The Henry Knebel House - 217 Second Avenue

image via streeteasy.com

Henry Knebel's first wife, Gertrude Bennet, died on January 5, 1838 at the age of 27.  The couple's daughter, also named Gertrude, was four years old at the time.  By the time Gertrude was married to Louis Kappes, her father had remarried and moved to a fine home at 108 East Fourth Street.  Gertrude Kappes's funeral was held there on July 23, 1867.  She was 33 years old.

Not long afterward, Henry and Sarah T. Knebel moved to the elegant four-story and basement house at 217 Second Avenue.  The East Village neighborhood was one of refined homes and the Knebels' residence held its own among the best.  Its Italianate design included a double-doored entranced flanked by paneled pilasters and heavy, scrolled brackets that upheld a molded cornice.  A large fanlight spilled daylight into the foyer.  The floor-to-ceiling parlor windows may have originally been fronted by a cast iron balcony.  A cast metal cornice with foliate brackets completed the design.

Knebel operated a soda water business at 458 Fourth Street.  He was involved in a landmark trademark case in 1862.  Knebel's soda water was sold in glass bottles, stamped with his company's name.  He charged a man named Mullins with refilling the bottles and selling them in violation of an 1860 law.  The court ruled that the law was "preposterous" and "was apparently made to suit the mineral water dealers, without the slightest regard to the rights of others."  Astoundingly, Mullins was released and counterfeiters were allowed to reuse  and resell trademarked bottles.

A Henry Knebel bottled like this was involved in the 1862 trademark case.

Like many well-to-do families with extra space in their homes, the Knebels took in a boarder.  Their boarder in 1871, Hugh Wilson, would meet a tragic end.  On January 8, 1872, as reported by The Evening Post eight days later, "Robert McCormick quarreled with Hugh Wilson of No. 217 Second avenue, and injured him so severely that he died, yesterday."  McCormick pleaded self defense.  The article continued, "He says that he was assaulted by Wilson, and that the records of the police courts will show that Wilson has many times been arrested for drunkenness."

At the time of Henry Knebel's death in 1878, the East Village neighborhood had greatly changed.  Waves of immigrants poured in and wealthy families moved northward.  Sarah Knebel left 217 Second Avenue the following year.  

The Knebel house was now "rented out in flats," according to The Truth a few years later.  Among the tenants in 1880 were Margaret Pheil, the widow of Adam Pheil; broker William S. Raymond; and John W. Miller, who was a clerk.

Francis John Adolphi and his wife, Anna Marie Hoch, took an apartment around 1881.  Francis was born in Germany in September 1840 and married Anna in 1870.  He was a partner in the drygoods firm Doyle & Adolphi.  Their apartment was the scene of an ugly incident in the summer of 1882.

Hearing that Anna Marie was sick, her father, John C. Hoch, came to visit.  Already there when he arrived was Alexander E. Van Ramdohr, another son-in-law.  Van Ramdohr's wife had just left him and was living with her parents.  The visit ended with Hoch charging John Adolphi and Alexander Van Ramdohr with assault.

Hoch, whom The New York Sun described on July 6, 1882 as "a portly gray-haired man" and a "wealthy houseowner," told the court that his sons-in-law had immediately set out "to irritate him."  Van Ramdohr said he was going to get custody of their daughter.  "Mr. Hoch responded warmly and charged his son with dissipated habits," said the newspaper.  He was promptly ordered out of the apartment "and assaulted."

The judge ruled that Adolphi had every legal right to "discharge him from his house," and dismissed the case.  But Adolphi was not done.  He charged his father-in-law with attempting to ruin his marriage.  He said Hoch had "offered his wife an independent residence of her own in order to induce her to leave her husband."  And because Hoch had had Adolphi arrested twice before on similar assault charges, Adolphi sued him for $2,000 "for false imprisonment."  (The rocky relations between the couple and the in-laws did not end the marriage, however.  Twenty years later their son, A. M. Adolphi, was still living at the address.)

While the drama played out in the Adolphis' parlor, a new tenant had just moved into the basement level.  On July 17, 1882, the investigative newspaper The Truth titled an article, "That Mock Nun Again / Some Of The Latest Exploits of 'Sister' Beatrice."  The newspaper had earlier exposed "Sister Beatrice" of frequently posing as a nun and eliciting donations a few months earlier.  She disappeared for a while, and now The Truth's reporter discovered, "St. Stephen's Guild, as 'Sister' Beatrice terms the institution, occupies the basement."

When the reporter visited her, Sister Beatrice asked "to be excused for showing him into the kitchen, as the 'chapel' was being fitted up.  The few articles in the room were rickety.  The furniture consisted of an old bureau, a table and a couple of chairs.  There was a dirty plate upon the table and a cup,"  said the article.  Sister Beatrice wore "a black paper muslin domino, which she had evidently got at some costumer's.  Around her waist was a rope, to which was suspended a fan and crucifix.  She also wore a Quaker bonnet with a white cap under it.  It could  be easily seen that she was trying to look like a Sister of Charity."

Madame Luisa Cappiani took rooms here around 1887 and would remain into the early 1890s.  Born in Austria in 1829, the dramatic soprano was known for her Wagnerian roles.  She was one of the founders of the American Federation of Musicians.

Mme. Luisa Cappiani, A Woman of the Century, 1893 (copyright expired)

Mme. Cappiani advertised in the October 1888 issue of The Voice, saying, "Teacher of the Art of Singing according to the Old Italian Method.  Pupils fill Prominent Positions on Concert and Operatic Stage.  217 Second Ave., New York."

Another long-term tenant was Dr. James L. Berea.  The clinical assistant to the Chair of Genito-Urinary Diseases at the New York Homoeopathic Medical College and Hospital, he lived here at least from 1892 to 1902.

Another doctor, Rafaelo Maglioni and his wife lived here by the spring of 1913.  About five minutes after the doctor left the apartment on May 27 that year, his wife answered the doorbell.  The New York Times reported, "A young man, wearing a mustache that was obviously false, confronted her as she opened the door, and, pointing a pistol as her, ordered her to hold up her hands."  When she did, he knocked her to the floor and "wrenched a diamond ring from her finger and ran."

Two days later detectives were still looking for the thief.  "Dr. Maglione reported his wife was prostrated by her experience," said the article.

In 1941, 217 Second Avenue still retained its early 19th century appearance.  image via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services.

Later that year, on December 16, Dr. Maglioni was called to an unusual case.  Alfonsa Romayo and Margherita Garabese were on their way home at about 6:00 that evening.  At 16th Street and Second Avenue Alfonsa, who was 16 years old, stopped suddenly and said, "Oh, I have a pain in my heart!"

Margherita told her it would pass and they continued to the apartment building where they lived on East 16th Street.  When the pain had not subsided an hour later, Alfonsa came to Dr. Maglione's apartment.  Upon examining her, he discovered she had been shot in the chest.  Amazingly, the wound had not bled externally, according to The Sun.

Maglione sent her to Bellevue Hospital where, as she began to tell the story, she lost consciousness.  How she came to be shot was a mystery.  The Sun said both girls, "declared that there had been no pistol report, no flash of a gun, no trouble of any kind ahead of them."

Two musicians lived in apartments here in the 1960s, Vladimir Weisman and Terry P. Thomas.  A violinist, Weisman had debuted at Town Hall on April 28, 1948.  Noel Straus, critic of The New York Times, said at the time, "Mr. Weisman's playing was quite out of the ordinary, not only because of its technical precision and impeccable intonation, but also on account of its unusual beauty of tone, sensitivity and refinement, its poetry and imagination."

Pocket doors with painted glass panels amazingly survive.  image via streeteasy.com

Although the cornice has been replaced and the architectural details of the doorway and windows have been lost, the Knebel house miraculously retains its stoop.  And inside, stunning early 19th century elements survive, including glass-paned pocket doors.

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