James W. Cole's Eclectic 1890 177 Waverly Place

The venerable two-story brick-faced frame house at No. 177 Waverley Place had become a rooming house by the late 1870's.  Among tenants were Martha McFarland and her son, William David, who was attending New York City College; and Richard C. Bolton, a clerk.  One by one similar Federal-style homes would soon be disappearing in Greenwich Village, replaced by commercial or apartment buildings.

On March 1, 1890 developer William Ranking purchased No. 177 from Anna M. Hoch.  He paid the widow $9,000 for the property; about $256,000 today.  Any roomers in the house would quickly have to relocate; for just a month later, on April 18, architect James W. Cole filed plans for a five-story "stone flat" to cost $13,000.   Ranking's total expenditure on the project would amount to $626,000 today.

The structure was built with lightning speed, and the first tenants moved in before the end of the year.  Cole had created a hybrid of architectural styles.  He faced the  basement and first floor levels in undressed brownstone.  That, along with the arched windows, echoed Romanesque Revival.  The entrance, which perched above a shallow stone stoop, featured Corinthian pilasters and a bracketed entablature whose incised, stylized palmette designs hearkened back to Greek Revival.

The openings of the planar upper floors wore molded lintels and Italian Renaissance-inspired pediments.  Their understated brackets were more in keeping with the neo-Grec style.  An impressive cast metal cornice crowned the design.

Ranking quickly sold the building.  On March 28, 1891 Samuel Aronson paid him $25,000.  Ranking's 12-month investment earned him a profit equal to more than $75,000 in today's dollars.

The flats--just two per floor--became home to respectable middle-class residents.  Among the first to move in was civil servant Dennis H. Foley.  A Commissioner of Deeds, he was a low-level city government clerk who assisted notaries public.

Like Foley, the other residents held jobs which, while respectable, did not earn them lavish salaries.  Anne M. Glass was a teacher, for instance, in 1898.  She earned about $495 per year, or in the neighborhood of $15,000 today.   The Cudibert family were in the building at the same time.  Their son hoped to add to the family's income when he placed a situation wanted advertisement in the New York Journal on October 15 that year:  "Boy, 18, experienced, willing, in machine shop."

By May 17, 1906 when Samuel Aronson sold the building to Charles Seidel and his wife, Millie, the second "e" in Waverly Place had been dropped in common usage.  The Seidel family would retain ownership for decades.

George Wilkinson lived here in 1919 when Congress passed the Volstead Act, ushering in Prohibition.   He worked for a man named Inteman as a trucker's delivery assistant.  The company's offices were relatively nearby at 18th Street and Eighth Avenue.  A delivery on the night of January 15, 1920 landed George and the trucker, William J. Flynn, in deep trouble.

The New York Herald reported that the men were arrested "while they were unloading cases of whiskey from a horse-drawn truck at a saloon at West and Liberty streets."  They were charged with possessing liquor--and not a small amount.  On their truck were 146 cases and a barrel of whiskey.  The apprehension of the deliverymen did not sit well with thirsty bar patrons.

"When the two federal agents arrested the men they were immediately surrounded by a hostile crowd of men, whom they dispersed at the point of their revolver.  The whiskey was seized."

In December 1921 Charles and Millie Seidel leased the building to Jesse Oppenheim.  In signing the 21-year lease, the new proprietor intended to modernize the outdated structure.  In reporting on the lease The New York Herald said "The property will be altered."

Oppenheim hired the architectural firm of B. H. & C. N. Whinston to update the Victorian building.  The architects not only upgraded the infrastructure, like plumbing and electricity, they removed the stoop and installed a new foyer.  Also included in the plans was an electric sign.

With the stoop removed and the entrance lowered, the transom above the double doors assumed mammoth proportions.  Surviving the update is the fantastic cast iron fringe above the well-eroded cornice.

With his upgrades in place, Oppenheim placed an advertisement in The New York Herald in October 1922:  "Just completed, 2 room kitchenette and bath suites, all the latest improvements."

The remodeled apartments continued to attract middle class tenants.  Residents William R. Compton and William H. Sayre both passed the State bar exams in 1926.  Architect George Provot moved into the building around the same time.

Born in New York, Provot had studied architecture for nine years in France, where he received his first degree in 1886.  In 1889 he received a bachelor's degree in architecture from Columbia University.  He was a member of the well-known firm of Welch, Smith & Provot before striking out on his own.  He was still living at No. 177 Waverly Place when he died in the French Hospital on West 13th Street on July 9, 1936.

Other residents at the time were being scrutinized by the Government.   Theodore and Sylvia Schwab, along with their neighbor Dora Sklar, were on a published list of Communist voters.  The three were still here in 1940 when their signatures appeared on Communist Party petitions.  Another resident, Ruth Levine, added hers as well.

Astonishingly, the 1890 interior shutters survive in the first floor, front apartment.

Having held onto the building for 35 years, in 1939 the Seidel family sold the building to real estate operator J. Perlow.  As the decades passed, the tenant list continued to be middle class.  By 1962 college student Bruce Brown was sharing an apartment with a classmate.  That year his mother, Helen Gurley Brown, published her book Sex and the Single Girl.

The Addams-Family-appropriate light fixtures are especially eye-catching.  Taking the shape of wyverns (two-legged dragons) the originals were produced in the 1890's, making them period appropriate.  However, their crisp lines suggest they might be recent reproductions.

Despite his mother's progressive thinking, Bruce's father, David Brown, seems to have been a bit more conservative.  According to biographer Gerri Hirshey in the 2016 Not Pretty Enough: The Unlikely Triumph of Helen Gurley Brown, he wrote to Bruce's girlfriend (and later wife), Kathy Ames, in 1963 saying in part that perhaps she could convince him to cut his hair.

Among the residents in the mid-1980's was illustrator Robert M. Cunningham.

Although the brownstone entrance has been seriously weather-eroded and the loss of the stoop is regrettable, James W. Cole's brooding Late Victorian flat building is an architectural treat.

photographs by the author

James W. Cole's 1880 No. 3 West 87th Street

Cole kept the visual weight low by using rough-cut stone at the first floor, planar rusticated stone at the second, and dressed stone above.

By 1889 developer Henry Heinken had collaborated with architect James W. Cole on several apartment building or residential hotel projects.  That year they would work together again after Heinken purchased the two lots at the northwest corner of Central Park West and 87^th Street.

The rapid development of the Upper West Side was evident in the recent history of the property.  The Vanderpool estate had sold it just months earlier to operators Maclay & Davies.  The partners resold it to Heinken for $42,500—in the neighborhood of just over $1 million in 2016.

Cole designed a five-story, brownstone-fronted building that melded Renaissance Revival with Romanesque.  Stone carvers were put to work embellishing the façade with panels, friezes, capitals, and tile-like decorative buttons.  Henry Heinken was obviously highly pleased with the design, for he had Cole create a near-copy of the building at No. 151 West 22^nd Street almost simultaneously.

Stone carvers were kept busy creating the elaborate facade decorations.

The apartment building was completed in 1890.  Unlike so many of the Upper West Side flat buildings, it used its address rather than a name for identification.  No. 3 West 87^th Street filled with professionals like Professor John C. Krause.  Moving in with him and his wife was Krause’s widowed mother-in-law, Frances D. Porter.  Born into the wealthy Philadelphia Davis family, Frances had married Capt. D. W. Porter of the United States Army.  She died at the age of 66 in the Krause apartment on November 24, 1896 and her funeral was held there three days later.

A face hidden within the foliate carving was one of the many playful details Cole incorporated in his design.

Resident Marie de Montalvo was ahead of her time.  She was a college graduate, a professional writer, and, most surprisingly, she retained her maiden name after marrying Robert Neville.   She made her opinion about Civil War motion pictures clear in a letter to the editor of The New York Times on July 23 1913.  The subject was wildly popular at the time, with a reported 98 films based on the Civil War produced that year alone. 

Marie’s letter expressed surprise that “no one has ever seen fit to protest against the civil war moving pictures, whose chief purpose seems to be to incite again the blood lust of the North against the South and bring wild yells of enthusiasm from the young boys in the gallery when the pictured bluecoats sweep down upon the Confederates and leave them slaughtered in the ditches.  Surely the war of brother against brother was horrible enough while it lasted without keeping alive its most shocking aspects in the eyes and minds of our young people to to-day.”

Interestingly enough, within eight years Marie de Montalvo would become a columnist for The New York Times rather than merely a reader submitting in letters to the editor.

At around 11:00 on the sultry hot night of June 25, 1906 Harry Kendall Thaw shot architect Stanford White on the rooftop garden of Madison Square Garden.  The sensational and scandalous tale of infidelity, jealousy and murder riveted the nation.  On January 23, 1907 the long jury selection process began.  Among the potential jurors was an apparently not overly-enthusiastic Walter McDougall, who lived at No. 3 West 87^th Street.

The New York Times reported on the questioning of McDougall, who seemed to answer questions from the prosecutor and defense lawyer satisfactorily.  However the following day the New-York Tribune reported “Walter McDougall, of No. 3 West 87^th street, proved an acceptable juror to both sides, but he said he had recently recovered from several weeks’ illness and showed a physician’s certificate that he was not strong enough to stand the strain of a long trial.  He was excused by consent.”

The lifestyles of the reticent juror and his wife reflected the social and financial status of the building’s residents at the time.   On August 2, 1908 the New-York Tribune reported on many Manhattan families who maintained summer homes in the Pocono Mountains.  The article included Highland Dell, the summer home of Walter McDougall near Stroudsburg, Pennsylvania.

Living at No. 3 that year were Albert Sutton Macgregor, his widowed mother, and his unmarried sisters.   The 54-year old architect had graduated from Yale in 1876.  Although he had originally studied law, he took up the profession of his architect father, James M. Macgregor.  An expert on Building and Tenement House Laws, he worked for the Hudson Companies where, according to Yale’s Trigintennial Record in 1908, he was “head of the construction department engaged in building the terminal buildings, power houses and tunnels.”

Albert S. Macgregor as he appeared at Yale and when he lived at No. 3 West 87th Street.  The Trigintennial Record 1908 (copyright expired)

Despite her age, Albert’s mother was active in charitable works.  On December 5, 1909 The New York Times noted that she “will entertain the members of the committee hat assisted her at the recent bazaar given for the East Side Clinic.”

Albert’s sisters were identified in the social columns as “the Misses Macgregor.”  On February 20, 1910, for instance, The New York Times noted “Another card party of the week was that given by the Misses MacGregor [sic] of 3 West Eighty-seventh Street.  The favors were appropriate to Washington’s Birthday.”  The Macgregors would remain in the apartment at least through 1913.

Adding to the literary tone in the building set by Marie de Montalvo were authors Rossiter Johnson and his writer and activist wife, Helen Kendrick Johnson.  Born in 1840 Rossiter was a writer and editor who had earned his reputation writing articles for periodicals, editing scores of other authors’ works, and writing both fiction and non-fiction. Among the books he wrote while living at No. 3 West 87^th Street were The Clash of Nations, Captain John Smith, Episodes of the Civil War, and his wife’s life story, the Biography of Helen Kendrick Johnson (published in 1917).  While living here he was editor of Appleton’s Annual Cyclopaedia, a position he had held since 1883.

Rossiter Johnson at the time of he lived at No. 3.  The Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1918 (copyright expired)

Johnson had married Helen Louise Kendrick in 1869.  Shortly afterward she began writing children’s literature, poetry and travel articles.  But her greatest recognition would come when she took a fervent stand against women’s suffrage (as did her husband).  In 1897 she wrote Woman and the Republic, which argued that women did not need the vote to gain equality and that woman’s role as home keeper was essential to maintain the American republic.  In 1910 she founded the Guidon Club, an anti-suffragette organization.

In March 1919 the building was leased to the management firm of Adie Company.  The Sun, on March 13, reported “The leasing company expects to alter the building into small housekeeping suites.”

Another writer-editor in the building by 1924 was 35-year old Lester Douglas Wise.  An associate editor of The American Standard, a semi-monthly magazine, Wise found himself in trouble with Governor Alfred E. Smith that summer.

On the afternoon of Tuesday June 23 six newsboys were stopped from selling the magazine and two days later Wise was arrested for libel, along with the editor, 46-year old Charles Louis Fowler, and his son Louis.  An article in the magazine entitled “A Patriot Aged Twelve” was purported to have been written by a 12-year old boy.  It depicted the Catholic Governor as a “wet papal Governor” and protested the possibility of a Catholic President.

The article said in part “Awake, sleeping Protestants, do not let this vassal of a foreign potentate hypnotize you into making him the next occupant of the Executive Mansion!  No, this devout subject of the Pope never shall be the Chief Executive of the mightiest nation in the world if all true Americans do their part in defeating Smith.”

It went on to denounce the Knights of Columbus and called parochial schools “merely dens of hatred, malice and deception.”  The inflammatory nature of the article (which could hardly have been written by a pre-teen) was such that, according to The New York Times, “When the three men were arrested they were hustled to the police station as a precaution against violence.”

No. 3 West 87^th Street was home to writer and thinker Gregory Polonski by the early 1930s.  Born in Russia in 1872, he had taught in the Universities of Petrograd and Leipzig.  He and his wife, the former Anna Neitzschik, had arrived in America in 1921. Polonsi wrote many books and treatises on philosophical subjects and was best known as an exponent of the Spinozistic metaphysical philosophy (which maintained that all things in nature “have been determined from the necessity of the divine nature to exist and produce an effect") and Cartesian logic, based on the work of Rene Descartes.

While her husband wrote and lectured, Anna Neitzschik Polonski was both an artist and singer.  A contralto, she was a member of the Metropolitan Opera Company.  She remained in the 87^th Street apartment following Gregory’s death on April 12, 1933.

Another operatic residence was baritone Martino Rossi in the 1940s.  He had sung with Chicago, Philadelphia and New York opera companies and, since 1939, was a voice teacher.  In the fall of 1949 he became ill and on Sunday, February 6, 1950 he died in his apartment at the age of 58.

Little has changed to the exterior of James W. Cole’s brooding brownstone building after nearly 140 years.  As the apartments were broken up and reconfigured, the interiors were lost; replaced by 20^th century functionality.  Nevertheless, No. 3 West 87^th survives as a delightful relic of early apartment living.

photographs by the author

The 1897 2nd Reformed Presbyterian Church -- 308 W. 122nd Street

In 1877 the Rev. Dr. Andrew Stevenson, pastor of the Second Reformed Presbyterian Church noted in The Reformed Presbyterian and Covenanter, “The Reformed Presbyterian Church in the city of New York had its origin in a praying society of two families who became acquainted in 1790.”  Eight years later the group received its first “Lord’s supper.”  The congregation had increased to 20 members, “six of these were from a distance.”

The number of Reformed Presbyterians, most driven from Ireland and Scotland by persecution, continued to grow and by the last decades of the 19^th century there were three congregations.  It was not merely the number of worshipers that resulted in the three separate churches—the Presbyterians were racked with dissention and turmoil among themselves. 

In the spring of 1847, after the Second Reformed Presbyterian Church broke away, the Synod issued a judgment which deemed the congregation “immoral” and read in part “Resolved, That the Second congregation, New York [is] hereby directed to alter the tenure of their property and the mode of managing all such temporalities, so as to free themselves from all connection with said immoral law.”

The judgment created a crisis and only a year later a schism developed within the Second Reformed congregation.  Of its 334 members 182 walked away to form the Third Congregation.  Of those who remained, 104 were women and, according to Stevenson, “This division almost destroyed our existence.”

The church persevered and in 1896 was ready to build a new structure.  The neighborhood of West 39^th Street near Sixth Avenue had changed in the two decades that Second Reformed had worshiped here.  The neighborhood was increasingly commercial; pushing congregants out.  The quickly-developing area of Harlem far to the north offered an attractive alternative.

Three elevated train lines served Harlem and the streets were lined with fine brownstone and brick rowhouses, shaded by trees.  In 1897 the streetscape would be improved with an addition when the new Second Reformed Presbyterian Church at 308 West 122^nd Street was completed.

The congregation had hired architect James W. Cole to design the building.  In the ten years he had been in business Cole had busied himself mostly with commercial and apartment buildings.  Now he tried his hand at an ecclesiastical work with charming results. 

Cole created a simple Gothic-inspired church.  Its proportions belie the actual size; suggesting a one-story country chapel rather than the rather substantial building that rises as high as a five-story tenement.  Perhaps to save costs, Cole used terra cotta for the contrasting details—the trim of the arches and oculus, and the buttress caps, for instance—rather than expected limestone or granite.  A wonderful brick corbelling drips down from the gable in three lengths, creating a gingerbread-frosting effect.

The old animosities of the Reformed Presbyterians were eventually put to rest.  The Second Reformed congregation continued to prosper.  Its choice of location for the new structure proved to be a wise one as public transportation from downtown to Harlem increased.  On August 22, 1914 Christian Nation made note of the church’s convenient location:

Members of New York Presbytery please notice that the spring meeting is to be held in the Second Church of New York City, at 308 West 122^nd street, at 8 p.m. Tuesday, May 5^th.  The Eighth avenue surface cars or the elevated trains stopping at 125^th street bring you near to the church.  This is not an official notice, only an indication of the way to those not knowing it.

In the meantime, the year after the Second Reformed Church opened the doors to its new building, 23-year-old Methodist preacher William Edward Fuller, Sr. had an epiphany.  The Southern minister walked out into a corn field near his home to pray in solitude and there he received what he later deemed the “Baptism of the Holy Ghost and Fire.”  The term was a reference to John’s gospel account that “he shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost, and with fire.”

Fuller had been a member of the African-American New Hope Methodist Church which, despite the name, admitted black and white members without partiality.   Now he resigned his post and turned to the Fire-Baptized Holiness.  The new church was based along the lines of the Episcopal church with bishops holding the highest offices.  Starting with two members the congregation had ballooned to more than a thousand by 1908.

That year Fuller separated the racial content of the church, leading about half of the congregants to organize the Colored Fire Baptized Holiness Church in Greer, South Carolina.  On June 8, 1926 the name of both groups was changed for the final time to Fire Baptized Holiness Church of God of the Americas.

The Harlem neighborhood had, by now, changed dramatically.  At the turn of the century Black New Yorkers began moving into the neighborhood, pushed out by rents and discrimination downtown.  The WPA’s New York City Guide explained in 1939 “Negroes began to move into Harlem in 1901 as a result of a deflated boom in real estate there.  Because of the lack of adequate transportation facilities, fine apartments erected by speculative real-estate promoters were left tenantless.  A Negro agent, Philip A. Payton, persuaded landlords to accept Negro tenants, and hundreds of families soon deserted old tenements in the crowded West Fifty-third Street and Sun Juan Hill (west of Columbus Circle) sections and poured into Harlem.”

Even here, however, the blacks were taken advantage of.  The Guide said “Barred from most residential areas in the city, Negroes pay rents 50 per cent higher than those charged for comparable living quarters elsewhere.”  In 1917 Bishop William Edward Fuller had established a mission in Harlem and a year later the Mount Olive Fire Baptized Holiness Church was formed at No. 6 West 126^th Street.

The immediate area around Second Reformed Presbyterian remained did not change as quickly as other parts of Harlem.  When the WPA wrote its guide, it noted “Although Negroes live along the streets north and south of it, West 125^th Street is not predominantly a Negro center; white residents of Morningside Heights and Manhattanville have used it as a shopping center for years.”  The white owners’ refusal to hire black employees resulted in a significant race riot in 1935 “of alarming proportions.”

Four years after the WPA published its New York City Guide, the Second Reformed Presbyterian Church put its building on the market.  It was purchased by the Mount Olive Fire Baptized Holiness Church, which had been worshiping at No. 2395 Eighth Avenue since 1932.  The congregation paid $40,000 for the building in 1943—a substantial $625,000 in today’s dollars.

The neighborhood around James W. Cole’s delightful brick church continues to change 71 years later.  The dark days of the late 20^th century have given way to revitalization of the area.  The Mount Olive congregation continues to worship in the 122^nd Street church.  Apart from the questionable choice of replacement entrance doors, the building which has seen so much change around it is virtually untouched since its completion nearly 120 years ago.

photograph by the author

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The 1889 Vissani House -- No. 143 West 95th Street

photo by Alice Lum

In 1868 Italian priest Father Charles Vissani da Nazzano was sent to New York to establish the Commissary for the New York Franciscan Custody of the Immaculate Conception.  He also spent a good deal of his time working with the growing Italian immigrant population.   In 1874 he was appointed president of St. Bonaventure University in Allegany, New York but returned to the city three years later.

Visanni was authorized in 1880 to establish the Commissariat of the Holy Land in the United States.  The purpose of Commissariat was to protect holy shrines and places in the Holy Land from desecration from infidels.  He established the Commissariat's first headquarters at the Church of St. Francis of Assisi.

In 1891 "Sandliers’ Catholic Directory" explained the functions less-than-succinctly.  The “Commissariat of the Holy Land [was] established by direction of the Sacred Congregation of Propaganda, with the approbation of His Eminence the late Cardinal McCloskehy, to promote among Catholics in America interest in the Sacred Monuments of our Lord’s Passion.”

By the end of 1888 a permanent home for the Commissariat was deemed necessary and in December of that year Vissani purchased the building lot at what would become No. 143 West 95^th Street from Jane Ann Brown.   The deed established strict restrictions prohibiting Vissani and all future owners from erecting anything other than a “private dwelling house for the use of one family.”  Vissani's intended building would stretch the definition; but only slightly.

Simultaneously Vissani was planning a four-month pilgrimage to Palestine.  The trip would not only provide public relations for the Commissariat and afford the clerics an opportunity to inspect holy places; it was a fund-raising tool for the new headquarters.

A month later, on January 22, 1889 The New York Times reported on the trip that was scheduled to leave New York on February 21.  “Among the pilgrims will be two Bishops, two monsignori, and thirty-four priests.” 

Four months was not an exceptionally long time for the pilgrimage, especially considering the long sea voyages and the stops in Paris and a private audience with the Pope in Rome.

On February 12, 1889, a week before the group left, construction began on the new headquarters.  The newly-established architect James W. Cole had received the commission and for the 27-foot wide structure he drew inspiration from the Gothic.  By now Gothic Revival was among the favorite styles for ecclesiastic buildings.

Cole would not over-emphasis the style, however.  The “AIA Guide to New York City” would later remark that the neo-Gothicism here was “as if done in the Renaissance fashion by a student trained at the Ecole des Beaux Arts.”

A hefty dog-legged of rough-cut stone leads to the entrance -- photo by Alice Lum

Cole used the dog-legged stoop which would become characteristic of many Upper West Side homes—but the stoop was where comparisons ended.   The parlor level openings were surmounted with ambitious Gothic arches that slightly overlapped the cornice of second floor, giving the building a near church-like appearance.  In the shield above the entrance was the Franciscan coat of arms and those over the windows were carved with the Crusader cross.   

A close inspection reveals that the foliate carvings in the tympanums are slightly different.   Oak leaves decorate the space above the door, symbols of strength; the middle window is decorated with palms, symbolizing pilgrimage; while laurels are carved into the eastern-most arch, symbols of victory and honor.

The arches were carved with individual, symbolic foliage -- photo by Alice Lum

The Gothic influence became diluted with each subsequent level.  Peaked drip molding connected the three square windows of the second floor, and the arched openings at the top level were embellished with French Gothic carvings.  Above it all a tall parapet enclosing a niche distinguished the building from a purely residential structure.

Vissani’s successful pilgrimage was completed in June 1889 and the following month the house was completed.  The building became home to the Franciscan priests working in the Commissariat and it included a chapel for daily prayer.

photo by Alice Lum

Two years later Vissani sailed to Palestine again.  His pilgrimage this time, which began on August 8, 1891, would be more extensive.  The Sun reported on his departure on the Arizona.  “He is to make a tour of the Holy Land with the object of determining on a route for a pilgrimage of American Catholics in 1892…He is to be away nine months.”

Once again the priest would meet with the Pope.  In his absence the Rev. Godfrey Schilling who had arrived in New York from Jerusalem only a few months earlier took charge of the Commissariat.  He had previously been working with the Province of St. John the Baptist in Cincinnati.

Upon his return, Vissani’s health began to noticeably decline.  In hopes of restoring his health he traveled to Rome in 1896.  The deed to the Commissariat building was transferred from Vissani’s name to Schilling’s in August of that year.  A month later, on September 27 Father Charles Vissani died in Rome at the age of 75.

Almost immediately Schilling began plans to transfer the Commissariat’s headquarters to Washington D. C.   On September 2, 1899 the Washington D. C. Evening Star reported that the “immense building whose yellow dome can be seen rising against the sky a long distance off,” was near completion.  The newspaper predicted that the Commissariat of the Holy Land would occupy the building “early in September.”

The Commissariat retained possession of the 95^th Street building until 1905 when the Rev. Godfrey Schilling sold it to Peter B. Englebert.   By 1908 it was home to the Greve Family who would stay on in the house for decades.  By now the crosses and carvings associated with the Catholic organization had been removed and the building had become a highly-distinctive townhouse.

When the building was converted to a single-family residence, the religious carvings and applied crosses were removed -- photo by Alice Lum

Ellen Greve visited Europe with her brother, John, who was a priest in Pittstown, Pennsylvania in the summer of 1908.  In October they boarded the White Star liner Arabic in Liverpool to return home.   On Sunday evening October 5 the priest became ill and, according to The New York Times a week later, “seemed to realize that he must die.  He begged Dr. Gilmore, the ship’s surgeon, to keep him alive until port was reached, as he wanted to receive the last rites of the Church.”

Elen Greve was frantic and begged the ship’s doctor to keep her brother alive.   On Friday, October 11, Fire Island appeared on the horizon as the liner finally neared New York.   Sadly, The Times reported the next day that “Dr. Gilmore did all in his power to prolong the priest’s life until he should reach port, but without avail.  Mr. Greve died on Friday afternoon, when the ship was within sight of land.”

Following Mary Josephine Greve’s death in the house on July 28, 1934 it became home to the Fagan family.  Henry F. Fagan had married Evangeline Greve and the couple had three children in the house, Evangeline, Leo and Pancratia.   Henry Fagan died in the house on September 23, 1943 and three years later the house was sold, ending nearly four decades of Greve family ownership.

In 1946 the house was converted to apartments; one commodious apartment on each of the lower floors and four on the third.   Twenty years later a three-year conversion, completed in 1969, resulted in two apartments per floor.

photo by Alice Lum

Today the wide stone house is a commanding and dignified presence on the block, and an interesting page of social and religious history in New York City.