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 at 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
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