The 1907 Hendrik Hudson - 380 Riverside Drive

 

image via streeteasy.com

On July 21, 1906, the Real Estate Record & Builders' Guide titled an article, "To Be the Largest Apartment House in Manhattan."  It reported that the architectural firm of Rouse & Sloan was designing the Hendrik Hudson apartments for Hendrik Hudson Co.  Facing Cathedral Parkway, or West 110th Street, it would engulf the Riverside Drive blockfront to 111th Street.

The journal said, "The facade in scheme will be that of an Italian villa, built of French Pierre de Lena limestone, brick and colored terra cotta, with [a] wide projecting Spanish tile roof, supported by large ornamental bronze brackets."  Notably, upon the roof on the Riverside Drive side would be two towers connected by a pergola.  All the windows facing Riverside Drive would have "wrought iron balconies, with window boxes for flowers in summer."  The article predicted that the Hendrik Hudson, "with its scheme of highly colored terra cotta, red tile and use of foliage," would "harmonize effectively with the picturesque surroundings of the Drive."

Rouse & Sloan released this rendering in 1906.  Record & Guide, July 21, 1906 (copyright expired)

The Hendrik Hudson was completed in October 1, 1907.  There were 14 apartments per floor, consisting of seven through nine rooms with two or three baths.  The rooms were "grouped around the foyers," according to the Record & Guide, and each apartment had a separate service entrance.  

The woodwork in the bedrooms in each of the 72 apartments (other than the servants' quarters) was painted in white enamel and the mahogany doors throughout had glass knobs.  Rents ranged from $1,500 to $3,000 per year, of about $4,300 to $8,600 per month in 2026 terms.

Apartment Houses of the Metropolis noted, "A billiard parlor as well as cafe for the convenience of tenants is maintained in the basement; also a first-class barber shop and ladies' hair dressing parlor."  

photograph by Irving Underhill from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York

The Hendrik Hudson filled with affluent families.  Among the initial residents was Dr. Julian P. Thomas, who could afford an automobile.  That vehicle and Thomas's lead foot got him into trouble on August 5, 1908.  The New York Times reported that he had been charged "with running at the rate of thirty-six miles an hour and giving a motorcycle policeman a chase of two miles at top speed."

Residents' names more often appeared because of social functions.  Such was the case on March 27, 1910 when The New York Times reported, "Mrs. Sydney B. Wight of 380 Riverside Drive gave an affair at her home on Tuesday for the benefit of the Fourth Presbyterian Church."  

Sydney Buckminster Wight, original source unknown

Ellen Chipman Wells Wight's husband, Sydney Buckminster Wight, was with the New York Central Railroad.  Born in Detroit, Michigan in 1856, he was educated in France and Germany and started his career with the railroads in 1891. 

Prominent residents were Professor Rudolf Tombo, Jr. and his second wife, Lorraine Bowes.  Tombo and his first wife, Adelaide Cooper were married in 1901, but she had the marriage annulled in 1911.  He and Lorraine were married in 1913.  Living with the couple was Tombo's daughter from his first marriage, Marion.

Rudolf Tombo Jr. The New York Times December 21, 1913 (copyright expired)

Tombo was born in Germany in 1875.  His father, Rudolf Tombo Sr., brought the family to New York City where he accepted a professorship at Columbia University.  Not, surprisingly, the younger Rudolf attended Columbia, earning his Masters of Arts in 1898, a Master of Science in 1899, and a Ph.D. in 1901.  Like his father, he was appointed an instructor of Germanic languages at Columbia University in 1900.  He was, as well, the director of the Deutsches Haus at that institution.  In 1901 he published his first work, Ossian in Germany.

In 1914, The New York Times described Tombo as being "well known in this country and in Germany as a lecturer on dramatic literature."  Early that year, he was considered for the presidency of the College of the City of New York.  In April, however, he "suffered a nervous breakdown from overwork," reported The New York Times.  The following month, on May 5, Lorraine told reporters that "she thought her husband had improved slightly and that if he could regain sufficient strength for the trip, he would be taken abroad for complete rest."

Despite Lorraine's optimism, Rudolf Tombo Jr. died in their apartment on May 21.  In reporting his death, The New York Times remarked that he had "a wide reputation in German-speaking Europe."

No doubt embittered by his first wife's having their marriage annulled, in his will Tombo directed that J. Boyce Smith, Jr. be made guardian of Marion Adelaide, who was now 11 years old.  The will said that because of the annulment, "Marion had no mother under the law and was now an orphan."  Surrogate Court Judge Cohalan did not agree.  On June 28, 1914, he ruled that because her biological mother, Adelaide Cooper Tombo, was alive, Marion would have to live with her.

A parlor in an unidentified apartment.  The dining room can be glimpsed through the wide doorway at left.  from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York

All the residents of the Hendrik Hudson maintained a domestic staff.  Henry C. McClure's indiscretion in blurring the employee-employer relationship with one servant caused problems in 1918.  McClure was the general manager of Associated Newspapers.  He and his wife, Frances, were already embroiled in a domestic dispute on July 15 that year when she hauled her maid before Justice Finch to testify that McClure had kissed the young woman.

McClure had earlier accused Frances of infidelity, charging that he had "found Mrs. McClure in a compromising position."  Frances said the allegations were "preposterous, perjured and false."  Now she countered with her own divorce proceedings based on the maid incident.  The Sun reported on July 16, 1918 that although Henry McClure "admits that he kissed a pretty maid servant in his apartment at 380 Riverside Drive, he maintains stoutly that he only did it as a 'lark' and that there was nothing in his relations with the young woman to cause Mrs. Frances C. McClure to become in the least jealous."

A central light court and side courts supplied natural light to almost every room.  Apartment Houses of the Metropolis, (copyright expired)

Criminality among the Hendrik Hudson residents had never been more serious than vehicular speeding and kissing one's maid until 1925.  On February 26, police knocked on the door of Joseph C. Cooper, president of the American Bankers' Corporation at 65 Wall Street.  They asked to talk to 14-year-old Roy Cooper.  Initially, Cooper refused to let them enter but, according to The New York Times, "After they identified a radio set there as a stolen one, Mr. Cooper accompanied them to the police station."

Also at the police station was 16-year-old Robert Garrabrants.  Roy said he had received the radio, but did not know it was stolen.  He told detectives, "he had been intending to pay his friend Robert for it.  In a separate room, Garrabrants confessed to "a series of radio shop robberies" that he and Roy Cooper had committed.  Joseph Cooper provided bail for his son.  He told reporters that night that Roy "was not implicated in the theft of the radio apparatus."

Joseph Cooper's influence may have gotten his son off the hook.  On February 18, Roy was paroled in his father's custody and was now considered a material witness.

A month later, Roy Cooper and three other teens were arrested in Nyack for "stealing four bicycles at Fort Lee and several blankets at Nyack, attempting to enter a clothing store [in Nyack] and rifling a poor box in a church near Croton," as reported by The New York Times on March 28.  Roy Cooper was removed from his cell when his father arrived at the Nyack jail.  While Joseph Cooper was talking to Chief of Police Furey, Roy "released his three companions from the jail" and the group fled.

The newspaper reported, "The four New York boys who broke jail...eluded a score of pursuing policemen and were arrested yesterday at Poughkeepsie."  Because they were all under 16 years old, they were charged only with juvenile delinquency.

Roy Cooper's young criminal career continued.  Three years later, on March 20, 1928, The New York Times reported that he had been arrested in the Bronx with another teen for stealing an automobile.  Cooper had a loaded pistol on him.  Police said the pair "confessed that they had committed several robberies in the Bronx recently."

Much more respectable were Dr. William Carr and his wife, the former Sarah Renelshe.  Carr was a founder of the College of Dental Surgery of New York City.  He died on October 25, 1925 leaving more than $100,000 to charitable institutions.  The generous bequests would translate to nearly $1.8 million today.

Also living here at the time was Louis E. Miller and his wife, Dr. Helena Miller.  Born in Russia, Louis Miller was a moderate Socialist.  He had founded at least six Jewish newspapers, including the Jewish Daily Forward and the New Warheit, the latter of which he launched in 1925.

Other Russian immigrants in the building were concert violinist, composer and director Maurice Nitke and his wife, Ethel.  Born in 1879, he first played in Carnegie Hall in 1907.  He was appearing in the Cort Theatre in August 1927 when disaster happened.  

On the night of August 23, Nitke entered his dressing room only to discover that his 300-year-old Guarnarius violin, valued at $5,000, had "disappeared."  An investigator told reporters that the thief "apparently had entered the room with a key," since there was no access by the window.

Four nights later, John Shea returned to the scene of the crime, this time to steal a valuable cello.  Unaware that Detective Charles Dugan had been detailed to watch the theater, Shea (who was a truck driver) attempted to climb the fire escape in the alley leading to the stage entrance.  He was quickly nabbed.  At the West 47th Street station house, he confessed to stealing Nitke's violin.

The New York Times reported that Shea "led them to the home of a negro to whom he had sold it for $5."  The buyer, who was a musician, was not home.  Happily for Nitke, the violin was.

An interesting resident was Dr. Wesley M. Coates.  A graduate of the University of California, he and his wife, Sylvia, arrived in New York City and the Hendrik Hudson in 1936.  The 28-year-old physicist and inventor worked in the Crocker Research Laboratory of the Columbia Presbyterian Medical Center, which was devoted to cancer research.  He was described by its head, Dr. Francis Carter Wood, as "a brilliant electrical engineer."

While working here, Coates developed a new type of high-power vacuum tube.  The New York Times explained, "By the use of the tube, it was announced, X-rays were produced from mercury, instead of by the customary method."  

Tragically, at 5:00 on the afternoon of March 20, 1937, Coates brushed against a high-tension electrical conductor while adjusting an X-ray machine in the laboratory.  For nearly half and hour, physicians attempted to revive him, but the engineering prodigy was announced dead around 5:30.

A celebrated resident was comedian Frank Moulan, who lived here with his third wife, Elsie.  Born in Greenwich Village in 1872, Moulan made his stage debut with the Calhoun Opera Company.  He was described by The New York Times as the "leading comedian of innumerable Gilbert and Sullivan revivals and of Roxy's Gang on the radio."

Frank Moulan, The Theatre magazine, June 1903 (copyright expired)

In 1936 alone, he appeared at the Majestic Theatre as Lord Chancellor in Iolanthe, as Sir Joseph Porter in H.M.S. Pinafore; and as Major General Stanley in The Pirates of Penzance.  He personally staged all three productions.  Moulan died in his apartment here at the age of 67 on May 13, 1939.

The post-World War II years were unkind to the Hendrik Hudson.  When manager Fred W. Peavy pleaded guilty to 14 violations of the Office of Price Administration in November 1945, The New York Times described the building as "a rooming house."  Peavy rented rooms out by the week and the Government charged that he "had made overcharges to roomers of 50 cents to $4 a week."

In January 1946, the Hendrik Hudson Holding Corporation filed eviction procedures against "240 occupants of furnished rooms and small furnished apartments," as reported by The Times.  The attempt failed and nine years later, in February 1955, the building was purchased by the Eastpearl Realty Corporation.  Once home to refined families in commodious apartments, the building now held 536 rented rooms.

The change of ownership did not improve the conditions.  On December 2, 1958, city inspectors combed through the Hendrik Hudson.  The Deputy Commissioner of the Building Department Bernice P. Rogers said the "lobby was the last visible vestige of quality."  She and her inspectors called the building, "a slum with a view" and she remarked, "This type of living may be legal, but it's wrong morally, socially and ethically."

Only four days later, on December 6, a 14-year-old boy was fatally crushed in one of the elevators.  It began to fall with the door still open at the seventh floor.  The car stopped halfway past the sixth floor and Stanley Guinn lifted a little girl onto the sixth floor and to safety.  Then the car started to fall again and Guinn's head and shoulders "became trapped between the top of the elevator and the edge of the landing."  Later that week, the District Attorney's Office deemed his death a homicide and held the building's owners responsible.

The incident prompted the sale of the building and a renovation in 1959.  The New York Times noted, "The new owners had to persuade the old tenants--some of them prostitutes, narcotics addicts and other undesirables--to move.  On April 17, 1960, the newspaper reported, "The conversion of one of the city's worst slum buildings into a modern apartment house is nearing completion at 380 Riverside Drive.

The renovations, which cost $750,000 (equal to nearly $8 million today), created small apartments.  They, unfortunately, also removed much of the architectural features of the facade, including the northern tower.  The Hendrik Hudson was converted to a co-op in 1971.  

Among the early owners were Sho Onodera and his wife, Michiko.  Onodera was an actor, one-time journalist and Japanese-English interpreter.  He was known to television audiences for his roles in the Teahouse of the August Moon on "Hallmark Hall of Fame," and in the "Philco Playhouse" and "Robert Montgomery Presents" shows.  His motion picture credits included The Taking of Pelham One Two Three.

photo by Scott Bintner/Property Shark

Despite the late 20th century brutalization of Rouse & Sloan's design, the Hendrik Hudson survives as a reminder of the grand apartment buildings that lined this area of Riverside Drive at the turn of the last century.

Emile L. Capel's 1915 129 East 69th Street

 

image via cityrealty.com

On December 6, 1913, the Real Estate Record & Builders' Guide reported on the death of one of America's foremost architects, George B. Post.  The lengthy obituary mentioned, "His town house was at 129 East 69th street."  Developers Brixton Building Corporation wasted little time in acquiring the mansion from the Post estate, along with five other residences that faced Lexington Avenue.  In November 1915, architect Emile L. Capel filed plans for an 11-story apartment building on the site.  They estimated the construction costs at $450,000--about $14.5 million in 2026 terms.

The building's design is the first on record (at least in New York City) of the recondite architect.  Capel filed plans for only one more building and two renovations before 1920, when he sat on the board of directors of the newly formed New York Architectural Club, Inc.  He falls into obscurity after that.

Emile L. Capel produced a neo-Georgian-style structure faced in red Flemish bond brick and trimmed with creamy terra cotta.  The dignified arched entrance sat between double-height, paired and fluted pilasters with palm leaf capitals.  The large terra cotta spandrels of the two-story base on the 69th Street side were decorated classical urns.

An intermediate cornice introduced the midsection, its frieze ornamented with alternating urns and anthemions.  The urn motif reappeared in the stepped lintels of the third floor and in the spandrels between the 10th- and 11th-floor openings.

In 1917, Lexington Avenue was paved in brick and a streetcar track ran down its center. image via urbanarchive.org.

Among the initial residents was Major Frank C. Grugan.  Born in 1842, he was educated in France and upon returning home in 1861 enlisted in the Union Army.  The New York Herald reported, "He fought in twelve important battles, including Gettysburg."  A life-long military man, he would see combat "against the Indians in the West," as worded by the New York Herald, and in Cuba during the Spanish-American War.  When he moved into 129 East 69th Street, he was a widower.

In July 1918, Harold Garrison Villard and his wife, the former Mariquita Serrano, took a duplex apartment here.  The son of millionaire journalist and financier Henry Villard, he and Mariquita were married in 1897.  They had three children, Henry Serrano, Vincent Serrano and Mariquita Serrano.  The children were 18, 17, and 13 years old respectively when the family moved in.

Henry Villard was overseas at the time.  He had left Harvard to volunteer as a driver in the Italian Ambulance Service.  At the war's end, he returned and graduated in 1921.  

Harold Garrison Villard in 1915.  Twenty-fifth Anniversary Report, Harvard University Class of 1890 (copyright expired)

Harold Villard's mother, Fanny Garrison Villard, died on July 5, 1928.  The bulk of her estate, "estimated to be worth more than $10,000,000," according to The New York Times, was divided between Harold and his brother, Oswald.  (The figure would translate to about $183 million today.)  Additionally, she left $50,000 to Mariquita and $10,000 each to her grandchildren.  Mariquita's inheritance would equal about $185,000 today.

Vincent Serrano Villard was married to Katharine A. Tomkins on August 2, 1928.  The New York Times remarked, "Owing to the recent death of Mrs. Henry Villard, only members of the families and a few intimate friends were present at the  ceremony."

In the meantime, a 10th-floor corner apartment of "8 large rooms and foyer" with three baths was advertised in January 1920 at $5,600 per year, about $7,300 per month in today's terms.

A current view of a duplex apartment hints of the scope of the spaces.  via cityrealty.com

Among the tenants at the time were Impressionist artist Francis Sterling Dixon and his wife, Rosalie Turner Hooker.  The couple was married on August 10, 1915 "a short time after she had obtained a divorce in Idaho from Professor William Welling of Trinity College," according to The New York Times.  

Francis and Rosalie Dixon on their wedding day in 1915.  from the collection of the Bibliotheque Nationale de France

Dixon was born in September 1879 and studied at the Art Students League.  With deep American roots, he was a member of the Society of Colonial Wars and the Sons of the Revolution.  His artistic proclivity earned him memberships to the Allied Artists of America, the Connecticut Academy of Fine Arts, the Salmagundi Club, and the Players.

A typical Francis S. Dixon landscape.

The Dixons had a son, Francis Jr.  Unfortunately for the marriage, as had happened in 1915, Rosalie had a wandering eye.  She traveled to Paris in 1925, obtained a divorce, and announced her engagement to British Captain Rowland W. Cash.  Then, on January 26, 1926, The New York Times reported that the engagement had been broken.  Instead, in April she married Prince Levan Melikov de Somhetie, described by the New York Evening Post, as the "claimant to the non-existent throne of Georgia."

Domestic problems were plaguing another socially prominent couple in the building at the time.  Born in 1894 to millionaire Oliver Harriman Jr., Oliver Carley Harriman was described by the Syracuse, New York Journal in 1926 as "the son of Mrs. Oliver Harriman, one of the most admired and popular women in New York society," adding, "His father, Oliver Harriman, and his grandfather, also named Oliver Harriman, were powers in Wall Street." 

Harriman married socialite Loise Roberts Bisbee on June 7, 1915 and they had two daughters.  According to the Journal, "at the time of his marriage, he was the youngest member of the New York Stock Exchange, and said to be earning a large income from various sources."  The young broker was also a "prominent figure at the horse shows and polo matches at Westchester, Long Island and Newport," said the newspaper.

Like Rosalie Dixon, the handsome Oliver Carley Harriman had a wandering eye.  U.S. Passport photograph

Oliver Carley Harriman was career driven and according to the Journal, his "intense ambition" caused him to "frequent rather mixed company in the evening."  In fact, the "company" that kept him away from the couple's apartment on many of those nights was not always a business associate.  On July 28, 1923, Loise read a news article about a trolley car accident.  Among the witnesses was "Mrs. Harriman."  A puzzled Loise dug into her husband's nocturnal nightlife.

Fashion model Harriet Hewitt lived in an apartment at 206 East 61st Street, the rent of which was paid by Harriman.  The residents of the building knew Helen as "Mrs. Harriman."  An indignant and angry Loise left 129 East 69th Street and filed for divorce in December 1923.  Even before the divorce was granted, rumors within high society said that Oliver Carley Harriman intended to marry Helen Hewitt.  And he did.

A disturbing and bizarre incident happened here in the fall of 1928.  Antiques dealer William F. Cooper and his wife, Martha, had previously lived in an apartment on East 66th Street.  In 1923, Martha suffered a stroke but recovered.  Then in 1927 William was hospitalized for three months after an operation, during which Martha "fretted herself into a nervous breakdown," according to The New York Times.  Both she and her husband recovered.

In September 1928, they moved into a seventh-story apartment in 129 East 69th Street.  Unlike the quiet block of 66th Street, "all day long the clang of the surface cars floated in through the apartment windows," said The New York Times.  

On September 22--the Coopers' first Saturday night in the apartment--they had friends over.  After their guests left, William went to bed.  Martha wrote a note to her husband, sealed it and left it on the dining room table.  She then took a photograph of William from its frame and "carefully cut out the likeness of his face."  Clutching it, she then leaped to her death from the apartment window.  Her note explained, "she could not stand the eternal sound of the street cars."

The Robert Ackermans' apartment had been given an Art Deco make-over before this photograph was taken in 1935.  photo by Samuel H. Gottscho from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York.

Lloyd Paul Stryker, his wife, the former Katherine Traux, and their daughter occupied an apartment here as early as 1929.  Born in Chicago in 1885, Stryker graduated from New York Law School in 1909.  The Yale Biographical Dictionary of American Law said he "became famous as a flamboyant criminal lawyer."  In March 1929, he was nominated by President Calvin Coolidge as a Federal judge for the Southern District of New York.  

Stryker came into the national spotlight in 1948 when he was the lead defense counsel in the two criminal cases against Alger Hiss.  Life magazine published an article on Stryker in 1947 titled: "Trial Lawyer: Lloyd Paul Stryker is Archetype of Vanishing Courtroom Virtuoso."

image by Wurts Bros from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York

Another prominent attorney in the building at midcentury was Frank Lyon Polk.  He and his wife, the former Katherine Hoppin Salvage, whom he married in 1934, had three sons: Frank Jr., Samuel S. and William M.  Polk's father was Under-Secretary of State under Woodrow Wilson and he headed the American delegation to the Paris Peace Conference after World War I.  Frank was also the great-nephew of President James Knox Polk.  The family's summer home was at Fishers Island, New York.

Polk became ill in 1952 and was hospitalized in Doctors Hospital.  Calling him "a member of a socially prominent family," on September 20 The New York Times reported that he had died there at the age of 40.

Katherine Polk and her sons remained in the apartment.  In December 1959, she announced Frank Jr.'s engagement to Nancy Holliday Wear.  In reporting on the event, The New York Times commented on Frank's maternal pedigree.  "He is a grandson of Lady Salvage of Glen Head, L. I., [and] the late Sir Samuel Agar Salvage.

Three years later, it was Katherine Polk's turn to wed.  Her marriage to John Currie Wilmerding, the former husband of Lila Vanderbilt Webb, was celebrated in Old Westbury on April 28, 1962.

Photographed in 1943, this top floor duplex enjoyed a lush roof garden.  photo by Wurts Bros. from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York

Never married, Florence Wardell also lived here at midcentury.  Born in Brooklyn and having graduated from Bryn Mawr College in 1898, she had been active in Republican women's activities for decades.  She was vice chairman of the Republican Women's State Executive Committee in 1922, was a delegate to the National Republican Convention in 1928, and worked on Herbert Hoover's Presidential campaign.

Following World War I, Hoover requested her to go to Washington to help him provide relief for the Belgians.  She was later decorated by the Belgium Government for her service.  She fell ill in 1959 and died in her apartment at the age of 82 on February 12.

Investment broker Francis F. Randolph and his wife, Mary Hill Hadley, who lived here by the 1960s, filled their apartment with a remarkable art collection.  Although he sat on the boards of several corporations and was a trustee of institutions, he and Mary were best known for their involvement in the arts.  Francis was chairman of the finance committee of the Metropolitan Opera Guild, a patron of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the Pierpont Morgan Library.  The New York Times mentioned that they "gave a number of works of art and incunabula to Vassar College."

image via 6sqft.com

The building, designed by a nearly unknown architect, survives almost entirely intact.

The George A. and Lillian S. Harris Mansion - 313 West 107th Street

 

Prolific Upper West Side real estate developers Perez M. Stewart and H. Ives Smith commissioned the equally prolific Upper West Side architect Clarence F. True in 1897 to design seven upscale residences at 305 through 317 West 107th Street between Riverside Drive and West End Avenue.  Among them was 313 West 107th Street.  Like its architectural siblings, it was 20-feet-wide and five stories tall.  Designed in the Renaissance Revival style with splashes of Beaux Arts, it was faced in gray brick and trimmed in limestone.  The arched centered entrance above a short stone stoop was flanked by engaged Scamozzi columns atop paneled pedestals.  Carved swags and ribbons decorated the spandrels.  

The lower three floors were bowed, providing a stone-railed balcony to the fourth floor.  Stone balustrades that fronted the second-floor windows suggested Juliette balconies.  The fifth floor took the form of a slate shingled mansard pierced with two arched-pedimented dormers.

The first owners of 313 West 107th Street were Henry and Mary A. Nichols.  On April 2, 1904, they advertised, "A North German or Protestant nurse wanted for two little boys; references required."

The Nichols placed the house for sale in November 1908.  Their realtor's ad described it as being "in fine condition, for sale at a reasonable figure."  It was sold twice before newlyweds George A. Harris and his wife, the former Lillian Dorothy Samuels, purchased the residence in 1912.

Born in Titusville, Pennsylvania on November 21, 1873, George A. Harris operated an apparel business with his brother Julian.  He and Lillian were married shortly before purchasing the house. 

The Harris family quickly grew to three.  Edward H. Harris was born in 1913.  Lillian placed an advertisement in The New York Times on February 11 seeking a "Nurse, thoroughly competent and experienced, for infant."  

In January 1914, George and Julian Harris took in a "special partner," Simon Ascher.  Asher contributed $150,000 to the company (more than $4.6 million in 2026 money).  While George remained as president, the name of the firm, which made and sold "knit goods and all other kinds of wearing apparel," as described in the partnership agreement, was renamed the Simon Ascher Company.

In September 1915, the Harrises hired architect John H. Corrigan to design a roof garden.  It included a "new enclosure" and cost the equivalent of $13,000 today.

George and Lillian Harris apparently determined early on that their son would be polished and erudite.  When they looked for a governess in 1918, they demanded that she be "experienced, speaking good French; boy five years."

Lillian's own cultivation was reflected in December 1928 when the Henry Street Settlement added a music school to its offerings with Lillian as its chairman.  The New York Times noted that the school would be under the leadership of Paulus Pilat, former teacher at the Königliche Kunstgewerbe Academy in Budapest.  The article said, "as they are sufficiently advanced, children will be taught ensemble work.  Chamber music is ultimately to be an important part of the program."

image via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services.

While the Harrises maintained a country home in Scarsdale, New York, they were often seen at what society columns referred to as "fashionable watering-holes."  Such was the case in the summer of 1929, when they spent time in Saratoga Springs.  On August 30, The New York Times reported that they hosted a dinner party at the Lido Venice there.  Among the guests were Mrs. Graham Fair Vanderbilt, John Hay Whitney and Marquise Caigliano.

The family was absent from West 107th Street in 1930 and 1931, possibly in Europe.  It was leased to Walter and Helen T. Emerich.  Walter was the founder and head of Walter Emerich & Co., manufacturers of silk ribbons.  In reporting on the lease, The New York Times described the property as a "five-story residence with roof garden."

The house was sold in October 1938 to Kathryn A. Gorman.  The New York Times reported, she would occupy it "when alterations are completed."  Gorman lived quietly in the mansion, and the address fell from the society columns for decades.

A renovation completed in 1975 resulted in two apartments.

photograph by the author

many thanks to historian Anthony Bellov for prompting this post

The Lost Anton Schwartz House - 127 West 108th Street

 

Assuredly a centered staircase originally rose to the shared porch.  photo by Charles Von Urban from the collection of the New York Public Library

In 1857, Swiss-German immigrants Emanuel Bernheimer and August Schmid organized the Lion Brewery.  Its sprawling complex on Tenth Avenue stretched from 107th to 109th Street.  Following the Civil War, Lion Park, a "pleasure garden"--the Victorian equivalent of today's recreation park--was added to the property to the north.

Around 1870 two abutting Second Empire-style mansions were erected on the Lion Brewery property.  Located on West 108th Street between Ninth and Tenth Avenues, the frame structures were nearly mirror images.  (The avenues would be renamed Columbus and Amsterdam, respectively, in 1890, around the time the houses would be given the official street addresses of 127 and 129 West 108th Street.)  The residences shared a porch and, almost certainly, a centered staircase.  The eastern house, No. 127, sat slightly forward.  Its asymmetrical configuration of the second floor openings included a squared headed window and a Palladian-inspired grouping.  Lacy cast-iron cresting decorated the slate-shingled mansard.

The residences were built for Lion Brewery executives.  Around 1890, 127 West 108th Street became home to Anton Schwartz, a partner in the brewery.  He and his wife, Emma, had one son, Adolph.

On the morning of June 19, 1894, Anton took a drive in Central Park.  Presumably, Emma was with him in the family's "dogcart"--a open carriage popular for leisurely rides.  

A dogcart could have two or four wheels, and was pulled by one or two horses.  Across England in a Dog-Cart, 1891 (copyright expired)

The pleasant morning drive became a horrific incident.  Also driving in the park that morning were J. W. Platt, his wife and their baby.  At around 92nd Street, the Platts' horse bolted.  It upset the carriage and threw its occupants to the roadway.  The commotion upset the horse pulling the wagon of John H. Coleman and his wife, "causing it to run away," as reported by The New York World.  Like the Platts, they were thrown out of the vehicle.

The article said, "For an eighth of a mile the race was a mad one, the runaway galloping furiously."  At around 94th Street, the panicked horse "crashed into a dog-cart driven by Anton Schwartz, of No. 127 West One-Hundred and Eighth street," said the article.  Happily for Schwartz, he was uninjured and "a broken shaft and lamp was the only damage" to his vehicle.

Schwartz was best known for his thoroughbreds and his racing.  He routinely competed at the Harlem River Speedway, which ran from West 155th Street to Dyckman Avenue.  (The venue was established in 1893 and its scenic grounds were designed by Frederick Law Olmstead, of Central Park fame.)

On May 29, 1899, for instance, The Sun reported, "Anton Schwartz's stately black trotter Wyoming scored quite a victory by defeating the fast black pacer Dick Vail."  Schwartz and his trotters would be regulars at the Speedway for years.

August Schmid died in 1889.  His widow, Josephine, stepped into his position at the Lion Brewery.  A difficult and headstrong woman, at the turn of the century her relationship with the other partners had become so argumentative and unworkable that she bought them out for $1.4 million.  The transaction not only left Anton Schwartz and his former partners, Max E and Simon Bernheimer, without a brewery, it necessitated the Schwartz family to leave the brewery property.  

Schwartz and the Bernheimers established the Bernheimer & Schwartz Brewery at Amsterdam Avenue and 128th Street.  Anton moved his family to a commodious third-floor apartment in the Central Park View on West 86th Street.  Despite their significant wealth, the family faced unspeakable tragedy.  In September 1910, Adolph Schwartz died from spinal meningitis and six weeks later, Anton committed suicide by shooting himself in the head in the West 86th Street apartment.

Expectedly, 127 West 108th Street became home to a Lion Brewery employee.  Cornelius C. Link listed his profession as "foreman."  Born in Germany in 1848, he and his wife, the former Anna Abel, had three sons and two daughters.

From this angle, the slight projection of the Schwartz house can be seen.  from the collection of the New York Public Library

The Links apparently took in a boarder and living here in 1911 was James Osborne.  On the night of May 6 that year, George W. Parkhurst and his wife returned to their apartment on West 100th Street to find the door locked and chained from inside.  With the aid of the janitor, they broke into their own apartment and found the place ransacked.  Hearing noises, they ran to the kitchen and "found the dumbwaiter rapidly descending," reported The New York Times.  Parkhurst called the West 100th Street police station.  When Detective Farrell arrived, he saw a man rushing away and grabbed at him.  The article said, "The man leaped aside and started to run."  Farrell pursued him, firing his gun three times and missing.

The fugitive was James Osborn.  At Riverside Drive, he climbed the retaining wall and leaped over.  The article said, "It was a 60-foot drop."  Detective Farrell found Osborn, "bruised and crushed against a great boulder, and barely conscious."  Doctors at the J. Hood Wright Hospital said he "will probably die."

Around 1913, Link began investing in real estate.  He would buy and sell properties in the Harlem and Bronx areas for years.  

The enaction of Prohibition in 1920 changed the lives of brewery employees.  The Links moved to the Lexington Hotel in Mount Kisco where Anna died on February 14, 1922.  The Daily Item reported, "No estimate of the value of the estate is given, but she gives it all to her husband, Cornelius Link."  

The following month, The Brooklyn Citizen reported on an arson fire "in the Lexington Hotel...which was occupied by Cornelius Link, his son and daughter."  Although Link and his family members survived, Cornelius died later that year.

The handsome houses on the former brewery property were replaced by a one-story garage within the decade.  

image via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services.

An apartment building was erected on the site in 1951.

The 1925 Labor Temple - 223 Second Avenue

image via streeteasy.com

When the Fourteenth Street Church was erected at the southwest corner of Second Avenue and 14th Street in 1851, it sat "in the centre of wealth and fashion," as worded by The New York Times.  That was no longer the case in 1910 and on January 7, The Sun titled an article, "An East Side Church To Quit" and reported that the trustees would be selling the property. 

from the collection of the New-York Historical Society

With the vintage structure unoccupied, Rev. Charles Stelzle, who had once been a machinist, "opened a Sunday evening forum in the old church," reported The New York Times.  "The success of the innovation was immediate, and Labor Temple was organized, with Mr. Stelzle as its first director."  Labor Temple offered educational services for workers, clubs "of all sorts and purposes" were initiated, and an employment bureau was opened.  "Labor Temple became the centre of the life of the neighborhood," said The New York Times.

The former church was regularly the venue for lectures and discussions on political, labor and civic issues.  On February 29, 1912, for instance, Arthur J. Howard lectured on "Political and Industrial Australia."  It was, nevertheless, still operated by the Presbyterian Church, with Sunday services "applied to the daily life of its congregation."  Sermon topics included "Religion and Labor," "The Strength of Capitalism," and "The Ethics of Propaganda."  The services were conducted in several languages to cater to the area's diverse demographics.

In 1924, Rev. Thomas Guthrie Speers, chairman of the Labor Temple Committee, determined that the corner property was valuable.  He proposed a business building with "ample quarters for Labor Temple" on the site.  A committee composed of businessmen was formed and the well-known architect Emery Roth was given the task of creating a multi-use structure on the site.

Roth's expertise was apartment buildings.  Dan Everett Waid, who used his first initial professionally, was known for office buildings.  (He had recently designed the annex to the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company building on Madison Square, and was, as well, the president of the American Institute of Architects.)  Roth and Waid had no professional connection, but it is clear that Roth consulted Waid on this project.  Although the latter's name does not appear in any documentation, Roth included Waid's name in the base of a 14th Street pilaster.

image courtesy Robyn Roth-Moise

The cornerstone was laid on April 4, 1925 "above the clang of surface cars and the thunder of elevated trains to a crowd of 300 passers-by, unemployed and supporters of the Labor Temple," as reported by The New York Times.  In his address, Rev. Edmund B. Chaffee stressed, "there would be no change in the policy of the temple."

Completed in November 1925 at a cost of $750,000 (about $13.4 million in 2026), Roth's Italian Renaissance Revival design included a two-story limestone base with full-height elliptical arches.  Stores along the sidewalk and professional offices on the second floor provided retail income.  They prompted The New York Times to comment that the Labor Temple would get "its new and enlarged quarters rent free."  

Faux balconies above the third floor and Florentine-inspired arches at the seventh enhanced the Renaissance motif.  An arched corbel table ran below the minimal cornice.

Inside, on the ground floor was a large auditorium, a meeting room and office "for the use of labor organizations."  In the basement was a gymnasium.  On the second floor was a chapel that could accommodate 150 persons, and a music room.  The third and fourth floors contained clubrooms and classrooms, the employment bureau, the director's office, and the "living and dining room for the staff of Labor Temple," according to The Times.  Living quarters for the resident workers occupied the sixth floor and the director's apartment was in the penthouse, along with a "sunny playroom" for neighborhood children.  It opened onto a roof playground.

On November 9, 1925.  The New York Times reported, "Labor and the Church joined hands last night in the dedication of the new six-story Labor Temple Building at Fourteenth Street and Second Avenue, where educational classes, community activities and religious worship will be conducted."  

For Edward Hale Everett, the oldest employee of the Labor Temple, the opening of the structure would come just in time.  Since its inception, Everett had played Santa Claus for the organization's Christmas Eve children's party.  When he was not wearing his false beard and red suit, he taught neighborhood children carpentering.

On October 27, 1925, two weeks before the dedication, he was operating the elevator for the workmen who were bringing furniture up the elevator and placing it into various spaces.  Suddenly, he stopped answering the elevator bell.  Alarmed, Rev. Chaffee went to the basement and opened the elevator door.  "Eddie had dropped dead with his hand still clutching the control level," said The New York Times.

"Eddie" Everett's funeral was held in the chapel on October 30.  The New York Times said, "Out on the street the boys that Eddie had taught carpentering and the little girls to whom he had given dolls lined up to wait.  And when the body was borne out, they waved their hands and called out: 'Good-bye, Eddie!  Good-bye, Santa Clause!'"

Interestingly, Emery Roth was called back twice to make renovations--in 1927 and in 1930.  What changes were made is unclear, but it was most likely during one of those remodelings that the rather incongruous, projecting Second Avenue entrance was installed.  

image via streeteasy.com

The auditorium immediately became a favorite space for political and labor gatherings.  The night after the dedication, defeated Socialist candidate for mayor, Norman Thomas, spoke here.  He blamed his loss to James J. Walker on "indifferent and unintelligent voting."  

In addition to Sunday services, like any other church, the chapel was used for funerals and weddings.  In October 1926, Eugene V. Debs, who had run for President five times under the Socialist Party ticket, died in Chicago.  His body was brought by train to New York City and on October 22, The New York Times reported, "The body will lie in state at the Labor Temple...from 2 P.M. until 9 P.M. tomorrow."

In November 1927, Rev. Edmund B. Chaffee lobbied for $3,000 city funding to renovate the rooftop playground.  Included in the plans was a "steel protective covering."  He insisted, "While this will not solve the city's playground problem, it will at least do something to save the children of this section from the trucks and street cars."

As seen here in 1940, Chaffee was successful in getting his steel rooftop enclosure.  via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services.

The conviction of Italian-born anarchists Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti for murder on July 14, 1921 immediately caused an uproar amid the labor and immigrant communities around the country.  Their arrest and conviction were viewed by many to be the result of bias against immigrants and radicals.  Sacco's and Vanzetti's innocence was widely touted in periodicals and throngs across the country pleaded for a pardon or new trial. 

Six years later, as their execution date was nearing, New York labor organizations mobilized.  On August 15, 1927, The Daily Worker reported, "The Sacco-Vanzetti Emergency Committee will hold its fourth conference tonight, at 8 o'clock, at Labor Temple."

The nation-wide efforts to save Sacco and Vanzetti were unsuccessful and the two were electrocuted on August 23, 1927.  Although Police Commissioner Joseph A. Warren banned public mourning, the Socialist Labor Party held a memorial service in Labor Temple on August 26.  The New York Times reported that it "was quiet and orderly."  The meeting ended with the singing of the "International."

The diversity of the neighborhood was reflected in one of the ground floor tenants, The Russian Kretchma ("Russian Tavern") here as early as 1927.  Patrons were entertained by Nastia Poliakova, a "Russian gypsy singer" who was born in Moscow," the "daughter of a gypsy 'king,'" according to The New York Times.  She had sung before Czar Nicholas II and after fleeing to Turkey during the Russian Revolution had sung in a Parisian nightclub, and in Berlin and Belgrade.

Barnard Bulletin, January 6, 1928 (copyright expired)

Several medical tenants occupied the second floor spaces.  Among them in the 1920s and 1930s were Dr. S. A. Chernoff, a "specialist in acute and chronic diseases of men and women, skin and blood;" chiropodist Aaron Shapiro; and surgical dentist Dr. A. Brown.  

According to the Daily Worker on January 19, 1941, the Labor Temple was "home of 43 unions," like the Cleaners, Dyers and Pressers Union.

Living in the building as early as 1945 was journalist and playwright Gershom Bader and his wife, Jennie.  Born in Krakówm Galicia on August 21, 1868, he came to America in 1912.  By the time the couple lived in Labor Temple, Bader had written several volumes on Jewish life and religion.  Among his Yiddish-language plays were Der Rebe in Feyer, The Rabbi's Melody, and Di Goldene Royze.  He was the honorary vice-president of the Federation of Polish Jews in America.

Gershom Bader, from The Schwadron Collection of the National Library of Israel.

Also living here at the time was Joseph Chaikin, an editor of the Jewish newspaper The Day.  Born in Russia in 1885, he came to New York City in 1901 "and soon was active as an editor in the Jewish labor movement," according to The New York Times.   In 1946 his Yiddish-language book Jewish Newspapers in America was published.  He was a founder of the National Jewish Workers Alliance and a member of the Yiddish Writers Union.  

Reverend John F. Duffy headed the Labor Temple by the mid-1940s.  He gave a speech at Barnard Day Chapel in October 1946 to explain the Labor Temple's work.  He told the audience that its original purpose "was to give the labor unions a place to hold their meetings and give the laborers, who up until then were not accepted in the churches of the lower east side, an opportunity to join a church."  In addition to that original goal, he said, the Labor Temple hoped to demolish "the middle walls of partition which keep people from one another."

The Russian Kretchma was still going strong at the time of that speech.  As Russian Orthodox Sunday approached in 1947, The New York Times noted that pascha, an Russian Easter cake,  and kulich, an Easter bread with sugar icing, would be served there, as it was every year.

A renovation in 1952 created additional apartments within the building--12 each on the third through sixth floors.  

Gershom and Jennie Bader still occupied their apartment here on November 12, 1953 when the playwright and journalist died at the age of 85.

A renovation completed in 1963 resulted in a restaurant and cabaret on the ground floor.  The auditorium was converted to a gymnasium, but the chapel and its accessory spaces were kept intact.  But then, in 1996, Stellar Management Company acquired the property and began a $500,000 renovation into residential use with retail stores.

photograph by streeteasy.com

The first floor of Emory Roth's handsome Florentine-inspired structure has been horribly vandalized.  The upper floors, however, are happily intact.  The former Labor Temple building survives as an important example of the architect's work and a significant page of New York City's labor history.

many thanks to reader Robyn Roth-Moise for prompting this post