Medicine, Socialists, and Theater - the Oft-Altered Merrill Williams House - 83 E. 4th Street

 

photograph by Carole Teller

In the 1830s, a few developers lobbied the city to rename a block or two upon which they had erected high-end residences.  If they were successful, the blocks acquired a sense of exclusivity.  The 1836 Longworth's American Almanack explained, "Part of Fourth [Street], between the Bowery and Avenue 2d, has the soubriquet of Albion-place."

Among the homes along Albion Place was that of stockbroker John W. Stebbins and his family.  Their Federal-style house was faced in Flemish bond brick and sat above an English basement.  Originally two dormers pierced its peaked roof.  

Interestingly, the Stebbins family listed their address as 409 Fourth Street in 1836, rebuffing the Albion Place name.  And, equally interestingly, all of the subsequent occupants followed suit.  Visitors and mail carriers, nevertheless, would have other issues with which to contend in the upcoming years.  In 1850 the address was changed to 425 Fourth Street, and in 1864 to 83 East 4th Street.

Born in 1807, John W. Stebbins was a partner with his brother H. G. Stebbins in the brokerage firm Stebbins Brothers at 50 Wall Street.  Despite his young age, he was also the president of the Mercantile Library Association.  His residency here would be short-lived.  On June 4, 1837 he died at the age of 30 "after a protracted illness, according to The Evening Post.  His funeral was held on June 6 "from his late residence 409 Fourth st., Albion Place," said the newspaper.

When the property was scheduled to be sold at auction in February 1846, it was described as:

The elegant two story and modern attic brick house, No. 409 Fourth st, having basement and entire under cellars, tea room in rear, front and back stair ways, croton water in kitchen and second floor in closets.  It is altogether a first class modern house.

The mention of Croton water was significant.  Indoor plumbing, made possible by the Croton Reservoir, was not available before 1842.  So this house was among the very first to have the luxury--not to mention the "closets" on the second floor.  Water closets, or toilets, were an expensive indulgence.

The house was purchased by Henry A. and Rosalie Heiser.  At the time, Henry ran a dry goods business on Pearl Street.  He changed course in 1851, turning to shipping.

That year was one of joy and tragedy for the Heisers.  A baby boy, Russell, was born in May 1851 and he died just before turning four months on September 8th.  His funeral was held in the parlor the following afternoon.

The widowed Dr. Merrill Whitney Williams purchased the property in 1855.  Born in 1801, he married Eliza B. Duyrea in June 1826 and began his practice the following year.  Eliza died in 1844.  Moving into the house with Williams was his only surviving child, Elizabeth Ann (known as Lizzie), who was 20 years old in 1855.  (Two children John Duryea and Harriet Emma, died in childhood.)  Also living here was Williams's unmarried sister, Emma.

Emma Williams died in the house at the age of 74 on December 1, 1867.  Her funeral was held in the parlor on the 3rd.  

The room was the scene of a much happier event four months later.  Elizabeth was married here to merchant and banker Robert Macy Gallaway on April 20, 1868.  The newlyweds started their lives together in the East 4th Street house.

Dr. Merrill Whitney Williams died on December 3, 1873 at the age of 72.  Robert and Elizabeth left 83 East 4th Street within a few months.

By the time of Williams's death, the once-refined neighborhood of upscale private residences was quickly filling with immigrants and tenements.  No. 83 East 4th Street became a boarding house.

Among the first boarders was German-born Carl Denninghoff.  Born in 1835, he came to America in 1857 and found a job as a "drug clerk."  He lost his job in 1874 and 18 months later was still unable to find work.  On October 26, 1875, the New-York Tribune reported, "He was found dead in his bed yesterday afternoon, and had left a note stating that he had committed suicide."  Denninghoff had swallowed "an overdose of morphine."

While the upper portion of No. 83 continued as a boarding house, in 1881 Charles Steckler leased the basement for the Steckler Association, a political club.  On November 19, 1882, the New-York Tribune reported that, "having refurnished its rooms," the organization had a house warming.  The article said that Frederick H. Conkling "spoke of the principles of the two great parties, and he treated at length the Jeffersonian doctrines."

The following month, Charles Steckler was presented with a $1,000 diamond ring here in "recognition of his services."  (It was a generous tribute, worth about $32,500 in 2026 terms.)

By 1885, the boarding house portion was operated by a Mrs. Betz, described by The Sun as "a stout, good-natured German woman."  In January that year, a "German cripple and a tall, good-looking German with a broad moustache" climbed the stoop with a 16-year-old German girl."  They asked Mrs. Betz if she had a room for the teen.  The two men, they explained, were Marie Probanski's cousins and they had come with her "to vouch for her respectability."  

The Sun said that Marie's "fair, pretty face and bright brown eyes at once won the landlady's heart."  The mustached man paid a week's rent and the two left.  Marie found work as a seamstress and shortly became close friends with another boarder, actress Anna Rando.  After a few weeks, Marie confided into Anna.

She said she had come from Poland the previous August to visit her father and find work in America.  He found her a job as a servant, but she "gave it up because she wasn't strong enough," explained The Sun later.  She said her father eventually became abusive over her not working and she ran away.  Whether her story was true would never be known.

At 4:00 on the morning of February 11, 1885, Mrs. Betz was awakened by noises from Marie's room.  "She found the girl vomiting violently.  Beside her bed lay a little white envelope marked 'Arsenic--Poison.'"  Marie died shortly afterward.

As the boarders were gathered around the dining room table that night, "a short, dark-bearded German burst into the room, accompanied by a stout, rosy-cheeked woman."  The man was Marie's father, Joseph Probanski, and the woman her stepmother.  They had been searching for Marie for a month.  Joseph' story was far different from his daughter's.

The tall, 27-year-old man with the moustache, he said, was Oscar Lang.  "He is a scoundrel and a married man.  I'll fix him for this," he said.  He told Mrs. Betz, "He put the girl in this house so that I couldn't find her, and meant to ruin her.  She had a good home in my house with her stepmother."

Police searched for Oscar, but were initially able to find only his brother, Paul (the "cripple" who had appeared on the stoop that first day).  Paul added to the confusion of Marie's story.  He denied that Oscar was married, and said, "Her father swore at her, and told her to leave the house if she couldn't earn money...He wouldn't have had anything to do with sheltering her if her father had acted like a father to her."

The Steckler Association remodeled the basement level again in 1885.  Calling it "a strong political East Side organization, on April 27, the New-York Tribune reported it "received their friends in their newly renovated rooms at No. 83 East Fourth-st."  The article noted, "Many prominent politicians and business men were present."

The space became Frederick Bengal's "coffee-house," around 1890.  Charles Henry Parkhurst was not so sure that coffee was the only thing being traded here.  The clergyman and reformer founded the Society for the Prevention of Crime in 1891 and in November 1893 he sent word to Captain Doherty of the Fifth Street police station "that the coffee-houses in his precinct were nothing but gambling resorts."  During the last week of November, Doherty made raids on seven such places, including that of Frederick Bengel, who was arrested.

The post-World War I years saw the neighborhood become the center of labor and Socialist groups.  No. 83 East 4th Street was home to the Unemployment Council by 1921.  On December 4 that year, The New York Times explained, "The Unemployment Council is made up of delegates from various unions."

Within a year, the Organization of the Unemployed, the United Labor Council and the Workers' Party of America operated from the building.  On March 11, 1922, The Daily Worker reported on the 15 million people starving from famine in Russia.  "Can you witness this suffering without raising a hand to help?" asked the article.  It said that a "vast relief army is being mustered in New York City" and one of the stations where donations could be left was at 83 East 4th Street.

Around 1939, the attic was raised to a full floor.  Its wall of windows was topped with a stepped parapet.  The brick was painted white and the basement and parlor floor were converted to Royal Hall, a meeting and entertainment space.  On October 31, 1943, The New York Times reported that the United Nations Folk Dance Group met here once a week.

A canvas marquee sheltered patrons of The Royal in 1941.  via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services.

A decade later, the Royal Hall became the Royal Playhouse.  On October 30, 1953, a new play The Wedding Present by Ken Parker premiered here.

The Royal Playhouse was a short-lived venture.  In 1954, the Fourth Street Theatre opened.  It lasted until the Writers Stage Theater took over around 1960.  

In 1967, the New Dramatists Workshop operated within the building.  Two attendees of a performance of Megan Terry's Keep Tightly Clothed in a Cool Dry Place on March 23 that year were undercover officers.  In one scene, four actors--Yale University drama students--used an American flag as a blanket, threw it on the floor and rolled in it.  They were arrested for "desecrating an American flag."

On February 27, 1969, The New York Times reported that the Playwrights Unit, headed by Edward Albee, Richard Barr and Charles Woodward, had purchased 83 East 4th Street for $77,000 (about $675,000 today).  Barr and Woodward were the producers of the highly successful The Boys in the Band, and Albee was a Pulitzer Prize dramatist.  The article said, "The organization gives new dramatists an opportunity to see their scrips presented on a professional basis without the commercial pressure of paid public performances and newspaper criticism."  The theater space was now known as The Next Stage.

In 1972, the Players Workshop opened here, described by the New York Amsterdam News on October 28 as "a new performing arts center."  It offered courses and workshops in drama, dance, costume design and sewing.

A letter to the editor of The Villager printed on June 26, 1975, said that "the old Playwright's Unit theater is now operating under the name of Wonderhorse."  A product of The Alive Company, "a music-oriented performing theater group."  (The writer noted that when Wonderhorse was not in use, The Next Stage could use the space.)

Theater groups came and went.  In 1991, the New York Theatre Workshop purchased the property and moved in the following year.  (The group's principal performance venue is at 79 East 4th Street.)  No. 83 East 4th Street became a 75-seat "black box space" for readings, the organization's administrative offices, and a workshop.  The group continues in the vintage house today.

many thanks to artist Carole Teller for suggesting this post