The Lost Thomas P. Rossiter Mansion - 11 West 38th Street

 

To the left, a sliver of 13 West 38th Street, remodeled simultaneously by Hunt for Eleazar Parmly, can be glimpsed.  from the collection of the Library of Congress.

Born in New Haven, Connecticut in 1818, Richard Prichard Rossiter was well established as a painter of portrait and historical scenes by 1851.  In 1838, at the age of 20, he exhibited two paintings at the National Academy of Design and the following year moved to New York City.  He was elected to the National Academy in 1849.

In 1851 he married Anna Ehrick Parmly, the daughter of wealthy dentist and poet, Eleazer Parmly.  The newlyweds sailed to Europe, settling in Paris in 1853.  Rossiter won a gold medal at the Universal Exposition in 1855 for his Venice in the Fifteenth Century.  

In the meantime, in September 1854 a son, Ehrick Kensett, was born.  The following year a daughter, Charlotte C., arrived, and Anna Rosalie was born in March 1856.  Shortly after Anna's birth, Anna Parmly Rossiter died at the age of 26.

Thomas brought his children back to New York City.  At the time, 30-year-old architect Richard Morris Hunt had relocated to New York from Washington where he had worked on the renovation and expansion of the U.S. Capitol building.  He began work on the design of the Tenth Street Studios Building, the first structure in America designed specifically for living-and-studio spaces for artists.  It was this work, almost assuredly, that brought Rossiter and Hunt together.

Peter Paul Duggan created this black crayon drawing of Thomas P. Rossiter.  from the collection of The Frick

Rossiter and his father-in-law gave Hunt his first domestic commission in New York--two mansions at 11 and 13 West 38th Street.  The neighborhood, just feet from Fifth Avenue, was filling with sumptuous mansions as Manhattan's millionaires inched up the avenue.

Completed in 1857, the Rossiter house at 11 West 38th Street was faced in red brick and trimmed in stone.  The artist's deep interest in history may have influenced Hunt's neo-classical design.  He striated the first floor, above a short stoop, by alternating red brick with stone bands.  The arched entrance sat within a portico supported by banded and fluted columns, and neo-Classical swags decorated the entablature.  The composition was copied at the easternmost window to preserve balance.  

Three grouped floor-to-ceiling windows at the top floor were fronted by a stone balcony and flanked by niches, intended for statues.  Thrown open, the windows flooded Rossiter's studio with natural light.

Richard Morris Hunt's watercolor rendering.  from the collection of the Library of Congress.

Interestingly, Dr. Eleazer Parmly, unlike Rossiter, refused to pay Hunt for the supervisory portion of the project.  Hunt finally sued the dentist and won.  Later, in 1896, Engineering Magazine would credit Hunt's lawsuit for establishing "a uniform system of charges by percentage."

In his new mansion and studio, Rossiter began work on large canvases, including George Washington and Family, Washington and Lafayette at Mount Vernon, and Washington and His First Cabinet.  As part of his research for those works, in June 1858 he traveled to Mount Vernon.

Rossiter completed Washington and Lafayette at Mount Vernon 1784 in his 38th Street studio in 1859.  from the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art

The West 38th Street mansion was filled with antiques.  The Springfield Weekly Republican would later recount,

There were large objects of furniture, such as an oak altar-piece, an oaken buffet of the 14th century, and a sarcophagus of the same age, all quaintly carved with elfish heads, figures of animals, flowers and clusters of fruit.  Also a 13th century armoire, or sideboard, ornamented with Byzantine carving.

In 1860, Thomas Rossiter married Mary Sterling, known as Mollie.  The family moved to Cold Spring, New York and Rossiter's brother-in-law, Ehrick Parmly, moved his family into 11 West 38th Street. 

Born in 1830, Ehrick Parmly, like his father and brother, was a dentist.  All three shared an office at 3 Bond Street.  (David R. Parmly lived in New Jersey.)  Ehrick's wife was Lucie Dubois and the couple had a son, George Dubois, when they moved into 11 West 38th Street.  Another son, John Ehrick, was born in 1861 and a third, Dalton, in 1872.

By the time of Dalton's birth, the Parmly family had been gone from the house for about eight years.  It was now home to Israel David Salomon (who went by his middle name) and his wife, the former Henrietta Luna Hendricks.  Salomon was born in 1820 and Henrietta in 1827.  The couple was married in 1864 and moved into 11 West 38th Street.  Two sons would be born in the house, Salomon in 1865 and Sidney Hendricks two years later.

Also living with the family was David's brother, Benjamin Franklin Salomon, who was 35 years old in 1864.  A bachelor, he died on April 12, 1865.  His funeral was held in the drawing room on the 14th.

In 1870, Douw Ditmars Williamson, Jr. and his wife, the former Mary Frances Dodd, moved into the house.  Born in New York City on November 15, 1830, Williamson graduated from Peekskill Academy in 1844.  Although educated in engineering, he entered business as a clerk.  But his mundane business life turned to the stuff of pulp novels starting in 1849 when he traveled to South America.  The 1896 Genealogical Records of the Williamson Family in America recorded:

In 1851 [he] went to Panama and Ecuador; was ten days crossing the Isthmus on a mule; was with Garibaldi in Havana when Crittenden and his filibusters were shot, and was followed by soldiers, day and night, on his return home.

Back in New York, Williamson married Mary Dodd on November 1, 1853.  The couple would adopt George Norman Williamson, the infant son of Douw's brother, Nicholas.  Then, in 1863, they adopted the Cornelia Bodwell, the infant daughter of Mary's sister, Abby Lyman Dodd Bodwell.

In the meantime, Williamson and his brother, Nicholas, founded the Novelty Rubber Co.  Douw Williamson was, as well, an inventor and in 1870 designed an improved traction engine and a steam plow.

Douw Ditmars Williamson, Jr., from the collection of the Century Association.

Despite his swashbuckling past, the Century Association described Douw D. Williamson as "of a retiring, quiet disposition."  Ever expanding his resume, in 1875, he established a chemical works in Long Island City.

The new St. Patrick's Cathedral opened on May 25, 1879.  Its architect, James Renwick, Jr., immediately began designing the archbishop's residence and rectory at the southwest corner of Madison Avenue and 51st Street.  In the meantime, the archdiocese leased the former Williamson mansion.  Four years later, on April 25, 1882, the New York Herald reported, "The new residence of Cardinal McCloskey, which stands back to back with the Cathedral...is very nearly ready to be occupied."  

Cardinal John McCloskey.  from the collection of the New York Public Library

Born in March 1810, Cardinal John McCloskey was appointed the second archbishop of New York by Pope Pius IX on May 6, 1864.  At the time of the New York Herald's article, McCloskey was in ill health.  It explained, "it is said that the Cardinal will not move until his health is better.  His home is at present at 11 West Thirty-eighth street, from which the furniture is now being removed."

Next to occupy the mansion was lace importer Richard Muser and his wife, Cecelia.  On January 4, 1885, The New York Times reported that a defective flue in the basement had started a fire in the house.  It resulted in $500 worth of damages, or about $16,800 in 2026.  On August 13, 1893, The New York Times reported that three days earlier Richard Muser's body had been discovered "at the lodge gate of his Summer home at Suffern, N.Y., with two bullet holes in his head."  The newspaper said there were "divided opinions as to the cause of his death."

The Musers had left West 38th Street several years earlier.  By 1889, No. 11 was home to John O. Donner, his wife, the former Mary Elizabeth Van Arsdale, and their teenaged daughter.  The New York Times described Donner as a "prominent and wealthy man, connected with Havemeyer & Elder in the sugar business."  The family's country estate was in Ramsey, New Jersey.

Mary Donner was experiencing health issues at the time, and on July 17, 1889 she sailed to Europe for treatment.  Accompanying her was her daughter; Mary's physician, Dr. Ruppaner; a nurse; a governess; and the daughter of Marshall T. Davison (apparently as a companion of the Donners' daughter).  The doctor left the party in Vienna and they traveled on to San Remo, Italy.

In February 1890, John O. Donner received a cable informing him that Mary was "in a critical condition," as reported by The New York Times.  He sailed on the steamer Zoller on February 26.  On March 1, The New York Times reported that a cablegram from San Remo announced the death of Mary Elizabeth Van Arsdale Donner.  The article said, "He will not hear of her death, therefore, until he arrives in Europe."

The West 38th Street residence next became home to Elbert Ellery Anderson and his family.  Born in 1833, he was the son of Henry James Anderson, a renowned professor of mathematics and astronomy, the grandson of librettist Lorenzo Da Ponte (who brought Italian opera to America), and a descendant of Founding Father William Ellery, from whom Elbert got his middle name.  As a teen, Elbert accompanied his father on a Dead Sea expedition.  He famously carved his name "E. E. Anderson" onto the wall of the Temple of Abu Simbel, which is visible today.

Elbert Ellery Anderson (original source unknown)

Anderson served in the Civil War, after which he began his law practice.  In 1887, President Grover Cleveland tasked him to investigate the Union Pacific and Central Pacific Railways.  He and his wife, the former Augusta Chauncey, had two children, Henry James and Peter Chauncey.

Peter Chauncey married May Ogden and brought his bride to live in the West 38th Street mansion.  Their daughter, May Ellery, was born in 1891.  The little girl died at the age of 10 on November 9, 1901 and her funeral was held in the house two days later.

On February 24, 1903, The Chicago Tribune reported that Elbert E. Anderson "went to a matinée with his eldest son on Monday afternoon and spent the evening with his family.  About 5:30 this morning Mrs. Anderson heard him call for assistance.  He was almost unconscious when she reached his bedside, and he died in a few minutes."

Anderson's funeral was too large to hold in the house.  It was held in the Church of the Transfiguration on February 27.  Within the church were judges, politicians, and military figures.  The New-York Tribune reported that his estate "would probably be found to be nearly $1,000,000."  (That figure would translate to about $36.8 million today.) 

Peter Chauncey Anderson and his family remained in the house until 1912, when it and the neighborhood mansions were demolished to make way for the Lord & Taylor department store building, completed in 1914.

photograph by Jim Henderson

The 1928 248 West 17th Street

 

The block of West 17th Street between Seventh and Eighth Avenues had become noticeably commercial by the post-World War I years.  Many of the houses and flat buildings had been replaced with warehouses and factories.  But in 1928, David M. Fink and his newly formed 350 West 17th Street Realty Corp. bucked the trend by demolishing the old building at 248-250 West 17th Street (formerly occupied by the West Side Trucking Company) and erecting a six-story apartment building.

The architects, Springsteen & Goldhammer, leaned into the nation's current love affair with Tudor architecture.  Around the country, suburban neighborhoods saw charming, fairytale-like cottages and regal mansions that echoed British country homes.  Urban architects, like Springsteen & Goldhammer, modified the style to adapt to city living.

The off-set arched entrance was framed in cast stone that crept east to partially embrace a charming arched window.  Faced in variegated Flemish bond brick, the building blended modern elements, like multi-paned casement windows, with picturesque historic details.  Above the second floor were two cornices atop attractive arched corbel tables.  A three-story projecting bay with a peaked gable and rusticated brickwork recalled 16th century sentry towers.  A cast stone ledge with corbels fronted a large, arched window at the sixth floor.  Above it was a prominent decorative pediment supported by sturdy brackets.  Springsteen & Goldhammer covered parts of the upper bays with white stucco.  The straight parapet along the roofline was interrupted at the east by a taller, peaked section.

In 1940, the casements, most of the stucco, the cast stone ornaments of the sixth floor, and the roofline were intact.  via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services.

Interestingly, three of the original residents--Harry A. Dooley, Evilio Brito, and "a rather mysterious blond woman"--would be involved in mysterious deaths, and all of them unwittingly.

Although Prohibition was still in effect, on Saturday night August 31, 1931 Evilio Brito attended "a drinking party" at the apartment of Dr. William F. Hurst at 410 West 58th Street.  Along with Brito and Hurst, there were two other men.  The bootleg gin they were drinking was apparently strong.  At one point, according to Brito, Dr. Hurst attempted to "leave the apartment in his underwear," but the other men constrained him.

The next afternoon, detectives knocked on Brito's apartment door and questioned him about the puzzling death of his friend.  Just before noon, Hurst's neighbors complained that his radio had been playing loudly since the previous night.  When he did not answer his telephone, building employees entered the apartment.  The 30-year-old doctor's body was found "slumped upon a settee," according to The New York Times, with "both hands fastened behind his back by a knotted towel."

Brito said that when he and another of the guests, a soldier named Jack, left the party, Hurst was alive.  Police reported that there had been no attempt at robbery, since $126 in cash and Hurst's expensive watch and cufflinks were undisturbed.  A medical examiner ruled that the cause of death was a "cerebral hemorrhage."  That did not narrow down the mystery, however.  He said the hemorrhage could have "been induced by alcoholism, a fall, or a blow."  It did not explain Hurst's wrists being bound, either.  In the end, Evilio Brito was cleared of suspicion and the bizarre mystery was never solved.

The following year, Harry A. Dooley went to Niagara Falls over the Fourth of July holiday.  He was taking in the views above the Horseshoe Falls when a man removed his topcoat, laid it on the ground along with his walking stick and hat, and climbed the guardrail.  Dooley and a park ranger "called to him, but in vain," reported The New York Times, which added, "the body was quickly swept" away.

Documents in the man's coat identified him as Nikolai Semenoff, a dancer in the Russian Ballet under the Imperial Government.  Since the Russian Revolution, he had been a member of Sergei Diaghilev's troupe.  His friends told authorities the overwhelming obvious.  They "expressed the belief that he had gone to Niagara Falls to end his life," said that article.

In 1934, police were attempting to find the "mysterious blond woman" who often visited newlyweds Agnes Tulfverson and Ivan Poderjay at 235 East 22nd Street.  Authorities said that the woman, who lived here, "called herself Ponderjay's sister-in-law."  She was wanted for questioning in the supposed murder of Agnes Tulfverson Poderjay.  On December 20, 1933, three weeks after their wedding, the couple sailed to Europe on their honeymoon.  Agnes never made it there and her body was never discovered.  Also missing was the "mysterious blond woman."  The New York Sun reported on June 23, 1934 that detectives "found that she had moved from her last known address at 248 West Seventeenth street."

The anti-Communist paranoia in the 1940s and '50s was called the Red Scare.  It prompted the Congressional Special Committee on Un-American Activities to monitor and list Americans who registered as Communists or who voted for Communist Party candidates.  Every year from 1940 through 1944, residents Leo and Lillian Bergman, who lived here, appeared on that list.

Among the Bergmans' neighbors in the building was Leona Finestone.  The unmarried woman worked in an office conveniently just two blocks away at 205 West 19th Street.  She had just entered the lobby on the morning of May 13, 1943 when a "tall and heavily built" tough grabbed her handbag.  The 25-year-old screamed and her assailant "hurled the pocketbook at her head and, when it missed, began to beat her with his fists," reported The New York Times.

Undeterred, Leona Finestone followed him out of the building screaming.  John Bunch, who was 19 years old, pulled out a pocketknife and slashed her across the face.  Leona's screams attracted a group of men who captured Bunch after a block-long chase.  The bloodstained knife was in his pocket.

Leona faced her attacker during his sentencing before Judge James Garrott Wallace on November 5.  The jurist did not hold back in his disdain of Bunch, telling the teen, "In some parts of this country you would have been hung from a lamppost with several bullets in you for attacking a woman like that."  Bunch was sentenced to five to ten years in State Prison.

Another teen victimized two residents of 248 West 17th Street in 1966.  Mary Gartner, who had never married, was 71 years old and shared an apartment with her widowed sister, Amelia Fitzgibbon, who was 70.  Luckily, the women carefully put a chain on their door when they were at home.  At around 9:45 on the morning of July 21, someone tried to get in the door, but the chain held.  The voice from the hall threated to kill the women.  One of the sisters slammed the door and called the superintendent, who in turn called police.  

In the meantime, 18-year-0ld Gilbert Serrano went to the roof and down the fire escape.  He entered the sisters' apartment through the bathroom window.  Police arrived in time and Serrano was arrested, but not before he suffered a bullet wound in the leg.

A renovation begun in 2001 included the "rebuilding" of the parapet.  It was most likely at the same time that the casement windows were replaced, the remaining stucco removed, and the sixth floor ornaments taken down.  To the architect's credit, the remodeled parapet sympathetically adheres to Springsteen & Goldhammer's original theme, and even the brick color was carefully matched.

photographs by the author

The Max and Betty Greene Mansion - 53 East 91st Street

photograph by Jim Henderson

Andrew Carnegie, perhaps, surprised his peers when he broke ground in 1899 for a sumptuous palace surrounded by gardens on Fifth Avenue between 91st and 92nd Streets, at least 20 blocks above the northern fringe of the mansion district.  Anticipating the neighborhood's transformation from undeveloped plots and modest houses into one of the most exclusive residential districts in the city, Max and Betty Greene began buying up property.  On a single day, for instance, on May 2, 1903, the Record & Guide reported that Max had purchased the property at 53 East 91st Street, and Betty had bought two vintage houses across the street at 56 and 58 East 91st Street.

In 1907, the couple hired architect Edward I. Shire to alter No. 53 and the abutting house at 55 East 91st Street into a single structure.  Perhaps drawing inspiration from the Carnegie mansion one-and-a-half blocks away at 2 East 91st Street, Shire designed the Greenes' 32-foot-wide home in the neo-Georgian style.  

Completed in 1908, the 14-room mansion was faced in red brick (laid in a unique version of running bond) and trimmed in marble.  A sweeping stoop spilled from the doorway, which was flanked by leaded sidelights and crowned with an ornate fanlight.  The stepped lintels of the parlor floor, the layered keystones of the third, and the regal balustrade atop the cornice were all hallmarks of the style.  Less expected, however, was the picturesque oriel at the second floor, with its multi-paned sashes.

photo by Wurts Bros. from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York

Six years after moving in, Max and Betty Greene hired architect Herbert M. Baer to enlarge the house by adding a single-story extension to the rear.  They sold the mansion to George Oliver May and and his wife, the former Edith Mary Slocome, sometime before 1925.

Both George and Edith were born in England in 1875.  They were married in Exeter, England on New Years Day 1902.  That year George was made a partner in Jones, Caesar & Co. (later Price Waterhouse & Co.) and the couple moved to New York City.  George became a senior partner in Price Waterhouse in 1911.

During the first World War, George was an official within the United States Treasury Department and the War Trade Board.  When the family moved into 53 East 91st Street, he was still a senior partner at Price Waterhouse.  He and Edith had three children: Edith Claire, born in 1906; Oliver, born in 1908; and Mary Barbara, who arrived four years later.  The family's country home, Brimley, was in Southport, Connecticut.

George Oliver May, via the American Accounting Association

In addition to his pastime of studying history and linguistics, George collected old English silver.  Edith was an amateur horticulturist and the Connecticut estate gave her ample opportunity to indulge in her hobby.  The New York Times said that she was "a frequent exhibitor in local and national flower shows."

Edith Claire was introduced to society in the winter season of 1925-26.  Among the events was a luncheon her mother hosted at Pierre's for 53 of "this and last season's débutantes," according to The New York Times on December 5, 1925.  The surnames of the socially elite young women in the room included Van Rensselaer, Phipps, Belmont, Flagler, Fahnestock, Gallatin, and Whitney.

Edith Claire's engagement to Burton Wakeman Taylor in February 1928 was "of interest to a wide circle of friends abroad as well as here," as described by The New York Times.  The following year, on May 12, 1929, the newspaper reported that the "details have been completed" for the wedding.  The ceremony would be held in Trinity Church in Southport, Connecticut on June 1.  The article said that Mary Barbara would be maid of honor and the reception would be held "at Brimley, the country home of Mr. and Mrs. May in Southport."

Oliver May graduated from the Sheffield Scientific School at Yale in 1930.  Mary Barbara's debut into society came in the winter social season of 1931-32.  

In February 1932, Edith May was hospitalized and she died there on February 15.  Her funeral was held in Trinity Church in Southport, where Edith Claire had been married three years earlier.

The eight-over-eight double-hung windows of the upper floors survived in 1941.  via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services.

On October 3, 1944, The New York Times reported that George Oliver May had sold 53 East 91st Street to Phil Baker, "a stage and radio star."  Born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in 1896, Baker began his career in vaudeville at the age of 19.  By the time he and his actress wife, Irmgard, purchased the East 91st Street mansion, he was a household name.  Baker was the host of the radio game show Take it or Leave It, had his own radio series The Armour Jester, and appeared in the musical The Gang's All Here with Carmen Miranda in 1943.

Phil Baker, from the collection of the New York Public Library

Baker was formerly married to silent movie actress Peggy Cartright, who had a leading role in the Our Gang series before talkies.  The couple, who had three children together, were divorced in 1941.

In March 1946, a journalist from The New York Times visited Phil Baker here.  In describing the mansion, he commented, "A Hollywood set pales into drab insignificance by comparison."  During the interview, Baker told him that his success in radio and his magnificent residence "should make me a very happy man, but I'm not."  He confessed, "I would like to be an actor...I love the radio very much, and being a quiz master is out of this world; you meet every shade of person.  But I miss the theater."

And so, it was not surprising that later that year, in September, Baker gave a one-year lease to the mansion to the Provisional Government of the Republic of France.  The New York Times reported, "The Ambassador's staff and members of his family expect to arrive in New York About Sept. 23 to take up residence there."

On February 14, 1948, Winthrop Rockefeller, son of financier John D. Rockefeller Jr. and Abby Aldrich Rockefeller, married actress Jievute "Bobo" Paulekiute.  Their son, Winthrop Paul, was born on September 17, 1948, and two years later the couple separated.  John A. Kirk, in his Winthrop Rockefeller, From New Yorker to Arkasawyer, 1912-1956, writes that Rockefeller leased 53 East 91st Street for Bobo and his son "from April 6 through to the end of September [1950]" for $7,000.  The figure would translate to $91,200 in 2026.  Kirk writes, "He also offered to pay for Win Paul's nurse, his medical expenses, and his bodyguard."

The following year, in March 1951, Phil Baker sold 53 East 91st Street to Oscar and Babette Block Serlin.  Baker and Serlin assuredly knew one another from the entertainment business.

Oscar Serlin was born in 1901 in Poland and arrived in the United States at the age of nine.  He began producing plays and his first Broadway production was the 1929 comedy Broken Dishes.   It was not only his Broadway debut, but that of his star, the fledgling actress Bette Davis.

Newcomer Bette Davis and Donald Meek on stage in Oscar Serlin's 1929 Broken Dishes.  Theatre Magazine, January 1930 (copyright expired)

Serlin's great success came with Life With Father, which opened in 1939 and became the longest running Broadway show of all time until The Phantom of the Opera.  (Life With Father still holds the title of the longest running non-musical play on Broadway.)  In 1932 Serlin signed a contract with Paramount Pictures and headed that studio's Eastern talent department for five years.  The New York Times would later say, "He was credited with sending Cary Grant, Fred MacMurray and Dorothy Lamour to Hollywood, and had participated in the hunt for a Scarlett O'Hara for the film version of 'Gone with the Wind.'"  Oscar retired in 1951, the year he and Babette purchased 53 East 91st Street.  

Following what The New York Times called "a long illness," Oscar Serlin died in the East 91st Street house on February 27, 1971 at the age of 70.  

At the time, the Dalton School had occupied the mansion next door at 61 East 91st Street for seven years.  In 1978, the institution acquired 53 East 91st Street and combined the two buildings internally.  Two additional floors were added to the joined structures.   The school continues to occupy the property.

photograph by Jim Henderson

The 1867 Emilie Steinbach House - 106 East 10th Street

 

photograph by the author

In 1867, developer James Mulry completed construction of three identical homes at 106 through 110 East 10th Street on land leased from the Stuyvesant estate.  Designed by D. & J. Jardine, the brick-faced homes rose four floors above rusticated brownstone basements.  

A bit more strait-laced than many upscale Italianate-style rowhouses at the time, these were proper and restrained.  At the parlor level, where some architects placed full-height parlor windows fronted with lacy cast iron balconies, the Jardines' windows sat upon brownstone panels.  And rather than the elaborate foliate brackets and arched pediments above other Italianate-style entranceways, these houses received straightforward cornices.

More expected of the style, the brownstone lintels of the windows were capped with handsome molded cornices atop foliate brackets, and each house wore individual Italianate cornices with fussy leafy corbels.

James Mulry initially leased 106 East 10th Street to Pedro San Juan, who operated a "segar" business on East 14th Street.  Then, in 1871, Emilie (know familiarly as Emma) Steinbach, the widow of Christian Steinbach, leased the house.  Moving in with her was her adult son, Albert.  Like most of her neighbors, Emilie took in select boarders.  In 1873, for instance, William D. Nichols, an iron dealer, and a woman who called herself Madame Selby (despite her being English), boarded here.

On March 9, 1873, Madame Selby placed an unusual notice in the New York Herald:

An English lady of experience, about returning to France, where she has resided many years, would take with her several young ladies desiring a finished education in music or the fine arts, offering them every comfort and elegant society, as she is highly connected in the artistic world.  For particulars, please call from 2 to 4 P.M. or address Mme. Selby, 106 East Tenth street, New York.

Later that year, Albert Steinbach was the victim of an 18-year-old thief and presumably was forced to come home in the winter air without a coat.  On December 14, The New York Times reported that John D. Ricco had been arraigned "for stealing a coat and scarf, valued at $23, from Albert Steinback [sic], of No. 106 East Tenth street."  (The cost of the pricey garments would translate to about $625 in 2026 terms.)

Popular actor Edward Job Arnott and his wife, Emma Elizabeth Champness, were members of Wallack's Theatre troupe.  They were married in June 1874 and engaged rooms from Emilie Steinbach.  (Arnott failed to tell his bride that he had earlier abandoned his wife, also named Emma, and their two children in England in 1873.)  Theirs would not be an idyllic marriage.  On November 25, 1877, the New York Herald reported that Emma had begun divorce proceedings, charging in part that Edward "so ill-treated deponent and struck her so often again that [she] could not live with him."  Moreover, she accused him of having "carnal connection" with Rose Lyle "at divers times and places" and with other unnamed women.

The handsome leading man was a scoundrel off stage.  from the archives of The Lambs

In court, Edward Arnott coldly testified that he had never been married to Emma and "never agreed or contemplated a marriage with her."  Importantly, he said, "I was already a married man, and told her so in the early days of our acquaintance."  

Unfortunately for Emma Arnott, the judge ruled, "I must exercise my discretion by denying the present application."  Edward Arnott, while continuing his successful acting career, went on have additional bigamous marriages and scandals.

Around 1881, James Mulry leased the house to J. C. Ketcham.  The banker was highly involved in the Royal Arcanum, a fraternal organization.  On December 16, 1883, The New York Times reported on the meeting of the club at its Council Room on East 15th Street.  "At the close of the meeting a collation was provided at the house of Treasurer Ketcham, No. 106 East Tenth-street," said the article.

Ketcham and his family left in 1886, after which Mulry leased the house to Kate E. Wagner.  She sublet it to a "Mrs. Wenreth" who operated it as a boarding house.

Among her first boarders was Charles M. Plumb, the organizing secretary of The Central Committee for Protecting & Perpetuating the Separation of Church & State.  The group was formed by citizens concerned about the erosion of the Founding Fathers' principle.

Edward Arnott's messy divorce hearing had been the only taint to the respectable reputation of 106 East 10th Street until the arrest of 23-year-old Charles Deira on May 18, 1896.  At 3:00 that morning, S. P. Benedict, who lived at 61 Charles Street, awoke to see Deira standing by his bed.  The Sun reported, "Benedict demanded what he was doing there, and sprang out of bed."

"I'm in the wrong house, I guess," said Deira.  "I thought this was 61 Perry street."

Benedict spat, "I don't believe you."

"You must excuse me.  I made a mistake a block," said Deira and he rushed out of the house.  Because he was in his night clothes, Benedict did not follow.  However, the sight of a man running down Charles Street at 3:00 in the morning raised the suspicions of a policeman.  Deira was arrested and charged with attempted burglary.  The Sun said, "He entered Benedict's house by means of a skeleton key."

More than 30 years after he constructed 106 East 10th Street, James Mulry's estate sold it at auction to Frederick Henssler on January 19, 1899.  Henssler paid the equivalent of $238,000 in today's money.

 

Shortly afterward, Herman A. Fisher, his wife and daughter, rented rooms here.  Fisher was the treasurer of William Wicke & Co., a maker of cigar boxes and cigar ribbons.  On the night of November 20, 1900, Francis Dillon was walking along 164th Street in the Bronx when he came across a man lying in a vacant lot "with a bullet hole in his right temple," as reported by The New York Times.  It was 40-year-old Herman Fisher.  The New-York Tribune noted, "The police believe the man committed suicide."

The following year, resident E. C. Curtis, who was a paperhanger, experienced what could be described only as a wild ride.  He was removed from the house in an ambulance on the night of May 18, 1901, after he "became suddenly ill from kidney trouble," according to the New-York Tribune.  At the corner of 21st Street and Second Avenue, the ambulance was blocked by a lumber truck and so the driver "steered the horse on the sidewalk."  Curtis's ride to the hospital became violent.

The ambulance swung from side to side as it went up and then down the curb, and the reins broke.  The driver picked them up, and had to reach away out of the wagon to hold them.  He drove as fast as the horse could go.  The horse knew the way, and dashed through the gateway of Bellevue so fast that the traces [the straps that connected the horse to the ambulance] broke.

In December 1904, Frederick Henssler leased 106 East 10th Street to Rosetta Hertz, who continued to lease rented rooms within the house.  Although never converted to apartments, the owner was given a violation in 1937 for operating a "multiple dwelling."

Little changed on the outside, today the handsome structure is a single family home.

The 1912 Passavant Building - 440 Park Avenue South

 

Once lined with aristocratic mansions, by the first years of the 20th century, Park Avenue was bustling with commerce and traffic.  In 1911, the estate of Willard Parker sold the 90 x 100 foot property at the southwest corner of Fourth Avenue (renamed Park Avenue South in 1959) and East 30th Street.  The newly-formed No. 440 Fourth Avenue Company hired the architectural firm of Cross & Cross to design a 16-story commercial structure on the site.

The building went up with lightning speed.  The architects filed plans on February 16, 1912, and the construction was completed on December 1.   Costing $500,000 to erect (about $16.7 million in 2026), Cross & Cross designed the structure in the Academic Classicism (sometimes called Academic Classical) style.  

The stately four-story base was distinguished by monumental, three-story fluted Corinthian pilasters.  Renaissance-inspired terra cotta panels of torches and shields separated the openings of the fourth floors.  The brick-faced midsection, or shaft, was unadorned; while a triple-height Corinthian colonnade at the top section echoed ancient Greek prototypes.

photograph by Wurts Bros. from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York

Before the first shovel broke ground for the building, the owners had signed a lease for its major tenant.  On March 23, 1912, in reporting that construction contracts had been signed, the Real Estate Record & Builders' Guide noted, "It will be known as the Passavant Building."  

Passavant & Co. would occupy the basement and first through sixth floors.  In its December 1912 issue, The American Silk Journal commented, "The new building is a fitting monument to the great success which Passavant & Co. have obtained in the various mercantile fields which they are engaged in through their importing and commission business."  The article noted, "the builders have produced a magnificent structure which stands for the very latest word in modern office and loft building."

Founded on June 1, 1853 by Gebrüder Passavant on Broad Street, the commission firm dealt in "silks, ribbons, velvets, dress goods and other branches of foreign and domestic dry goods," according to The American Silk Journal.  The article mentioned, "The ten upper floors of the building are being rented to firms in the silk trade for lofts, offices and showrooms."

Among the other initial tenants were James H. Moffett & Co., importers of knit goods; the importing and commission house of Boessneck, Broesel & Co.; linen merchant Henry W. A. Page; and importer Remy, Schmidt & Pleissner.  The latter firm leased additional space in the building in March 1913, just a year after moving in.

Henry W. A. Page was described by The Evening World as a "wealthy, eccentric linen merchant."  When he relocated his business into the Passavant Building in January 1913, he was already in trouble with the Government.  His problems started in 1907 when his wife sued him for divorce.  When she was successful, Page railed that the courts were corrupt and pushed the United States Congress to investigate the New York judiciary.  When his appeals were ignored, he "made a bitter attack by letter on Chairman [Henry De Lamar] Clayton and other members of the Judiciary Committee," according to The New York Times.  He called Clayton and the House Committee "crooks."

Page was indicted and extradited to Washington to stand trial for criminal libel.  He was convicted and sentenced to five years imprisonment and a $1,000 fine.  But, reported The New York Times, "he was permitted to leave town on parole after promising to refrain from making attacks on public officers."

That promise turned out to be too difficult for Page to keep.  In May 1913, he sent a 113-page letter "by express" to President Woodrow Wilson, "asking for Executive assistance to right wrongs" which he had suffered by the New York State court and Government officials.  The Department of Justice responded by issuing a warrant for his arrest.

The wealthy businessman went on the lam.  On May 23, 1913, The Evening World reported that Secret Service men had gone to his office in the Passavant Building the previous night, saying, "employees of the building told them that Page had not been around for more than a week."  At the New York Athletic Club, where Page lived, they were told that he had left "early this week without giving any hint of his destination."  The Secret Service traced his baggage to Grand Central.  The Evening World said that the agents discovered that Page had gone either to Boston or Canada, "with the intention of sailing for England."  The New York Times noted, "the doors of his office were found locked, though it was said that employes [sic] had been carrying on the business in his absence."

It appeared that Page had successfully escaped capture.  But the firebrand could not contain his ire.  On March 1, 1914, The New York Times reported that members of the Diplomatic Corps had received letters "attacking President Wilson."  Sent from Seattle, they said in part that Wilson had "hired assassins to arrest him--presumably detectives obeying the order of the court."

In the meantime, a tenant definitely not part of the silk or textile industries at the time was the General Film Company.  The firm supplied silent movies to theaters.  In the spring of 1913, reels of film began disappearing and within 10 months, according to The New York Times, it "has lost films worth $150,000."  

A break in the mysterious case came early in January 1914 when a messenger boy told Harry Buxbaum, manager of General Film Company, that one of the company's movies was being shown in a theater on Second Avenue.  The Improved Film Company supplied that theater with films.  Detectives trailed a messenger boy from that firm to the Passavant Building.  They stopped George Brown as he left the building "with four films under his arms," reported The New York Times.  The well-planned scheme devised by Samuel Marcusson, the head of Improved Film Company, quickly unraveled.

Marcusson paid Brown and Martin Hilbert, an 18-year-old stock room boy, $2 and $3 each to purloin films.  Marcusson then presented himself as an agent of General Film Company to the various theaters' management.  At Marcusson's business, detectives discovered 47 General Film Company reels.  They were a fraction of the estimated 250 reels that had been stolen in the past year.  Marcusson pleaded guilty in court on March 16 and was sentenced to six months in prison.

Perhaps the first publishing firm to lease space in the building was Condé Nast & Co., publisher of Vogue magazine, which took the entire 10th floor in August 1915.  It was the scene of a bizarre accident a year later.  On October 31, 1916, the New-York Tribune reported that about six girls had worked overtime the previous evening.  "It was noticeably warm in the office.  One after another, and then in pairs, the girls tugged at the big window."  Unable to open it, they telephoned the building's office and Frank Mather, a porter, came up.

Mather tugged and tugged and finally the sash gave way.  But in doing so, the porter plunged out of the window.  A few seconds later, the automatic sprinklers in the Johnson, Cowdin & Co., ribbon manufacturers, triggered.  That initiated a response by the fire department.  

When firefighters arrived, they could find no blaze, although Johnson, Cowdin & Co. was being flooded.  The New-York Tribune wrote, "Some of the 'Vogue' girls, who had run screaming to the street, helped to solve the mystery."  They told the responders that Frank had fallen from the window.  "It must have killed him," they said.

The firefighters climbed to the roof of the single-story extension behind the building and discovered Mather unconscious, but not dead.  He had landed on the wire grating that protected the automatic sprinkler plug, "turning on water, fire alarm and burglar alarm," said the article.  Miraculously, the 47-year-old Mather survived the fall, although his condition was deemed serious.

Joining Condé Nast & Co. in the building were the publishing firms The Horseless Age and Hubbell-Leavens Company.  With America's entry into World War I, Hubbell-Leavens published Conspiracies In America in 1917.  Among the 17 chapter titles were "Germany Intermeddling with Mexican Affairs," "Germany's Spy System and Vandalism," and "America's Duty to Civilization."

Ironically, at the same time, Hans Jacobson was employed by the Audiger & Meyer Silk Company in the building.  The New-York Tribune explained on August 2, 1918, he had worked for the firm "since he came to this country from Germany, seven years ago."  The article said that Jacobson and a cohort had been arrested for conducting espionage for the Germany Government.  Both men confessed and revealed the complex details of their activities.

The building continued to house, mainly, publishing and silk firms.  Occupying space in the 1920s, for instance, were the Falcon Silk Company, the Roosevelt Silk Mills Corp., and silk merchants Ressell & Co.  Passavant & Co. remained here at least through 1929.

The 1930s saw more publishing companies in the Passavant Building: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.; Howe Publishing; and C. S. Hammond & Co., publishers of maps.  William Ogden Wiley was president of John Wiley & Sons, Inc., founded by his great-grandfather, Charles Wiley, in 1807.  William had been with the firm since 1890 and would become president in 1941.  William Ogden Wiley retired in 1956, but remained the honorary chairman of the firm until his death at 95 on January 15, 1958.

Appleton-Century-Crofts Publishing moved into the building around 1970.  Specializing in educational books, among its releases that year were Victorian Poets and Prose Writers, The American Novel Through Henry James, and Romantic Poets and Prose Writers.  The firm was acquired by Prentice-Hall in 1973, but retained its name and was still in the building as late as 2013.

Another long-lasting tenant was Dramatist Play Service, Inc., which moved in around 1995.  Established in 1936, it handles acting editions and performance rights of plays and remains in the building.

Cross & Cross's Passavant Building has been hailed by architectural critics throughout the decades.  Happily, renovations to the entrance and storefronts have not greatly altered the structure's appearance, and the heroic fluted pilasters still stand untouched.

photographs by the author