photograph by the author
U.S. Senator Hamilton Fish inherited land from the estate of his mother, Elizabeth Stuyvesant Fish. On May 1, 1867, he leased the plots that would become 106 through 110 East 10th Street to developer James Mulry. The annual rents on the 21-year land leases were $200 each--about $4,380 in 2025. Fish included restrictive covenants in the leases that prohibited the erection of "dangerous, noxious or offensive establishments" or of tenements or "community houses." Instead, Fish demanded that only "a good and substantial dwelling house, three or more stories high" and faced in brick or stone be built on the plots.
Mulry commissioned the architectural firm of D. and J. Jardine to design three upscale homes on the property. Born in Scotland, brothers David and John Jardine--27 and 29 years old respectively at the time--had gone into partnership just two years earlier. For Mulry, they produced identical, four-story homes faced in red brick and trimmed in brownstone. Sitting upon rusticated stone basements, their Italianate-style design included segmentally arched entrances within unusual stone frames, the beefy scrolled brackets of which upheld prominent molded cornices. The windows wore handsome molded cornices supported by carved foliate brackets. Pressed metal cornices with leafy corbels completed the design. Each of the houses cost Mulry $6,000 to erect--about $131,000 today.
No. 110 was leased to Elizabeth Carlyle, the widow of Edward Carlyle, who operated it as an upscale boarding house. An advertisement offered, "Handsomely furnished rooms to let, with first class Board, for gentlemen and wife or single gentlemen, en suite or singly; terms moderate." Elizabeth's residency was short. By 1870, another widow, Anna M. Carroll operated the boarding house.
Among Carroll's boarders in 1871 were attorney George P. Avery, and young Julius William Russell. Russell's permanent home was in Burlington, Vermont and he was in New York City attending Columbia College.
An unnamed boarder was a victim of theft in 1874. His advertisement in the New York Herald on April 16 read:
$25 Reward--If the young man who took the Violin from 110 East Tenth street will return it he will oblige the person he conversed with and receive $25 reward; no questions asked. The violin only valued as a keepsake from a deceased father.
Widow Elizabeth Koch ran the boarding house in 1876. Among her few boarders that year were Dr. A. A. Angell; Sarah Dubois, a dressmaker; and Adolph Franosch and his wife. Described by The New York Times as "a well-known singer in German opera," Franosch was born in Cologne, Germany in 1828. In 1874, two years before taking rooms here, he had toured in the German Company in the role of Plunket in Martha. The Indianapolis News called Franosch, "a marvel of power," saying, "His voice is unquestionably the finest in this if not any country. Seldom is heard such majesty of tone combined with such correctness of execution and dramatic force."
Living here in 1882 was Madame Ivan C. Michels. It is possible that Elizabeth Koch allowed her to use the parlor for her teaching, but most likely it was done in her rooms. Her concise ad in the American Art Journal on February 11 that year read, "Mme. Ivan C. Michels Teaches Elocution for Pulpit, Bar and Stage."
Another boarder in 110 East 10th Street that year was Lizzie Wood, an actress who appeared on stage as Lizzie J. Mauritius. While she was out on the morning of May 25, a man appeared at the door and identified himself as an expressman. He told the maid that Lizzie had engaged him to remove a trunk from her rooms. When Lizzie returned home, she realized she had been the victim of a clever ruse. According to her, the value of the trunk and its contents was $200 (about $6,330 today).
Later that night, Patrolman James Kelly noticed John Adams taking a trunk into the house at 29 West 44th Street. Despite the fact that trunks were routinely taken in and out of buildings, he was suspicious. Upon opening the trunk, he discovered Lizzie Wood's items. Adams was arrested and he confessed.
Dr. John R. Hobbie boarded here in 1885, as did Walter R. Sherman. Sherman was estranged from his wife, Kate M. The couple had an eight-year-old son, Walter M. Sherman.
Kate Sherman told the court of "her run-away marriage while Sherman was a student in Cornell University." She said they were married less than three months when, "he abused me by the use of the grossest language" and physical abuse. "It was a common thing for him to pull me by the hair and to slap me in the face."
On May 25, 1885, Kate Sherman added new charges against her husband. She brought witnesses to testify to "the intimacy between [Sherman] and Clara Menz, who was a servant at 110 East Tenth street."
John Emory Bryant took a room here in 1891, while his wife, the former Emma Spaulding, remained in Earlville, New York. He had fought for the Union in the Civil War and both he and Emma had been avid abolitionists. They had met while John, who was teaching, boarded in Emma's family's home. Emma was a teacher of mathematics. They were married in 1864 while he was a soldier.
On September 25, 1891, Bryant wrote to Emma, saying he was sending her $20 toward her costs to come to New York. He directed that should she be delayed, she should telegraph him "at my boarding house, 110 East 10th Street." The letter went on to hint of tensions between the couple. He copied numerous scriptures that made his note sound more like a lecture. Emma Spaulding Bryant's letters were published in 2004. They reveal some of the conflicts within middle-class couples that were strictly guarded from the public.
Dr. Downey was boarding here on the afternoon of March 13, 1895 when he was summoned to 388 Sixth Avenue. There he found 30-year-old Annie Lefkowitz "in a precarious condition," according to The Sun. At 7:00 that evening, Downey went to the West 13th Street police station to report that she was "suffering from the result of a criminal operation." The newspaper's delicately wording referred to an abortion. Annie Lefkowitz's family physician, Dr. Robert Berlinger, had performed the procedure that morning. The Sun reported, "Mrs. Lefkowitz is not expected to live through the night."
In October 1903, a "Mr. Williamson" and his young wife took rooms here. In fact, Mr. Williamson was James H. Grant and his "wife" was Madeline J. Schlamp.
A relative of President Ulysses S. Grant, the New-York Tribune described James Grant as "a married man, one legged and with a wife and four children." He worked at the New York and New Jersey Telephone Company and lived in West Orange. Living next door was the Henry J. Schlamp family. The Schlamps' 16-year-old daughter, Madeline, according to The Sun, was a member of the "choir of a Methodist church in their home town."
Madeline disappeared from home in October 1903. On hearing that her mother was dying, she returned home, but left again after the woman's death. Henry J. Schlamp heard that she was living at 110 East 10th Street and on the night of November 25, he and Police Detective Clarence went to the house and found Madeline and John Grant together. Grant said he merely had visited her "from motives of charity, and had obtained employment for her in this city, as she had been unable to get along at home." Henry Schlamp said that Grant had "an hypnotic influence" over her.
Grant was charged with abduction and Madeline was arrested with disorderly conduct. Calling her daughter "incorrigible," Schlamp told Agent Fogarty of the Children's Aid Society that he "wanted her committed to some institution."
On June 29, 1905, The City Record reported that the residents of 110 East 10th Street were "required to vacate." The article said the building, "is dangerous to life, and is unfit for human habitation because of defects in the plumbing there." The issue was resolved and in September that year, the estate of Hamilton Fish transferred the title of numerous properties, including the land upon which 110 East 10th Street sat, to the Hamilton Fish Corporation.
Mrs. Matthew Callahan operated the boarding house in 1908. On February 10 that year, a reporter from The Sun interviewed her about Annie Conning. She said that the 24-year-old had been recently working as a maid in the Chelsea Hotel. The reporter wrote, "Mrs. Callahan said the girl had stayed in her house every once in a while when out of employment."
The reason for the journalist's visit was that early that morning the body of a woman known in the notorious Tenderloin district as "Queenie" was dumped in a gutter on Second Avenue and 8th Street. The previous night three women, including Annie Conning (or Queenie), and three men had been "carousing," as worded by The New York Times. The newspaper said they began in the Tenderloin and ended up in Chinatown.
At around 5:30 a.m., the group headed back northward, boarding a Second Avenue street car. The New York Times said, "One of the men carried a bottle of champagne, unwrapped, and flourished it in the frolic indulged in by the revelers to kill time on the journey uptown." A sleeping laborer on the car leaned on Queenie's shoulder. One of the men took his watch and chain and one of the women, Mabel Cuzzie, took his tie pin.
Just then, the worker woke up and "sprang toward the Cuzzie woman," said The New York Times. Both of Mabel's hands were inside her muff, which also held a pistol. The Sun reported, "as he reached for it she stood up. As she did so, there was a report and a flash seemed to come from the muff." The gunshot hit Queenie in the heart, who exclaimed, "I'm shot," and fell to the floor.
The conductor stopped the car and, while around 30 shocked passengers watched, the group got off. "Two of them picked up Queenie's limp body--it was curled up in a heap on the floor at their feet--and made for the rear door." The article continued, "There they dropped Queenie, her head in a pile of snow and ice and her rose trimmed picture hat beside her."
The five dispersed. One passenger jumped from the car and captured Mabel Cuzzie, holding her until Policeman Faber arrived. Before long the other four were arrested. Coroner Shrady opined "that the shooting seemed to have been an accident but that it needed more investigation," reported The Sun. It was Mrs. Callahan who identified the body at the morgue.
Dora Siegel, who lived here in 1914, experienced a terrifying incident on November 21 that year. She told police that someone told her that she had been targeted by a gang for robbery. In response, she placed $2,000 worth of jewelry in a safe deposit vault.
She came home at about 1:00 a.m. and noticed that her rooms were ransacked. Suddenly, as reported by The New York Times, "six men rushed from an adjoining room and seized her." She was tied up with a sheet from the bed. Another tried to stuff a gag into her mouth, threatening to kill her if she cried out. While one of the men took $40 from her bag, Dora screamed. Policeman Poss heard her, and rushed toward the building just as the six men ran out. Poss pursued one of them to a tenement house across the street. He captured Frank Picony on the third floor. The others got away. The article said, "The thieves overlooked a $375 diamond ring in her corset."
image via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services
On November 4, 1922, the tomb of King Tutankhamun was discovered by British archaeologist Howard Carter. Three months later, on February 13, 1913, The New York Times began an article saying, "The influence on women's fashion of the Tut-ankh-Amen discoveries in Egypt is expected to be so great that Hazel Slaughter, a designer of 110 East Tenth Street, will go to Egypt to study Egyptian art." Hazel had won prizes at the textile exhibition and at the exhibitions of the Art Students' League, and now she was awarded a scholarship at the International Silk Show that enabled her trip to Egypt.
While 110 East 10th Street fulfilled Hamilton Fish's 1867 demand that it would be a "good and substantial dwelling," he most likely intended it to be a single-family home. Ironically, it never was. In 2014 it received a "gut renovation" that resulted in a two-family home.
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