Ernest Keyser's 1837 78 East 2nd Street

 

No. 78 and its mirror-image at No. 80 (seen in part at right) were originally three bays wide and two-and-a-half stories tall.  photo by Carole Teller

In 1831, the New York City Marble Cemetery was opened on the north side of Second Street, between First and Second Avenues.  There may have been contentious negotiations between its trustees and the owner of the vacant lots at 76 through 82 East 2nd Street, because the otherwise rectangular cemetery did not include those parcels, but extended behind them.

Around 1837, owner Ernest Keyser erected two mirror-image houses at 78 and 80 Second Street.  (The "East" would come later)  Two-and-a-half stories tall and 27-feet wide, they were faced in red Flemish bond brick and trimmed in brownstone.  Originally, each of their peaked roofs would have been pierced with two dormers.  Keyser's architect gave the windows especially attractive paneled lintels, their end blocks carved with leaf-backed flowers.

The complex lintels were costly and handsome additions.  photo by the author

Because the cemetery backed up to the property line, Keyser's houses were necessarily shallow and had no rear yards.  Keyser apparently solved the problem by keeping the lots at 76 and 82 vacant--providing a side yard to each house.

Keyser leased the houses.  As early as 1840, Elizabeth, the widow of Samuel A. Tatnall, occupied No. 78.  She was followed by the Thomas J. Ireland family by 1845.  The parlor was the scene of the funeral of six-year-old Thomas J. Ireland, Jr. on September 11, 1846.

The tenants were middle-class.  Living here during the Civil War years were George N. and Catherine C. Franklin and their son, Peter B.  Although Peter was 22 years old when the war broke out, he was exempt from fighting.  The Franklins were members of the Society of Friends, known as the Quakers, and were religiously bound not to engage in violence.

The cemetery behind them necessitated the shallowness of the houses.  photograph by Carole Teller

Around 1869, the Keyser family raised the attic to a full floor.  At the same time, they doubled the house by erecting a two-bay addition on the vacant lot.  Amazingly, the architect went to extraordinary pains to perfectly match the lintels at the parlor level and give the upper floor openings paneled lintels appropriate to the now-outdated Federal style.  Perplexingly, though, after taking the efforts to keep the original house and its addition architecturally congruous, he designed the addition with four floors.  Both sections were given matching, understated cornices and the stoop railings were updated.

Ernest Keyser's son, Isaiah, died in 1879.  His widow, Augusta W. Keyser, sold 78 and 80 East 2nd Street to Emilia Sauer on January 26, 1880.  Sauer paid $8,182 for both homes, or about $260,000 in 2025 terms.

As the Keyser family had done, Sauer leased the houses.  Living in No. 78 in the early 1910s was Reverend J. W. Geyer.  He was the president of the Ottilie Orphan Asylum Society of New York.  Established in March 1892 with the ungainly title The Orphan Asylum Society of the Reformed Church of Brooklyn and New York, it provided "the care, support, education, maintenance and disposal of orphan, pauper and destitute children," according to the Directories of Charities in 1912.

In 1913, Darchel Noam Talmud Torah was organized here.  The yeshiva was described by The Jewish Communal Register of New York City as a "communal school" in 1918.  That year it employed three teachers for its enrollment of 28 girls.  The school operated from 3:00 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. during the week and from 9 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. on Sundays.  In 1925, the school moved next door to 80-82 East 2nd Street.

photograph by Carole Teller

No. 78 East 2nd Street returned to rented rooms.  Then, in 1970, it was converted to a two-family residence--one apartment having three bedrooms and the other having two.  It was renovated again in 2012, resulting in an apartment in the basement and a single family home above.

many thanks to historians Bellov & Teller for suggesting this post