345-347 East Ninth Street

In the 1850s, waves of European immigrants began changing the demographics and personality of the East Village.  To accommodate the exploding population, tenements and flat buildings replaced private homes.  As early as 1853, a four-story flat-and-store occupied 250-252 Ninth Street (renumbered 345-347 East 9th Street in 1868) just west of First Avenue.  An early example of Italianate design, the upper floors were faced in red brick.  At street level, the centered entrance was flanked by two wooden storefronts.  Cast sills and corniced-lintels decorated the upper openings (other than the smaller, hallway windows in the center).  The edifice was capped with an elaborate pressed metal cornice.  Its fascia was decorated with unusual, embossed imitation blocks; and a host of scrolled brackets crowded one another to uphold the cornice.

The building was a "double flat," meaning that there apartments on either side of a centered hallway--two each, front and back, in this instance.  The professions of the tenants reflected their working class status.  In 1853, they included a marble cutter, a painter, two coachmen, an ostler (or stable hand), and an upholster.  The surnames of the residents in 1855 were mostly Irish, including Kelly, McCarthy, O'Brien, O'Reilly, and O'Shea.  Downstairs, one of the shops was occupied by James Mewkill, a "paperstainer," or maker of wallpapers.  He lived rather inconveniently far away at 234 West 27th Street.

Women and children worked to augment the families' income, as reflected in the "situations wanted" pages of local newspapers.  One, on March 12, 1856, read: "Wanted--A situation, by a young woman, as chambermaid and waiter, or to do general housework in a small private family.  Can be seen for two days, if not engaged, at 250 9th st., between 1st and 2d avenues, third floor, front room."  And the following year, on April 27, an ad in the New York Daily Herald said, "A most respectable young woman wishes a situation as chambermaid and waitress or [to] take care of children and do plain sewing."

Around 1862, Arthur Carey opened his boot and shoe making business in one of the shops and moved his family into an apartment upstairs.  Late on the night of May 18, 1866, two burglars broke into Carey's shop "by bursting in the front door," as reported by the New York Dispatch.  They gathered up $26 worth of goods and attempted to escape, but were seen by passersby who chased them.  The article said that the thieves, "dropped their plunder and fled."  Officer Callery, who had just gotten off duty and was on his way home, "joined the chase, and fired three shots at one of the thieves."  One shot hit George McGrath's hip, ending his flight.  

McGrath was taken to the 17th Street precinct station where a surgeon was sent for to treat his wound.  A search found a table knife hidden in one of his sleeves and a lock-pick in the other.  Had McGrath and his accomplices successfully made off with the shoes and boots, the value of their booty would would translate to about $530 in 2026 terms.  Instead, McGrath, who was refused bail, faced serious consequences.  Two weeks later, on June 5, he faced a judge.  The New York Herald reported that he "pleaded guilty to an attempt and was sentenced to one year's imprisonment in the Penitentiary."

Arthur Carey remained in the space at least through 1870.  It was possible that two of his neighbors in the building worked for him.  Both Leonard Kantz and Charles Koener listed their professions as "shoemaker."  Other residents that year were George Johnson, a "seaman;" George Tugman, who drove a wagon; and James Shaw, a laborer.  Shaw was typical of the hard working residents.  Born in County Down, Ireland in 1830, he died on April 13, 1872 at just 42 years old.  His funeral was held in the family's apartment here.

In 1873, the stores were occupied by a fish and oyster market and a butcher shop.  The latter was operated by Abraham Altheimer, who moved his operation here from Avenue C.  That year the owner of other store closed.  His advertisement in the New York Herald on November 4, 1873, read: "For Sale--Fish and oyster market, with a Horse and Wagon.  Inquire at 347 East Ninth street."

The space became home to D. C. Voss's jewelry store.  By 1876, Samuel C. Altheimer, possibly Abraham's son, had taken over the butcher shop.  He and his family lived nearby at 352 East 9th Street.  

As had been the case with Arthur Carey 12 years earlier, on the night of February 25, 1878, three thieves attempted to rob Voss's store.  And like that endeavor, they were unsuccessful.  They were hunted down and arrested a week later, on March 4, and held for trial.

The residents continued to be blue collar, listing commonplace professions like laborers and drivers.  One tenant in 1878, 16-year-old John Powers, however, had a much more unusual job.  That January, Elizabeth Cooley Ross, who was a dressmaker on Broadway, approached him with a proposition.  Her husband, Reuben Ross, operated a tea store at Third Avenue and 23rd Street.  Powers later explained that Elizabeth was jealous and suspected that her husband "was not true to his marriage vows."  She paid the teen (who looked "much older," according to The New York Times) to spy on Reuben Ross.  

Powers's covert surveillance went undetected by his quarry, but not by Joshua Davenport, who lived near the Ross tea shop.  Every time he left his home, reported The New York Times on February 1, 1878, he "noticed a strange young man standing in the doorway."  When Davenport came home for lunch on January 31, "he found as usual the stranger standing in the doorway, with his face muffled up in a woolen comforter with which he was trying to protect it from the fierce and raging storm."  Davenport had reached his breaking point.  Grabbing Powers by the collar, he demanded to know what his business was.

The New York Times reported, "The reply, which was not couched in very mild language, was to the effect that it did not concern in the least Mr. Davenport who he was or for what purpose he was there."  Davenport found Officer McKenna, who agreed that Powers was acting suspiciously and arrested him.  The next morning, Elizabeth and Reuben Ross were both summoned to court to testify about what they knew about the case.  Elizabeth admitted that the marital relations between her and Ross "were not the happiest kind," and that she had  been employing the teen for three weeks "to dog her husband's footsteps."  But before dismissing the case, Justice Smith gave the teenager some advice.  The Times said, "His Honor told him to be more careful hereafter, as his present business was not an enviable one, from the fact that he was liable to be 'thrashed' at any moment."

Two months later, the Wisenner family suffered horrific tragedy.  On May 3, 1878, the New York Herald reported, "Maggie Wisenner, two and a half years old, of No. 347 East Ninth street, was run over and instantly killed yesterday, at the corner of Eighth street and First avenue, by car No. 15 of the Crosstown line."

By 1881, a restaurant occupied one of the first floor spaces and the other was home to a cigar store.  Five years later, while the cigar store was still here, the restaurant had been supplanted by Lawrence H. Metzel's fish store.  A frightening incident happened on July 24, 1886, when an oil stove "exploded," as worded by the New-York Tribune in the fish store.  The article noted, "In putting out the flames Metzel burned his hands severely."

That year, Harrison M. Hayden arrived in New York from Chicago and took an apartment here.  His residency would be very short-lived.  On September 6, 1886, The New York Times reported that Hayden, "or Harry S. Smith," had been remanded at the Jefferson Market Police Court "to await the arrival of an officer from Chicago."  While boarding at the house of H. F. Liddell there, he stole $1,200 of property "by ransacking the house," according to the charges.  He had fled to Cleveland where he committed a similar crime.  The investigation of the Chicago police let him to New York "and it was found that the thief was Hayden."

An interesting tenant signed a lease in 1900.  On March 17, The New York Times reported, "The New York Checker Club will have a 'housewarming' in its new rooms, at 347 East Ninth Street, this evening."  That night the match for the "championship of Greater New York" would be played, said the article, "and $25 a side will be placed between the first and second prize winners."  (The price money would translate to about $950 today.)  A year later, the New-York Tribune reported on the preparations for the 1901 checker championship tournament to be held here.

The building received a significant updating in the spring of 1914 when indoor plumbing was installed.  A building inspector, T. J. Donaghue, certified that a "peppermint test" had been done on the work, that included a first floor bathroom, and water closets upstairs.

The modifications were part of necessary repairs caused by a two-alarm fire on February 24.  At the time, the ground floor spaces held a saloon and a restaurant.  Describing the building  now as a "rooming house" by the New-York Tribune, the upper floors were operated by John and Edith Lemminn.  

A two-alarm fire had broken out in the building that night.  The New-York Tribune said, "There were two thrilling rescues," including three men trapped on the roof who "were hauled to safety on a clothesline."  Edith Lemminn saved her son, seven-year-old John, by carrying him out of the second floor window and carefully navigating across the sills.  Tragically, two kitchen workers in the restaurant, Ernest Schick and Adolph Erumo, were fatally burned.

The residents of 345-347 East 9th Street were predominantly honest and hard-working.  An exception was Nicholas W. Raditsky, who lived here at the time.  On September 9, 1914, he was arrested for stealing $1,462 from his employer, Gregory Kunashezsky, a steamship broker.  The New York Times explained, "The money was the price of seven steamship tickets sold on August 23, to seven German reservists."  When arrested, Radisky had the exact amount in his pocket.

Criminals would be less uncommon in the building by the Depression years.  Joseph Schmidt was 35 years old and living here when, at 10:50 on the night of May 28, 1930, he and Andrew Fidorko assaulted and robbed Harry Roman of $175 in Jamaica, Queens.  Roman telephoned a detailed description of the gunmen to police.  It triggered a cops-and-robbers type standoff only a few minutes later.  The New York Times reported,

After sixty policemen armed with machine guns, rifles and tear gas bombs had spent several hours last night maintaining a cordon around a residential block in Jamaica in an effort to trap a gunman who fired at detectives, the fugitive turned up at his East Side home at 1:45 o'clock this morning and was caught, following a chase of several blocks, during which the police fired twenty shots.  One took effect.

Joseph Smidt was hit in the back and was taken to Bellevue Hospital where his condition was deemed "not serious."

The hallway windows can be seen in this 1941 photograph and the wooden storefronts were intact.  via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services.

Another resident who ended up behind bars was Henry Fourens.  He and Jacob Goldfarb were charged with grand larceny on January 17, 1934 after they broke into about 60 parked automobiles.  In reporting the arrest, The New York Times mentioned, "A bottle of germs valued medically at $10,000, was thrown away recently as worthless by two automobile burglars who found it in a physician's car, according to detectives."

A renovation completed in 1970 resulted in just two apartments per floor and the combining of the stores.  It was most likely at this time that the former hallway windows were closed off.  In the late 1980s, the ground floor was home to The Gold Bar, described by New York Magazine on May 4, 1987 as an "intimate bar, with no sign and sparse decor."

Today a modern storefront and replacement windows testify to the late 20th century renovations.  An unattractive fire escape, installed after the fatal fire of 1914, distracts from the early flat building's design.

photographs by the author

The 1839 Thomas Macfarlan House - 102 East 10th Street

 

In 1836, Peter Gerard Stuyvesant and his sister, Elizabeth Stuyvesant Fish, established the outlines of a double-wide lot that would become 178 and 180 Tenth Street (renumbered 102 and 104 East 10th Street in 1865).  Peter Stuyvesant's long-term real estate manager was Thomas Macfarlan and that year he was assessed $4,100 on the property.  Three years later, Macfarlan received a $400 tax increase, reflecting the construction of a house at 178 Tenth Street.  It was the first dwelling to be erected on the block.

Two stories tall above a brownstone basement, the house was faced in warm, red brick and trimmed in brownstone.  It likely exhibited elements of the Federal and newer Greek Revival styles.

The house was originally rented.  Although the first family's identity is unknown, an advertisement in The Morning Courier & New-York Enquirer on June 9, 1843 hints at life inside the home:

Wanted--A respectable middle aged Protestant woman, a good Seamstress, and one who has been accustomed to the care of children, and possessing the necessary qualifications and disposition to discharge when required, the duties of a house keeper.  Apply at No. 178 Tenth street.  City references required.

The following year, in September 1844, the family was looking for another servant:

Wanted--A girl accustomed to the duties of a waiter and chambermaid, with good city recommendations, may hear of a situation by applying at 178 Tenth street.

Around 1849, a two-story office building was erected next door.  It housed Peter Gerald Stuyvesant's real estate office.  Here Stuyvesant, Thomas Macfarlan and Daniel T. Macfarlan operated.  

Daniel T. Macfarlan was Thomas's son.  Born in 1828, he married Mary Jane Merritt on November 20, 1850.  His involvement with his father's real estate business would be relatively short-lived.  He was "converted in what was known as the Dry Dock Mission," according to The Christian Advocate later, and became a Methodist minister.

With the real estate office next door, Thomas Macfarlan moved his family into 178 Tenth Street.  Mcfarlan was born in 1793.  In addition to Daniel, he and his wife had two other sons, Ebenezer and Thomas Jr.  

Shortly after moving in, Thomas Macfarlan was drawn into a heated controversary.  His father was among the patriots who had been imprisoned and died in the Livingston Sugar House--used as a prison by the British during the Revolution.  Their remains were interred in Trinity Churchyard and were threatened with removal by a proposed public street through the churchyard.  (The project was successfully blocked.)

The parlor was the scene of a funeral on February 25, 1856.  Margaret Crawford apparently lived with the family.  The 80-year-old was the widow of Thomas Crawford, Mrs. Macfarlan's brother.  The notice of her dead in the New-York Daily Tribune noted, "The relatives and friends are requested to attend her funeral from the house of her brother-in-law, Thos. Macfarlan, No. 178 tenth street, one door east of Third avenue, at 1 o'clock this afternoon."

By 1859, Thomas Jr. was working with his father and the business became T. Macfarlan & Son.  (The younger Thomas and his family lived significantly north at 132 East 53rd Street.)

Thomas Macfarlan died at the age of 73 on June 26, 1866.  Both the house and the real estate office were taken over by Charles C. Wakeley.  (Peter Gerald Stuyvesant continued to maintained his office at 104 East 10th Street as he pursued his political career.  He was elected New York Governor in 1848, senator in 1851 and United States Secretary of State in 1869.)

The Wakeley household was thrown into turmoil on November 18, 1875.  The Hudson Daily Star reported, "This morning Mary Ann Fitzmorris, aged forty-five years, a servant at No. 102 East Tenth street, drank a quantity of oxalic acid with suicidal intent."  A family member found her and two doctors were summoned to the house.  The article said, "a stomach pump was applied, and the patient at present is doing well."

On March 24, 1879, The City Record reported that Rutherford Stuyvesant had hired architects Peter T. O'Brien & Sons to "alter and enlarge the brick dwelling No. 102 East Tenth street."  (Rutherford had inherited 102 and 104 East 10th Street from Peter Gerald Stuyvesant, his great-uncle.  At the same time, he demolished the office building next door and replaced it with a house.)  The renovations to 102 East 10th Street cost Stuyvesant $1,000 (just under $32,500 in 2026asdf terms).  Included in the modifications were sheet metal cornices above the openings and a neo-Grec style cornice.

No. 102 East 10th Street became a boarding house.  Among the residents in 1884 were Joanna M. Bourke, a public school teacher; and William H. McGiven, a theatrical business manager.

In 1888, Herman S. Clark, alias Harry Johnson; and John H. Williams, alias Henry H. Williams, shared a room here.  Clark, who was 24, was an artist; and the 27-year-old Williams worked as a bookkeeper.  And they had a sideline to augment their finances.

On May 26 that year, The Evening World began an article saying, "The operations of two young men who have preyed upon the occupants of boarding-houses for some weeks were brought to an abrupt close yesterday by the arrest of the thieves."  Using 102 East 10th Street as their base of operations, the two men would engage a room in other boarding houses, ransack other boarders' rooms, then make off with the loot.  Their luck ran out when Mary A. Hogan, the proprietor of their most recent exploit, pointed them out to police officers on Lexington Avenue.  "The officers overhauled the fellows in Thirty-seventh street, near Fifth avenue, and soon had them behind the bars," said the article.

In their room on East 10th Street, police discovered pawn tickets for, "dress suits, sealskin sacques, meerschaum pipes, diamond collar buttons, and many other articles of value," reported The Sun.  Judge Martine sentenced Clark, a.k.a. Johnson, to four years in prison, and Williams to four-and-a-half.

Born in Germany, Helen Fischer lived here in 1892.  At just 18 years old, she was already noted as a singer.  She fell in love with another German immigrant, Gustave Bruder.  Then, early that summer, the young man broke up with her.  Helen was devastated and on June 2, she walked into Stuyvesant Park and shot herself in the chest.  Three weeks later, The Sun reported, "she has recovered from her injury, but is insane."  The newspaper said that the promising young singer "will be sent to the lunatic asylum on Blackwell's Island to-day."

Two years later, the residents were terrified--although they were not certain why.  On January 7, 1894, the New York Herald reported, "Boarders at No. 102 East Tenth street do not know whether it was a burglar or spook that invaded the house, rapped at doors and thumped Mr. Koeniges' head."  (It is unclear if the source of the unnerving occurrences was discovered.)

The boarders here continued to be middle-class professionals.  In 1899, George M. Silverberg was appointed a commissioner of deeds (a civil service position similar to a notary public).  He was still living here and holding the position in 1903 when another resident, Daniel Morgan, was appointed a commissioner of deeds, as well.

Mrs. Frieda McCarthy ran the boarding house in 1912.  Among her residents was Marie Fueler, who informed Mrs. McCarthy early in March that she would be sailing to Europe soon.  On the afternoon of March 11, while Mrs. McCarthy was away from the house, Marie used a skeleton key to enter her room.  She stole $60 in cash (about $2,000 today), a gold watch and chain, and five rings that Frieda McCarthy valued at $130, and then packed her bags and left.

Mrs. McCarthy notified Detective McGrath, stressing the importance of finding Marie Fueler quickly, since she had a ticket to sail on the Crown Prince Wilhelm the next day.  McGrath soon arrested her on the street not far from the East 10th Street house.  Marie admitted having taken the items, but insisted that Frieda McCarthy "owed her a large sum of money which she refused to pay."  She had merely taken the cash and valuables as partial payment, she said.  While she was in jail, the steamship left port with Marie Fueler's luggage on board.

In 1941, a laundry occupied the basement and French-style doors filled the entrance.  via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services.

By the time Louis Bass purchased 102 East 10th Street in August 1919, the New-York Tribune described it as a "two-family house."  Toward the end of the Great Depression, the basement was converted to commercial use, and in the early 1940s, it housed the Third Avenue Laundry.

The somewhat beleaguered house was purchased in 1966 and its owner initiated a sympathetic renovation to a single-family home.  Among the most striking elements of the project was the entranceway, designed to resemble one that would have been seen in a period Greek Revival home.  Its fluted, Ionic pilasters support an blank frieze and transom.

The oldest house on the block, 102 East 10th Street is still a single family home.

photographs by the author

Rosario Candela's 1926 607 West End Avenue

 

image via streeteasy.com

Real estate developer Bernard Wilson commissioned the architectural firm of Thom & Wilson in 1887 to design a row of ten upscale houses at 601 through 619 West End Avenue between 89th and 90th Street.  The handsome, Renaissance Revival-style dwellings would become home to well-to-do families for decades.  But the post-World War I years saw nearly all the opulent private residences that lined the thoroughfare being replaced by apartment buildings.  

In 1925, the newly-formed 607 West End Avenue Corporation purchased and demolished the houses at 607 through 613 West End Avenue and hired architect Rosario Candela, known for his high-end apartment buildings, to design a replacement structure.  Plans were filed on August 12, 1925 and construction was completed in 1926.

The 16-story edifice cost $500,000 (about $8.9 million in 2026 terms) to construct.  Candela's subdued neo-Renaissance design included a two-story stone base.  Its centered entrance was flanked with highly unusual, double-height rusticated Corinthian pilasters that upheld a broken pediment that interrupted the second floor cornice.  An intricately carved,  Renaissance-inspired spandrel panel sat above the doorway.  The nearly unadorned Flemish bond brick midsection included stone balconies at the fourth floor.

The rusticated pilasters are highly unusual, if not unique.

The building opened in May 1926.  Describing an 11th floor suite as "an ideal apartment in a just completed house," an advertisement in the New York Evening Post on September 4 that year touted:

6 rooms, 2 baths, built-in shower, electric refrigeration, kitchen and pantry walls tiled, floor covered in inlaid rubber tiling, cedar and numerous other closets; other attractive features.

Society columns reported on the residents' marriages, births, engagements, travels and entertainments.  Such was the case on December 12, 1926 when the engagement of Harry Halbren to Eleanor Finn was announced.  Harry was the son of Jacob Halbren and the two were partners in the fixture company Jacob Halbren & Son.  Harry and Eleanor were married in her parents' home at 838 West End Avenue on January 11, 1927.

Jacob Halbren had six children with his late wife, Rosie.  When the family moved into 607 West End Avenue, he and his second wife, Pauline, had recently married.  Also living with them was at least one of Jacob's unmarried daughters, Gertrude.

On January 7, 1928, Jacob Halbren died in the Post-Graduate Hospital at the age of 63.  He left an estate of $250,000 (about $4.5 million today).  His will vividly disclosed tensions within the household.  On February 7, The New York Times titled an article, "Disappointed Husband Cut Off Wife In Will," and reported, "Because his recent marriage to her had not been 'productive of the happiness' he had 'anticipated,' Jacob Halbren, a retired businessman...cut off his second wife, Pauline Halbren."  The estate was divided among his six children with Pauline receiving nothing.

Gertrude Halbren remained in the apartment, presumably with her step-mother, for another year.  On June 9, 1929, The New York Times reported on her engagement to James Deyong "of London, England."

In the meantime, the William H. Rankin family were conspicuous initial residents.  Born in New Albany, Indiana in 1878, William brought his family to New York City in 1921 and opened an advertising agency, William H. Rankin Company.  It would eventually have offices in Chicago and London.

Rankin and his wife, the former Roberta Risk, had two daughters, Frances and Mary, and three sons, William Jr., Robert and Charles.

On October 1, 1927, the New York Evening Post reported that Frances H. Rankin had sailed for Europe that morning on the Homeric.  "She will go to Versailles, France, where she will attend the Finch School during the coming year," it said.  Young unmarried women did not travel unescorted and the article noted, "Miss Rankin will make the trip with Mrs. Horace Stilwell and Mr. and Mrs. Earl Stewart."

Interestingly, Frances remained abroad for the holidays.  On December 20, 1927, The New York Sun reported, "Mr. and Mrs. William H. Rankin and their three sons of 607 West End avenue sailed on Saturday on the Iroquois to pass the Christmas and New Year holidays in Miami, Palm Beach and Hollywood."

On July 26, 1929, The Christian Science Monitor ran a full-page article on "skyscape gardening."  It revealed to non-New Yorkers that "flowers and shrubs abound atop Manhattan apartments."  The article noted, "One of the finest terrace gardens in New York is the home of William L. Goodwin, head of Goodwin, Morton & Bradian, marketing counselors."

The Goodwins' 16-floor apartment had "a broad terrace on two sides of the building."  Comparing their garden as a "Babylonian King's terraces," the article said in part:

Along the outside edge of the setback a row of leafy shrubs and dwarf evergreen trees forms a pleasing border, the fresh green of which serves as a background for a generous sprinkling of Privet and Vincas, or red geraniums and purple and white petunias, of yellow and purple and pink hollyhocks.  On the inside--against the building--are many more varieties of green plants and flowers, morning glories, phlox, clematis and even sunflowers.

Living here at the time was the Simon Liebovitz family.  Born in Russia in 1854, Simon came to America as a boy "landing at the Battery virtually penniless," according to The New York Times.  He and his wife, Fannie, founded the Liebovitz Shirt Manufacturing Company in 1877.  The couple had six sons and a daughter.

The couple's small shirt company grew and by the time they moved into 607 West End Avenue it employed "several thousand persons and had factories in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York, Tennessee and Maryland," according to The New York Times on October 25, 1930.  

After the concern became self-sufficient, Fannie stepped away from the active operation and devoted herself to charitable and civic works.  She joined the Ladies Fuel and Aid Society and for years was president of the Reda Liebovitz Welfare League and the Regina Rose Aid Society.  The Liebovitz family were among the founders of the Society for the Advancement of Judaism.

Simon Liebovitz died in the apartment on October 24, 1930.  At the time of his death, three of his sons, Abraham, Harry and Ephraim were associated with the family business.  Fannie continued as its treasurer and a director.  Meyer Liebovitz still lived in the 607 West End Avenue apartment with his mother.  He was president of The John Forsythe Company, Inc., a men's and women's apparel firm.

Dr. Joseph Edwin Conroy and his wife, the former Ethel Palardy, were initial residents.  The couple had two children and living with them was Joseph's widowed mother, Winifred N. Moylan Conroy.

Conroy graduated from Fordham University in 1918 and served in the Navy in World War I.  He opened his medical office in 1920 specializing in cardiology, and was additionally on the staffs of Fordham and St. Elizabeth Hospitals.

Conroy's father, Edward, died around 1913.  Winifred Conroy was highly involved in civic affairs.  The honorary president of the Model Civic Club, she was active in the Federation of Women's Clubs and was chairman of that group's motion picture committee.  On June 19, 1933, Winifred Conroy visited her daughter and son-in-law in Brooklyn.  While there, she suffered a fatal heart attack at the age of 62 years old.  Her funeral was held in the apartment here two days later.

On March 9, 1939, The Sun reported that Attorney-General John J. Bennett Jr. was "making arrangements for his first real vacation since the world war."  The article said he would sail on the Transylvania for a 12-day cruise in the West Indies.  Among the close friends accompanying him, said the article were Dr. Joseph E. Conroy and his daughter, Joan.

At the time of the Conroys' vacation, a six-room apartment rented for $1,750 a year, and an eight-room suite for $2,400.  The more expensive rent would translate to about $3,250 per month today.

image via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services.

Among the Conroys' neighbors in the building was Ira S. Atkins, vice president of the Sterling National Bank and Trust Company; and real estate dealer and developer Isidor Williams and his wife, Lillian.

Born in 1896, Williams was president of the Sconat Realty Corporation and Williams Homes.  His firm erected several apartment buildings in Manhattan, Queens, and the Bronx.  Among those was Queensbury Hall on Queens Boulevard.

Williams was driving along Grand Central Parkway in Queens on the night of October 28, 1948 with Lillian in the passenger seat when he suffered a heart attack.  The New York Times reported that Lillian "took the wheel and drove to City Hospital, where Mr. Williams was pronounced dead."

Harry Colton, a lingerie salesman, lived here at midcentury.  On the night of February 26, 1952, his body was found in a washroom on the sixth floor of the Empire State Building.  The New York Post reported, "There was a gunshot wound in his right temple.  A gun was on the floor near the body."  Police listed his death as suicide.

The Conroys were still living here at the time.  In December 1953, Dr. Joseph Edwin Conroy became ill and he died in St. Clare's Hospital on March 23, 1954.  

image via streeteasy.com

Rosario Candela's dignified design remains as stylish as it was 100 years ago when the first residents moved in.

many thanks to Dr. Sarah Stemp for requesting this post

The Lost Hotel Diplomat - 108-116 West 43rd Street

photograph by Wurts Bros., from the collection of the New York Public Library

A social club for actors, the Jolly Club, was formed in 1867 to evade laws against the sale of alcohol on Sundays.  It eventually morphed into a fraternal order, the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks (BPOE), that focused on philanthropy, social service and patriotic causes.  By the early years of the 20th century, the Elks Club had become one of America's largest fraternal groups and it increasingly concentrated on veterans, youth, and civic programs.

Throughout the United States, the New York Lodge No. 1 was known as the Mother Lodge.  On July 8, 1911, The New York Times reported that its newly erected home at 108-116 West 43rd Street had opened.  "It is a twelve-story steel frame fireproof structure...with a roof garden and two basements," said the article.  Designed by James Riley Gordon, the Renaissance Revival-style structure was shaped as a T and cost $1.25 million to build and furnish (about $42.6 million in 2026).  The tripartite design of the 43rd Street elevation included a three-story limestone base.  Gordon designed it as a rusticated arcade that supported a double-height, paired Doric colonnade.

The building was designed as a T, with a relatively shallow front section.  photo by Irving Underhill, from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York.

The eight-story, brick-faced midsection was adorned only by two stone faux balconies.  The top two floors were faced in stone, their paired, engaged Corinthian columns complementing and balancing those below.

The New York Times described the cavernous Lodge Room as, "87 feet by 93 feet, the walls rising to a height of 32 feet," adding, "There are two tiers of boxes, twenty-eight boxes in each, with a promenade encircling each tier for use when the room is used for balls or banquets."

James Riley Gordon's office released a watercolor rendering of the Lodge Room.  from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York.

The lower floors included "lounging rooms, writing rooms, a handsome grill room and restaurant, billiard room, and spacious bowling alleys in the basement," said the article.  On the roof were a solarium and roof garden.  

The Hampton Magazine explained, "This completely appointed building is the headquarters for 2,800 members of the original lodge and for visiting Elks from all over the United States."  The 216 "outside sleeping rooms" on the upper floors cost visiting members $1.50 a day, with the 24 suites renting for double that amount.  (Rent for a suite for the night would equal $100 today.)

The Columbian, July 1910 (copyright expired)

The clubhouse was not only the venue of meetings, benefits, large dinners, and dances; it was often the scene of members' funerals.  On April 30, 1915, for example, the Independent Republican reported, "Nearly 1,500 members of the Elks and St. Cecile Lodge of Masons attended the funeral of John Bunny in the Elks' clubhouse, 108 West Forty-third Street, Wednesday night," and the following year, on March 3, 1915, The New York Times reported on the funeral of John J. Brogan, which was held in the Lodge Room.

The Elks' focus on patriotism was reflected in a dinner on the roof garden on the night of June 30, 1915.  Eleven days earlier, the battleship USS Arizona was launched at the Brooklyn Navy Yards.  The impressive ceremonies included the battleships Wyoming, Maine, and Cumberland.  The Elks hosted "twelve young officers of the battleships," said the article.

Every year the Lodge Room rang with the laughter and squeals of children.  On Christmas Eve 1917, The New York Times reported on the 2,500 needy children and 500 indigent families who gathered around the massive Christmas tree and enjoyed "entertainment and presentation of gifts."  The event had ballooned by Christmas 1919, when the newspaper reported, "Seven thousand children attended the fifth annual Christmas celebration."  The children received "candies, fruits, sweaters, stockings, caps and toys," while 600 needy families were given baskets containing, "two chickens, cranberries, potatoes, lettuce, bread and groceries."

The Elks also hosted Thanksgiving dinners for hundreds.  Theirs, at least in 1923, was somewhat unexpected.  The New York Times reported on November 29, "A 'pigs' knuckle and sauerkraut' dinner, followed by a dance, was held last night by New York Lodge 1."

Less welcomed press came in October 1925 when Federal agents seized nine barrels of beer from the barroom.  On November 16, the bar room and the grill were padlocked for a period of six months.  The restaurant was allowed to operate during the decree.

It might have been the onslaught of the Great Depression that strained the Elks' finances.  On May 8, 1930, The New York Times reported that the lodge had leased the fourth to twelfth floors "to a private corporation for the operation of the hotel."  The attempt did not succeed.  

On April 12, 1934, the property was sold in foreclosure for $600,000 (the only bid offered, it equaled $14 million today).  Less than a month later, on May 5, the building opened as the Hotel Delano, operated by the Radio City Hotel Corporation.

The Hotel Delano accepted both transient and permanent residents.  Among the latter was actress Agnes Tibbetts.  For years she and her sister performed in vaudeville as the Neilson Sisters.  She had appeared on Broadway in Mae West's play Diamond Lil and recently opened in The Jayhawker with Fred Stone.  In June 1936 she was in rehearsals for Crime, a production of the WPA Theatre Project.  She would not see opening night.  The 60-year-old suffered a fatal heart attack in her rooms on June 21.

The Hotel Delano was short lived.  The following month, the Drier Hotel Organization leased the building and renamed it the Center Hotel.  It continued to accept both transient and permanent residents.

A colorful resident was Simon Lake, described by The New York Times as a "veteran submarine enthusiast."  He was obsessed with discovering the lost H.M.S. Hussar, a British frigate that sank in the East River in 1780.  It reportedly went down with as much as $40.7 million in gold (by 2026 conversions).  On September 25, 1936, he held a news conference in his hotel room.  He told reporters that he had notified the Treasury Department that he had "discovered a hulk in the East River" that he was confident was the Hussar.  The 70-year-old explained, "My probing leads me to believe the Hussar could very well be raised for exhibition at the World's Fair.  I hope to begin work under the supervision of the Coast Guard within a month."  (The H.M.S. Hussar remains undiscovered.)

Reporters were back at Simon Lake's room the following year.  He "declared that he had perfected plans for cargo-carrying submarines and that he would make these plans available to the United States Government in the event of a war," reported The New York Times.  "So far, I have kept plans for these undersea cargo ships to myself, because of their tremendous value to foreign powers during wartime.  But if we get mixed up in another conflict, I shall certainly give my ideas to the Government," he said.

Lake had good reason to suspect "another conflict."  The hotel's ballroom (formerly the Lodge Room) was the scene of a mass meeting of the Greater New York Retail Furnishings and Dry Goods Association on October 4, 1936.  It reflected the current rising global tensions.  The members voted "to support the anti-German boycott" and to "discontinue at once any and all relations with any importing or wholesale house that sells German goods anywhere in this country and/or uses the services of Nazi-controlled vessels."

The ballroom was increasingly being rented for political assemblies.  Two months later, on December 18, 1936, 2,000 people filled the room for a three-hour meeting "to urge the right of a Mexican asylum for Trotsky, exiled Russian leader," reported The New York Times.

The first day of the convention of the International Ladies Handbag, Pocketbook and Novelty Workers Union opened on May 7, 1938 in the ballroom.  It started off badly.  At 10:20 that morning, a "free-for-all fight," as described by The New York Times, took place.  Of the more than 100 persons involved, four were injured and one hospitalized.

In the meantime, theatrical figures continued to live here.  Joseph Butterly, whose stage name was Joseph Allenton, lived here at the time.  Born in 1889, he had appeared on Broadway in You Can't Take It With You, The Pure in Heart, and Ladies Don't Lie, among other plays.

Retired actress Ella Willard was the widow of character actor Charles Willard.  She made her debut in Hazel Kirke in 1885 and would play with Eddy Foy in That Casey Girl, with Dustin Farnum in The White Slave, and in The Virginian.  

By the time Ella Willard died at the age of 83 on January 13, 1945, the Hotel Central had become the Hotel Diplomat.  The management staged dances in the Roof Garden during the summer months, and the ballroom continued to be leased for political and labor meetings.  An announcement in the Daily World on February 13, 1949 was titled, "Call to a City-Wide Mass Conference for a Democratic Jury System."  Nearly two decades later, on February 25, 1964, an announcement in the same newspaper was titled, "Protest Nazi War Criminals' Presence in USA."

On September 25, 1961, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King addressed the Drug and Hospital Employees Union here.  He announced a "campaign to double the number of Negro voters in the South," according to The New York Times.  

Engineering Review, February 1912 (copyright expired)

Similar assemblies continued here.  On May 26, 1968, the Daily World reported that actor and activist Ossie Davis would deliver the keynote address at the "Founding Convention of the Freedom and Peace Party," here.

The Hotel Diplomat was acquired by the Durst Organization in 1974 and by the 1980s it had degraded to a SRO hotel.  In 1987 the tenants were "generally the elderly and poor," according to The New York Times journalist Christopher Gray on December 13, that year.  At the time of his article, the Durst Organization was preparing to "buy out about 50 S.R.O. tenants" in order to demolish the structure and redevelop the site.

(postcard from the author's collection)

It was an arduous process.  It would not be until November 7, 1993 that architectural journalist David Dunlap reported, "It has been nearly four years since the owners, the Durst Organization, filed a demolition application for the decrepit single-room-occupancy hotel at 108 West 43d Street."  But finally, he wrote, the once proud building was "clad in a spindly web of scaffolding that heralds its imminent demise."

The handsome building with its vibrant history was demolished in 1994.

many thanks to architect Sean Weine for prompting this post

The 1904 Van Cordlandt - 1240 Park Avenue

 

photo by Deansfa

In the late 19th century, the soot-belching locomotives that ran down the middle of Park Avenue made the thoroughfare unappealing.  But with the trains converted to electricity, magnificent residences and upscale apartment buildings began appearing along the avenue.   In 1903, William F. Rohrig broke ground for a six-story apartment building, The Van Cortlandt, at the northwest corner of Park Avenue and 96th Street.  Designed by George F. Pelham, it was completed the following year at a cost of $195,000, or about $7 million in 2026.

Although The Van Cordlandt turned its shoulder to the busy avenue, its entrance on East 96th Street took the more enviable address of 1240 Park Avenue.  Pelham's tripartite Renaissance Revival design included a rusticated limestone base and an off-set entrance portico.  Its paired, polished granite Scamozzi columns upheld a substantial entablature that announced the building's name. It was crowned by a stone balustrade.

image via streeteasy.com

The brick-faced, four-story midsection was trimmed in limestone.  The Renaissance motif was carried out with arched and triangular pediments, occasional cornucopia-framed windows, and faux balconies.  Pelham emphasized horizontality at the top section with two running bandcourses.  A distinguished stone balustrade ran along the bracketed cornice.

The areaway was protected by high, wrought iron fencing.  The World's New York Apartment House Album, 1904 (copyright expired)

The Apartment Houses of the Metropolis described:

The suites are of seven, eight and nine rooms with two baths.  Parlors and libraries are finished in mahogany, whilst the dining-rooms are in unique quartered oak, with a high wainscoting and Dutch plate shelving.  The ceilings have oak beams.

There were four apartments per floor, the rents for which ranged from $1,050 to $1,400 per year--or $3,150 to $4,200 per month today.

The World's New York Apartment House Album, 1904 (copyright expired)

The Van Cordlandt filled with well-to-do residents.  Among them was Mrs. Mollie Anderson who became entangled in a debacle worthy of a silent film comedy on the afternoon of December 8, 1913.  That day the city experienced a gale with 88-mile-per-hour winds.  The following day, The New York Times reported, "Many persons were injured, much damage was done to property."  Mollie Anderson was unfortunate enough to have had ventured out.

She was walking along West End Avenue between 70th and 71st Street when, according to The New York Times, "she had occasion to open her handbag."  A gust of wind blew $50 in small bills into the air.  (The amount would translate to more than $1,600 today.)  As Mollie ran to gather up the bills, two rings--one containing five diamonds and the other a wedding ring--tumbled out of her bag "and were carried along by the wind," said the article.

Her increasingly panicked scrambling made the situation worse.  Two bank books fell out of her purse and were blown away.  Mollie's cries attracted a crowd as well as Patrolman Moskowitz.  People ran through the windstorm snatching at bills.  Mollie Anderson's struggle did not end well.  The New York Times reported, "The patrolman found only $17 of the $50 lost.  The bank books were found by a boy, but the rings, if found, were not returned."

Among the socially visible couples in The Van Cortlandt during the Depression years were Dr. William Wallace Whitelock and his wife, the former Baroness Mary von Stockhausen of Berlin.  The couple had one son, Otto von Stockhausen Whitelock.  Their country house, Tre Terrazzi, was in Pelham Manor, New York

An educator and author, Whitelock was born in Baltimore in 1870 and traced his ancestry to Sir Bulstrode Whitelock, the 17th century Governor of Windsor Castle, and to Richard Stockton, a signer of the Declaration of Independence.  Having received his Ph.D. from the University of Munich in 1893, he worked for The New York Times, interviewing celebrated figures like Thomas Hardy, H. G. Wells, George Moore, Rudyard Kipling, and Zola.  Starting in 1915, he was a contributor to the weekly humor magazine Life.  Among his several books were the  1903 The Literary Guillotine, the 1907 Foregone Verses, and a novel, When Kings Go Forth To Battle, published in 1907.

Born Baroness Mary Louise von Stockhausen in London, Mary Whitelock was educated in England, France and Germany.  She was presented at the Bavarian Court, the Austrian Court and the Court of St. James at the turn of the century, and in 1905 was given a private audience by Pope Pius X.

Admired by her beauty, she was a favorite model for prominent artists, and at one point a portrait of her by Stroese was placed on exhibition in the Crystal Palace.  Additionally, she was an accomplished singer and debuted in Paris with the Concerts Lamoureux and was later offered a contract with the Metropolitan Opera Company.

As a young woman, Mary Louise translated English works into German and French.  It was during that time that she met William Whitelock and they were married in London in 1901.

The Whitelocks' entertaining was widely followed by the society columns.  On December 31, 1937, for instance, The New York Sun reported that the couple "have returned to their residence at 1240 Park avenue, and will entertain at a reception on Sunday."  Among the guests that afternoon was Mary Dimmick Harrison, the former First Lady.  

Mary Harrison was a close friend of the Whitelocks.  The following year, on April 25, 1938, The Sun reported, "Dr. and Mrs. William Wallace Whitelock gave a dinner last night at their home, 1240 Park avenue, in honor of Mrs. Benjamin Harrison."

Also socially visible were Colonel George Chase Lewis and his wife, the former Louise Manning.  The couple had two daughters, Flora Louise and Virginia.  On December 29, 1938, The New York Times reported that the Lewises "gave a tea dance yesterday at the Officers Club on Governors Island.  The event served as a coming-out party for Miss Virginia J. Lewis."  The article mentioned, "Her sister, Miss Flora Louise Lewis, made her debut in the same setting several seasons ago."

At the time of her debut, Virginia Lewis was a freshman at Bryn Mawr College.  Possibly inspired by her father's military career, as war spread across Europe, she turned her attention to America's defense.  On June 27, 1940, The New York Times reported on the swearing in "of three volunteers into the first New York rifle squad of the America First Assembly of Women."  Among the volunteers was Virginia Lewis.  She and the other two girls had trained for six months.

A fascinating resident at the time was Caroline Sanders Truax, the widow of former New York State Supreme Court Justice Charles H. Truax, who died in 1910.  Caroline was one of the first women admitted to the New York State bar.  Born in Cincinnati, she was a graduate of the New York University Law School.  She practiced law briefly, turning her attention to conditions in what was then termed insane asylums.  The New York Times remarked that she "did much to better the conditions of inmates, making a study of American, English and Oriental asylums."

Like Mary Louise Whitelock, Caroline Sanders was a beauty in her youth.  She married Charles Truax in 1896 and on a tour of Europe (possibly their honeymoon), they visited the studio of French artist Jean-Léon Gérôme.  It resulted in Caroline's posing for the artist.  The portrait, with Caroline depicted as Sappho, a Grecian poet, was well received and when it arrived in America, was exhibited several times.

Gérôme's portrait of Caroline Sanders Traux hung in the Van Cordlandt apartment.  from the collection of Bowdoin University.

In the meantime, the Whitelocks continued to host glittering dinner parties and receptions.  On May 2, 1938, The New York Post reported on their dinner party in honor of composer Aurelio Giorni.  There were 22 "distinguished" guests, including pianist George Copeland.  This dinner party would stand out.

During a gathering in the apartment earlier that year, Copeland boasted that "his long residence in Spain and his experience with Spanish herbs and spices qualified him to rank among the best spaghetti cooks in New York."  The New York Post reported, "Mrs. Whitelock immediately challenged his contention on the ground that her many years of residence in Italy gave her a claim to the title."  

And so, this dinner party included a contest.  Copeland prepared his spaghetti and Mary Louise hers.  The article explained:

The spaghetti was brought in by two white-capped chefs, bearing two silver platters, one containing Mr. Copeland's effort, and the other Mrs. Whitelock's.  Each guest member of the jury received a portion from each salver, and was required to determine which he or she preferred.  They were given through the salad and desert courses to record their votes.

The article concluded, "needless to say the hostess saw to it that Mr. Copeland won."

In 1939, Dr. William Wallace Whitelock was struck "by a drunken vagrant on the street," according to The New York Times.  He never fully recovered from his injuries and the following year, on January 28, 1940, died in the couple's Van Corlandt apartment at the age of 70.  

The New York Times reported on June 26, 1949, "Mrs. William Wallace Whitelock, the former Baroness Mary Louise von Stockhausen, who was a prominent figure in early twentieth century literary, artistic and musical circles, died on Friday at Tre Terrazzi...after an illness of several months."

An intricate marble mosaic "carpet" floor, a stone fireplace, Caen stone walls, and a beamed ceiling gave the Van Cordlandt's lobby a refined air.  image via streeteasy.com

Living here in the early 1960s were William L. Brett and his wife.  Born in Przemysl, Poland in 1913, he was a naturalized American.  The European representative of the George E. Failing Company (a division of the Westinghouse Air Brake Company), he made routine business trips to Poland.

On February 9, 1962, he checked out of his Warsaw hotel to make a trip to Katowice, Poland.  After she heard nothing from him for a week, Mrs. Brett contacted the United States Embassy.  What they discovered was alarming.  The New York Times reported that he "has been held in [a] Warsaw jail for nearly three weeks on a charge of an illegal currency transaction."  It is unclear what the infraction was, but consul A. Gregory Nowakoski Jr., who visited him in the prison, said he "appeared to be in good health."

Among the Bretts' neighbors in the building were George A. Rosette, a former journalist and advertising executive, and his composer wife, the former Marion Savage.  After becoming a reporter for The Baltimore Sun in 1912, George opened an advertising agency the following year.  In 1925 the couple moved to New York and he began writing a column in The New York Daily Mirror, "Muse in Manhattan."  In 1940 he established the Rosette Advertising Agency and in 1946 began producing phonograph records as president of Corona Records, Inc.  The New York Times noted that Marion's songs were recorded by Corona Records.

Unfortunately, the distinguished rooftop balustrade has been removed.  But other than zig-zagging fire escapes that detract from George F. Pelham's design and the need for a gentle cleaning, The Van Cortlandt looks very much as it did in 1904 when it opened.