Identical to its next door neighbor, 125 East 10th Street is on the right.
Robert Carnley, who lived at 191 Tenth Street, erected two houses next door at 193 and 195 Tenth Street in 1854. (The twin homes, just steps from St. Mark's churchyard, would be renumbered 123 and 123 East 10th Street in 1865.) The homes were four stories tall and two bays wide above a low basement. Sitting upon rusticated stone bases with arched openings, the upper floors were faced in red brick and trimmed in sandstone. Full-width cast iron balconies fronted the second floor windows. Molded stone lintels sat upon the elliptically arched upper windows and a single corbeled cornice unified the structures.
No. 195 Tenth Avenue became home to Charles L. Tiffany, the principal in the newly renamed jewelry firm Tiffany and Company. He and John B. Young had started out in business in 1837. In 1841, Tiffany married his partner's sister, Harriet Olivia Avery Young. When the couple moved into the East 10th Street house, they had two children (their first, Charles Jr., died in 1847). Annie Olivia, was ten years old, and Louis Comfort was six. Three more children, Louise Harriet, Henry Charles, and Burnett Young, would arrive in 1856, 1858 and 1860 respectively.
Charles Lewis Tiffany as he appeared nearly half a century after moving into the East 10th Street house. from Tiffany & Co.
Tiffany was born in Connecticut in 1812. At the age of 25, he and John B. Young opened a small "stationery and fancy goods store" at 259 Park Row. They established a reputation of selling only first-class items, like imported Bohemian glass and porcelain. Starting around 1843, Tiffany began creating his own jewelry and in 1845 introduced the Blue Book, generally considered the first direct-mail catalog of fine jewelry in America.
In 1853, Tiffany and Young separated and Charles Tiffany struck out on his own, creating Tiffany & Company. The same year that the East 10th Street house was erected, the firm's new building at 550 Broadway, on Union Square, was built.
The new Tiffany & Co. building (which its clock that would follow the firm in its subsequent moves) testified to Charles L. Tiffany's success. photograph via RIBA Collections.
Born in 1825, George McClure was the husband of Harriet Tiffany's sister, Maria Young. He became a partner in the newly formed Tiffany & Co., heading the firm's diamond department. When Charles and Harriet Tiffany left 195 Tenth Street in 1859, the McClures moved in. The couple had two daughters, Nellie Louise, born in 1853; and Anna Cushman, born in 1856.
Living with the McClures was Frederick M. Peck, a clerk at Tiffany & Co. He would remain with the family through 1862. (By then, he listed his profession as "jeweler.")
Tragically, four-year-old Anna Cushman McClure contracted scarlet fever in 1860. She died on June 5 and her funeral was held in the parlor the following afternoon.
When Civil War broke out, George McClure joined the 22nd Regiment. He became Quartermaster and would serve on the staffs of Generals Aspinwall and Shaler. McClure rose to the rank of colonel before the war's end.
At home, New York socialites turned their attention to helping the Union effort. In February 1864, plans were laid for the "great Metropolitan Fair" to raise funds. The New York Times reported that among the committee members of the "Jewelry and Fancy Goods" department were Harriet Tiffany and Maria McClure.
In 1870, the McClures moved into Everett House, conveniently across Union Square from Tiffany & Co. George McClure would die of Bright's Disease there on September 30, 1885 at the age of 60.
In the meantime, 125 East 10th Street became home to the Henry H. Holly family. Henry was a partner with Gilman Collamore in G. Collamore & Co., "importers of china, glass, gas fixtures, silver plated ware, &c.," according to an advertisement. Son John I. Holly was in the oil business and was also a director in the Brunswick Land Reclamation Co.
Like many families at the time, the Hollys rented an unused portion of their house. An advertisement in the New York Herald on May 22, 1874, read, "Neatly furnished apartments [i.e., rooms] in a private house with modern improvements, to one or two single gentlemen, at 125 East Tenth street, near Second avenue. Terms moderate to suitable parties."
Next to occupy the house starting around 1876 was Harriet King and her unmarried children. Harriet's husband, Josiah King, had been in the hardware business at 373 Bowery. He died on August 5, 1873. The couple had five children, Josiah Nicholson, Karlene Eugenia, Ida Estelle, Charles Fletcher and Frank A. Josiah, who was the eldest, was 41 years old when his mother moved into the house, and the youngest, Frank, was 16.
Ida Estelle was married to Captain John Waydell of the 22nd Regiment in St. Paul's Methodist Episcopal Church on the evening of December 6, 1876. The New York Times reported at length on the ceremony, mentioning, "The gentlemen were in full dress." The article added, "A reception was subsequently held at the residence of the bride's mother."
Harriet had left 125 East 10th Street by 1878. It was home to a series of occupants before becoming a rooming house at the turn of the century.
In 1905, Max Silverman (also known as Max Studnick) and his bride, the former Celia Spielberger, took rooms here. Celia worked as a servant girl and had carefully saved her money. In July that year, according to The Sun, "she decided that she ought to be married. She went to Max Tuner, a marriage broker." Tuner promised her that every match he arranged "is full of happiness."
Soon after meeting with Tuner, Celia was introduced to Max Silverman. He told her that he had an income of from $8,000 to $10,000 a year. (The high-end figure would translate to about $368,000 in 2026.) Celia asked for proof. A few days later he showed her a check for $1,000 payable to him. "Celia said that she had no proof that the check was genuine," said The Sun. And so the next time they met, Silverman produced a bankbook that showed a $1,000 deposit.
Then, on an afternoon stroll with Celia, Silverman paused in front of a saloon at Pike and Madison Streets.
"That is my saloon," he said.
"Fine," replied Celia. "Let's go in and look at it."
"Oh, no! I couldn't think of it. It is against the law for a woman to enter a saloon, and you, my future wife, must not be arrested."
Silverman pointed to the traffic coming in and out of the saloon. "See all those customers. Every one of them spends from 15 to 25 cents each," he said.
The Sun reported on August 27, "That was enough for Celia, and she married Silverman, who lived with her for four days at 125 East Tenth Street." On the fourth day Silverman told his bride that "he had a sudden demand for money." Celia had saved up $400 and, coincidentally, that was exactly the amount her husband needed. The Sun reported, "Could he have it? With pleasure, she said. He never came back."
As it turned out, Max Tuner operated a scam involving "a gang of men" who "will marry any number of women, get whatever money they have and then desert them," explained The Sun. Celia's attorney told reporters that he had "evidence that Silverman married other women."
In 1941, both houses were painted. via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services.
Twenty-five-year-old inventor Fred Miller rented a room here in 1911 when he, like Celia Spielberger, decided it was time to be married. In September, he wrote to the mayor of Denver, Colorado asking him "to find a good Denver girl for him to marry." His letter said that "New York girls do not appeal" to him. According to The Sun, the letter explained that "he has heard so much about Denver girls that he wants to try one of them for a voyage on the sea of matrimony." He guaranteed that the royalties from his inventions would support a married couple. Whether or not the mayor fulfilled his request is unknown.
Detectives stormed into a room here on December 10, 1918 and arrested four men. Among them were Peter Vazzaro and Alfred Faroco. The New York Herald said, "They are charged with homicide, the police alleging they had a hand in the street fight in which Ettore Ochinoeri...was killed on November 29."
By 1919, St. Mark's Church was leasing this house and the one next door at 123 East 10th Street. The tenant list became much more respectable. Living here that year was Lucy Constance Rulison, for instance. The highly-educated musician had graduated from Bryn Mawr College in 1902 and continued her studies in Europe through 1913. She became a member of the faculty of the Music School Settlement in 1916, and became teacher of piano at the David Mannes Music School in 1917.
Artist Sarah Eakin Cowan lived here in 1923. Born in Hendersonville, North Carolina in 1875, she studied in Paris at the Académie Julian. Known for full-size and miniature portraits, she had co-organized the 1915 exhibition of painting and sculpture by women artists. She was a co-founder of the American Society of Miniature Painters.
Kathryn Cerick purchased 125 East 10th Street in 2006 for $4.25 million. She later sold it to French-born banker Olivier Sarkozy, who already owned 123 East 10th Street. In 2015 he married actress and fashion designer Mary-Kate Olsen. They soon sold both houses.
Former architecture critic for The New York Times, Nicolai Ouroussoff and his wife, artist Cecily Brown, purchased 125 East 10th Street in October 2019 for $7.75 million. Real estate brokers continually told prospective buyers that the house was designed by James Renwick, Jr., despite there being no evidence of the assertion. What is certain, however, is that both houses survive externally in a remarkable state of preservation.
photographs by the author
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