In 1882, Frederick V. Osthoff, Jr. received his certificate in architecture from the Free Night Schools of Science and Art of the Cooper Union. Understandably, when Frederick V. Osthoff, Sr. acquired the plot of land at 309 West 97th Street as the site of an apartment house in 1899, Frederick Jr. was his architect of choice.
The five-story, Renaissance Revival style structure was completed in 1900. Osthoff clad the building in gray-brown brick and trimmed it with stone and terra cotta. The first floor featured stone banding and dramatic, alternating stone and brick voussoirs. Interesting, three-story vertical brick frames with stone quoins embraced each vertical row of windows within the midsection. Their spandrels were framed in foliate terra cotta. The openings of the fifth floor sat below arched tympana carved with Renaissance motifs.
Each apartment had eight rooms and a bath. The $62.50 per month rent would translate to about $2,180 in 2024. Among the initial residents was its builder, Frederick V. Osthoff, Sr. George W. and Richard H. L. Osthoff, presumably sons, also lived here. George was a clerk and Richard a plumber. (Frederick Jr. lived on West 24th Street.)
Fullerton Wells was admitted to the New York Bar in 1899, the year he and his wife, Ruth, moved into 309 West 97th Street. Born in 1878, he was a graduate of New York Law School. Like most socialites, Ruth Wells was involved in charitable works. On December 19, 1901, the New York World reported, "Do not be shocked if you receive by mail a package containing a little silk stocking. It will have been sent to you by several society women of the upper west side, and they will expect you to help them supply more than eight hundred poor little children with warm clothing by filling it with your spare cash."
Among those "society women," was Ruth Wells. She and each of the other members of the Silk Stocking Committee had contributed $50 to the fund, a generous $1,850 today.
Gibson Arnoldi, president of the New York Cobalt Finance Corporation, and his wife moved into the building after experiencing a tragedy. In 1908 they lived nearby at 315 West 97th Street with their three year old daughter. In January, the little girl's nursemaid, 22 year old Annie Mulrooney, took her along when she went to visit her niece who was sick with scarlet fever. According to The Sun on January 21, 1908, "Mr. Arnoldi heard of it and yesterday caused Annie's arrest."
The newspaper quoted Health Commissioner Darlington as saying, "the danger of spreading of disease would be lessened if more persons would act as Mr. Arnoldi had." In court, Annie's attorney pleaded that it was her sister's fault, not hers, since Mrs. Heims had "persuaded her to come to her flat and bring Mr. Arnoldi's little girl with her, as that was the only way she could get away."
When the attorney was finished, Annie's sister suddenly stood up in the rear of the courtroom. "It was my fault, your Honor," she said, "and I have left my sick child to come down here and tell you."
The judge was aghast. "Do you mean to say that you have come out of a room where there is scarlet fever down to this courtroom to endanger the health of all these people here?"
He ordered Mrs. Heims out of the court "in all possible haste." The Evening World reported, "To be sure that she would not tarry Justice Wyatt promptly discharged the nurse girl."
Tragically, the Arnoldis' daughter succumbed to the disease. Perhaps unable to remain in that apartment, the couple moved to 309 West 97th Street. Mrs. Arnoldi turned her grief to activism and founded the Infant Science Academy to educate mothers about health and hygiene. A reporter from the New York Journal visited her here in April 1909. She insisted, "Every mother in the land ought to understand the science of caring for an infant," and blamed the "enormous infant mortality in this city during the past year" largely on "utter ignorance of parents." She said, "I have paid a bitter price for what knowledge I do possess. I paid the price so many parents pay--I lost my first child."
Helen Burns lived here by 1911. She and her sisters were entertainers and that winter they went on the road with a musical show. While they were gone, John Gregor began courting their widowed mother. Gregor, who lived in the neighborhood at 131 West 96th Street, was the head orderly of the J. Hood Wright Hospital. When Helen and her sisters returned to New York in the spring of 1912, "they objected to his visits," according to The Sun, which said a "feud" formed between Helen Burns and John Gregor.
The bad feelings came to a head on the night of August 21, 1912. Helen was "reclining on her couch in the front room," according to The Sun, when "a big stone came through the window, bringing a good part of the glass with it." Helen jumped up and, looking through the smashed window, saw Gregor across the street. She ran downstairs and just as she approached the street doors, another stone came crashing through the glass.
Helen had Gregor arrested for disorderly conduct. At the stationhouse he insisted he knew nothing about stones being thrown. When asked how his hand was cut, he said, "the glass dropped out and cut him as he leaned against the front door." The Sun reported, "Magistrate O'Connor wants to hear the mother's side of the case before he disposes of it."
For some reason, Mrs. Henry Bertram Clark lived here while her banker husband lived in Chicago. She shared her apartment with her niece, Laura G. Baird. On January 10, 1914, they went to the theater with two houseguests. The New York Herald said, "They were late and not wishing to keep the taxicab waiting, they hurried downstairs, leaving furs and jewelry unprotected, although the apartment was securely locked."
While they were gone, a man knocked on the door of the neighboring Bradley apartment and asked for someone they had never heard of. Mrs. Bradley said she later saw him across the street.
It seems the man was checking for an unoccupied apartment. When Mrs. Clark and her niece returned, they found the lock had been removed from the door and their apartment was ransacked. Laura lost the most. The New York Times said the thief had made off with "her jewelry, valued at $15,000" and also stole the money and railroad tickets of the two guests.
Laura Baird not only put private detectives on the case, but placed an advertisement in the newspapers that read:
LARGE sum of money given to person who entered apartment 309 West 97th st. Friday night; no questions asked; satisfactory arrangements for return of jewelry and sending money; can be discussed over telephone or whatever way they desire. L. G. BAIRD, 309 West 97th. Telephone, 1780-Riverside.
On January 29, John Ward, who was also known to police by two aliases, was arrested in his home on West 136th Street. He was picked out by Mrs. Bradley in a lineup and charged with the burglary. It is unclear whether Laura Baird's jewelry was recovered.
The family of Dr. Chauncy Rea Burr lived here at the time. Burr was born in Portland, Maine in 1862 and he and his wife, the former Frances Brewerton Ricketts, had three daughters, Frances Dorothy (who went by her middle name), Gladys Violet Livington, and Julia Marguerite Ricketts.
When America entered World War I, Dorothy offered her support. The New-York Tribune said she became "active in war work in New York and was connected with one of the hostess houses." (Hostess houses were run by the Y.W.C.A. "for hospitality and service to women who visit men in the military camps.")
The family maintained a cottage in Dr. Burr's hometown of Portland, Maine. They were there in the summer of 1918 when tragedy occurred. The New-York Tribune reported on July 28 that Dorothy had gone swimming at Great Diamond Island. "Miss Burr was unable to swim and got beyond her depth. She shouted for help and Sergeant McLaughlin swam out to her." The soldier was Leo P. McLaughlin, an artilleryman from Fort McKinley. Sadly, both drowned in the struggle to save her.
Newlyweds Samuel and Cleola A. Alexandre moved into 309 West 97th Street in 1920. The two had met at a dance in Dallas, Texas in June 1919. Samuel told Cleola he was a violist and was trying to save enough money to go to Boston to further his studies. Cleola's mother invited him to stay at their house and he remained there for seven months.
Cleola was also a musician and the following year her father brought her to New York "to perfect her musical education," according to the Brooklyn Standard Union. Samuel followed, booked a room in the same hotel, and "began to press his desire for a marriage." The two married secretly in Brooklyn's Borough Hall. When her parents found out about the marriage, they also discovered that Samuel was not a trained violinist, as he had said, but a waiter. Cleola's mother "at once started suit for an annulment of the marriage" on the grounds of fraud, said the newspaper.
The case ended up in court on April 4, 1922, and it did not go well for Cleola's mother. Justice Stephen Callaghan denied the application. He ruled that, "it is no disgrace that a man is a waiter, because in many instances it is a very lucrative occupation."
The building received a renovation in 1972. There are still two apartments per floor today, and outwardly Frederick V. Osthoff, Jr.'s interesting structure is little changed.
photographs by the author
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