The Edward N. Ebbets House - 36 East Third Street

 

Speaking in the third person, on May 6, 1812 E. A. Le Breton placed an announcement in The Evening Post saying that "he intends to recommence Brewing early in the fall, when he hopes to share that patronage which he has experienced many years.  He has now for sale a quantity of very fine ALE, in hhds. [i.e., hogsheads] fit for immediate use.--Enquire ONLY at 36 Third-street."  It is unclear how long Le Breton's alehouse survived, but the building was gone before the mid-1830s.  

In 1835, Hubbard & Casey’s hardware business at 48-1/2 Exchange Place was apparently doing very well.  Described by the Journal of the American Institute as dealers in "grass sithes, corn sithes, and augurs,” that year the partners branched out into real estate development.

 
In 1835, Hubbard & Casey began construction of five matching brick-faced residences that stretched from 30 to 38 Third Street (the "East" would come later).  Completed in 1836, they were built for financially-comfortable, merchant class families.  Three stories high over English basements, they were designed in the up-to-date Greek Revival style.  Heavy brownstone doorway enframements, Flemish bond brickwork and handsome iron fencing (that featured a Greek key band along the bottom and graceful palmettes along the top) dignified the structures.
 
No. 36 became the home of the Edward N. Ebbets family.  Ebbets ran a dry goods business.  By 1840, he changed his profession to accountant in the New York State Bank and added real estate to his resume two years later.  On March 24, 1842, for instance, he advertised,

To Let--The two story Brick House and Store No. 347 Pearl-street (Franklin Square).  The Store can be altered into two Stores.  It is a good stand for any kind of business.

Also, the two story Brick House and Store No. 568 Greenwich-street, between Charlton and King-streets.  

Inquire of Edward N. Ebbits [sic], no. 36 Third-street from 4 to 8 o'clock P.M.

Impoverished families in the first decades of the 19th century could be sent to the Alms-House if they were unable to pay their debts.  Children of those families were routinely sent out as indentured servants.  In 1838, Ebbets and his wife took in six-year-old Margaret Jackson.  A representative of the Alms-House made a house check in the spring of 1842 and reported,

Margaret Jackson, bound to Edward N. Ebbets, No. 36 3d street, April 6, 1842, with him 4 years, now 10 years, gets on very well.

Starting around 1850, Asher C. and Rachael S. Havens moved in.  Havens was a commission merchant with an office on Albany Street.  Boarding with them was Henry P. Gengembre, an artist.

Western Horticultural Advertiser, January 1851 (copyright expired)

Sadly, the youngest child of Asher and Rachel, Adeline Amanda, died on December 11, 1851.  Her funeral was held in the parlor the following afternoon.

The house saw a relatively quick turnover in residents.  In 1858 and '59, John Henry Anderson, a carpet merchant, lived here; and by 1861 Albert Jousseaum Delatour moved his family in.

Delatour was born on October 24, 1824.  He married Josephine Labatut on October 23, 1849 and the couple had four sons and three daughters.  Albert was in the mineral waters business, with locations on Wall Street and Fifth Avenue.  Additionally, he served as vice president of the New York Fire Department.

The Delatours were supplanted in 1867 by Frank Hardy and his family.  The following year, Francis H. Hardy, who had been living on Second Avenue, moved in as well.  Both men were in the dry goods business, Frank at 307 Grand Street and Francis at 332 Bowery.

The Hardy family remained through 1871, after which 36 East 3rd Street was operated as a German boarding house by August Lindemann.  Living here in 1873 were Sigmond Frudenberg, a clerk; Carsten Hencken, owner of a saloon on Fulton Street; and Carl F. Holterman, who dealt in butter in the Washington Market.

In 1886, the house was given a modern facelift.  Although the handsome Greek Revival-style fence was spared, the rest of the house, including the stoop railings, was done over in the trendy Queen Anne style.

The once-simple door enframement suddenly gushed with decoration and new oak doors were installed.  The peaked pediment over the doorway was copied in the parlor window lintels.  Tiny scrolled brackets were applied below the brownstone sills of the upper windows, and decorative lintels, matching the parlor level (without the pediments), were added.  The plain cornice was replaced with an ambitious bracketed affair with a sunburst pediment more expected in a retail building than a residence.
 

Among the residents that year was Isaac Wiltz.  He owned and operated a German restaurant at 351 Bowery and also manufactured and sold oleomargarine.  The foodstuff originated in France when Emperor Napoleon III offered a reward for a butter substitute that could be used by the military and the lower classes.  Developed by chemist Hippolyte Mege-Mouries, oleomargarine was first commercially produced in 1871.  Isaac Wiltz was no doubt among the first to market the new product in New York City.

Andrew Murphy, a truck driver, and his family boarded here in 1890.  On the evening of June 29, Murphy's son was hit in the head by a baseball thrown by a boy named Moorhead.  "Andrew Murphy called Moorhead's father to account, and the fathers then took to fighting," reported The New York Times.  The two battled on the sidewalk in front of 36 East Third Street.  Suddenly, Moorhead stabbed Murphy in the stomach and ran away.  Later that night, Murphy's condition was listed as critical.

By 1895, John C. Felton owned 36 East Third Street and his wife continued to run it as a boarding house.  That year Gerhard G. Classen moved in.  He was a salesman of lubricating oil, "and had several brewers among his customers," according to The New York Times.  He had immigrated from Gdańsk in 1873 when he was 27 years old.  According to Mrs. Felten, he had been very successful "and had an income of $10,000 a year."  (The figure would translate to about $390,000 in 2025.)

Then Classen experienced what newspapers routinely called a "reversal."  He lost his job and ran out of money in 1897.  The Times said, "Mrs. Felten kept him all of last Winter and during the Summer, although he could not pay her, and he borrowed money of all his acquaintances."  Desperate, early on the morning of September 22, 1898, the 52-year-old went to the train station in Hoboken.  When the 6:45 passenger train pulled into the station, Classen threw himself in front of the locomotive and was killed instantly.

John C. Felton sold the house to a "M. Strauss" in January 1902.  One tenant, Frank Rusch, became a hero on March 14, 1914.  A firefighter, he responded to a terrifying blaze in a four-story boarding house at 63 East Houston Street.  Frank Rusch was among the first firefighters to arrive and was responsible for leading no fewer than eight residents to safety.  The house was, according to The New York Times, “one of the oldest buildings in that section of the city, and was said to have been built nearly a century ago.  Some years ago this house was known as the ‘Morgue,’ because of the frequent deaths that occurred in a saloon conducted there.”

Prohibition created opportunities for gangsters like 33-year-old Giuseppe Pizzarello, who lived here as early as 1929.  He was described by The New York Times that year as "long known as a gunman and bootlegger."  While gangsters could make fortunes, they also lived in constant danger.  Giuseppe Pizzarello, according to police, "had incurred the enmity of rivals."  On July 20, 1929, a barn in Huntington, Long Island burned to the ground.  Inside the ruins was the body of Guiseppe Pizzarello.  The only means of identifying him were "a few of the finger tips [that] could be discerned," according to police.  He was identified only after two detectives exhaustedly examined 8,000 fingerprint cards.

In 1970, the building was renovated to a two-family residence--a basement apartment and a triplex on the main levels.  Today nothing remains of the 1835 interiors.  Outside, however, little has changed since the Greek Revival house put on a Queen Anne dress towards the end of the 19^th century. 

photographs by Alice Lum