The Lost Public School 177 - Market and Monroe Streets

 

photo by Jacob A. Riis from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York

On November 22, 1898, the Board of Education's Minutes of the Committee on Buildings reported on tbe 15 school buildings currently being designed by in-house architect Charles B. J. Snyder.  On the list was Public School 177.  To be built on the southeast corner of Market and Monroe Street, it would include "36 classrooms, including two kindergarten rooms, physical and manual training rooms and roof playground."  Construction of the $241,000 building (about $9.6 million today) began in the spring of 1899 and was completed the following year.

Snyder blended Norman Revival and Tudor Revival styles in creating a striking brick-faced structure.  The main entrance within the chamfered corner sat above a flight of steps.  It was flanked by octagonal towers capped with Norman-style onion domes similar to those on the Tower of London.  Above the entrance was a triple-sided, three-story oriel capped with intricately carved cresting.  It included colorful stained glass at the second level.  Grouped openings flooded the classrooms with natural light, while the fifth floor erupted into a mountainscape of various sized gables.

The teachers and the principal of Public School 177, Mary J. Brady, creatively addressed the difficulties of instructing the diverse student body, most of whom came from other countries.  On January 26, 1907, for instance, the New-York Tribune reported on a game devised by the sixth grade girl's gym class: the Balloon Goal.  Two teams of 20 girls, one with a blue balloon and the other with a red one, tried to bat their balloon over the other team's goal.  The girls' physical culture teacher, Jessie H. Bancroft, explained to the journalist that the game was not only interesting, but called "for a large amount of physical activity."

The class's new game won a $50 prize offered by Mrs. Henry Siegel.  At the award ceremony, guests were entertained by the students.  "The glee club sang, the salute to the flag was given, and a class of little girls in red and orange aprons, orange kerchiefs and white peasant caps danced a Swedish dance that made a big hit," said the New-York Tribune.

Sixth grade girls play Balloon Goal (top) and perform a Swedish dance.  New-York Tribune, January 26, 1907 (copyright expired)

In addition to their regular studies, students participated in civic activities.  In 1905, for instance, The New York Times reported that the girls of P. S. 177 held "one of the biggest Arbor Day celebrations in the city."  They emulated "the tradition of the famous Hamilton trees [by planting] thirteen trees in commemoration of the thirteen original Colonies."  Three years later, on May 3, 1908, the newspaper reported that the girls had planted a "McKinley tree presented by Maude Adams" in front of the school building.

Principal Mary J. Brady took 130 female students to a session of the city aldermen on December 21, 1909.  Sitting in the gallery, they "were there to see the city fathers transact business.  Of the girls, 97 per cent were foreign born," said the New-York Tribune.

The following spring, the urban students were exposed to a very non-urban experience--the growing of vegetables.  Mrs. Russell Sage and six other socialites contributed $100 each to establish a "farm garden."  On May 29, 1910, The Sun reported that "earth was bought and spread over a part of the school yard to the depth of a foot and a half."  The area was divided into 55 plots, each one assigned to a class.  The article said, "This school has an enrollment of 2,400 children, the majority of whom have never seen the green country."

A girls' "physical culture" class exercises in the tenement-surrounded playground in 1901.  photograph by Jacob A. Riis from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York

Two months earlier, on March 3, Mayor William Jay Gaynor visited the school "to say 'good morning," according to him.  The "good morning" turned into "a speech in which he condemned certain east side philanthropies and magazine writers," reported The New York Times.  Aside from the photo op, the mayor was impressed with the students.

The article said that Mary J. Brady and "nine little girls" formed a guard of honor, "each bearing an American flag."  One girl stepped forward and said, "In the name of the teachers and scholars of our school we greet you, Mayor."

In the assembly room, 1,500 girls "rose and gave him the Chautauqua salute with their handkerchiefs."  The mayor witnessed the older girls in a debate "on whether South Carolina had a right to nullify an act of Congress."  The article said that Gaynor was especially interested in the "foreign class," composed of children who had been in the country less than six months.  A little boy stepped away from the others and said:

Mr. Mayor, we've only been in this country a short time, none more than six months, and some of us only one week.  But we have lost no time since landing in coming to this great school.  Some of us come from Russia, some from Italy, some from other countries, but in a short time we have learned how the City of New York is governed.

After curtsying, a girl stepped forward and said, "Mr. Mayor, we have learned to love you, and we love the policemen who protect us and are our friends."

Five months later, a discharged city employee shot Mayor Gaynor as he boarded the SS Wilhelm der Grosse in Hoboken.  The bullet lodged in the mayor's throat.  On October 4, 1910, the New-York Tribune reported on Gaynor's return to City Hall.  The article said:

Many flowers were received by the Mayor, but those he enjoyed most were brought in person by three little girls representing Public School 177...The committee was headed by Mollie Prate, six years old, who carried a bouquet of old-fashioned flowers, almost as large as herself.  She made a nice little speech to the Mayor, to which he replied kindly. 

The children had written a message that read, "It is our hope that every day will show how glad the people of our city are that you have been spared to them."

The playground, surrounded by the school and tenement buildings, was used by the Professional League in October 1912.  They staged "entertainments" and the admission fees went to "sending the children of the school to the country," explained The New York Times on June 28.

The terrorist group The Black Hand terrorized New York City in the first half of the 20th century.  On June 17, 1926, unfounded rumors of threats to the students spread.  The New York Times reported, "mothers of some of the 2,000 children in Public School 177...having heard of the excitement, came to demand their children.  Forty of them went to the principal, Miss May Gray, and said they had learned of Black Hand threats."  Gray persuaded them that there would be no trouble and, with police guarding the building, operations went as normal until dismissal at 3:00.

With the scare fresh in the minds of the students and faculty, a day or two later, Benjamin Portaro and Tony Marsicano, both 14 years old, cried "Black Hand!" in the corridor.  Janitor Joseph Borkowski was nearer than they realized and he chased them through the hallways and captured the boys.  On June 23 they faced Justice Samuel D. Levy in Children's Court.  Levy discharged them after Borkowski could not testify that he actually saw the teens yell the cries.  Nevertheless, Levy warned Portaro and Marsicano "to keep away from others."

In April 1932, the Board of Education converted Public School 177 to kindergarten-through-sixth grade.  The upper grades were transferred to the nearby Public School 1.

The influx of German immigrants that the Lower East Side had seen in the 19th century was echoed in the 1930s as refugees fled the Nazi regime.  On April 3, 1938, The New York Times reported that the flood of refugees from Germany and Austria had caused "many new problems" for the city's schools.  The article said the newcomers were "clamoring...to absorb in the quickest possible time the language, culture and customs of their newly adopted land."  Public School 177 was designated as one of two "set aside for refugees."  Here "special classes are conducted for the foreigners who are finding an asylum here," said The New York Times.

The Lower East Side's widely divergent ethnic make-up continued to be reflected in the student body after midcentury.  On November 29, 1965, The New York Times reported, "Down on the Lower East Side in the crumbling castle-like structure that is Public School 177, Miss Sheila Shankman's fifth grade class has published a book."  The Melting Pot Cook Book included students' handwritten recipes.  They were mimeographed and stapled together.  The article said:

Darlene Lamont's recipe for creeping crust cobbler ("because it tastes good and was an easy recipe to copy") vies for space with Vicky Del Rio's ship's noodles ("A German dish my mother learned from her mother and makes once in a while") and Charles Giambrone's avgolemono soup ("My mother is Greek").

The collection reflected the changing demographics of the neighborhood.  The article said, "The proximity of Chinatown to P.S. 177 explains the predominance of oriental recipes in the cookbook."

from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York

In 1967, Charles B. J. Snyder's romantic school building, suffering from old age, was demolished.  On June 10, 1973, The New York Times reported that the Coleman Square Playground would be expanded "onto an adjacent lot, the site of the old Public School 177."  

The 1909 Britannia - 527 Cathedral Parkway (West 110th Street)

 

image via streeteasy.com

On December 27, 1892, shovels broke ground for the construction of the Cathedral Church of St. John Divine on the east side of Amsterdam Avenue at 112th Street.  Its sprawling property stretched from 110th to 113rd Streets.  Simultaneously, the section of West 110th Street from Amsterdam Avenue to Riverside Drive was renamed Cathedral Parkway.  Not all New Yorkers, however, warmed to the change and the buildings along those blocks continue to use both addresses to this day.

In 1909, the Gracehull Realty Co., headed by J. Charles Weschler, hired the short-lived partnership of Waid & Wallauer to design an apartment house at 527 Cathedral Parkway.  (Daniel Everett Waid would be remembered as a prominent architect.  Arthur Wallauer, on the other hand, fell from the record, apparently working with Waid only on this building.)

The plans, filed on February 19, 1909, projected the cost at $350,000--more than $8.7 million in 2026 terms.  Completed before the end of the year, the nine-story Britannia was designed in the Tudor Revival style.  Described by the Real Estate Record & Builders' Guide as suggesting "the old English house," its multi-paned windows and sharply-angled bays echoed portions of Hampton Court.  Above the limestone base, the facade was clad in rough-faced tapestry brick and trimmed in stone and terra cotta.  Arthur Willauer explained in The American Architect in 1909, "Let us give to the crowded thousands some portion of that joy that we have known abroad and from the real homes in our own country."  And The Apartment Houses of the Metropolis described the Britannia as having a "domestic character in harmony with the architecture of the Cathedral."

Waid & Wallauer produced this rendering in 1909.  Supplement to Apartment Houses of the Metropolis, 1910 (copyright expired)

The side courts of the Britannia's U-shape provided light and ventilation to nearly every interior room.   The wide, deep central courtyard also acted as "an entrance for vehicles and pedestrians, as well as the approach to the private entrances to two ground floor apartments," as reported by Apartment Houses of the Metropolis.  

Potential residents could choose apartments from five to nine rooms with one or two baths.  Apartment Houses of the Metropolis said, "None of the apartments contain the long dark narrow hallway, so objectionable to dwellers in apartments."  Residents would enjoy, "garbage receptacles, porcelain lined refrigerators, long distance telephone, etc."  Rents ranged from $1,400 to $3,000 per year--about $4,000 to $9,000 per month today.

Apartment Houses of the Metropolis, 1910 (copyright expired)

Notably, Waid & Wallauer gave the Britannia more than its share of personality in the form of humorous carved corbels in the form of medieval characters.  The Record & Guide explained that each one was "symbolic of some form of the homely art of housekeeping."  And so the ten crouching figures stir a pot, eat from a bowl and spoon, carry a roasted chicken on a platter, write in a diary or ledger, and such.

This comical figure licks his finger before turning the page in his ledger or diary.  photograph by Carole Teller

Among the first residents were its builder, J. Charles Weschler, and his family; and Archer S. Gibson, his wife, the former Frances Fleetwood Bryant, and their seven-year-old daughter, Elinor.

Born on December 5, 1875 in Baltimore, Gibson was arguably the most famous organist in the country.  He was organist and choirmaster of the Brick Presbyterian Church on Fifth Avenue.  He was also in great demand by high society, almost all of whom had pipe organs in their mansions.  The New York Times would later describe him as the "organist by appointment to many of the country's richest families."  Among his clients, for instance, were Charles and Eurana Schwab, who had two pipe organs in their sprawling chateau, Riverside House.  The Times added to the list: "Mrs. Henry Clay Frick, William Sloane, Andrew Carnegie, Walter P. Chrysler, H. E. Manville, Mrs. H. Mckay Twombly...and the Rockefellers, Senior and Junior."

Archer S. Gibson.  He and his family remained here at least through 1915.  (original source unknown)

A fascinating couple were Fabian Franklin and his wife, Christine Ladd-Franklin, who were also initial tenants.  Born in Hungary in 1853, Franklin was brought to America by his parents when he was four.  He graduated from Columbian College (today's George Washington University) in 1869 with a Ph.B. in engineering, and earned his Ph.D. in mathematics from John Hopkins University in 1880.  He and Christine Ladd were married in 1882.  By the time the couple moved into the Britannia, he was an associate editor of the New York Evening Post.  He would go on to write books on social, political and economic issues.

Fabian Franklin, MacTutor History of Mathematics

Christine Ladd-Franklin was no less respected in her field.  A psychologist, logician and mathematician, she was known familiarly as Kitty.  She was born in 1847 in Connecticut.  Highly unusual for a female at the time, Christine graduated from Wesleyan Academy in 1865 and enrolled in Vassar College the following year.  Although she had a passion for physics, women were banned from physics laboratories, so she turned to mathematics.

Christine Ladd-Franklin from the collection of the Smithsonian Institution Archives

Christine obtained a fellowship at John Hopkins University in 1878 by signing her application, "C. Ladd."  It was only after she accepted the position that the university realized she was a woman.  Now living here, the erudite woman's name appeared in newsprint more often than that of her husband.  On January 14, 1911, for instance, The Evening Post reported on the Sarah Berliner fellowship, "which grants the sum of twelve hundred dollars for study or research in biology, chemistry, or physics."  The article said, "Applications must be in the hands of the chairman of the committee, Mrs. Christine Ladd Franklin, No. 527 Cathedral Parkway, New York, before February 1."

The Franklins' only daughter, Margaret Ladd, graduated from Bryn Mawr College in 1908 and entered New York University Law School where she graduated in 1917.  She became a prominent advocate for women's rights.

Christine Ladd-Franklin's concerns were not limited to mathematics, psychology and education.  On March 1, 1915, the Fortnightly Review reported:

Mrs. Christine Ladd Franklin, of 527 Cathedral Parkway, New York City, protests against the illustrations of women's underwear published in many newspapers and magazines and which quite pass beyond the limits of decency.  This is a matter where women, even without organization, have the case in their own hands.  A few letters to the shops, newspapers and magazines concerned would, no doubt, be at once effective.

photograph by Carole Teller

Like Christine Ladd-Franklin, her neighbor Bertha Vivian Wooten was an adherent of Edwardian proprieties.  Her husband, Jesse B. Wooten, was an associate of the Knox Hat Company.  His disturbing behavior forced Bertha to leave him in May 1913.  She filed separation "because he played golf on Sunday and fell asleep over his evening paper when she wanted to talk to him," according to the New York Herald.  But the last straw came when, after they had been apart for two days, "he kissed his niece before he did his wife."  To make things worse, when Bertha complained about that, he replied, "Don't be silly."

In court, Jesse explained that his niece was only nine years old, and when he said, "Don't be silly," his "tones were conciliatory rather than brutal."

Happily, just 31 days after Bertha stormed out, she returned to the Britannia and her husband on June 27.  The New York Herald reported that they "were reconciled."

Engineer Albert Bach and his family lived in the Britannia as early as 1915.  On May 22 that year, he and his wife, the former Alice Henricks, announced the engagement of their daughter, Justine Ellen, to Otto Ludwig Koscherak.  The Bachs had two other children, Albert Jr. and Henry Michael.

Alice Bach died in the apartment the following year, on November 17, 1916, at the age of 53.  The family would remain at least through 1919.  By then, Albert Bach Jr. was an engineer like his father.

A prominent resident was architect Lionel Moses, who lived here with his wife, the firmer Shirley Maduro, and three sons, Lionel Jr., Felix, and Richard.  A great-grandson of Revolutionary figure Isaac Moses, Lionel joined the firm of McKim, Mead & White in 1887.  It was Moses who proposed to William Rutherford Mead the formation of a club for Rome Prize winners who had completed their residence at the American Academy in Rome.  He died in his apartment here at the age of 60 on February 19, 1931.

Another respected resident died the following month.  Richard Fitch was an assistant in the psychology department at Columbia University.  He shared his apartment with his brother Carl.  On the afternoon of March 18, Fitch asked the elevator operator to take him to the top floor.  He explained that he "was going to the roof to repair the radio wires."  Once there, the 25-year-old lost his balance and fell to his death.

image by Wurts Bros. from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York

Hermine Baranyi Serly and her widowed daughter Ethel (born Etelka) Serly Brummer shared an apartment here at midcentury.  Hermine was the widow of composer, conductor and author Lajos Serly.  Her son (and Ethel's brother) was composer and conductor Tibor Serly. 

Hermine was born in Budapest, Hungary.  When she met Serly, she was the prima donna of the National Theatre in Kolozsvar, Hungary and he was the conductor.  The New York Times would later recall, "For a number of years she sang in Europe with various opera and operetta companies, of which her husband was conductor."  The couple moved to the United States in 1905.  Hermine and Lajos organized the First Hungarian Theatre here and she later helped found the Hungarian Free Lyceum.

Hermine and Ethel later established the Hungarian Folk Dance and Character Ballet Group (Buzavirag Koszoru).  Hermine was the musical director of the group until 1950.

Ethel started out in vaudeville with her sisters, the Serly Sisters.  An accomplished dancer, she was a member of the Dancing Masters of America and the Dance Educators of America.  When she and her mother moved into the Britannia, both were widows.  Ethel's husband, art connoisseur and founder of the Brummer Art Galleries, Imre Brummer, had died in 1928.

Hermine Serly died at the age of 82 in their apartment on August 9, 1951 "after a long illness," according to The New York Times.  Ethel Serly Brummer died the following year, on August 16, 1952, at the age of 64.

Virginia Brauer, who lived here at the time, experienced a terrifying incident on July 16, 1954.  Virginia worked as the cashier at the Cherry Lane Theatre at 38 Commerce Street.  That night, two gun-wielding men rushed in and forced her and the manager, Nelson Sykes, to turn over the receipts.  The crooks grabbed the $225 in cash and fled in a waiting auto.

As early as 1979, poet Rika Lesser occupied an apartment here.  Born in Brooklyn in 1953, she graduated from Yale University in 1974, studied at Sweden's University of Gothenburg, and received her Masters in Fine Arts from Columbia University in 1977.  In addition to her own compositions, she translates poetry from Swedish and German works to English.  

Lesser received the Landon Poetry Translation Price from the Academy of American Poets in 1982, and the Poetry Translation Price from the Swedish Academy twice--in 1996 and 2003. 

photograph by Carole Teller

Thankfully, little has outwardly changed to the Britannia since 1909.  The automobile turnaround no longer allows vehicles to turn around, but the magnificent many-paned windows are miraculously intact.  And as for its marvelous carvings, Thane Rosenbaum described the building in The New York Times on April 19, 2002 as "a veritable Gothic asylum for grotesque characters."

many thanks to artist Carole Teller for suggesting this post

The Lost Murray Hill Baths - 113 West 42nd Street

Russian and Turkish "vapor baths" had been fashionable for several decades by 1890.  Unlike the city-owned Free Public Baths which teemed with tenement dwellers who had no means of bathing at home, the Russian and Turkish baths catered to middle- and upper-class patrons.   The Murray Hill Bath Co. was organized that year to create another lavish facility and a site was procured on West 42nd Street, between Broadway and Sixth Avenue.

In January 1891 architect Thomas H. Poole filed plans for the five-story iron-fronted structure.  The cost of constructing the 24-foot-wide building was projected at $85,000--about $2.45 million today.  He designed the facade in a fanciful combination of Tudor Revival and Flemish Renaissance Revival.  The windows contained "cathedral stained-glass in well-blended colors."

Real Estate Record & Guide, December 30, 1890 (copyright expired)

Upon its completion in the spring of 1892, the Record & Guide said "it is doubtful whether these baths are surpassed not only in this country but in Europe."  In order to attract "first-class patronage," the proprietors used only the best materials inside--fine hardwoods, inlaid marble mosaic floors, and Turkish rugs.

The Real Estate Record & Guide, June 11, 1892 (copyright expired)

Patrons entered into the Reception Room, outfitted as a sort of reading room.  Newspapers, railway guides, and paper and pens for writing were supplied, and in one corner was a stock indicator.  Beyond that was the Hot Room, a "gem of richness and elegance," according to the Record & Guide.  It said, "In its appointments it has not its peer in New York City.  The floors are tiled.  Magnificent Turkish rugs of brilliant colors are spread under the feet of the bathers, and luxurious reclining chairs are provided."

The Real Estate Record & Guide, June 11, 1892 (copyright expired)

After a period in the Hot Room, the patrons moved on to the Plunge Room.  Here a 51-foot long swimming pool sat within luxurious surroundings--mosaic floors and walls, and a "decorated in relief in a design of wreaths and festoons."  Off the Plunge Room were the several shampooing rooms.  There were, as well, cooling and drying rooms, a toilet-room, and "needle and spray showers."

Because the patrons were all well-to-do businessmen, the Record & Guide noted, "A novel feature of value is the long and short distance telephone, which can be used by bathers during the bath, thus enabling them to communicate with their offices, homes and business connections, while telegraph and messenger services are also at hand."

The Dressing Rooms were on the second floor, with wood paneling, two lighting fixtures in the form of full-size Venetian figures holding lamps, and "resting-couches."  Also on this floor were the café and barber shop ("with chiropodist and manicure on hand when desired"), and the Divan Rooms.  The private Divan Rooms contained couches "luxuriously upholstered in rich velvets."  The Record & Guide explained, "They are intended to be used for those who desire privacy, and are laid out to suit one, two or three persons."

The Hot Room  Real Estate Record & Guide, June 11, 1892 (copyright expired)

The third floor contained 24 "sleeping rooms" which could be rented by bathers who desired a few hours rest; or by transients for longer periods.  The top floor was the "summer room" where bathers, "after being thoroughly restored to a normal heat," could cool off on a hot summer's day.

A horrific accident occurred in the plunge room on July 6, 1893.  Alpheus R. Geer and his wife lived in Garfield, New Jersey.  He had a business there, and was also involved in Van Vorst & Co., hay and grain dealers on West 34th Street.  He and a friend, Frederick Schemmerhorn, walked into the plunge room at around 2:00 that morning.  The Sun reported, "Mr. Geer, who was a fine athlete, poised himself upon the edge of the bath and turned a double somersault into the water, which was above five feet in depth."  The 29-year-old struck his head on the bottom of the pool and he did not resurface.

Attendants and Schemmerhorn all dived in.  He was still conscious when he was removed from the pool, but was paralyzed from the waist down.  The Geer family physician was called, who diagnosed severe spinal cord injuries.  He had the young man moved to the St. James Hotel where his condition deteriorated and he died three days later.

Not surprisingly, given the times, the Murray Hill Baths and similar establishments were all-white domains.  On June  16, 1895, in an early example of peaceful equal rights demonstrations, three Blacks tested the bill Governor Levi P. Morton had signed the day before which said in part, "the discrimination against any person in the matter of service at a hotel, restaurant, theatre, barber shop, or Turkish bath renders the waiter or attendant guilty of a misdemeanor."  

The trio, described by The Sun as "good-looking, well-dressed, gentlemanly and reputable citizens," went from one high-end establishment to another, simply to test the waters.  The article said, "Delmonico's, the Bartholdi, and other first-class hotels were not too good to obey the law, and the men got what they ordered, well-cooked and well-served.  Shanley's and O'Neill's restaurants were more particular, and refused to serve the colored visitors, and if Mr. Anderson and his friends choose to push the matter, this policy may prove a costly one to them."

They were not well-received at the Turkish baths.  The Sun reported, "'All full' was the word passed out at Everard's baths and at the Murray Hill baths after a consultation.  

Upscale establishments sought to avoid bad press, but that became unavoidable for the Murray Hill Baths in 1897.  On staff was a "rubber," or masseur, named William Guldensuppe.   He was called by one newspaper, "a true Knight of the Bath, and best known among the army of rubbers."

On a Friday morning in June he left the baths and headed home to the boarding house at 439 Ninth Avenue where he had lived for a year and a half.   He never returned to work.

The boarding house was run by Mrs. Augusta Nack, "a German housewife and a married woman," according to The Evening Times.  She and her husband, Hermann, had separated two years earlier.   

Augusta Nack and William Guldensuppe had "made no attempt to conceal their illicit association," said The Evening Times.  But problems first came when Hermann Nack "threatened one day to have revenge upon Guldensuppe for winning the woman away from him."  The handsome masseur's worries were increased when a new boarder, Martin Thorn, vied for Augusta's attentions.

Guldensuppe told other masseurs that in February 1897 Thorn had drawn a pistol and tried to kill him.  Guldensuppe overpowered him and wrested the gun away.  They could not help but notice that "his body bore many black and blue marks, which told of blows of savage force."

On Monday morning, two days after Guldensuppe had left the Murray Hill Baths for the last time, Augusta Nack showed up.   She said she had received a telegram from him, asking her to tell the manager he had gone away and would not be back.  She said she assumed he "wants to go with that other woman of his."

On June 23 a trunk was discovered in the East River.  Inside were dismembered sections of a body wrapped in oilcloth.  Later, a pair of legs, similarly wrapped, were found near the Cob Dock in the Navy Yard.  Five employees of the Murray Hill Baths were called to the morgue to attempt to identify the corpse.   

"By lamplight they studied long and carefully what was left of what had been a man," said The Evening Times.  Based on "the ugly scar and the distorted nail upon the forefinger of the left hand," each one of them identified the body as that of Guldensuppe.  The murderer had taken pains to hide his identity.  Not only had he been decapitated, but a large section of flesh had been cut from the chest.  Guldensuppe had had a large tattoo there from his sailor days.

In the meantime, Augusta Nack was hurriedly packing up her things, preparing for a trip to Germany to see her mother.  She would not make the voyage.  Investigators put the pieces of the puzzle together.  When all the facts came to light, it was discovered that Mrs. Nack and Martin Thorn had murdered and dismembered Guldensuppe in a cottage in Woodside, Long Island, on June 23.

The Sun reported, "Mrs. Nack was arrested a week after the murder and Thorn was caught in Harlem about a week later."  Augusta turned State's evidence, explaining that after Guldensuppe had "beaten Thorn," the latter determined to kill him.  Thorn was sent to the electric chair and August Nack was sent to the woman's prison at Auburn, New York for ten years.

In the summer of 1910 42nd Street from Park Avenue to Eighth Avenue was widened.  The Record & Guide reported "Seven and a half feet will be cut off the sidewalk on each curb."  The project resulted in the Murray Hill Baths losing its impressive box stoop which the journal had described in 1892 as "of red sandstone, profusely carved, and surmounted by two wrought-iron lamps of unique design."

The elaborate cast iron fronted building survived until 1925.  On December 30 the Tennessee newspaper The Chattanooga Times reported, "Gotham's most famous citadel of the hangover is no more.  The Murray Hill baths on Forty-second street have been ravaged, looted and knocked down under the auctioneer's hammer, even to the nude statue that stood in the foyer."

The article recalled:

It was a soothing haven for the back wash of endurance poker siestas, farewell bachelor dinners and sundry high flings of social clubs.  Men, bloated and unsteady, retired to the marble slabbed depths and were pummeled and sweated into pink of first class respectability.

The writer explained how patrons who walked through its doors had been guaranteed perfect privacy.  "No one was ever paged at the Murray Hill baths nor for an inquirer was anyone ever there.  Once one left his clothes behind he might disappear as magically as a wraith of steam in one of the cubicle parlors of perspiration."

On December 7, 1925, Time magazine reported, "Down on 42nd Street, workmen dug up the cornerstone of the old Murray Hill Baths, once known as 'The House of a Thousand Hangovers,' another landmark of a Manhattan that is vanishing.  Underneath it they found a pint of champagne, two pieces of script, old-fashioned paper money...four copper coins, and letters of patent issued to one Dwight Berry Brown in 1814 for the invention of a waterloom."  (What the patent papers had to do with the Murray Hill Baths is uncertain.)

Today a massive 55-floor Bank of America Tower building occupies the site.

photo by Chris6d

many thanks to Sean Khorsandi for prompting this post

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