The 1933 Independent Theatre Owners Bldg - 341 West 44th Street

An article in the "Vaudeville" section of The Billboard on May 6, 1933, announced that the Independent Theatre Owners' Protective Association "expect to open their new offices soon at 341 West 44th street."  Recently formed by independent motion picture theater owners, the organization sought to protect them from the already powerful film distributors and large theater circuits.

The group's new headquarters were in a recently completed, three-story building just blocks away from the country's entertainment epicenter--Times Square.  Designed by Raymond Irrera for the 341 West 44th Street Corporation, it straddled the Art Deco and Art Moderne styles.

The ground floor was dominated by a modern arcade show window.  Its vast plate glass panels, sitting upon a polished black base, were trimmed in thin strips of chrome.  Nestled behind the storefront were two entrances, one accessing the store and the other the offices above.

Irrera sandwiched the two upper floors between matching terra cotta friezes of Art Deco zigzags and rondels.  He used starkly contrasting white and black brick to create the Art Moderne design of the second and third floors.  The resulting economy of materials during the difficult Depression years worked.  Construction cost the syndicate $15,000 to erect, or about $373,000 in 2026 terms.

The ground floor space was taken by the Amusement Supply Co., Inc.  It catered to the nearby legitimate theaters by offering set design and construction, lighting, and equipment.

The Independent Theatre Owners Association had barely settled into their new home when trouble ensued.  In June 1933, President Franklin D. Roosevelt established the National Recovery Administration to stimulate economic recovery.  On November 10, it filed a $1 million suit "on the ground of alleged violation," reported The New York Times.  Calling the Independent Theatre Owners Association and a co-defendant "an alleged 'company union,'" the suit charged that they "signed the re-employment agreement to better business conditions by hiring more men, increasing wages and cutting working house to thirty-five hours a week."  Instead, they "cut staffs in half, reduced pay and increased the working week to fifty-two hours."  The two organizations were ordered to pay "sums ranging from $1,294 to $5,499 for crews of from four to eight men."

image via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services.

The drastic decline of independently owned motion picture houses at midcentury prompted the closing of the Independent Theatre Owners Association.  It was gone from 341 West 44th Street as early as 1940.  The Amusement Supply Co., Inc. still occupied the storefront that year.  A theatrical printing firm, New Process Program Corp. occupied the second floors.  It produced programs, banners on oilcloth, full-sized lobby cutouts of motion picture stars, and lobby posters.  Upstairs was Eldridge Enterprises, Inc.  Its cryptically worded help wanted ad on November 3, 1940 gave no hint of the firm or its dealings:

Attention Salesmen:  Big Commissions.  Proven Plan for Retail merchants to increase sales.  Write for particulars.  Eldridge Enterprises, Inc. 341 West 44th St., New York.

The Tops Employment Agency occupied space here as early as 1961.  On July 6 that year, Mayor Robert Wagner ordered penalties against the firm.  The New York Times reported that it was "accused of 'petty chiseling' against domestic workers they had brought to the city."

A renovation in 1991 resulted in a "eating and drinking establishment" on the second floor, and by 1996 the Trilogy Theatre Group operated downstairs.  It presented plays like Louise Page's Tissue, a drama about a woman's struggle with breast cancer, in April 1996, and Kevin Doyle's Styrofoam, about the Stampede Theater Festival, staged here in January 2004.  That production was among the group's last.  The Trilogy Theatre closed later that year.

Luthier Music Corp. replaced the theater.  It sold guitars, sheet music, and Luthier-made guitar strings, among other related goods.  The store would occupy the space for a decade, moving out in 2014.

The handsome little building sat empty for years before being purchased by the Buddha's Light International Association.  The group announced plans to construct the Buddha's Light Cultural Center on the site.  But that scheme got derailed.  In May 2026, the group sold the property "to a fashion executive," according to Crain's New York.  Its fate is unknown at the time of this writing.

photographs by the author

The 1926 New York Furniture Exchange - 200 Lexington Avenue

photograph by Carole Teller

The newly formed Lexington-32nd Street Corporation acquired all the buildings along the western blockfront of Lexington Avenue between 32nd and 33rd Streets in 1925.  The architectural firm of Buchman & Kahn, in association with architect Maximilian Zipkes, was hired to design a 15-story structure that would house the New York Furniture Exchange.  Although the firm's filings do not specify which architect took the reins in the project, Ely Jacques Kahn is routinely given the credit.

Buchman & Kahn released this rendering in 1926.  from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York

Completed in 1926 at a cost of $2.7 million (nearly $50 million in 2026 terms), the monolithic structure was faced in sandy-colored brick and trimmed in terra cotta.  Its Art Deco design included elements influenced by Celtic, Assyrian and other exotic prototypes.  Above the third floor, a terra cotta frieze of an undulating vine snakes below and above trailing bellflowers (every other example defying gravity).  It is interrupted sporadically by octagonal plaques and rosettes.

The panels on either side of the fluted terra cotta tiles between the third-floor windows reflected Celtic motifs.  photograph by Carole Teller

Above the 11th floor was a complex, striated cornice.  Its contrasting layers mixed modern Art Deco motifs with ancient themes.  Rather than a terminal cornice, the three-story setback was crowned simply with a paneled parapet.

The Furniture Exchange was not a new concept.  It was established in 1891 at the Grand Central Palace at 36th Street and Seventh Avenue.  But it had come a long way since then.  An advertisement in The Decorative Furnisher in January 1927 said the New York Furniture Exchange was "where the country's furniture buying power meets."  Furniture makers and dealers nationwide leased space in the building to market their goods.  A listing of the tenants in the June 1927 issue of Furniture Index filled two full pages.  An article in the May 1928 issue of The Furniture Journal said:

Conceived more than a generation ago by a group of broad-visioned manufacturers, as a manufacturers' outlet...the Furniture Exchange in this city has from the start been a lighthouse on the Atlantic coast for the manufacturers of furniture throughout the country--a spot where they could assemble their choicest products, secure in the thought that they would be inspected here by those who ought to see them, and no others.

Only wholesale buyers were admitted into the building.  The Furniture Journal said it was "firmly barred against cowans and eavesdroppers."  The article reported that there were no fewer than "237 categories of merchandise on display in the building."

photograph by Sigurd Fischer from The Architectural Record, July 1926

While buyers could shop throughout the year, the busiest time for tenants were the winter and summer Furniture Expositions.  The two-week events drew retailers from across the nation.  On January 15, 1929, for instance, Furniture Buyer and Decorator commented, "For the past two or three weeks the big New York Furniture Exchange has been a continuous scene of hustle and bustle, getting ready for the January Semi-Annual Furniture Exposition."

The Furniture Journal, May 1928.

One dealer made history of a sort in 1955 when he leased space in the building.  On January 22 that year, The New York Age reported that Al Thompson, whose principal operation was in Brooklyn, was "the only Negro registered with the New York Furniture Exchange."  The article called Thompson a "sterling example of successful enterprise overcoming real or fancied problems of race."  It also pointed out, "More than 90 percent of Thompson's business is white."

A facade restoration was initiated in 1961.  The building was sheathed in steel and wooden scaffolding to accommodate what The New York Times described as "resurfacing work."  On the night of February 25, the city was hit with a vicious gale with wind gusts reaching 60 miles per hour.  At 8:35, Mr. and Mrs. Harris Kanzer stepped out of their car at the curb in front of 200 Lexington Avenue.  The New York Times said that at that moment, "the wind caught at the canvas screening on the two-story scaffolding of tubular steel uprights and horizontal planking."  

In a chain reaction, the scaffolding collapsed, starting at 33rd Street and ending domino-like at 32nd Street.  Eleven cars were damaged and the Kramers were pelted with debris.  Happily, they were only slightly injured.

photos by Sigurd Fischer from The Architectural Record, July 1926

The 73rd New York Winter Furniture Show started on January 14, 1964.  The timing could not have been worse.  That day, what The New York Times called "New York's worst storm of the season" hit.  But despite the blizzard, attendance was only 20 per cent down.  The article said, "Furniture dealers proved themselves a hardy breed yesterday."  More than 3,200 customers battled the blast to examine the 550 manufacturers' offerings.

Over the decades, the furniture manufacturers, of course, adapted with changing tastes.  But perhaps no one was more reflective of that than Quasar Khanh, owner of the Paris-based Quasar Inflatables.  When he arrived in New York in October 1969 with new models, he carried the chairs, poufs and lamps in a suitcase.  The designer's inflatable furniture epitomized 1960s domestic tastes.

Within a decade, the furniture trade gradually moved to Long Island City.  A renovation in 1979 resulted in an adult trade school on the fourth floor.  And in 1981, the building's name was changed to the New York Design Center.  Martin Gottlieb, writing in The New York Times on May 13, 1984, explained, "Several years ago, the 500,000 square foot New York Furniture Exchange at 200 Lexington Avenue decided to convert itself from a wholesale commercial furniture building...to a building that served designers and decorators."

Among the tenants in 1994 was the New York Chapter of the American Institute of Architects.  It was the venue for exhibitions and other events, like the panel that discussed "the impact of empowerment zones and the relationships between public policy, design and planning" on September 19, 1996.  The American Institute of Architects would remain here until 2003.

The New York Design Center established Interior Operations in 1997.  Newsday explained on September 18, "For a one-time fee of $50, clients are paired with designers who either help them complete entire projects with merchandise from the center or merely assist them in selecting a few individual items from some of the 80 showrooms in the building."  The article noted parenthetically, "when it opened in 1926, [it] was the first furniture and design building in New York City."

photograph by Carole Teller

The New York Design Center contains 100 showrooms today.  They exhibit furniture, textiles, lighting and decorative accessories.  Like Interior Operations, the current Access to Design program helps educate consumers "on the value of good design," according to the Center's website.  In the meantime, the upper floors of Buchman & Kahn's striking 1926 building is nearly unchanged a century after its doors opened.

many thanks to artist Carole Teller for suggesting this post

The Devastated Bickford's Building - 459 Lexington Avenue

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

 

Bickford's Restaurants were a familiar presence in the urban New York landscape by the 1920s.  Samuel L. Bickford opened his first cafe in 1902 and within two years he ran a chain of lunchrooms popularized by its affordable prices and quick service.  The firm described its eateries saying they "are of the self-service type and serve a limited bill of fare, which makes possible the maximum use of equipment and a rapid turnover.  Emphasis is placed on serving meals of high quality at moderate cost."

On December 18, 1928, The New York Times reported that Bickford's Lunch Systems had leased the five-story building at 459 Lexington Avenue on the northeast corner of 45th Street from Catalina Paez MacManus.  The deal came with significant stipulations.  MacManus demolished the old building and F. Russell Stuckert was hired to design a replacement structure for the leasee.

F. Russell Stuckert was the son of  J. Franklin Stuckert.  At the turn of the century, the father-and-son partnership landed a lucrative contract with Horn & Hardart to design its automats.  J. F. Stuckert & Son dissolved in 1906, and the younger Stuckert established his own practice.  

Completed in 1930, the three-story Bickford's building was faced in terra cotta.  By chamfering the corner, Stuckert gave additional light to the upper floors.  An Art Deco grill above the restaurant's doorway was mimicked in stained glass above the ground floor windows.

The elaborate Art Deco grill above the doorway was copied in glass over the vast plate glass windows.  image via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services.

Fluted piers at the upper floors terminated in decorative elements that rose beyond the parapet.  Between them were ornate Art Deco panels.  An octagonal clock was embedded within the corner panel.

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

The Bickford's restaurant occupied the ground floor while the upper two were rented as offices and showrooms.

Two years after opening, a senseless spree forced Bickford's to replace several of the large ground floor plate glass windows.  Between 8:30 a.m. and 4:00 p.m. on December 26, 1932, 24 windows were shot out in restaurants around the city--ten in Horn & Hardart automats and the rest in Bickford's lunchrooms.  Among the targets was the Bickford's location at 459 Lexington Avenue.  The vandalism was thought to be the act of mischievous youths, an expert glazier saying, "a sling-shot with a stout, forked frame and strong rubber bands as the catapulting agency easily might have made any of the holes."

In the meantime, the upper floors were leased to a variety of tenants.  Moe Friedman, retailer of dresses, took space on the third floor in 1936, while Madame Fischer's Beauty Salon, owned by Rose Lowenfeld Fischer, occupied the second floor.  

The New York Times explained that the Hungarian-born Rose Fischer had opened her first shop at 95 Second Avenue in 1905.  "It became popular and was frequented by actresses of the Yiddish theatre," said the newspaper.  By now, she owned nine salons.

image via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services.

Alexander Klein managed the beauty shop in 1938.  On March 12 that year, a man entered and brandished a pistol.  Instead of turning over the contents of the cash register, Klein fled down the stairs and found two policemen.  By the time they returned, 31-year-old Hal Seften, who had arrived in New York City from Kansas City only a few weeks earlier, had fled.  He did not get far.  Police captured him on Lexington Avenue between 50th and 51st Streets.  The pistol turned out to be a toy.  He was charged with attempted robbery and a violation of the Sullivan Law (an early gun-control statute).

In 1966, Restaurant-Waldorf Associates leased the ground floor of 459 Lexington Avenue.  The New York Times remarked that it operated "the Four Seasons and the Zum-Zum restaurants."  The article noted, "The building is now occupied by a Bickford's Restaurant."  Renovations were made to accommodate a new Zum-Zum branch.

The ground floor was modernized again in 1980.  It now accommodated four shops.  Le Croissant Shop moved into the large corner space.  On May 6, 1981, Moira Hodgson explained in The New York Times that the restaurant, "is a family operation owned by Robert Lamer, former head waiter at Le Cynge.  The baking is done on the premises by a baker who has worked at Dumas, Delices La Cote Basque and Bonte."

The 1980 renovation affected only the ground floor.  via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services.

F. Russell Stuckert's Art Deco design survived until 1992 when a new facade was installed that erased the building's architectural personality.

image via loopnet.com

The 1929 240 East 79th Street

Frederick Godwin's upper floor design was created, mostly, by strategically placed small, medium and large-sized windows.

The Great Depression was one year away in 1928.  Raymond B. Fenner was the president of the newly formed 240 East 79th Street Corporation and that year the syndicate hired Godwin, Thompson & Patterson to design a 16-story-and-penthouse apartment building on the south side of East 79th Street between Second and Third Avenues.  Reportedly, Frederick Godwin was the lead architect on the project.  The plans, filed on December 10, 1928, projected the costs at $300,000, or about $5.6 million in 2026 terms.

For the most part, Godwin's Art Deco design was unexciting.  Faced in rough-faced variegated brown brick, its scheme relied greatly on the placement of fenestration and thin vertical lines of darker brick.  But the single-story base was another story altogether.

Godwin faced it with orange-hued tiles set off with vibrant mossy-green terra cotta.  At the corners were fluted pilasters topped with curved volutes that suggest that another half is hidden in the adjoining wall.  Similar pilasters flank two narrow windows, their caps fully formed and embracing an octagonal plaque of veined gray stone.  The tour-de-force is the entranceway.  Reeded gray stone pilasters on either side are topped with Empire State Building-like silhouettes.  Above the entrance, the address is announced in Art Deco lettering.  A sinuous hood, like a cresting wave or calla lily petal, sits above a large octagonal gray stone plaque.

On August 25, 1929 The New York Times reported that artist Ruth Carroll had been hired "to paint murals for the entrance hall of the new sixteen-story apartment house."  The article said, "Her paintings will depict the skyline, bridges and vistas of modern New York."  Two weeks earlier, the newspaper had reported that 240 East 79th Street "is rapidly nearing completion and is nearly 50 per cent leased."

An advertisement in Town & Country on September 15, 1929 offered three- or four-room apartments with one or two baths and "large living rooms, outside dining rooms."  Rents started at $1,350 a year, or about $2,100 a month in today's terms.  There were two "sky maisonettes" on the penthouse level.  An advertisement in The New Yorker noted that they included, "real kitchens."

Among those who signed leases during construction were Percy O'Gorman, advertising manager of Durham Duplex Razor Company; Dr. Claude E. Heaton; Dr. Anthony Fugassi; and Charles E. Gautier, secretary of J. H. Gautier Company, a crucibles firm.  

Taking one of the penthouses was the 24-year-old Charles Cavendish.  Upon his moving in, The New York Sun remarked on June 17, 1930, "Lord Charles, who is the second son of the Duke of Devonshire, is engaged in the banking business in New York."  Cavendish worked for J. P. Morgan & Co. and was romantically involved with Adele Astaire, the sister of Fred Astaire and his dancing partner.  The two had met in London in 1927.  Cavendish's residency here would be relatively short.  On October 23, 1931, Reuters reported that Adele "confirmed her engagement to Lord Charles Cavendish."  The couple was married in Chatsworth House, Cavendish's ancestral home near Chesterfield, England, in 1932 and they remained there.

Newlyweds Gardner Hale and Dorothy A. Donovan were also initial residents.  Hale was born in Chicago in 1894 and educated at Yale.  He studied art in Rome and Paris and at the Art Students League in New York.  Hale was well-known as a muralist and, according to The New York Sun, was "generally credited with the revival in this country of fresco painting."  Gardner and Dorothy were married in 1929.  She was his second wife.  His first wife was author Marie Louise Gibson, who used the pseudonym Maryse Rutledge.  They were divorced in 1926.

In November 1931, Gardner and Dorothy Hale went to Long Beach, California for a six-month stay.  On December 28, Hale headed for San Francisco alone.  The next day, The New York Sun reported, "The body of Gardner Hale, young painter of murals and frescoes, was found yesterday at the bottom of a 500-foot precipice, forty miles from Santa Maris, where his automobile had plunged from a highway."  Hale was 37 years old.

Azel Farnsworth Hatch and Dorothy Doane were married in August 1932 and moved into one of the penthouses.  Hatch, who had served in World War I and decorated with the Croix de Guerre, was president of A. F. Hatch & Co., bankers.  

Four months later, on December 10, the Times Union reported that Dorothy "was found in their penthouse apartment...early today with a bullet wound over her heart.  The shot was fired from a Luger pistol, war souvenir of her husband."

Police found Dorothy in a negligee on the living room floor.  According to the Times Union, Dorothy muttered, "I did it myself," then lapsed into a coma.  Hatch told the police that Dorothy had discovered the firearm while "cleaning out a closet."  She "asked her husband what she was to do with it," recounted The New York Times.  "It was discharged and a bullet entered her chest."  The incident was deemed an accident; however, Hatch was charged with a violation of the Sullivan Law, an early gun control statute.

The boyish-looking Azel F. Hatch earned $100,000 a year, according to his wife (a comfortable $2.3 million today).  The Daily News, December 19, 1936.

The Hatches' marriage did not last and when Dorothy filed for separation on December 18, 1936, she told the court the truth of the incident four years earlier.  The Daily News reported, "It was attempted murder, and not an accident, she told the Manhattan Supreme Court."  The New York Post said in part:

Telling the Supreme Court about it, she said she was sitting on her husband's lap, weeping and pleading with him about something or other on the night of December 9, 1932.  Without warning, she said, her husband picked up a German Luger pistol, a little trinket he had taken from some German prisoner, and shot her.

Azel Hatch, not surprisingly, gave a different version of the incident (although this one, too, differed from the couple's original story).  He said that Dorothy had "snatched up the gun and fired it herself."  He added that he "didn't stop her when she grabbed the gun because he was amused.  Besides, he was sure the gun wasn't loaded."  Dorothy obtained her divorce and Azel was never charged with attempted murder.

Another titled resident, Josef Franz, Archduke of Austria and Prince of Hungary, and his wife, Princess Anna of Saxony, moved into 240 East 79th Street in 1937.  The couple was married in October 1924 and had five children.  (Three more would come later.)  Archduke Josef Franz was born in 1895 to the last Palatine of Hungary.

Archduke Joseph Franz and Princess Anna Monika Pia.  (original source unknown)

The Nazi annexation of Austria had made staying in Europe dangerous for the family.  The members of the imperial family discovered that they would quickly need to adapt to American rules and customs.  The same applied to the family's staff.  On January 7, 1938, The New York Times reported, "Archduke Franz Josef of Austria was fined a dollar for overtime parking."  The Archduke's chauffeur explained in traffic court, "the Archduke is unfamiliar with traffic regulations here," said the article.

America's entry to World War II resulted in several residents of 240 West 79th Street going off to the front.  Dr. Emil E. Napp, who lived here with his wife, the former Ruth Marschalk, was on the staff of the Flower-Fifth Avenue Hospital.  He became a commander with the Navy Medical Corps in the South Pacific.  Napp received the Navy and Marine Corps medal for his work on Guadalcanal in 1942, and was awarded the Silver Star on May 19, 1944.

Another resident doctor was Gurney Taylor.  He rose to the rank of lieutenant colonel with the American Seventh Army in France.  He was attached to the Ninth Evacuation Hospital in the Vosges Forest, which was, somewhat astonishingly, "manned by the veteran Roosevelt Hospital Unit from New York," as reported by The New York Times on October 29, 1944.

240 East 79th Street soared above the neighboring buildings in 1940.  via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services.

Two other residents returned from the war in 1945.  One was Captain Carel Van Heukelom, and the other Barbara Murphy, one of 280 volunteer workers of the American Red Cross who served in the European theatre of operations.  Barbara told a reporter that "she had driven a clubmobile during her eighteen months overseas," adding, "Oh, I made the Grand Tour."

A fascinating resident was Marjorie T. Bellows, here at midcentury.  Born in 1906, she earned her masters degree in statics at the Columbia School of Public Heath.  From 1928 to 1929 she was senior statistician at the New York State Health Department.  She joined the American Heart Association in 1946 and became its senior staff member.  While there she directed investigations into the statistical aspects of cardiovascular issues, like rheumatic fever.  Bellows, who never married, developed the technique of "case registers," that analyzed the nature and uses of recording systems in public health administration.

Among Marjorie Bellows's neighbors in the building at the time was actress Lili Darvas.  Born in Hungary in 1902, she made a name on the Budapest stage as a young woman, debuting in 1921 as the female lead in Romeo and Juliet.  She married playwright Ferenc Molnar in 1926.  Lili was appearing in Vienna in 1938 when the Nazi troops invaded.  She said later that "she simply packed her things, walked onto a train to Switzerland and departed" with her Hungarian passport.  

The couple arrived in New York and Lili Darvas first appeared on stage here in 1941 in The Criminals.  Molnar died in 1952, and Lili continued acting, appearing in roles that most often portrayed characters fitting her European background.  Such was the case when she played the domineering mother of Sigmund Freud in the Henry Denker drama A Far Country.

Lili Darvas and Billy Mumy in a 1961 Twilight Zone episode, "Long Distance Call."  CBS Television publicity shot.

The indefatigable actress did not restrict herself to the stage, film or television.  On June 13, 1963, The New York Times interviewed her regarding her upcoming catering stint.  She had been asked by another actress to prepare an after-theater dinner party for 50 guests.

Lili Darvas died in her apartment here on August 22, 1974 at the age of 72.  

In September 1984, The New York Times reported that 240 East 79th Street was undergoing a cooperative conversion.   Among the new apartment owners in 1989 was bond trader Jeffrey M. Stambovsky, who placed a down payment on a country house that August.  He got buyer's remorse when he picked up a 1977 Readers' Digest article titled, "Our Haunted House on the Hudson."  In it, Helen V. Ackley, from whom he was buying the 18-room Victorian residence in Nyack, wrote about its ghosts.  The New York Times reported on March 16, 1990, "She described one as a 'cheerful apple-cheeked man' who looked more like Santa Claus than Rex Harrison in 'The Ghost and Mrs. Muir.'"

Stambovsky sued to get his money back.  He claimed in court that publicity of the ghost stories "threatened the house's property value" and that Mrs. Ackley "never told him about the ghosts."  Unfortunately for Stambovsky, while the judge agreed that the stories might affect the property values, he said that Ackerly "was not required to tell Mr. Stambovsky of any ghosts."

Thankfully, little has changed outwardly to 290 East 79th Street in its nearly 100 years of existence.  And, although Ruth Carroll's Art Deco lobby murals have been painted over, outside Godwin, Thompson and Patterson's bold and striking ground floor elements are showstoppers to this day.

photographs by the author

Boak & Paris's 1930 45 Christopher Street

 

In 1929 Cobham Realty hired the architectural firm of Murgatroyd & Ogden to design a 16-story-and-penthouse "brick hotel" on the site of five vintage structures at 41 through 49 Christopher Street.  Something derailed that project and the following year Boak & Paris filed plans for a 16-story apartment building with stores on the site.  The architects projected the construction costs at $500,000--about $9.3 million in 2026.

The firm's Art Deco design included a two-story rusticated stone base.  The entrance, centered between stores, was flanked by shallow pilasters decorated with stylized palm trunks.  Verticality of the brick-faced upper portion was emphasized by thin ribs that rose to romantic stone balconies.  Terraced penthouse apartments shared the roof with a creatively designed water tower.

image via homes.com

Despite the ongoing Depression, 45 Christopher Street filled with financially-comfortable residents.  Among the first were the family of George E. Heidt, who leased a penthouse in August 1931; newspaper columnist Louis Sobal, who rented "a duplex apartment in the penthouse," as reported by The New York Times; and attorney John Langley Ridley.

Ridley was the nephew of multimillionaire Edward Albert Ridley.  In 1932, Edward hired his personal secretary, Lee Weinstein.  Less than a year later, on May 10, 1933, the 88-year-old Ridley and Weinstein were discovered murdered.  The younger Ridley's suspicions were raised when his uncle's will was read.  For one thing, the recently written document was not drawn up by the elderly man's trusted attorney, and his bankers knew "nothing about it."   The new will bequeathed $200,000 to Weinstein and completely ignored Ridley's relatives (including John L. Ridley).  The New York Times estimated the estate at about $7 million (nearly $170 million today).

John L. Ridley filed a caveat against the probate of the will in May 1933.  An investigation revealed that Weinstein "had been the head of a conspiracy" to drain Edward Ridley's fortune.  He slipped the fake will into a stack of papers for the elderly man to sign.  Unfortunately for Weinstein, his conspirators' greed ended not only his employer's life, but his own.  In November the estate was distributed among the millionaire's relatives.  John Langley Ridley received "one-third of his uncle's large real estate holdings," reported The New York Times.  

from the collection of the New York Public Library

Among Ridley's neighbors in the building at the time was Navy Lieutenant Eric Hoag, who lived on the fifth floor.  He was attached to the Brooklyn Navy Yard.  Early in November 1933, a friend, Lieutenant John Dyer Foley, was married in Seattle, Washington.  A naval surgeon, he and his bride would be relocating to the Civilian Conservation Camp at Montpelier, Vermont.  Two weeks after their wedding, the newlyweds visited Eric Hoag.

At 2:00 on the morning of November 13, Mrs. Foley awoke and found "my husband was gone," she later explained.  "I aroused the household.  We looked out a kitchen window and saw my husband lying three stories below on a balcony."

The 31-year-old was conscious when his wife and Hoag reached him.  At St. Vincent's Hospital he said, "I didn't know anything until I struck [the balcony].  I must have been walking in my sleep."  Newspapers across the country reported on the sailor's nocturnal plunge.  Mrs. Foley telegraphed her parents in Seattle, assuring them, "The newspaper accounts made the injuries appear more serious than they were."

Jeanette Bair, who worked for Feer Realty Corp., was the agent for 45 Christopher Street at the time.  A representative of the firm later testified, "Her instructions included the refraining from entering an apartment...unless she had a prospective tenant."  But around noon on August 8, 1934, she violated that rule and entered Penthouse E, the home of Zara Reigga, who was on vacation.

Four months earlier, Bair's husband had obtained a divorce.  He told officials, "on several occasions she attempted to effect a reconciliation," but he refused.  The despondent Jeanette Bair opened the gas jets of Zara Reigga's stove and oven.  It appears that she intended to kill herself by inhaling gas, but the plan went horribly wrong.

Louis Sobol was on the sofa in his penthouse next door at 12:38 when a massive explosion blew out the wall between the two apartments and threw him to the ground.  The New York Times said it "shook buildings within a half-mile radius...For several minutes after the blast, plate and window glass, fragments of Venetian blinds, and bits of brick and mortar rained down on Sheridan Square."  About an hour after the explosion, "a piece of roof coping weighing between twenty and thirty pounds plunged through the sidewalk canopy and was shattered," said the newspaper.

Terrified residents attempted to flee, but police stopped them in the lobby.  "You can't leave," once policeman said.  "Some one has blown the roof off this place with a bomb and everyone must be questioned."  It would be a while before investigators realized the source of the explosion.

Jeanette Bair, of course, was killed.  Amazingly, 37-year-old Louis Sobol suffered only cuts, and his maid, Anna Filsingeo was "cut and bruised."  Other residents were injured by being hit by glass or falling items, or from being thrown from their feet.  Ethel Jackson, a maid in one of the other penthouses, was "hurled through the bathroom door" and suffered painful bruises.

Fred C. Kuehnle, chief inspector for the Building Department, estimated the damages to Zara Reigga's furnishings and artwork at $5,000 (about $117,000 today).  Understandably, she did not return to 45 Christopher Street.  Following the major repairs to the building, an advertisement in The New York Sun on October 6, 1934 offered the vacant penthouse.  It touted a "sunken living room over 20 ft. sq.; wood-burning fireplace, spacious dining foyer, extensive terrace."

Perhaps the first artist to move into 45 Christopher Street was Russian-born illustrator Boris Mikhailovich Artzybasheff and his wife.  Born in 1899, his father, Mikhail Artsybashev, was a noted author.  Mikhailovich came to America in 1919 and quickly began earning a reputation for his book and magazine illustrations.  His work appeared in magazines like Time, Fortune and Life, and he would ultimately create 219 Time covers.

Artzyhasheff created Steel in 1934.

In reporting on the arrival of the steamship Washington on June 25, 1936, the New York Post commented, "Also on the liner was Mrs. Boris Artzybasheff, wife of the artist and daughter-in-law of the famous Russian novelist."  The article mentioned that she worked as a broker.

Another resident artist was sculptor Walter Rotan, here as early as 1944.  Born in 1912, he has been described as "an Impressionist and Modern artist."  He was living here in March 1944 when his bronze head Henry received the Ellen P. Speyer Memorial Prize in the 188th Annual Exhibition of the National Academy of Design.

A colorful resident was James J. McCormick, a widower who lived here with his widowed daughter, Hazel Jacobs.  McCormick had been a Tammany leader for 22 years and "a power in the Hall," according to The New York Times.  

His career had come to an abrupt halt in 1931 when the Seabury Investigation, which delved into city government corruption, discovered his graft and extortion.  The investigators discovered that he held 30 bank accounts containing "more than $257,900," according to The New York Times.  Almost all of that had been obtained from couples whom "he had married as chief of the Marriage License Bureau."  Other money came from "gratuities given him by 'friends' whom he aided when they became involved in difficulties over violations of building regulations."  He had, additionally, failed to file income tax returns for 1929 and 1930, during which time he received $69,000 "in gratuities."

In January 1939, McCormick suffered a cerebral hemorrhage.  He died in St. Elizabeth's Hospital a week later, on January 22.

As Jeanette Bair had been, in 1939 Adelaide Tate was the building's renting agent.  She, too, was a divorcee and, she too, was troubled.  Among the tenants she placed here was Standard Oil Company chemical engineer Age Skiolvig, who moved into one of the penthouses.  According to Skiolvig, "he had taken her to several parties."  The eligible bachelor, however, had a much different take on their casual relationship than did Tate.

On November 22, 1939, Skiolvig flew to Cleveland, Chicago and St. Louis on business.  Adelaide accompanied him to the airport.  In each city, he received telephone calls and telegrams from the smitten Adelaide.  At some point, Skiolvig "became suspicious that the calls and telegrams were originating from his apartment," reported The New York Times.  He telephoned the building's superintendent, who entered the Skiolvig apartment and found Adelaide there.  Skiolvig insisted "he did not know how she got into his apartment."  Apparently, as the renting agent, she had kept a copy of the key.

Adelaide gave the superintendent the key and promised to leave.  Then, according to The New York Sun, "Skiolvig became "annoyed and a bit alarmed at the tone of a telegram Mrs. Tate had sent him" and he hurried back to New York, arriving in New York at 7 a.m. on the morning of November 29.

He walked into his apartment to find Adelaide was asleep in a chair, still wearing a hat and coat.  When he wakened her, "she asked for a glass of tomato juice, which he gave her," according to The New York Times.  He then "reprimanded her" for the $100 bill of "telephone and telegraph tolls" she had run up.  Twenty minutes later, she walked into the bathroom and jumped from the window to her death 17 floors below.

Snow falling on the day this 1940 photograph was taken gave it a polka-dot effect.  via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services.

Among the shops in the 1940s was the National Flower Decorating Company florist shop and Irving Weiss's liquor store.  Victor Emanual was the cashier of the flower shop in 1940 when a man who "appeared to be carrying a pistol in his pocket," according to The New York Times, walked in and demanded money.  The 26-year-old cashier handed over $1,281 and the robber fled.

Irving Weiss was not so lucky four years later.  At 12:15 on the afternoon of January 15, Maxine Golberg walked into the liquor store to find Weiss dead on the floor with two gunshot wounds in his head.  This was not a robbery, however.  Detectives said that Weiss was found "in a sitting position behind his swivel chair" and no cash appeared to be missing.

Living here by the late 1940s was newspaper man and playwright James Gow and his wife, the former Olga Alexander.  The couple married in 1941.  With Arnaud d'Usseau, he wrote the 1943 Tomorrow the World and Deep are the Roots, which premiered in 1945.  The former dealt with how post-World War II German children could be reassimilated into normal life after their indoctrination by the Nazis.  The latter play dealt with Blacks within the South.  He wrote screenplays for motion pictures including Ballerina and Paramount on Parade.

Another resident in the theater field was Carroll McComas.  Born in 1886, she made her stage debut in 1907.  While she was a dancer and singer in vaudeville, she was best known for whistling.  She went on to Broadway, where she would play in more than 24 roles, and made her first silent movie in 1916 in When Love is King.  

Carroll McComas with Frank Craven in the 1916 Seven Chances.  from the collection of the New York Public Library

While living here, she appeared on Broadway in Design for a Stained Glass Window, Arms and the Man, The Glass Menagerie and The Innocents; and in the 1953 film Jamaica Run and The Miracle Worker, released in 1962.  She died of a heart attack in her apartment here on November 9, 1962 at the age of 76.

Other residents in the 1960s were artist Ben Bishop; fashion consultant Gastona Marie Rossilli; and labor historian and economist Dr. Lewis L. Lorwin.

Bishop was born in the Bronx in 1923 and held a BFA in art history from the University of Nebraska and did graduate work at Columbia University, the New York University's Institute of Fine Arts, and the University of California at Berkeley where he received his Masters in painting in 1954.  His paintings hang in the collections of the Syracuse Museum, the Russell Sage Museum, the Brandeis University Museum, the Jewett Art Center and several other institutions.

Gastona Marie Rossilli attended the Traphagen School of Fashion and held a degree from Seton Hall University.  A "fashion-behavioral consultant," she had made field studies in the West of "the relation between clothing and behavior of American Indians," as explained by The New York Times.  She also conducted research in Europe and other parts of the U.S.   While living here, she consulted for department stores and the Fashion Institute.

In 1987, 45 Christopher Street was converted from a rental building to condominiums.  

In 1997, management of the Stonewall Inn attempted to circumvent the zoning rule that "prohibits cabaret licenses for places with entrances within 100 feet of a residential district."  The intention was to install a dance floor on the second floor of the bar  On August 6, The Villager reported, "But residential neighbors at 45 Christopher St., are opposing the permit.  Their lawyer, Stewart O'Brien, explained, "We have no problem with an eating and drinking establishment on the second floor, but a disco makes a lot of noise."

The imposing building that soars high above its neighbors, has become an architectural landmark within the Greenwich Village neighborhood.  

photographs by the author