The original Hotel Branting section is on the corner. from the collection of the New York Public Library
On October 20, 1883, the Northwestern Lumberman reported, "The Hotel Branting on Madison avenue at Fifty-eighth street, is to be raised one story and improved, at an expense of $150,000." The one-sentence article sorely understated the renovations to come. Opened in 1873, the six-story, brownstone-faced Hotel Branting blended into the newly built Italianate residences in the neighborhood.
Now, architect James H. Giles was tasked with nearly doubling the hotel's width along the avenue and adding a story. The Record & Guide, as construction neared completion on April 25, 1885, noted that Giles's problem of making "a seven-story addition conform to a six-story building" was solved "by the top floor being placed almost out of sight, only six floors being discernible to the casual observer."
Giles's addition was architecturally seamless. He essentially copied the Hotel Branting at the north, and moved the original entrance to the middle of the two portions. The Record & Guide noted, "the object [was] to follow the lines used in the building proper." A recess above the entrance held dual-purpose balcony-fire escapes. The Record & Guide praised:
The distinguishing feature in the front is the fire escape, so arranged as not to disfigure the building. It is run down from the top story through a number of balconies--of which there is one on each floor--built on slate and resting on iron girders. These balconies will form a pleasant retreat in the cool of the summer's eve, and also in the afternoon, as they are on the west side of the avenue, and therefore free from the sun's rays within a few hours after the meridian.
Guests entered into a 50-foot-long, 15-foot-wide hall. On the first floor was a large dining room that opened into the courtyard. "Adjoining this is a children's dining room," said the article (assuredly an attraction for childless guests). The suites offered up-to-the-minute amenities including hot and cold running water and steam heat. The rear courtyard guaranteed that "there is not a dark room in the hotel." The Record & Guide noted, "The old and new structures when joined will be styled the 'Madison Avenue Hotel.'"
The hotel opened on September 1, 1885. The renovations and addition cost the owners about $4.85 million in 2025 terms.
Illustrated New York City 1889 (copyright expired)
Six years later, hotelier J. Alonzo Nutter signed a ten-year lease and updated the Madison Avenue Hotel. He had previously managed the St. Marc Hotel on Fifth Avenue. Not only did he redecorate and revise the Madison Avenue Hotel's operations, he enticed many of his former staff members at the St. Marc to follow. An advertisement on October 18, 1891 said in part that he, "has, during the summer, made a thorough renovation in all departments, transferring his entire kitchen force from the St. Marc, guaranteeing a first-class cuisine."
Like most fashionable hotels, the Madison Avenue Hotel accepted long-term residents. Among them was Horatio Nelson Twombly. Born on January 25, 1831, Twomby graduated from Dartmouth College in 1854. His uncles, Hiram and William H. Fogg, were head of the firm that would become the China and Japan Trading Company, Ltd. Starting in 1860, Twomby spent many years in Asia overseeing the Fogg family business. He returned to New York City in 1883 and the following year, following the death of William Fogg, he became company president.
Twomby was described by the New York Journal as "one of the oldest members of the Union League Club." He was, as well, a trustee of the Hahnemann Hospital. The wealthy bachelor suffered "a stroke of paralysis" on October 16, 1896, and died the following morning.
Operatic soprano Mme. Frances Saville arrived in New York City in December 1898 and checked into the Madison Avenue Hotel. Its high-toned services were reflected into the diva's being appointed a "special waiter," Emil Becker. Traveling with Saville were her maid and her "courier." Her suite here consisted of a parlor, dining room and bedroom. (Her two servants would have rooms on the top floor, where all servants were lodged.)
On the Saturday afternoon of New Year's Eve, Mme. Saville sang the part of Elsa in Lohengrin at the Metropolitan Opera House. The New York Journal and Advertiser reported, "Both maid and courier accompanied her to the Opera House." When they returned, Saville "missed a pocketbook from a drawer in the bedroom," according to The New York Journal and Advertiser. She notified the proprietor, then left to dine at Delmonico's. In her absence, the courier, concerned about the missing pocketbook, investigated further. He soon called for the manager and told him "with every symptom of agitation," that the prima donna's jewel case had been forced open and its contents stolen.
The article said that Mme. Saville returned "while the excitement was at its height." She was able to provide a detailed inventory of the stolen jewels, which she valued at $20,000 (about $780,000 today).
Suspicion quickly turned to Emil Becker, the only person other than the maid and courier who had access to the suite. He could not be found in the hotel, so detectives went to the boarding house on East 48th Street where he and his wife lived. The landlady, Mrs. Trimble, told them, "Becker had driven up in a hansom at 2:30 o'clock on Saturday and driven away again with a small leather trunk. An hour later he had returned with a carriage and gone away finally with his wife and two trunks." The Beckers and Mme. Saville's jewelry were gone. Two months later, on February 25, 1899, The New York Journal and Advertiser reported that Frances Saville had sued Horace M. Clark, proprietor of the Madison Avenue Hotel, "to recover $20,000."
The hotel soon played a part in a mysterious and dangerous subversive plot. That same month, a Russian-born guest named Eugene Noroff checked in. The night clerk later recalled that he came with a recommendation from a prominent professor of music. Noroff was given room 108. The clerk later said, "an elderly man with a gray beard used to call on Noroff frequently, and that the two would hold long consultations and then leave the hotel together."
The Madison Avenue Hotel closed in April 1900. Noroff moved to a room in a boarding house on West 147th Street run by a Mrs. Jackson. He told her he had been a judge in Russia and "he was at work on something that would soon startle the world." He moved in with a trunk, a large box, and books and papers.
Mrs. Jackson said he was a studious man who mostly kept to his room, "always reading books and figuring out things on a piece of paper." As the night clerk had recalled, Mrs. Jackson said his only visitor was an "elderly man, with a gray beard," and "they would talk together in low whispers, and then they would go out together." Early that summer, the gray-bearded man committed suicide by jumping off the Brooklyn Bridge and a week later that man's daughter killed herself. "This had a great effect on him," according to his landlady, referring to Noroff.
On July 8, Noroff told Mrs. Jackson that "he was going away on a very important mission." He said if he failed, he would have to kill himself. He added that if that happened, she could have whatever was in his trunks. Two days later, Mrs. Jackson read in a newspaper that Noroff's body had been found in Central Park. She did not investigate the trunk for about two weeks. When she finally did, she discovered "six bombs and the plans of the Madison Avenue Hotel." She told reporters,
The plans showed the arrangement of the rooms in detail on each floor, and many of the rooms were marked with mysterious-looking signs. One room was enclosed in an especially black circle. It was room 108 on the first floor.
The bombs, said the police, were professionally made. The details of the nefarious plot that caused three persons to commit suicide was, apparently, never discovered.
On November 9, 1901, the Record & Guide reported that real estate developer Jeremiah T. Lyons had purchased "the derelict Madison Avenue Hotel property." Three years later, in its April 1904 issue, The Physician and Surgeon reported, "The old Madison Avenue Hotel...is to be remodeled and fitted with apartments exclusive for physicians."
The Tammany Times, March 6, 1906 (copyright expired)
The renovations took two years to complete. Now called The Sydenham, on March 6, 1906, The Tammany Times called it, "Unique among the remarkable and useful buildings of New York," adding that it "is devoted exclusively to perfectly appointed and thoroughly equipped suites of apartments for the use of physicians."
The article said:
Inside the wide hallway with its rich carpeting and its statuary a neatly capped and gowned maid awaits the visitor and directs him to the physician he desires to see. There are maids on each floor who perform the same duty. The building is never closed and there are always some physicians on hand to answer calls.
Among the doctors living and working here was Mary Dalton. A minority among a male-dominated profession, she was also involved with the suffragist movement. The Reynoldsville, Pennsylvania newspaper, The Star, reported on June 29, 1910, "Of the ninety doctors in the Sydenham Building, Madison avenue and 57th street [sic], she found that nearly all wanted women to vote." Dalton was having a more difficult time to convince nurses to fall in line. "The reason for the comparative indifference of the nurses, she says, is that they haven't time to think of things outside their work."
On March 27, 1920, The New York Times reported that the Sydenham Building had been sold "to a client who will make extensive alterations." Instead, the august brownstone building was replaced with a 15-story office building.
photo by Wurts Bros. from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York.
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