The Lost James b. Finnen House - 147 East 126th Street

 

Charles Von Urban photographed the vintage structure in 1932.  from the collection of the New York Public Library.

In the years just following the end of the Civil War, two-story frame houses began dotting East 126th Street.  Their addresses were listed in directories through 1869 simply as "East 126th Street" since actual numbers would not be assigned until the following year.

James B. Finnen, a builder, occupied 147 East 126th Street that year, and it is likely he constructed it.  The clapboard, vernacular style building sat upon a stone basement.  Its naive design was not the product of a professional architect, but was the work of the builder.  Three bays wide, its single-doored entrance harkened to Greek Revival prototypes of a generation earlier.  The projecting wooden cornice below the peaked roof was supported by three utilitarian brackets.

In the rear yard was a second, smaller house.  Both buildings would see a regular turnover of occupants.  In 1873, Walter L. Thompson and his wife, Maria, occupied one building and Alexander Rogers and his family lived in the other.  Thompson worked as a clerk and Rogers was in the stone business.

Walter and Maria Thompson's baby girl, Loretta, was born on August 18, 1872.  Sadly, she died one month after her first birthday, on September 24, 1873.  Her funeral was held in the parlor two days later.

As early as 1876, William Ellis, a laborer, and his family occupied the rear house.  He and his wife had four children, Nellie, Mamie, Harry, and Edward (known as Eddie).  At the time, the Pabor family lived in the rear house next door at 145 East 126th Street.  

Around 1881, Pabors moved into the front house at No. 147.  Born in 1848, David Simon Pabor was a clerk.  He and his wife, Eliza Boazman, who was born in 1855, had four children, Catherine (known as Katie), Harry Munson, Lucy E., and David Jr.  

David Pabor died here on October 18, 1883 at the age of 36.  His funeral was held in the house on October 20.

Eliza Pabor and her children remained here.  The Ellis and Pabor children had been playmates for years.  In 1889, The Evening World initiated its "Sick Babies Fund" that solicited donations of clothing and money for "the babes of the poor."  The Ellis and Pabor children were moved and they organized an "entertainment" with several of the neighborhood children.

On August 19, 1889, the newspaper reprinted their letter: 

Please find inclosed [sic] $8.50, the proceeds of our second entertainment, held at 147 East One Hundred and Twenty-sixth street, on Thursday evening, Aug. 15, 1889, for the benefit of your Sick Babies' Fund held by the undersigned.

The children, the oldest of whom was Catherine at age 15, had raised the equivalent of $300 in 2026.  Their efforts did not stop with that event.  

The following year, on August 12, 1890, The Evening World reported, "Among the many Harlemites who became interested in The Evening World's efforts to raise a fund to send doctors among the sick babies was Miss Mamie Ellis, a pretty dark-eyed girl, of 147 East One Hundred and Twenty-sixth street."  The article explained that Mamie had "enlisted a corps of playmates and made arrangements for a rousing benefit."

The Harlem Democratic Club donated the use of its hall.  This year, Mamie Ellis convinced her teacher, Miss McKee, to help.  The children practiced for weeks before the event, which was held on August 8, 1890.  The article said, "the hall was crowded."  Among the extensive list of participants were familiar names.  Mamie Ellis recited "Asleep at the Switch" and sang, "Anchored."  Nellie Ellis recited "Singen on the Rhine," and Eddie Ellis recited "Pat and the Pig."  Harry Pabor was involved as well, reciting "Barbara Frietchie."  The benefit garnered $59.45--equal to more than $2,000 today.

Around this time, Captain Harry Munson Sr. and Jr., moved in with the Pabors.  The elder man appears to have been Eliza's maternal uncle.  Born in South Amboy, New Jersey in 1808, The Daily Argus described him as, "one of the oldest and best known oysterman of Long Island Sound."  Munson started in the oyster business in 1821.  According to the New York Herald, "He was among the first to learn the secret of replanting oyster beds with the small oysters which before this had been thrown overboard as worthless."

After his retirement in 1861, Munson opened a saloon on Park Row called "The Old Reliable."  Before moving into the East 126th Street house, he lived on City Island.  Remarkably fit for his age, in 1890, "he rowed from Harlem Bridge to City Island in a substantial rowboat, in which he spent many days at fishing and rowing about the Harlem River and the Sound," said the New York Herald.

Harry Munson Sr. died here on January 4, 1893 at the age of 85.  The Daily Argus attributed his death to "a stroke of paralysis."

Now grown, on August 5, 1895 Harry Munson Pabor signed a petition requesting the Board of Aldermen to consider "the necessity for the bicycle path between the upper and lower parts of the city."  By now, Catherine was listed as a dressmaker, running her business from the house.

Harry Munson by no means followed his father's career in oysters.  He founded the New York Bill Posting Company and in 1897 described himself in the Trow's Directory as a "bill poster and display advertising contractor."  

Trow's City Directory, 1897 (copyright expired)

Following his marriage, Harry Munson and his wife appeared in the society pages.  The couple maintained a country home in Munson, New York.  (The town was named for his father.)  On December 2, 1897, for instance, The Queens County Sentinel reported, "Mr. and Mrs. Harry Munson have returned to New York, at 147 East 126th Street.  Mr. Munson expects to spend a portion of the Winter in the South."

At the time of the article, Eliza Pabor and her unmarried children had left East 126th Street.  (Eliza would live until 1939, dying at the age of 84.)  The Munsons lived on the upper floor of 147 East 126th Street and Harry installed a "branch office" of the New York Bill Posting Company in the parlor floor.  In doing so, he made no alterations to the exterior of the house.

One original two-over-two window survived on the first floor in 1941.  via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services.

By 1912, Munson had divested himself from the New York Billposting Company.  C. H. Taylor now managed the firm, a branch of which still occupied the first floor.  When Vincenzo Celenza purchased the property in May 1920, it was still described as a "dwelling."

By the late Depression years, the Bronx Pattern & Model Works occupied the basement and first floor.  It advertised, "wood and metal patterns, machinery, automobile ornamental work."

The second floor continued to be residential.  An advertisement in the New York Amsterdam News on May 23, 1964 offered, "Large and small front room."  Against all odds, the wooden relic survived unaltered until its demolition in 1990, replaced by a six-floor apartment building.