Real estate developer Leonard Beeckman embarked on an ambitious project in 1887 by breaking ground for nine, 19-feet-wide rowhouses on West 76th Street between Eighth and Ninth Avenues (renamed Central Park West and Columbus Avenue, respectively, in 1890). Designed by George M. Walgrove, the homes were completed in 1889.
(Walgrove, incidentally, would be appointed a Parks Commissioner in January 1906, only to be forced to resign that November for using his post "for political purposes," according to Mayor George B. McClellan.)
Among the most striking of the homes was 50 West 76th Street. Above the doglegged box stoop, Walgrove striated the parlor floor by alternating wide dressed stone with narrow rough cut strips. Elegant Renaissance-style pediments crowned the center windows of the second and third floors. The other openings sat within multi-layered, stepped architraves topped with molded cornices.
The house was briefly owned by Reverend Dr. Edmund Guilbert. Born in 1837, he was rector of the Episcopal Church of the Holy Spirit on Madison Avenue.
Rev. Dr. Edmund Guilbert, Annals of an Old Parish Historical Sketches of Trinity Church Southport Connecticut 1725 to 1898 by Rev. Edmund Gilbert D. D.(copyright expired)
Rev. Guilbert was the victim of two "rogues," as described by the New York Herald in the summer of 1891. On July 1, the Waterbury, Connecticut Evening Democrat explained that one "well dressed young man" would board a boat heading from New York to summer communities. He would find an unaccompanied valise on the deck and, just before the gangplank was raised, his accomplice on the pier would wave frantically as if there were an emergency. The first man would grab the valise and rush off the boat. The Evening Democrat said, "So frequent had these thefts become, that...policemen were detailed to watch."
Like most wealthy Manhattan churches, the Church of the Holy Spirit closed during the hot summer months while their congregants abandoned the city for their summer estates or fashionable resorts. On July 22, Rev. Guilbert boarded the Monmouth to Sandy Hook. The Evening World reported that just as the ship's whistle blew, a "well dressed young man" hurried to the pier with a valise. Police caught Henry Hamilton, whose story "was all knocked in the head when the rightful owner of the valise, Rev. Dr. Edmund Guilbert...appeared on the scene and told how he had left the valise for a moment in the saloon." The Evening Democrat said that among the contents were stocks, the value of which "has been placed at thousands of dollars."
At the time of the incident, Rev. Guilbert had already tendered his resignation from the Church of the Holy Spirit. In 1890 he accepted the position of rector of Trinity Episcopal Church in Southport, Connecticut. On November 7, 1891, the Real Estate Record & Builders' Guide reported that Edmund Guilbert had sold 50 West 76th Street to William C. Orr and his wife, the former Emma Philbin.
Born in Brooklyn, Orr graduated from St. Francis Xavier College in 1868 and received his M. A. degree the following year. A specialist in real estate law, he was counsel for the Fifth Avenue Bank, the Emigrant Industrial Savings Bank, and the Home for the Aged of the Little Sisters of Poor.
William and Emma had three sons--Philbin, Sherwood and William Jr.--and three daughters--Constance Philbin, Jeannette, and Florence.
The Orrs apparently took in a boarder and in 1896 a "Mrs. Nickerson" listed her address here. She was a daughter of John Forman of Asbury Park, New Jersey and a sister of Laura Forman. In May 1896, the women's widowed father remarried and Laura, who was unmarried, "became restive under the changed conditions," according to him. To complicate the situation, George H. Lefferson began "paying attention" to Laura. The New York Sun commented that John Forman "was not well disposed toward the young man."
In July 1896, Laura came to New York to visit her sister. Suddenly, on July 16, a carriage stopped in front of 50 West 76th Street and several men got out. They forcibly put Laura into the vehicle, and took her to the House of Mercy in Inwood. Her father had arranged to have her incarcerated there. The New York Sun reported, "Her father paid her board there, although most of the inmates are supported by the institution."
Constance Philbin Orr died "after a short illness," according to The New York Times, on July 9, 1910. Somewhat surprisingly, her funeral was not held in the house, but at the Church of the Blessed Sacrament on Broadway and 71st Street.
Within three years, the Orrs left 50 West 76th Street and they leased the the home to the Daniel O'Connell family. Like his landlord, O'Connell was an attorney. Born in Bridgeport, Connecticut, he graduated from De La Salle College in Toronto and earned his law degree from the New York Law School. He and his wife, the former Marcella Harlin, had two sons and three daughters.
President Grover Cleveland appointed O'Connell an Assistant United States District Attorney. He was, as well, president of the McNab & Harlin Manufacturing Company.
On the afternoon of March 14, 1916, Daniel and Marcella O'Connell took in the matinee at the New York Theatre on Broadway and 44th Street. At 4:30, Daniel O'Connell, as reported by the New-York Tribune, he fell "unconscious while in the theatre." The 61-year-old had suffered "an attack of apoplexy," as reported by The New York Times. (The term most often refers to a stroke today.) He died in the ambulance on the way to the hospital.
Daniel O'Connell's funeral was held in the parlor of 50 West 76th Street on March 17, followed by a mass at the Church of St. Paul the Apostle on Columbus Avenue and 59th Street.
The Orrs continued to lease the house to well-to-do tenants until William C. Orr's death in 1926. It was purchased by Hannah Marshall who operated it as unofficial apartments.
In 1940, 50 West 76th Street looked no different than it does today. via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services.
Living here in 1932 were Henry Ritter and his wife, Anna. Born in Hartford, Connecticut in 1874, Henry was an inventor. For several years he had been paralyzed from the waist down. On May 23, Anna went out after getting Henry settled into a chair. He was reading his newspaper and smoking a cigar when the newspaper caught fire. Unable to get up, the fire spread to his clothing. Another resident, Joseph Babalco, smelled smoke and entered the apartment. The New York Times reported that he "found Mr. Ritter's clothing still burning." He beat out the fire and called for an ambulance, but Ritter was dead by the time it arrived.
Gershon Legman rented an apartment here in 1937. According to Mikita Brottman in her 2004 Funny Peculiar, Gershon Legman and the Psychopathology of Humor, "Legman's main personal interest at this time, and his first publication, was Oragenitalism, a small volume of 'Oral Techniques in Genital Excitation for Gentlemen."
Gershon Legman, from the collection of Judith Legman
Born on November 2, 1917, Legman was educated at the University of Michigan. He would become the editor of the magazine Neurotica in the 1940s and a folklorist and critic. His The Horn Book: Studies in Erotic Folklore and Bibliography and The Rationale of the Dirty Joke would be published in 1964 and 1968 respectively.
In 1967, 50 West 76th Street was converted to apartments. Then, a renovation completed in 2013 returned it to a single-family home.
photographs by the author
.png)
No comments:
Post a Comment