The 1889 Wickliffe - 226 West 78th Street

 

image via apartments.com

In 1899, builder W. G. Horgan acquired the two rowhouses at 226 and 228 West 78th Street.  He hired architect George F. Pelham to design a six-story apartment building on the site.  Pelham had learned his trade in the architectural office of his father, George Brown Pelham.  He opened his own office in 1890 and would focus on apartment buildings, hotels and commercial structures, drawing from a variety of historic styles.

For the six-story Wickliffe apartments, completed the following year, Pelham drew on Renaissance prototypes while giving it a decidedly 19th century flair.  He created three vertical parts by rounding and projecting the two-bay-wide end sections.  Verticality was softened by intermediate cornices at the second, third and sixth floors, and by decorating the turret-like bays with intricately carved bands at the fourth and fifth.  Classical Renaissance-style pediments crowned the center windows at the third and fourth floors.  The building wore an ornate bracketed cornice crowned with alternating stylized anthemions and fleurs-de-lis.  

photograph by Wurts Bros. from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York

An advertisement in The New York Times touted, "Elegant light, large 8-room apartments, all improvements, near Subway and all cars.  Rents $1,200 to $1,350."  The monthly rents would translate to $3,500 to $4,000 in 2026.

The tenants were, expectedly, professional.  Among the initial residents were Dr. James J. Phillips, a graduate of North Carolina University; and Prince and Princess Auersperg.  The Austrian Prince had recently relocated to New York City.  His wife was what newspapers called at the time, "a penny princess."

Earlier, The New York Times reported, "Miss Florence E. Hazard...created a sensation by her marriage on June 14, 1899, to Prince Francis Joseph von Auersperg," and the Morning Call said that when the engagement was announced, "much surprise was manifested on account of her youth.  She was then but sixteen years old."  Florence's father, Edward C. Hazard, was described by The New York Times as "the wealthy wholesale grocer."  

Florence Ellsworth Hazard was young, beautiful and wealthy when she met the prince.  from the collection of the Library of Congress

Prince Francis Joseph von Auersperg was 30 years old when he married Florence.  (original source unknown)

Prince Auersperg desperately needed a wealthy wife.  His title "dates back to Charlemagne," said the Paterson, New Jersey newspaper The Morning Call.  But, said the article, "Adventures in Vienna and in other European cities took much of the prince's money."  The New York Evening News was more direct saying, "the Prince came to America in 1896 having exhausted his patrimony and run half a million dollars in debt."  He entered the Long Island College Hospital to study medicine and it was shortly after that he met his future wife.

At the time of their marriage, the groom's older brother sent Florence "several rings, and a valuable diamond necklace," said The Morning Call, and her "father settled a fortune upon her."  But the titled newlyweds would not be living in the prince's homeland.  The newspaper explained, "in spite of her immense dowry, the princess would not be received by the Austrian nobility."  And so, they secured an apartment in the Wickliffe and, like Dr. Phillips, the prince opened a medical office.

The road for the titled couple was rocky nearly from the start.  On April 18, 1900, The New York Times reported that Princess Auersperg, "was robbed of jewels to the value of nearly $10,000 yesterday by an unknown man."  Those jewels included the wedding gifts from Florence's brother-in-law.  A workman was in the apartment because "all the electric bells in the house were out of order."  When Florence was called to the telephone, the workman grabbed her "heart-shaped silver box on the bureau" and left.

Less than a month later, on May 9, 1901, The New York Times reported that Prince Francis Auersperg had declared bankruptcy.  The article explained that his problems arose "out of a real estate transaction which took place in Austria, in which the Prince obtained possession and ownership of an old ancestral estate belonging to [Count Ernest and Countess Gabrielle Coreth] and never paid them for it."  The couple sued him for $40,000 (about $1.5 million today).  The New York Times said, "His visible assets he enumerated as twelve pairs of silk stockings."  Luckily, Edward Hazard had wisely put his wedding present into Florence's sole control.

Then, on March 30, 1903, The World titled an article, "Doctor Of Royal Birth Is Sued."  Prince Auersperg had borrowed $1,000 from Theodore Marburg in 1901 and failed to repay it.

The couple's relationship finally faltered following the death of Florence's father in 1905.  He left her a large inheritance and her husband insisted that she transfer it into his name.  Well aware of his financial history, Florence refused.  It resulted in her leaving him and moving into her mother's home in  Seabright, New Jersey.  She obtained a divorce in 1915 and married businessman John J. Murphy on May 1 that year.

In the meantime, The Wickliffe attracted several artistic residents.  Living here in 1903 was photographer Julius Ludovici.  He catered to well-heeled patrons and produced informal portraits with hand-colored tints.  He had a "photographic and crayon studio" on Fifth Avenue and, during the summer social season, a studio in Newport.

This charming portrait of a child--so unlike the stiff, posed images of most photographers--was typical of Ludovici's work.  from the Getty Museum Collection.

Also living here at the time were H. R. Humphries and Henry A. Ferguson.  Humphries advertised in the New-York Tribune on November 24, 1907 that he, "teaches singing, from rudiments of voice placing to artistic finishing for concerts, oratorio and church work, at his studio, No. 226 West 78th street."

Landscape artist Henry Augustus Ferguson, who lived here with his wife, Eleanor, and daughter, was born in Glen Falls, New York around 1842.  (The New York Times said, "his exact age was not known, as he never confided it even to his most intimate associates.)  He started painting in his teens and, according to The Times, "first gained recognition following a world tour in which he painted many pictures in Mexico, Italy, and Egypt."

This portrait of Henry August Ferguson may have been posed in his Wickliffe apartment.  via Seraphin Gallery.

In January 1911, he gave a private exhibition of American landscapes at the Century Association.  Two months later, on March 20, he became ill.  Pneumonia developed and he died in his apartment two days later.

A prominent resident at the time was author, artist and explorer Frederick Samuel Dellenbaugh.  Born in McConnelsville, Ohio on September 13, 1853, he began exploring as a youth and was part of the expedition that found the Escalante River, the last unknown river in the United States, and discovered the Henry Mountains.

Frederick Samuel Dellenbaugh, Touring Topics, November 1929 

In 1904 Dellenbaugh co-founded the Explorers Club.  While living here, in 1909 he was appointed librarian of the American Geographical Society.  Among his books are Breaking the Wilderness, published in 1905; the 1908 In the Amazon Jungle; and Fremont and '49, first published in 1913.

Dellenbaugh joined another expedition in 1923.  On November 11, The New York Times poetically reported, "The roaring, rapid-strewn reaches of the Colorado River, plunging down to the Gulf of California between the towering cliffs of the Grand Canyon, once more have been conquered."  Dellenbaugh was a member of the Geological Survey expedition headed by Colonel C. H. Birdseye.

Another writer living here by 1914 was journalist and author John Walker Harrington.  Born on July 8, 1868 in Plattsburgh, Missouri, he was on the staff of the New York Herald.  Among his works was the 1900 children's book The Jumping Kangaroo and the Apple Butter Cat. 

Illustrator Paul Goold returned to 226 West 78th Street and to his wife, the former Edith Chapman, after serving on the front in World War I.  He served as a captain with the First National Army and was celebrated with his comrades on October 16, 1918 as the members of the "Lost Battalion" of the Battle of Argonne.  Born in 1875, Goold began his career as an illustrator on the Portland [Maine] Sunday Press and Sunday Times after high school.  In 1899 he joined the art staff of The New York Times, leaving four years later to work as a magazine illustrator.  

Now back home, he opened a studio in Carnegie Hall.  He and Edith were still living in The Wickliffe on December 7, 1925 when he "jumped or fell from his studio on the twelfth floor of Carnegie Hall through a skylight into a hallway four floors below," as reported by The New York Times.  The article said, "The crash of the body plunging through the skylight aroused artists and musicians in near-by studios."  Goold had left a letter for Edith in the studio.  He was taken to Roosevelt Hospital with a fractured skull and died a few hours later.  Goold's private funeral was held in the apartment on December 10.

image via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services.

The press coverage of residents became less positive in the Depression years.  On November 28, 1931, for instance, Stephen A. Tillinghast and Joseph D. Kogan, presumably roommates, were arrested with 15 others as "a group of alleged racketeers who are said to have smuggled aliens into the United States," according to The New York Times.

Five years later, on May 14, 1936, 26-year-old dancer Margaret Rand was arrested for operating a "questionable 'studio'," as described by The New York Times.  Rand hired young women to provide "private dancing instructions."  Police highly suspected that dancing was not the only activity being practiced there.

In 1961, the once-proud apartment building was converted to a single-room-occupancy hotel.  Expectedly, not all of the residents were upstanding.  At 5:30 on the morning of October 5, 1968, two patrolmen saw smoke billowing out of an apartment window.  They rushed in and broke down the door of Antonio Cartagena who was semiconscious on the burning bed.  They extinguished the fire themselves, then discovered "three pistols, .22- and .25-caliber automatics and a .33-caliber revolver, on a night table next to the bed," reported The New York Times.  Cartagena was treated for smoke inhalation and then taken into custody.

image via apartments.com

A renovation completed in 1973 returned 226 West 78th Street to apartments, seven per floor.  Although nothing survives of George F. Pelham's 1899 interiors, the exterior survives remarkable intact.

The Lost Manhattan Congregational Church -- 2168 Broadway

A vintage postcard shows the church on an otherwise vacant Broadway block.  The parish house is seen on West 76th street.  (copyright expired)

The feverish development of the Upper West Side in the last quarter of the 19th century necessitated schools, police stations, churches and other supporting infrastructure.  A meeting in Leslie Hall on 83rd Street and Broadway in June 1896 resulted in the formation of the Manhattan Congregational Church, headed by Reverend Dr. Henry A. Stimson.  (Stimson had been pastor of the Broadway Tabernacle since 1893.)  The congregation grew as rapidly as the district's population and in January 1900 it purchased an L-shaped lot on Broadway and West 76th Street.  (The 20-foot-wide corner lot was not included in the sale).

The Broadway portion of the vacant plot was 80 feet wide.  The church purchased the parcel for $80,000 (just over $3 million in 2026).  The Treasury noted in its April 1902 issue, "This property has proved to be very valuable.  It is in the centre of a dense population and on a main artery."

Brothers Arthur A. and Charles W. Stoughton formed the architectural firm of Stoughton & Stoughton.  When the church purchased the Broadway plot, the Stoughtons had just put the finishing touches on their design for the Soldiers & Sailors Monument in Riverside Park.  They now were given the commission for the church building. 

Stoughton & Stoughton's plans, filed on May 4, 1900, called for a 76-foot-wide "stone church" at a cost of $70,000.  It would bring the total cost, including land, to $5.7 million today.  The architects called the style "Louis XII Gothic."  The New York Times architectural columnist Christopher Gray would deem it a century later, "a broad, lacy Parisian-style house of worship."  

Stoughton & Stoughton released this water colored rendering.  American Architect & Building News, August 8, 1903 (copyright expired)

On June 24, 1900, the New-York Tribune addressed the oddly shaped plot:

The problem has been to erect an adequate, modern church building on inside lots.  The church owns four lots, with a small L in the rear opening in Seventy-sixth-st.  Members say that the building will be a return to the original idea of a house of God, as being something more than merely a place for formal public worship.

The article predicted, "The main front will be a somewhat elaborate facade."  The New York Times, on November 10, remarked, "Many architectural novelties are to be introduced in the Manhattan Congregational Church, about to be erected at Broadway and Seventy-sixth Street," adding, "The material will be of red brick, and the face, with its deeply recessed windows, will be richly ornamented in stone and terra cotta."

The main entrance "will open directly upon the social rooms of the church, which will open freely into one another, and together will constitute a large and hospitable foyer for the church property, which will be in the rear," said the New-York Tribune.  On the second floor were a hall, meeting rooms for Sunday school and similar uses, and a library.  The New-York Tribune predicted they would be "a rallying place for the neighborhood for all sorts of meetings."

The church auditorium would be 72-by-72 feet and could accommodate as many as 900 worshipers.  Decades before air conditioning, the article said the church would have "ample provision for air from from large wells in the four corners and from the west front through the secular hall as well as through its own roof."  The parish house on 76th Street would hold a choir room, a "sunny kindergarten," and committee rooms.  

The cornerstone was laid on April 19, 1901 with "appropriate ceremonies," according to The New York Times.  In reporting on the event, the newspaper said, "The Manhattan Church promises to be one of the most notable buildings of the upper west side, as it differs radically from the usual church edifice, particular in interior arrangements."  The article was referring to the church proper in the rear.

The single Broadway entrance sat within a projecting pavilion decorated with Gothic crockets.  Three double-height stained-glass windows sat below a parapet, which was interrupted by an acute gable holding a small rose window.  The building's hipped roof was pierced by two diminutive dormers and frosted with lacy iron cresting and pinnacles.  From its center rose a stone, Gothic fleche that sprouted gargoyles.  It prompted comment from The New York Times.  "A bronze spire towering above the structure to a height nearly equal to that of the roof line from the street will make the church a notable feature of that part of the city."  (The fleche was, in fact, not merely decorative, but part of the ventilation system and provided a release of hot air in the summer months.)

As the dedication neared, the New-York Tribune published a photo of the church and Rev. Henry Stimson on January 6, 1902 (copyright expired)

With construction completed, on January 6, 1902, the New-York Tribune reported that "the building had cost $139,000, of which $132,000 had already been subscribed."  Rev. Stimson was asking the congregation to make up the difference before the next Sunday "so that the church might be dedicated...free from debt."

Born in New York City in 1844, Reverend Dr. Henry A. Stimson had a fascinating background.  The New York Sun said, "in his early career [he] was a frontiersman and Indian fighter with Col. William F. Cody.  He carried the Christian religion into the Indian camps."  Stimson served in the Civil War and "after the close of hostilities" in the West, resumed his missionary work with Native American tribes.

Rev. Stimson was outspoken in his views, not only from the pulpit but in his letters to the editors of local newspapers.  On November 5, 1906, for instance, he wrote to The New York Times to rail against concerts, like those of the Philharmonic on Sunday nights.  He said in part, "'Sunday Concert' has long been the Mother Hubbard garment which is made to cover all kinds of naked uncleanness."

And he used the Titanic tragedy to attempt to derail women's demands for equal rights.  He wrote in a letter to the editor of The New York Times on April 22, 1912, "If some of the women who are seeking to lead public opinion had a little broader view they would talk very differently about 'the women first.'"  He said if women had equal rights and were not given first access to life boats, "What a cry of shame and horror would have gone up everywhere!"  

P. L. Sperr shot this photograph on December 21, 1927.  from the collection of the New York Public Library

World War I changed attitudes and traditions throughout the world.  On January 19, 1917, The New York Sun reported that Stimson had resigned after 21 years in the pulpit of the Manhattan Congregational Church.  The article said, "Dr. Stimson said the ending of the war would bring new and vital problems to the churches of America and that the churches must have men of strength and health to lead them in that critical time."

Stimson was replaced by the Rev. William T. McElveen, who came from Evanston, Illinois.  His would be a short pastorship.  On September 29, 1919, the New-York Tribune reported that he had resigned.  Disgruntled with the metropolitan lifestyle of New Yorkers, he complained, "New York is the most difficult field for a church in all America, I believe.  Members are here today and gone tomorrow...What will be done with Manhattan Church?  I am almost too discouraged with New York to care."

The electric lighting fixtures were as novel as was the building's exterior architecture.  catalog of Lyon & Healy, edition II. (copyright expired)

Taking McElveen's place was Reverend Edward H. Emmett, whose forward thinking views were in stark contrast to those of his predecessor.  On November 29, 1919, for instance, the New-York Tribune reported, "An unusual union service will take place at Manhattan Congregational Church...at 11 a.m., when the congregation of that church and of the New Synagogue will join in worship."

And in response to the ebb and flow of membership that had so troubled Rev. McElveen, Emmett took a very modern approach.  On October 6, 1921, The Evening World reported, "It pays to advertise even the church, figures from the Manhattan Congregational at Broadway and 76th Street show."  During a four-month period of public advertisement, said the article, the church "got 10,000 lines of publicity and received 189 new regular attendants."  The newspaper said, "Advertising sells religion, is the verdict of the Manhattan Congregational Church."

from the collection of the New York Public Library

Rev. Emmett's modern thinking soon turned to real estate.  So-called "skyscraper churches" were appearing throughout American's largest cities.  Vintage church buildings were being demolished to be replaced by hotels or apartment buildings which retained space for the church.  The congregations therefore reaped rental income from the residential and commercial spaces.  

In 1927, Emmett announced that the Manhattan Congregational Church would be replaced by a hotel and church structure.  Demolition of Stoughton & Stoughton's unique and masterful building began in May 1928.  It was replaced by the 24-story Manhattan Towers Hotel designed by Tillion & Tillion.

The replacement building follows the original L-shape plot.  photograph by the author

The Henry Wannemacher House and Store - 217 East 3rd Street

 

photograph by Carole Teller

The family of Henry Wannemacher covered a broad swath of interests in 1855.  Henry Wannemacher was a musician and composer.  (His sons, interestingly, spelled their surname both as "Wannemacher" and "Wannemaker.")  While Henry Jr. ran a feed store at 229 Third Street, he, too, was a musician and would eventually become a musical director in New York theaters.  In 1855, Charles was already listed as a "music director," while Jacob Wannemaker was a tailor.

The family lived in the recently built four-story house-and-store at 217 Third Street (the "East" would be added later).  The three floors above the storefront were clad in red brick.  The hefty stone lintels of the openings harkened to the Greek Revival style, while the handsome pressed metal cornice with its scrolled corbels and paneled fascia was purely Italianate.

In the rear yard was a secondary house.  Music seems not to have provided the income necessary to maintain the property.  In 1857, the family was living in the rear house and the upper floors of the main building were operated as a boarding house.  Charles had put his musical career on hold and opened a saloon in the store space.  Henry Jr. was now supplementing his income as a tailor, no doubt working with Jacob.

Among Henry Jr.'s compositions in the latter part of the century was this march, composed for piano.  from the collection of the Library of Congress.

Living above the saloon in 1859 were the families of Frederick Koch, Louis Mabriein and Christian Loetterle (all tailors); Jacob Becker, a tinsmith; Jacob Orth, who listed his profession as "segars;" and Joseph Weber, who dealt in portefeuilles (or wallets).

The Wannemachers left East 3rd Street in 1864.  That year Jacob Graf moved his family into the upper floors and installed his grocery store in the former saloon space.  Among the other residents upstairs that year was the John Blessinger family, who would remain for years.  John Blessinger was a tailor (he would change his profession to waiter in 1868).  His wife's name was Eva.  Andrew Bessinger worked as a laborer, and Louis was a peddler.  Eva Bessinger remained in their rooms following John's death in 1872.

The grocery store was taken over by John Kraft in 1876.  Several of the residents had been here for years, like Casper Stumpf, a tailor who first moved into the main building in 1873, and Christopher Lock, a carman, who had been in the rear house as early as 1867.

Around 1880, Ignatz Martin leased the buildings.  While he listed his profession as "boarding house," newspapers were less kind, calling 217 East 3rd Street a lodging house.  Lodging houses were the lowest level of accommodations--rented by the day and offering no amenities other than a bed or cot.  

On May 15, 1881, Jacob Ammann, described by the New-York Tribune as being "twenty-eight, a German," came to New York from Hoboken, where he lived.  His revelry went late into the night and rather than go back to New Jersey, "he went at a late hour to the lodging-house at No. 217 East Third-st.," reported the newspaper.  Early in the morning, he went to the 11th Precinct Police Station, "suffering from three severe scalp wounds, and said he had been assaulted by Ignatz Martin, the proprietor of the lodging-house, and several other men who were at the place."  When police arrived at 217 East 3rd Street, said the article, "the men had made their escape." 

In September 1881, the interestingly-named Woolf Woolf and his wife, Sarah, purchased 217 East 3rd Street.  The change in ownership did not elevate the conditions here.

Small pox was commonly called "the speckled monster" in the 19th century.  In the early 1880s, an epidemic broke out in New York City, with the Eastern Dispensary treating more than 21,000 cases per year.  Uneducated and suspicious immigrant families avoided immunization.  Additionally, knowing that patients were quarantined on North Brother Island, they hid cases from authorities.  It sometimes resulted in tragedy.

On March 21, 1882, the New-York Tribune reported, "A sanitary inspector learned that Joseph Kranck, a baby four months old, had died from the disease in the tenement house, No. 217 East Third-st.  The parents of the child had neglected to call in a physician."

Sarah and Woolf Woolf transferred title to the building to Samuel Woolf, presumably their son, in February 1883.  It triggered a rapid turnover in ownership.  Woolf sold it seven months later to Myer and Rosa Elsas, who sold it to Kate Offner for $18,100 on August 22, 1884.  Offner hired architect Charles Sturtzkober to add a one-story extension to the rear.

In the meantime, Joseph Rubatsky's saloon occupied the ground floor.  It was operated by Paul Zambory by 1891.  That year, he and five other men sent a petition to the Governor of Pennsylvania "asking him not to pardon the three Slovaks who are under sentence of death for taking part in the Edgar Thompson Steel-Works riot at Pittsburg," reported The Evening World.  The petition resulted in Joseph Santandrassy's suing all six for what today we would call a hate crime.  The article said, "Santandrassy says that the circulating of the petition was actuated by nationality hatred prevailing for centuries among Hungarians and Slovaks."

In October 1895, Kate Offner leased the ground floor to Elizabeth and Paul Zamborg, who took over the saloon.  

The back room in the new extension was used for meetings.  On November 5, 1898, The Sun reported on the many appearances that Colonel Theodore Roosevelt would be making.  Among the venues listed was "Paul Zambory's [sic], 217 East Third street."  The change in demographics in the neighborhood from German to Hungarian at the turn of the century was reflected in the Hungarian Democratic League's establishing its headquarters in the rear room in 1900.

In the summer months, tenement residents had no refuge from the heat.  Each day newspapers listed the previous day's victims.  Among the deaths from the heat on July 1, 1901 was 71-year-old Mabline Zahulke, who succumbed in her room here.

The property was purchased by Welz Zerweck Brewing Co. in December 1904.  Breweries often owned buildings like this one so they could monopolize the products sold in the saloons.  The following year, the firm made major improvements, hiring architect H. E. Funk to install indoor plumbing, toilets and new windows.

Despite the improvements, the conditions of the residents were miserable.  On April 5, 1914, the New York Herald reported on the 2,200 loaves of bread that the The New York Sun distributed within the Lower East Side.  "It was the longest line yet," said the article.  "At the end of the first hour, 1,700 loaves had been given away."  It profiled a few of the people who waited for bread, saying in part:

A middle aged, haggard looking woman with a baby in her arms came in.  After she had received four loaves she was willing to tell something about herself.  She said she had come all the way from 217 East Third street, which is near Avenue B about a mile away from the depot the shortest way you can walk.  The baby in her arms, she said, is 11 months old and she has an eight-year-old boy at home.

Julia Witkawsky's plight was even more dire.  Born in Poland, her husband had abandoned her three months earlier and she had used all the money she had.  The New York Herald reporter accompanied her to 217 East 3rd Street.  He wrote, "The landlord said he had served a dispossess order on her last month, but out of sympathy had allowed her to stay.  Her rent was due again yesterday, he said, and he could not wait longer."  Julia Witkawsky was desperate. 

"I can live on bread and milk," she said, "working at the wash tubs, but I've got to have a roof over the children."

It is unclear what happened to Julia Witkawsky and her children.

After decades of being home to a saloon, Prohibition caused a major change to the ground floor of 217 East 3rd Street--it became a restaurant.

image via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services.

As soon as Prohibition was repealed, however, Waskel Bakalo got a liquor license for his restaurant in 1932.

At the time, the upper floors were crammed with indigent families.  Several homeless men got access to a vacant third-floor apartment in 1934.  On the night of September 1, they accidentally started a fire.  The New York Times reported that it "drove sixteen families...from a four-story tenement."  One firefighter was injured "when a fourth floor stairway collapsed under him," said the article.  "The tenants escaped without difficulty, part of them reaching the street by the stairway of the building, and the rest crossing over the roof to an adjoining tenement."

The repairs to the fire damage resulted in one apartment per floor above the store.  Around 1984, the St. Philip African Methodist Church opened here.  It was most likely at that time that the storefront was divided into two, and a second doorway installed.

In April 1999, Michael Mendez and Casey Torres opened the restaurant Latin here.  The New York Times reported that customers could find, "a dance lesson, a radish-and-spinach empanada, [and] pork chops with rice and beans."  The article said, "Latin jazz, merengue and salsa are played, paella ($17) can be ordered at tables, and dance instructions will be offered."

By 2002, Plant, a jazz club, occupied one of the spaces.  On November 15 that year, The New York Times said the owner "has honed a less exotic style, using bits of jazz and soul music to create smooth grooves."

photograph by Carole Teller

Where once 16 families crowded into rooms, there are now just four apartments in the building.  

many thanks to artist Carole Teller for suggesting this post

William S. Schneider's 1928 136 Waverly Place

 

In 1854, the Greenwich Savings Bank erected an Anglo-Italianate-style bank building at the southwest corner of Sixth Avenue and Waverly Place.  The New York Times would later describe it as "a dignified three-story brownstone structure."  Decades later, in 1892, the bank moved out and the building was converted for use by the New York Bank Note Company.  Then, on February 26, 1928, The New York Times reported, "Housewreckers began last week tearing down the old Greenwich Village landmark."  The article explained, "a sixteen-story apartment house will be erected" on the site.  

The Citadel Construction Company had commissioned architect Walter S. Schneider to design the structure.  Schneider's Art Deco design has none of the expected geometric zig-zags and stair-stepping elements.  Instead he gave the brick-faced structure cast stone, medieval-style decorations around the entrance, and Aztec-inspired motifs in terra cotta at the top two floors.  Schneider used contrasting brick to create bandcourses and to simulate quoins.

An advertisement for The Waverly offered apartments of three or four rooms that included "dining alcoves [and] electric refrigerators."  (The electric appliances were a significant amenity at a time when many New Yorkers still had messy iceboxes in their kitchens.)  Rents started at $900 per year, or about $1,750 a month in 2026 terms.

Among the initial residents was William Seeman.  A 1914 graduate of Cornell University, he was an executive with the wholesale grocery firm of Seeman Brothers.  Shortly after he moved in, on April 24, 1929 The New York Times reported that he and motion picture actress Phyllis Haver "will be married at 7:30 tonight by Mayor Walker at the home of Rube Goldberg, cartoonist."  (Mayor James Walker was, incidentally, a good friend of Seeman and Goldberg was his brother-in-law.)

The engagement was not a secret.  A month earlier, Haver had announced her upcoming marriage in Hollywood and said she would retire afterward.  And, although this was an at-home wedding, it was no small affair.  The following day, The New York Times reported that Paul Whiteman's band marched from West End Avenue to the Goldberg's residence "amid the flare of fireworks."  The Brooklyn Standard Union said that about 60 guests attended the wedding and the dinner that followed--among them Constance Bennett, Samuel Goldwyn, William Fleischman and Mack Sennett.  "About four hundred telegrams of congratulations were received during the evening from the motion picture colony in Hollywood," said the article, "including messages from Douglas Fairbanks and Mabel Normand."  The Brooklyn Standard Union noted, "On their return from Europe, Mr. and Mrs. Seeman will make their home at 136 Waverly place."

William and Phyllis Haver Seeman (original source unknown).

James and Anna D. Collins occupied an apartment in the mid-1930s.  James was a detective with the New York City Police Department.  Their two children John and Peggy, who were 24 and 11 years old respectively in 1935, lived with them.

Anna Collins suffered a nervous breakdown around that time.  By 1938, James had become worried that she might attempt suicide and was understandably concerned about his service weapon, which he necessarily brought home.  Because of that, he told investigators that "he hid the cartridges for his revolver" somewhere in the apartment.

James apparently worked a night shift on August 8, 1938.  He came home and went directly to bed the next morning.  By 10:00, John, who was a ticket agent for the Eastern Steamship Lines, was at work and Peggy was at school.  Anna Collins found her husband's weapon and cartridges.  She shot herself in the head and died within the hour at St. Vincent's Hospital.

Residents Margaret and Joseph Sarafite lived here as early as 1940.  An attorney, Sarafite had been on the staff of District Attorney Thomas E. Dewey's Homicide, Appeals and General Sessions Bureaus since 1938.

The couple's country home was on Silver Mountain along the Hudson River.  They were headed there on November 24, 1940 when the trip nearly ended in tragedy.  Joseph was driving and, according to State Trooper McManus, "there was a heavy fog on the road at 1:15 p.m."  As Sarafite rounded a curve, he collided head-on with another vehicle.  McManus said, "Both drivers claimed they could not see the other car until it was too late."

Margaret, who was 38 years old at the time, was treated on the scene for "bruises, shock and a possible brain concussion."  Joseph was not injured and the other driver, Clifford Lilley, suffered "severe lacerations of the right hand."  Although both cars were "very badly damaged," all parties involved survived.  Nevertheless, The Poughkeepsie Eagle-News reported that Margaret Sarafite "was confined to bed in her summer home on Silver mountain."

Joseph A. Sarafite, The New York Sun, March 1, 1944

Not long after the incident, Joseph A. Sarafite was appointed Assistant District Attorney.  Then, on March 1, 1944, District Attorney Frank S. Hogan named him "head of the Rackets Bureau."  In reporting on the appointment, The New York Sun mentioned that since 1938, "of 200 cases on which he worked, convictions were obtained in 98 per cent of them."

Somewhat ironically, among the Sarafite's neighbors in the building was Gerard Mosiello, described by The New York Times on June 29, 1943 as "a convicted burglar."  His brother, Anthony, who lived on Sullivan Street, was described by the FBI as "a bookmaker."  The brothers and two other men formed a corporation to supply ammunition to the Soviet Government.  (Gerald Mosiello personally invested $40,000 in the enterprise.)

All four men were arrested on June 28, 1943 not for supplying munitions to a foreign entity, but for fraud.  The New York Times said they devised "a scheme alleged to have been carried out in the shipment to Russia of 3,072,000 .45 caliber cartridges, of which 38 per cent were found to be dangerously defective."  

 

John Augustine Sands and his wife, the former Eleanor Lydell Livingston, were residents at the time.  Born in 1865 and 1866 respectively, they were married on October 14, 1891.  The couple's daughter, Lettice Lee, was married to millionaire James Graham Phelps Stokes and they lived nearby at 88 Grove Street.  

At 4:45 on the afternoon of March 22, 1945, Eleanor, who was 79 years old at the time, was at the intersection of Sixth Avenue and 8th Street when she tripped in a hole in the pavement.  The New York Times reported that she "fell against the side of a southbound truck owned by the Banner Manufacturing Company."  Eleanor Sands died at St. Vincent's Hospital later that day.

Samuel S. and Mollie Fishzohn and their children, Henry and Rita, were residents by the late 1940s.  Born in Warsaw, Poland in 1899, Samuel came to the United States at the age of eight.  He graduated from Trinity College in Connecticut and attended the Graduate School of Jewish Social Work and New York University.  During World War II he was chairman of the Lower East Side Defense Council.

In 1945, Samuel became the director of the American Jewish Committee.  In the meantime, Mollie was not a stay-at-home mom, selling mutual funds fulltime.

Like his father, Henry Fishzohn got an early start on civic involvement.  On April 22, 1949, The New York Times reported on a group of Greenwich Village teens who "have banded together to combat delinquency and to erase religious and racial barriers between youngsters in their area."  Among them was 14-year-old Henry Fishzohn.

Samuel Fishzohn retired in January 1963, but continued his work as an executive member of the National Committee on Children and Youth and a vice-president of the Council of National Organizations for Children and Youth.  He and Mollie were still living here on August 28, 1964 when Samuel died at the age of 65.  Mollie Fishzohn would survive until December 1998, when she died at the age of 99.  Her obituary noted that she "sold mutual funds until her 90's."

photograph by Standard Flashlight Co., Inc. from the collection of the New York Public Library

A well-known name to New York travelers was Italo A. Fugazy, president of the Fugazy Travel Bureau, Inc., who lived here in the 1950s with his wife, Irene.  His father, Commendatore Louis F. Fugazy had founded the business in 1870 as a steamship agency and private bank.  By now, Fugazy's clients included Samuel Goldwyn Productions, R. K. O. Pictures, the Radio Corporation of America, and New York University.

A renovation to the building completed in 1967 resulted in eight stores at street level, five apartments per floor in the upper section, and one in the penthouse level.

Living here at the time were defense attorney Matthew H. Brandenburg and his wife, Florence.  Brandenburg was one of the best known criminal lawyers in the country.  A graduate of Fordham College and St. John's University Law School, he represented a number of defendants accused of murder.  In November 1967, he represented Harold Weinberg, who confessed to murdering poet Maxwell Bodenheim.  And the following year, he appealed the 30-year-prison sentence of former Marine Sergeant Charles Wilkerson, convicted in the killing of a Vietcong prisoner in Vietnam.

Mezzo American-inspired motifs decorate the uppermost floors.

Around 1969, Fraser's Restaurant opened in the building.  It was listed in the Bob Damron's Address Book (a directory for gay or gay-friendly businesses), and the 1969 New York City Gay Scene Guide described it as, "where the gay kids go for dinner before the bar tour."  It remained here at least through 1971.

At around 3:00 on Saturday afternoon, July 11, 1976, the 46-year-old elevator man, Joseph Garskian, was on duty.  A man entered the lobby and asked if the super was around.  He then pulled a knife on Garskian and took "a $200 Russian watch, a $200 Greek ring and $275 in U.S. cash," reported The Villager.  As the crook exited, a friend of Garskian, Ken Sieveri walked in.  He told a reporter, "I didn't do anything because I didn't want to take chances with a guy holding a knife."  The robber was not captured.

By 1996, the 1967 interior redecoration was out of fashion and it made selling a specific apartment here difficult for one realtor.  Michael M. Beltrami told a reporter from The New York Times that although the $325,000 two-bedroom, one bath apartment had "a working fireplace, multiple exposures, a good layout and even a peek at Washington Square Park," it was not selling.

The problem, he decided, was the the decor.  "It's a style called 1963-1964," he said.  And he lamented the original bathroom, which was apparently not updated in the re-do.  It had "turquoise and black 30's tiles," he said.

Reported by some to be the location of Don Draper's apartment in the 2007-2015 Mad Man series, Walter S. Schneider's wonderful building stands out in its Greenwich Village neighborhood--its cast stone sentinels still standing guard over the entranceway after nearly a century.

many thanks to artist Carole Teller for suggesting this post

photographs by the author

A Hidden Theater District Treasure -- 690-692 Eighth Avenue

 

Only the Gothic arches and drip moldings hint at the Eighth Avenue facade's original purpose.  photograph by frog17.

On March 21, 1886, the New-York Tribune reported that Rev. Albert Benjamin Simpson, "of the Twenty-third Street Tabernacle" had signed a contract to purchase the Madison Avenue Congregational Church for $126,000.  The article said it would "become known as the Gospel Tabernacle."

Born in Canada, Simpson was ordained as a Presbyterian minister in 1865 and came to New York City in 1881.  The year after purchasing the Madison Avenue church, he founded the Christian Alliance and would be president of the organization until his death.  His ability to amass the funds necessary to purchase the Madison Avenue property--equal to $4.3 million in 2026--had much to do with Simpson's charismatic personality.  The New York Times would later comment that it was not unusual for him to raise tens of thousands of dollars at a single meeting.

Rev. Alfred Benjamin Smith, image via cmalliance.org

Just two years after moving into the Madison Avenue property, on March 9, 1888, the New-York Tribune reported, "It was said yesterday by members of the Tabernacle that...the congregation made a fatal mistake in going there."  The Gospel Tabernacle Church sold the Madison Avenue church in August and the next month Edelmann & Smith filed plans for a complex of buildings on an L-shaped plot around the southeastern corner of Eighth Avenue and 44th Street.

On September 22, 1888, the Real Estate Record & Builders' Guide explained that the Gospel Tabernacle would occupy a 50-foot-wide building at 690-692 Eighth Avenue.  On the 44th Street side, said the article, "there will be a college building five-stories high, 50x45, of which two stories on the first floor will be rented out, adjoining which will be a six-story home, 50x100."  Edelman & Smith projected the construction costs at "between $100,000 and $125,000."  (The figures would translate to $3.5 to $4.25 million today.)

Edelmann & Smith's rendering of the Eighth Avenue elevation was published in The Christian Alliance and Missionary Weekly in March 1890 (copyright expired)

John Herman Edelmann and Lyndon Smith gave the West 44th Street and Eighth Avenue buildings similar designs.  Eschewing the Gothic Revival style more expected in ecclesiastical structures, the architects turned to Romanesque Revival.  

The Gospel Tabernacle and Missionary Home School building on Eighth Avenue was faced in red brick and trimmed stone.  Between the entrances (the Tabernacle was entered at 692 Eighth Avenue and Missionary Home School at No. 690) was a cast-iron storefront.  The asymmetrical midsection featured paired windows, arches and a second-floor oriel.  A square tower with a pyramidal cap and steep mansard composed the top floor.  

Edelman & Smith's design gave little hint that at the back of the building was an impressive worship and meeting space that soared the full height of the building, culminating with a glorious octagonal stained glass skylight.  

The Gospel Tabernacle could be accessed by the Berachah Home at 258-260 West 44th Street.  Its design was similar to the Eighth Avenue building, with a comparable mansard, but with a rounded rather than squared corner tower.

The Berachah Home offered "a place of rest and instruction for persons coming from various parts of the country in order to attend the meetings of the Tabernacle," according to a pamphlet, which added, "It is a commodious building holding about 100 guests and specially adapted to the purposes of the work."

The lower edge of the octagonal skylight can be glimpsed in this early photo.  (original source unknown)

The pamphlet explained that the Missionary Home School at 690 Eighth Avenue provided training for missionaries.  "A short course of Bible study and missionary training lasting about six weeks is conducted in this place and students are chiefly employed in missionary work and house-to-house visitation in the neighbourhood."

On the morning of March 16, 1890, services to dedicate the Gospel Tabernacle were held.  The New-York Tribune said, "Dr. A. B. Simpson, the pastor, addressed the congregation, giving a short history of the non-sectarian movement which led to the building of the Gospel Tabernacle."  The article said that the following afternoon, "the Training College and Berachah Home, which are connected with the institution, will be dedicated."

(original source unknown)

The headquarters of the Christian Alliance was in the Eighth Avenue Building.  The Encyclopaedia Britannica said, "At the opening of the year 1890, the secretary reported having established 23 missionaries in India, China, Japan, Hayti and Congo Free State."  The Alliance also published the Christian Alliance & Missionary Weekly from the building.

Rev. Simpson's ability to generate funds for the various enterprises under his control was mind-boggling.  On October 12, 1903, for instance, the New-York Tribune reported, "Nearly $70,000 was pledged yesterday by members of the Gospel Tabernacle, Eighth-av. and Forty-fourth st., to support the foreign missions."  The article noted, "At the end of the sermon a woman in the congregation jumped to her feet, shouting, and, rushing to the platform, handed $15 to the minister.  Some amounts pledged, ranging from $1,000 to $6,000, aroused enthusiasm when they were announced."

(original source unknown)

The incident was not out of the ordinary.  Three years later, on October 15, 1906, the newspaper reported that $71,773.80 was collected during the previous morning and afternoon services.  (The amount would equal more than $2.5 million today.)  The article said, "the congregation was wrought up to an almost hysterical pitch and threw gold watches and diamonds on the stage of the tabernacle."

Around 1908, the Berachah House was converted to a residential hotel called Alliance House.  An advertisement in the New York Herald in October 1911 read: 

Quiet place for quiet people; in the very centre of the city, catering only to a respectable class; suites consisting of parlor, sleeping apartment and private bathroom; also parlor and sleeping room, with running water; single and double rooms; steam heated; elevator service; popular rates; special rates for permanent guests.

In 1916, the Christian Alliance relinquished the management of Alliance House.  On February 16, The New York Times reported that Dr. Albert B. Simpson had leased it to Arthur K. Bonta, "the proprietor of the Hotels Bonta and Narragansett."

The configuration of the Alliance Hotel and Gospel Tabernacle are clearly seen in this property map.  from the collection of the New York Public Library.

Rev. Albert Benjamin Simpson died on October 29, 1919 at the age of 74.  In reporting on his death, The New York Times remarked, "There was almost no end to Mr. Simpson's religious activities.  He was editor of the Alliance Weekly and proprietor of the Alliance Press Company."  He had written many books, including the 10-volume Christ in the Bible, The Gospel of the Kingdom and The Old Faith and the New Gospel.  Of course, Simpson's funeral on November 4 was held in the Gospel Tabernacle.

Rev. Simpson's funeral was called a "service of testimony."  New York Herald, Nov. 1, 1919 (copyright expired)

In 1925, renovations were made to the two facades.  The mansards were removed, replaced with parapets.  Edelmann & Smith's Romanesque Revival elements were totally eliminated from the Eighth Avenue elevation and Gothic arches and square-headed drip moldings installed at the ground and second levels.  On the 44th Street side, the openings on the upper three floors were squared off, but much of the original appearance of the lower levels was preserved.

The Alliance House facade retained much of its original, lower floor elements after the renovation. vintage postcard from the author's collection.

The Gospel Tabernacle Church welcomed touring evangelists in the 1920s.  Some of their services were almost carnival like.  On July 22, 1922, for instance, the 14-year-old preacher Mary Agnes Vitchestain appeared here.  The Gospel Tabernacle Church's advertisement said, "Miss Vitchestain preaches to the largest audiences everywhere."  And the following month The Bosworth Brothers held a service.  The announcement said, "How sinners may be forgiven and how the sick may be healed are made equally plain by the preaching of Evangelist F. F. Bosworth."  It urged, "come and bring the sick."

The 1925 renovations erased all of Edelmann & Smith's 1888 design.  An electric sign for the Gospel Tabernacle hangs over the entrance of No. 692.  image via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services.

Another renovation completed in 1950 converted the former Alliance Hotel into offices for the International Christian Alliance.  Then, on January 12, 1969, The New York Times reported, "For 80 years Gospel Tabernacle Church...has stood at 690 Eighth Avenue, south of 44th Street.  A domed skylight of stained glass surmounts nine banked rows of pews and a full-immersion baptismal font on the main floor."  Now, said the article, the buildings were "up for sale."  The organization had purchased the former German Evangelical Reformed Church on East 68th Street for its new headquarters.

The complex became home to Covenant House, organized in 1968 to house homeless teenagers.  The facility remained until 1995.  On November 12 that year, The New York Times reported that Peter Castellotti and Robert Vittoria (co-owners of John's Pizzeria founded by their great uncle, John Sasso, in 1935) were "negotiating to open a fourth John's Pizzeria, in the site of the original Covenant House at 260 West 44th Street."

Seven months later, on June 26, 1996, The Times food critic Florence Fabricant announced that John's Pizzeria would indeed open in the space before the end of the year.  Astoundingly, much of the interior of the Gospel Tabernacle was preserved--the galleries, original lighting figures, and all of the stained glass, including the striking skylight.

Before the 400-seat pizzeria was opened, artist Douglas Cooper was commissioned to execute a series of three murals.  The largest--21-feet high and 30-feet wide--adorns a wall in the former worship space.  Cooper describes it in architect Andrew Tesoro's website as: 

A panoramic fly-over of Manhattan visible from the full width of a bi-level mezzanine...The foreground is set in one of the most dramatic views of Manhattan: the view from the New Jersey side of the Hudson River above the entrances to the Lincoln Midtown Tunnels.

Cooper's "Front Room Bar Mural," which is 8-feet high and 30-feet wide, pictures a scene in Times Square including identifiable theaters and throngs of pedestrians and vehicles.  Astute bar patrons can pick out figures like Theodore Roosevelt, Mickey Mantle, Salvadore Dali and Marilyn Monroe from the dozens in the crowd.  And the smallest, the "Mezzanine Mural," is 2-feet high and 28-feet wide.  The separate images, according to Cooper, "focus on the theatrical character of the District [and] illustrate a set of improbably theatrical anecdotes going back as far as the 1880s."

Elements of the 1888 and 1925 designs survive in the West 44th Street upper facade, including the stump of the rounded tower.

Easily dismissed today, the two 1888 buildings are at best unremarkable from the outside.  But inside, better known to tourists than to New Yorkers, is a hidden and remarkable gem.

non-credited photographs by the author