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.
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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
Pinehurst Ave is in Manhattan
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