The Lost Jesse Crawford Whyte House and Store - 78 West 126th Street

 

To the left of the house, a wooden fence protects the horsewalk, or passage, that accessed the smaller residence in the rear.  image via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services.

Born in 1818, Jessie Crawford married James Whyte in Scotland around 1840.  The couple, who would have five sons and four daughters, arrived in America around 1850.  

The following year, Andrew Crawford (presumably Jessie's father) erected a two-story wooden house-and-store at 78 West 126th Street just east of Eighth Avenue (later renamed Frederick Douglass Boulevard).  The Harlem neighborhood in which the property sat was sparsely developed and was still mostly filled with farms and summer estates.  Crawford's humble building drew on the Italianate style.  That was especially apparent in the carpenter-made scrolled brackets below the eave line.  A second house sat in the rear yard.  

Jessie Whyte inherited the property in 1874.  It does not appear that the Whyte family occupied the property, but rented the two buildings.  Work-wanted advertisements often hinted at the social-economic status of the applicants.  One, on July 22, 1889, for instance, read: "Nurse or Chambermaid--By a young girl; willing and obliging; first-class references.  78 West 120th-st., rear."

The occupant of the rear house in 1896 placed an advertisement in the New York Journal that suggested she had made a heart-rending decision.  "A woman wishes to board her child where it will get mother's care.  McEvoy, 78 West 126th st., rear house."

Jessie Crawford Whyte bequeathed the property to her two eldest sons, David C. and James Richardson Whyte.  David transferred his portion on December 6, 1895 to James.  James was born on April 27, 1846 and married Emma Elizabeth Shafer in 1868.  The couple had nine children and, like David, they lived in New Jersey.

It appears that a physician occupied the ground floor at the time of the transfer.  He and his family would have lived behind the office.  Late in 1897, the front building was vacant and an advertisement on December 12 offered:

Back parlor, suitable for physician, newly furnished, hot, cold water; also second-story front and back rooms; fine location; references.  78 West 126th-st.

Instead, Louis Muliero signed a five-year lease for the ground floor on May 1, 1898 and moved his shoe store into the front space.  It would be the first of several shoe stores at the address.

The upper floor tenants at the turn of the century sought a cushy job, placing an ad in the New-York Tribune on June 8, 1900:

Caretakers--American couple; for vacant house; summer months or permanent; excellent reference and bond, no family; temperance.  Mr. Marion.  78 West 126th-st.

At the time of the Marions' ad, the Harlem neighborhood had greatly changed.  In 1879, elevated trains were extended into the area, making it a vibrant suburb.  In 1889, a dance school and hall was erected at 80 West 126th Street and in 1898 the Builders' League of New York erected a meeting hall at 74 West 126th Street.  The Whytes' little frame house was now a charming anachronism on the block.

The picturesque building, dwarfed by its neighbors, was captured by Charles Von Urban in 1932. from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York.

Raphael Maresco was born in Italy in 1882 and came to New York in 1889.  He saved up $200 and purchased Louis Muliero's shoe store.  Maresco did well and by 1904 he had accumulated $900 that he planned "to send over to Italy for the sweetheart he left there," according to The New York Times.

In July, Gregoric Delavere approached the 22-year-old and asked him if he would sell the store.  According to The Times, "they agreed upon a price, and Delavere said he would like to sit around the store for a day or two and get an idea of the character and amount of business Maresco was doing."

On the second day, Delavere went out and brought back cheese and crackers and a pitcher of beer.  Maresco recalled later that Delavere did not drink the beer.  That was because he had spiked it with what police called "knock-out drops."  According to Maresco, the next thing he knew, "he was lying on the bed in the rear of the store."  He had been passed out for 24 hours.  His $900 life savings and Delavere were both gone.

Six weeks later, on August 28, Maresco was walking along West 111th Street when he saw Delavere sitting on the stoop of No. 303.  "He called Policeman Nelson of the East One Hundred and Fourth Street Station, and Delavere was locked up."  It is unlikely that Maresco recovered his money.

The ground floor of 78 West 126th Street continued to house a shoe shop.  In September 1912, the Hanover Shoe Company signed a lease.

James Richardson Whyte died on November 2, 1928.  The West 126th Street property was inherited by his four adult children, Jessie Whyte, Elsie W. Noyes, Ida K. Walker and Howard Whyte.

At least one of their tenants during the Depression years was a bit shady.  On March 1, 1934, The New York Sun reported that 34-year-old Joseph Antico and a friend, Dominick Coppa, had been arrested for operating a policy racket.  (Policy games were illegal lotteries, later known as the numbers racket.  The games preyed on low-income persons who dreamed of quick riches.)

Two months earlier, The New York Times reported that 78 West 126th Street had been sold to the Northlone Realty Corporation.  The New York Sun mentioned that the property had "been owned for eighty-four years" by the Whyte family.

Tillie Epps leased the building from Northlone Realty Corporation.  She encountered a difficult tenant in Robert Johnson in 1938.  On May 14 that year, The New York Age reported sarcastically:

When your landlady has the audacity to insult your integrity and demean your pride by demanding that you either move from her premises or pay her the rent, you can hardly be blamed for making some sort of righteous indignation.

Tillie Epps had Johnson arrested when, according to her, he "threatened her with bodily harm when she demanded that he either pay his board or move out of the house."  Johnson was charged with disorderly conduct and evicted.

A demolition permit was issued for the property in 1943.  Somewhat astoundingly, the lot remains vacant.