The Lost August Schulz House--435 West 53rd Street

 

August Schulz's cooper shop at the right replaced an earlier structure.  from the collection of the New York Public Library

In September 1881, The New York Times called the Hell's Kitchen district, “one of the most miserable and crime-polluted neighborhoods in this City,” adding, “there is more disease, crime, squalor, and vice to the square inch in this part of New-York.”  In his 1882 New York by Gaslight, James D. McCabe, Jr. described the wooden residences here as the "wretched abodes of misery, and often of vice and crime."

Among them was 435 West 53rd Street, owned by J. P. Giraud.  Its builder had designed the two-story clapboard structure with an attempt at the Italianate style.  By the early 1870s, Girard leased it to German immigrant August Schulz and his family.  Abutting the house to the east was Schulz's two-story brick cooper shop, where he made or repaired barrels, casks, tubs and the like.

At 5:45 on the morning of November 24, 1872, an overheated boiler in the cooper shop set fire to the beams of the floor.  The fire patrol was on the scene for one and a half hours before extinguishing the blaze.  The New York Herald reported, "The fire extended to the adjoining frame building, No. 435, also occupied by Schultz."  Damage to the house was only $100 (about $2,500 in 2025), but the shop was ravaged.  The Central Patrol's Report of Fires and Alarms noted, "Stock, Tools, Machinery almost totally destroyed."  (The second floor of the shop was a total loss and was not rebuilt.)

The New York Herald mentioned that Schulz had no insurance on the destroyed machinery, valued at the equivalent of nearly $80,000 today.  The financial hit may have been too much for Schulz to withstand.  On February 24, 1876, he sold the cooper business to J. Schmuck.

The estate of J. P. Giraud leased the two buildings to Marietta Desaye and Jacques Deveaux on May 1, 1883.  They operated the dwelling as a rooming house, with tenants like Michael Delaney.  He worked as a laborer for the city in 1887, earning $2 per day.  Other roomers were a dressmaker who advertised in 1889 that she "works at home on reasonable terms."

Major change came in the early 1890s, when Zaisser Bros. took over both the former cooper shop and the house proper for its dyeing and dry cleaning plant.  The facility was unseen by customers, who dropped their items off at either of two stores, one on West 53nd Street and the other on Columbus Avenue.

Purchasers' Guide and Commercial Register, 1894 (copyright expired)

In 1894 Zaisser Bros. employed a large staff.  Working in the combined buildings were nine men, a teenaged boy, 14 women, and 21 teen girls.  They worked 57 hours throughout the week and another seven on the weekend.

Virgil Thurkauf took over the leases prior to 1897, moving his "silk dyeing factory" into the location.  Next door, at 429 and 431 West 53rd Street was what The New York Times described as "a large four-story brick stable and ice factory."   A fire there on August 3, 1897 "caused great excitement," said the newspaper, which noted that the structure "was completely wrecked." 

The blaze spread to the tenement behind, on West 54th Street, and to the Thurkauf buildings.  The New York Times reported that 433 and 435 West 53rd Street sustained damages of "about $10,000," or around $351,000 today.  

As Zaisser Bros. had done, Virgil Thurkauf employed a significant staff, but surprisingly none were female.  In 1904, it consisted of 19 men and two teenaged boys who worked 60 hours per week.  (The added hours from Monday to Friday made up for the fact that they did not work on the weekends.)

from the collection of the New York Public Library

It was common for tenement dwellers to sleep on fire escapes and rooftops during the hot months.  Behind 433 West 53rd Street was a five-story building where Thomas Lundy and his wife lived.  On July 2, 1904, the New York Sun reported that he "went home last night at 10 o'clock.  He went to the roof, lay down near the edge at the rear and went to sleep.  Some time later he rolled off."

The brick chimney of 433 West 53rd Street was stabilized by a "taut wire cable."  Miraculously, as Lundy plummeted five stories, his "body struck this slanting cable and he was shot swiftly to the roof" of No. 433.  The article said the only injury he sustained was a bruise on his forehead, "caused by his feet colliding with his face."  It concluded, "His wife put him to bed for the rest of the night."

The destroyed ice factory at 429-431 West 53rd Street had been replaced by the Bleaks Dairy Company's four-story brick stable by now.  In an astonishing case of deja vu, it was consumed by a fire that broke out just after midnight on January 2, 1907.  The Annual Report of the Committee on Fire Patrol noted that it spread to 433-435 West 53d Street...occupied entirely by Virgil Thurkauf, as silk dyer."  The Albany, New York newspaper The Argus reported, "The burning of the dyeing establishment was accompanied by explosions of chemicals, rendering greater the danger to the firemen and helping to spread the flames."  The series of fires and subsequent patchwork of repairs resulted in 433 West 53rd Street's being partially clad in brick and in wood.  Somewhat amazingly, the former house remained little changed, outwardly.

The American Silk Journal, August 1912 (copyright expired)

Virgil Thurkauf, who was born in France, had established the firm in 1881.  On April 1914, The American Silk Journal noted that his sons, Virgil, Jr. and William, were now associated with the company.  That year the firm erected a new plant at 438-440 West 54th Street, directly behind and connecting to the two ramshackle buildings.  Astonishingly, the project, which included "all the modern machinery and devices for turning out the best possible work," did not include updating the 53rd Street properties.

image via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services

By 1945 the property had been taken over by the city, and that year, on May 18, "the premises known as...433-435 West 53rd Street and 438-440 West 54th Street" were sold at auction.  The quirky relics of Hell's Kitchen's past survived until 1964, when they were demolished for a seven-story residential building.