photograph by Carole Teller
In 1851, construction of a long row of brick-faced townhouses was completed on East 19th Street between First and Second Avenues. Three stories tall above brownstone basements, the 20-foot-wide residences were designed as mirror-image pairs. The earred, double entrance frames of each pair shared a molded cornice and their side-to-side stoops were separated by an Italianate-style railing. The floor-to-ceiling parlor windows were most likely fronted by cast iron balconies.
Horatio Gillett was born in Connecticut around 1793. By the time of his death on December 18, 1837, he had amassed a comfortable fortune. He left several Manhattan properties to his widow, the former Ann Dominick (born in 1794). Ann purchased one of the new houses--168 East 19th Street--and moved into it. (The address would be renumbered 314 in 1865.)
Sharing the house as early as 1859 were Ann's nephew, Francis Jacob Dominick, and his wife, the former Almira Hoffman Vosburgh. The couple were married in 1856 and had a daughter, Edith Lorensberg, who was two years old in 1859.
The properties that Ann inherited provided her with rental income. She was highly involved in charitable causes. She was, for instance, a member of the Relief of Respectable Aged Indigent Females and sat on the Board of Managers of the Magdalen Benevolent Society. The latter organization, according to New York and Its Institutions, promoted "moral purity, by affording an asylum to erring females." Ann attended its 20th anniversary ceremony on May 6, 1853, after which the New-York Tribune reminded readers of the facility's outreach. "Many of the inmates of that institution were abandoned females, and had been arrested as vagrants or disturbers of the peace."
In 1860, Ann took in two boarders, Jabez Burns and his wife. Burns was one of the organizers of The Rail Splitters' Glee Club that year. Born in Scotland, he started out selling coffee door-to-door. His familiarity with coffee would spark his success soon after boarding with Ann. He invented a coffee roaster--the drum-shaped concept still used today. In 1864 he was granted a patent and Scientific American wrote a glowing article about the invention. He founded Jabez Burns & Sons that year.
The couple would be Ann's only boarders. That may have been because of increasing population among the Dominicks. In 1866, Mary Alice Dominick was born, followed by Henry Blanchard Dominick in 1869. (Sadly, Henry would contract diphtheria and succumb on March 19, 1874 at the age of five.)
Ann Dominick Gillett died in the house on March 20, 1878 at the age of 84. Her funeral was held in the parlor on the 22nd. Just two months later, on May 27, The New York Times reported that Francis J. Dominick, as Ann's executor, had sold 214 East 19th Street to Bridget C. Duffy for $10,000 (about $325,000 in 2026).
Bridget was the widow of Felix Duffy. She owned at least one other house in the area, that one located on the corner of Second Avenue and 19th Street, and used the properties as rental income.
By the last quarter of the century, several families lived in 314 East 19th Street. Among the occupants in 1898 was 21-year-old George Ross. On July 26 that year, he and 17-year-old James Manning were arrested for pickpocketing. The New York Press described Manning as "a boy pickpocket with the daring of a hardened criminal." As the two were being interrogated at Police Headquarters, they made a run for the doors. Ross was captured before he could escape the building, but Manning dashed onto Mott Street and into a building fronting Crosby Street. Henry Baumann, an employee of the cigarette factory there, locked the door, trapping him. The New York Press reported that Baumann, "rushed into a room where eighty women were stripping tobacco. Baumann caught Manning and held him until the police came."
The East 19th Street house was about to become home to a much more respectable family. On July 9, 1901, Daniel F. Martin notified the City Clerk, "I have appointed Mr. James Foley, of No. 314 East Nineteenth street...as Assistant Clerk of the Municipal Court."
James Foley was already a well-known figure within Tammany Hall politics and since 1879 had been chairman of the General Committee of the Twelfth Assembly District. He and his wife, the former Anne Moran, had eleven children.
Son James A. Foley, born on June 21, 1882, was enrolled in the City University of New York when the family moved in. He, too, would be involved in politics. In 1908, he was elected to the New York State Assembly and in 1913 would be elected to the New York State Senate. In the meantime, his brother Frank was a broker with C. I. Hudson & Co. and held the rank of major in the Twelfth Regiment of Infantry.
The Foleys remained here until 1910 when they moved exactly one block away. On February 25 that year, the New-York Tribune reported, "Otto Maier sold to a Mr. Foley for occupancy No. 316 East 18th Street."
image via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services
No. 314 East 19th Street returned to a multi-family dwelling. Living here in 1915 and '16 was James P. Moffitt, a process server. Also rooming here in 1916 were Nicholai Turziki, former Russian cow herder, and Joseph Korpuzlenski. On March 16 that year, they and a friend, Ignatz Jaroszek, invited Louis Markowicz to Turkziki's room. (Markowicz and Turziki had known one another before leaving Russia.) The trio offered Markowisc a share in "a wonder machine" they had invented. The Sun reported:
They showed him a machine that buzzed mysteriously. When a button was touched, out came a two dollar bill. Markowicz worked it himself and was so impressed he offered his $800 for an interest in the contraption. But to make sure, he took one of the bills to a store downstairs to be changed, leaving his wealth behind.
The bill was genuine. But when Markowicz returned to Turziki's room, his $800 and his "friends" were gone. Several months later, Markowicz received a letter from Turziki, who was in Philadelphia, "inviting him to become a partner in a second money making machine." Markowicz would not be duped twice. He wrote back, telling the three to meet him in Turziki's old rooms at 314 East 19th Street. When they arrived on September 21, Detectives Franklin and Pflaster were waiting there with Markowicz.
In 1958, a group of men classified by the Selective Service as 1-W, or conscientious objectors, converted 314 East 19th Street to a voluntary service center. The renovations resulted in 15 furnished rooms.
photograph by Carole Teller
Eighteen years later, the house was leased by the Manhattan Mennonite Fellowship as a Mennonite student center. Called Menno House, it was purchased by the group in 1997. According to its website, it "has served many live-in residents and greeted many hundreds of temporary guests."
many thanks to artist Carole Teller for suggesting this post
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