In two phases, real estate operator Francis Joseph Schnugg nearly filled the north blockfront of East 95th Street between Lexington and Park Avenues with 17 rowhouses. The second group, completed in 1892, was designed by Louis Entzer, Jr. (The first was the work of architect Fran Wennemer.) Included in Entzer's row were 119 and 121 West 95th Street, which he designed as a mirror-image pair.
Faced in brownstone, the three-story-and-basement homes were just 16-feet wide. A broad, shared stoop divided by an iron railing disguised their narrowness, as did the wide arched parlor windows. Entzer further united the pair by placing the round-arched doorways into a single frame. Pilasters with elaborately carved capitals flanked the entrances from which a molding rose to embrace a shared carved rondel.
Even more eye-catching were the sheet metal oriels at the second floor. They were decorated with fluted pilasters, neo-Classical swags, and a triangular pediment.
When three of the group--Nos. 113, 119 and 121--had not sold by October 25, 1892, Schnugg apparently dropped the price. He advertised:
Positively the Cheapest private houses in New-York, three-story and basement, brownstone; all private block; high ground...for only $17,000.
The price would translate to about $621,000 in 2026, and the reference to an "all private block" meant that there were deed restrictions that prohibited commerce on the block.
For some reason, 121 West 95th Street still did not sell. Schnugg leased the house and each time the lease expired, he advertised the 14-room house for sale again. In 1893, he upped the price to $17,250, stressing it was "worth $21,000" and he would include the gas fixtures. He tried again in April 1895, and finally found a buyer in the Pilgrim family.
The Pilgrims apparently purchased the house as an investment and, like Schnugg, continued to lease it. Living here in the post-World War I years was Julia Pabst Bader, the widow of Henry Bader, who died in 1922. Julia was the daughter of the German-born dry goods merchant Martin Pabst. She and Henry had one daughter, Laura. Julia Bader died here on December 5, 1929 at the age of 76.
When Linda Pilgrim sold the house in June 1945, The New York Times remarked that it "had been in the same family for more than fifty years."
Small panes, a touch of the Queen Anne style, still outlined the upper sashes of the oriel in 1940. via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services.
No. 121 East 95th Street became home to the Dr. Theodore Burg Russell family. Born in Queens, New York in 1903, Russell graduated from Princeton University in 1928 and Columbia University's College of Physicians and Surgeons in 1930. His wife, the former Rhoda Reddig, was a nurse and his second wife. He had three daughters, Mary, Katherine and Phoebe, from his first wife, Mary Learned Peltz (who was also a nurse).
Russell was apparently suffering from intense stress in the early months of 1951. At 4:45 on the afternoon of February 7, he boarded the State Island ferry President Roosevelt during a snowstorm. A few minutes before the vessel would have docked at St. George Terminal, Dr. Russell "walked out of the cabin and plunged over the port rail," reported The New York Times. The ferry was stopped and, as reported by The Staten Island Advance, "Three ferrymen had to put out in a lifeboat on choppy, rain-swept waters." The New York Times said, "When he was pulled from the water, he shouted, 'I want to die.'" As the lifeboat returned to the ferry, a deckhand had to restrain Russell from jumping back into the water.
Dr. Russell had chosen the most inconvenient time--rush hour--to attempt suicide. The Staten Island Advance reported, "The incident created a flurry of excitement in the harbor when three police boats, a Coast Guard cutter and a fireboat were rushed to the scene under the impression the ferry was in distress." And The New York Times added that the incident "delayed the craft more than a half-house and interrupted rush-hour ferry service from Manhattan and Staten Island."
Dr. Theodore Burg Russell and Rhoda Reddig Russell relocated to Ann Arbor, Michigan by the early 1960s. Rhoda became dean of the School of Nursing at the University of Michigan there. Surprisingly, 121 East 95th Street became home to Russell's previous wife, Mary Learned Peltz, and their two unmarried daughters, Katherine and Phoebe.
On June 19, 1963, The New York Times reported on Katherine Eveleen Russell's marriage to Benno Charles Schmidt Jr. in the Brick Presbyterian Church. Her sisters, Mary White and Phoebe, were matron and maid of honor, respectively. The article mentioned that Katherine had graduated from the Nightingale-Bamford School and Bennett College.
Two years later, nearly to the day, The New York Times reported on Mary Peltz Russell's marriage to Lewis Perry Jr. The erudite groom was headmaster of the Fountain Valley School in Colorado Springs, and had attended Milton Academy, Phillips Exeter Academy, Harvard College and Oxford University.
Still a single-family home, 121 East 95th Street has undergone few exterior renovations and remains an integral part of the charming streetscape along this block.
photographs by the author
.png)
No comments:
Post a Comment