The 1902 Hamilton Fish House -- No. 55 East 77th Street

photo by Alice Lum

Remaining in the house he had shared with his wife, Emily Mann Fish was possibly too painful for Hamilton Fish after her death in 1899.   Shortly afterward the former New York State Assemblyman purchased the lot at No. 55 East 77^th Street and commissioned Charles Brendon to design an exuberant townhouse. 

Brendon headed up the architectural firm of, Charles Brendon & Co. which is barely remembered today.  While designing the Fish house, he was working on the 11-story Hotel Brayton that would rise at Madison Avenue and 27^th Street.  For Hamilton Fish, he pulled out all the stops.

Working in the then-popular Beaux Arts style, Brendon pushed the limits.  The brick-and-limestone house, completed in 1902, rose five stories over an American basement.  The rusticated first floor included an oval window with carved framing, a rectangular window, a recessed entrance behind iron gates and robust scrolled-and-wreathed stone brackets upholding a balcony.  A carved cartouche announced the address.

photo by Alice Lum

Undulating balconies with sinuous iron railings in the central bay dripped with carved ornamentation.  Above it all a robust dormer sat above the cornice.

The Fish family moved in.  Hamilton Fish, Jr. was 10 years old and would go on to make his own mark in American politics.  Eldest daughter Janet was, according to The New York Times, “one of the best liked girls in society…She is extremely tall and willowy, a pronounced brunette with much vivacity of expression.”   Julia Kean Fish (“who has spent considerable time abroad,” noted The Times), Emily Rosalind Fish and Helena L. Fish completed the family.

Society took note when, four years later, the wedding plans of Julia were announced.   The debutante married William Lawrence Breese, who lived both in London and New York, in a private ceremony in St. James Church conducted by Bishop Courteney.  Later a reception was held in the East 77^th Street house.

The couple sailed off to England where the new Mrs. Breese was presented at Court by the Dowager Duchess of Roxburghe, the mother-in-law of William’s sister.

An ambitious dormer with scrolls, wreaths and a shell crowns the residence -- photo by Alice Lum

A year later Hamilton Fish was elected to the US House of Representatives and leased the house to the Plauchon family.  While living there, 15-year old John Plauchon underwent a tonsillectomy at 301 E. 85^th Street.  When complications arose, he was moved to the Manhattan Eye and Ear Hospital where he died from “bleeding following an operation,” according to the Coroners’ Office.

John W. Ellsworth leased the house the following year.  In 1910 he and his wife, Magee, and their two children had five live-in servants.   Mrs. Ellsworth, not content with immersing herself in teas and dances, was a member of the Academy of Political Science in the City of New York.

The Ellsworths stayed on until 1914, the same year that John, now 42 years old, bought his shiny new Reo automobile.   In their place came the successful, 34-year old Thomas Crimmins.   The Harvard graduate entered the contracting business of his uncle in 1900 as a partner in Thomas E. and Thomas Crimmins.  By 1903 he had organized the general contracting firm of Thomas Crimmins Contracting Co.  

The apparently tireless Crimmins was president of the Harvard Engineering Society of New York and a member of eight clubs and the Chamber of Commerce.    Crimmins and his family of four would stay here until around 1922.

Then, that year, the metallurgist Brent Nevill Rickard and his wife, Elizabeth, three children and their Irish terrier, Mickytwo, were living here.   Rickard came from a family of mining engineers and metallurgists and was Assistant Superintendent of the American Smelting & Refining Co. in Murray, Utah; a position that kept him away from East 77^th Street for periods.

The house that for three decades had garnered little attention was leased on January 22, 1932 by Dr. Otto C. Kiep, the German Consul .   With Adolf Hitler firmly in power in 1938 police guards were necessarily posted outside the house where, now, Consul General Johannes Borchers lived.  Threats to blow up the German Consulate General at 17 Battery Place were received by phone.

Protestors gathered outside the house on several occasions, including the Teachers Union on November 23.  Hamilton Fish, who still owned the house coincidentally, spoke out against the Reich; even while his Congressman son Hamilton Fish, Jr. was accused of supporting Hitler and his anti-Semitic policies.  Speaking of the German-American Bund, a propaganda tool, Fish told reporters “the Bund has no place in free America.”

After the United States entered World War II on December 7, 1941 the house on East 77^th Street was empty again.

When Fish’s niece, Patricia Rosalind Cutler was married to Ensign Robert Ludlow Fowler 3^rd, USNR in St. Mark’s-in-the-Bouwerie the reception was held in the residence.  The couple’s pedigree was sterling.  Patricia was descended from Colonel Nicholas Fish, Peter Stuyvesant, Peter Kean and Hamilton Fish.  Her husband was a descendant of Robert Livingston, first Lord of Livingston Manor.

In 1948 the house was sold and converted to high-end apartments.  Here Lois Balken was living in 1951 when 67-year old burglar Wllliam Hahn made off with $10,000 in jewelry from her apartment.   Hahn, whom The New York Times described as “tall, slender, conservatively dressed” and “ bespectacled,” was called by one detective, “probably the best jewel robber in the country.”  He was said to have stolen $1 million in gems in 1934 alone.

Among Lois Balken’s neighbors at the time was the wealthy Mrs. Henry Gansevoort Sanford.

The house served as CIA Centre in the 1975 film “Three Days of the Condor.”

Robert Redford rushes up the steps of No. 55 E. 77th in "Three Days of the Condor" -- photo http://onthesetofnewyork.com/threedaysofthecondor.html

No. 55 East 77^th Street was gently used by its high-end tenants and after being sold in 1988 was reconverted to a single family residence.  A year-long renovation was initiated by Renotal Construction Corp. in 2002 to bring the plumbing, electricity and HVAC systems up to date, as well as to repair the façade.

photo by Alice Lum

The mansion is little changed since its completion in 1902.  Its remarkable history is matched only by its over-the-top Beaux Arts façade—what the AIA Guide to New York City called “vainglorious architecture of its time.”

The 1803 Stuyvesant-Fish House - 21 Stuyvesant Street

photograph by the author

Peter Stuyvesant was named director-general of New Amsterdam in 1647.  In 1651, he acquired a tract of land far north of the settlement from the Dutch West India Company.  The estate encompassed what today is all the land east of Fourth Avenue, from 5th Street to 17th Street.

In 1797, Stuyvesant’s great-grandson, Petrus, laid out a street plan on the estate using a compass to align the roads in an east-west, north-south direction.  The existing, diagonally-oriented lane that had divided his great-grandfather's two farms, Bouweire (later Bowery) One and Bouweire Two was named Stuyvesant Street.

When the engagement of Petrus’ daughter Elizabeth to Revolutionary War officer Nicholas Fish was announced, Stuyvesant had already started construction of an elegant Federal-style house as a wedding present.  Fish was the youngest commissioned major in the history of the United States Army at 18 years old and had served at Valley Force.  He became a close personal friend of Alexander Hamilton.

photograph by Dmadeo

The house at 21 Stuyvesant Street was completed in 1803 and fully reflected the young couple’s social station.  The red brick, Flemish bond façade rose three stories to the attic floor.  Two arched dormers with double keystones pierced the pitched slate roof and an elegant iron fence topped with palmettes protected the English basement.

In 1808, Elizabeth gave birth to a son, named Hamilton after Alexander Hamilton.  Hamilton would grow to become a lawyer, Governor of New York and, prior to the Civil War, a United States Senator.  When he retired in 1857, he took his wife and eight children on a two-year tour of Europe.  In 1869, he reluctantly accepted Ulysses S. Grant’s appointment as Secretary of State, becoming what some historians deem the strongest member of the Grant Administration.  The National Register of Historic Places notes, “Fish’s cautious day-by-day advice saved Grant from some embarrassing blunders.”

Prior to all that, however, Hamilton Fish's birthplace at 21 Stuyvesant Street had been threatened.  In 1811, a three-member commission laid out the famous grid plan for Manhattan Streets above 14th Street.  Rather than use strict compass direction, they based their grid on the slightly-askew orientation of the island.  Any roads and buildings that did not comply with the new plan were to be destroyed.  Petrus Stuyvesant’s network of roads did not comply.

Stuyvesant Street was a private lane for the family, lined with five Stuyvesant houses.  The family voiced their dissatisfaction, apparently quite well.  They were granted a special dispensation.  Their private diagonal road--which would now be reduced to just over a block long--was deemed a thoroughfare “for the accommodation of a large and respectable Congregation attending St. Mark’s Church as well as the owners and occupants of several large and commodious dwelling houses.”

The family houses were saved, and it was here on the evening of September 10, 1824 that the Marquis de Lafayette was entertained by Nicholas and Elizabeth Fish during his tour of all 24 states.

Nicholas Fish died in 1833 and was buried in the nearby churchyard of St. Mark’s Church-in-the-Bowery.  Hamilton Fish and his wife stayed on in the house until 1838, and Elizabeth remained until her death in 1854.  Although the family retained ownership of the property until around the turn-of-the-century, things began going downhill for the house.

By the time of the Civil War wealthy families were moving away from the Stuyvesant Street neighborhood.  The renters of 21 Stuyvesant Street were increasingly blue-collar.

from the collection of the Library of Congress

On January 27, 1861, Daniel T. McFarland was living here when the basement door was broken into and a burglar made off with a copper boiler worth $50.  (Police officer Eagan captured the thief a short distance away with the boiler in a hand cart.)

T. E. Carey was a plumber when he rented here in 1884, the same year that he was arrested for counterfeiting.  Carey and two accomplices were drinking at Joseph P. Strack’s saloon on East 3rd Street when they tried to pass a fake dollar bill.  Strack ordered them out of his saloon and rushed to the 17th Precinct Station House.  Carey and the others were caught “in Marcus Popper’s saloon, No. 53 First-street” as reported in The New York Times.

from the collection of the New York Public Library

A year later Louis Brandt, a wood carver for the A. S. Nichols & Company's ornamental mantel works, resided here.  When the other carvers went on strike, Brandt kept working.  For days he was given escort by the police to ensure his safety; however on May 15 the police officer was late.  A group of striking carvers approached Brandt on his way home and, fearful of his safety, he pulled a gun and shot one of the men in the groin.  The entire group, including Brandt, was arrested.

Throughout the 19th and most of the 20th centuries, historic homes received little protection or public interest.  The Stuyvestant-Fish house remained a rooming house until 1964 when advertising executive F. Philip Geraci purchased it for around $140,000 and returned it to a private residence.

Beginning in 1967, Geraci initiated an all-encompassing restoration of the property.  Using photographs and surviving elements, he brought the home back to its 1804 appearance.  The original eight-paneled front door, removed in 1838, was replicated.  Inside, fireplaces were reproduced based on the last existing original.  Doorknobs were copied from the single 1803 survivor.

After 30 years in the home, Geraci donated it to The Cooper Union’s College of Art and Engineering, which uses it to house its president and family.  The exterior of the structure, which the Landmarks Preservation Commission has said, “displays beauty of proportion, notable restraint and those details that indicate an outstanding Federal house,” appears much as it did when the Nicolas Fish and his bride moved in.

Original interior details remain despite the property’s somewhat rough handling.  In the first floor front hall, a semielliptical transverse arch survives, and the original staircase with its delicate spindles and handrail is still there.  On the second floor 200-year old stencilwork is intact.  There are even side windows from when the house stood alone.

The house was designated a New York City Landmark in 1965 and was included on the National Register of Historic Places in 1972