James M. Farnworth's 1886 95 East 10th Street

 

photo by Ted Leather

During the trial over purported damages to properties caused by the New York Elevated Railroad Company's erection of the Third Avenue elevated, on May 24, 1899 engineer John E. Connelly testified as an expert witness.  He said in part that between East 8th and 14th Streets along the avenue, there were no "substantial" buildings except one.  Among the old, low buildings was 48 Third Avenue.  "That is a good substantial building of modern construction, five-story, brick building, flats, entrance to the flats on 10th street."

That structure had been erected in 1886 by S. F. Jackson and Samuel Thorne, acting as trustees of the estate of Eliza L. White, and designed by 39-year-old James M. Farnsworth.  Farnsworth and his former partner, Benjamin Silliman, Jr., had recently designed two skyscrapers, the Morse Building and the Temple Court.  

The plans were filed on March 19, 1886 with construction costs projected at $15,000 (about $516,000 in 2025 terms).  There were two commercial spaces on the ground floor, one each on the avenue and the side street.  Farnsworth leaned into the long, narrow plot (it was one building lot wide on the avenue and covered five lots on 10th Street).  By using multiple intermediate cornices and string courses, he streamlined his horizontal design.  Overall Renaissance Revival in style, its residential entrance at 95 East 10th Street was framed in stone where two elongated fluted brackets upheld a narrow entablature and molded cornice.

Striking bowed fire escapes appear on the side elevation.  photo by Ted Leather

The openings on the second through fourth floors wore splayed brick lentils.  The top floor windows were fully arched and decorated with brick eyebrows and scrolled terra cotta keystones.  A pressed metal cornice designed as a stylized fasces under a row of acanthus leaves completed the design.

John Hoops moved his grocery store into the Third Avenue space.  On October 15, 1888, The Evening World published a lengthy article about the rising prices of staples like bread.  The reporter interviewed John Hoops who pointed out the current condition--what today we would call "shrinkflation."  He said, "I sell Shuts's and Droste's bread.  I do not know what they weigh, but the loaves are getting smaller."

Occupying an apartment as early as 1894 were John and Mary Moriarty.  Moriarty was born in County Kerry, Ireland in 1850 and his parents brought him to New York City the following year.  As a teen he worked as a salesman for the Brooklyn Furniture Company and in 1880 opened his own furniture store on Fourth Avenue.  Its tagline was "John Moriarty, at No. 1 Avenue Four."  By the time he and Mary moved into 95 East 10th Street he was highly successful, known as "the furniture man."

John and Mary's domestic relationship was rocky at best.  On the morning of April 12, 1894 Mary had John arrested on "a charge of habitual drunkenness," as reported by The Evening World.  Moriarty was highly emotional about the arrest, causing Court Officer Hagan to tell the judge he was "all broken up."  He was so upset that Justice Koch left the courtroom to handle the arraignment on the street.  The Evening World said Koch, "did not arraign his prisoner before the bar, but kept him in a carriage in front of the court-house...This was done to prevent the prisoner from making a scene in court."

The respected furniture dealer was committed to the Kings County Inebriate's Home.  The article said, "His wife refused to talk about the case."

Upon his release, John returned to the East 10th Street apartment and his tense marriage.  In June 1896, he fell ill and eight weeks later, on August 6 he died.  The New York Herald said he succumbed to "a complication resulting from an attack of lung trouble."   His estate included several real estate holdings in Washington Heights and "some property in Twenty-third street," as reported by the New York Herald.  Moriarty got the last word in concerning his and Mary's discord through his will.  The newspaper said, "The only mention of the testator's wife was that she lived at 95 East Tenth street, where he died.  No provision was made for her in the will."

photograph by Ted Leather

Living here in 1898 was Mrs. Rosina Staiber, a midwife.  She appeared in court on November 5 that year for "the alleged abduction of Ellen Kelly's baby," as reported by the New York Journal & Advertiser.  Rosina had been pulled into a maelstrom created when Ellen Kelly, a prostitute, gave birth to a baby girl and had no interest in the infant.  Another midwife, Mary Landis tried to explain to the court what followed.  The article recounted:

"Mrs. Landis said the baby was taken to her house from Mrs. Wagner's, where it was born; that Miss Kelly owed Mrs. Wagner $15 for her care while in her house; that Miss Kelly agreed to pay her $2 a week and did not.  The baby was taken to the house of a Mrs. Rickets...then back to Mrs. Landis, and then to Mrs. Rickets's house again, where Miss Kelly urged that it should stay, as she expected that it was soon to be adopted."

Mary Landis testified, "Miss Kelly was actually angry because the baby had not been disposed of before it was."  The infant ended up in the care of Rosina Staiber.  When Ellen Kelly could not give the baby's whereabouts to an agent from the Gerry Society (the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children) she said it was kidnapped.  The New York Journal & Advertiser reported, "The examination revealed the fact that Miss Kelly was as much to blame for the disappearance of the child as any one" and Rosina Staiber was exonerated.

Living with the Weiss family here in 1903 was Johanna Weiss's bachelor uncle, Barthol Boehler.  The 66-year-old was a jeweler.  On the chilly night of March 3, Boehler attached a rubber tube from the lighting fixture to what today we would call a space heater and went to bed.  Later members of the family detected the odor of gas.  Johanna Weiss found her uncle unconscious and gas escaping from the faulty connection.  A doctor arrived and "labored for two hours to resuscitate him," according to The Evening World.  Unfortunately, said the article, he died the victim of "a cold room and defective gas stove."

Lt. Henry G. Firneisen and his family lived here at the time.  Born in Germany on May 18, 1862, he joined the New York City Police Department and in 1896 was appointed to the Central Office Detective Bureau.  He and his partner, Detective Walter S. Granville, "made pickpockets their specialty," according to The New York Times, "and Firneisen gained a reputation by running down a number of well-known crooks."  

On June 15, 1904, Firneisen's wife took their three children on a church outing on the steamboat the General Slocum.  The horrific disaster that followed a fast-moving fire aboard left more than 1,000 women and children dead.  Amazingly, all four of the Firneisens were rescued.  The detective's gratitude was inestimable.  The New York Times reported, "Firneisen started a search for their rescuers and much of the money he had saved went to reward them."

Resident William Henry Maximillian Grevel was described by The New York Times as "wealthy and eccentric."  He and his wife, Wilhelmina, maintained a country home, The Nook, at Atlantic Highlands, New Jersey, where he died on August 17, 1909.  His will was anything but commonplace.

The New York Herald reported, "The will covers about thirty pages and nearly half of it is taken up with directions regarding the disposition of Grevel's body."  Wilhelmina inherited the "large stable of horses at his country estate," said the article, but the will demanded "that no one but her coachman or her friend Adele Heuel or herself drives any of them."  The will said that if any "reputable citizen of Monmouth county" witnessed anyone else drive the horses, they would revert to the estate and sold at public auction "with the provision that they are not to be driven in the county."

His grandson's inheritance was dependent on his leading "a respectable life, indulges in no excesses and doesn't smoke paper cigarettes."  Adele Heuel's bequest was contingent on her "being married respectably, being respectable if single or being in a respectable business."  Grevel left invitations to his funeral, leaving the date to be filled in and sent after his death.

Lt. Henry G. Firneisen and his family were still living here at the time.  Early in 1910, he was diagnosed with liver cancer and he died here on October 20 at the age of 48.

The Third Avenue El ran down the avenue and the Stuyvesant Curiosity Shop occupied the avenue store in 1933.  photo by P. L. Sperr, from the collection of the New York Public Library

As early as 1922, a second-hand shop called the Stuyvesant Curiosity Shop occupied the Third Avenue store.  Early in March that year, a man walked in with two gilt bronze vases.  The shop owner paid $5 for them.  What seemed to be a good deal turned out to cost him his $5.  On March 29, Detectives George Trojan and Edward Fitzgerald came in and identified them as the valuable vases "which were stolen from a chapel of the Cathedral of St. John the Divine two weeks ago," reported The Evening World.  The article said, "The vases were in memory of William Reed Huntington and cost $500."  They were returned to the Cathedral.

image via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services.

The neighborhood around 95 East 10th Street was transforming into an arts center at mid-century as galleries opened and artists moved into the affordable apartments.   In 1956, a year after marrying, painter Raymond P. Spillenger and his wife, the former Marion Dennison Katz, moved in.  Their son, Paul, had just been born.  A second son, Clyde, would be born in the apartment in 1960.

Spillenger was born in Brooklyn in 1924 and studied with Josef Albers and Willem de Kooning (whose studio was across the street at 88 East 10th Street).  

On March 19, 1957, The New York Times reported, "With the addition of the new March Gallery, Tenth Street is developing into a downtown haven for the younger artists."  Spillenger was one of the founders of the gallery, which occupied the store space at 95 East 10th Street.  The gallery's name, reportedly, came from the month it opened.  The article said it "opens with a group show that augurs well for this gallery's future."  Among the artists represented in the inaugural exhibition were Francine Felsenthal, Tom Young, David Lund and Boris Lurie.

Considered a significant outlet for experimental art, the March Gallery remained here through 1962.

The space in which the works of emerging artists were first seen became Sundaes & Cones in June 2006.  The New York Times food critic Florence Fabricant commented on June 14, "An array of homemade ice creams in flavors as diverse as green tea, strawberry, tiramisu and chocolate sorbet are served in this industrial-looking shop."

Upstairs, Raymond P. Spillenger still lived and worked in the apartment he and Marian first leased in 1956.  Marian died in 1997 and Raymond died at the age of 89 on November 20, 2013.  The New York Times called him, "among the very last of the first- and second-generation Abstract Expressionists."  By then, his paintings were exhibited at the Walter Art Center in Minneapolis, the Contemporary Arts Museum in Houston, and the Hirshhorn Museum in Washington D.C.

On June 8, 2014, The New York Times reported, "When Mr. Spillenger's two sons, Paul and Clyde, started cleaning out his apartment a few months ago, they found the remnants of a career even they hadn't fully comprehended: hundreds of paintings and drawings stacked against the wall or stuffed under the bed, works that probably no one except their father had ever looked at."

photograph by Ted Leather

A rare example of a James M. Farnworth apartment building and an important page of New York City's art history, 95 East 10th Street (48 Third Avenue) does not have landmark status or protection.  

many thanks to reader Ted Leather for suggesting this post