photograph by Carole Teller
By the end of the 1840s, Gramercy Square (known today as Gramercy Park), was ringed with fine mansions. Its refined tenor spilled into the neighboring blocks, and in 1855 D. Hennessy completed five brick faced houses two blocks away, on the north side of East 18th Street between Third Avenue and Irving Place.
Four stories tall above short basements, they were just two bays wide. The segmentally arched openings wore handsome cast iron lintels, chosen from a local foundry's catalog. Each house had its own bracketed cornice.
Among them was 106 East 18th Street (renumbered 139 in 1865). It became home to builder Peter Gibson and his family.
The family briefly took in a roomer in 1857. Their advertisement in the New-York Tribune on September 29 read, "106 East 18th-st., near Irving-place--One or two nicely-furnished rooms or two handsome parlors, to let to gentlemen only, without board, in a modern-built house, with a private family." The ad was answered by James M. Hamilton, a retired merchant. It appears that the Gibsons valued their privacy more than the income, and no other roomer was listed after 1857.
The Gibson family moved to 132 East 19th Street in 1859 and the 18th Street house became home to Gustave Herter and his wife, Anna. Herter listed his profession as, "furniture, 547 Broadway." It did not reflect his talents.
Born in Germany in 1830, he and his half-brother, Christian Augustus Ludwig Herter, who was nine years younger than he, learned cabinetmaking from their father. Gustave Herter arrived in New York City in 1848 and established his furniture-making shop. Around the time that he and Anna purchased 106 East 18th Street, Christian arrived in New York and joined the business, renaming it Herter Brothers around 1864.
Herter Brothers designed and manufactured high-end furniture. Their remarkable pieces both followed and set fashionable trends, and caught the eye of America's wealthiest patrons. By the late 1860s, they not only created the furnishings of America's mansions, but decorated the rooms around them. When President Ulysses S. Grant and First Lady Julia Grant moved into the White House in 1869, they commissioned Herter Brothers to redecorate the Executive Mansion.
This illustration titled "A Corner in the Drawing Room" shows a portion of Herter Brothers' furniture and decoration of William Henry Vanderbilt's Fifth Avenue mansion. Mr. Vanderbilt's House and Collection, 1883 (copyright expired)
By 1873, Herter Brothers was, perhaps, the foremost furniture maker and interior design firm in the country. With their success came affluence. That year Gustave and Anna left 139 East 18th Street. Their furnishings--no doubt all of which came from the Herter Brothers workrooms--were sold at auction on April 16 and among the offerings were, "fine Parlor, Chamber [i.e, bedroom], Library, Hall, Dining Room and Kitchen" furniture, described by the auctioneer as "elegant."
The house was briefly operated as a boarding house until Dr. William W. Hurd, a dentist, moved in in 1876. Hurd and his family remained until 1884, when Richard Cary Morse purchased 139 East 18th Street.
Richard Cary Morse, from the collection of the Springfield College Archives.
Born in Hudson, New York on September 19, 1841, Morse was a nephew of inventor Samuel F. B. Morse. Although he studied at the Princeton and Union Theological Seminaries, he never pursued active ministry. In 1869, he became involved with the Y.M.C.A.
On June 21, 1883, Morse married Jane Elizabeth Van Cott. She would regularly be hostess to Y.M.C.A. leaders. In his autobiography, My Life With Young Men, for instance, Morse writes:
In 1884, and several succeeding years, the Secretaries, on coming to the city for the annual dinner, spent the day in our home at 139 East 18th Street...The morning and afternoon were spent in our parlor and library on the second floor, going over each man's work for the year past, and the program of his department for the coming year.
Richard and Jane Morse remained here until around 1898, after which 139 East 18th Street was operated as a boarding house. It was run by Mrs. Mollie Galler by 1917.
Two boarders who arrived in 1919 had much in common. With the war ended, former soldier Antonio de Blaza returned to New York. He took a room here and found a job as a porter in the Hilliard Building, an office building at 55 John Street. And in August, Army Sergeant Ernest W. Gooch rented a room. A native of Indiana, he had been reassigned to the Army Recruiting Office at East 14th Street and Third Avenue.
Sergeant Gooch was dealing with dark demons. Four weeks after moving in, on September 15, 1919, Gooch committed suicide by shooting himself in his room. The New-York Tribune reported, "Two sealed letters addressed to his company commander were found."
Another tragedy occurred a month later. On October 17, The Sun reported that Antonio de Blaza "was caught between the elevator and the shaft opening on the first floor landing" at his job. "Firemen were called to extricate him, but before he was released he was dead." The article mentioned, "He was unmarried and had recently returned from service overseas."
image via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services
Luke Chess, who rented a room here in 1921, worked as a mechanical engineer for the Standard Oil Company. In the early hours of September 13, he was awakened by a knock on his door. Two men and a woman "demanded his jewelry," according to Chess. The would-be robbers were unprepared for his reaction.
Suspicious of the unexpected visit in the middle of the night, Chess had pulled out his revolver before answering the door. The New York Times reported, "Clad in pajamas, Luke Chess...chased two men and a woman from his apartment at 139 East Eighteenth Street early yesterday and fired several shots after them." One of the men escaped, but Gladys Kaufman and Charles Banno were apprehended.
Seven days later two another residents appeared in the newspapers, for a much different reason. On September 30, 1921, the Daily Star reported that the four men responsible for the theft of ten automobiles recently had been arrested. Among them was "James Stapleton, alias Rogers, alias Frisco, of 139 East Eighteenth street, Manhattan," said the article. Another gang member, James Hall, who also lived here, was already in jail, "having admitted committing three hold-ups in Manhattan."
John Cole, who lived here in 1937, worked at the Horn & Hardart Automat at 115 East 14th Street. He was on the picket line outside on Christmas night that year when he and another striker, George Russo, became annoyed with the police officers, "calling them 'rats and finks' and causing a crowd of more than 500 to gather, after they had been warned to desist," reported The New York Times on December 29. The fingerprints of both men revealed that they had previous convictions. Their calling officers derogatory names landed them in the workhouse for 60 days.
photograph by Carole Teller
A renovation completed in 1989 resulted in a duplex apartment in the basement and first floors, two duplexes that shared the second and third floors, and one apartment on the fourth. The configuration was amended in 2010 when the top three floors were combined as a triplex apartment.
many thanks to reader Carole Teller for suggesting this post
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