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 Schmidt 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.