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