 312 Fifth avenue, narrowly escaped injury today when the third floor of the building collapsed."  The second floor held, preventing the structure from pancaking down on the auction attendees.  Nevertheless, two workmen were injured and removed to New York Hospital.

Taylor & Masley gave the new building a sheathing of gleaming white terra cotta.  The spandrel panels of each floor contained Gothic arches on either side of centered faces.  A parapet armed with pointy pinnacles took the place of a cornice.

Among the first tenants was the upscale men's "shirtmakers and haberdashers," H. Sulka & Company.  The firm had branches in London and Paris.  Its custom-made shirts cost "$8.00 upward," according to a 1925 ad--around $140 each by 2024 terms.

H. Sulka & Company offered a full scope of men's furnishings.  Its well-heeled patrons could even be custom-fitted for their underwear.  A 1925 advertisement remarked, "In buying Underwear from us you have the advantage of being unusually well fitting in Union or Two-Piece Suits of our own and other most desirable makes."  The range of items offered was reflected in a December 1927 advertisement of "our holiday offerings."  It urged, "It is not too early to select from our choice French Cravats, Handkerchiefs, Hosiery, Mufflers and Lounge Robes--especially if monograms are required."

An interesting tenant was the Health Developing Apparatus Company, which "leased large space for executive offices" here in December 1931.  The firm patented and sold what today would be described as home gym equipment--like rowing machines.

The Second Sino-Japanese War between China and Japan that broke out in 1937 resulted in a new tenant, the Chinese Women's Association.  In May 1938, a letter to the editor of the New York Sun read:

The destitute civilian war refugees in the devastated areas in China are urgently in need of clothing of every description, such as children's outfits, suits, dresses, sweaters, blankets, underwear, coats, shoes, etc.  This association has for months been collecting clothing for these sufferers.  Three consignments have already been sent to China, and a fourth is about ready for shipment.

 

Donations should be sent directly to our China War Relief warehouse at 115 South Fifth street, Brooklyn.

                             Miss WINO-LINO WANG, Secretary, Chinese Women's Association

By the World War II years, the days of high-priced, custom made shirts for monied customers had passed.  For years starting around 1947, The Rug Mart "House of Carpets" occupied space, joined in the 1950s by tenants like Saraka the "laxative that cures Nervous Constipation," and the Irma Cosmetic Hair Remover company. 

The Fifth Avenue block bustled with activity in 1941.  image via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services.

 

In the mid-1960s, the Marie Chantel Corporation leased space.  The firm manufactured women's "sauna swimming underwear," promising, "you can lose 7-15 lbs. or more and become 3 inches slimmer in the shortest time (without drugs or starvation diet) if you wear Sauna Swimming Underwear for just 2 hours a day!"

One tenant of 312 Fifth Avenue came under FBI scrutiny in January 1970.  Twentieth Century Industries, Inc. was a holding company that owned, or was part-owner, of "drug, plastics, metals, mining and soft-drink concerns," according to The New York Times.  At the time, Angelo Bruno was described by the bureau as "the No. 1 Mafia leader in the Philadelphia area" and "one of the Mafia's 12-member national governing council."  

On January 16, Manhattan district attorney William I. Aronwald disclosed that a grand jury "was seeking to determine if there was any connection between Bruno and 20th Century Industries, Inc., a holding company with offices at 312 Fifth Avenue." The New York Times explained, "The Manhattan investigation...is trying to learn if certain corporations have received proceeds of organized criminal activities involving gambling, bribery, extortion and loan-sharking."

While the ground floor of 312 Fifth Avenue has been drastically altered, Taylor & Masley's neo-Gothic design has fared much better than its neighbors, two of which were recently demolished and most of the others significantly remodeled.  Although the show windows have been replaced, the terra cotta is nicely intact.

photographs by the author

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The Thomas F. Byrne House - 146 East End Avenue

 

The entrance to 146 East End Avenue was recessed within a large arched, shared with the doorway of 144 East End Avenue.

The architectural firm of Lamb & Rich was given an ambitious project in 1880--the designing of 32 middle-class rowhouses for John C. Henderson on a one-half acre plot engulfing the East End Avenue blockfront from 86th to 87th Streets and wrapping both corners.  The charming collection of Queen Anne style houses was completed in 1882, their red brick and terra cotta facades splashed with bits of Elizabethan, Flemish and classic styles.

Among the most picturesque were the mirror image houses at 144 and 146 East end Avenue.  A split brownstone stoop rose to a yawning arch that embraced both entrances.   Two stories of brick trimmed in brownstone gave way to a steep, slate shingled mansard.  The upper portions of the windows were outlined with small, square panes, a hallmark of the Queen Anne style.

Henderson leased No. 146 to Thomas F. Byrne.  Born in New York City in 1856, he was a partner in the law firm of Byrne & Cowan.  He and his wife had seven children.

In 1898 Byrne was appointed "a four-thousand-dollar deputy," as worded by The New York Times, by District Attorney Asa Bird Gardiner.  The deputy assistant district attorney's salary would convert to about $145,000 in 2024.  The newspaper said he "had charge of the cases against the discretionary brokers and bucket-shop operators of the Wall Street district."  ( (A bucket shop was an illegal gambling operation that took bets on the rise and fall of stocks.) 

While Byrne fought crime in the financial district, his boss was profiting from it.  Gardiner accepted bribes from figures like saloonkeeper Frank J. Farrell, who reportedly operated 300 illegal gambling parlors in New York City, protecting them from prosecution.  Gardiner and his cronies became the target of reform Governor Theodore Roosevelt, who cleaned house in 1900.  

Gardiner was replaced by District Attorney Eugene A. Philbin, who initiated a purge.  On January 1, 1901, The New York Times ran a headline reading, "Philbin Lops Off Four More Official Heads."  The article also listed the attorneys who were not disgraced, but were instead promoted.  Thomas F. Byrne became a full assistant district attorney with a salary of $7,500 (about $266,000 today).  The article said he was now in charge of the indictment bureau.  He was quickly promoted to assistant corporation counsel and became a member of the Tammany Hall Law Committee.

On November 20, 1908, The New York Times reported that Byrne "died last night at his home, 146 East End Avenue, of anaemia, after about a month's illness."  Byrne was 52 years old.

On January 10, 1910, John C. Henderson's son, Ernest F. Henderson, sold 146 East End Avenue to Sarsfield J. Turley.  He and his wife Margaret had a son, William Burns Turley.

Turley was born in 1874 and began his career in the wholesale carpet and rug department of Arnold Constable & Co.  Nine years later, he left to become a carpet salesman with W. & J. Sloane.

William was a corporal with the Seventh Regiment in the pre-World War I years.  A close neighbor, Beatrice Ann Tagg, who lived around the corner at 548 East 87th Street stole his heart and the couple was married in the Church of St. Ignatius Loyola on July 26, 1917.  The Sun reported, "A squad from the Seventh Regiment in uniform acted as an escort of honor, and after the ceremony a wedding breakfast was served in the Hotel Majestic."

About the time of William's marriage, his father left W. & J. Sloane to partner with John Rodgers to form Turley & Rodgers, a carpet and rug concern.  He brought William into the firm.

After visiting a friend on the evening of October 9, 1921, Sarsfield Turley headed home at 8:30.  He darted into the street in an attempt to catch a bus that had just pulled away from the curb and was hit by an automobile.  Price's Carpet and Rug News said, "He was taken in the autocar to the hospital where his identity was not established until the next day."  Turley had suffered a fractured skull and several broken ribs.  A lodge card in his wallet identified the unconscious patient.  The lodge was called, which in turn notified the office of Turley & Rodgers.  "J. Samuel Ross, a member of the office staff of the firm, immediately went to the hospital and identified his employer," said the article.

Turley died in the hospital without regaining consciousness two days later.  He was 47 years old.  His funeral was held in the East End Avenue house on October 14.

In 1929, Westmore and Esther J. Willcox, who lived at 142 East End Avenue, purchased the house as a rental property.  (Not long afterward, they purchased 144 as well.)  Their initial tenant was Blake I. Lawrence.  In 1930, the house became home to newlyweds Henry Parish II and his wife, the former Dorothy May Kinnicutt whose nickname was Sister.  The couple was married on February 14 that year.

Sister Parish's parents, G. Hermann Kinnicutt and May Appleton Tuckerman, not only leased the house for them, but had it professionally decorated.  Sister Parish is quoted in her biography, Sister Parish, The Life of the Legendary American Interior Designer by Apple Parish Bartlett and Susan Bartlett Crater, saying:

My parents provided our beautiful house, which had been done entirely by Mrs. Brown of McMillen--with Mother's help and suggestions, of course.  Wedding presents provided almost all of the furnishings.  We had to buy one upholstered chair, at Macy's, and I was appalled at having to spend forty dollars.

Sister Parish recalled, "Our house was a dream of beauty; 146 East End Avenue--the street was then cobblestone, every window had a flower box, and we looked across to Carl Schurz Park."  The couple appeared in society columns for their entertaining.  On December 11, 1931, for instance, the New York Evening Post reported, "Mr. and Mrs. Henry Parish 2d are giving a small dinner at their home, 146 East End Avenue next Monday night."

In 1933, the 23-year-old Sister Parish opened a decorating business, "Mrs Henry Parish II, Interiors."  She would go on to help Jacqueline Kennedy decorate her Georgetown house.  After John F. Kennedy's election to President in 1960, the First Lady hired Sister Parish to help in the redecorating of the White House.

The year she opened her business, the Parishes left East End Avenue.  On May 26, 1933, the New York Evening Post reported that Westmore Willcox had leased "his modern three-story house at 146 East End Avenue to Dr. R. Townley Paton of Baltimore."  The article noted, "Dr. Paton will use the house for his New York residence."

Born in 1902, Robert Townley Paton was an ophthalmologist who pioneered corneal transplants.  He and his wife, the former Helen Meserve, had two children, Joan and David.  Paton would found the Eye-Bank for Sight Restoration in 1944.  The facility would eventually have around 100 branches throughout the country and provide 1,200 corneas for transplant operations in the New York area.

David Paton was three years old when the family moved into 146 East End Avenue.  Following in his father's professional footsteps, he would become a renowned ophthalmologist, a founder of Project Orbis, and its first medical director.

The Willcoxes had painted 144 and 146 East End Avenue white by 1941.  image via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services.

In 1943, Westmore and Esther Jenkins Willcox moved into the house they had owned since 1929.  A few years earlier they had painted the brick white.  A banker and financial consultant, Willcox had led American economic missions to other countries during and after World War II.  A graduate of Harvard College, he was for many years a partner in the investment banking firm of Dillon, Read & Co.  When the couple moved into 146 East End Avenue, he had been retired from Jackson & Curtis for two years.

The Willcoxes appeared occasionally in society pages.  On November 21, 1946, for instance, The New York Sun reported, "Mr. and Mrs. Westmore Willcox of 146 East End Avenue gave a dinner in the St. Regis Maisonette last night in honor of Miss Mary Ellen Plant and Algernon Sidney Roberts, whose wedding will take place on Saturday."

By the early 1960s, 146 East End Avenue was home to the William A. Read family.  Still a single-family home, it recently received a renovation that included removing the paint from the façade.

photographs by the author

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The 1923 Bowery Savings Bank Building - 110 East 42nd Street

 

photo by Epicgenius

Chartered in 1834, the Bowery Savings Bank was named after the street upon which its building stood.  As the turn of the century approached, the bank was highly successful and in 1893-95 erected a grand Roman-inspired building at 130 Bowery designed by McKim, Mead & White.  Its jaw-dropping banking room was based on the Basilica of Constantine in Rome.

When the new bank building opened, the Grand Union Hotel had stood on 42nd Street across from Grand Central Depot since 1869.  The hotel was torn down in 1916 and the massive lot sat vacant until 1920, when York & Sawyer filled the southwest corner of 42nd Street and Park Avenue with the Pershing Square Building.  The following year, the firm would be hired by the Bowery Savings Bank to design its new headquarters next door.

On March 12, 1922, The New York Times reported, "Work on the new fourteen-story building which the Bowery Savings Bank is erecting on part of the old Grand Union Hotel plot at Forty-second Street and Park Avenue, to be used as an uptown branch of the bank, is progressing."  York & Sawyer had put W. Louis Ayres in charge of the design.  The Times said, "The exterior of the building is of Italian Romanesque style and built of variegated Ohio sandstone."  The New York City Guide would later note, "Among the symbols represented in the rich architectural detail of the building are the bull and bear of Wall Street, the lion for power, rooster for punctuality, and the squirrel for thrift." 

The Architect, October, 1923 (copyright expired)

The New York Times reported, "The banking room will be one of the largest used by a savings bank in New York."  Indeed, it soared 44 feet upward, and (like the 130 Bowery banking room) was basilica-like.  In its July 1923 issue, The Savings Bank Journal called it, "easily the most sumptuous of its kind in the country."  Twenty-five-foot tall polished marble columns, depending on their colors, were imported from France, Italy, Greece, and Belgium.  The intricate marble mosaic floors and beamed ceiling were illuminated by six bronze chandeliers inspired, according to architectural critic William P. Comstock, by "the hanging lamps of S. Sophia which are somewhat similar in general effect."

Two views of the banking room.  Architecture & Building, January 1923 (copyright expired)

William P. Comstock, the editor of The Architect, felt Ayres may have gone a step too far, however.  In the magazine's December 1923 issue, he called the banking room "sumptuous," but said, "I kept experiencing a strange feeling that I was not properly dressed.  I kept expecting to hear a blare of trumpets and see Charlemagne borne in on a portable throne."

Architecture & Building, January 1923 (copyright expired)

The glass mosaic ceiling in the office corridor was created by Heinighe & Smith.  Ayres's chandeliers (top) have been replaced.  bottom photograph by Elisa.rolle.

The building was completed early in the summer of 1923.  Moving the bank's assets would be a tricky maneuver.  On June 24, The New York Times reported, "Fourteen armored motor cars, with portholes bristling with sub-machine guns, followed each other in rapid succession yesterday afternoon through the crowded streets of Manhattan, transferring $202,000,000 in negotiable securities from the old to the new home of the Bowery Savings Bank."  More than 100 police were used to clear the route as the armored cars--timed at five minute intervals--moved uptown.

William E. Knox had much to be proud of in the new building.  Hired as a clerk in 1887, he was elected president of the bank in March 1922.  He had pushed hard for an uptown branch and in reporting on his new position on March 14, 1922, The New York Times said he "is about to see his efforts realized."

Knox's vision proved a shrewd one.  On April 4, 1924, The New York Times reported that in the nine months the 42nd Street branch had been opened, deposits had increased by $25 million.

Two years later, three bank tellers were arrested for embezzling about $45,000 "over a considerable period," according to The New York Times.  The amount would translate to three quarters of a million dollars in 2024.  The trio used the money for betting on horse racing over a period of months, assuming that they would win enough to replace the funds and enjoy their winnings.  When they realized they were in too deep, one teller, 31-year-old C. Russell Morton, fled to Canada.  But then, stricken with remorse, he returned to New York and confessed to William Knox.

On November 8, Morton recounted his story to the district attorney in his eighth-floor office on Centre Street.  Morton then rushed to a window, crashing through it.  He was caught around the ankles by detectives.  The New York Times reported, "His watch and other things that he had in his pocket fell with the broken window glass to the sidewalk.  The gathering crowd below, attracted by the fall of glass, saw Morton's body nearly three-quarters out of the window."  He was pulled back in and the following day he and his cohorts were indicted.

Although the incident was embarrassing to the bank, no damage was done to its reputation and depositors were not affected.  Nonetheless, it weighed heavily on William E. Knox's mind.  Three months later, on February 4, 1927, Knox went about his business seemingly as usual.  That evening he was to be the guest of honor at a dinner at the Union League Club.

On the third floor was a "resting room" where executives slept when working late at night.  At around 1:30 that afternoon, Knox said he was going there to take an hour's rest and that he did not want to be disturbed.  About 20 minutes later, Walter E. Frew, president of the Corn Exchange Bank telephoned for Knox.  An attendant went upstairs, knocked on the door and told Knox about the call.  "I'll come immediately," was the response.  When he did not come down, the bank's secretary Percy G. Delamater, went up.  He found Knox dead with a bullet wound through his heart.

In August 1931, the Bowery Savings Bank brought York & Sawyer back to design a five-story addition to the east.  The New York Times reported, "The cost was estimated at $650,000."  

The New York Times published York & Sawyer's rendering of the addition on August 16, 1931.

Called "the chapel," the four-story addition followed Ayres's original design with matching stone and Italian Romanesque arcades.

In 1946, the Bowery Savings Bank made a step forward in gender equality.  On November 14, The New York Times reported, "The Bowery Savings Bank, for the first time in its 112-year history, has promoted two women to officers' posts...Miss Hilda M. Hoffman and Miss Myrtle M. Hunt, both principal executive assistants, were named assistant secretaries."

Joan Dugan was 23-years-old in 1968 and worked as a teller here.  On April 30, a young man "wearing a black fedora with a red feather in the band," walked up to Dugan's window and passed a note:

This is a stickup.  Don't be a hero or I'll start shooting.  Put all your hundreds, fifties, twenties and tens in an envelope quickly and quietly.

Dugan did as the note demanded, but she also pressed an alarm button.  Douglas DeWitt Boyce ran out of the bank and down the subway stairs with two bank guards on his heels.  The guards yelled at two Transit Authority detectives, "Stop that man!"  Boyce (who, incidentally, did not have a gun) was apprehended and taken back to the bank for identification.  He told Joan Dugan, "I'm sorry I did this.  I didn't mean to scare you."

photo by Jim Henderson

A much less heroic guard was Charles Harper, hired in 1969.  For two and a half years, he "had a reputation for going out of his way to assist blind customers with their deposit and withdrawal slips," according to The New York Times on October 13, 1972.  Among those customers was Juliette Silvers.  On October 3, she made a deposit and Harper confirmed that her balance was $2,857.  She wrote the figure down in Braille. 

A week later she returned.  Harper was not working that day so another guard helped her.  He told her her balance was $169.65.  An investigation revealed that Harper had been withdrawing funds from the accounts of blind customers.  He was arrested on October 12.

In 1990, the Bowery Savings Bank was acquired by H. F. Ahmanson & Co.  The Greenpoint Bank moved into the banking spaces in 1995, and in March 1998 S. L. Greene purchased the building.  Speaking of the banking room, which the Greenpoint Savings Bank would be vacating later that year, he was quoted by The New York Times journalist John Holusha on March 29, "The place has an old world charm; there is nothing like it in New York."

The space was purchased (the building was now operated as a condominium) by Arrigo Cipriani, whose family already operated several restaurants, including the one in the Sherry-Netherlands hotel and the Rainbow Room in Rockefeller Center.  In reporting on Cipriani's plans, The New York Times architectural columnist David W. Dunlap commented, 

Lofty as the ceiling may be, it is almost impossible to take one's eyes off the floor, a mosaic expanse of marble that looks as if dozens of carpets had been laid edge to edge, with vivid, interwoven patterns of diamonds, circles, hexagons and stars.

image via cipriani.com

Because both the banking room and the exterior of the Bowery Savings Bank building were designated individual New York City Landmarks in 1993, the building that the Works Progress Administration's 1939 New York City Guide described as "the masterpiece of York and Sawyer," survives wonderfully intact.

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The Cliff Dwelling - 240-243 Riverside Drive

 

Looking almost like part of Cliff Dwelling, the darker building to the right was erected in 2001.  photo by Flo Beck

Leslie R. Palmer's resumé included attorney, banker, real estate developer, and, importantly, he sat on the board of the New York Architectural Terra Cotta Company.  The latter interest was evident in his exuberant 1911 store-and-office building at 154 West 14th Street, decorated with vibrantly colorful terra cotta.  The building was designed by Herman Lee Meader.  The two men would work together on three more buildings.  In 1913, the year the 14th Street structure was completed, Palmer hired Meader to design a residential hotel at 240-243 Riverside Drive.

The architect was faced with a challenge.  The narrow, triangular plot was a mere nine-feet-wide at the northern point (the New York Herald would later say the property was "only fit for a billboard").  Meader arranged the apartments to face Riverside Drive and put only a few secondary windows at the rear where he placed the stairway and elevators.

According to The New York Times columnist Christopher Gray on January 6, 2002, Meader "was intensely interested in Mayan and Aztec architecture and made regular expeditions to Chichén Itzá in the Yucatán and other sites."  Meader's fascination with South America melded with Palmer's terra cotta interests to create a unique design.  Completed in 1914, the Cliff Dwelling was 12 stories tall and faced in orange brick.  Meader lavished his Arts & Crafts style structure with Western motifs like cattle skulls, spears, and mountain lions, and Aztec- or Mayan-inspired designs.  The theme carried on inside.  According to Gray, "The lobby was furnished with Navajo rugs; tiles of tan, green, black and blood red; and zigzag designs on the lamps and elevator cages reminiscent of American Indian designs."

Aztec motifs co-exist with Native American and Western designs.  photographs by the author

An advertisement called the Cliff Dwelling a "high-class apartment hotel" with "two and three room suites, $100 and up."  (The least expensive rent would translate to $1,760 per month in 2024.)  Apartment hotels did not have kitchens, but residents enjoyed hotel amenities like maid service.  They could take meals in the in-house restaurant, if desired.

The northern end of the building was just nine-feet wide.  The glass-and-iron marquee can be seen.  image from the collection of the New York Public Library

The residents of the Cliff Dwelling were professionals.  Among them in 1917 were Dr. David Tovey and Samuel C. Grant.  Grant was a "manufacturing chemist" and officer in the Utah Potash Company.  That firm, said The Sun, "is supplying the Government with that product."

Although he was a Christian Scientist, Samuel Grant visited Dr. Tovey around the first of June 1917 concerning "kidney trouble."  About two weeks later, on June 18, Tovey received what The New York Sun called a "hurried call" from Mrs. B. M. Blackmar on West 136th Street.  She operated the Blackmar Sanitarium from her home, "where she takes in Christian Scientists desiring rest or who are ill," according to the newspaper.  When Tovey got there, Samuel C. Grant was dead.

The Evening World reported that Grand had died "suddenly of apoplexy," or what would be called a stroke today.  Dr. Tovey, on the other hand, said, "Death was due to lack of medical attention," according to The New York Sun.

The thin, triangular shape of the building can be gleaned from this photo by Edmund Vincent Gillon around 1990.  from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York.

The small apartments were workable for couples or single residents, but apparently not for families.  On March 13, 1920, the New York Herald reported, "Mr. and Mrs. J. N. Netter of 240 Riverside Drive announce the birth of a son, Thursday, March 11."  Seven months later, on October 3, an advertisement in the same newspaper read:

240 Riverside Drive (apt. 402), near 96th st., sumptuously furnished, 2 rooms, foyer and bath suite, sunny and airy, overlooking Hudson; maid, valet and restaurant service; will sublet; reasonable rental; exceptional opportunity.  MR. NETTER

Interestingly, when the Hard Realty Corporation purchased the Cliff Dwelling in March 1921, the New-York Tribune noted that the building on the "flatiron shaped site" had "a bungalow atop the house."  Rents were now advertised at "2 rooms, foyer, bath, $1080 up; 3 rooms, foyer, bath, $1680 up [yearly]."  The starting rents would translate to $1,600 and $2,540 per month today.

Retired attorney Horace Secor, Jr. moved into the Cliff Dwelling in 1918.  A year earlier he had retired as secretary of the New York Athletic Club.  Descending from a colonial family, he held memberships in the Sons of the American Revolution, the Society of Colonial Wars, the Holland-America Society and the Mayflower Society.

In 1904, when the Brooklyn Daily Eagle described him as "a well known lawyer of Nassau street," he and his wife Anna and their 15-year-old daughter Florence lived on Long Island.  But that year Anna Secor left him for another man.  Now, with his daughter married to Dr. George E. Herr and living in Portland, Maine, he lived here alone.  

Secor invested heavily in the stock market.  The New York Herald reported that, according to his son-in-law, he "had lost several fortunes within the last thirty years and had made some unfortunate investments in Wall Street, but he believed Mr. Secor still had considerable wealth."  Nevertheless, Secor became seriously concerned about recent "business reverses."  His anxiety was severe enough that Dr. Herr came down from Maine in the summer of 1921.  

On June 9, Dr. Herr convinced his father-in-law to go to a sanitarium upstate.  The New York Herald reported, "Mr. Secor promised to go and appeared cheerful when Dr. Herr left him about 7 o'clock Thursday night."  On Saturday morning, the 65-year-old was found on the bathroom floor with a bullet wound in his head.

photo by Beyond My Ken

At the time, Helen Smith, the wife of a paper manufacturer, and Mrs. Louis Auerbach, whose husband was an importer, lived in the building.  What Helen insisted was an honest mistake--opening a letter addressed to Mrs. Auerbach--erupted into a vicious feud.  It ended up with Helen Smith having her neighbor arrested for disorderly conduct.  The two women appeared in court on September 10, 1921 "flanked by an array of counsel, friends and relatives that almost filled the West Side Court," according to the New York Herald.  The article explained,

Mrs. Smith charged Mrs. Auerbach with using 'scandalous, threatening, abusive, shocking and profane' language, which she explained, followed her mistake in opening a letter addressed to Mrs. Auerbach.

Additionally, Helen Smith told the judge, "when her husband was ill somebody notified the health Department that he had typhoid fever, which was untrue."  When Mrs. Auerbach was called to the stand, "Mrs. Smith grew faint and a chair had to be provided for her."

During her testimony, Mrs. Auerbach called the entire matter "extraordinary" and said she had totally forgotten about the letter incident and denied calling the Health Department.  The New York Herald said, "She knew Mrs. Smith's voice only from hearing trade people talk to her, she said, and by meeting her occasionally in the elevator."

Magistrate Silberman listened patiently, then gently berated the women.  "Both of you ladies appear to be of culture and refinement and it looks a little like a misunderstanding.  I must warn you both that in the future not to molest, have anything to do with, or speak to each other in any way."  Helen Smith withdrew her complaint and the case was dismissed.  One wonders how amicable the neighborly relations between the two were when they returned home.

Dr. David Tovey and his wife were still here as late as 1925.  A celebrated neighbor at the time was Boris Thomashesfky, one of the biggest stars in the Yiddish theater.  He lived alone here, having separated from his wife Bessie in 1911.

Boris Thomashefky, from the collection of the New York Public Library

Thomashefsky was born in Ukraine in 1866 and emigrated with his family to America when he was a teenager.  He was a pioneer in the establishment of what would become the Yiddish Theater District in New York.   

Harry Thomashefky was the eldest of Boris's three sons.  He was a star in his own right, having first appeared in the play The Pintele Kid at the age of 13.  His wife Lillian was described by Vaudeville as "a chorister under the name of Lillian Herman."  In February 1924, Harry initiated a divorce suit and simultaneously sued actor Buddy Doyle for $50,000 for alienation of affections.  His divorce action claimed Doyle and Lillian had had an adulterous affair.  Shockingly, Variety reported, "The alleged misconduct is specifically named as having happened at the home of Bores [sic] Thomasefky, 240 Riverside Drive, Dec. 23, 1923."

At the time, Buddy Doyle was appearing in Artists & Models.  Ironically, on January 15, 1926, Billboard reported, "Albert Kavelin, formerly of Artists and Models, and his orchestra are appearing nightly at the exclusive Cliff Grill, 240 Riverside drive...Kavelin and his boys are meeting with great favor with the Cliff Grill patrons and are scheduled to remain there for a long run."

photograph by Beyond My Ken

Art dealer Jonce I. McGurk was a resident by the early 1930s.  Born in 1875, the bachelor was especially known for the Early American art he bought and sold.  In 1929, for instance, he sold the marble bust of George Washington executed by Jean Antoine Houdon to the Rockefeller family for a rumored $250,000.  Another Houdon work he purchased was the 1778 bust of Voltaire, which he also sold to Percy Rockefeller.

In 1933, McGurk sold a Gilbert Stuart portrait of George Washington on consignment from Ellen Newbod Jacobs.  Unfortunately for McGurk, Mrs. Jacobs did some personal private investigating after the sale.  She sued him and on December 10, 1933, the Albany, New York Times-Union reported she had won a $13,244 verdict.  "She charged he told her he received only $7,000, whereas he really sold the portrait for $14,000," said the article.

Mountain lions below an Aztec mask, a bison skull, and Native American spears carry out Meader's American theme.  photo by Behind My Ken

In 1966, writer and editor Uwe Johnson moved into a three-room apartment in the Cliff Dwelling.  Born in 1934, he had left East Germany in the 1950s after being considered a dissident by authorities.  Living here with his wife, Elisabeth Schmidt, and nine-year-old daughter, he worked as a textbook editor at Harcourt, Brace & World.  The family would remain here for two years.

An uncharacteristic tenant was Terry Blum, described by The New York Times as, "an unemployed salesman."  On February 7, 1972, the 27-year-old walked into the District Attorney's office to surrender on an earlier forgery charge.  Keen-eyed detectives there, however, recognized him as fitting the description of one of the six armed perpetrators of a million-dollar jewel robbery of the Pierre Hotel on January 2.  

Blum's cohorts had all been captured on January 7, at which time $250,000 in jewelry was recovered.  He was charged with armed robbery and illegal possession of a gun.

photo by Deansfa

In 1979 the building was converted to cooperative apartments.  Some owners shoehorned mini-kitchens into the foyers, resulting in guests having to pass through the kitchen to the living room.  At some point the glass-and-iron marquee that had stretched nearly to the curb was removed, leaving a noticeable scar over the entrance.  More importantly, though, Herman Lee Meader's marvelous and unique decorations survive.

photograph by the author

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