The Lost William E. Finn House - 1994 Madison Avenue

 

from the collection of the New York Public Library

In 1885, the Harlem neighborhood above 125th Street, once dotted with sprawling farms and country estates, was seeing rampant construction as homes, stores, and churches transformed the landscape.  On December 18 that year, architect A. I. Finkle filed plans for six upscale residences on Madison Avenue starting at the northwest corner of West 127th Street for developer George Kuhn.

Overall Romanesque Revival in style, Finkle sprinkled the row with other historical elements--a stepped Flemish gable in once instance, for example.  As was common, the corner house at 1994 Madison Avenue would be the showpiece.  At 35-feet wide, it comfortably fell into the category of a "mansion."  Finkle distinguished it with a chateauesque corner turret that rose to a witch's hat cap.

A moat protected by handsome iron railings provided natural light to the basement.  The parlor level, above a sideways stoop, was clad in undressed granite, while the second and third floors were faced in yellow Roman brick and trimmed in brownstone.  The mansard level exploded into a riot of shapes and angles; one of the two chimneys erupting from the center of a peaked gable.  

The row was completed in 1886 and the houses were leased for a decade.  Then, in 1896, real estate operator and builder William E. Finn and his wife, the former Flora Frank, purchased 1994 Madison Avenue.  The couple, who were 27 and 23 years old at the time, moved in in May and their first child, Myra, was born a month later, on June 26, 1896.  A son, Frank Mortimer, would arrive in 1898.

Despite his relative youth, Finn was successful, well-to-do, and an aggressive businessman.  As early as 1900, he added "investments" to his resume.

At the same time, Finn was turning his attention to the increasing commercialization of Lower Fifth Avenue, buying up former mansions as the site of commercial buildings.  In November 1900, for instance, he purchased the residence at 10 West 18th Street, just off the avenue, from millionaire August Belmont.  And on January 28, 1903, the New York Herald reported, "William E. Finn took title yesterday to the old Waterbury residence at the northeast corner of Fifth avenue and Eleventh street."  The article said he would replace it with a ten-story apartment building.

from the collection of the New York Public Library

Finn's operations were, perhaps, too aggressive.  On July 17, 1908, the New-York Tribune reported that he had filed for bankruptcy.  The article said that among his assets was "No. 1,994 Madison avenue, valued at $920,000."  (If that valuation was accurate, it would translate to an astounding $32.4 million in 2026.)

Finn dug himself out of the financial hole and before long his business was restored.  Nevertheless, in the meantime, the family left 1994 Madison Avenue.  With their financial and social status restored, they would be living at 450 West End Avenue by August 17, 1917 when the New York Herald reported that Myra Finn was engaged to Oscar Hammerstein.  The article was quick to add, "The Oscar in question, however, is not the Oscar of opera fame, but a grandson."

Myra Finn Hammerstein and Oscar Hammerstein, from the collection of the Library of Congress

In the meantime, the Finn mansion was sold to David M. MacLetchen.  It was now operated as a boarding house and in 1911, Dr. Abraham Caspe converted the basement level to his uptown office.  An announcement in the New York Evening Call on August 9 gave his office hours as: "Daily up to 10 a.m. and from 5 to 7 p.m.  Sunday up to 10 a.m. only."  The announcement noted, "His downtown office will remain at 210 East Broadway."

Dr. Abraham Caspe was described by the New York Herald as "a prominent East Side physician."  He began his medical practice in 1898.  In stark contrast to traditional Edwardian mores, he was shockingly open-minded in respect to casual sexual encounters.  Not sharing his attitudes was his wife, Mary.

On October 28, 1914, the New York Herald reported that Mary had filed for a separation and alimony.  Her complaint said that "her husband believes in soul mates and has them."  The article said succinctly that Caspe "advocates lax marital views."

Max Johnson boarded in the house at the time.  Affluent enough to own an automobile, he seems to have had what today might be deemed a "lead foot."  In October 1914, he was fined $25 for speeding.  The next month he was ticketed and fined $100, and in February 1915, he was caught again and fined $25.  On May 21, he faced Magistrate John A. Leach "for speeding his automobile on Hillside Avenue, Jamaica," as reported by The New York Times.  The Brooklyn Eagle noted that he was clocked at "the excessive rate of thirty-five miles an hour."  After looking over Johnson's record, the magistrate announced, "Ten days in City Prison."

from the collection of the New York Public Library

A cavalier Johnson pulled out "a large roll of bills" and asked, "How much does that mean in money?"

"It means ten days in prison, no fine," replied the magistrate.  The New York Times reported, "Johnson, stunned by the sentence, went to a cell and his car was sent to a garage."

Ten days in jail did not teach Johnson his lesson, however.  On May 7, 1916, the New York Herald reported that he struck sisters Angelina and Mary Barbace at 21st Street and Fourth Avenue.  The girls were 18 and 17 years old respectively.  The New York Sun added, 

Both girls are in Bellevue Hospital and yesterday it was not known whether they would recover.  Mary, the younger sister, is suffering from internal injuries from being whirled thirty feet along the pavement when her dress caught in the wheel, and Angelina is still unconscious from a fractured skull, caused by being thrown headlong into the curb.

The New York Herald reported that Johnson was held without bail "on a charge of felonious assault."

Albert and Mary Anderson were married in October 1916 and moved into rooms here.  The 24-year-old Anderson worked as a carpenter.  Six months later, he was part of a crew demolishing an old building in Brooklyn.  On March 2, 1917, The Brooklyn Daily Times reported that he "fell twenty feet from a building at the foot of Commercial street, Greenpoint."  Anderson, who had fallen through a skylight, died in the ambulance on the way to the hospital.

image via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services

By the Depression years, 1994 Madison Avenue was, as described by The New York Age, "a remodeled private house which has been turned into a rooming house."  In the summer of 1938, Jemos Natson and his wife, Emily "took a small apartment here," said the newspaper.  The couple were 32 and 25 years old, respectively.  

Natson came home on the evening of August 8 that year to discover Emily "entertaining some other young man," as reported by The New York Age.  The man fled and Jemos's rage turned to Emily.  He pulled out a penknife and stabbed her "in the neck, arms and about the hands," said the article, which added, "She lost a considerable amount of blood before an ambulance arrived."  Five days later, police were still looking for Jemos and Emily's condition was still listed as serious.

The Finn mansion survived until 1982.  If the owners intended to replace it, they did not.  A fenced vacant lot still occupies the site today.

image by durififliapaname

The 1888 Matthew C. Henry House - 138 East 95th Street

 

In 1960, before being protected within the Carnegie Hill Historic District, the house was given an unsightly rooftop addition, visible from the street.

Developers and builders William J. and John P. C. Walsh embarked on an ambitious project in 1887, breaking ground for 12 rowhouses that would nearly engulf the entire southern blockfront of East 95th Street between Park and Lexington Avenues.  Designed by C. Abbott French & Co., each Queen Anne-style home was different yet harmonious.  They created a charming streetscape of colors and materials, oriels and gables, and other decorations.

The $10,000 worth of stone used in erecting the homes was purchased  from M. C. Henry & Co., according to the Real Estate Record & Builders' Guide on October 8, 1887.  The "old reliable and successful firm of stone cutters," as described by the journal, was headed by Matthew C. Henry and John Gaynor.

Construction on the row was completed in 1888.  Interestingly, when the Walshes placed the two easternmost houses, 136 and 138 East 95th Street, at auction in October 1889, Matthew C. Henry purchased them for $14,000 each (about $492,000 in 2026 terms).

Henry and his wife, Maria, briefly occupied No. 138.  The couple had a country home in New Rochelle.  Like the others, 138 East 95th Street was three stories tall above an English basement fronted by a dog-legged box stoop.  The upper floors were faced in beige brick and trimmed in terra cotta and sandstone.  The parlor floor openings with their curved corners sat below substantial, blocky lintels--the color of the stone so similar to the brick that they nearly disappear.  Between the door and window was a large terra cotta plaque containing a shield, and charming terra cotta tiles of sunflowers filled the gap below the window.

The late New York Times journalist Christopher Gray would call 138 East 95th Street a "potpourri," pointing out "its great oriel bay designed with 12-pane transoms and curved sides, and flanked by a checkerboard brick wall."  Originally, another terra cotta panel or rondel decorated the gable under the cornice.

Real Estate Record & Builders' Guide, September 23, 1876 (copyright expired)

Interestingly, in 1890 Henry excavated the basement floor, lowering it to accommodate "dining rooms."  The exact purpose of those rooms is unclear.  

The Henrys sold 138 East 95th Street to Ivan and Hilda Frank in June 1891 for $16,500 (about $587,000 today).  Frank was the principal in Ivan Frank & Co., makers of children's clothing.  The couple had one daughter, Minna Vera, and a son, Lawrence.

Minna's wedding to Sigmund Lang Newman took place in Sherry's on January 26, 1910.

Frank, who was still living with his parents, went into real estate development.  On June 15, 1912, for instance, The New York Times reported that he had purchased 104 through 110 West 29th Street.  "Mr Frank is in Europe at present, but it is understood that...a twelve story modern fireproof loft building is to be erected."

In 1913, the Franks moved to 176 West 87th Street and leased 138 East 95th Street to Morris (sometimes spelled Morice) and Bella Bernhard Schwartzkopf.  Born in New York City in 1857 and 1861 respectively, Morris and Bella had two children, Clara S., born in 1895, and Irving Morris, born in 1898.  Morris was a partner in the cigar box manufacturing firm, Schwarzkopf & Ruckert.

Irving Schwartzkopf entered the U.S. Army in 1916, the same year that his sister's engagement to Harry M. Benjamin was announced.  Clara's wedding took place on June 1, and it is unclear whether Irving was able to attend.

Ivan Frank died on April 9, 1918.  The East 95th Street residence became a rooming house.  While the tenants were respectable, they were not merchant class like the earlier residents.

Living here in 1920 was John Ryan, who worked as a motorman on a trolley.  He was involved in a serious accident on September 15 that year.  The New-York Tribune reported that 13 passengers "were hurt last night when the car crashed into a Broadway trolley in front of the car barns at 129th Street and Amsterdam Avenue."  All of the passengers required medical attention, but only one was hospitalized.

Ryan told authorities that his brakes "were not working right."  When another trolley pulled out of the car barn, Ryan crashed into it.  According to the New-York Tribune, he said "the collision occurred before he could stop his car."

Sara S. Steele, who lived here in 1922, was typical of the other residents.  She worked as a nurse for the City of New York.  Another roomer, named Peterson, was looking for employment that year.  His ad read, "Butler, valet, bachelor apartment or small family; good references." 

At some point around this time, the terra cotta ornament in the gable was removed.  Why it was remains a mystery.

The terra cotta ornament had been pried off the gable as early as 1941.  via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services.

No. 138 returned to a single family house when it was sold in October 1951.  It became home to siblings Gilbert and Doris Francklyn, born in 1870 and 1887, respectively.  The Francklyns, who never married, came from high society.  Their father, Charles Gilbert Francklyn, was born on Washington Square.  He was the grandson of Samuel Cunard, the shipping magnate and founder of the Cunard Line.  Their mother was Susan Sprague Hoyt, who was born in the Hoyt mansion at 94 Fifth Avenue.

Charles Gilbert Francklyn died in 1929 and Susan in 1932.  Included in Gilbert's and Doris's inheritance was the family's country home, Redcroft, in Southampton, erected by their father in 1897.  

Gilbert was a retired executive with the Consolidated Gas Company (of which his father had been a director).  A poet, Doris had been a teacher.  

Moving into 138 East 95th Street with the Francklyns was Jean Cammann, a close friend of Doris, who had begun living with the siblings as a teenager in 1940.  At the time, she was attending the Barmore School.

Jean also had a sterling social pedigree.  She made her debut in 1949 "at the Junior Assemblies in New York and the Tuxedo Autumn Ball in Tuxedo Park," said The New York Times.  It is unclear why Jean lived with the Francklyns rather than her mother, Mrs. Philip G. Cammann.  But the situation ended on July 11, 1953 when Jean was married to Arnold Guyot Dana in a notable society wedding in Southampton.

Gilbert Francklyn died in the house at the age of 87 on June 15, 1957.  In reporting his death, The New York Times remarked: "Educated at Eton and at Christ College, Cambridge, England, he had been a famous Cambridge rowing star in the Eighteen Eighties."

Two years later, on August 6, 1959, Doris died at the age of 72 at the Southampton estate.  The Daily Item reported on August 17 that she divided her estate equally to Jean Cammann Dana and "another friend, Alice L. Schrieber."

The new owners of 138 East 95th Street added a studio addition to the roof.  Because the Expanded Carnegie Hill Historic District would not be established until December 1993, there was no restriction against visible, intrusive structures at the time.  The house continues to be a one-family home.

photographs by the author

The 1878 82 through 88 Horatio Street

 

photograph by Frank Hosticka

Developer John H. Selzam hired architect Theophilus G. Smith in 1878 to design four flat buildings at 82 through 88 Horatio Street.  Just one-and-a-half blocks from the riverfront, they would be home to working-class families, many of them newly arrived in America.  But unlike tenement buildings that would be built throughout Greenwich Village and the East Side, Smith did not encrust these flats with grotesque masks and shields and other over-the-top ornament.  He created a dignified marriage of the Anglo-Italianate and Renaissance Revival styles.

The buildings were 25- and 18-feet-wide.  The wider buildings cost Selzam $9,000 to erect and the others $8,000--$292,000 and $260,000 respectively in 2026.

Rounded arched windows and elliptically arched entrances distinguished the first floor, which sat a few steps above the sidewalk.  Above a molded band course, the upper four floors were faced in orange-red brick and trimmed in brownstone.  The second floor windows sat atop molded sills supported by decorated brackets.  Above their paneled lintels were Renaissance-inspired pediments with similar carved brackets.  The openings of the top two floors were treated with identical elements, but without the pediments.  Elaborate, individual pressed metal cornices included paneled fascias and paired scrolled corbels and brackets.

photograph by Frank Hosticka

There were four apartments per floor.  An advertisement offered "choice apartments of two, three and four rooms."  The residents ranged from laborers to those who had at least high school educations, as was reflected in their various advertisements looking for work.  Nellie J. Duke, who lived in No. 86 in January 1891, wrote, "A young girl, experienced cashier and bookkeeper, wants employment." Another tenant in the same building placed an advertisement that same month.  "A respectable young girl as chambermaid and waitress in a private family or would do plain cooking; good references."  And another resident advertised in October 1894, "Waiter; good oyster opener; 10 years' experience; married.  Coombs, 86 Horatio Street."

Among the initial residents of No. 88 was the Scholl family.  Born in Germany, John Scholl had a wife and at least two grown daughters.  The New-York Tribune reported on February 16, 1880, "He had worked at several breweries in the Ninth Ward, but his habits of intoxication had alienated him from his wife and daughters."  They had expelled him from the apartment.

Early on the morning of February 15, Patrolman Walsh was passing some piles of lumber at West and Bethune Streets, "when he noticed the body of a man dangling by a rope between two of the piles," reported the New-York Tribune.  It was John Scholl.  The article said, "It was not known by the police where he lived recently."

Also living at No. 88 that year were Louis Gluck and his wife.  Louis and his brother, Gustavus, were carvers in the Weber piano factory.  Gustavus and his wife lived on Seventh Avenue.  On the evening of December 15, 1880, Gustavus opened a box that he kept in the bedroom and noticed that $25 was missing.  (It was a substantial amount, nearly $800 in today's terms.)  His wife told him that his step-father, Justus Schilling, had stolen it.

Gustavus informed his brother and the two of them headed to Schilling's apartment on Third Street and First Avenue.  They rousted Schilling from his bed and demanded the missing money.  Schilling called Gustavus's wife a liar.  The Sun reported that Louis, "struck him on the head with some hard instrument" and Gustavus drew a pistol.  He shot Shilling in the forehead and as the wounded man rushed from the apartment, shot him again in the back.  Gustavus fled to his brother-in-law's apartment, where he was later tracked down.  Louis was arrested in his Horatio Street apartment later that night.

Ellen Sullivan and her adult son, John, occupied an apartment in 84 Horatio Street as early as 1895.  On May 1 that year, the exasperated Ellen walked into the Charles Street station house with her son and announced, "I want to have my boy committed for a month.  He's been drinking steadily for two weeks now, and, if he is sent away for a time, he will straighten up and go to work again."

The Sun reported, "The man, who plainly showed that his mother's story was true, said he was willing to be put out of the reach of temptation."  A policeman escorted the two to the Jefferson Market Court.  As they waited to be called before Justice Taintor, Ellen wept.  Finally, Taintor called her forward and asked her to swear to the complaint.  Ellen broke down, crying, "Oh, I can't, I can't do it.  Oh, Johnny, Johnny, my boy, what made you drink?"

Suddenly, as reported by The Sun, "As she stopped speaking she clutched at her left side, staggered and fell into the arms of a court attendant."  She was carried into the hall where she died.  A court officer explained to the judge that Ellen had just died "of a broken heart."  The doctor who had been called in clarified that the cause was heart disease.

In the meantime, Ellen's body "lay in the court hall for several hours, with a red handkerchief thrown over the face," said the article.  Finally a wooden box was brought in.  The body was placed in it and the lid nailed shut.  The Sun reported that it was "removed to the dead woman's home."

At the turn of the century, Bernard and Madeline Nagel occupied an apartment on the top floor of 84 Horatio Street.  Nagel was a lithographer with the Federal Lithographing Company nearby at 91-97 Horatio Street.  Early in the morning of July 13, 1901, the couple got into a heated argument.

At around 3:00 a.m., Mary Doran, who lived below the Nagels, was awakened by Madeline's cries.  She ran upstairs to find the woman standing in the doorway, "bleeding so profusely that she was frightened and ran downstairs," as reported by The New York Times.  Madeline had been shot in the chest.

After a few minutes, Mary got the courage to return and "give her a glass of water."  Madeline needed more than a drink of water, however.  At St. Vincent's Hospital, Coroner Bausch, who did not expect her to survive, took the 44-year-old woman's ante-mortem statement.  The article said police were looking for Bernard Nagel.

82 and 84 Horatio Street in 1940.  via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services

Patrick O'Connor, who worked as a longshoreman, lived with his wife Mary and their nine-year-old son at 86 Horatio Street by 1904.  Among their neighbors was Mary Callahan and following her death in September that year they attended her funeral at Calvary Cemetery.  Like Bernard Nagel, it appears that Patrick O'Connor's differences with his wife could result in violence.

Another mourner, a young man, shared a cab back to Manhattan with them.  The New York Herald reported that O'Connor, "accused the young man of being too friendly with Mrs. O'Connor."  He ousted him from the cab "and turned on his wife," said the article.  The New York Times reported, "Then came the sounds of a struggle from the interior of the cab, interspersed with the shrieks of the woman and the frightened cries of the boy."  The cabbie, Patrick O'Brien, called a policeman to help.

The officer found Mary O'Connor, "thrown into a heap in the corner, while the son had hidden under a seat," according to The New York Times.  The New York Herald added, "Mrs. O'Connor had two puffy eyes and her gown had been almost entirely torn off.  The boy was lame and sore."

Expectedly, Patrick O'Connor was arrested.  "Mary was permitted to go home and promised to come back after her husband," said The New York Times.

In 1927, all four buildings were converted to apartments by architect Ferdinand Savignano.  It was most likely at this time that a coating of stucco was applied to the first floor facade.  Two years later, despite the ongoing Depression (or because of it), on October 31, 1929 The New York Times reported that the 70 apartments were "now 95 per cent rented."

Among the early residents of the remodeled No. 82 was fledgling playwright and actor Clifford Odets, who rented an apartment in 1933.  Born in Philadelphia in July 1906, he began as an apprentice actor with the Group Theatre led by Lee Strausberg, Cheryl Crawford and Harold Clurman.  Margaret Brenman-Gibson, in her Clifford Odets, American Playwright: The Years from 1906 to 1940, describes the Horatio Street space as "a tiny, airless apartment."

Odets's parents, L. J. and Pearl Odets, had differing opinions on the accommodations.  Brenman-Gibson writes:

The first piece of furniture he moved into the dark, divided living room and bedroom was a large phonograph.  Pearl...arrived from Philadelphia bringing staples, cookies, and a pair of pongee curtains she had made to spruce up the airshaft window.  L. J. Odets scathingly assured her they made no difference whatever in this "hole in the wall."

Clifford Odets, Stage magazine December 1938

While living here, Odets wrote the one-act play Waiting for Lefty and Awake and Sing!.  The successful productions of both resulted in his becoming Group Theatre's signature playwright.  He left Horatio Street in 1935.

Pleiades Fieldgrove moved into a rear fifth-floor apartment in 86 Horatio Street in July 1956.  The New York Times said that the 26-year-old had left Brooklyn "for the glamour of Greenwich Village."  One month later, on August 31, the building superintendent found her body in the courtyard behind the building.  The medical examiner said she died of a stab wound in the chest.  The Staten Island Advance added that her violent death came "apparently at the hands of a rapist."

While police questioned Edward Peter Lamp, the 72-year-old superintendent, they noticed an unusual item in his apartment--a woman's black hatbox.  Investigation revealed that Pleiades had borrowed the hat from a friend the evening before her body was discovered.  Lamp told detectives "conflicting stories about how he had come into the possession" of the box, reported The New York Times.  Lamp was arrested as a material witness.

photograph by Frank Hosticka

Other than the stucco at the first floor and the necessary fire escapes that detract from their design, 82 through 88 Horatio Street survive remarkably intact.  Theophilus G. Smith's handsome design is exceptionally refined for tenement buildings of the time.

many thanks to reader (and resident) Frank Hosticka for suggesting this post

J. Boekell & Sons 1890 8 St. Mark's Place

 

photo by Anthony Bellov

The once elegant Federal-style mansion at 8 St. Mark's Place held a restaurant in 1888.  An incident that occurred there on the night of October 14 reflected the changing demographics of the area.  Police reports indicated that brothers Carlo and Vincenzo Quartararo were at a table with James Polazzi and Antonio Flaccomio when a dispute erupted "about the conduct of Polazzi...who refused to play at 'tocco,' an Italian game."  Later, on the street Carlo Quartararo attacked Flaccomio, fatally stabbing him in the heart.  As Quartararo's trial neared in March 1889, Assistant District Attorney Goff said that witnesses were reluctant to testify against him, explaining that he was a member of "a secret society called 'Mafia'" that protected him.

By then, the venerable house in which the conflict started was gone.  Developer John M. Hutching had demolished it and hired the architectural firm of J. Boekell & Sons to design a tenement building on the site.  Costing $22,000 to erect (about $775,000 in 2026 terms), it was completed in 1890.

A blend of Queen Anne and neo-Grec styles, the building rose five stories above a high basement.  Trendy ironwork with stylized sunflowers protected the areaway and stoop.  The entrance, centered within the rusticated stone first floor, was flanked by substantial, squared and fluted columns that upheld a molded cornice upon heavy, scrolled brackets.  The upper floors were faced in red brick and trimmed in sandstone.  The outer windows wore stone lintels with molded cornices, and panels between each floor were carved with foliate designs.  An ambitious, multi-level terminal cornice completed the design.

The Esthetic-style ironwork, the entrance, and the carved stone panels survived as late as 1941.  via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services.

A double-flat, there were two "elegant" apartments per floor in the building, as described in an advertisement.  Carl Vogel and George Hasse rented one of the first-floor apartments from which they operated their dating service.  On October 27, 1890, The Sun reported, "On the big glass window on the first floor flat at 8 St. Mark's place this sign has been conspicuous for the last three weeks: 'Administration Mercur.'"  The article explained that the "two Germans" had started a "matrimonial agency on an improved plan."  After paying $3, single men and women filled out forms with their "name, native place, age, religion, occupation, income and means, or fortune."  A photograph was to be included with the form.

Once a week, a "bulletin" that described each of the applicants was sent to the members.  If a member showed interest in one of them, they were shown the photograph.  It was, in effect, the 1890 version of Tinder.  

Another of the initial tenants to use part of his apartment for his business was Dr. S. B. Minden.  Newspaper accounts reveal that he was a busy man.  In April 1891, for instance, he was involved in the high-profile death of Captain George Mackenzie, whose personal doctor deemed the cause of his death "phthisis pulmonalis," or tuberculosis.  The Evening World reported that Minden, however, refused to sign the death certificate, saying that Mackenzie "looked like a man who had died of morphine poisoning" and suspected suicide.

And in December 1893, Dr. Minden was an important witness in the murder case of Dr. Henry C. F. Meyer, accused of poisoning his friend, Ludwig Brandt, to obtain his $8,500 life insurance.  As Brandt lay dying, Dr. Minden called on him every day from March 6 to March 30 when his patient died.

A robust Queen Anne style cornice coexists with neo-Grec details like the incised carvings and geometric lintels.  photograph by Anthony Bellov

Newlyweds Charles D. and Josephine Riggins were married in 1895 and moved into 8 St. Mark's Place.  Riggins worked as an engineer and, according to the New York Herald, "comes from an old Eleventh ward family."  The couple's happy honeymoon period was soon derailed.  On February 7, 1896, the New York Herald reported that he was arrested and charged with bigamy.  The article explained, "He married his first wife, Eva D. Riggins, in 1875.  He left her ten years ago.  He says he thought she was dead, and so he married his present wife, Josephine and went to live at 8 St. Mark's place."

Pauline Barrett occupied an apartment here in 1897 with her husband and mother.  One evening in January that year, Barrett came home to find Pauline hysterical.  "There were marks about her neck where she had been strangled, and her diamond earrings had been torn from her ears," reported The New York Times.  

Four months later, in late April, Pauline was walking along Grand Street when she recognized her assailant.  She "attacked" him, according to newspaper accounts, but he escaped.  Then, on the evening of May 11, 1897, Pauline, her husband and her mother went to Central Park.  They were sitting on a bench when Pauline jumped to her feet and shouted, "There goes the murderer; police!  Stop him!"

Twenty-five-year-old Jacob Talt was arrested and taken to the Arsenal.   The New York Times reported, "Mrs. Barrett, in the station house, made several efforts to strike the prisoner."  Talt, who said he lived in Philadelphia, insisted that he had never seen Pauline before.  Pauline Barrett, on the other hand, was adamant.  "She says she knew him before the night of the assault," said the New-York Tribune.  Talt was locked up in the East 67th Street stationhouse.

A similar occurrence happened to resident Effie Saalsberg in 1914.  On August 11, 17-year-old Harry Franklin assaulted her and fled with her pocketbook.  Then, on September 2, the thug punched Annie Lichter in the face as she was entering the Corn Exchange Bank on 10th Street and Avenue D.  He grabbed her handbag and ran.  Close behind this time were patrolmen Foeller and Mindel, who chased him into a coal cellar.  The Evening World reported, "On the way to the police station, an excited woman broke from the crowd following the prisoners."  It was Effie Saalsberg. 

"Crook!" she screamed.  "There's the man who struck me and took $200 from me three weeks ago."  (Effie had good reason to be impassioned.  Her significant loss would equal nearly $6,500 today.)

By the Depression years, certain residents of 8 St. Mark's Place were on the opposite side of the law.  Among them was Emil Sherman, arrested with his brother Charles and another man on August 31, 1933 for felonious assault.  The three were described by police as "the sole survivors of the notorious Waxey Gordon mob."  On May 24 that year, three innocent pedestrians were injured during "a machine-gun battle between gangsters in two armored automobiles," according to The New York Times.  The article said, "the machine-gun battle was between rival gangs headed by Waxey Gordon on one side and by Charles (Lucky) Luciano and Louis Buckhalter, alias Lipke, on the other."

Another resident, 36-year-old Harry Inberman, was arrested on June 5, 1937 by the Safe and Loft Squad of the New York Police Department.  (The squad focused on commercial burglaries.)  That night he and Adolph Ackerman were caught fleeing from a loft building on East 8th Street.  "Ackerman was shot in the right arm at the time of their arrest as they started to drive away in an automobile," reported The New York Times.

The names of tenants continued to appear in newsprint for the wrong reasons.  On January 19, 1949, Max Fine, who was 57-years-old and listed his profession as an auditor, was arrested for pickpocketing.  Police reported that it was his 45th arrest.

And on New Year's Eve 1951, Meyer Lewis attempted to pick the pocket of Clifford Deabler who took his wife and three teenaged children to Times Square.  The family came from Philadelphia for the event.  Deabler had told his daughter to give him her change purse for safekeeping.  At 11:10, Deabler "felt a hand in my hip pocket, under my overcoat, extracting the purse."  What Lewis could not have known was that his target was an off-duty Philadelphia police officer.  Deabler grabbed Lewis's wrist "and held on tight."

The New York Times reported, "he and his family missed what they had come to New York to see.  Instead they welcomed in the New Year at the West Forty-seventh Street police station, where Meyer Lewis, 63 years old, was booked on a charge of grand larceny."

A renovation completed in 1971 divided the apartments in half, creating four apartments per floor.  In doing so, the entrance was converted to a window.  Why the carved panels of the upper facade were shaved flat is unclear.

photograph by Anthony Bellov

Despite the regrettable changes to the basement and first floor, the upper portion of J. Boekell & Sons's handsome tenement building design survives relatively intact.

many thanks to historian Anthony Bellov for suggesting this post

The 1927 National Broadcasting Co Bldg - 711 Fifth Avenue

 

In 1918, architect Floyd Brown branched into real estate development, founding the Bethlehem Engineering Company.  In 1925 he acquired the five five-story mansions at the northeast corner of Fifth Avenue and 55th Street as a site for a 15-story commercial building.

When this photograph was taken in June 1925, the end of the line for these handsome mansions was near.  from the collection of the New York Public Library

Construction began in 1926 and as the structure rose on December 8, 1926, The New York Times reported that it "will be known as the National Broadcasting Company Building, as a result of negotiations recently completed."  Saying it would "house the greatest broadcasting plant in the United States," the article explained that the National Broadcasting Company would occupy the 14th and 15th floors.

Construction was completed on October 1, 1927.  Faced in limestone, the tripartite Renaissance Revival design included classical elements, like the two Fifth Avenue entrances below triangular pediments carved with wriggling serpents, and double-height engaged Corinthian columns and pilasters at the second and third floors that separated imposing arched openings.

The entrances within classical Roman-style enframements announce "National Broadcasting Bldg" under the fearsome looking serpents within the pediment.  1928 image by Wurts Bros., from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York

The ground and second floors held stores and a bank.  The Chatham-Phenix Bank engulfed most of the second floor (which had a ceiling height of  22 feet); the Knox Hat Co. leased the store between the two Fifth Avenue entrances "and half of the second floor," according to Men's Wear on May 11, 1927; a Samuel Rugof drugstore moved into the 3,000-square-foot corner space; and the hosiery firm Peck & Peck leased the northern store.  (The wife of Mayor James J. Walker officially opened the Peck & Peck store on November 14, 1927.)

The National Broadcasting Company hired architect Raymond Hood to design their studios and offices.  In April 1927, The New York Times reported that he was designing studios in themes--one based on a Gothic church, another on the Roman Forum, a Louis XIV space, and one studio devoted to jazz.  The article called the latter, "wildly futuristic, with plenty of color in bizarre designs."  Buildings and Building Management said that Hood, "set out to give the rooms an atmosphere in keeping with the spirit of radio...The decorations are simple rather than ornate, and not at all fantastic.  The note of modernity was achieved mainly by the effective use of color."

A National Broadcasting Co. reception room (above) and a studio. Proceedings of The Institute of Radio Engineers, May 1929 (copyright expired)

The Fifth Avenue Association annually honored "the best new and altered buildings constructed during the past year," as described by The New York Times on February 12, 1928.  Bethlehem Engineering Corporation was awarded second prize "for new buildings" as builder and architect.  The committee noted, "The design shows originality in composition, but the details and architectural treatments throughout are copies of pure classical examples, together with a small amount of the Pompeian in the bronze storefront."

Banners in 1928 announce that the Chatham-Phenix National Bank would be occupying the ground floor.  from the collection of the New York Public Library

The National Broadcasting Company aired two stations from the building, WEAF and WJZ.  By the time it moved in, the firm was leasing four floors.  Buildings and Building Management explained on April 9, 1928 that the 13th and 14th floors held the eight studios, while offices occupied the 11th and 12th.

The building's other tenants were almost entirely millinery firms, according to The New York Times on August 22, 1928.

The listeners of National Broadcasting Company shows who gathered around their living room radios could only imagine the scenes in the studios.  The live audiences saw "announcers in dinner jackets and prima donnas in red velvet gowns," as described by The New York Times on November 3, 1928.  

At least two exceptions to that type of entertainment occurred that fall.  On October 4, 1928 the National Broadcasting Company aired the first game of the World Series.  The New York Times reported, "Faraway localities heard the account of the game as a result of a hook-up of more than fifty stations which extended from Maine to California and Georgia to Washington."  And the following month, on November 3, a studio was converted to a newsroom as the results of the Presidential election came in by wire and were updated to listeners around the country.

The following year, the National Broadcasting Company landed three important contracts.  Singer Rudy Vallee and his band, the Connecticut Yankees, signed an agreement; on May 6, John Philip Sousa, "band leader and composer, who has refused until now to appear before a microphone," according to The New York Times, began a series of weekly concerts; and in December, the Metropolitan Opera Company signed an agreement to present the first ever grand opera broadcast, Aida.

On April 18, 1939, the Associated American Artists opened their "sumptuous galleries," as described by The New York Times, with an exhibition of Thomas Hart Benton.  Three months later, the women's accessory store Lederer de Paris, Inc. opened in one of the retail spaces.

Views of the elegant American Artists galleries in 1939.  Photograph by F. S. Lincoln, from the collection of the New York Public Library

In 1941, Le Pavillon opened, with its entrance at 5 East 55th Street.  The exclusive restaurant was the target of a frightening and well planned robbery six years later on March 15, 1947.  At 7:00 that night, a man entered the building on Fifth Avenue.  He stepped into an elevator and told the 19-year-old operator, Arthur Carter, to obey his commands.  He was acutely aware of details about the building and even Carter.  "Remember, you have a wife and baby," he said, brandishing the firearm.  

The gunman apparently knew that the restaurant's cashier would soon be taking the afternoon's receipts to the office.  When Marie Jacqueline Casanova entered the elevator, the thug ordered Carter to ascend to the deserted seventh floor.  Here he took the restaurant's $1,500 receipts and Marie Casanova's handbag.  "Then he walked downstairs and disappeared," reported The New York Times.

While Le Pavillon hosted celebrated and wealthy patrons over the years, one party stood out in 1953.  On November 12, The New York Times reported that President Harry Truman, the First Lady, and their daughter, Margaret (with her escort, Robert Diendorfer), dined here before attending The Tea House of the August Moon at the Martin Beck Theatre.

In March, 1955, the Columbia Pictures Corporation acquired 711 Fifth Avenue "for its own use and occupancy," according to The Times.  The article said that as tenants' leases expired, Columbia would take over those spaces.  The firm's planned $3 million renovations would entail, "new elevators, air conditioning, recessed lighting from soundproofed ceilings, and modern plumbing, lavatory and electrical installations," said the article.

In October 1958, Henri Soulé took over the Le Pavillon space for his La Côte Basque.  The redecorating included murals by Bernard Lamotte.  Like Le Pavillon, it became a center of high-society luncheons and dinners.

Included in Columbia Pictures Corporation spaces was a screening room--in effect a small motion picture theater.  Films were screened here to invited audiences prior to their releases.  On December 13, 1967, for instance, The New York Times reported, "Truman Capote invited about 85 of his friends to a private viewing of 'In Cold Blood' last night in a screening room at the Fifth Avenue offices of Columbia Pictures."  Private screening or not, it was a glamorous affair.  "Women in short dresses, many of them wearing mink coats, and men in dark suits emerged regally from limousines and taxis," said the article.  Among them were Princess Lee Radziwill, Patricia Kennedy Lawford, Leonard Bernstein, Bennett Cerf, the William S. Paleys and Katherine Graham.

The building was sold in 1978, and in 1983 the Coca-Cola Company purchased the leasehold.  The New York Times explained on July 27, "Columbia Pictures, a major tenant in the midtown Manhattan building, is a subsidiary of the Coca-Cola Company."  The Coca-Cola Company installed its New York headquarters in the building.

The once-staid Fifth Avenue neighborhood became less so when Coca-Cola Fifth Avenue, a retail merchandise store, opened in November 1991.  The 500 different items ranged in price from 75 cents to $6,000 for a neon sign.  And then, three years later in December 1994, the Walt Disney Company rented 30,000 square feet for its Disney Store, displacing the elegant La Côte Basque restaurant in doing so.

But Fifth Avenue was not totally ready to accept change.  On October 6, 1996, The New York Times Anthony Ramirez reported, 

On Fifth Avenue, you can have 28 American flags snapping smartly over the front of Saks Fifth Avenue.  Or you can have four elegant white awnings shading Cartier.  Or you can have Atlas holding up a giant clock over the entrance to Tiffany's.  But you can't have man-size brass moldings of Mickey Mouse, Minnie Mouse and Pluto the dog jutting out a good six feet over the front door of the Disney Store.

Brendan Sexton, president of the Municipal Art Society, commented, "I love 42nd Street, but it shouldn't be on Fifth Avenue."

In September 2019, SHVO acquired 711 Fifth Avenue and commissioned architect Peter Marino to remodel the interiors.  The exterior, which does not have landmark protection, was preserved intact, and is essentially unchanged since the building opened in 1927.

photographs by the author

The 1890 Rosemont - 210 West 105th Street

photo by Anthony Bellov

Architect John C. Burne designed two identical apartment buildings in 1889 at 210 and 212 West 105th Street between Amsterdam Avenue and The Boulevard (renamed Broadway in 1899).  Each would cost the developer, Diedrich Tragman, $20,000 to construct, or about $631,000 in 2026.  The outlay was too much for Tragman's resources and on May 10, 1890 was forced to abandon the project.  The buildings were described in court papers as, "two five-story unfinished double flats in process of erection, requiring for the purpose of their completion an expenditure of about six thousand dollars."  (The term "double flat" referred to the configuration of two apartments per floor, east and west.)

The eastern building, 210 West 105th Street, was dubbed the Rosemont.  It and its counterpart were a happy marriage of Romanesque Revival and neo-Grec styles (the former appearing at the first and fifth floors).  The brownstone-framed entrances above short stoops were flanked by paired windows engulfed by vast arches.  Intricate swirling carvings filled the spandrels of the entrances.

Faced in red brick and trimmed in brownstone and terra cotta, the three-story midsections featured neo-Grec-style stone lintels and foliate terra cotta bandcourses and decorative panels.  The elements of the top floors included a dramatic brick arch above two fully arched openings.  It was supported by paired brick pilasters with terra cotta capitals.  A highly unusual pressed cornice with geometric horizontal and vertical lines completed the design.

An early advertisement in the New York Herald described, "Six fine rooms and bath; halls heated; select, small family; every room light; most attractive residence portion in the city.  Rent $23."  The monthly rent would translate to about $820 today.

The tenants were middle class, including Augustus Johnson, a locomotive engineer with The New York Central & Hudson River Railroad; Samuel Hamilton, an engineer with the Consolidated Gas Company, and inspector of buildings and retired police officer Michael Tully.  

Samuel Hamilton was born in 1840 and joined the Consolidated Gas Company in 1877.  He and his wife, Mary Ann, had a son and two daughters.  On the morning of June 3, 1900, he was inspecting the powerful machinery in the company's engine room on West 44th Street when something went terribly wrong.  The New York Times reported, "he was seen to stagger and fall into a pit in which a five-foot fly wheel was making 150 revolutions a minute."  The New York Herald added, "His body was whirled around by the wheel and when the machinery was stopped, he was dead."  Samuel Hamilton's funeral was held in his Rosemont apartment on July 5.

Following his retirement from the Police Department, Michael Tully had turned to construction.  (Incidentally, he received an annual police pension of $600, equal to about $23,500 today.)   In addition to that work, he was appointed an inspector of buildings in 1895.  He was still living here in July 1901 when he broke ground for a six-story brick tenement and store on West 26th Street.

Mary Ann Sullivan was also still occupying her Rosemont apartment that year.  She died on December 2, 1901 and, as had been the case with Samuel, her funeral was held in the apartment two days later.

Like Michael Tully, Daniel Brady was a contractor.  On September 28, 1910, he, his wife and their three children attended a funeral.  Just as their carriage crossed the plaza at Fifth Avenue and 59th Street, it collided with an automobile.  The New York Times reported, "The horses took fright and started south, running straight for the Vanderbilt mansion at Fifty-eighth Street."  

Three carriage drivers--Paul Anderson and George and Joseph Nathan--bolted into action.  The Nathans jumped on either side of the team and Anderson bravely darted "directly in front of the plunging horses to seize the bridle."  Happily for the Brady family, the team was eventually subdued and no one was injured.

Helen Wall Stevenson, who was known to audiences at Helen Cayvan, was described by The Evening World as "a prominent show girl."  She moved into the Rosemont with her two-year-old daughter, Muriel, in 1910.  

Helen Wall Stevenson, The Evening World, January 13, 1911 (copyright expired)

Helen was estranged from her husband, Clarence A. Stevenson, whom she married in 1907.  The Evening World reported, "Young Stevenson created a stir...by marrying Helen Wall Cayvan."  The "stir" had to do with Stevenson's being the step-son of wealthy Dr. Francis J. De Giers, owner of the Hotel Collingwood.  The couple's domestic problems started in May 1910 when, according to Helen, Clarence "deserted her."  Their troubles worsened that autumn when Helen "was found in the company of Kenneth E. Blair, a college student," in a Philadelphia hotel, according to The Evening World.

On the afternoon of January 8, 1911, Helen dropped Muriel off with a Mrs. Cunningham.  When she returned to pick her up, Mrs. Cunningham explained that Clarence Stevenson, his mother and stepfather, had appeared with a "legal-looking document" that purported to be a court order.  They took Muriel with them.  Helen, "evidently in deep distress," said The New York Times, rushed to Police Headquarters and reported that Muriel had been kidnapped by her father.  She was told that the police could not interfere, "as it was the father who was alleged to have aided in the removal of the girl," explained The Times.  Helen was advised "to take the matter to court."

Six months later, on July 11, 1911, The Evening World began an article saying, "There was a new ripple on the choppy matrimonial sea of young Clarence A. Stevenson and his chorus girl wife."  Earlier, newspaperman George Flannery had accompanied Helen to the De Giers' summer home near Sea Gate to serve Stevenson with a subpoena.  He subsequently sued the entire Stevenson-De Giers family for assault.  He testified in court that "after she had served the subpoena, Dr. De Giers, his wife and young Stevenson had assaulted him."  The Evening World reported, "The two men, he said, had struck him in the face and Mrs. De Giers had scratched him."  Dr. Francis De Giers counter-sued, charging that Flannery had "struck him with a cane."

Astoundingly--given the times and Helen's profession and her reported cavorting with a college man--on June 29, 1911, The New York Times reported that the jury had ruled in her favor.  The article added that since her separation, she "had been a member of the Prince of Pilsen company, and had appeared in other Broadway attractions."

image via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services.

A prominent resident was politician and secretary of the Knights of Columbus, Charles J. Stuart.  When America entered World War I, he went to France as a representative of the Knights of Columbus to boost the morale of the 82nd and 89th Divisions.  His good will trip turned into deadly combat.  The Evening World reported, 

In the Argonne forest, Stewart [sic] said, he went forward with cigarettes, candy and paper for the troops, exhausted his supply, and, as the hand to hand fighting caused his life to be endangered, he secured a gun and fought through the engagement.

Unfortunately, said the newspaper, "he was gassed and sent home."

Charles J. Stuart, The Evening World, February 18, 1919 (copyright expired)

Sadly, shortly after returning to 210 West 105th Street, he and his wife suffered grief.  On December 1, 1919, their daughter Anna Agnes died.  Her funeral was held in the apartment on December 5.

The following year Stuart ran unsuccessfully for assemblyman on the Tammany Hall ticket.

Patrick J. Hurley lived here at the time.  Known as Paddy, he and Daniel and Connie Hurley had opened the Hurley Brothers & Daly saloon at 1240 Sixth Avenue in 1892.  When the Volstead Act was enacted, the headstrong Irishmen simply moved the bar to the rear of their building with an unmarked entrance and installed a florist shop in the front.  They did not fool two especially clever Federal agents, Izzy Einstein and Moe Smith, however.  On May 8, 1922, The New York Times said that the agents "with many disguises" had "unequaled records for trapping violators."  The previous day they had discovered the clandestine bar and slapped a fine on Patrick J. Hurley.

Artist Charles F. Beck lived here in 1924 and within the decade Ben Benn moved in.  Born in Russia in 1884 as Benjamin Rosenberg, he studied drawing and painting at the National Academy of Design from 1904 to 1908.  According to his biography by the Smithsonian Institution, Benn was "best known as a modern painter who assimilated in his early style the influences of Matisse, Picasso, and Kandinsky."  He was living here in 1925 when his first one-man show was held at the J. B. Neumann Gallery.

At midcentury, the neighborhood around 210 West 105th Street had become heavily Hispanic.  Soto Canedo, who worked as a stevedore, lived here in 1949.  On April 22 that year, the Staten Island Advance reported that the 34-year-old "suffered an internal injury yesterday when he fell about 12 feet into a hatch while working...aboard the SS Athenia."  Canedo recovered in Staten Island Hospital.

Vincent Magraner, who lived here in 1960, attended the United Puerto Rican-Hispano Parade on May 15 that year.  The 44-year-old was among 18 persons arrested for "disturbances," as reported by The New York Times.

image via apartments.com

As was the case in 1890, there are still just 10 units in the building.

many thanks to historian Anthony Bellov for suggesting this post