Charles E. Greenberg's 315 West End Avenue

 

Eleventh Avenue was extended from 72nd Street to 106th Street in 1880 and paved in 1893 (by then renamed West End Avenue).  Covenants put in place by the West end Association barred commercial activity, resulting in an upscale residential thoroughfare lined with grass plots and trees.  Beginning in the 1890s, many of the opulent West End Avenue mansions were replaced with apartment houses, giving the street the personality we see today.

In 1945, the year World War II ended, the apartment building at the northwest corner of West End Avenue and 75th Street was purchased by the 75 West End Avenue Corporation.  Although it was just 18 years old, designed by Robert T. Lyons in 1927, the building was demolished.  The syndicate hired Charles E. Greenberg to design the replacement structure.

The architect had recently opened his office at 565 Fifth Avenue.  Soon after starting work on 315 West End Avenue, he received the commission to design the sprawling 198-207 Pinehurst Avenue, completed in 1947.  But this Art Moderne design would outshine that larger project.

Completed in 1946, the suburban looking 315 West End Avenue was faced in yellow brick contrasted with slightly darker brick stringcourses.  The entrance was framed in cast concrete, its openings flanked by reeding.  Above the doorway was a sleek Art Moderne metal hood like the rear fender of a 1947 Buick.  Essential to the design were the casement windows, especially those that wrapped the corner.  With them, Greenberg's building was the last word in modernity.  A streamlined metal railing ran along the roofline.

Among the early tenants were Stanley Woodward and his wife, the former Esther Rice.  The couple was married in 1932 and had two daughters.  The well-known editor and sportswriter had recently returned to New York from serving as the Herald Tribune's war correspondent, during which he covered, among other stories, the Battle of Iwo Jima.

Born in 1895, he joined the Herald Tribune in 1930, becoming editor of the sports section in 1938.  Among his best remembered stories was the May 9, 1947 column in which he reported that St. Louis Cardinals players were pushing for a National League strike to protest playing against Jackie Robinson.  The story resulted in increased support for Robinson, major league baseball's first black player.

Woodward was fired from the Herald Tribune in 1948, reportedly for refusing to send a writer to a women's golf tournament.  He edited a monthly sports magazine, Sports Illustrated (not to be confused with the current publication), which first hit newsstands in February 1949.  

In his 2012 book Into My Own: The Remarkable People and Events that Shaped a Life, Roger Kahn (who lived at 320 West End Avenue) mentions that Woodward and his wife, "took an apartment in an art deco building at 315 West End Avenue...Both Woodward's apartment and mine had bars, and we began to spend more hours together than we ever had.  In time I heard enough to recognize his life as an American saga."

Stanley Woodward (original source unknown)

After holding several other positions, Woodward returned to the Herald Tribune on February 5, 1959, resuming his former job as sports editor.  His first article began, "As I was saying when I was so rudely interrupted 11 years ago..."

Woodward, who retired in 1962, was later inducted into the National Sportscasters and Sportswriters Hall of Fame.

Resident Jerry Jerome brought less wanted attention to the address in 1950.  He was the president of J. & B. Contracting Co., Inc., which had lucrative contracts with the city for painting hospitals.  Working with three inspectors of the Department of Hospitals, Jerome devised what the New York Post described as a "painting contract racket."  An investigation of the painting of the City Home for the Aged, the Metropolitan, Willard Parker, and Kings County Hospitals, and the Farm Colony on Staten Island revealed that shortcuts (like one coat of paint instead of two) had resulted in defrauding the city of $151, 552.  (The amount would translate to more than $1.75 million in 2024.)

In April 1950, Jerome and a union official were found guilty and sentenced to 7-1/2 to 15 years in prison.  His company was fined $25,000.  The continued investigation resulted in five city employees, all inspectors, being fired.

Painter and teacher Anna Elkan Meltzer lived at 315 West End Avenue.  The widow of photographer Samuel Meltzer, she was born on the Lower East Side in 1896 of Russian immigrant parents.  Encouraged by a teacher, she applied to the Cooper Union Art School, where she was told she was too young for admission.  The persistent girl succeeded in having her drawings shown to the dean, and was not only accepted, but within three months was appointed "pupil-teacher in drawing from cast class."

Anna Meltzer's Market Scene in the Bowery

Meltzer went on to study at the Art Student League and in 1940 had her first one-person show at the Vendome Gallery.  That year she founded the Anna E. Meltzer School of Art, and in 1959 her students formed the Anna E. Meltzer Art Society.  She was a founder of Audubon Artists, was a member of the Royal Art Society of London, and a member of the American Artists Professional League.

Meltzer ran her school of painting from her apartment at 315 West End Avenue until 1973.  She moved to Copake, New York and died the following year at the age of 77.

Phyllis Diamond, a single parent, founded Kindred Spirts in her apartment here around 1983.  She told Anna Weintraub of The Journal-News, "I have this whole philosophy.  I really believe that single parenthood does not have to be as depressing as some people find it.  The way we do it (through the organization) is to take our leisure time and share it with others in a similar situation."

For a membership of $40, single parents could partake in "swim parties, ski weekends, family camping trips," shares in summer vacation houses, and other activities.  On March 25, 1984, The New York Times described a recent meeting here of 12 adults and 11 children.  "The purpose," said the article, "was to allow parents and children, most of whom are living in joint-custody arrangements, to compare notes."

Looking slightly out of place, 315 West End Avenue is a refreshing splash of Art Moderne among the avenue's earlier, dowager structures.

photographs by Sean Khorsandi

The Lost United States Trust Building - 45 Wall Street

 

Real Estate Record & Builders' Guide, June 25, 1898 (copyright expired)

On January 21, 1888, the Record & Guide reported that the United States Trust Co. had purchased the Phoenix Bank building at 45 Wall Street and paid an extra $100,000 "to get immediate possession."  The institution had acquired the adjoining building at 47 Wall Street a year earlier.  The amount paid for the two properties, plus the extra $100,000, would equal $27.3 million in 2024.  The article said, "They will erect a new office building in the spring."

A week later the journal reported, "It is rumored that Architect Gibson, of Albany, will be the architect for the United States Trust Co.'s building on Wall street."  Born in England, the 34-year-old Robert W. Gibson had become a U.S. citizen the previous year.  He had recently designed the Episcopal Cathedral of All Saints in Albany, the first portion of which was just being completed.  Erastus Corning, one of the United States Trust Co.'s founders, had provided the land for the cathedral, and it was possibly he who recommended Gibson for the United States Trust Co. building.

The United States Trust Co. was incorporated in 1853.  The country's first trust company, it was founded by some of America's wealthiest men, including (in addition to Erastus Corning), Marshall Field and Peter Cooper.  Its first president was Joseph Lawrence and its vice-president was John Aikman Stewart.

The commission was apparently sufficient to prompt Robert Wilson Gibson to relocate.  The Record & Guide reported on March 10, 1888, "Architect R. W. Gibson of Albany, has opened offices in the Potter building.  It will be remembered that Mr. Gibson received the commission for the new building on Wall street for the United States Trust Company."

  

Gibs0n turned from the cathedral's Gothic Revival style to Romanesque Revival for the U.S. Trust Co. headquarters.  The nine stories of granite and brownstone recalled Medieval architecture in its numerous arcades, clustered columns and intricate carvings.  

On December 22, 1888, as construction neared completion, the Record & Guide said, "The building now erecting in Wall street for the use of this corporation is at least impossible to ignore."  The critic was displeased that Gibson, and indeed the architects of all Wall Street structures, were not attempting to harmonize, but were competing for attention.  "There was been money enough spent in the structures erected along that thoroughfare within the past ten years to make it one of the finest streets in the world.  That object has not been obtained."

The journal accused Gibson of not merely following the Romanesque styling of Henry Hobson Richardson, but of stealing particular design details.  "As we shall see," said the article, "the present building is indebted to him [i.e., Richardson] for its features and for most of its detail, as well as for the choice of materials."  The Guide said the arched main entrance, "is reproduced from the entrance arches of Mr. Richardson's Harvard Law School," adding, "The intermediate and terminal piers that bound the other two bays reproduce another of Mr. Richardson's mistakes of design, however, he never committed [it] on so large a scale or so persistently as it is here repeated."

Saying that the treatment of the upper floors were borrowed from Richardson's City Hall in Albany, the journal continued in its brutal review.  "The attempted vigor of the treatment here becomes rudeness, and in the rough brown stone panels that divide the included stories, framed in moulded granite, degenerates into slovenliness."  In short, the critic concluded, "the front is a compilation from the works of Mr. Richardson," and said, "it has no character, unless obstreperousness may be so considered."

(Despite the savage review, Robert W. Gibson went on to a successful career, designing churches and residences, including the sublime Morton Plant mansion on Fifth Avenue.)

The tenants of the U.S. Trust Co. building were, mostly, attorneys, brokers, and real estate firms.  Among the earliest were Dix & Phyfe, bankers and brokers; and Naylor & Co., iron and steel brokers.

Dix & Phyfe was formed in 1866 by John J. Phyfe and Alfred P. Dix.  John P. Hollingshead had been the firm's confidential clerk and bookkeeper for years when the firm moved in.  In 1891, he traveled to California "for his health," according to The New York Times, leaving his assistant, Oscar Creamer, in charge.  The Evening Post described Creamer as, "only nineteen years old," and The New York Times said he "came to them as an office boy in knickers."  The teen, hired in 1886, had proved himself to be trustworthy.

About a year after Hollingshead had gone West, Creamer disappeared.  On March 28, 1892, John J. Phyfe asked for the ledger and cash book.  The Evening Post reported that he, "discovered that the books were in confusion.  Erasures had been made and pages cut out, and, while it was apparent that the firm had been robbed it was difficult to say how much money had been taken."

Creamer had "two confederates" in the crime, William E. Carpenter and Oscar Bjorkman, alias James L. White.  Carpenter was quickly arrested and confessed.  He was charged with stealing $52,100 (about $1.8 million today).  On April 7, The Evening World reported, "Creamer and White are believed to have sailed on the tramp steamer Oakdale on Saturday for Copenhagen."

Happily for Dix & Phyfe, Creamer and White had taken only about $5,000 of the massive defalcation.  Of the rest, all but about $1,000 was discovered in the cellar of the Brooklyn house of a friend of Carpenter.  Creamer and White did not get far.  On June 29, 1892, The Evening Post reported that they had been arrested a week earlier and were awaiting trial.

Naylor & Co. were victims of a nearly identical crime two years later.  On September 26, 1894, The Evening World reported that Charles H. Voges, a cashier, had pleaded guilty to embezzling $20,000 from the firm.  The amount would equal about $731,000 today.

A tenant not involved in law or finance was the Worcester Cycle Mfg. Co., whose offices were here in 1896.  The firm manufactured the Boy and Birdie Special bicycles, described in an advertisement as "mechanical wonders of the World."

In 1897, the law firm of Sullivan & Cromwell was here.  The partners handled highly visible cases, like the suit of Josie MacDonald that year against Dr. Nelson T. Shields.  She sought damages for permanent disfigurement due to overexposure to x-rays.  The New York Journal and Advertiser reported on August 8, "Five weeks ago Miss MacDonald was a woman of striking beauty.  She had a wealth of black, wavy hair, a beautiful fresh complexion and merry, snapping dark eyes.  Now she is a disfigured, suffering woman.  For five long weeks she has been in torture."

Dix & Phyfe still occupied its offices here when John J. Phyfe died of Bright's Disease in Palm Beach, Florida in March 1901.  Another of the original tenants, Naylor & Co., was also in the building and would remain at least through 1913.

American Architect & Building News, April 19, 1890 (copyright expired)

The banking firm of Rhoades & Co. was here at the time.  Among its employees was George W. Jameson.  The unmarried man, who lived with his sickly mother on West End Avenue, was apparently deeply troubled.  On the morning of February 16, 1914, he was seen far uptown on the express platform of the 181st Street station.  The Sun remarked, "No one seems to know just what he was doing in the station at 181st Street."  Witnesses said that he was seen "pacing up and down at the north end of the station."  As the train pulled in, he jumped to the tracks.  "Four cars passed over his body," said the article.

Astoundingly, John Aikman Stewart, one of the United States Trust Company's founders in 1853, was still coming into the office three days a week in 1921.  Called by The Evening World, "the patriarch of American bankers," the newspaper said on July 12, "At 10:35 sharp, Mr. Stewart's limousine rolled up to the curb in front of the trust company's office and Mr. Stewart, without assistance, alighted and entered the banking office, where Vice President Kingsley immediately presented him with the mail and accumulated memoranda awaiting his attention."  When the reporter approached him with questions about his upcoming 99th birthday, Stewart snapped, "Too busy to talk for publication."

The following year, on September 2, 1922, The Evening Post published a photo of Stewart at his desk here, noting he "was one hundred years old last Saturday."  Four years later, on December 17, 1926, The Washington D.C. Evening Star reported, "John Aikman Stewart, 104 years old, Wall Street financier and once Assistant Secretary of the United States Treasury died at his home today of pneumonia."

image via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services.

At the time of Stewart's death, the United States Trust Company's assets were more than $1 billion, more than any other trust institution in the country.  Its sturdy, stone headquarters, once brutally panned by one architectural critic, survived until 1959, to be replaced by a 21-story building.