William J. Merritt & Co. erected scores of houses in Harlem and the Upper West Side in the 1880s and 1890s. In one month alone in 1888, Merritt & Co. advertised 38 new houses within a two-block area around West End Avenue between 73rd and 75th Streets: four on West End Avenue between 73rd and 74th Streets, seven harmonious dwellings on the corner of 75th Street and West End Avenue, and the entire block—27 houses in all—on both sides of 73rd Street between West End Avenue and Broadway (then called the Boulevard).
Although Merritt often acted as his own architect, he hired Charles T. Mott to design 18 upscale houses in 1887 that wrapped the northeast corner of West End Avenue and 73rd Street. The ambitious project would take two years to complete. Although somewhat overshadowed by its hulking neighbor at 280 West End Avenue, 275 West 73rd Street was nonetheless eye-catching.
Four stories tall above a high English basement, Mott gave the house a full-height, tower-like bay. It was clad in planar stone while the remainder of the facade was undressed brownstone. The tower was rounded at the basement and parlor levels, then morphed into sharp angles--its windows affording views in three directions. Red clay tiles covered the conical cap of the tower and the steep attic roof.
The house became home to the Albert Edmond Symington family. An attorney, Symington was a member of Symington, Symington & Symington. Born in New York City on October 24, 1862, he graduated from Yale in 1883 and received his law degree from Columbia in 1887.
Symington married Edith Louise Harris in 1889, the year he purchased 275 West 73rd Street. They would have five children while living here--William Harris, born in 1890; Edith Harris, born the following year; Hazen, who arrived in 1893; James Mansfield, born in 1894; and Albert, born in 1910. Unfortunately Edith died at the age of one, and Albert died in infancy. The family's summer home was in Seabright, New Jersey.
Edith's American roots were deep. Her first ancestor, Thomas Harris, arrived in Rhode Island in 1686. Her parents, Civil War veteran Lieutenant-Colonel William Hamilton Harris and the former Edith Witt, were prominent in society, despite their being newcomers to Manhattan. The couple moved from the Midwest in 1889, the year the Symingtons were married, and lived nearby on West 75th Street.
The Symington boys received privileged educations. They attended the Taft School, a preparatory institution, before entering Yale--William in the class of 1912 and James in the class of 1916.
Attention was focused on Hazen in 1911. On November 12, The New York Times announced, "Mrs. William Hamilton Harris will give a luncheon at Sherry's on Nov. 15 for her granddaughter, Miss Hazen Symington, the debutante daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Albert Symington of 275 West Seventy-third Street." It would be the first of several events for Hazen that winter season.
Three years later, on March 31, 1914, The New York Times reported that Edith and Hazen "are at their town home" after spending a few weeks in Miami, Florida. The Sun added, "They will be at 275 West Seventy-third street until they open their summer place in Seabright."
This would be no ordinary summer there. On June 28, 1914, The New York Times reported that Hazen had married George De Forest Lord in St. George's Church by the River Side in Seabright, New Jersey. The article said, "The wedding breakfast and reception were at the Rumson Country Club, and afterward the bridal party drove to the Symington villa at Monmouth Beach."
The Symingtons left 275 West 73rd Street that year, leasing the house first to J. E. and Eliza Morris. Their tenants starting around 1917 was the Hackett family. On November 5, 1918, Bernard Augustus Hackett, who was 33 years old, was commissioned a Second Lieutenant in the Quartermaster Section of the U.S. Army. The family remained in the West 73rd Street house at least through 1919.
A top floor occupant surveys the scene in 1941. At the time, the tiled roof, the stoop and sturdy wing walls, and double-doored entrance survived. image from the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services.
Albert Edmond Symington died in 1930. At some point Samuel Shaw, who owned the corner mansion, purchased 275 West 73rd Street and continued to lease it. Living here in the early 1930s was actor, playwright and lecturer Frank Ferguson (not to be confused with the character actor of the same name, popular in the late 20th century).
Frank Ferguson, The New York Times September 10, 1937
Born in Boston in 1863, Ferguson started his career as a singer in light opera there. He later became the dramatic critic for periodicals like The Saturday Evening Herald and The Boston Home Journal. He was the author of more than 40 plays, one of which, Lucky Jim, ran for nine years in America and England. For two years he served as the director in the dramatic department of the Brooklyn Institute of Arts and Sciences, taught drama at Long Island University in Brooklyn, and lectured at Columbia University and the University of Chicago. A bachelor, he died while living here on September 10, 1937.
The estate of Samuel T. Shaw sold the house in 1946 to the 280 West End Avenue Corporation. In 1961, it was converted to apartments, two per floor. It was possibly at this time that the stoop was removed and the entrance lowered to below grade.
While the apartment configuration remains, in 2010 the entrance and stoop were restored by EAB Architectural Designs, PLLC. Although the roof tiles have been replaced with shingles, and the entrance is noticeably narrower, the refabrication of the stoop returns the house more closely to its 1889 appearance.
photographs by the author
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