The Chester W. Chapin House -- 331 West End Avenue

In 1887 construction began on a row of eight houses on the west side of West End Avenue between 75th and 76th Streets.  It was an unusual arrangement of ownership among the developer, George B. Jacques and his architectural firm, Berg & Clark.  Possibly as part of the commission negotiation, Charles I. Berg and his partner Edward H. Clark each owned one property, and  Berg shared ownership with Jacques in one other.

The row was completed in 1888, a frenzy of shapes and styles.  No. 331, owned by Charles L. Berg, was a marriage of the Renaissance Revival and Queen Anne styles.  The 22-foot-wide residence cost $20,000 to build; more than half a million in today's dollars.  Red brick contrasted with the brownstone base, while limestone provided accents to the upper floor.  Two quirky, unrelated dormers, poked through the slate-shingled roof.  The elegant neo-Georgian fanlight above the entrance was defiantly out of character; fighting stylistically with, for instance, the colorful stained glass transoms of the upper floor windows.

Berg & Clark created a dizzying mixture of shapes and angles  No. 331 is at the far right. photographer unknown from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York 

The house caught the eye of the trustees of The New York Institute for the Instruction of the Deaf and Dumb.  Charles I. Berg personally gave the organization a $30,000 mortgage on the property.  Whether it ever moved in is unclear, but if so it was a short-lived arrangement.  On March 12, 1891, Berg and his wife, Ada, sold the house to millionaire Chester Williams Chapin for $50,000.

Chapin's father, Chester W. Chapin, Sr., President of the Boston and Albany Railroad, had died in 1883.  He left an estate of about $2 million (more than 25 times that amount today).  The Pacific Commercial Advertiser later explained, "he left the bulk of his vast estate to his son, who had already made himself a millionaire and a power in the railway, steamship and financial worlds."

Indeed, Chapin had founded the New Haven Steamboat line, was president of the Connecticut Railroad and the Western Railroad, and had merged several others to form the Boston and Albany system.  In addition, he founded the Chapin Trust Company of Springfield, Massachusetts, the National Start Company, and was a director in many other corporations, banks and railroads.

Chapin had moved to New York City from Springfield in 1880.  He and his wife, the former Emelia Ward, had married in New Orleans in 1867.  It was a surprising match.  Although they were both 27, Emelia was a widow with three children.  Two more children, Julia and Pauline, would increase the family.

No. 331 West End Avenue was a fraction of the size of the Chapin mansion at 34 West 57th Street.  But the family never intended to live in it.  Instead Chapin purchased the house for the use of his extended family when they visited New York.  Among those using the house from time to time was Chapin's married sister, Anna Rumrill, and his cousin Charles Henry Chapin, and their families.

The vast wealth of Chester and Emelia Chapin was summed up in two sentences in The Pacific Commercial Advertiser in 1906.  "They entertained extensively at their town house, No. 34 West Fifty-seventh street, just down the block from the Vanderbilts, Huntingtons and Oelrichses; their hospitalities at their many country places at Red Bank, Springfield, Montclair, Lebanon Lake and Tampa, and at their village at Aix-le-Bains, France, were notable.  There were notable cruises, too, on their yachts, Whim, Iroquois and Yampa."  Their Putnam County "farm" engulfed 2,000 acres.

The colorful stained glass survives in the second story transoms.  The brownstone has been regrettably painted.

On November 25, 1894 The New York Times remarked on the Chapins' Thanksgiving house party.  "Many guests have been invited to their Berkshire residence which is a spacious, old-fashioned mansion, and is always kept ready for occupancy.  The building is over 200 years old, and is delightfully arranged for house parties.  An interesting feature of the house is the ballroom, which occupies an entire floor, and has at either end an immense fireplace."

Quite possibly among the guests were Charles H. Chapin's three daughters, Louise, Annette, and Elizabeth (known as "Bessie").  They and their parents were repeated guests at the country estates and on long voyages on the Chapins' lavish yacht, the Yampa.  Chester Chapin was especially generous to his young Chicago cousins, since, as one newspaper put it, their "father had not been so well blessed with this world's goods as he."

As the Bessie and her sisters had grown to young women, they visited New York relatively often.  They stayed in the West End Avenue house, always with a chaperon, of course.  Their aunt Anna Rumrill (Chester's sister) often filled that position.

Chester's and Emelia's daughters married and left the Fifth Avenue mansion.  The Pacific Commercial Advertiser remarked "Instead of growing closer together as their children married and went away to homes of their own, Mr. and Mrs. Chapin gradually drifted apart, though married nearly forty years."  The newspaper added, somewhat cattily, "And it was then that the millionaire turned to his pretty cousin, winsome 'Bessie,' for companionship and sympathy."

Bessie spent less and less time in Chicago.  The Advertiser said "The summers found her practically mistress of the great estate at Lebanon Lake, with Mr. Chaplin's sister, Mrs. James A. Rumrill, as chaperon.  When she was in New York a house which Mr. Chapin has bought on West End avenue was always opened to her and her mother and sister."

There was no hint of scandal, no whispered words that Chapin and his young cousin were engaged in anything unseemly.   But in the first years of the 20th century, "Mrs. Chapin had quietly dropped out of sight of her friends," according to one newspaper.  She quietly obtained a divorce and "was handsomely provided for."

Chester's affection for his cousin now blossomed.  Although he was 65-years-old, 40 years older than Bessie, and she had always called him "Uncle Chet," they were married in Chicago on November 22, 1905.  Following their honeymoon, which included a voyage to Hawaii, the newlyweds only briefly lived in the massive 57th Street mansion.  On May 18, 1907, The Real Estate Record & Guide reported that Chapin had transferred the deed of 331 West End Avenue to his wife as "a gift."

Despite the initial surprise to society, the fall-spring marriage seems to have worked out well.  It weathered what could have been a significant bump on December 6, 1911 when Chester was served with a summons to appear "in a suit brought against him by a Mrs. Janet H. Phillips, a widow, living on the upper west side," reported The New York Times.

The newspaper said on January 3, 1912 "The nature of the action has not been determined because the complaint did not accompany the summons, but it is intimated that a 'package of letters' will play an important part in the suit, should it come to trial."  The implication was clear.

Chapin admitted to reporters that he had known Mrs. Phillips for 15 years; but "had not known her directly in the last seven years."  He charged that "it was only a desire to get money from him."

A journalist from The Times went directly to 331 West End Avenue to get answers.  "Mrs. Chapin was seen at her West End Avenue home yesterday afternoon," he reported on January 3.  "She appeared in a black riding habit."

Bessie dismissed the entire affair.  "I saw my husband only an hour ago, and he said nothing about it.  We have been married for six years, and I never heard of such a woman."  As she spoke, Chester showed up.  "Mr. Chapin returned from a drive, just then.  With a show of anger, he refused to say anything about the suit."

It is possible the Chapins avoided messy publicity, whether Janet Phillips had a real complaint or not, by paying her.  There was no subsequent trial.

Chester and Bessie were gone from New York for a prolonged period beginning in the summer of 1915, prompting them to lease No. 331 to R. M. Claussen.  Their departure may have been prompted by the noisy demolition of the neighboring houses to the south house that year.  By the time the couple returned the rowhouses had been replaced by a 12-story apartment building.

Bessie had, at the time, a somewhat unusual hobby for a woman of society--that of breeding pedigree cats. When the 15th annual Atlantic Cat Club opened "with a yowl," according to the The Evening World on November 22 the following year, the newspaper noted that Bessie was "one of the largest exhibitors.  She has almost a score of cats on display."

Following World War I, the Chapins loaned their Putnam County estate to the Government for use as a convalescent camp for wounded soldiers and sailors.  Hundreds of returning veterans stayed there for months.

On November 11, 1922, at the age of 80, Chester W. Chapin died in the West End Avenue house.  In reporting on his death, The New York Herald remembered his active life. "Mr. Chapin formerly drove a fine team of horses in this city and was a leader in all horse shows and similar events.  He also hunted much in the Rocky Mountains and on the plains.  He was a licensed navigator and gave substantial support to yachting."

Chapin's will was filed for probate on November 21.  The New York Times reported that he left "an worth between $4,000,000 and $5,000,000."  In addition to securities worth $200,000 (just under $3 million today), Bessie received the West End Avenue house, another on West 78th Street, the Sands Point, Long Island estate "Meadow Farm," and the country homes at Port Washington, Long Island and Pasadena, California.  The article added "She is given also the furniture, paintings, jewelry and personal and household effects."

Bessie sold Meadow Point in 1924, and 311 West End Avenue in 1932.  She died in Santa Barbara, California on November 15, 1969 at the age of 88.

She had held on to No. 311 long enough to prevent its demolition when the other remaining Berg & Clark houses were demolished in 1925 for an Emery Roth-designed 15-story apartment building.  Now wedged between the modern structures, No. 311 survived as a single-family home until 1986, when it was converted to two apartments per floor.  A subsequent renovation in 2000 added an unseen penthouse.

Elizabeth Chapin's refusal to sell gave us a wonderful squashed-in hold-out.

photographs by the author

The Lost 1901 Windsor Arcade -- 5th Avenue at 46th Street

In 1873 fashionable Fifth Avenue above 34^th Street saw the opening of the elegant Windsor Hotel—one of the first incursions of commerce in the residential neighborhood.   The luxurious seven-story hotel stretched along the entire block from 46^th to 47^th Street on the avenue lined with the imposing mansions of millionaires like Robert and Ogden Goelet, and Jay Gould. 

Wealthy guests came and went at the Windsor Hotel until it all came to a tragic end on St. Patrick’s Day 1899.   While the parade passed below the hotel’s windows, a patron lit a cigar and carelessly tossed his match, igniting the curtains in a hallway.   Before long the entire structure was ablaze and guests threw themselves to the pavement from their windows.  By 4:20 the hotel had collapsed.  At least 60 persons were dead and 52 injured.

The day after The New York Times reflected “The fire that made an uncouth and terrible mass of rubbish of one of the city’s finest hotels was kindled by the tiny blaze that flickered on the head of a discarded match.”

The charred plot of land sat vacant for six months, a brutal scar—what The New York Times called a “dreary void”--on an otherwise elegant avenue.   On June 21, 1900 owner Eldridge T. Gerry announced plans to erect “an arcade building” on the site.   The arcade concept--an adaptation of the ancient bazaar—had been recently revived in the western world in St. Petersburg, Amsterdam and Paris.    Gerry envisioned a magnificent structure in keeping with its high-toned locality “designed especially for a gallery of fine arts, a store for china ware, and a photograph gallery,” reported The New York Times.

Well dressed New Yorkers stream along Fifth Avenue before the newly-completed Windsor Arcade - photo Library of Congress

Gerry commissioned architect Charles I. Berg to design the innovative structure.   The “dreary void” would be transformed by the ebullient three-story Windsor Arcade.  Reminiscent of the monumental Beaux Arts structures introduced at the World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago in 1893, the terra cotta and iron building featured a colossal portico surmounted by a sculptural group of “Winged Genius” by Bruno Louis Zimm.  Sixteen columns, 30 feet high, along Fifth Avenue were capped with ornate capitals.  Behind a handsome balustrade a high mansard roof gently curved away from the cornice.   Terra cotta ornamentation—olive branches, festoons and garlands of flowers—were manufactured by the Perth Amboy Terra Cotta Company.
 

The arched portico led to a formal garden, or conservatory, in the center of the courtyard.  Carriages could drive directly into the courtyard, preventing well-dressed shoppers from suffering foul weather.  The Times noted that “Carriages coming from either of the two streets can enter this courtyard and deposit people under shelter of the cloisteral arcade, very much as if a carriageway should be made into the Palais Royal, in Paris, to allow buyers reaching the famous shops of that little market directly.”

A 1905 postcard view shows an over-sized pestle on the corner advertising a pharmacy in the Arcade.

Only the portion of the arcade facing Fifth Avenue was three stories tall—the rear section rose only two stories.      The first floor housed 14 shops—two large shops at the corners with 12 smaller spaces between.  The third floor was designed as studio spaces with skylights and windows in the mansard.  Both the ground floor and third floor had 18 foot ceilings.  The second floor, with 12 foot ceilings, was leased as office space.

The Windsor Arcade was completed in 1901, relieving the nearby residents of the memory of the hotel fire.   As The Times pointed out, they were “no longer reminded of the distressing scenes enacted before their eyes when that frightful catastrophe occurred.”  Instead the newspaper praised the low profile and exuberant design of the new building.  “New York has been so peopled with lofty structures along its chief arteries of commerce that the comparative lowness of the Windsor Arcade makes an agreeable variety in the street architecture,” it said.

The newspaper’s critic applauded Berg’s decision not to imitate a mansion; but to create an unabashedly commercial, yet beautiful, structure.  “Moreover, the Windsor Arcade, while it expresses with perfect frankness what its purpose is, and does not attempt to disguise its commercial intentions under the appearance of some more ambitious form, has no little attraction as a piece of architecture.”  The Times concluded that the new building was “worthy of the distinguished spot it occupies on that thoroughfare which Manhattan considered the best.”

Gerry’s new building cost a staggering $2.5 million—“a good sized sum to put into such an undertaking,” said The Magazine of Business.  The main entrance was lighted at night by hundreds of electric lights.    The Magazine of Business felt that the handsome façade, the lights, and the innovative arcade concept would “pull” the casual passerby into the stores.

Among the first tenants was Suckow Milliners.  The high-end store offered creative hats in the latest fashions, decorated with pheasant feathers and ostrich plumes, to Fifth Avenue’s well-heeled shoppers.    Pach Brothers’ established its fine arts studio here.  The gallery was outfitted to resemble the drawing room of one of the surrounding mansions.  The reception area was hung with pastels, oil paintings and “photographic portraiture.”    Jay Gould, whose brownstone home was across 47^th Street to the north, had his photograph taken here as did President Theodore Roosevelt.

In 1903 Suckow offered shoppers a variety of fashionable headwear -- New-York Tribune (copyright expired)

The Fencers’ Club took space as its clubhouse and fencing arena here and on November 25, 1902 gave Fifth Avenue socialites more of an exhibition than they might have expected—or hoped for.  The Evening World reported the following day that “The three hundred elegantly gowned women, including members of the Vanderbilt, Astor and dozens of other families of New York society, who yesterday afternoon sat in the galleries surrounding the highly polished arena of the Fencers’ Club, in the Windsor Arcade, are wondering to-day whether they witnessed a real duel between two skillful swordsman.”

Fencers Charles Tatham and his opponent Atherton Brownall gave the spectators a realistic exhibition of the French duello, using “razor keen” swords.    As the women watched, the men fervently fought.  Brownall suddenly thrust his sword, piercing his opponent’s shirt and cutting into his chest.   The all-female audience gasped as Tatham’s white shirt showed blood.

Within only a few seconds, Tathan saw an opening and inflicted a gash to Brownall’s forearm from which, according to The Evening World, “blood spurted.”  The duel was then brought to a wisely-abrupt end.  The newspaper noted that “judging from the many pale faces that looked down from the galleries, had it continued any longer many of the fair spectators would have fainted.”

The Fencers’ Club was only one of several exclusive athletic clubs housed in the second floor of the Arcade.  Here too were the Jockey Club, The United Hunts Racing Association, the Coney Island Jockey Club, the Westchester Racing Association, Saratoga Association and the National Steeplechase and Hunt Association.    On January 10, 1907 the rules of horse racing were amended at the annual meeting of the Jockey Club.

A horse-drawn omnibus pauses just south of the Windsor Arcade.  The brownstone mansion just to the north is the home of Helen Gould.  The spires of St. Patrick's Cathedral can be seen in the background. -- Library of Congress

The Windsor Arcade was a success; but Eldridge Gerry had not intended it to be a lasting endeavor.  He built it as a “tax-payer”—the term used in realty circles for a structure erected for the purpose of covering the expenses of the property until something “profitable” could be erected.  The New-York Tribune noted in 1909 that “It is considered by many building experts to be the most beautiful ‘tax-payer’ ever erected in this city, and it long ago proved, it is said, to have an earning power larger than most buildings of its kind.”

Profitable or not, on November 5, 1909 the carpet firm of W. & J. Sloane announced intentions of razing the northern half of the Arcade to build its new eight-story headquarters.  The Arcade managed to survive another year, but in May 1911 wreckers began tearing down northern half of the 10-year old structure.  Gerry brought Charles I. Berg back to alter the southern portion into offices.  But it was not to be.

One of the large studio windows is visible in the mansard roof as pedestrians cross the rain-wet avenue -- Library of Congress

Instead Robert Goelet leased the southern portion which abutted his Ritz-Carlton Hotel.  He announced that a ballroom addition to the hotel designed by Warren & Wetmore would replace the southern half of the building.   After only a decade, the Windsor Arcade, deemed by The New York Times at the time of its completion as “well-designed and handsome” was demolished.

Hardly anyone, including native New Yorkers, remembers that the beautiful Windsor Arcade stood on this spot for ten short years -- photo by Alice Lum

The 1902 Kaskel & Kaskel Building - No. 316 Fifth Avenue

Two years after the end of the Civil War, Jacob Michaelis and Caesar Kaskel opened clothing store, Michaelis & Kaskel, on Bond Street and Broadway.  Catering to the carriage trade, the firm produced its own high-quality custom-made apparel.

In 1881 the Michaelis & Kaskel moved to 20 West 23rd Street in the fashionable shopping district where they plied their business for four years before it was reorganized as Kaskel & Kaskel.  Now operated by brothers Albert and Max Kaskel, it sold only high-end menswear.

By the turn of the century Kaskel & Kaskel Co. was one of New York’s leading haberdasheries, providing shirts for the city’s wealthiest gentlemen, including the President of the United States. In 1902 the firm commissioned architect Charles L. Berg to design a new headquarters and retail space at 316 Fifth Avenue at the southwest corner of 32nd Street, just south of the Waldorf-Astoria hotel.


In 1911 Kaskel & Kaskel's white marble building stood out on Fifth Avenue-- photo NYPL Collection 

The neighborhood had changed from one of Victorian mansions to a mix of residential and exclusive retail buildings. In keeping with the area, Berg created a white marble Beaux Arts palace. Two great arched openings spanned three floors on the Fifth Avenue and easternmost 32nd Street sides. A stone cornice supported by ornate brackets separated the rusticated piers below and the sixth story and above, a massive copper-trimmed mansard roof erupted bold copper dormers.

Above the two arches, large marble cartouches were emblazoned with carved K’s. The impressive structure was not to be overlooked and shouted the firm’s high-class status.

Ornate cartouches were emblazoned with the letter K - photo by Alice Lum

 The 1902 issue of The Electrical World and Engineer magazine was impressed with Kaskel & Kaskel’s forward-thinking use of electric lighting in its show windows. The writer complimented the firm on using artificial lighting to illuminate the windows at night to attract customers – an innovative marketing tool at the time.



On October 21, 1903, a year after Kaskel & Kaskel's new building was completed, well-dressed New Yorkers strolled along Fifth Avenue.   A few fashionable brownstone dwellings still clung on and the imposing Waldorf-Astoria hotel loomed two blocks to the north, where the Empire State Building would later rise -- NYPL Collection

Although Kaskel & Kaskel catered mainly to the masculine customer – arguing in one advertisement that “bright silks and satins are not for the fair sex alone – they accommodated female customers as well. The New York Times, in reporting on the opening of the Fall line early in the century called the company “the arbiters of fashion in haberdashery, not only for the male sex, but also for their feminine imitators, as fully one-half of the customers there were ladies.”

Shoddy signs are slathered across the facade today.

An often-repeated gag was that upon being introduced to President Theodore Roosevelt, Max Kaskel proudly announced, “I made your shirts.”

The President immediately replied, “Oh yes, Major Schurtz, I’d have known you anywhere.”

Staunchly following the traditional and conservative rules of men’s attire, Kaskel & Kaskel maintained its well-bred customer base by ignoring fashion trends. In 1905, the Kaskels were interviewed by a reporter for Men’s Wear, a newspaper for apparel retailers, concerning a new trend in colored collars. The company position was clear: “We don’t want colored collars, as they would be a nuisance, either attached or detached. We will never try to encourage the sale of them, and, should people ask for them, which is not likely, we will discourage them.”

In 1915 as commercial concerns moved further northward on Fifth Avenue, Kaskel opened a second store at 535 Fifth Avenue between 44th and 45th Streets. Six years later, in March of 1922 the firm consolidated the stores into a single location at Fifth Avenue and 46th Street, occupying 5,200 square feet of floor space.

The days of elegance and style for No. 316 Fifth Avenue were over.

Ornate brackets once held a stone cornice below the mansard roof, replaced by a gaping scar

Throughout the 20th Century the white marble palace where Astors and Vanderbilts shopped for shirts became home to tawdry shops hawking souvenirs and electronics. The stone cornice beneath the mansard roof was stripped off and grime and rust stained the façade.

The AIA Guide to New York City summed up the condition of the once-proud building. “Crusty old Beaux Arts, in the process of being devoured by its crummy commercial occupants. But a copper-clad mansard roof keeps a hat on what is deteriorating at street level.”

non-credited photographs taken by the author