The 1912 Manice Building - 159 Madison Avenue

When developer William Manice hired Wallis & Goodwillie to design a 12-story "brick and stone store and loft" in 1911, he was perhaps taking a risk.  While the firm was well-established, Architecture magazine commented on December 15, 1912, "The architects of this building were almost untried in work of the loft building type."

A respected architect, Frank E. Wallis also wrote articles and books on architecture, while his partner, Frank Goodwillie, specialized in the engineering aspects of their projects.  Just before they received the commission for the Manice Building, Arthur Loomis Harmon left McKim, Mead & White to join Wallis & Goodwillie.

The plans, filed in July 1911, projected the construction cost at $350,000--about $11.6 million in 2025 terms.  Completed the following year, any doubts about Wallis & Goodwillie's ability to design a loft building were quickly erased.  

Architecture, December 15, 1912 (copyright expired)

Architecture magazine began its critique on December 15, 1912 saying, "Considered from an architectural viewpoint, the Manice building, Wallis & Goodwillie architects, Arthur Loomis Harmon, associate, may be placed at the head of the loft building class.  It demonstrates better than anything we can recall how excellent results are obtained by the introduction of a new thought on an old problem."

The tripartite Renaissance Revival design was defined with materials (stone at the base, sandy colored brick at the midsection, and white terra cotta at the top level) and prominent intermediate cornices.  The limestone base featured a double-height arcade and an elaborate band of Renaissance inspired panels.  Architecture commented, "The most beautiful features are the entrance doors, in delightful detail, and the ornamental band, carved in low relief, at the third story level."

Architecture, December 15, 1912 (copyright expired)

Above the relatively unadorned midsection, Wallis & Goodwillie created deep, double-height recesses, each supported by a single Corinthian column.  "The cornice is of wide Italian or Spanish type," said Architecture, "executed in copper."

It was that cornice that impressed The American Architect, which commented that it, "represented the inspiration of the Lombard rather than the Tuscan architects; characterized by a greater beam thickness and wider spacing, they present a pleasing variation of the type."

The unusual treatment of the recessed upper windows separated by a column can be seen in this detail.  The American Architect, January 27, 1915 (copyright expired)

The Manice Building filled with the workshops and showrooms of wholesale apparel firms.  Among the earliest were J. & F Goldstone, Zaiss & Engel, Leon Jobin, George H. Montrose & Co., and Maurice Bandler.  The latter, which fashioned women's coats, marketed itself as, "The House of Coat Cleverness."  In its August 1912 issue, Crerand's Cloak Journal said, "The Manice Building is almost desirable as an American Rue de la Paix, for it is tenanted from top to bottom only by firms of the highest class of whose products this market is justly proud and whose producers are men competent to speak with authority on all matters pertaining to the world's fashion."

Visitors to the Manice Building stepped into a marble lined lobby with mosaic floors, bronze trim and elaborate coffered ceilings.  Architecture & Building, December 15, 1912 (copyright expired)

Crerand's Cloak Journal said, "The Manice Building is a triumph of modern factory construction, for few would imagine from the palatial appearance of this magnificent and ornate office building situated in New York's most fashionable thoroughfare...that it was a busy hive of the garment industry where several thousand workers are gathered under one roof."  While those garment workers labored at their sewing machines in the back areas, the elegant showrooms mimicked their counterparts in Paris.  In August 1912, Crerand's Cloak Journal devoted an article to "the palatial show rooms."  

In each French-inspired showroom, buyers inspect new garments on live models.  

Buyers at the Maurice Bandler showroom (above) are separated by French panels.  Below, a model exhibits a dress to a potential customer.  images from Crerand's Cloak Journal, August 1912 (copyright expired)

Like the other tenants in the building who manufactured suits, dresses and other women's fashions, Maurice Bandler sent its designers to Europe every year to get inspiration (some might say steal) from the current trends.  In a full-page advertisement in the Dry Goods Economist on July 18, 1914, Maurice Bandler assured buyers that its fall line would be on point with Parisian fashions.  "We have had our designers make an exhaustive study of the style trends abroad...To buyers afflicted with doubt and worried by the uncertainty existing in many quarters, the Bandler line offers a haven of security."

Fashion houses continued to occupy the Manice Building.  In 1916, Markowitz Co., Inc., makers of "high class dresses and costumes," as worded by The American Cloak and Suit Review, moved in, and the following year Goldberg-Goldschmidt Costume Co., Inc. signed a lease.  

In the meantime, the 20,000-square-foot ground floor space was home to Amos T. Hill Furniture Co., Inc.  The firm's high-end, handmade furniture was displayed in the Madison Avenue side, while its factory was entered at 157 East 32nd Street.  An advertisement in Good Furniture in May 1917 said in part, "Exclusive and individual designs in furniture for the living room, dining room and bed room are on display in our show rooms."  A photograph in 1918 shows large bronze lettering above the second floor: "Amos T. Hill Furniture."

The four brownstone residences demolished for the Manice Building were similar to those at the right.  Architecture & Building, December 15, 1912 (copyright expired)

The Floersheimer Company, makers of dresses, moved into the Manice Building in December 1918.  Albert Floersheimer ran a non-union operation, explaining to the New-York Tribune in February 1921 that, "he was paying his employees more than the union scale [and] that working conditions in his factory were of the best."  Although his workers seemed to be content, the union was not.

Early in 1921, the International Ladies Garment Workers' Union began lobbying the Floersheimer workers to unionize.  Albert Floersheimer filed suit on February 24, "for a permanent injunction to be issued" to the officers of the union.  The affidavit asserted that the union's purpose was, "to increase the revenue of the international union, which thereby would get new members who would be required to pay $17.50 for a membership book."

Floersheimer emerged victorious over the powerful union.  On March 24, 1921, the New-York Tribune reported that the injunction was granted, restraining the union "from picketing...and from trying to force their employees to join the union."

Harper's Bazaar, January 1923 (copyright expired)

While apparel makers like Princess Pat Dressmakers still occupied the Manice Building in 1923, others were migrating into the newly developing Garment District above 34th Street.  At the time, silk dealers were moving into the Madison Avenue district.  On May 11, 1922, the New-York Tribune reported on the first of these, saying that R. & H. Simon, Inc. "one of the largest silk and ribbon manufacturers in this country," had signed a lease.

On November 22, 1924, the New York Evening Post noted, "Present indications seems to portend that the intersection of Madison avenue and Thirty-fourth street will be the future center of the silk trade."  By the end of the decade, silk dealers Wullschleger & Co., Majestic Silk Mills, Theodore Fruchtman (who made men's silk ties) and Royal Textile Co. occupied the building.  

Wullschleger & Co. was founded in 1908 by Swiss-born Arthur E. Wullschleger.  In a 1925 brochure describing the firm's large silk weaving of The Signing of the Declaration of Independence, Arthur Wullschleger said, "the volume of business has reached a turnover of many millions of dollars annually, sales of over a million dollars having even been booked in a single month."

In 1925, large lettering on the cornice above the third floor reads "Wullschleger & Co."  The Signing of the Declaration of Independence, 1925 (copyright expired)

As Adam T. Hill had done, Wullschleger & Co. prominently affixed its name to the Madison Avenue facade.  It would be replaced before 1936, when the Bethlehem Furniture Company name was emblazoned above the second floor in bronze letters.

The Exquisite Form Brassiere Company purchased the building around 1950 and leased the ground floor to the Guaranty Trust Company.  On June 12, 1960, The New York Times reported that the Exquisite Form, Inc. (it had dropped the Brassiere from its name by now) intended to move its operation to Pelham Manor, New York.  The article said the firm had offered its tenants to buy the building, "who will jointly own the twelve-story structure in the same way that a cooperative apartment building is owned by its tenants."

Instead, in 1961, the General Electric Company leased the entire building for its international division.  The New York Times reported on August 10, "Renovations have been made, including full air-conditioning, remodeling of the lobby and the installation of automatic elevators."

General Electric Company occupied the Manice Building through the early 1970s.  Then, on October 17, 1976, The New York Times reported, "A 61-year-old [sic] office building in Murray Hill...is about to be recycled into a luxury apartment house."  Joel I. Picket, president of the Gotham Construction Corporation, had purchased the building for $1.8 million.  He announced that he and his partners would "turn the building into a 180-unit apartment house."

From the street, the striking Manice Building, described in 1912 as the head of its class, is nearly unchanged.

photographs by the author

The 1891 Olivet Memorial Church - 59-63 East Second Street

 

In 1855, the Olivet Memorial Church was established on East Second Street, between First and Second Avenues.  The refined residential neighborhood in which it sat, however, was already seeing change, as waves of German immigrants poured into the district.  That year, New York City had the third largest German population in the world--outranked only by Berlin and Vienna.  The demographics affected the Olivet Memorial Church, as well.  In 1891, The New York Times recalled that in 1867:

When that portion of the city where it is situated changed its character as regards to the nationality of its population, it was determined to make it largely a mission church, and it was placed under the care of the New-York City Mission and Tract Society.

The newspaper explained that the Olivet Mission at the time, "stood back from the street and was accessible only by an alleyway."  On April 26, 1885, The New York Times described, "Olivet Mission, situated in one of the most densely populated German quarters of the city, is the centre of a wide and varied system of practical and intelligent work among the poor."  Its outreach included an Industrial School where boys learned manual crafts and girls were taught domestic skills like cooking and sewing.

In 1890, A. K. Ely, "who was interested in the church," according to The New York Times on December 28, 1891, "purchased the lots in front [of the mission]...and Mr. D. H. McAlpin and Mrs. Pyle, his sister, gave $65,000 for the new church building."  The commission was given to the architectural firm of J. C. Cady & Co., founded by Josiah Cleaveland Cady.

Completed in December 1891, the church was clad in undressed Kentucky limestone.  Unlike many Gothic Revival churches of the period, with airy spires and bell towers, Olivet Memorial Church presented a somewhat fortress presence, with full-height crenulated turrets that divided the severely rectangular facade into three bays.  The square-headed openings of the first floor gave way to striking Gothic windows at the second that rose to dramatic points decorated with crockets.  The top floor morphed to Romanesque with the windows forming regimented arcades.

Two boys play on the otherwise deserted sidewalk across from the church on May 9, 1934.  from the collection of the New York Public Library.

The Olivet Memorial Church opened on December 27, 1891.  The New York Times commented, "Indeed, in many respects it resembles the new buildings in England that are being built in harmony with the forward movement there."  The article described, "it has been treated in so pronounced an architectural style, and has such pleasing features of decoration and fitting, that it is not surpassed in beauty by any of the more costly churches in town."

The auditorium accommodated about 1,000 people, "in view of the pulpit," said The Times, adding, "there are fourteen handsome class rooms, five halls for large classes, and a gymnasium about 50 by 70 feet."  There were, as well, rooms for the teachers and workers and an apartment for the janitor.  Calling it "a practical building," it was designed not only for church services, but for instruction, "secular, industrial and religious."

Among the "industrial" spaces in the building was "the great sewing room," as described by The Evening World, where local women and girls worked at needlework.  On April 13, 1895, the newspaper remarked, "there is a cheery hopefulness in their worn faces, for they are earning 15 cents an hour with their needles, and the 15 cents buys double its value in the made-up garments they turn out."  (The 153 women did not receive cash money, but credit to buy the finished clothing.)  The article said, "each of them is wed to poverty, and but for the two or three hours spent in the great sewing-room each week they and their loved ones could never have aprons, undergarments, sheets and pillow cases, which they are able to earn in this way."

Women working in the Sewing Room.  The Evening World, April 13, 1895 (copyright expired)

The Lower East Side continued to attract immigrants from various European countries.  On December 5, 1895, The Sun noted that at the Olivet Memorial Church, "services in English, German, and Armenian are conducted."

Women and children in the tenements could look forward to one day away from their drudgery each year.  Churches of the Lower East Side annually hosted an excursion to a picnic grounds where members enjoyed music, food and games.  Because the men had to work, the excursions were almost entirely made up of women and children.

On July 21, 1905, 500 women and children from the Olivet Memorial Church lined up on the dock to board the iron steamboat Sirius to go to Huntington Harbor, Long Island.  The vessel would have 50 men aboard, including the crew and band.  Everyone in line assuredly knew that this was the very same dock which, a year earlier, women and children from St. Luke's German Lutheran Church lined up to board the General Slocum.  That excursion ended tragically, with the General Slocum burning to the water line and 1,000 passengers killed.

As the Sirius neared North Brother Island, where the General Slocum disaster had occurred, a "screw boat," the W. G. Payne, forced the Sirius off course and into the rocks.  The Sun reported, "The grinding as the Sirius went aground scared her passengers, and a moment later, when the boat suddenly stopped, men, women and children were thrown from their camp stools.  The band was playing, and it stopped suddenly."

As panic began to sweep throughout the crowd, according to The Sun, "Then some one with horse sense ordered the band to get busy, and the music acted like magic."  Captain William Pierce got the vessel off the rocks, but it was rapidly taking on water.  He beached the Sirius on the mud flats to prevent it from sinking.  The Evening World praised, "A few moments' hesitation, an unsteady hand at the wheel, and the steamer would have gone to the bottom, carrying hundreds of dead with her."  The passengers were offloaded from the disabled vessel, and while the steamboat company offered a substitute boat to continue to the Long Island Sound, "none of them felt in any mood to continue on the voyage," said The Evening World.

Dressed in white, this Vacation Bible School of Olivet Memorial Church graduated in the auditorium on August 24, 1905.  Federation magazine, April 1906 (copyright expired)

The Olivet Memorial Church continued its work in the neighborhood until 1942, when it merged with the Middle Collegiate Church at Second Avenue and 7th Street.  A few months later, on January 22, 1943, The New York Times reported that "the old stone building at 59-63 Second Street" had been sold by the New York City Mission Society to the Russian Orthodox Greek Catholic Church of North America.

"The church now will be known as the Pro-Cathedral, and will house the Cathedral Church and the executive offices of the chancery of the Russian Orthodox Greek Catholic Church," explained the article.  Prior to the Russian Revolution, the episcopal seat in New York City was St. Nicholas Cathedral on East 97th Street.  After the change of government, a battle erupted between the Most Reverend Metropolitan Planton and the Soviet Government.  The Soviets won.

On November 21, 1926, The New York Times reported, “Trinity Episcopal Parish has turned over to Archbishop Platon, deposed Metropolitan of the Russian Orthodox Church in America, and to the thousands of New York Russians who remained faithful to him, one-half of St. Augustine's Chapel, 105 East Houston Street, for a Russian Cathedral”  The parish worshiped there until finding a permanent home here.  The former Olivet Memorial Church was rechristened the Cathedral of the Holy Virgin Protection.  The interior was redecorated in traditional Byzantine style, including bold colors and iconography.  

As had been the case with the Olivet Memorial Church a century earlier, the services here were not only in English.  On January 6, 1964, the Slavic Christmas Eve, The New York Times reported, "At the Metropolitan's cathedral, the Cathedral of the Holy Virgin Protection, 59 East Second Street, there will be a Slavonic service tonight at 7 o'clock and an English one at midnight."

Two years later, on October 27, 1966, The Villager reported on an upcoming three-day bazaar.  The article said in part, "Times changed; buildings were torn down; the parish dwindled, a familiar situation with urban churches.  But the cathedral remains, and continues to be the episcopal seat, and as such, it has to sustain a choir, clergy, servets, and staff, which have been increasingly difficult to finance.  That is why the coming bazaar is being held."

Despite the changes in the neighborhood--or because of them--nearly a century after the parish moved into the building, the Orthodox Cathedral of the Holy Virgin Protection continues to be an important presence in its community.  Its website says, "Though founded by immigrants from the former Russian and Austro-Hungarian empires, our parish membership is ethnically diverse including a large contingent of Georgians, and nearly 40 percent of our members are adult converts to the Orthodox faith."

many thanks to historian Anthony Bellov for suggesting this post

photographs by the author

The 1869 John Hampton House - 110 East 61st Street

 

When the stoop was removed, the door was lowered, resulting in comical proportions and an absurd transom.

In the early 1870s, John Hampton, a dealer in grates, and his family lived at 110 East 61st Street, one of a row of identical Italianate-style homes erected in 1869.  The three-story-and-basement house was faced in brownstone and was 18.6-feet-wide.  While the upper floor windows wore prominent cornices, the openings of the parlor floor were distinguished with Renaissance inspired pediments.

In 1876, Julius and Ida Binge purchased 110 East 61st Street.  Julius was a partner in the brokerage firm Binge & Curie, founded in 1868 with Charles Curie.  The couple had a daughter, Lottie.  The Daily Canadian would later say the family, "possessed wealth estimated at several million dollars."  It was most likely the Binges who added an attic floor with two prominent dormers.

An expert on customs duties, Binge filed many claims for over-charges.  The Daily Canadian said, "It is said that these over-charges on customs amounted to nearly $4,000,000, and that he received $1,000,000 for his service."

Julius Binge was focused on a more personal overcharge in 1878.  He won a suit against the city that year, awarding him $10.40, the "amount of Croton water rent, for 1876, paid twice on premises No. 110 East 61st street."  

Decades later, in 1907, readers of newspapers across the country would be riveted by the shocking arrest of Lottie, who was now married to Leopold Wallau.  After Julius's death, Ida had moved into the Wallau house at 68 East 80th Street.  On February 18, 1907, The Cairo Bulletin ran the headline, "Woman Held For Mother's Death," and reported that Lottie was charged with first-degree murder in Ida's sudden death.  The Daily Canadian wrote, "Were Mrs. Binge's days of torturing invalidism shortened by poison administered by a sympathetic hand--an act of mercy that the patient daily begged from daughter, doctor and friend?"

Ida Binge, The Kentucky Post, February 21, 1907 (copyright expired)

Ida had suffered with "a cancerous growth [that] was literally eating through her whole system," said The Daily Canadian.  Public sympathy, according to numerous newspapers, was on Lottie's side.  And on March 19, 1907, a grand jury dismissed the charges.  The Scranton Truth ran a headline, "Mrs. Wallau, Freed Of Charge Of Killing Her Mother."

In the meantime, Julius and Ida Binge had sold 110 East 61st Street to Moses and Amelia Ottinger in 1880.  The Jewish Telegraphic Agency would recall decades later, Ottinger, "was born in Wittemberg [sic], Germany, immigrating to this country with the parents at the age of three."  Amelia, said the article, was "a New York city girl who was in the first graduating class of Normal, now Hunter College."  The couple had a son, Nathan, who entered New York City College in 1888.

Moses Ottinger and his brother Marx were real estate operators.  Among the structures they would erect while Moses lived here were 20 Bridge Street and the Appleton Building at 72 Fifth Avenue.

The Ottingers remained here until April 1899, when they sold the house to M. H. Campbell, triggering several rapid turnovers.  In 1902, Julia P. Jay purchased it for $45,000 (about $1.6 million in 2025), and sold it the following year to newlyweds Joseph Frailey Smith (known professionally as J. Frailey Smith) and his wife, the former Annie May Callaway.  The couple were married on November 20, 1902.

Born in Philadelphia in 1871, J. Frailey Smith was an attorney, described by The New York Times as "a well-known clubman and a Director in several corporations."  He was vice president of the Metallic Decorating Company, and a director in the Phenix Cap Company and the Phenix Cork Company. 

On October 23, 1906, The New York Times reported that Smith was said, "late last night to be dying in Roosevelt Hospital of injuries received in a fight early last Wednesday morning at Forty-fifth Street and Broadway."  The article said, "Every attempt was made to keep the facts from coming out, and the only details of the matter on the court records are contained in a short affidavit."  

The attempt to keep the embarrassing details from the public was understandable.  J. Frailey Smith had been with "a well-known actress playing in a Broadway Theatre," at Broadway and 45th Street around 3:00 a.m.  Smith became involved with a "dispute" with three men that escalated into fisticuffs.  Smith was knocked backward, fracturing his skull on the sidewalk.

Despite Smith's tenuous situation, he survived both his injuries and, apparently, the scandal of infidelity.  Annie was pregnant at the time of the humiliating coverage.  Five months later, on March 29, 1907, the couple had a son, Samuel Callaway.

Joseph Frailey Smith died on March 1, 1910 at the age of 38.  Annie left 110 East 61st Street in October 1912, when she rented it to Edward M. McIlvaine.  

The next year, on November 9, 1913, The New York Times reported, "Mr. and Mrs. Devereux Milburn will live at 110 East Sixty-first Street during the Winter season."  A week before the article, on November 2, The Sun published a half-page spread about the society marriage of Devereux Milburn and Nancy Gordon Steele.

Nancy Gordon Steele on her wedding day.  from the collection of the Library of Congress

A graduate of Oxford University, Devereux Milburn was the son of millionaire John G. Milburn.  An attorney, he was called by The Sun as, "the well known polo player."  Indeed, Western New York Heritage would describe Milburn as being, "remembered as possibly the best polo player this country ever produced."  

The Milburns in 1913, the year they rented 110 East 61st Street.  from the collection of the Library of Congress.

Devereaux and Nancy Milburn left 110 East 61st Street in 1916.  That October, Annie Smith leased the house to senior vice president of the Guaranty Trust Company, Grayson Mallet-Prevost Murphy.  He was, as well, a director of the Anaconda Copper Mining Company, the New York Trust Company, and five other corporations.

Born in 1878, Murphy graduated from the United States Military Academy in 1903 (after having already served as a volunteer in the Spanish-American War).  During World War I, as a rank of lieutenant colonel, he organized the American Red Cross in Europe.  While living here in 1918, he was awarded the Distinguished Service Medal for "his foresight, wisdom, and untiring efforts" and "marked ability as assistant chief of staff of the 42d Division" during the war.

Grayson Mallet-Prevost Murphy was living at 110 East 61st Street in 1918, when this photograph was taken.  from the collection of the Library of Congress.

On July 24, 1920, The New York Times reported that Annie May Smith had sold 110 East 61st Street.  It was purchased by Frank T. Wall and his wife, the former Emily Unckles, who were married in 1905.  Wall was the treasurer of the Wall Rope Works, Inc.  The couple had one son, Fenwick W. Wall.  (Frank had five children from a former marriage.)  Wall was born in Williamsburgh, New York in 1856, the son of the first mayor of Williamsburgh.  (Williamsburgh would later lose the "h" and be consolidated into Brooklyn.)  The family's country home was in Greenwich, Connecticut.

Moving into the 61st Street house with the Wall family was Emily's widowed father, Thomas H. Unckles.  He died here on January 20, 1922 at the age of 88 and his funeral was held in the parlor on January 22.

The Walls were in Greenwich on June 30, 1928 when Frank T. Wall died "after a prolonged illness," according to the Cordage Trade Journal.  Unlike his father-in-law, his funeral was not held in the house, but at St. Bartholomew's Church.

Emily Wall sold 110 East 61st Street the following year.  It began a chapter that would have shocked its previous socialite owners.  The basement level was converted to what ostensibly was a restaurant, called Chez Richard.  But court documents regarding a case tried in 1931 noted that the restaurant, "110 East 61st Street [was] of the kind known in those days as 'speakeasies.'"  And Chez Richard is included in the long list of speakeasies documented in David Rosen's book, Prohibition New York City--Speakeasy Queen Texas Guinan, Blind Pigs, Drag Balls & More.

A renovation completed in 1937 resulted in furnished rooms throughout the house (the restaurant was now gone).  In the process, the stoop was removed and the entrance lowered below grade.

The house as it appeared in 1941.  via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services.

In 1948, 29-year-old writer Paul de Man moved into a room here.  Remembered today as a literary critic and literary theorist, he was struggling at the time.  In his The Double Life of Paul de Man, Evelyn Barish writes, 

Moving while skipping out on the rent became his best and probably his only budgeting technique.  He located an apartment through an acquaintance at 110 East Sixty-first Street...The building was a classic brownstone, converted to walk-up apartments, where he stayed for a few months before moving to the low-rent Jane Street in Greenwich Village.

A second renovation, completed in 1955, resulted in two apartments per floor.  A second entrance, slightly below the original, was now accessed by a metal staircase.

The building's most celebrated tenant came in 1956 when newly married Woody Allen and Harlene Susan Rosen moved in.  The budding filmmaker and actor was 20 years old, his bride was 17.  David Evanier, writes in Woody: The Biography, "They soon moved into a one-room apartment at 110 East Sixty-first Street."  Like Paul de Man, their residency would be short.  They moved to West 75th Street before long.

It appeared that the end of the line for 110 East 61st Street was near in the 1980s.  The Ausnit family had amassed a large "inventory" of buildings along the block in the 1950s.  Together, they seemed to be ripe for development.  Instead, however, the family liquidated the properties, including 110 East 61st Street, in 1987.

There are still ten apartments in the building.  

photographs by Ted Leather

many thanks to reader Ted Leather for suggesting this post.

The Ashbel R. Elliott House - 306 West 91st Street

In 1893, Martin V. B. Ferdon designed a row of five houses on the south side of West 91st Street between West End Avenue and Riverside Drive for developers Alexander Walker and Judson Lawson.  Like scores of his other designs on the Upper West Side, these would be Renaissance Revival in style.  

Completed in 1894, 306 West 91st Street, like its neighbors, was three stories tall above an English basement and faced in brownstone.  Above the single-doored entrance, a swan's neck pediment was filled with carved garlands of flowers.  A hefty bracket between the parlor windows upheld a two-story bowed oriel.
 
The house would see a turnover of owners before the turn of the century.  It and two others in the row were sold to August Jacob, who sold them to Andrew Wachter in May 1897.  A week later, Wachter transferred title to all three to Amelia Schwartzler, who sold them to Louis Stolber in April 1900.  The string of owners leased the houses to well-to-do tenants.

It would not be until the spring of 1903 that 306 West 91st Street saw its first owner-occupant.  On March 20, The New York Times reported that the 17-foot-wide residence had been sold.  The purchaser was Ashbel R. Elliott, the head of A. R. Elliott Advertising and the A. R. Elliott Publishing Co.  

Born in Niles, Michigan in 1850, Elliott had begun his career in Chicago.  Upon moving to New York City, he founded A. R. Elliott Advertising on College Place (now West Broadway).  It was one of the first advertising agencies in New York.  Later, he founded the A. R. Elliott Publishing Co., which published medical books.  Working with him in that firm were his sons, Daniel M. and John M. Elliott.  The Elliotts' summer home was in Montclair, New Jersey.

Ashbel was a member of the Sons of the American Revolution.  He also held memberships in the New York Chamber of Commerce, the Columbia Yacht Club and was a founder of the Illinois and Ohio Societies.

New Yorkers traditionally opened their homes to friends on New Year's Day.  But the Elliott's open house on January 1, 1906 was different--it was a men-only event.  On January 6, The Fourth Estate reported, "Ashbel R. Elliott invited some of his many friends to 'a stag at home' New Year's day at his residence, 306 West 91st street, New York.  Several friends assisted Mrs. Elliott in receiving but all the other guests were men."

Some of the most influential men in American journalism and publishing visited the Elliott's parlor that day.  Among them were Frank Crane, of Montgomery Ward & Co.'s advertising department; Eugene W. Spalding, the New York representative of the Ladies' Home Journal; and Melville E. Stone, general manager of the Associated Press.

The Elliotts sold 306 West 91st Street in April 1909 to William C. Strange.  He sold it within the month to Lorenzo Martinez Picabia and his wife, the former Marie J. Marrin.  The couple had been married just months before, on October 26, 1908.  On May 30, 1909, the New-York Tribune mentioned, "The purchaser will occupy the premises after it has been extensively altered."  Those alterations were interior updates and the exterior was not affected.

Lorenzo M. Picabia was a partner in the brokerage firm of Hartshorne & Picabia.  He also invested heavily in Manhattan real estate.  

Like their neighbors, the Picabias maintained a domestic staff.  Their Japanese butler in 1913 had the very un-Japanese surname of Pami Ohara.  On March 21, Picabia fired Ohara because, according to The New York Times, "he had overindulged in saki."  At 9:00 that night, as reported by The Sun, Ohara showed up at the house "with four warlike sakied compatriots and told the family quite politely, but firmly, that he was sorry, but they must all go and stand on the front stoop.  He and his friends, he said, had come to have a little party in the parlor."

The entire Picabia household was exiled to the stoop as the Japanese invaders made themselves at home.  The Sun reported that the Picabias and their servants, "set up a collective cry for the police."  Policeman Riordan ran from Riverside Drive and "pounded up the stoop, only to be informed that Mr. Picabia's Japanese butler, glorying in the name of Pami Ohara, was inside with four friends, a bottle of sake and great joy," said The Sun.

The New York Times reported that Picabia told Riordan, "My butler and four other [Japanese] have taken possession of the house and threatened to shoot us."  The policeman found Ohara, "smoking a cigar and seated uncertainly but comfortably in one of the best Picabia parlor chairs," reported The Sun.  "As Riordan panted in, Ohara let loose the warcry of the Ohara clan, which brought from upstairs, where they had been singing together, the other four fighting men."  Officer Riordan, who assumed that arresting the intruders would be routine, soon found out otherwise.  The New York Times explained that Ohara, "knows quite a deal about his countryman's art of wrestling jiu jitsu."  With every attempt to arrest Ohara, the policeman found himself slammed to the floor.

"Riordan bumped around until his whistle fell out of his pocket," said The Times.  "He threw it to the banker, who blew for all he was worth."  Two backup policemen, officers Ferguson and Flynn, arrived.  (In the meantime, Ohara's friends had escaped.)  When they entered the parlor, Ohara had Riordan in a "most scientific hold" and was repeatedly banging his head on the floor.  Ferguson had been an amateur wrestler, but his efforts only prompted Ohara "to show the three what a real jiu-jitsu man can do if riled," said The Sun, which continued:

He sent Riordan chandelierward with some amazing and unwritten hold.  In some other way he so tied Ferguson up as to his feet that the latter found himself under the piano, while Flynn held on for dear life and became more and more in favor of immediate war with Japan.

Eventually, Ohara tired and the three officers wrangled him to the West 100th Street station.  By then, however, Ohara had his second wind.  The New York Times reported that he, "wriggled his arms and legs and one, two, three, Ferguson, Riordan and Quinn [sic] were on the sidewalk."  A troupe of reserves rushed out of the station house and finally subdued the unruly butler, who was "locked up charged with alcoholism."

In August 1915, The Piabias hired the architectural firm of Peabody, Wilson & Brown to enlarge the house with a one-story addition in the rear.  They remained here for just over three more years, selling the house in January 1919 to Christine Blessing Mertens.

Christine Mertens was better known to theater audiences as Christine Blessing.  Among her Broadway roles were Cymbeline in the 1893 production of Le Belle Hélene; Mrs. Elias Rigby in the 1903 The Country Chairman; and Keziah Pipkin in the 1900 production of Broadway to Tokio.  Christine's summer home was in Connecticut.

In 1925, Christine Blessing Mertens forewent her summer routine.  On May 22, the New York Star reported, "In the spotless house at 306 West 91st St., which bespeaks perfect housewifery, Christine Blessing said: 'Au revoir' to her friends over the tea table."  She had leased her Connecticut farm for the season and instead, "will pay a series of visits this summer.  The first is to a friend in Atlantic Highlands."  (That visit was to actress Lillian Marshall.)

The guests that afternoon were all from the theater.  "Oliver May, Katherine Gray, tanned from working in the garden at her home at Staten Island, and Gila Blow were among the actresses who surrounded the toast and jam and tea center," said the article.

A cabinet card depicted Christine Blessing in costume.  from the collection of the New York Public Library

Not long after that summer season, Christine began sharing her house with two friends, actress Grace Fisher and singer Lila B. Ross.  

Christine Blessing Mertens fell ill in the summer of 1929 and was taken to Roosevelt Hospital, where she died on August 11 at the age of 62.  Six days later, The New York Times reported the details of her will, which left $48,000 to friends and $5,000 to The Actors' Fund of America.  (The combined bequests would equal about $806,000 in 2025.)  Readers' eyebrows may have been raised when the article noted that Christine's physician, Dr. Monford Cole, received the bulk of her estate.

image via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services.

It appears that 306 West 91st Street was operated as a rooming house soon after Christine Mertens's death.  In 1933, Anne Gilmore lived here.  A former housekeeper, she was now working as a hairdresser.

A renovation completed in 2000 resulted in eight apartments.  From the exterior, 306 West 91st Street is nearly unchanged after more than 130 years.

photograph by the author

Lost Federal-style Masterpieces--69 and 71 Charlton Street

Two girls posed in front of the houses in 1913.  Colonial Architecture in New York City, 1913 (copyright expired)

James Russell erected two near-mirror image houses at 69 and 71 Charlton Street in 1828.  His architect, whose name is regrettably lost, was likely British born.  The two-and-a-half story, brick-faced residences sat apart from the other Federal-style homes rising along the block--and, in fact, throughout the city.  

While the homes reflected predictable Federal-style elements--entrances flanked by fluted columns, and pedimented dormers at the attic level, for instance--they exhibited elegant details influenced by Regency townhouses in Britain.  Most notably were the parlor floor openings, recessed within blind arches; the unique pilasters at the second floor; and intricately paneled fascia boards.  The architect's cultivated attention to detail extended to the dormers, where the wooden frames imitated stone blocks, and the classical pediments sat upon unusually involved bracketed entablatures.

James Russell's two houses (toward the left) contrasted to the much simpler homes along the row.  from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York

In the rear yards were two structures--a workshop behind 69 Charlton Street, and a small house behind 71.  The horsewalk, or passageway to the rear, was wide enough to accommodate wagons for the shop.  The architect treated the utilitarian horsewalk (most often understated) with pilasters.  And to conform with the visual height of the other openings, he placed a modish oval window over the door.

Russell retained possession of the houses, moving his family into 69 Charlton and renting 71.  He listed his occupation as builder and carpenter, and it appears that he originally used the shop for his carpentry business.  He and his wife had two sons, William and John.

James Russell died at the age of 63 on June 27, 1837.  In 1845, Henry Tolle, a "chairmaker," occupied the rear shop, and by 1850, William Russell operated his marble polishing business there.  He shared it with cabinetmakers Frederick Schwartz and John Doll.

In the meantime, the Russells' tenants next door came and went.  In 1828, Joseph Perkins, a carpenter, and his family lived in 71 Charlton Street.  In 1830, the families of shipmaster William Napier and accountant Robert S. Goff shared the house.  On October 5 that year, the New-York Evening Post reported, "Last evening, in the 15th year of her age, Amelia K. Napier, daughter of Capt. Wm. Napier, [died]."  Her funeral in the parlor on October 6 would be the first of many held in both homes.

In 1851, the Russell family had moved from 69 Charlton Street.  They leased part of the home to Thomas Hadden, a deputy fire inspector, and his wife, who would remain through 1858.  Sharing it in 1853 were John M. and Sarah Jane Emmet and their two children, five-year-old John Madison and two-year-old Emma Adelaide.  Emmet was a member of the 13th Militia Regiment, known as the "National Grays." 

On the first week of December 1852, The New York Times announced that 50 cases of cholera had been reported in the city.  It may have arrived at 69 Charlton Street three months later.  The funeral of little John Madison Emmet was held in the parlor on March 13.  Two weeks later, on March 27, it was the scene of Emma Adelaide's funeral.

  from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York

Frederick Schwartz continued to operate his cabinetmaking shop in the rear through at least 1854.  By 1857, it was run by William Elliott.  On November 22, 1861, The New York Times reported, "A fire occurred between 1 and 2 o'clock yesterday morning, in the cabinet-markers' shop of Wm. Elliott, rear of 69 Charlton-street.  About $2,000 worth of stock was destroyed."  The loss would translate to nearly $71,500 in 2025.  The article said, "The building, which is owned by John Russell, was damaged to $1,000.  No insurance."

In repairing the damage, Russell converted it from a shop to a residence.  Living in it in 1864 were Mark Bishop, a corsetmaker, and Charles B. Wilson, a clerk.

The Russells routinely leased the houses to several tenants at a time.  An advertisement in the New York Herald in 1859 offered, "To Let--To a genteel family the second floor of the House 69 Charlton street, consisting of five Rooms, with two Rooms in the attic, the front Basement and a cellar."  And in 1862, an ad for space next door said, "To Let--The first floor, two rooms in the attic, Basement, Kitchen, and a cellar, of the House No. 71 Charlton street."

The families of William H. Lippincott, a commission merchant in the Washington Market, and William Bishop, a porter, shared 71 Charlton Street in 1850.  Lippincott was also an investor and the treasurer of the Tompkins Lodge No. 9 of the Old Fellows.  He was a part time inventor, as well.  In 1850, he was awarded a diploma at the American Institute Exhibition for his "safe padlock."

Elizabeth A. Smith rented space here beginning around 1853.  As other tenants came and went, she would remain at least through 1858.  A teacher in Ward School No. 38 on Clarke Street near Broome, she earned $275 a year in 1853.  In 1855 she received a significant raise to $300--about $10,900 today.

By 1873, both of the Charlton Street houses were operated as boarding houses.  Living in No. 69 that year was Ann Reynolds, whose argument with another woman on April 27 got out of hand.  The New York Herald reported, "During the progress of a lively 'scrimmage' yesterday afternoon between Ann Reynolds of 69 Charlton street, and Elizabeth Kelly, of 207 Mercer street, Ann had the upper portion of her cranium seriously disfigured by being hammered with an old teapot, which the infuriated Elizabeth wielded with wonderful vigor."

This drawing in 1918 reveals that the two buildings were noticed for their unusual design.  from the collection of the New York Public Library

A boarder next door also received a head injury the following year.  On September 3, 1874, the New York Herald reported, "John Quinn, of No. 71 Charlton street, while near his own home, about eight o'clock Tuesday evening, was suddenly and without any warning attacked by Dennis Harrington, of No. 75 Charlton street, with a loaded cane."  Quinn's violent neighbor was arrested, and when Quinn appeared to make a charge of assault and battery, his "head showed unmistakable signs of having received a severe beating," said the article.

The Russell family sold 71 Charlton Street to James Mullaney, a shoe manufacturer, around 1876.  Both Mullaney and his wife, the former Ann Hart, were born in Ireland.  Living with them were their three adult daughters and only son, Dominick, who was 22.  A year before moving into the Charlton Street house, Dominick joined his father's business, which became Mullaney & Son.  After James's death in 1887, Dominick took over the operation under the same name.

Dominick F. Mullaney changed course in 1883 when he was elected to the State Assembly.  The Assemblymen and Senators from the City of the City of New York in the Legislature of 1886 said, "He attended the sittings of the assembly regularly, and showed an understanding of the drift of business, and the character of legislation.  He was not the promoter of any corrupt schemes."  

Dominick F. Mullaney, from New York State Men: Biographic Studies and Character Portraits, 1910 (copyright expired)

Mullaney's Irish, middle-class background was reflected in his senate focus.  The article said he, "voted with the strikers and his party leaders" and "voted against all restrictive excise [i.e., liquor] bills." Among the bills he introduced in 1886 were the establishment of "an additional free public bath in the Hudson River, between Canal and Houston Streets," and "forbidding the placing of steam boilers in the cellars of any building occupied or used by human beings."

One smudge on Mullaney's record came on December 11, 1890, when The Sun reported he, "was indicted by the Grand Jury yesterday for electioneering within 150 feet of the polls on election day."  Nonetheless, he served in the assembly through 1898 and again in 1903.  The following year he was appointed a clerk of the Municipal Court, and in 1906 elected to the State Senate.

On February 2, 1918, Ann Hart Mullaney died here.  A solemn requiem mass was held in St. Joseph's Church on Sixth Avenue.  At the time, all four of her children, never married, still lived at 71 Charlton Street.

The American Architect, March 24, 1913 (copyright expired)

In the meantime, Michael Drinane and his wife, Kate, had owned 69 Charlton Street since around 1909.  The couple had one son, Michael J., who was a clerk for the city at the time.  Following his marriage to Alice McDonald, the couple moved into the Charlton Street house, where they would have one son, John.

The elder Michael died in 1920.  That year, Michael J. was appointed a commissioner of deeds with the city.  Unlike his father, however, John Drinane went down a darker path.

On April 11, 1922, The New York Times reported that the frequent hold-ups in the neighborhood of Tony Renali's saloon on West Street had prompted him to place a pistol next to his register.  On the previous afternoon, John Drinane and two confederates barged into the saloon with firearms.  They robbed the bartender and customers and took $90 from the cash register.  As they started to leave, they warned, "That they would shoot to kill if anybody followed them," recounted the article.

Tony Renali picked up his gun and fired two shots, both of them hitting Michael Swift, known to the police as "Mike the Burglar."  On the street a few minutes later, two detectives "saw two men start to carry what appeared to be a well filled potato sack into the tenement house at 6 Renwick Street" near the saloon.  Suspecting that they had just stolen a bag from a peddler's wagon, the officers investigated.

When they poked into the bag, they "found it contained a man suffering from two bullet wounds in the body."  An ambulance was called for Swift who, before he died at the hospital, identified the other perpetrators as John Drinane and Angelo Sposato.  They were held in a staggering $10,000 bail (more than a quarter of a million today).

The American Architect, March 24, 1913 (copyright expired)

In the meantime, at a time when appreciation for vintage architecture was uncommon, these two outstanding examples were noted.  On March 24, 1913, The American Architect said, "The houses at Numbers 69 and 71 Charlton Street are particularly fortunate in their preservation, and if one could imagine their trim and doorways painted white and the brickwork restored, they would rank with the best masterpieces of our old city homes."

Unfortunately, that appreciation was not enough to save the architectural treasures.  Three years after James Drinane's arrest, they were razed for a 10-story loft building designed by Victor Mayper, which survives.