The 1893 Emmet K. Little House - 126 West 82nd Street

 

Like its neighbor to the right, the fourth floor was originally a slate-shingled mansard.

Emanuel Gandolfo started his architectural practice around 1882, but it appears it was a short lived venture.  In 1885 he was commissioned by real estate operator Virgilio Del Genovese to design five four-story rowhouses on the south side of West 82nd Street between Columbus and Amsterdam Avenues.  Were it not for the survival of two of them, apparently nothing would exist of his work and there is no record of him after that project.  

Based on the pair of survivors, Gandolfo's obscurity cannot be blamed on his lack of talent.   The Queen Anne style houses, arranged in an A-B-A-B-A configuration, were splashed with touches of Jacobean Revival.  Completed in 1883, the 20-foot-wide homes were faced in red brick above the parlor level and trimmed in brownstone.

No. 126 West 82nd Street was one of the two B models.  Delicate foliate carving decorated the lower third of the Corinthian pilasters that flanked the double-doored entrance, and a grouping of three parlor windows with stained glass transoms afford extra natural light.  The second and third floor openings were framed in stone quoins, and the fourth floor took the form of a slate-shingled mansard punctured by two dormers with carved brownstone pediments.

Captured in 1941, the grouped parlor windows, the mansard roof, and the Jacobean style pediment carvings were intact.  image via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services.

Virgilio Del Genovese rented 126 West 82nd Street until October 25, 1888, when he sold it to Emmet K. Little and his wife Emily for $41,000 (about $1.3 million in 2023).  It appears that the Littles overstretched their finances in buying the expensive property.  Little was a salesman for the National Elevator and Machine Company of Scranton, Pennsylvania, and only two years after the purchase, Del Genovese foreclosed.  In reporting on the foreclosure auction held on February 14, 1890, the Record & Guide noted, "This dwelling contains all the modern improvements."

(Things did not improve for the Littles.  Emily had left Emmet and was living in Newburg, New York in 1902 when he declared bankruptcy.  Among his listed creditors were "Virgilio Del Genovese, $7,000 due on a mortgage on 126 West Eighty-second Street, which was wiped out under foreclosure."  The debt to Del Genovese alone was nearly a quarter of a million in 2023 dollars.)

No. 126 West 82nd Street was sold twice in relatively quick succession.  John J. and Mary C. Brown purchased it at the 1890 auction, then sold it on September 30, 1892.  After being resold in July 1898, it became a high-end boarding house.  Among those living here were Alfred W. Mack, an importer and 1885 graduate of the City University of New York; and Henry A. Bostwick, a cotton yarn merchant who graduated from Columbia University in 1885.

Henry Bostwick nearly lost his life in the house on December 8, 1901.  The New York Herald reported, "When fire was discovered under a staircase in the cellar, all the tenants escaped, but Mr. Bostwick went back for money and jewels."  Bostwick's rooms were on the second floor, and after grabbing cash and jewelry, he rushed back into the hall to find himself trapped.  The New York Herald explained, "but by that time the flames had spread through the building and escape was cut off."

Bostwick ran back into his rooms and threw open the window.  "The rooms were filled with smoke and he was almost suffocated," said the article.  He made his way onto the sill course that ran the width of the building, where he sat until firefighters rescued him.  Investigators surmised that a dropped match had started the blaze, which resulted in about $142,000 in damages by today's conversion.

Repairs were made and by 1905 126 West 82nd Street was again a private residence, home to the William Henry Lippincott, Jr. family.  Born in 1844, Lippincott was a member of the Produce Exchange.  He and his wife, the former Mary Elizabeth Yates, had three children, Florence, Lansing Yates, and Alice Catherine.

In 1905 Lansing was 22 years old and a student at the New York University College of Medicine.  The ambitious young man got a summer job as a gymnastics teacher in the City Vacation Schools that year.

It was not unusual for even well-to-do families to rent rooms.  The Lippincotts placed an advertisement for top floor rooms in May 1905 that expressly excluded immigrants: "Large and small rooms on the fourth floor; table board; Americans; references."  The term "table board" meant that if the tenants wanted meals, they would be charged extra.

Having a boarder did not preclude the Lippincott women from entertaining.  On February 18, 1906, for instance, the New York Herald reported, "Mrs. William Henry Lippincott and Miss Alice Catherine Lippincott, of No. 126 West Eighty-second street, will give an at home on Tuesday next."

Lansing Yates Lippincott received his medical degree in 1908.  The following year on September 22 he married Louise Woodville Cragin.  Louise was one of four Cragin siblings who played tennis.  Only a few months before her wedding day, she participated in the 1909 U.S. Women's Nationals in Philadelphia.  The couple moved to Metuchen, New Jersey.

The entire Lippincott family had left 126 West 82nd Street in 1908, a year before Lansing's wedding.  It was once again a boarding house, now run by Samuel Hector Pelletier.  He had been in the boarding house business since 1891 and currently ran four houses on the block--120 through 126.

Among Pelletier's first boarders was Swiss-born Almeo Bouet, who turned out to be a cad.  Two years earlier, at a ball in Geneva, Switzerland, Bouet had met a 20-year-old woman named Ida Ruffy.  She later explained, "His parents are very well to do, his father being a rich architect and contractor there.  We fell in love at once.  I was a milliner, and his parents did not think I had money enough for him.  My mother, however, has some money, but she is married again, and I have to support myself."

To separate the couple, Bouet's parents sent him to America.  He promised to send for Ida as soon as he could, and wrote ardent letters that included passages like:

Write to me, I beg of you.  One single word from you will prove you have thought of me one moment, will dry one of my tears.  I see only you.  You cannot believe that enough.  My heart is torn, I cannot write any more.  I want you to be mine.  I adore you.  I would kill some one to bring you here.

Assuming that when she arrived in America she and her lover would be married, Ida sold her millinery business and boarded the steamship President Lincoln with $85 in her bag.  She landed on April 15, and six days later, The Evening World reported, "Having notified the ardent Mr. Bouet of her coming she naturally expected to step from the steamship into the manly arms so much written about.  Instead, she stepped into the detention pen at Ellis Island, where she has remained ever since, and young Bouet who lived till the day of her arrival at No. 126 West Eighty-second street...has faded apparently from the face of the earth."

To make matters worse for Ida, telegrams from Bouet's parents had arrived at the immigration office before she landed.  The Evening World reported, "Wires had been pulled by the influential papa of Amy Bouet and anonymous letters had been received making all manner of unbelievable charges against the young girl."  On the day of her arrival, the newspaper said, "The girl was handsomely gowned and had every appearance of refinement.  She also had many times the required amount of money.  Nevertheless, she was treated with the same consideration that is usually accorded a bandit."

Deemed "an undesirable alien," Ida Ruffy was scheduled to be deported back to Switzerland on the Kaiser Wilhelm.  But people who read her heart-wrenching story flooded Acting Commissioner of Immigration Joseph Murray's office with letters appealing her deportation.  Ida told a reporter a few days before the ship was scheduled to depart, "Amy has treated me very badly, yet I am sure he loves me.  But I will forget him and work."  Tragically, Almeo Bouet, who had left 126 West 82nd Street to go into hiding, never appeared on her behalf.  On April 24, the New-York Daily Tribune reported that officials had sent Ida back to Switzerland.

Among the other boarders were B. L. Amerman and his wife.  Mrs. Amerman was a vice-president in the New York City Indian Association.  Living here by 1910 was artist Olive Parker Black.  A landscape painter, Black was born in 1868 and had studied under H. Bolton Jones and William Merritt Chase.  

Early Spring is typical of Oliver Parker Black's landscapes.

No. 126 West 82nd Street was sold in August 1926 for $35,000.  The price, equal to about $584,000 today, reflected the changing tenor of the block.  Now a rooming house, it was home to Joseph Berber in 1927.  He was arrested in April that year, suspected of having stolen jewelry valued at $5,000 from an apartment in Long Island City.

Curtis Bennett rented a room here in 1933.  The 26-year-old got into a confrontation with two men at 82nd Street and Riverside Drive early in the morning of August 17 that year.  It did not end well for Bennett.  He was taken to Polyclinic Hospital with a stab wound in the abdomen.

Living here from 1944 through (at least) 1956 was Frank A. Wiseman.  The veteran sailor had served about the USS Leviathan during World War II.

126 and 128 West 82nd Street are the last remaining examples of Gandolfo's work in Manhattan.

Although the house was never officially converted to apartments according to the Department of Buildings, there are nonetheless ten units in the building.  In the third quarter of the 20th century the mansard was eliminated and the roofline squared off, providing additional headroom inside while disfiguring Emanuel Gandolfo's outward design.  The renovation resulted in the brownstone carvings in the dormer pediments being lost.  It was most likely at the same time that the parlor level was given uninspired replacement windows.

photographs by the author

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The 1886 Horace Clark House - 128 West 82nd Street

 

In 1885 real estate developer Virgilio Del Genovese hired Emanuel Gandolfo to design five four-story rowhouses on the south side of West 82nd Street, between Columbus and Amsterdam Avenues.  Completed the following year, the architect's Queen Anne style houses exhibited elements of the Jacobean Revival style, as well.  The western-most of the row, 128 West 82nd Street, was faced in red brick above its brownstone-clad basement and parlor levels.  The transoms of its grouped parlor windows most likely originally held stained glass.  Brownstone quoins fully framed the upper floor openings, and the fourth floor took the form of a charming slate-shingled mansard with gable.

The picturesque gable includes multi-paned windows and a carving of a seemingly disapproving female face.

The 20-foot-wide residence became home to Horace Clark and his wife.  A graduate of Harvard University, he was steward of the new Murray Hill Hotel.  He brought a solid resume to the position, having served as steward in the Hoffman House, French's Hotel, and "a number of country hostelries," as mentioned by the New-York Tribune.

In 1894 Louis de Gumones purchased 128 West 82nd Street as an investment.  He initially leased it to Dr. Charles D. Wilhelmy.  

The physician's patients were no doubt shocked when they read their newspapers on August 10, 1895 and discovered Dr. Wilhelmy was behind bars.  The Evening Telegram reported, "Two respectable looking prisoners under the names of Dr. Arthur Van Ness of No. 146 West Seventy-first street, and Dr. Charles D. Wilhelmy, of No. 128 West Eighty-second street" had been arraigned on charges of swindling book publishers Bryan, Taylor & Co.  Detectives explained that the physicians were part of "an organized band of swindlers, who got books on installment from the publishers and afterward sold them at auction."  The arraignment was only the beginning of Dr. Wilhelmy's legal problems.  The Evening Telegram said there were four other victimized publishers.

Another physician, James Hawley Burtenshaw, next leased the house.  He was a member of the faculty of the New York Polyclinic and was managing editor of its monthly magazine of the same name.  He also served as chairman on the New York County Medical Society's committee on the Abuse of Medical Charity.

In its May 15, 1896 edition, The New York Polyclinic announced, "The Editorial Office of the Polyclinic has been removed to 128 West 82d Street, New York City, to which address all communications intended for the Editor of the Journal should be sent in future."

Dr. Burtenshaw leased 128 West 82nd Street until 1901 when Louis de Gumones sold it to Florence A. Foster.  She resold it in 1902 to Anna K. Daniel, who operated it as a high-end boarding house.

Among the initial boarders was the Reynolds family.  Their  two sons were attending Yale and Princeton.  Living with her parents was 18-year-old Jessie, described by The New York Press as a "girl of refinement."  She became involved in a bizarre incident in the fall of 1903.  

Jessie was close friends with Maude Wise, the daughter of Dr. Peter N. Wise, whose summer home was in New Rochelle.  In October, Jessie was invited to spend a week there, and The New York Press recounted, "Miss Reynolds was introduced into the best circles in New Rochelle."  The article continued, "During the week she was the guest of Dr. Wise she was one of the most popular girls in the town.  She was pretty and accomplished and soon became a great favorite."

About a week after Jennie returned to Manhattan, Dr. Wise received a bill from a Sixth Avenue department store for $217.88 (nearly $7,000 in 2023 money).  The store said the purchases had been made by his daughter, but Maude claimed she had not bought any goods.  When questioned, the sales clerks described a young women matching Jessie Reynold's description.

A detective took one of the saleswomen to 128 West 82nd Street, but she was unable to positively identify Jessie as the purchaser.  Undaunted, Special Officer John F. Larkin waited outside 128 West 82nd Street on November 12, 1903, and when Jessie emerged, he arrested her.  Larkin said "she admitted having received [the goods] and then became hysterical."

Jessie was taken to the Jefferson Market Court where, according to The New York Press, "Magistrate Ommen was struck by the girl's refinement.  He noticed also she acted peculiarly, and when questioned she said the only thing which worried her was that she was afraid she would not be able to see the Yale-Princeton football game."

Because Jessie refused to reveal who her parents were or where they could be contacted, she was detained.  The New York Times said, "It was very late in the day when her family learned of the girl's arrest...Owing to the lateness of the hour, the lawyer failed to find a bondsman."  And so, Jessie spent the night in the Women's Ward of the Jefferson Market Police Court.

A reporter went to the West 82nd Street house and spoke to "the woman who opened the door" (most likely Anna Daniel).  She said:

I will not tell anything about her, but I can assure you everything will be all right in the end.  Miss Reynolds does not need to obtain things under false pretense, and I cannot believe that she did so.

On November 24, 1903 Jessie appeared in court with her mother.  The World described the unlikely defendant as being "dressed in a stylish gray gown and did not appear in the least disconcerted."  It seems that the Reynolds family (who owned "large interests in Princeton, New Jersey," according to The New York Times) had settled up financially with the Wise family.  The World reported that because no one appeared in court to press charges, Jessie was released.

A year later a clever thief was plaguing boarding houses.  On January 2, 1905 the New York Herald reported, "For six months detectives have gone every Monday morning to high class furnished room houses that advertised on Sunday for patrons and told the proprietors to watch for a man...who would call, say he was just up from Lakewood for a few days and, engaging a room, would pay board a week or two in advance to obviate demand for references."

He was James G. Walker, alias Lawrence Macy.  The 42-year-old was described by the New York Herald as "educated, polished, of refined and prosperous appearance and asserting that he held a degree from Oxford University."  He could afford to pay the up-front rent, because the valuables he removed from other boarders' rooms more than made up for the expense.

On New Year's Day 1905, E. B. Cushman caught Walker leaving his room with clothing.  A maid ran for police, who caught Walker climbing out the parlor window.  In exchange for not having to face the "scores of persons he admits having robbed" of "thousands of dollars" in jewelry and clothing, Walker confessed.  He admitted to detectives he was "the most noted room thief in America."  

Mrs. Viva A. Brewer, another of Anna Daniels's boarders, was also burglarized.  She lost $1,000 worth of jewelry (nearly $31,500 in 2023).

The boarders continued to be well-to-do and professional.  Lawyer Frank K. Johnston lived here in 1905, and two years later Columbia University educated attorney Andrew Jack Dewey boarded with Anna Daniels.

Voice teacher Betty Askenasy lived and taught from her rooms in 1912.  On February 18 that year, The New York Times announced she "will give a musicale and reception this afternoon in her studio, 128 West Eighty-second Street."

One boarder was the victim of a horrific accident in the summer of 1915.  Paula Schwerter was secretary of the Transatlantic Import Company.  A German native, she had worked in the firm's Berlin office until being transferred to New York in 1913.

The 38-year-old was close friends of Peter Voss and his wife.  On the evening of Saturday, July 31, 1915, Betty and Peter took a train to visit friends in Glen Rock, New Jersey.  The Patterson Morning Call reported, "They were not familiar with that locality, and they alighted from the car at the wrong place."  They had to walk along the train tracks to the station, which required them to cross a trestle.  Voss later explained, "It was so dark that we really did not know we were on the trestle until Miss Schwerter's umbrella went down between the ties."

The two were midway across the span when the lights of a train could be seen coming around the bend ahead.  Not knowing how high they were, Voss climbed over the edge of the trestle, thinking he could drop to the ground and then help Paula.  Instead, he found himself clinging to the edge as the train drew nearer.

"I yelled to Miss Schwerter to climb down to the side of the trestle, but all I remember is that she screamed as the car passed over me."  Paula either jumped or was knocked off the trestle by the train.  The train stopped and crew members "helped carry Miss Schwerter to the car and she was taken to Paterson," reported The New York Times.  She died at the hospital there.  Her injuries suggested she had been struck by the train before falling 25 feet to the ground.

The house became a private residence again in 1916, home to Dr. Charles Rochester Eastman and his wife, the former Caroline Amelia Clark.  Born in Cedar Rapids, Iowa in 1868, Eastman was a renowned scientist, a paleontologist and geologist with a special interest in fish.  He had graduated from Harvard in 1890, and earned his Ph. D. at the Munich University a year later.  The couple's purchase of 128 East 82nd Street was most likely influenced by its proximity to the American Museum of Natural History, where Eastman had been a staff member since 1914.

Dr. Charles R. Eastman (original source unknown)

When the United States entered World War I, Eastman was recruited for the War Trade Board at Washington D.C.  He temporarily left his position at the museum to undertake that assignment.  The Sun reported, "His work was of an arduous nature and he was not physically strong."  Things got worse for Eastman when the devastating influenza pandemic of 1918 hit Washington.  The scientist was infected in September.

The Sun reported on September 30, 1918, "An attack of Spanish influenza which came a few days ago led to the advice that he go to the seashore."  Charles and Caroline went to Long Beach for his recuperation.  After dinner on Friday night September 27 Charles went for a walk.  But he never returned.

The next morning a body, fully dressed, was found in the water.  The Sun reported, "none of those who saw it seemed to recognize the well dressed stranger as the man whose scientific writings had gained wide fame all over the world."  It would be another 24 hours before the body was identified.  Suicide was not only shameful for family members, but was criminal.  And so, if Eastman had purposely drowned himself, the facts were covered up.

The Sun reported on September 30, "It was said last night that Dr. Eastman probably went for a walk Friday night after dinner, and that when he reached the end of the sea walk he was attacked by dizziness."  The newspaper called him, "one of the best known scientists in the country."

The West 82nd Street house was sold to Edward C. Parker in 1920.  He hired architect Charles F. Winkelman in March to alter it into apartments.  The Record & Guide placed the cost of the renovations at $10,000. 

A subsequent alteration, completed in 1940, marked a downturn in the building's history.  There was now a warren of small apartments and furnished rooms throughout the house.

Living here in 1969 was 25-year-old Harvey Fleetwood 3d.  He was the son of banker Harvey Fleetwood Jr. and Dr. Maria Fleetwood, a New York psychiatrist and Cornell University professor.  Harvey landed a job that year as a community affairs reporter for The Manhattan Tribune, an Upper West Side weekly newspaper.  He wrote a human interest piece for the January 25, 1970 issue based on his interview with a 16-year-old narcotics addict.  It turned out to be an ironic choice of subjects.

Journalism was merely an advocation of the entrepreneurial young man.  He recruited young people to travel to India and Syria, paying their airfares, then return to the United States as "mules," carrying large amounts of drugs.  The scheme fell apart when 25-year-old Constance Ziambardi got off a plane at her stop-over in San Juan carrying a scuba tank and a three-foot long stuffed animal.  The New York Times reported on January 27, "A customs inspector became suspicious when she asked that he watch the gear while she made ticket arrangements to continue to New York."  Inside the toy horse and scuba tank were 63 pounds of hashish, valued at nearly 1.5 million in 2023 dollars.

After her arrest, Harvey Fleetwood telephoned the San Juan jail on her behalf, identifying himself as a United States marshal.  The connection led to an unraveling of a vast ring headed by Fleetwood.  Within days six other drug transporters hired by Fleetwood were in jail in San Juan, all of whom told the same story.  Harvey was the last to be captured, and it came on the very day his article on the drug addict appeared.  On January 27 The New York Times reported, "Mr. Fleetwood was arrested on Sunday after a high-speed automobile chase down Fifth Avenue, according to the Federal authorities."

Around 2014, 128 West 82nd Street was restored to a single family home.  One of only two of the 1886 row to survive, it still exudes the charm that attracted Horace Clark and his wife nearly 140 years ago.

photograph by the author

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