The Lost Adolph Lewisohn Mansion - 9 West 57th Street

The original appearance of the 1870 house was similar to the houses on either side..  The Architectural Record, July 1900 (copyright expired)

On March 29, 1895 Ernest Rudolph Gunther hosted what The New York Times described as "a very pretty 'stage dinner.'"  The guest of honor was Russian Prince Lubecki.  The newspaper added, "Covers were laid for ten persons."

Gunther's four-story brownstone rowhouse at No. 9 West 57th Street was well-known for such entertainments.  The New York Tribune remarked that same year that Gunther was "a clever conversationalist and extremely popular among club men and the people who comprise what is known as the best society in New York.  An invitation to one of the frequent musicales, given at his residence, is prized very highly by members of the New York smart set."

The house was new when Gunther's father, German-born furrier William H. Gunther, purchased it for $100,000 in 1875.  The price--nearly $2 million today--and the 30-foot width reflected the exclusivity of the neighborhood, just steps from Fifth Avenue.  Following the senior Gunther's death, the family sold the house in March 1897 for $165,000.

Seven months later, on October 24, the New York Journal and Advertiser reported that Adolph Lewisohn had filed plans "for alterations costing $50,000" to the house.  The Real Estate Record & Builders' Guide added more details, noting that the architects would be Brunner & Tryon and the work would include "extensive interior and exterior alterations, including new front."

The project was an early example of the sweeping remakes of outdated homes in fashionable neighborhoods.  The architects removed the stoop and facade, lowering the entrance to two steps above the sidewalk.   Drab brownstone was replaced by white limestone and the matronly 1870's personality gave way to modern French exuberance.

The columned entrance portico supported a one-story faceted bay which morphed into a blustraded balcony at the third floor, accessed by sets of French doors.  Another stone balcony graced the third floor.   A stone balustrade perched above the bracketed cornice.

The interiors of the Lewisohn home were decorated by well-known artists.  Edwin H. Blashfield painted the ceiling of the music room with a fresco entitled "Music," as well as other decorations; and he painted "Dance" in a hallway panel.  Joseph Lauber's "Psyche at the Spring" adorned a window panel.

Like William Gunther, Adolph Lewisohn was born in Germany.   Three years after his father's death in 1872 he came to New York City at the age of 16 to assist his brothers in their mercantile business, Adolph Lewisohn & Son.  He quickly became the moving force in the operation.

Not long after arriving in America he had met Thomas Edison.  The meeting led to Lewisohn's realization that the conductive properties of copper would make it vital in electrifying the country.  The Lewisohn brothers were among the first investors in western copper mines.

On June 26, 1878 Adolph married Emma Cahn.  The couple had four children, Clara, Adele, Sam and Julius.  By the time he purchased the former Gunther house Lewisohn had branched into banking as well, and had amassed a vast fortune which enabled him to indulge his love of the arts.  He filled the residence with a notable collection of paintings (his favorites being of the Barbizon School and later Impressionist works) and modern sculptures.  The Lewisohn were ardent patrons of the musical arts, as well, and were important supporters of facilities like the Metropolitan Opera.

The renovations to the 57th Street mansion were completed just in time for a major event.  On April 26, 1899 The New York Times reported "Alfred Rossin and Miss Clara Lewisohn were married yesterday afternoon at the newly completed residence of the bride's father, 9 West Fifty-seventh Street, one of the most beautiful of New York's newer houses."

The bride's parents spent lavishly on the floral decorations.  "The ceremony was performed in the drawing room, beneath a canopy formed of white roses.  Garlands of the same flowers, pink in color, festooned the windows, mantel, and doorways.  The music and dining rooms were gay with American Beauty roses.  Palms were plentifully used in the decorations."

The Lewisohns were well known for their generous philanthropies.  On October 16, 1904, for instance, the directors of the Hebrew Sheltering Guardian Orphan Asylum announced that Adolph had contributed $25,000 to its building fund.  The New-York Tribune added, "The Lewisohn family has been liberal in contributions to the asylum, Adolph Lewisohn having given previously $15,000."

Three years later, on August 11, 1907, the newspaper noted "although  he has been exceedingly liberal in his donations to other charitable and education institutions, the Sheltering Guardian Society is said to be his pet.  He contributed $140,000 to the Hebrew Technical School for Girls, where children of poor people may learn useful trades and fit themselves to earn a living."

By the time of the article he had also given $50,000 to the Jewish Protectory, erected the chapel for the National Jewish Hospital for Consumptives in Denver, and built a "large annex to the Jewish hospital at Hamburg, Germany, where Mr. Lewisohn was born." He he also had completed a complex of free housing in Hamburg for the needy, donated a chemical laboratory to Dartmouth College, the Pathological Building to Mount Sinai Hospital, and the School of Mines Building to Columbia.

The Lewisohns became unwitting participants in a scam in 1906.  The first indication of the scheme came early on the morning of February 9 when the butler answered the servants' bell.  He opened the door to what The New York Times described as "a shabbily dressed young woman."  She told him, "I've come to work.  Mr. Lewisohn has engaged me as cook."

The butler checked, then informed the woman she was mistaken.  Ten minutes later another woman appeared, then another.  Before noon at least 30 would-be cooks had rung the bell.  Lewisohn learned of the parade of women appearing at the servants' entrance and complained to the police.

An investigation quickly uncovered the swindle by a "Mrs. White."  The Times explained "Mrs. White's game is to call upon women advertisers for situations and tell them that they are to be employed by some well-to-do person.  Mrs. White then finds that she has lost her pocketbook and needs $10 temporarily, of course.  In many cases the money was paid."

In 1906 architects Coutler & Westhoff were commissioned to design Lewisohns' 20-bedroom summer home.  The following year, on October 6, 1907, the New-York Tribune reported "The new week-end home of Adolph Lewisohn on his 315-acre farm at Ardsley, N.Y., is rapidly nearing completion, and when all the plans have been carried out it will probably be one of the show places of that part of the country."

Landscape architect James L. Greenleaf designed the grounds, which included greenhouses, tennis courts, and a private golf course.  The Tribune wrote "Mr. Lewisohn's family will have an excellent attraction for week-end parties and an objective point for automobile trips."

Press coverage of the Lewisohn family was routinely positive, most often reporting on generous gifts.  An notable exception to that came about in the summer of 1908.  On August 11 the wife of mechanical engineer James W. Ellis was standing with her children on a street corner in Perth Amboy, New Jersey when Lewisohn's chauffeur, James Pettit, lost control of the limousine.

The "unmanageable" vehicle, as described by The Sun, ran into the family.  The newspaper reported that "Mr. Ellis's daughter had her leg broken and the other members of the family were bruised."   On December 1 a summons was served on Lewisohn in his Broadway office "to recover $107,000 damages."    Included in that amount was $10,000 "for the loss of his wife's services during the time she was recovering from the accident."

from the collection of the New York Public Library

In March 1913 The New York Times devoted nearly an entire page to the Lewisohn collections.  The article said in part "Among notable American collectors of literary and artistic treasures is Adolph Lewisohn, whose city mansion, 9 West Fifty-seventh Street, and country home at Ardsley contain many rare books, manuscripts, and pictures, the result of their owners' activities as a collector during the past twenty or more years.  On every floor of Mr. Lewisohn's urban residence the art lover will find objects that will surely hold his or her interest."

The article listed rare volumes, like the "beautifully illuminated Persian manuscript of seventy-three folio leaves entitles 'Marvels of the World'" with its more than 50 miniatures, and the 1466 volume of Cicero's Offices.  Other books pointed out included a first edition of Milton's Paradise Lost, a third folio Shakespeare, and the 17th century works of Ben Jonson.

While public attention tended to focus on Adolph, Emma was active in philanthropic work as well.  Among her favorite causes was the Penny Lunch program in public schools.  Underprivileged children were provided with wholesome, hot lunches for one cent; the actual cost of the meals coming from donations from people like Emma.

By now the once-exclusive neighborhood around No. 9 West 57th Street was becoming increasingly commercial.  As they had done nearly two decades earlier, in January 1915 the Lewisohns commissioned mansion architect C. P. H. Gilbert to renovate a brownstone house at No. 881 Fifth Avenue into a modern mansion.  But before their new home was ready, Emma died at their Ardsley estate on July 28, 1916 at the age of 60.  She had been ill for several months.

In what may have been a gesture to his wife's concern for feeding the poor, Lewisohn provided the 57th Street mansion for a meeting of women on March 5, 1917.  According to The Times, "Sarah Goldstein and other Brownsville women and East Side women will tell what they suffer from the high cost of food."

It would be the last event in the mansion as a private home.  The following month Lewisohn leased it for 21 years to Tappe, Inc. milliners.  The Sun reported on May 1 "The building is to be completely changed.  A new facade will be built and the interior altered to suit the needs of the tenant."

In its June 1917 edition, Millinery Trade Review reported that "Tappe has outgrown its present quarters to such an extent that a removal to the former residence of Adolph Lewisohn has been necessitated, and will be accomplished in the near future...An entirely new entrance is to replace the present one, in the style of the Early Italian Directoire, and the interior arrangements will display the Early Victorian characteristics."

The dapper Herman Patrick Tappe was considered on par with Henri Bendel  Millinery Trade Review, June 1917 (copyright expired)

Before Herman Patrick Tappe set his contractors loose on remodeling the interiors, he gave his employees "a very noteworthy ball" in the mansion.   His female workers dressed in 1830's gowns and officers from a French warship anchored in the Hudson River were invited for "added zest to the affair."

Interestingly, while Adolph Lewisohn retained ownership of what was now called "the Tappe Building," he began buying up other properties on his former block as investment.   On January 11, 1919 the Record & Guide reported he had purchased the two houses at Nos. 27 and 29 West 59th Street, adding "he already owns 10 and 12 West 57th street, known as the 'Bendel Building," as well as No. 31 West 57th Street and, of course, his own former mansion.

Like his landlord, Herman Tappe was an avid art collector.  His second floor apartment at No. 555 Madison Avenue was described by The New York Times as being "furnished in Victorian style with hundreds of valuable objects of art" including "oil paintings of great value, tapestries and needle-point lace curtains."  When fire broke out on the first floor of that building on November 7, 1927, Tappe "had some anxious moments."  Among the belongings he personally carried out to the street was a Rembrandt valued at $150,000.

Tappe's upscale shop was still at No. 9 West 57th Street at the time, but he would soon be gone.  In 1930 it was home to the art gallery of Julius H. Weitzner.  He dealt in masterworks like the self portrait of Spanish artist Francisco Goya, purchased by the Smith College Museum of Art in December that year.

It may have been the Great Depression that resulted in Weitzner's stay in the building to be short-lived.  For whatever reason it closed in 1933.  On April 13 The New York Times reported "With the assistance of Ed Wynn, Harry Herschfield and other stars of the theatre, Thrift House, a new venture in raising funds for relief work and other philanthropic activities, will be opened today at 9 West Fifty-seventh Street."  The store sold contributed items, both old and new, ranging from"wearing apparel, pins and bird cages to kitchen equipment and furniture."  The proceeds went to the Federation for the Support of Jewish Philanthropic Societies.

The Lewisohn family continued to buy properties along the 57th Street block.  Following its purchase of No. 42 in April 1946, The New York Times noted "The Lewisohns figured in many deals on Fifty-seventh Street which resulted in development of a shopping center there."  At the time of the article, No. 9 was being leased to the Pepsi-Cola Company.

The much altered mansion survived into the second half of the 20th century.  Finally billionaire Sheldon Solow commissioned architect Gordon Bunshaft of Skidmore, Owings & Merrill to design a skyscraper on a site engulfing the property.  Completed in 1974 the sloping, 50-story Solow Building is a landmark in its own right.

The 1894 "West End Synagogue" 160 West 82nd Street

On January 28, 1921 The American Hebrew reminded its readers of the history of Congregation Shaaray Tefila.  “The congregation was organized in 1845.  Its members were all immigrants from England or sons of British immigrants.  Its first place of worship was on Franklin street near Broadway, a section which in 1845 was the residential center of New York.”

In 1871 the congregation merged with Congregation Beth-El.  It was around this time that the strict orthodox restrictions were loosened—organ music was introduced, females were admitted into the choir, and men and women worshiped together. 

As the residential districts changed, Congregation Shaaray Tefila moved to Wooster Street, to West 34^th Street, and to 44th Street.  The American Hebrew noted “New York continued its uptown trend.  In 1892, the Forty-fourth street building was sold and Carnegie Hall was selected as the temporary place of worship…Congregation Shaaray Tefila was the first organization to hold religious services in Carnegie Hall.”

The trustees were planning the next move at the time.  The Upper West Side was Manhattan’s newest and perhaps most exciting new neighborhood.   Three building plots—Nos. 156 through 160—were procured on West 82^nd Street between Columbus and Amsterdam Avenues, and architects Brunner & Tyron were commissioned to design the congregation’s new home.

For decades synagogue architects had turned to the Moorish Revival style.  Gothic Revival was too closely linked to Christian churches and Greek Revival had no historic context with the Jewish religion.   Moorish or Byzantine motifs, on the other hand, reflected the pre-Inquisition period when Jews enjoyed relative freedom in Spain. 

Arnold W. Brunner was gradually turning away from the style, and his Congregation Shaaray Tefila, completed in 1894, reflected his preference for the neo-Classical style in synagogue architecture.  Nevertheless, he liberally splashed its symmetrical façade with Moorish touches—cusped arches, carved Moorish designs and alternating bands of lighter and darker stone and brick above the openings.  The grand split staircase which led to the entrance arcade along with the imposing architecture in general was evidence that Shaaray Tefila was by now one of the wealthiest congregations in the city.

The 82^nd Street synagogue would be the scene of the funerals of some of Manhattan’s most influential citizens.   On June 3, 1921 the funeral of Dr. Simon Baruch, father of millionaire financier Bernard M. Baruch, was held here.  Baruch was one of America’s most distinguished physicians.  He performed the first successful operation on a perforated appendix, lobbied for the establishment of free public baths in New York City, and was considered the pioneer in scientific hydrotherapy. 

Another funeral of note was that of David Mosessohn, editor of The Jewish Tribune.  More than 1,000 persons filed into what was popularly known as The West End Synagogue on December 18, 1930.  Among the tributes read were those from President Herbert Hoover who called Mosessohn “my friend,” from former Governor Al Smith, Lieutenant Governor Herbert H. Lehman, Chief Justice Benjamin N. Cardozo, Felix M. Warburg, and other judges, politicians and businessmen.

Later that year, on December 26, Lily Montagu spoke here.  The daughter of Lord Swaythling, The New York Times called her “a strong advocate of liberal Judaism.”  Her invitation to speak was evidence of the congregation’s open-minded viewpoint of its religion.

Within a few months its focus would turn overseas.  On April 14, 1931 The New York Times reported that former Ambassador to Germany, James W. Gerard, had addressed the congregation the day before.  He said Adolf Hitler had “reverted to the attitude of the Middle Ages.”  He also attacked the Soviet Government for its attitude towards Jews.   Those who attended the speech that day had no hint of the horrors that Germany and the USSR were about to launch.

Five years later, as German Jews desperately tried to flee their homeland, Rabbi Hyman Judah Schachtel compared their suffering to the Jews under Pharaoh more than 3,000 years earlier.  He said that the “new exodus” was here and “the day is not far off when we shall rejoice in another great deliverance from the house of bondage.”  But the hatred of Jews spawned by the Nazis would soon reach West 82^nd Street.

Two decades earlier, while another world war raged in Europe, the congregation hired Alexander Kinderman as the building’s caretaker.  Kinderman, a Roman Catholic, was given a small apartment in the east tower.  Jewish tradition required the employing of non-Jews to fill the position so mechanical operations—like turning lights on and off—during the Sabbath could be done.  Kinderman was well-liked and trusted.  He earned $132 a month and reportedly often handled thousands of dollars in cash in his duties.

On March 15, 1937 large orange swastikas were painted on Temple Rodeph Sholom, just a block away on West 83^rd Street.   Less than two weeks later, on March 27, Kinderman smelled smoke at around 1:45 in the morning.   He discovered two fires in the basement level.  In a classroom chairs had been piled and set on fire; and in the assembly hall the curtain over the stage had been ignited.  Both fires were successfully extinguished before much damage could be done.

At 10:00 that morning congregants celebrated the second Passover seder.  The synagogue was empty by 1:00 in the afternoon.  Kinderman told authorities that after he locked up he went back to his rooms.  At 3:15 a passerby reported a major blaze.

By the time the conflagration was extinguished the entire south end of the sanctuary was “wrecked,” the $25,000 pipe organ was severely damaged and, according to The Times, the fire “demolished the valuable scroll-work Russian walnut Ark of the Covenant and destroyed eighteen hand-illuminated Torah, or books of the law, kept in the Tabernacle.”  The damage amounted to $80,000—more than $1.3 million in 2016.

Fire Commissioner John J. McElligott was “convinced that the fires were deliberately set” and announced “the dastardly culprit or culprits must be apprehended.”

The dastardly culprit was indeed caught and his identity shocked and dismayed the congregation.  On March 31 the Fire Commissioner announced that after 10 hours of questioning Alexander Kinderman had confessed to setting all three fires.  Commissioner McElligott said the arsonist explained he was “seized by an uncontrollable impulse.”

At Kinderman’s sentencing Harry M. Wessel, president of synagogue, urged leniency.  The judge was little moved.  He sentenced Kinderman to up to 10 years in Sing Sing.

The south end, seen here in 1938, just after the restoration, had been almost completed destroyed.  photo by Wurts Bros. from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York

The West End Synagogue was repaired and refurbished.  It was rededicated on December 17, 1937.   Back in its home, the congregation again turned its attention to the Nazis.  On November 12, 1938 Rabbi Herbert S. Goldstein asked “Will the nations of the world sit idly by and remain passive while Germany is continuing in its inhumanitarian treatment of the Jew, a child of God?  Nazism is not a Jewish problem; it is a Christian problem; it is a world problem.”

In his sermon on August 26, 1939, Rabbi Hyman J. Schachtel seemed to have lost immediate hope, lamenting “peace is gone for our time.”  But he urged his congregants to make a better world after the war.  “Let us who saw a world die bequeath to the coming generation a heritage of wisdom, a legacy of truth.  Let them know how we hated one another and delighted in armaments; how we rejected spiritual ideals and rejoiced in material advancement disregarding the consequences to human welfare.  Let us leave them a honest record of our sins, and the fervent prayer that they will learn from us what not to do.”

Like the situation of desperate refugees fleeing near-certain death in Syria, Kosovo and Afghanistan in 2015; the free world was burdened with Jewish refugees in 1939.  And, as is the case today, there was a significant push by some to prohibit their acceptance on American soil.   On October 21, 1939 Rabbi Schactel addressed what a newspaper called “the refugee problem.”

“The only kind of change we ought to have in the United States is the normal, healthy growth of public opinion and decision which gradually extends the principles of democracy into every part of the life of the citizens.”

Among the West End Synagogue’s congregants to fight in Europe was First Lieutenant Martin Strauss.  The pilot was recognized as the hero of 24 missions before he was shot down in a Flying Fortress raid on Bremen on April 17, 1943.  Although he was officially termed “missing in action,” there was little hope of Lt. Strauss’s return.

On October 23 that year a military honor guard was present at the West Side Synagogue as Colonel Harold W. Beaton pinned the Air Medal and the three Oak Leaf Clusters on the airman’s mother, Mrs. Arthur Strauss.  The awards were for “courage, coolness and skill of the highest order.”

The Times mentioned “Lieutenant Strauss was a sophomore at New York University when he enlisted.  He became a second lieutenant after his twentieth birthday.”

On September 20, 1959 Gerard Oestreicher, building committee chairman, announced that Congregation Shaaray Tefila “is moving into an old motion picture theater building.” 

photo by Ukrainian Orthodox Cathedral of Saint Volodymyr

The former West End Synagogue was converted for use by the Ukranian Autocephalic Orthodox Church.  Today it continues to serve the Ukrainian Orthodox community as the Ukrainian Orothodox Cathedral of Saint Volodymyr in New York.  The congregation carefully and sympathetically renovated the interiors for Christian purposes; while retaining the sumptuous décor.

photographs by the author

Where Hats were Made -- Brunner & Tryon's 1892 No. 661 Broadway

photo by Beyond My Ken

When Moses Sachlein acquired 661 Broadway around 1890, a five-story masonry building had stood on the site for half a century. Here for decades George P. Putnam ran his publishing business until his death in 1872.

Sachlein razed the old structure in 1891 and in its place he commissioned architects Brunner & Tryon to design an 8-story store and loft building. Arnold Brunner and Thomas Tyron had only recently established the firm and had completed the headquarters of Downtown Hebrew Institute just two years earlier.

The building was completed in 1892, a handsome French Renaissance Revival structure with angles, textures and a mixture of materials similar to the highly-popular Queen Anne and Eastlake styles of the day. The architects placed the building on a solid two-story base of cast iron and rusticated granite piers. The third through sixth floors were of buff-colored brick with cast iron window frames and terra cotta detailing. The top two floors burst forth with terra cotta embellishment of palm fronds, swags, wreaths, Corinthian capitals and an elaborate pediment over the eighth floor dormer.

Terra cotta, cast iron and brick combine below a slate-covered roof -- photo by Alice Lum

The property stretched back through the entire block where the less elaborate façade had the address of No. 228 Mercer Street.

The building filled with a variety of tenants, one of the earliest being George W. Nathan. In February 1894 Mr. Nathan took Thomas Hays to court, charging him with stealing a diamond pin at his offices here, valued at $30.  The case took an embarrassing turn when on February 11 The World reported that Hays was let go “because Nathan was not sure but he might have lost the pin. He got it back again.”

At the turn of the century the majority of tenants were millinery and haberdashery manufacturers. In 1906 Alland Brothers & Co. operated here, importers and wholesalers of ladies’ and misses’ “headwear in every branch of the trade.” The Washington Post said of them, “This firm is famed all over the country for the beauty and exclusiveness of its trimmed hats. Their creations are accepted as the standard of correctness. French conceptions fresh from the Paris style-creators, and their own adaptations of foreign and American ideas are represented”

In 1910 the ground floor store was the home of M. Kalischer, Flowers and Feathers while upstairs were the Florence Hat Company, Samuel D. Lasdon, manufacturers of ladies hats and novelties, Samuel Blum and the Gingold Brothers, clothiers, among others.

It was a time when no woman or man would be seen in public without a hat. Men wore different hats for business, boating, picnics, leisure and evening wear.  And for every hat a gentleman owned a lady would have two. Through World War I the building was home to The Western Hat Company, The Practical Clothing Company and Linder & Berger, wholesale dealers in women’s and misses’ hats.

Here, in 1925, the Needlebook Specialty Company had its headquarters  In its nationwide ads it promised “$20 profit daily selling needlebooks.” The ambitious entrepreneur would buy the books for three to five cents each and sell them for a quarter, emphasizing to the customer that their value was fifty cents.

The building, as well as the adjoining 663-665 Broadway, was purchased in April 1941 by the Adam Hat Stores – a chain of stores that had formed an affiliate called Adam 665 Broadway Corporation.  The combined buildings, acquired from the Emigrant Industrial Savings Bank, formed a Broadway frontage of 120 feet. Rental income from the combined structures was estimated at $50,000 per year.

In 1954 Adam Hats sold the buildings to realty operator Jack Braus but remained on, immediately signing a ten-year lease for the 50,000 square feet they occupied.  Brause announced his intentions to modernize the old buildings.

No. 661 Broadway continued to be popular with garment firms and a year later Irving Raincoat Company was doing business from here.

Styles change and, for better or worse, by the 1960s hats for men were out of fashion. In 1962 A. Rosen & Sons who had manufactured men’s hats and hatters supplies from the building declared bankruptcy. The golden years of haberdashers was over.

photo by Alice Lum

Brunner & Tryon’s handsome design has sustained some modernization, especially at street level; but overall the façade is relatively untouched. It is a delightful stand-out among the many and varied architectural treasures along this stretch of Broadway.

A Bicycle Academy, Silversmiths, and Electric Guitars -- The 1896 No. 144 West 14th Street

photo by Alice Lum

In 1894 William J. Cabury, rector of the Church of the Annunciation on West 14^th Street between 6^th and 7^th Avenues, joined with scores of businessmen in protest against the proposed 14^th Street elevated train.   The structure would block out the sunlight to the street and the ruckus created by the passing trains would be intolerable.

Reverend Cabury had more to worry about than an elevated train.

Fourteenth Street had been for decades a fashionable residential neighborhood.  The extra width of the street caused it to be airy and sunlit.  Merchant Richard P. Dana had built his home at No. 146 in 1854 and next door at No. 144 was Jaques Arnold Bernheimier.  A decade later Calvin Cross was living in the Bernheimier house.

Reverend Cabury’s Gothic Revival church had been built in 1846.  By 1877 the church had acquired No. 144 as its rectory and Cabury was living here when he protested the train.   But there was a far more serious issue facing the church.  It was in deep financial trouble.

By the 1890s West 14^th Street was heavily commercial.   The 6^th Avenue elevated train, erected in 1880, gave birth to a shopping district along 14^th and the wide, brick or brownstone mansions were one-by-one razed or converted for commercial purposes.   As the residents moved away, the Church of the Annunciation lost its congregation.

On February 25, 1895 the church building and the four-story brownstone residence were lost in a foreclosure sale; sold for $50,000 to Joseph L. Buttenwieser.

Buttenwieser was an established wheeler-dealer in real estate and his interests, understandably, did not lie in the salvation of a church building only 50 years old with no supporting congregation.  Within the year the existing structures were gone and in their place was an attractive Renaissance Revival-style loft building.

Buttenwieser had commissioned the firm of Brunner & Tryon to design the building.   The seven-story loft was constructed of limestone and buff-colored brick with classical terra cotta detailing.    Costing around $250,000, it featured a row of eight soaring arches from the third to sixth floors, above which were sixteen one-story arches. 

Arnold W. Brunner had a background as a watercolorist and was a skilled draftsman.    The façade of No. 144 West 14^th Street reaped the rewards of his training with exquisite detailing.

Brunner added cartouches flanked by delicate palm fronds between each pilaster -- photo by Alice Lum

Two years after its completion, Buttenwieser sold the building to Frederick Hill Meserve, executive director of the Deering Milliken Company.  Meserve passed the deed on to his uncle, Seth M. Milliken in 1899 and the family would hold at least a partial interest in the property until the middle of the 20^th century.

No. 144 filled with a variety of tenants.   R. H. Macy & Company established a factory here in 1898 with two departments; one for manufacturing American flags and the other for “ladies silk waist and silk underwear.”   Silverman Brothers produced suspenders here and a variety of silver and jewelry concerns moved in as well.

Not intended to be a dreary factory building, it was covered by the architects with classical ornamentation -- photo by Alice Lum

Stern Brothers silver company (not to be confused with the Stern Brothers dry goods firm) moved in, and Graff, Washbourne & Dunn were silversmiths here for half a century before being bought out by Gorham Silver in 1961.  Lenox Silver Corporation and the electro-plating company of Cohen-Epner were tenants. 

But the building was not home merely to factories and jewelry makers.

The large, open floor plan made a perfect location for Karmel Brook’s bicycle academy.  As early as 1897 Brooks had opened his indoor academy here, and pupils were instructed on an oval track.  Bicycle racks lined the walls and all was going smoothly for Brook’s enterprise—until Mary L. Smith walked in the door.

The 45-year old Mrs. Smith felt it was high time to learn to ride a bike.   After her third lesson, on March 17, 1897, she felt she was proficient enough to negotiate the track unassisted.  After her second lap she veered into a bicycle rack and broke her right shoulder.  The doctor bill amounted to $138 and Mary Smith sued Brook for $7,500 insisting she would never use her arm again.

She told the judge that the bicycle racks were too close to the track, rendering the academy unsafe.   Brook, on the other hand, testified that Mrs. Smith “was entitled to only half an hour’s instruction, and she staid on her wheel in order to steal a ride after her time for instruction had expired.”

Feeling that the jury might be prejudiced by the fact that a middle-aged woman was bike riding at all, Justice Smyth instructed the jury to consider only whether the neglect was Mrs. Smith’s or Brook’s.  “This lady,” he said, “has long since reached the age of discretion, and if she desired to learn to ride a bicycle it was a matter for her own good taste, and she had the right to do so whether she was forty-five or one hundred and forty-five years old.  You have nothing to do with that.”

No. 144 continued to attract a diverse list of tenants.  In April 1935 Epiphone signed a lease that would extend nearly two decades.  The company designed and manufactured stringed musical instruments and was dubbed by The New York Times as “one of the world’s largest” of its kind.   The company’s success prompted it to double its space in the building only two years after moving in.  Here Epiphone produced the first “solid-body” electric guitar in 1941, designed by legendary jazz guitarist Les Paul.

photo by Alice Lum

The building was purchased by Pratt Institute in 1999.  The school immediately commissioned a renovation by architects Ehrenkrantz, Eckstut & Kuhn.  The rehabilitated structure has served as the Pratt Manhattan campus since 2001, encompassing instructional classrooms, labs, a library and offices as well as a respected public art gallery.

Although the doors could be more sympathetic to the structure, the entrance is intact -- photo by Alice Lum

While moderate changes to the façade occurred over the decades, the building has survived with no major damage to the original design.  Even the stately original main entrance at street level—traditionally one of the first elements to be removed or modernized—remains.    The building was designated a landmark in 2008.

The 1891 H. H. Upham & Co. Building -- No. 508 LaGuardia Place

The H. H. Upham Building four years after completion -- King's Photographic Views of New York City

In 1858 Henry H. Upham went into the sign-making business with John Garrett. The successful firm rose in importance, especially after 1870 when Upham became sole proprietor, changing the company’s name to H. H. Upham & Co. A year later he took on John Tully as a partner, followed five years later by Louis I. Haber.


Upham produced a wide variety of signs – painted signs on commercial buildings; metal three-dimensional signs and novelty signs. With their patent of the “wire sign and banner” on October 11, 1875, the firm struck commercial gold at a time when Victorians embraced fanciful designs.By 1880 the company was employing up to 49 painters and craftsmen. Ordinary laborers were paid $1.25 a day with skilled workers earning twice that much. It became necessary, in 1890, to consider leaving their long-held offices at 250 Canal Street for a more substantial building to house its offices, showrooms and factory.

Architects Brunner & Tyron were given the commission to design the new building. Located at 54 South Fifth Avenue (which would become 508 LaGuardia Place when the street was renamed four years later), the structure was completed in 1891.

Decorative bronze cartouches announced the date of the company's founding and the year the building was completed.

While the architectural firm was heavily involved in designing buildings for Jewish institutions – they were responsible for a dispensary for Mt. Sinai Hospital, the Downtown Hebrew Institute and three important Manhattan synagogues – here they produced an exceedingly handsome 5-story commercial structure for Upham & Co. A dignified Romanesque Revival building of ironspot Roman brick, it was trimmed with terra cotta and rock-faced brick. Large bronze cartouches below the cornice of the fifth floor were created by Upham & Co.; they not only served as an example of the firm’s masterful work, but announced the company’s founding date and that of the building’s completion.

By now the firm was among the preeminent sign makers in the country. The 1891 “History and Commerce of New York” said “From its inception the house has maintained a trade supremacy which fully demonstrates the energy and executive ability brought to bear in its conduct…The firm possess the most perfected facilities and have unsurpassed advantages for promptly meeting all the demands made upon their resources.

“Painting in all its branches is given careful attention, particular care being devoted to sign work of every description, and first-class service is assured in every instance.”

Orders arrived from throughout the United States as the firm widely advertised itself as “Makers of All Kinds of Signs – Engraved Brass Signs a Specialty,” and marketed its “painting, graining, kalsomining, etc.”

After Upham’s death, Louis Haber ran the company as President, Treasurer and Director; and brought his sons Ferdinand and Harold into the business. Harold Haber served on the board as Secretary.

H. H. Upham & Co. continued to create signs from No. 508 LaGuardia Place until the end of the 1950s. The building was used for various commercial and warehouse uses until it was renovated to residential space several decades later.

Luxurious residential space now exists where Upham's painters and sign makers once worked -- photo Citi Habitats

The Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation deems No. 508 LaGuardia Place as perhaps the finest example of industrial architecture of the late 19th Century in the South Village. Today the façade is relatively unchanged while inside are sleek and glamorous apartments. The four-bedroom penthouse with 30-foot ceilings was listed in December 2009 for $26,500 per month.

photo Citi Habitats

non-credited photographs taken by the author.  Upham postcard above from author's collection

The 1890 Mount Sinai Dispensary Building - 149-151 East 67th Street

Photograph Emilio Guerra

In 1852 Aaron Burr’s “confidential secretary,” Sampson Simson, led a group of esteemed Jewish New Yorkers to establish the Jew’s Hospital on West 28th Street “to afford surgical and medical aid, comfort, and protection in sickness to deserving and needy Israelites,” and to provide today's equivalent of emergency room treatment.

During the Civil War, the return of wounded soldiers prompted the hospital to change its name in 1866 to Mount Sinai Hospital. The less sectarian-sounding name helped solicit public funding and private donations.

A year later the board began searching for a less-congested site for a new building. Mid-19th Century medical theory held that open air helped promote healing and health and, in 1868, the city turned over to the hospital 12 ideal lots on East 67th Street between Lexington and Third Avenues. Here architect Griffith Thomas produced an impressive French Second Empire hospital completed in 1872.

Immediately the board moved ahead with plans for a dispensary – a relatively new concept by which patients would receive treatment on an out-patient basis, then referred to as “out-door patients.”

In 1875 two rooms in the basement were relegated to the dispensary for “Internal Medicine, Surgical, Gynecological and Children’s.” By 1877 the required space had grown to four rooms and by 1882 the Dispensary was seeing almost 39,000 patients and dispensing 40,000 prescriptions.

A new building was clearly needed by the end of the decade.

Land was leased across 67th Street where a new structure housing the Nurse’s Training School, Dispensary and the Eye and Ear Department would be built. Completed at a cost of around $150,000 in 1890, it was designed by a collaboration of architectural firms Buchman & Deisler and Brunner & Tryon. The handsome, six-story building of buff brick rested on a first floor base of rusticated stone. The restrained Italian Renaissance design marked the first and second floors of the clinic with graceful arched bays. The top four floors, the Nursing School, continued the arched motif on the end windows of the first three stories which were treated as a unit. Classical terra cotta panels separate the piers. The top floor, under a deep knee-bracketed cornice, was clad with decorative terra cotta panels punctuated by six square windows.

On June 27, 1890 The New York Times reported on the opening. “The new building is a fine-looking structure, six stories in height, and is as nearly fire-proof as brick and iron can make it. It stands on the opposite side of the street from Mount Sinai Hospital, and is connected with that useful institution by a tunnel.”

When the first class of nurses graduated that year, the managers of the school told reporters that the school “now has as good facilities for training nurses as any training school in the city.”

The 1893 “American Druggist and Pharmaceutical Record” commented on the ethnic and social segmentation seen in New York City dispensaries. “In the German dispensaries one naturally expects to see Germans only; at Bellevue the Irish hold the field; at the New York Dispensary, in Centre Street, Italy is regnant; at the East Side Dispensary, Hungarians and Bohemians prevail; while at Mt. Sinai and the Good Samaritan Dispensary the attendance is almost exclusively Jewish.” It went on to mention that the Vanderbilt Clinic on 10th Avenue and 16th Street catered to the wealthy. “Indeed it is a remark one hears frequently…that at the Vanderbilt Clinic ‘people come in carriages.’”

At a time when pharmacies were charging ten cents for a two-ounce “preparation,” the dispensaries were providing prescription drugs for free. In addition, the Mount Sinai Dispensary sent trained nurses on house calls at no charge to those unable to travel. The situation provided fertile ground for abuse of the system.

In 1892, a spot-check of 36 of the 31,185 cases treated exposed that 12 gave false addresses, 7 were judged able to pay and 17 were found certifiably in need. In 1895 the institution was running $6,000 in the red. By 1909 the abuse was so rampant, resulting in overcrowded waiting rooms, that the Eastern Medical Society appointed a “Dispensary Committee to study the problem and devise means for remedying its evils.”

The Committee said “The real harm from indiscriminate admissions to dispensaries is not that a few mendacious, mean-spirited rich impostors slip in and get free treatment, but that the whole wage-earning class, nearly all of whom could afford to pay the physician privately, is gradually being taught that medical attendance is something they should receive for nothing, and that there is no disgrace when they pauperize themselves by begging for it.”

Relatively minor changes to the dispensary system were implemented to ease the abuse and the Mount Sinai Dispensary continued its medical service well into the 20th Century on 67th Street.

In 1987 the building was taken over by The Kennedy Child Study Center, established in 1958 by the Archdiocese of New York. The center had been established through a grant from the Kennedy family as a memorial to Joseph P. Kennedy, Jr. and in response to Rosemary Kennedy’s mental retardation.

The non-profit agency is geared to very young children – from infants to 5-year old -- with significant learning difficulties and developmental problems.

The former Mount Sinai Dispensary building, which the AIA Guide to New York City termed “eclectic, but dignified,” still functions under the Kennedy Child Study Center as the care-giving sanctuary it was first intended to be.