The Lawrence Spillane Saloon - 206 East 38th Street

 

Around 1866, Lawrence Spillane purchased the new, four-story house-and-store at 206 East 38th Street between Second and Third Avenues.  In the rear was a second four-story house for rental income.  Faced in red brick, the Italianate design of the primary structure included molded lintels and a handsome bracketed cornice with a paneled fascia.

Spillane opened his "liquor saloon" in the ground floor.  (Liquor saloons were different from beer saloons and porterhouses, in that they served hard spirits.)  Living with Spillane's family on the upper floors in 1868 were blue collar, Irish-born boarders Michael Doyle, a mason; stonecutter Thomas Fagan; and John Slack, a laborer.  Occupying the rear house were Bridget McCarroll, who did washing; and Thomas Scannon, a coachman.

Expectedly, the turnover in boarders was frequent.  Timothy Kirby lived here in 1869.  On July 14 that year, the New York Herald reported that he, "was severely injured in the foot yesterday while repairing the railroad track, corner Fourth avenue and Ninth street, by a passing car."

By 1870, Spillane ran two other saloons--one on Spring Street and the other on Thompson Street.  

Ellen Roberts, a widow, lived three houses away at 212 East 38th Street in 1873.  That year she became the target of an investigation prompted by neighborhood women like Ellen Jarvis, who lived here.  At the time, families who took in orphans from the Commissioners of Charities and Corrections were paid--similar to today's foster care programs.  Ellen Roberts, however, used the system as her sole source of income, making her what was known as a "baby-farmer."  

On September 24, 1873, The New York Times headlined an article, "Shocking Case of Baby-Farming," and reported that Ellen Roberts had been arrested "on a charge of wholesale infanticide."  Ellen Jarvis was among the women who asserted that Roberts was "a professional baby-farmer; that infants were exposed to the weather, starved, and otherwise maltreated till they died."

The article said, "According to...one witness, thirty children were systematically allowed to drift out of existence between Jan. 1 and June 4."  Also arrested was the undertaker named Boylston whose business was across the street.  He was accused "of keeping the dead bodies of the victims in his stable, and irregularly disposing of them."

Ellen Jarvis was called to testify.  The New-York Tribune reported, "She stated that on several occasions she gave her children into the care of Mrs. Roberts, but invariably got them back in a filthy and starved state.  Mrs. Roberts was in the habit of getting drunk almost daily, and on one occasion she lay down on top of two children who would have been suffocated but for two women who interfered."

In 1884, Lawrence Spillane closed his saloon here.  He still operated one at James and Water Streets.  The store space became a barbershop, the proprietor of which, according to employee Michael Dietrich later, paid $22 rent.  The monthly figure would translate to $700 in 2024.  Three years later, after Dietrich bought the shop from his boss, his rent was increased to $25.

Lawrence Spillane sold the "two four-story tenements," as described by the New York Herald, in October 1888.  The newspaper explained the property had been "the investment of a saloon keeper at James and Water streets who is anxious to retire from business."  E. N. Peck paid Spillane the equivalent of about $443,000 today.

Peck's tenants continued to be working class immigrants.  They occasionally placed advertisements in local newspapers as they looked for employment.  One, printed on February 4, 1890, read, "Chambermaid or waitress--By a reliable young woman; not afraid of work; willing and obliging.  208 East 38th-st; ring McCarthy's bell."  An ad in The New York Times on October 29, 1891, read, "Useful Man--Young Swede, lately landed, handy and willing to do any kind of work.  Address Carlson, 206 East 38th St."

"Carlson" may have been the same resident who was looking for work six months later.  On April 23, 1892, an ad in The World announced, "Bartender--A young Swede, 22, wishes a position as assistant bartender; speaks English fluently; has got some experience.  Address Bartender, 206 East 38th st."

In the winter of 1893, 20-year-old Catherine (known as Katie) Reischmann stopped in Michael Dietrich's barbershop and asked for work.  The young woman had married Otto Krabiel a year earlier, on October 24, 1892, but left him a month later and began using her maiden name again.  Dietrich told Katie that his sister had kept house for him but she had recently married.  He offered her a scandalous proposition.  According to Katie later, "he said I should go and keep house with him and be his wife.  After he said that I immediately went to live with him as his wife.  I took up rooms and began housekeeping as such at 206 East Thirty-Eighth street."

The next year, on September 24, 1894, the couple had a child, Lena.  Now a father, Dietrich suggested that he and Katie should be married.  They went to a notary public who officially confirmed that they "agreed to live together as husband and wife."  When asked later why there was no church ceremony, Katie explained, "My husband said he did not believe in ceremony.  He said it was more publicity than anything else."

Michael Dietrich was still operating the barbershop in 1906 when he and Katie separated.  When she went to court to obtain support, he denied they had ever been married and stressed that Katie, in fact, had never divorced her first husband.  Katie and their 11-year-old daughter were left on their own.

In the meantime, resident John McKenna faced legal problems of his own.  Early in 1903, he was sued by Julia Pearsall on behalf of her daughter, Elva, for breach of promise to marry.  Julia alleged that McKenna had proposed to Elva on June 13, 1902 and that "he refused to carry out his contract to marry her."  The reason she had to be appointed guardian ad litem for her jilted daughter was because Elva was 10 years old.

In 1925, the Peck Estate sold the "four story tenement with a store" and the rear building to J. Franklin McKean.  He hired architect Alfred A. Tearle to make renovations.  There were now two apartments above the store in the front building and a shop on the ground floor of the rear structure.  (The upper floors of the back building were "not to be occupied," according to the Department of Buildings.)  The shop in the front building became home to the Franklin Metal Weatherstrip Co.

The Franklin Metal Weatherstrip Co. was in the shop in 1941.  image via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services.

The Franklin Metal Weatherstrip Co. was founded in 1900.  An advertisement in Carpenter magazine in 1925 described the product as being "for all kinds of windows and doors" and "manufactured by us in large quantities and sold to carpenters at unusually low prices." 

The front building received a substantial make-over in 1970 when it was converted to offices above the shop.  The 19th century storefront was replaced with stone and neo-Colonial, splayed lintels were installed over the upper floor windows.

In the 1970s, the shop was home to the Keen Gallery.  A nail salon occupies the space today.  The rear building was renovated to a single family house in 1994.

photographs by the author

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