Jobst Hoffman's 1888 253 East 10th Street

 

On February 2, 1886, Ernest Von Au purchased the three-story brick house at 253 East 10th Street from Philip Krieger for $16,000.  The old residence was a vestige of a time when refined homes filled the East Village neighborhood that was now seeing the rise of flat houses.  It may have been the several tenement buildings in the Lower East Side that Von Au was currently erecting that prompted him to wait until the spring of 1888 to commission architect Jobst Hoffman to design a flat building on the site.

Like Von Au, Hoffman specialized in tenement buildings.  His plans, filed in May, called for a "five-story brick, stone and terra cotta flat" to cost $18,000.  The construction costs brought Von Au's total outlay to $1.14 million in 2024 terms.

Construction was completed within seven months.  Hoffman's Renaissance Revival design was faced in brick and trimmed in brownstone.  Profuse renaissance style carvings decorated the pilasters and spandrels of the entrance way.  Similarly, upper floor panels and tympana were filled with medieval faces and swirling leaves and vines.  The complex cast metal cornice included a half-bowl, a triangular pediment, and a multi-leveled tower.

Von Au sold his new building on December 1, 1888 to Conrad Schmidt for $38,500, turning a tidy profit.  Schmidt's working class tenants would, for the most part, be immigrants.

In 1893, George Griffith, a traveling salesman for a New Jersey lithographing firm, and his young wife Frances, moved in.  About a year later, around 5:00 on the afternoon of January 12, the janitor noticed a strong smell of gas.  The Evening World reported, "He burst open the doors" and found Frances "dead upon the floor with the end of a gas tube in her mouth."

The New York Times said, "From an album on the centre [sic] table the woman had torn out all the portraits and had destroyed them.  The stove in the front room was half filled with the ashes of papers and photographs which the woman had burned."  Saying she was about 25 years old, the article described her as "a brunette of the Jewish type," adding, "she did not cultivate the acquaintance of her neighbors, and the people in the house knew very little about her or her husband."

The mystery was cleared up the following day.  The Evening World began an article saying, "The beautiful young suicide at 253 East Tenth street, was not Mrs. Frances Griffith.  She was Miss Frances Simon, a wayward girl who deserted her home and family two and one-half years ago."  About an hour after Frances's body was discovered, "a young, richly dressed and pretty young woman called at the flat," said the article.  She was Frances's sister, Mattie, who came from the family's home in Brooklyn where their father, Michael Simon, was described as "wealthy."

Mattie identified the body as Frances Simon.  Her family members refused to come, but Mattie "spent the night by the dead body of her erring sister."  After George Griffith was notified of Frances's death, the reasons for her suicide became clear.

Suspecting that Frances was being unfaithful, on January 10, he sent her a telegram saying he would be home late the following night.  Instead, he arrived a few hours later and, confirming his suspicions, he "found a strange man in Frances's company," according to The Evening World.  "A quarrel followed, and that night Griffith left the flat vowing that he would never return."  The "strange man" returned the next day, according to neighbors, and stayed until around 4:00.  An hour later the janitor discovered Frances's body.  In her pocketbook, said the article, was $8.81, "of which $8.40, she wrote, was to pay a doctor's bill."

The Byrnes family lived here at the time.  Thirty-five-year-old Joseph Brynes was a truck driver for the wholesale grocers Austin, Nichols & Co.  Nine months after Frances's suicide, he experienced a horrible tragedy.  Byrnes was driving along East 44th Street on September 14 as a group of little children exited a candy store.  According to the New York Herald, "The horses were walking leisurely toward Third avenue."

Among the group of children was four-year-old Gertrude Coyle, who lived directly across the street.  The newspaper reported, "Gertrude, hugging her package of sweetmeats, started for home.  She did not see the heavily ladened truck and ran directly between the front wheels."  Joseph Byrne had not seen the little girl and, "in a moment she had been knocked down and the hind wheel passed over her head and the upper portion of her body, killing her instantly."  The newspaper rather callously added, "Her head was literally cleft in twain."

Byrne stopped the team and walked to the back of the truck.  Frozen by shock, the article said he was "apparently unable to remove his eyes from it, until Policeman Hilbert tapped him on the shoulder and placed him under arrest."  Byrne tearfully pleaded that he "knew nothing of the accident until it was over."  He was held on a charge of homicide.

The working conditions of the factory workers who lived here was evidenced in a letter published in the New York Journal and Advertiser on February 26, 1899.  Chris Ferman, who was 32 years old, wrote in part:

I work in a large leather factory, where I am shut up indoors all day long, and fresh air is very scarce, which makes me feel drowsy, so when I get home at night I generally have one of those sick headaches and have no appetite, and my supper would have to be thrown away.

Although Abraham Greenberg, who lived here by 1902, listed no occupation, he owned a tenement building at 189 Rivington Street.  It provided him enough income to provide bail to Lena Todenberg that year.  Lena ostensibly ran a cigar store, however she was arrested on  February 17, 1902 on charges of "keeping a disorderly house."  (The term "disorderly house" referred to a brothel.)  Greenberg supplied her $5,000 bail, a hefty $183,000 today.

Not all the residents of 253 East 10th Street were hard working and respectable.  On January 28, 1911, The Evening Telegram reported that 16-year-old Isidor Hammer had been arrested "upon the charges of larceny of money from passengers upon the platform of the Forty-second street subway during the rush hour."  A motor inspector, George M. Morton, witnessed Hammer removing the a woman's pocketbook from her coat.  Morton rushed forward and grabbed Hammer's hand holding the purse.  The teen's theft was not worth the price he paid.  When he faced Magistrate O'Connor in the Yorkville Police Court, it was revealed that the stolen purse contained one cent.

More industrious was young David M. Goldberg, who was hired on November 1, 1915 as a page for the New York State Industrial Commission.  His starting salary was $360 a year--about $11,300 today.  Within three years, he had been promoted to junior clerk and his salary had exactly doubled.

The brick and brownstone have been painted, and an industrial type door installed, defacing Jobst Hoffman's 1888 design.

The Smilex and Famulara families occupied apartments in 1922.  One afternoon that November, the two Smilex children were playing on the sidewalk in front of the building.  Saro Famulara, who was 12 years old, went to the roof and poured water down on them.  Their mother, Catherine Smilex, did not think the prank was at all funny.  Outraged, she stormed upstairs and pushed the Famulara boy off the roof to his death.  Police originally thought his death was accidental, but neighbors "asserted that the boy had been deliberately pushed off the roof."  An investigation led to Catherine's arrest on November 6.

Because of the high concentration of working class residents, the East Village was a hot spot for Communism and Socialism in the early 20th century.  In 1940, residents Frank Maskiewicz and John Morov were listed by the Government as voters for the Communist Party.  Things had not greatly changed three decades later when, in October 1974,  resident Samuel W. Manuel ran for State Comptroller on the Socialist Worker Party ticket.

Although a bit beleaguered today, Jobst Hoffman's striking building still draws attention.

photographs by the author

LaptrinhX.com has no authorization to reuse the content of this blog