The Juan Pablo Duarte Statue - Duarte Square

 

In 1945, Sixth Avenue, at the prompting of Mayor Fiorello H. LaGuardia, was renamed the "Avenue of the Americas" to honor Pan-American ideals.  The renaming ceremony in October that year included a parade of 4,000 World War II veterans.  Colorful medallions--300 of them--depicting the coats of arms of Latin American countries were hung from the avenue's lampposts.

Within a few years two statues of Latin American  heroes--liberator Simon Bolivar and Argentine General José de San Martin--were moved to the entrance of Central Park at the head of the Avenue of the Americas.  Eventually, seven monuments to Latin American figures would line the route.  

At the time of the renaming, the construction of the Holland Tunnel, completed in 1927, had left the trapezoidal plot at Canal Street, Sullivan Street, Grand Street and the Avenue of the Americas little more than a barren parking lot.  A triangular portion along Sixth Avenue was named Juan Pablo Duarte Square in 1945.

The plot as it appeared in 1932.  The western section, to the left, is owned by Trinity Church.  The coming statue would be placed approximately where the wooden shack stands.  from the collection of the New York Public Library.

The square honored Juan Pablo Duarte, who attempted to liberate the Spanish speaking inhabitants on the eastern portion of Hispaniola Island from Haitian rule in 1843.  He failed, but when a subsequent revolution won independence in 1844, he was installed as the president of the new republic of the Dominican Republic.  Unfortunately he would later be ousted by a military dictator and die in exile; however, his ideals of democracy and self-government within Pan-American culture continued to be celebrated.

The naming of the plot had little meaning without a monument to draw attention to it and the hero.  Nevertheless, it would be more than three decades before the Club Juan Pablo Duarte, Inc. prompted a movement to erect a statue.  The Dominican Republic commissioned Italian artist Nicola Arrighini to sculpt a larger-than-life bronze statue of Duarte as a gift to the City of New York.

The statue was installed on the anniversary of Duarte's birthday, January 26, 1978.  There was no ceremony and no formal dedication, and there was no mention of the installment in any newspapers.  

Arrighini depicts the hero in a dignified pose, his left hand resting on a cane and his right hand holding a scroll.  The front of the pedestal identifies Duarte as "Founder Of The Dominican Republic."  The following year, the triangle around the statue was designated a park.  On March 27, 1979, The Villager succinctly reported that Community Board 2 "passed without objection to the remapping of Duarte Square, a small portion of 6th Avenue between Canal and Grand Sts., as a public place." 

Decades after the fact, New York City's Dominican community was offended by the statue's being relegated to a spot where it could get little attention.  On May 5, 1987, Newsday reported, "The statue of Juan Pablo Duarte, the father of the Dominican Republic, stands in an obscure square in downtown Manhattan, far from monuments to other Latin American heroes at the top of the Avenue of the Americas and in Central Park.  Its location has long irritated Dominicans in New York."

The square did receive attention in November 2011, but it had nothing to do with the Dominican figure.  The western portion of the block--from Varick to Sullivan Street (the latter no longer open at this point) and from Canal to Grand Street--is owned by Trinity Church.  Since the Holland Tunnel project, it had been kept vacant and, often, fenced.  

On September 17, a movement called Occupy Wall Street began in Zuccotti Park in the Financial District.  Protestors took over the park and camped out in tents.  The decades-long vacant lot next to Duarte Square caught dissenters' attention.  A month after Occupy Wall Street began, on November 26 The New York Times reported, "The midday arrests at the Canal Street lot unfolded next to a triangular space known as Duarte Square, for the first president of the Dominican Republic, Juan Pablo Duarte." Protestors created a hole in the fencing and "held a general-assembly-style discussion on whether to 'liberate another piece of property.'"

The incident was, perhaps, the Duarte statue's only brief time in the spotlight.  Nicola Arrighini's stately representation of Juan Pablo Duarte is greatly overlooked in the little park that few New Yorkers know exists.

photographs by the author

Blum & Blum's 1912 875 Park Avenue

image via fis-architecture.com

Having studied at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris, brothers George and Edward Blum opened their architectural office, Blum & Blum, in 1909.  The following year, they received an important commission from A. M. Jampol, president of the newly formed 875 Park Avenue Company.  

On September 23, 1910 The New York Times reported that they had filed plans, "for a twelve-story fireproof elevator apartment house to be erected at the southeast corner of Park Avenue and Seventy-eighth Street."  Projecting the construction costs at $1 million (about 34 times that much in 2025), the article said, "The building will have a facade of brick with limestone and terra cotta trimmings of the modern Italian Renaissance style."

Park Avenue was seeing its private homes replaced with upscale apartment buildings for the wealthy at the time.  This one would have to compete.  The article said that the residents of the 48 apartments would enjoy, "four electric passenger elevators and a refrigerating plant, heating plant, vacuum cleaning plant and large laundry in the basement with steam dryers and all the latest electrical appliances for washing and ironing."

Construction would take two years to complete.  The Times was generally correct in saying the style would be Italian Renaissance.  But in designing 875 Park Avenue, the Blum brothers revealed their knack of stepping away from the expected, a trait that would become their trademark.  Creative brickwork and terra cotta elements created vertical piers and what architectural journalist Christopher Gray would later call "a haunting series of hieroglyph-like medallions.

images via fsi-architecture.com

The apartments ranged from seven to ten rooms "with foyers," according to the New York World's Apartment Album.  "These apartments are designed to fill the needs of those who wish to combine the advantage of a private house with the comforts of an apartment," said the article, which added, "all porcelain plumbing fixtures [are] similar to those used in the Vanderbilt Hotel."  It noted that 875 Park Avenue provided "ample servants' accommodation."

Most floors had four apartments.  The World's New York Apartment House Album, 1910 (copyright expired)

Rents ranged from $2,500 to $4,500 a year--equal to about $7,000 to $12,500 per month today.  Although construction was not completed until September 1912, by the end of March that year 15 apartments had been leased.  Among those initial residents were John F. Stevens, head of the construction company that bore his name; Percy Seldon Straus, Jr. and his wife, the former Edith Abraham; and Baroness de Graffenried.

Born in 1876, Percy Selden Straus was the son of Isidor and Ida Straus.  Percy was a member of the R. H. Macy & Co. department store in which his father was a partner.  Edith Straus was the daughter of another department store mogul, Abraham Abraham, founder of Wechsler & Abraham.  In 1888, Isidor Straus and his brother, Nathan, purchased Joseph Wechsler's portion, creating the Abraham & Straus department store.

Edith and Percy Seldon Straus from the collection of The Straus Historical Society

The Strauses had two sons when they moved in--Ralph Isidor, born in 1903, and Percy Selden Jr., who arrived three years later.  In 1916, a third son, Donald Blun, was born.  

The couple filled their 875 Park Avenue apartment with a magnificent collection of Renaissance art.  Living with them was Edith's widowed mother, Rose Abraham, who was active in philanthropic work.  (Edith's father died in 1911.)

Baroness de Graffenried was the former Gertrude Van Cortlandt.  Her first husband, whom she married in 1877, was Schuyler Hamilton, Jr.  She and her current husband, Baron Raoul de Graffenried, had been estranged for several years.  (The Baron was living in Switzerland.)  Gertrude and Hamilton had four children together, Violet Loring, Gertrude Ray, Helena Van Wyck, and Lilian Gardiner.  Moving into 875 Park Avenue with their mother were Violet and Gertrude, 30 and 25 

years old respectively.

Expectedly, the residents' names often appeared in the society columns.  On December 3, 1913, The New York Times reported, "The Baroness de Graffenried was the hostess last evening at an informal and small dance at 875 Park Avenue, for her daughters, the Misses Gertrude and Violet Hamilton."  The article noted, "A buffet supper was served at midnight."  Although the event was considered informal and small, the article named 68 guests.

Similarly, on December 14, 1913, at the height of the debutante season, The New York Times reported, "Mrs. Robert T. Ford is to give a tea for her daughter, Miss Julia Ford, on Friday afternoon, at 875 Park Avenue."

In 1915, Percy Straus Sr. and Jr. went to the Far West "on a pleasure trip," according to The New York Times.  On September 24, Percy Jr. became suddenly ill on the train in New Mexico.  "He was believed to be suffering from spinal trouble, and physicians declared his life could not be saved without an immediate operation," said the article.  Percy Straus Sr. had the nine-year-old boy taken off the train at Albuquerque and he chartered a special train of three coaches to rush his son to Denver.  The New York Times said, "The special covered 528 miles in less than twelve hours.  At times the train ran eighty miles an hour."  At the hospital, physicians discovered an abscess in the boy's neck and performed a successful operation.

The World's New York Apartment House Album, 1910 (copyright expired)

Living here at the time was Dr. Whitney Lyon, the 51-year-old son of wealthy tooth powder manufacturer, I. W. Lyon.  A widower, Dr. Lyon was also the president of I. W. Lyon & Sons.  His son and daughter were attending Yale and Wellesley, respectively, in 1915.  Lyon also maintained "a handsome country place at New Canaan, Connecticut," as described by The New York Times, and "a fine estate in Fleming Park, Larchmont Point [New York], overlooking the harbor and the Larchmont Yacht Club."

Dr. Lyon gave up his apartment here in 1917.  He was married to Maude Cecil Vollman on January 28 at the Larchmont estate.  The New York Times said, "It is expected later that they will make their home in Larchmont, where Dr. Lyon owns considerable property."  The article noted, "After the marriage, Dr. Lyon and his bride motored toward Connecticut."

Other socially visible residents were Dr. Robert Cunningham Myles, his wife, the former Edith Georgiana Russell Platt, and their sons, Robert Jr. and Beverly Russell.  Born in Covebrook, Mississippi in 1853, Myles received his medical degree at the age of 21.  Specializing in nose, throat and ear diseases, he "was known as a pioneer of modern treatments," according to The New York Times, and invented several types of surgical instruments.  The family's country home was in Garden City, Long Island.

Dr. Robert Cunningham Myles as he appeared around 1893.  from the collection of the New York Academy of Medicine Library.

Robert Jr. left Yale to enter the banking firm of Harriman & Co.  He married Dorothy Greer in the St. James Chapel of the Cathedral Church of St. John the Divine on November 8, 1916.  The New York Times said that, although a large ceremony in St. Bartholomew's Church had been planned, "owing to mourning," it was a smaller wedding.  In reporting on the ceremony, the journalist noted, "On his father's side he is a descendant of Paul Russell of Hereford, England, who founded the family of that name in New England, of which James Russell Lowell was a member."

On the night of February 25, 1916, the Yale Chapter of the Alpha Delta Phi Fraternity gave a large dance at Sherry's that started at 10:30.  The New York Times said, "Those from the university town arrived here in a special car in time for a dance given by Dr. and Mrs. Robert Cunningham Myles at 875 Park Avenue, from 4 until 7 o'clock."

As early as 1918, Thornton Niven Motley and his wife, the former Kathryn Lena Kennard (born in 1858 and 1868 respectively) lived in 875 Park Avenue with their unmarried daughter, Kathryn Thornton, who was born in 1898.  Motley was the head of Thornton N. Motley & Co., manufacturer of railroad cars and steamships.  The family's summer home was in Newport where, in 1887, Thornton Motley won the Newport Yachting Cup.

The social spotlight shone on the Motleys in 1919 when Kathryn's engagement to Matthew Comstock Jenkins was announced.  Three days before the wedding in St. Thomas's Church, on February 19, 1920 her mother gave a dinner, the guest list of which included "the entire bridal party," according to the New-York Tribune.  The following afternoon, she gave a luncheon at the Plaza Hotel for the bridesmaids.

Although attorney Nelson Beardsley Burr and his wife, the former Helen M. Morris, had no children of their own, in 1914 they became wards of Helen's nephew, Monson Morris Jr.  Helen's brother, Major Monson Morris, was a real estate operator "and prominent socially," according to The New York Times.  His wife died in 1914.  Prior to traveling to Europe in November 1917 with his regiment, he gave Helen custody of his four-year-old son.  Possibly thinking he may not survive the conflict, he wrote in part, "I promise to give you entire charge of his bringing up and education until he becomes of age."

On May 10, 1922, The New York Times reported that Morris had sued Helen Burr for custody of the now nine-year-old boy.  The article mentioned that Morris "has been married twice since his first wife's death."  The custody battle would extend for two years.  Perhaps State Supreme Court Justice Bijur's decision had much to do with the young Morris's telling him that he did not like his father's newest wife.  In 1924, Nelson and Helen Burr was given full custody of the boy, with his father having regular visitation rights.

Rose Abraham died in the Straus apartment on May 26, 1938 at the age of 86.  She bequeathed $10,000 each to her three grandsons--a quarter of a million each in 2025 dollars. 

By the time of his mother-in-law's death, Percy Selden Straus was chairman of the board of R. H. Macy & Co.  He suffered with heart disease, which worsened in 1939.  On the night of April 6, 1944 he died in the apartment at the age of 67.  Tributes poured in from businessmen and department store heads, among them from Walter Hoving, president of Lord & Taylor; and Samuel J. Bloomingdale.

Edith Straus inherited a life interest in Percy's "books, paintings, pictures, sculptures and household furnishings."  Particular artworks, however, he left to his sons.  Percy Jr. received the Fred Spencer Portrait of Andrew Jackson; Ralph was bequeathed Renoir's Portrait of Maurice Grimpel and Pacheco's Portrait of a Chorister.  Donald was given the Gilbert Stuart Portrait of Thomas Jefferson and Jean Baptiste Simeon Chardin's Still Life.  

Upon Edith's death 75 of the masterworks in their collection--paintings by Hans Holbein the Younger, Sir Joshua Reynolds, Van Dyke, Botticelli, Bellini, Fra Angelico and sculptures by Michelangelo, Cellini, Houdon, Luca Della Robbia and others--were to go to the Museum of Fine Arts of Houston.

A reserved resident was Estelle Whitfield, of whom The New York Times said, "her name practically never appeared in the newspapers."  A daughter of John A. Whitfield, a wholesale merchant, she had grown up in a Gramercy Park mansion.  Among her father's close friends was Andrew Carnegie, who married Estelle's sister, Louise, in 1888.  

Never married, in 1928 Estelle sailed to visit her widowed sister at Skibo Castle in Dornock, Scotland.  (Andrew Carnegie had died in 1919.)  While there, Estelle caught pneumonia.  She died at Skibo Castle on July 14 at the age of 66.

Other residents at the time were Katharine C. Harper, the widow of publisher James Thorne Harper; and former opera singer and widow of stock broker James H. Benedict, Mary von Buehler Benedict.  Before her marriage to Benedict at the turn of the century, Mary was known on the European stage as Madame Billoni.  After a command performance in St. Petersburg, the Czar presented her with a pair of diamond earrings hidden in a bouquet of roses.

Following her divorce from Paul Felix Warburg in 1934, Jean Stettheimer Warburg moved into 875 Park Avenue with her daughter, Felicia.   In 1948, Felicia (and her mother by extension) scored a social coup by being presented at the Court of St. James.  Two years later, in April, Jean announced her daughter's engagement to Robert William Sarnoff.  One year later, nearly to the day on April 6, 1951, Jean married Lawrence J. Steinhardt.

Among the residents by the mid-1960s were real estate executive and president of the J. H. Taylor Construction Company, William Korn and his wife, the former Fannie Mayer.  Among the structures Korn's concern built were the office building at 1407 Broadway and the apartment building at 240 Central Park South.  In the 1930s and '40s, Fannie was instrumental in organizing the "Congress houses," shelters for incoming refugees from Nazi Germany.  In 1963, she was a co-winner in the first Louise Waterman Wise Award of the American Jewish Congress.

Fannie Mayer Korn died in their apartment at the age of 85 on August 21, 1972.  Five months later, on December 18, William Korn died here at the age of 88.

image via fsi-architecture.com

In time for the building's centennial in 2012, a facade restoration was completed by FSI Architecture.  The project entailed restoration or replacement of the deteriorated terra cotta and stone ornaments, repointing and other preservation work.

The 1902 Isidor and Julia Gartner Mansion - 309 West 105th Street

 

Two years after ground was broken, in 1902 builder and developer John C. Umberfield completed construction of seven, 22-foot wide townhouses on the north side of West 105th Street between West End Avenue and Riverside Drive.  Designed by William E. Mowbray in the French Beaux Arts style, they were five stories tall and faced in limestone.

Anchoring the row to the east was 309 West 105th Street.  Its American basement design placed the centered entrance within a rusticated base.  A projecting bay with gently curved corners provided an iron-railed balcony to the fifth floor.  Engaged Scamozzi columns that upheld a dramatic, broken pediment at the second floor were mimicked in the double-height pilasters that flanked the second and third floors.

Umberfield sold the house to Isidor and Julia M. Gartner in April 1902. Born in Rhaunen, Germany in September 1844, Gartner was a partner in Gartner & Friedenheit, makers of satin and silk ribbons.  The former Julia M. Winter was born in New York in 1847.  Also living in the house were the couple's unmarried sons, Louis Winter and Albert Victor; and son William S. (known as "Billy") and his wife, the former Carrol Batles (known familiarly as "Babe.")  They were married on July 3, 1900.  

The family's country home was in Arverne, Long Island.  Julia suffered a terrifying and potentially fatal incident there on August 10, 1902.  Among the domestic staff was Mathilda Schnitzer.  The New York Herald Dispatch reported, "The young woman found Mrs. Gartner alone in a room and sprang upon her with the cry, 'Now I'll do it!'  She then threw Mrs. Gartner on the floor and began to choke her."

Hearing the commotion, other servants ran to the room and found Julia unconscious on the floor.  "They dragged the Schnitzer girl away from Mrs. Gartner," said the article.  Two physicians soon arrived.  The Herald Dispatch said that Dr. Tingley "had trouble restoring [Julia] to consciousness," while the other doctor, George Meyer, diagnosed Mathilda Schnitzer with "acute mania."  (The term often refers to bipolar disorder today.)  The young woman was transported back to Manhattan where she was committed to the Bellevue Hospital insane ward.

William and Carrol had a baby boy, named William Jr. in 1902.  Tragically, he died on New Year's Day 1903.  The family's intense grief resulted in the infant's funeral being strictly private.

There would be another funeral in the parlor a month to the day later.  Julia Gartner died on February 1, 1903 at the age of 55.  Her active involvement and that of her husband in the local and Jewish communities was reflected in the groups represented at the funeral: Yorkville Lodge, No. 69; King Solomon's Lodge, No. 279; Temple Beth-El; the Monte Relief Society; and the Grand Lodge of the United Order of True Sisters.

On June 12, 1905, Isidore Gartner sold 309 West 105th Street to Daniel Fiske Kellogg.  Born on March 19, 1865 in Chittenango, New York, Kellogg was the financial editor of The Sun.  He married Maude Isabel Forbes on September 2, 1891 and they had a son, Daniel Jr., and a daughter Victorine Lee.  The family's summer home was in Newport.

The Kelloggs remained here for nearly a decade, selling the mansion in November 1914 for $50,000 to John F. Haas.  The price would translate to about $1.62 million in 2025.

The Haas family did not initially move into the house.  They leased it Colonel Frank Scott Long and his wife, the former Edith Erdine Clark.  The couple had two sons, Charles C. and Frank Sidney, and a daughter, Edith.  When the family moved into the house in 1914, Frank Sidney was 19 years old.  On June 18 that year, he was appointed a cadet in the U. S. Military Academy.

image via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services

When America entered World War I, Frank Sidney Long was deployed to Europe.  A first lieutenant, he was in command of a battalion at Fleville, France on October 5, 1918.  In posthumously awarding him the Distinguished Service Cross, The General Orders, No. 95 of the War Department on July 26, 1919 read:

Having been wounded in the side by shrapnel while caring for wounded men of his platoon, Lieut. Long refused to be evacuated, but returned from the dressing station to his command.  While withdrawing his platoon to a better position under heavy barrage he was instantly killed by shell fire.

The Haas family moved briefly into the West 105th Street residence.  On September 19, 1919, an ad in The New York Times read, "Lost--Brown and white rough terrier, male; answers to name Scally; no collar; strayed from home Wednesday, 309 West 105th St.  Miss Hass [sic]."  When Scally had not been found nearly two months later, the identical ad was placed in the New York Herald on November 3 adding the plea, "owner heartbroken."

Charles Andrew Flammer and his wife Harriet moved into the house before the end of the year.  Born on June 28, 1845, he graduated from the College of the City of New York and was admitted to the bar in 1866.  He was appointed a judge in 1873.  

On June 29, 1936, The New York Times reported on Flammer's 91st birthday, recalling that he "was a justice presiding over Yorkville Court during the Civil War."  Four months earlier, Flammer had been interviewed by The New York Times journalist Meyer Berger in "the cavernous, dark-paneled parlor of his home at 309 West 105th Street."  The judge recalled the day when he was in his teens, standing at the corner of Broadway and Canal Street "to watch Abraham Lincoln go by in his carriage."  

Justice Charles A. Flammer, Times Wide World Photo, The New York Times June 25, 1937

Berger mentioned in that February 13, 1936 article, "He and his third wife live in the great house off Riverside Drive with two servants.  He climbs the old stairs, despite his age, reads standard or classic books in his library and smokes three cigars a day."  

Judge Charles Andrew Flammer died in the house on June 24, 1937, four days before his 92nd birthday. 

The Flammer estate sold 309 West 105th Street to James H. Cruickshank on June 20, 1939.  In reporting on the sale, The New York Times remarked, "There are fourteen rooms and three baths in the building."

In 1950, the mansion was converted to apartments and furnished rooms.  A subsequent renovation in 1964 resulted in one apartment on the first floor and two each on the upper floors.

photographs by the author

The Lost Peter and Elizabeth Schmidt House - 634 West 52nd Street

 

Although their neighbors to the west had been demolished for the coming Miller Highway, the Schmidts kept their house in relatively prim condition in 1933.  Savastano Photographic Studio, from the NYC Municipal Archives.

In the first years following the end of the Civil War, the neighborhood around Twelfth Avenue and West 52nd Street was filled mostly with ramshackle hovels.  The desperate conditions of the inhabitants earned the district the nickname Hell's Kitchen.  But the house at 634 West 52nd Street, between Eleventh and Twelfth Avenues, was an exception.  

Three stories tall above basement and cellar levels, the frame house had a commodious wooden porch behind a front yard.  Designed by the builder, its rustic take on Italianate architecture included wooden lintels and an understated cornice that recalled the waning Greek Revival style.

As early as 1868, piano maker Phillip Rodenback (often spelled as Rodenbach) and his family owned the house.  He and his wife, Marie (who was 40 years old in 1868), would have at least two children, Kate and William.  The family took in boarders.  In 1868 they were Andrew Cumming, who ran a stone business at 51st Street at the Hudson River; carman William Williamson; and Jane Wright, a widow.  Andrew Cumming would live with the family through 1873.

In 1870, Kate Rodenback taught at School No. 32.  Fourteen years later, William Rodenback was enrolled in the Introductory Class of the College of the City of New York.  The family's boarders in the early 1880s included Elizabeth Kenny, a widow, and her son, William, who worked as a clerk.  Another widow, Mary Doughtery, boarded at the same time, as did engineer George Osborne.

Around the turn of the century, Peter Schmidt and his wife, Elizabeth, purchased the house.  They would have at least three sons here, Peter J., Andrew B. and George A.  Interestingly, it does not appear that the Schmidts took in any boarders.

Two boys, most likely Schmidt brothers, stand on the porch of 634 West 52nd St.  Warehouses had replaced most similar structures by the turn of the century.  from the collection of the New York Public Library

It is unclear when Peter Schmidt died, but Elizabeth was a widow when she died on December 31, 1911.  Her funeral was held in the house on January 3, 1912.  Four months later, on April 10, the "estate of Peter Schmidt, Deceased," offered the house at auction.  The announcement described it as a "3-story and basement frame Dwelling, containing 12 rooms and 2 toilets, with 1-story sheds in the rear."

The Schmidt brothers, it seems, were not ready to give up their home and purchased the property and continued to live here.  In 1925, Peter J. Schmidt enrolled in Fordham University; and the following year, Andrew was listed by the Department of Commerce's Bureau of Navigation as operating an amateur radio station.  His equipment had the power of just 8 watts.

In 1934, the northward construction of the Miller Highway had reached the Schmidt house, seen here from the rear.  It barely escaped the demolition.  from the collection of the New York Public Library.

George A. Schmidt was involved in an automobile accident in Kingston, New York on May 28, 1939.  By then, his childhood neighborhood had drastically changed.  In 1929, construction started on the Miller Highway (better known today as the West Side Highway).  Built in stages, decades later it would hug the entire Manhattan riverfront.

By 1933, the structures neighboring the Schmidt house to the west were demolished, and grading for the highway in the early 1940s left the Schmidt's porch a floor above the sidewalk.  In 1948, a store occupied the former basement level.  An office took over the parlor and second floors, and the third floor held one apartment.

The Raffaele Bazaar occupied the basement level in 1948.  A wooden staircase in the rear accessed the upper floors and a sign advertised the property for sale.  via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services.

By the mid-1950s, the venerable wooden house was no longer recognizable.  The top two floors were lopped off, a veneer of brick applied to the facade, and a storefront installed.

The completed Miller Highway can be seen at the right.  via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services.

The little relic survived until 1993, replaced by a bizarre Roman-inspired structure that would house Larry Flynt's "Hustler Club."

image via The Architect's Newspaper, February 28, 2023.

many thanks to reader Allen Sheinman for prompting this post

The Former Christodora House - 310 East 9th Street

As early as 1867, Elias Koch and his family occupied 215 East 9th Street (renumbered 310 in 1868).  The recently built, Italianate-style house was the latest in domestic fashion.  Three bays wide and four stories tall, the brownstone-faced home was intended for a merchant class family.  The double-doored entrance was flanked by paneled pilasters that upheld elaborate scrolled brackets and an arched pediment.  

Elias Koch's "satchels" or bag business was located at 155 Chambers Street.  His family remained in the house until 1870 when it became a boarding house.  An unusual advertisement in the New York Herald on October 20 that year read, "A few mechanics can obtain good board at $5 per week, with a comfortable home, at 310 East 9th st., second floor; day boarders also."  (The weekly rent, including meals, would equal $125 in 2025.)

Why the ad specified mechanics is puzzling.  But the tenant list that year was much more varied.  Among the boarders were John Bunell, a clerk; Hamilton Cole and Payson Merrill, both lawyers; and Frederick Bonnele, who worked in a loft building far downtown.  On April 1, 1870, The New York Times reported, "Frederick Bonnele, of No. 310 East Ninth-street, received a severe wound yesterday by being struck on the head by a chain which fell through the hatchway from an upper floor at No. 92 Broad-street."

The proprietor of the 310 East 9th Street relinquished the lease in the spring of 1873.  By then, many of the upper rooms had been divided.  On April 28, an ad in the New York Herald read, "To Let--House 310 East Ninth Street, near Second avenue, well suited for a boarding house, having 26 rooms."  The rent was $2,400 a year, or about $5,400 per month today.

The tenants continued to be varied and increasingly their surnames were German.  Among the boarders in 1877 were John Horgan, a builder; violinmaker August Gemunder; Henry Casperfeld, a jeweler, and the Schlatter family--Charles was a clerk and John was in the trimmings business.

While living here in 1878, George W. Hammill, sexton of St. Mark's Church, became involved in a shocking abduction case.  Millionaire Alexander Turney Stewart died on April 10, 1876 and his body was interred in St. Mark's churchyard.  Hammill explained to officials,

About eight A. M. Francis Parker, who is the deputy sexton of the church of which I am the sexton, came to my house at No. 210 East Ninth street, and in an excited manner said, "The body is gone."  I asked him what body.  He said, "Stewart's."

 
Hammill followed Parker to the churchyard.  The dirt had been shoveled away from the grave and the slab over the vault had been removed.  By using a rope, said Hammill, "I then descended into the vault and noticed that the body had been carried away."  The ghoulish kidnapping of Alexander T. Stewart's body and subsequent ransom demands became national news and the crime was never fully solved.

Otto F. and Mathilda Burkhardt operated the boarding house by 1886.  In April 1889, she appeared in court against her next door neighbor, Emily S. Rollwagen, who owned and operated the boarding house at 312 East 9th Street.  She complained that Rollwagen was incapable of "properly managing this property," and its neglected condition was damaging her business.

Mathilda's husband, Otto F. Burkhardt, appeared in court two years later.  He sued broker John E. Ireland for fraud.  Rather insultingly, on January 9, 1891, The Press reported, "Burkhardt declares that Ireland has swindled him out of more than $7,000 by a series of fairy tales that reflect somewhat upon the complainant's intelligence."  

According to Burkhardt's complaint, in 1889 Ireland told him that he could get him appointed on the Board of Appraisers of Lands that was connected to the Aqueduct Commissioners.  The salary, said Ireland, was $3,500 per year.  But, he needed $1,000 "so as to entertain some big men who would recommend him."  Burkhardt handed over the cash and then, "discovered that no such office existed."

Later that year, in December, Ireland told Burkhardt "that he has raised $21,000 toward buying a patent to purify milk, for which $25,000 was asked."  He said if Burkhard provided the balance, he "could get into a good thing on the ground floor."  Burkhardt invested $3,500 then found out that there was no such company.  Five months later, in May 1890, as reported by The Press, "Burkhard says Ireland got up a story about having to take up a note on a New York city bank.  Burkhardt let him have $525 and then discovered that there was no such note."  

Before the time Burkhardt realized that his "friend" was a fraudster, he had lost nearly $7,000.

The Italianate stoop railings and newels were intact in 1903 when artist E. Pallme, who lived here according to the inscription on the back of the photo, snapped this shot.  from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York. 

In 1909, Christodora House acquired the residence.  One of the early settlement houses in New York City, Christodora House was founded in 1897 by Sara Carson and Christine MacColl.  At the time of the purchase, the facility was located on Avenue B.

Christodora House provided services to the immigrant community that had engulfed the district.  Dr. H. Hallarman was on staff here for years to provide medical treatment.  The group offered classes and clubs, like its Poets' Guild of the Christodora House.

Nearly two decades later, on December 18, 1927, The New York Times reported, "The old Christodora House, 310 East Ninth Street, proving inadequate, ground has been broken for a new house, Ninth Street and Avenue B, facing Tompkins Square."  The proposed 16-story structure would include "a swimming pool, gymnasium, classrooms for the music school, club and game rooms," said the article.

While construction of that edifice proceeded, Christodora House continued here.  On May 7, 1929, the Barnard Bulletin announced, "The Poets' Guild of the Christadora [sic] House at 310 East 9th Street is planning a series of national evenings to which they will very gladly welcome any American student who wish to come."  The series started with "a Roumanian Poetry Night," on May 6.

At the time of the series, Christodora House was preparing its move into the new building.  No. 310 East 9th Street was purchased by Dr. Michael Steiner and his wife, Byrdie.  Steiner established his practice in the basement level while he and his wife lived upstairs.

The Italianate areaway railing survived in 1941.  via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services.

Three decades later, Steiner was still practicing here.  He experienced an unusual incident on the afternoon of April 2, 1960.  Just as he was preparing to close his office at 2:10 that afternoon, a 23-year-old man walked in complaining about a sore foot.  He told Dr. Steiner that "he had a note from his mother," according to The New York Times.  Instead of producing a note, he pulled out a revolver.

"This is a stick-up," he announced, while pulling out a pair of handcuffs.  The Times said, "The hold-up man snapped one cuff around Dr. Steiner's wrist and the other around a steel bar on an operating table."  The young man removed Steiner's $50 wristwatch and rifled the doctor's coat, taking out $90 in cash.  The article said, "Next he asked the physician where he kept his narcotics.  Dr. Steiner said he had none."  

Twenty minutes after the robber fled, Byrdie arrived to find her husband handcuffed to the table.  She called the police, which summoned the Emergency Squad.  They cut the handcuffs with a hacksaw.  In all, said The New York Times, "Dr. Steiner had been handcuffed to the table forty-five minutes."

A renovation completed in 1985 resulted in a duplex apartment in the basement and parlor level, one apartment on the second, and another duplex on the third and fourth.  Rather remarkably, other than the replaced stoop ironwork and windows, the vintage house retains much of its 1860s appearance.

photographs by the author

The Hiram Dixon House - 117 East 26th Street

 

In 1851, the family of Edward F. Saxton, a stockbroker, leased the newly-built house at 91 East 26th Street (renumbered 117 in 1867).  One of a long row of identical, high-stooped Italianate residences, it was three stories tall above the basement level and faced in brownstone.  The iron railings of the stoop matched the balcony that fronted the parlor window.  A simple, molded frame embraced the double-doored entrance, and the elliptically arched openings sat upon bracketed sills.  Each of the homes had its own pressed metal cornice with robust scrolled brackets.

The following year, agent Edward B. Kinshimer advertised three of the houses, including No. 91, for rent.  He wrote, "they have baths, ranges, gas &c. and all is in good order.  Rents $750."  The figure would translate to about $2,500 per month in 2025.

Samuel Hanna, a baker, moved his family into the house and would remain through 1854.  Then, on February 19, 1855, Kinshimer advertised 19 East 26th Street for sale, noting its "location genteel."  The ad was answered by the multi-faceted Hiram Dixon.

Dixon had served in the Revolutionary War and was a member of the Veteran Corps of 1776.  He was a member of The American Institute of the City of New York, described by The New York Times in 1860 as "including many of the ablest and best men the City and country afford."  

Although he listed his profession in 1857 as an accountant with the Adams Express Company, he had additionally been "a professor of penmanship for many years," according to The New York Times in 1860.  Groups sought out Dixon for his remarkable penmanship to create elaborate Victorian documents like testimonials and proclamations.  One commission came from the New-York Typographical Society in 1865 when Dixon was hired to pen a "handsome testimonial" for the society's former president, William McCrea.  When the document was exhibited in August, The New York Times remarked, "The penmanship, executed by Mr. Hiram Dixon, of the Adams Express Company, is a rare specimen of art."

Dixon's expertise in calligraphy was so well-known that when the U.S. Government charged Henry Williams with stealing a letter from the mail and forging the signature on a $3,000 note inside, Hiram Dixon was "called as [a handwriting] expert," according to The New York Times on January 26, 1860.

In 1868, Rev. Jesse Ames Spencer moved in.  Born in June 1816, he began working in a printing office at the age of 14.  He graduated from Columbia in 1837 and from the Episcopal General Theological Seminary in 1840.  In 1869, he was elected professor of Greek language and literature at the College of the City of New York.  He and his wife, the former Sarah Jane Elizabeth Loutrel, had seven children.

Rev. Jesse Ames Spencer, (original source unknown)

A prolific author, he published numerous books, many of them about history.  While living here, he finished his four-volume History of the United States from the Earliest Period to the Death of President Lincoln, and published Greek Praxis: Or, Greek for Beginners; and The Young Ruler Who had Great Possessions, and Other Discourses.  

The house was offered for rent in August 1872.  It received a long term resident starting in 1874 with Dr. Allan McLane Hamilton.  Born in October 1848, Hamilton was the grandson of Founding Father Alexander Hamilton and of Louis McLane, former Secretary of the Treasury, Secretary of State, and two-time U.S. Minister to the United Kingdom.  His privileged childhood was reflected in his autobiography, Recollections of an Alienist, in which he recalls, "my Thanksgiving dinner [was] taken yearly with Mrs. John Jacob Astor, the mother of 'Willie' Astor."

Hamilton was a newlywed when he moved into 117 East 26th Street.  He married Florence Rutgers Craig on May 25, 1874.  At the time, he was "connected with the Board of Health" and was "Professor of Nervous Diseases in the Long Island College Hospital," according to The New York Times on June 27 that year.  The couple's only child, Louis McLane Hamilton, was born here in 1876.

Dr. Allen McLane Hamilton, from the collection of the Library of Congress

Dr. Hamilton was an alienist, or what today is known as a psychiatrist.  He specialized in suicide, and the effects of blows to the head to mental health, and often testified in criminal cases.  Despite his expertise in psychiatry, he was appointed by the Health Department as a "sanitary inspector."  That side job earned him $1,600 per year in 1876, or about $47,000 today.  Sanitary inspectors investigated the conditions of tenements and houses within impoverished neighborhoods.

Dr. Hamilton almost assuredly knew Dr. Evert S. Warner, who moved into the house in 1881.  On July 1 that year, The New York Times reported that Evert was one of "a corps of 50 physicians for service among the tenement-house population during the heated term."  Warner was a resident physician at Bellevue Hospital.

On the evening of January 24, 1896, Dr. Warner became involved in a bizarre incident.  At around 8:30, a man knocked on the door of 117 East 26th Street.  "The Doctor was asked to call at the offices of the gas company," said The Sun.  The Consolidated Gas Company's building was nearby at 26th Street and Fourth Avenue (Park Avenue South today).  Half an hour earlier, a drama had begun to play out.

The Sun reported that a closed cab had "rapidly" driven along East 26th Street to the gas company building.  "It was followed by a second cab, which stopped immediately behind it.  Three men jumped out of the second cab and hurried over to the first one."  As one of the men unlocked the door of the gas company's offices and turned on the lights, the others "opened the door of the first cab and lifted out a dead man."  They carried it into the building and the cabs drove away.

Dr. Warner arrived at the office where one man asked, "Is it a fact that this man is really dead?"

The Sun recounted, "Dr. Warner examined the corpse, and replied: 'The body's cold.  He has been dead some time.'"

All four men at the scene, including the dead man, Captain William J. Collins, were employees of the gas company, Collins being its head bookkeeper.  The men had left work that night and got as far as the Brooklyn ferry when Collins became ill.  He ordered a cab to take him back to the gas company building.  Concerned, his coworkers followed.  Collins apparently died en route.

As was common, the Warners took in a roomer.  On June 18, 1897, an advertisement in The New York Times said, "117 East 26th St.--A pleasant, nicely-furnished room in physician's house."

In 1941, the original ironwork and balcony of the house next door was intact.  via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services.

By 1901, the house was home to Dr. Ellice Murdoch Alger and his wife, the former Louise Stevenson.  Alger was an instructor in diseases of the eye at the New York Post-Graduate Hospital.  He was a co-founder of the National Society for the Prevention of Blindness.

The Algers remained until about 1908, when it appears the residence was being operated as a rooming house.  Then, in its April 1913 issue, The Smith College Monthly reported, "Jean Cahoon is running a tea room for business women in New York."  The Sun reported that M. Jean Cahoon had leased the building "for a term of years...for a tea house."  Cahoon called her cafe The Noonday.

The Noonday was relatively short-lived.  The house was leased in 1915 and returned to a rooming house.  It was leased by architect and artist C. Bertram Hartman around 1922.  His daughter, Rosella M. Hartman, was listed as an artist here the following year.

In the late 1920s, writer Dorothy C. Heligman lived here.

Before World War II, the Italianate ironwork was removed.  Other than that loss, the exterior of the former Dixon house is greatly intact.  It is a single family home today.

photographs by the author