Following Preserved Fish's death in 1846, The Merchant's Magazine and Commercial Review described him as "a rough, obstinant, and eccentric man." Until 1835, the shipping magnate had lived at 218 William Street, a three-story brick house, "built in a most substantial manner, with 16 inch walls," according to The Evening Post on June 5 that year.
Preserved Fish would not have recognized his old neighborhood in 1870, when construction began on the Brooklyn Bridge, the access road of which would rise just steps away from where his front door had been. And then, on September 12, 1891, the Record & Guide reported, "The Metropolitan Realty Co. will tear down the old buildings at Nos. 214 to 218 William street, running through to Nos. 18 and 20 Rose street, and erect on the site a large building."
Four months later, on January 9, 1892, the journal reported that William Wheeler Smith was drawing plans for "a thirteen-story...building for manufacturing purposes" on the site. Saying that it would be "thoroughly fire-proof," the article noted there would be 700 windows, "four elevators and steam heat throughout." Wheeler placed the construction cost at "between $400,000 and $500,000"--$14.6 million and $18.3 million in 2026 terms.
The Metropolitan Realty Building was completed in 1893. The plans had been tweaked and the finished structure was 15 stories tall. As promised, its quadripartite Renaissance Revival design boasted extensive fenestration--the hundreds of windows grouped, for the most part, in threes and fours. Other than limestone lintels and bandcourses that defined each section, Wheeler's design focused on utility rather than architectural beauty.
An advertisement in The Sun on March 19, 1893 called the Metropolitan Realty Building the "strongest, lightest, best-equipped building in this city" and boasted, "windows on four sides." A more objective testimonial came from The Electrical Age, which wrote on February 8, 1896, "This building is the strongest and best fitted-up fireproof building ever constructed in the city for manufacturing purposes." It noted that it "has a complete electric light plant." (Commercial electricity was unreliable and most early skyscrapers like this one had their own dynamos to create power.)
The Metropolitan Realty Building sat within the printing and publishing district, and Smith had designed the building to support heavy printing presses and similar machinery. Among the initial tenants were W. B. Keller Printing & Publishing, Gardiner Binding and Mailing Company, H. A. Rost Printing & Publishing Company, and the Blumenberg Press.
Like several of its competitors in the building, H. A. Rost Printing & Publishing Co. handled both large and small jobs, the latter typified by the 100-page brochure "The Twenty-Sixth Meeting of the American Society of Railroad Superintendents," published in 1898. But that year it introduced a novel product, "illustrated mail and postal cards."
A few years before postcards would become a staple of every tourist's trip, an 1898 H. A. Rost ad offered postcards as an advertising novelty, decorated on the front with photography or lithography. It said in part, "our facilities enable us to take any size plate, from the smallest to the largest, ever made in the country. Specialties: Exteriors and Interiors of Buildings and Ships, scenery, etc.).
A self-advertising H. A. Rost postcard shows workers in tight quarters and without the advantage of the building's numerous windows.
The Blumenberg Press initiated its own weekly trade journal in 1899, called Paper. In its April 1899 issue, The Inland Printer called Paper, "one of the handsomest and most interesting weekly magazines which we have seen for a long time." The gushing review said, "there is no phase of the paper interest which the magazine does not seem to cover, and the numerous and beautifully printed portraits and views are most interesting."
There were, as well, several tenants associated with the burgeoning electric industry. In 1895, Dale, Farrell & Co. was established, described by The Electrical World as "a new firm of electrical and mechanical engineers and contractors." While their offices were on Trinity Place, the firm installed its factory in the Metropolitan Realty Building. Already here was the Electrose Manufacturing Company, which manufactured telephone parts. And in May 1899, Frederick Pearce & Company, "manufacturer of and dealer in Electricians', Telegraph, Telephone and Electric Light Apparatus," moved its "office, salesroom and factory," into the building, as announced in The Iron Age.
The 1915 Howitzer Advertiser (copyright expired)
Both Edward N. Lynch and Oswald Maune headed printing establishments in the building in 1904. And, coincidentally, they lived directly across from one another on Vernon Avenue in Brooklyn. The Lynches had three daughters, including Margaret, and the Maunes had a two sons. One was a priest and the other, Oswald Jr., was the chief assistant in his father's firm. The New York Press called Margaret, "one of the prettiest girls in St. John's parish."
In 1901, according to the New York Press, Oswald Jr. "went a-wooing to the Lynch home." After a "short courtship" their engagement was announced at a "festive gathering in the Lynch dwelling." One evening in 1904, according to The Sun, "Maune light-heartedly crossed the street from his home. An hour later he returned sobbing bitterly...Maune saw his fiancée that evening, but mystery veils what passed between them."
What passed between them became evident within a few months. Margaret checked into a Manhattan maternity hospital as Margaret Lawrence in March 1904. But she quickly had a change of mind. The Sun explained that she "sent a letter to Sister Theresa, the superior in charge, in which she said that she was going to commit suicide. At the same time, her mother received a letter in which the girl said she was going to end her life."
On April 2, a young woman's body was found in Greenfield Cemetery in Mineola, Long Island. At the time, an illegitimate pregnancy or a suicide would be scandalous and humiliating for a family. The two together would be unthinkable.
Mrs. Lynch and a family friend, Rev. Father Burns, went to Mineola and identified Margaret's body. The Brooklyn Daily Eagle reported, "They decided at the time that it would be best to avoid all publicity in the matter, and for that reason Mrs. Lynch did not tell even the local authorities that the dead woman was her daughter." Mrs. Lynch told the coroner's physician that the girl was Margaret Laimbeer, and anonymously gave him $100 "to give decent burial to the unfortunate girl," as reported by the Brooklyn Daily Eagle.
In the meantime, Oswald's renunciation of Margaret had gnawed on his consciousness until, according to a servant in the house, "young Oswald Maune was in an insane asylum, but she did not know where," according to the Brooklyn Daily Eagle on September 20.
The secret of the Shakespearean-worthy tragedy unraveled in August when The Press discovered that the girl who "was laid in a dishonored grove in Greenfield Cemetery" on April 15, was Margaret Lynch. The newspaper called Margaret's and Oswald's story, "remarkable," saying it entailed...
two families of social position and exceptional refinement, involving the courtship and engagement of a beautiful girl and a youth of rare promise, and telling of unhappy separation, the young going to an insane asylum, the maid drifting downward to suicide.
Hardware Dealer, October 1895 (copyright expired)
Conreid Langsdorf worked as an electrotyper for Edward Flower & Co., here in 1905. He used his professional skills to devise what the Pinkerton Detective Agency described as "the newest and most clever method of swindling savings banks." That fall, Langsdorf opened an account at the Williamsburg Savings Bank with a $35 deposit and received his new bank book. He made two more deposits, bringing his balance on January 22, 1906 to $75 (about $2,775 today).
On January 24, he withdrew $60. Then he took his bank book to work, disassembled it and removed the page with the debit. He then expertly reproduced a blank page, inserted it, and rebound the book. Now his balance appeared, again, to be $75. He would, most likely, have gotten away with the scheme if he had not repeated it within quick succession. A teller became suspicious and Langsdorf was arrested on March 15. He seemed to have been more prideful than remorseful about his clever scheme. He confessed to detectives:
I got the idea quite a while ago that I could do the savings banks out of plenty of money. I was going to open accounts in a dozen other banks if I got enough capital out of the Williamsburg Bank.
A vintage postcard shows the Manhattan Realty Building and the bridge approach in the upper left. image courtesy of Peter Alsen.
Labor troubles in the early 20th century often came with violence and mayhem. Frederick Pearce & Company had large contracts with the U.S. Government during World War I, but at the conflict's end, they were cancelled. The firm "had to let many of their employe[e]s go," explained the New York Herald. In response, 250 of the remaining 335 employees went on a "sympathy strike."
On 10:00 on the morning of May 14, 1919, a boy who worked for Frederick Pearce & Company went to the 14th floor where the firm stored supplies. There, in the middle of the floor, was a chest. The curious youth opened it to find a large bomb. He ran to Walter and Charles Pearce, heads of the firm, who notified the Bureau of Combustibles. Inspector Owen Egan described the bomb as having containing "three pounds of black powder [that] would have blown the upper floors of the building to pieces and thrown the lower floors onto the superstructure of the Brooklyn Bridge, where hundreds of persons are continually arriving and departing on the cars and trains."
This 1941 photograph shows how closely the Metropolitan Realty Building sat to the Brooklyn Bridge approach. via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services.
When the Metropolitan Realty Building was sold in December 1941, The New York Times mentioned that it "is occupied largely by printing concerns." Among the tenants at the time was the newly established Il Mondo, an Italian daily newspaper.
In 1955, the Metropolitan Realty Building was demolished to make way for the Park Row approach and the widening of the roadways that accessed the Brooklyn Bridge.
many thanks to reader Peter Alsen for suggesting this post
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