The John Chandler Moore Mansion -- No. 15 East 70th Street

On January 9, 1910 The New York Times advised “The finest residential block in Manhattan is now in process of development from Fifth to Madison Avenue, between Seventieth and Seventy-First Streets.  This is the Lenox Library block, which in less than three years has undergone a complete transformation.”   

The newspaper reported on the coming demolition of James Lenox’s magnificent library building and opined that if James Lenox were alive “he would see the great open field in the rear that has been a familiar sight for many years to every passenger traveling on the Madison Avenue cars being filled up with a number of the most elegant types of private dwellings to be found in this country.”

One of the “most elegant types of private dwellings” that was nearing completion was the home of John Chandler Moore at No. 15 East 70^th Street.   Moore and his wife, the former Corinne de Bebian, had commissioned Charles I. Berg of the architectural firm of Cady, Berg & See to design their new home.

Moore was President of Tiffany & Co. jewelers; a Moore-Tiffany relationship that stretched back to the first half of the 19^th century.  Moore’s grandfather, also named John Chandler Moore, established his silver making business in 1832.  His exquisite pieces were made for the top-end retailers most notably Marquand & Co. and their successors, Ball, Tompkins & Black.  But in 1851 he signed an exclusive agreement with Tiffany.

It was his son, Edwin C. Moore (the father of the present John Chandler Moore) whose creations became the face and personality of Tiffany & Co.  He was called “easily the foremost silversmith in the United States” by The Illustrated American. John Chandler Moore became associated with Tiffany & Co. in 1880 and became its President in 1907, two years before construction began on the 70^th Street mansion.  

Berg had produced a magnificent limestone-clad Beaux Arts-style home for the Moores.  Five stories high, its entrance was centered within the rusticated base, below a carved cartouche that announced the address.

While some French-inspired mansions along Fifth Avenue and its side streets dripped with garlands and other ornamentation; the Moore house was restrained in its decoration.  Even the ordered iron railing of the third floor balcony resisted the temptation of excess.

John and Corinne had one son, Louis de Bebian Moore.  The Moore family maintained a summer estate in Oyster Bay Cove, Long Island, “Moorelands.”  The mansion there was also designed by Charles Berg. 

The Moore's Long Island estate, Moorelands, was also designed by Charles Berg -- Architecture, 1918 (copyright expired)

A year after the family moved into the 70^th Street home, the engagement of Louis was announced on New Year’s Eve, 1911.  Louis had graduated from Harvard earlier that year.

Three weeks later, on January 24, Corinne hosted the first of the related entertainments.  The New-York Tribune reported on the luncheon she gave “for Miss Allison Pierce, whose engagement to Louis de Bebian Moore was recently announced.”

Allison Douglass Pierce was the daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Winslow Shelby Pierce and, like her fiance, moved in the best of circles.  A year earlier she had been a member of the wedding of Vivien Gould to Lord Decies.  Her own “country wedding” would take place at her parents' Long Island estate, “Dunstable,” in September 1912.

To get the many guests from Manhattan a special train was arranged.  The marriage of the two socially-visible young people prompted The Sun to call it “interesting” to society.

In 1930 the Moores could boast that their home, or rather their rear yard, was the center of Manhattan society.  For years the Social Register Association had analyzed the addresses of prominent families listed in the New York Social Register.  It then discerned the exact social center of Manhattan.  This year, according to the Association, “the precise point…was in the southeastern quarter of the rear yard of 15 East Seventieth Street.”

Sadly for John and Corinne Moore, they could not claim the distinction for long.  The continuous northward movement of society placed the social center a block away by 1932, between 71^st and 72^nd Street and Madison and Park Avenues.

Two years after John Chandler Moore became Chairman of the Board of Tiffany & Co., his wife died at the Oyster Bay estate on October 10, 1942.  Four years later Moore died in the 70^th Street mansion at the age of 82.

At the time of Moore’s death the Barmore School operated from No. 22 East 60^th Street.  The private women’s college offered courses in the liberal arts and “practical career preparation.”  In 1947 it acquired the Moore mansion, converting it to classrooms.

The school kept up with the changing times, introducing “an accelerated specialized training for college graduates” in 1951; and that same year, a course in wedding planning.

The Israeli Consulate was located in the adjoining house at No. 11 East 70^th Street.  By 1958 the Israeli Government had taken No. 15, as well, as its United Nations delegation building.  A fire that started in the “wood-paneled office” of counselor Arthur Liveran at around 10:15 a.m. on April 31 that year tied up traffic in the area for two hours and briefly trapped one worker, a secretary, on the fourth floor.  She was rescued by ladder by firemen.

In 1983 Nos. 15 and 11 had been internally connected and a conversion to condos by Raphael Cohen and Enrico Frigerio was underway.  In October that year The New York Times announced that one-, two- and three-bedrooms apartments would be available from $459,000 to $1 million.  John Chandler Moore’s former home lured celebrated house-hunters.

Spy magazine reported “it came as no surprise when, shortly after the Time’s announcement ran, [Richard M.] Nixon himself appeared on the stoop at No. 15 East 70^th Street, eager to buy.  The renovation had hardly begun, but Nixon wasn’t taking any chances; he put down a deposit on one of the apartments and signed an agreement to buy it.  Later the fashion designer Norma Kamali came, and she was so charmed that she wanted to buy two apartments.  Later still came another person well know to Manhattan real estate brokers—Madonna.”

Among later owners would be Jerry W. Levin, former chairman of the Sharper Image whose unit engulfed the entire third floor.  In December 2012 a sprawling apartment, deemed by Robin Finn of The New York Times to be “a ‘Petite’ Versailles,” was offered at $10.95 million.

No. 15 has been joined internally with No. 11 (right).

From the sidewalk view, little has changed to John Chandler Moore’s mansion.  It looks much as it did in 1910 when The Times deemed this “the finest residential block in Manhattan.”

photographs by the author

The Lost Gillender Building -- No. 14 Wall Street

The Gillender Building sat on an improbably-small lot.  photo Library of Congress

On March 7, 1905 the New-York Daily Tribune reported that Augustus T. Gillender had, in the newspaper’s words,  gone “insane.”  The article contained a single line that infuriated one reader.  “He owned the Gillender Building, at Wall and Nassau sts.”

Three days later the following letter appeared in the newspaper:

To the Editor of The Tribune.

Sir:  In your issue of yesterday, under the heading of ‘A. T. Gillender Insane,’ you said that the Gillender Building, at Nassau and Wall sts., had been owned by Augustus T. Gillender.  This statement is not correct.  The land I inherited from my grandfather many years ago, and the building on it was constructed and owned by myself, and was named by me for my father, Eccles Gillender, and Mr. Augustus T. Gillender never has had, nor has he now, the slightest interest in the property.”

Helena L. Gillender Asinari

Admitting its mistake much later, the New-York Tribune would say “Mrs. Helena L. Gillender Asinari inherited the property from George Lovett, her grandfather, in 1849.”  Once again the newspaper had problems getting its facts straight.  

George Lovett, a wealthy lumber merchant and real estate investor, purchased the plot in 1849 for $55,000—an astonishing $1.73 million in today’s dollars.   Upon the settlement of his estate in 1873, the property passed to Helena. 

As the turn of the new century approached, steel-frame construction was making taller buildings possible.  Coupled with improved elevator engineering, New York real estate developers were getting the idea that, almost literally, the sky was the limit.

Along with the Manhattan fervor to construct ever-higher structures came the public’s concern that the streets would be left in a constant dusk.   New building regulations were tossed about to ensure that sunlight made its way to the pavement.  Unsure of what those restrictions would entail, Helen L. Gillender Asinari went into action in 1896, hoping to get ahead of the proposed laws.

At the time the narrow plot held the six-story Union Building.  Only 25-feet, 2 inches wide on Wall Street, it was the width of an upscale Fifth Avenue house.  The Nassau Street width was 73 feet, 5 inches.  In short it was a perfect sized plot for a six-story structure.

But having been bitten by the skyscraper bug, Helena hired architect Charles I. Berg to design a soaring office tower on the site.  Berg was challenged not only by the small plot; but by the spongy soil on which the building would sit.  In order to support a building of what Fireproof Magazine called “towering proportions,” caissons took the place of what normally would have been a sub-basement where storage rooms or income-producing vaults could be housed.

A turn-of-the-century postcard of Wall Street captured the Gillender Building with Trinity Church beyond.

The small rectangular footprint created a nightmare for Berg in laying out office space.   Common corridors, stairways and elevator shafts took up much of the usable interior space.  The several logistical and engineering drawbacks suggest that Helena L. Gillender Asinari most likely defiantly forged ahead against more sensible counsel.

Construction began in 1896 and was completed exactly ten months to the day afterward, prompting Fireproof Magazine to say “The Gillender office building has taken rank in the metropolis as one of the most rapidly completed structures as yet achieved anywhere in the United States.”

Journalists and architects disagreed about the number of floors.   The New York Times said it was 19 stories tall.   Technical World Magazine gave it credit for only 16 floors, ignoring the tower; while other publications counted the cupola as a floor, making a total of 20.  What everyone agreed upon was the height—306 feet from the curb to the tip of the tower’s pinnacle.  It was for a short time, according to The New York Times “the tallest office structure in the world” and “one of the wonders of the city.”

According to contractor Charles T. Wills, the cost of the completed granite-clad structure was $500,000.  It was a handsome structure when viewed squarely from the Nassau Street viewpoint.   When the skinny Wall Street side was taken into view, however, the Gillender Building took on the look of domino set on end, ready to topple at any moment.

Touted as “absolutely fireproof,” the steel framework of the skyscraper was encased in cement mortar.   No combustible materials were used inside, other than “unimportant details of trim,” according to Fireproof Magazine.  The magazine added, incidentally, “The interior decoration, finish and equipment are in perfect harmony with the general scheme of construction.”

Helena Gillender Asinari was fortunate in that a previous tenant in her Union Building, The Manhattan Trust Company, now took the three lower floors of the Gillender Building.   The small offices of the upper floors were taken by brokerage firms like Henry Allen & Co. and Patton & Cannon.

Being the tallest building in the neighborhood could have its disadvantages.  In July 1897, only months after the building opened, a storm blew in from the harbor.  The wooden flagpole atop the cupola was struck by lightning and was, according to The New York Times, “entirely wrecked.”

The flag pole atop the cupola was destroyed by lightning twice -- American Architect, June 15, 1901 (copyright expired)

Three years later on May 31, 1900, the replacement flag pole was struck again.  The New York Times reported “That lightning never strikes twice in the same place was proved a false theory yesterday afternoon, when a terrific stroke sent splinters flying in every direction from the flag pole on the Gillender Building at Nassau and Wall Streets.”

Wrapping the Gillender Building was the L-shaped Stevens Building.  In 1908 it was leased to the Bankers Trust Company which, like the Manufacturers Trust Company, was affiliated J. P. Morgan & Co. whose building was diagonally across Wall Street.   Then, on December 15, 1909, it was announced the Helena L. Gillender Asinari had sold the Gillender Building to her major tenant, the Manhattan Trust Company.     The bank met Helena’s purchase price of $1.5 million—almost $40 million by today’s standards.  “As the plot occupied by the structure comprises 1,825 square feet, about $825 a square floor was paid for the site,” said the New-York Tribune.  “That would be a new high record price for land on Manhattan Island.”

The newspaper figured the value of the property only in terms of the land, saying “the worth of the building on the plot did not figure largely in the sum which was obtained for the property.”

Much to the astonishment of many New Yorkers, The Sun reported that the Gillender Buildling—only 12 years old—was most likely doomed.  “Morgan interests are identified with both the Manhattan Trust Company and the Bankers Trust Company.  Negotiations are under way between the two companies which if successful will result in the demolition of both the old Stevens Building and the comparatively modern Gillender Building and the erection of a thirty-two story skyscraper on the combined plot.”

On New Year’s Day, just two weeks after the Manhattan Trust Company purchased the Gillender Building, the New-York Tribune reported that it had resold the property and “rented from the purchaser the ground floor and other space in the building for a term of eighty-four years.”

The 84-year lease would play out in an entirely new building.  The purchaser was Bankers Trust, which now controlled the large corner plot. 

In April 1910 “dismemberment” of the Gillender Building began, making way for Trowbridge & Livingston’s $3 million, 39-story Bankers Trust Company Building.  “This new building will be erected on the combined plot at the joint expense of the two trust companies and will be occupied jointly by them,” announced The Sun on May 1.

The New York Times wrote on April 10, 1910 “Here is a modern steel skyscraper in every respect, which was finished barely twelve years ago, and yet the purchasers of the property are going to sacrifice it as ruthlessly as though it were some ancient shack whose usefulness had long outlived the demands required from it by the immediate business vicinity.”

Adding to its boasts of having been the tallest building in the city, the most rapidly-constructed, and the highest price paid per square foot; the Gillender Building was now the first skyscraper ever to be demolished.  The term “dismembered,” used by a structural engineer, was aptly chosen.  

The structure was disassembled from the top down.  Jacob Volk, the contractor, explained to reporters that “A big shaft will be cut through the center of the building, and the material, as torn out, beginning at the top, will be dumped through it to the ground and the night force will cart it away.”  An enormous sidewalk bridge covered Nassau Street to “prevent possible accident from falling steel girders or blocks of granite,” said The New York Times on April 30.

The importance of dismantling a pioneer skyscraper was not lost on Professor Charles Baskerville, Director of the Department of Chemistry at the College of the City of New York.  He obtained permission from to examine and photograph the steel as it was exposed by the workers.  His purpose was to study corrosion, the condition of the beams and rivets and other structural elements.   The Gillender Building, in its early demise, provided important information to engineers and architects going forward.

In 1910 workers started at the top in demolishing the structure -- photo from the collection of the New York Public Library

Former Congressman Robert Baker of Brooklyn fired off a letter to Mayor Gaynor demanding that the demolition of the Gillender Building cease immediately.  “The demolition of the Gillender Building at Wall and Nassau Streets is rapidly producing a condition fraught with the direst possible consequences,” he wrote, “not alone to our citizens, but to the entire country.  This proceeding threatens to paralyze the financial activities of the Nation, as none of these millionaires can reach their offices without traversing air completely surcharged with pulverized stone, mortar, and brick, and thus filling their lungs, eyes, ears, nostrils, and clothes with this volcanic like material.”

An enormous sidewalk bridge covered the entire width of Nassau Street -- photo Library of Congress

Baker insisted that the Fire Department should direct a stream of water on the building during its removal in fear that the country’s economy would collapse.  “While ostensibly this appeal is made in the interest of a class, it is really induced by a desire to avert that stoppage of the wheels of industry of the Nation that would—we are assured—follow the temporary driving of our financial magnates from their field of operations, for the Nation has no right to demand that these men continue to run the affairs of the country under such conditions dangerous to their health.”

Despite the former congressman’s ardent plea, the mayor allowed the demolition to continue, J. P. Morgan and his peers continued to arrive at their offices, and the economy survived.

Trowbridge & Livingston's Bankers Trust Building still stands.  photo from the collection of the New York Public Library

The former Bankers Trust Company Building survives today—nearly ten times the lifespan of its predecessor, the unlikely Gillender Building.

many thanks to reader Peter Alsen for suggesting this post