Abortion, Murder and Kindness--347-351 West 44th Street

 

By the last quarter of the 19th century, the Hell's Kitchen district was "one of the most miserable and crime-polluted neighborhoods in this City," according to The New York Times.  On September 18, 1892, a police sergeant told the newspaper, "You were always on the defensive and carried your life n your hand if you made the streets safe for decent people.  If you chose to skulk and let the hoodlums have their own way, you were a good fellow, and never wanted for a cigar or a drink, and I have heard that some officers profited to a greater extend by being discreetly deaf, dumb, and blind."

But certain developers attempted to upgrade the neighborhood by erecting decent tenement buildings.  Five months before The New York Times article, William F. Rorack purchased the old Eagle Brewery property on West 44th Street between Eighth and Ninth Avenues.  On February 18, 1892, The Real Estate Record & Builders' Guide reported that he would build eight "five-story brown stone flats"--five at 345 to 353 West 44th Street and the three others directly behind them on West 45th Street.

This photograph of the Eagle Brewery complex was taken in 1892, just before William Rorack demolished the buildings.  from the collection of the New-York Historical Society.

The buildings were completed before the year's end.  Faced in brownstone and designed as a blend of R0manesque Revival and Renaissance Revival styles, they were nearly identical--their details varying only in the stone carvers' creativity.  Each entrance was flanked by layered columns, the front panels of which were decorated with elaborate Renaissance Revival carvings.  A single Corinthian capital capped the hybrid columns.

At some point, an Art Deco-style entrance door, in stark contrast to the 19th century architecture, was installed at No. 351.

The second floors were faced in vermiculated, rusticated stone.  The windows at this level were enhanced with bold, carved voussoirs.  The openings of the third and fourth floors were embraced by molded arches, each of the outer examples capped with individual mascarons, or portrait keystones.  The top floor windows were separated by paneled Corinthian piers.

Finely executed mascarons cap the outer windows of the fourth floor.

The buildings filled with working class families, their economic status reflected in position-wanted ads.  On December 4, 1892, for instance, an advertisement in The New York Times read, "Butler--By thoroughly competent, sober, and industrious man in private family; best recommendations from last employer.  Address Galbrun, 347 West 44th St."  

Among Galbrun's neighbors in the building that year was Charles H. Paulding.  The elderly man had an illustrious military background.  A veteran of the War of 1812, his maternal grandfather, Isaac F. Russell, had been aide-de-camp to Major General Morgan Lewis in the Revolutionary War.

A young unmarried woman who found herself pregnant at the time was in serious trouble.  Affluent women often slipped out of town on "pleasure trips" until the birth.  Residents of Hell's Kitchen, on the other hand, did not have that option.

Alice Whitney, who lived at 351 West 44th Street, worked as a stenographer and typist in a downtown lawyer's office.  The Evening World described her as "said to possess remarkable beauty and intelligence."  In January 1893, she sought the services of Dr. Gray-Blinn (who also practiced under the names of Blinn, Gray and Smith).  Two years earlier, in January 1891, he was arrested for performing an abortion.  Out on bail, he and his wife fled to Sweden.  Because the patient recovered, no charges were pressed and Gray-Blinn returned to New York City.

Gray-Blinn botched the abortion on Alice Whitney, leaving her in a precarious condition.  On January 20, the New York Herald reported that the physician "was arrested last Sunday, charged with performing a criminal operation."  He was released on $3,000 bail (about $110,000 in 2026).  The article said, "It is reported that Miss Whitney's condition is steadily improving."

But at a time when infection and internal injuries were less well understood than today, the 22-year-old's condition soon worsened.  On February 7, The Evening World reported that the coroner had been notified that "Miss Alice Whitney was suffering from the results of malpractice at 351 West Forty-fourth street, and would probably die before night."  

The following day, the New-York Tribune reported that Alice had died in her apartment.  The article said she had not revealed the name of "her betrayer" (the man who had impregnated her).  On the same day, The Evening World headlined an article, "Dr. Gray-Blinn Has Fled."

At least three of the residents of the row found a less arduous way of making a living than domestic work or physical labor.  An advertisement in the New York Journal on September 17, 1896 read, "Professor Fred Carlson.  Spiritualist, medium; magnetic treatment; good helper.  351 West 44th st."  Four months later, on January 11, 1897, an advertisement in the same newspaper offered, "New Year well begun by consulting Wanetha; she is the ladies' favorite, 351 West 44th st."  And on October 15, 1899, an ad in the New York Journal and Advertiser read, "Mme. Ross, palmist, seventh daughter; naturally gifted; 25 cents.  347 West 44th st., one flight up, back."

Cora Walters, who had a former husband and two children in Philadelphia, occupied a four-room apartment at 347 West 44th Street as early as 1912.  A waitress, she rented one of her two bedrooms to James Lord and his wife.  The 44-year-old Cora had a drinking problem.  On September 26, 1912, according to The Evening World, she "had been treated for alcoholism."  

Around the same time, Raymond Murphy temporarily moved in.  (It is unclear where he slept, since the apartment had only two bedrooms.)  Now a painter, Murphy had previously been a professional pitcher with the Philadelphia National League.

At around 6:00 on the morning of October 4, 1912, Murphy and Lord told two policemen that they had just found Cora Walters's body in her bedroom.  The officers quickly became suspicious about "the many bruises on the body of the dead woman," as reported by The Evening World.  The Lords explained them, according to The New York Times, by saying that Cora "had been drinking heavily for three weeks, and the bruises were caused by falls."

Coroner Holtzhauser, however, was not so sure.  He told reporters, "The bruises on the body were not more than six hours old and do not look to me as if they could have been caused by fall."  He added that Cora was found on her back with her right hand raised "as if to ward off a blow."  The Brooklyn Daily Eagle noted, "according to the police...several suit cases and the contents, consisting of papers, were found strewn about the room."

Holtzhauser had the Lords and Murphy detained and he ordered an autopsy.  The results were apparently inconclusive and no arrests were made.

Joseph Farrell, who was a laborer, lived at 351 West 44th Street at the time of the incident.  In April 1913, he "was hit with a blackjack," according to the New-York Tribune.  After the incident he started "acting strangely."  Farrell's unusual behavior climaxed on the night of July 11.  At around 6:00, he went on a rampage, "wrecking his own apartment with a sledge hammer," then running through the hallway, smashing the doors of other apartments.  Farrell's next door neighbor, Christopher Bauer, tackled him in the hallway.

The New-York Tribune reported, "Policeman Seiffert found the two struggling, but Farrell wrenched himself free and struck Bauer and Seiffert down, and ran into his apartment and locked the door."  As Seiffert and Bauer broke in the door, they heard a horrific crash.  The article said, "Farrell had jumped through a window without raising the sash."  The frenzied man landed in the rear yard and suffered a fractured skull.

The passing decades did not lessen the problems of residents along the row.  Anita Sobotina and Sophie Pelansky, two  members of a Russian ballet troupe, lived at 351 West 44th Street on June 20, 1916 when they were arrested for shoplifting items of silk lingerie in a Broadway store.  

Stephen Moniodes, a busboy in Janssen's Hofbrau restaurant, lived in the building ten years later.  On March 14 1926, he was arrested after he grabbed a carving knife and terrorized a dozen employees in the kitchen, "shouting he would kill everybody present," according to The New York Times.  Several cooks managed to force him into a closet and call the police.  The article said, "He was taken to the psychopathic ward at Bellevue suffering from temporary derangement."

Jack Gentle, who lived in No. 351, worked as a waiter in a restaurant.  Unfortunately for him, it was also a speakeasy.  On February 11, 1927, he was arrested when the basement restaurant was raided by Prohibition agents.  And on March 15, 1935, resident Fred M. Melton was arrested for "stealing government checks" and cashing them.  Secret Service agent Alan G. Straight called him, "one of the cleverest forgers in the country."

Not all the residents of the row were, of course, on the wrong side of the law.  A touching letter arrived at The New York Times's Hundred Neediest Cases Fund on December 15, 1924 from A. Perez, who lived at 349 West 44th Street.  Written in broken English, his note read:

I send.  I have nothing but this money that could save from weekly salary.  My gift will be smallest among the others but best-intentioned.  I have heartbroken for not to any more to cause because I am as poor as they are.

    Yours truly, A. Perez, 349 West Forty-fourth Street.

    Hotel Astor pantryman, this is my job.

image via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services.

By the turn of the century, 351 West 44th Street was operated as a single room occupancy hotel.  Tenants reported that they paid $150 a week "for small rooms with no kitchens," according to The New York Times.  In 2004, there were several small fires in the building, according to occupants.

Another fire broke out in the fifth-floor room of Lassan Bavo on the night of January 28, 2005.  Bavo told reporters, "I took the bucket I use to wash my socks and started trying to put it out.  Then I just gathered some stuff and ran out the fire escape."

The sprinklers failed to activate and 38-year-old William Tutay, who lived two rooms away from the Bavo's, jumped from a window that opened onto the airshaft.  He landed on a "recessed area level with the basement floor," said The New York Times.  He was dead when fire fighters found him.  The fire chief remarked, "If the sprinklers worked, he would not have had to jump."

The easternmost building was demolished in 1925 and replaced later by a rather startling edifice.

No. 345 West 44th Street was demolished in 1925, and No. 353 was so drastically modernized later that it is nearly unidentifiable as one of the 1892 row.  The passing of time, however, essentially ignored the three middle buildings.  Other than replacement windows and an unexpected Art Deco entrance door at 351 West 44th Street, the exteriors of the historic tenement buildings survive nearly untouched.

many thanks to reader Tony Willging for requesting this post

photographs by the author