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

The William E. Parsons House - 86 Christopher Street

 

Samuel Whittemore operated a factory in Greenwich Village in the early decades of the 19th century, making machinery for the textile industry.  He was a politician as well, serving as State Assemblyman in 1816.  Whittemore owned substantial property in the district.  In 1830, the year he became the president of the newly-formed Greenwich Bank, the family moved into a lavish mansion at 45 Grove Street.  At the time, the house and its outbuildings sat alone on the block.  The Whittemores' stable was accessed on Christopher Street.

Six years later, Samuel Whittemore erected two two-and-a-half-story houses on the south side of Christopher Street between Bleecker and West 4th Streets (Seventh Avenue would not appear until 1917).  Originally identical, they were faced in Flemish bond brick.  Three bays wide, two dormers would have pierced their peaked roofs.  The houses straddled the Federal and Greek Revival styles.  The anthemion motif of the ironwork was important to both styles, however the substantial fluted columns and carved entablatures of the handsome entranceways anticipated the "pure Greek" of the rising latter style. 

Whittemore most likely rented 86 Christopher Street initially.  Sharing the house in 1836 were Jane Hyslop, a teacher; and Dr. T. Marselis.  In the early 1840s, auctioneer Andrew C. Tuttle and his family occupied the house.

It was offered for sale in April 1843 and became home to the William Sullivan family by 1847.  That year Sullivan was part of the "committee of arrangements" for "The First Ball of the La Fayette Guards."  Sullivan was a member of the First Company of the New York State Artillery.  After the militia unit was made part of the escort for Marquis de Lafayette during his visit in 1824, the marquis dubbed the group, "the Lafayette Guards."

As early as 1849, Dr. William Ezra Parsons owned 86 Christopher Street.  Born in Massachusetts in 1813, he and his wife, the former Catharine Louisa Sweeny, had three children, Reuben, William Jr., and Mary Louise--8, 3 and 2 years old respectively in 1849.  Three other children, Emily, Francis H.  and Josephine would come in 1853, 1855 and 1856.  (Francis would die shortly after birth.)

Boarding with the family in 1849 and 1850 was a widow, Elizabeth Alexander Pouder.  Born in England in 1804, her husband, George Washington Pouder, died in Baltimore in 1830 at the age of 37.

Parsons opened his dental office in the basement level.  He would take care of the teeth of Greenwich Village residents for years to come.

American Advertiser, 1850 (copyright expired)

In 1857, 16-year-old Rueben Parsons was working as a clerk.  Three years later, the teen listed his profession as real estate and had moved out of the Christopher Street house to 25 East 24th Street.  

Catherine Louisa Parsons died at the family's summer home in Pound Ridge, New York on May 7, 1890 at the age of 68.  Parsons, now 77 years old, almost immediately left New York to live in the Pound Ridge house year-round.  He, additionally, almost immediately found a new wife.  He and Margaret Strange Kellogg were married before the end of the year.

On March 14, 1891, the Record & Guide reported that Parsons had leased 86 Christopher Street to Jeremiah Rogers for five years at $600 per year.  (The yearly rent would translate to about $21,300 in 2025.)

William Ezra Parsons transferred title of the Christopher Street house to Margaret.  In February 1893, she transferred it to her 21-year-old daughter, Jessie Kellogg Parsons, from a previous marriage.  (William had adopted his step-daughter, by then.)

The year 1897 would be grief-ridden for Margaret Parsons.  William died on April 11 at the age of 84 and Jessie died six months later on November 2 at the age of 25.

The 1836 Federal-style ironwork with its anthemion finials survives.

In January 1903, the trustees of Jessie K. Parsons's estate sold 86 Christopher Street to Georgianna M. Tucker for $5,000 (about $184,000 today).  The anachronistic relic was apparently operated as a rooming house for the next few years.  Living here in 1918 was the Casey family.  They received terrifying news on December 12, 1918 when the War Department listed their son, William J. Casey, missing in action in Europe.

The changing times within the Greenwich Village neighborhood caught up to 86 Christopher Street in the fall of 1926.  On September 24, the New York Evening Post reported that James Nicolini had purchased the property saying, "The buyer will alter the house."  While preserving the vintage ironwork, the stoop, and other exterior elements of the lower floors, Nicolini's architect raised the attic to a full story.  A studio window, popular in Greenwich Village renovations at the time, flooded the top floor with northern light.

The original peaked roofline can be seen from the side in this 1941 photograph.  The owner has added cast lions to the brownstone newels.  via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services.

The top floor studio was home to painter Vincent Canadé in the 1930s, according to the Landmark Preservation Commission's 1969 Greenwich Village Historic District designation report.  Born in Italy in 1879, he and his wife, Josephine Picciulo, had six children.  Canadé's work is today exhibited in the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Hirshhorn Museum, and the Phillips Collection as well as more than 20 other institutions.

Poet Charles John Olson moved into 86 Christopher Street with Constance Wilcox, known as Connie, in October 1940.  Their relationship was described at the time as a "common-law marriage."  Describing Olson in the Washington Post on April 14, 1991, Bradford Morrow said he was a "key figure" in transitioning American poetry from modernism to postmodernism.

Charles Olson, from Britannica.com

A month after moving into 86 Christopher Street, according to George F. Butterick's A Guide to the Maximus Poems of Charles Ols0n, Olson began working as the publicity director for the American Civil Liberties Union.  In November that year, he took the position of chief of the Foreign Language Information Service, Common Council for American Unity.

A renovation in 1974 resulted in one apartment per floor.  The basement apartment was converted to a store in 1989.  It was home to Exotiqua in the early 1990s, described by Newsday in August 1992 as a "decorative object gallery," carrying merchandise from 20 countries.

Despite some alterations (most significantly the raising of the attic), 86 Christopher Street is a remarkable survivor of the first phase of development in this Greenwich Village neighborhood.

photographs by the author

many thanks to historian Anthony Bellov for suggesting this post.

Van Wart & Wein's 1931 1 Christopher Street

 

photograph by the author

Despite the ongoing Great Depression, developer Eugene Silber contracted the architectural firm of Van Wart & Wein to design a massive apartment building on the southwest corner of Greenwich Avenue and Christopher Street.  Perhaps as a gentle nod to the charming row of Federal style houses on the block, the firm designed the 16-story building in the neo-Federal style.  Completed in 1931, its entrance on Christopher Street was flanked by Doric pilasters.  Directly above, swirling volutes sat on either side of a dignified window below a broken pediment and urn.  The stone frieze above the second floor held panels of swags and stone balconies.  Stores were included along the Greenwich Avenue sidewalk to provide added income.

The architects added interest to the 11-story mid-section with brick rustication.  Following the Colonial motif, the casement style windows were given multiple panes.  The climax of Van Wart & Wein's design was the topmost section where a series of setbacks was decorated with balconies, stone urns and balustrades, and, finally, an octagonal brick and stone cupola (most likely hiding a water tank), with arched windows.  

The Depression was likely responsible for the modest size of the apartments, which ranged from one to three rooms.  The first of the stores was quickly rented in November 1931 to the Hitchcock Pharmacy.  The 12-year lease noted its use as a "drug store and luncheonette."

The initial residents were white collar, like Samuel Mann and his wife.  He had run the hosiery manufacturing firm of S. Mann & Co. until his retirement in 1925.  Another of the first tenants was Karl A. Heinzen, the president of the drug making firm, Bayer Company, Inc.

But, then, in 1941 Alfred Cohen signed a lease.  The man from Alston, Massachusetts was not so upstanding.  On June 10 the smell of gas led to Cohen's apartment being entered.  The 46-year-old was found unconscious in the kitchen with the gas jets of the stove opened.  He was taken to the Bellevue Hospital prison ward (attempted suicide was a jailable crime), while detectives searched the apartment.

They found a suicide note addressed to his wife, Helen, back home.  "In the note," said The New York Sun, "Cohen told his wife that he had done some awful things to her and that she had had the worst kind of a break from him."  He also told her about a Boston man "who had 'clipped' some one for $40,000 and advised Mrs. Cohen to get some of it."  The use of jargon bandied about by swindlers led detectives to dig deeper.  As it turned out, Cohen was a fugitive from the Boston police, having jumped bail of $10,000.  He was wanted there on a charge of grand larceny for stealing $62,439.23 in stocks and bonds.

More successful in her suicide attempt was Mrs. Gertrude Somers, who lived on the 15th floor.  On the morning of May 15, 1944 the 46-year-old woman jumped from her apartment window, leaving no notes to explain her action.

The architects embellished the building with Federal style details.  photo by Spencer Means

Aaron G. Bass, a jewelry salesman, discovered on July 30, 1952 that his 1950 Buick had been stolen.  The following day, Patrolman Anthony J. Quaranta saw "three young men driving a car that appeared to be beyond their visible means of support," as reported by The New York Times.  As he headed over to talk to them, the driver, 17-year-old Luis Rivera sped off, turning town Ninth Avenue.  In a scene straight out of the movies, Quaranta jumped into a taxicab and ordered the driver to follow the fleeing vehicle.  At Horatio Street and Eighth Avenue, Rivera slammed Aaron Bass's Buick into a fire hydrant.

On August 15, The New York Times reported that Bass was at the Criminal Courts Building "bright and early" to file his complaint against Rivera and the one accomplice who had been caught.  Following the youths' sentencing, Bass was told he was wanted downstairs in the Chief Magistrate's office.  The article said, "'What for?' inquired Mr. Bass.  He soon found out."

In attempting to discover to whom the automobile was registered, Officer Rivera had looked in the glove compartment.  There he found five unpaid parking tickets.  Further investigation revealed a total of 11 outstanding summonses going over a period of eight months.  Bass told the magistrate he had simply been "too busy" to pay them.  Before he left the courthouse that morning, he had settled the 11 tickets and paid a $96 fine ($1,000 by 2022 conversions).

Curtis G. Culin lived here by the late 1950's.  Originally from Cranford, New Jersey, he was a junior executive for the liquor firm Schenley Industries, Inc.  His neighbors, no doubt, had no idea that he had been a war hero of sorts.  On June 5, 1964, General Dwight D. Eisenhower discussed the Normandy invasion on CBS television program, "D-Day Plus 20 Years:  Eisenhower Returns to Normandy."

During it, Eisenhower told of the difficulties American tanks were having in getting over the Normandy hedge rows.  "And finally, a little sergeant in an ordnance department, his name was Culin, had an idea."  Sgt. Curtis Culin suggested welding the steel bars that the Germans had left as beach obstructions to the tanks, to form "plow-like 'snouts.'"  The idea worked.  Sadly, Culin would not know of the high praise.

The New York Times reported on June 6, "The Army sergeant whose battlefield tank invention was described by Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower last night as 'a godsend" for the invading United States forces in Normandy 20 years ago died here last November at the age of 48."  Curtis Culin had been found dead of natural causes in his apartment on November 22, 1963.

Living here by the late 1960's was stage and film actor James Patterson, his wife Rochelle Oliver, and their son John.  Patterson received an Obie Award for his performance as Bill in The Collection at the Cherry Lane Theater in 1961, and a Tony Award for his role as Stanley in Harold Pinter's 1967 The Birthday Party.  

James Patterson (second from right) in a scene from In the Heat of the Night.  image via mptvimages.com

His film roles included Dr. Lavrier in the 1964 Lilith, Lloyd Purdy in the 1967 film In the Heat of the Night, and Jeffrey Butler in Theodore Gershuny's 1972 Silent Night, Bloody Night.  Patterson died of cancer on August 19, 1972 at the age of 40.

When Cecil Silber died at the age of 94 on July 25, 2004, his family had owned 1 Christopher Street for 72 years.   Sixteen years later, his son, Jimmy Silbert, sold the 138-unit building to a European investor for $95 million.  Because it sits opposite Jefferson Market Garden, Van Wart & Wein's dignified structure can be appreciated from a block away on Sixth Avenue--perhaps the most striking viewpoint.

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The M. B. McAvoy Drugstore Building - 163 Christopher Street

 

In 1877 Levi A. Lockwood acquired the three vintage structures at the northeast corner of Washington and Christopher Streets.  Two years later he hired architect John B. Snook to design a store and flat building on the site.  Completed in 1880, the five-story structure was faced in red brick and trimmed in limestone.  Snook chamfered the corner to give additional light and ventilation to the apartments.  The residential entrance was flanked by two commercial spaces.

A fire escape system in the form of iron-railed balconies was both handsome and ingenious.  An enclosed, fireproof stairway essentially bisected the structure into two buildings.  Hallway doors opened onto the balconies, allowing tenants exit the burning side, enter the stairwell, and descend safely to the street.

The smaller store became home to Gottfried I Hartung's "segar" store, while the larger corner space became home to William H. Lauer's saloon, no doubt a welcome sight for sailors and dock men along the nearby riverfront.  

Lauer's business had not operated long before he was convicted for manslaughter on May 24, 1880.   He had hit and killed a pedestrian on the evening of October 24, 1879, then "whipped his horse into a run," as reported in the Public Ledger.   A police officer tried to chase him down, but gave up.  He had seen, however, "that the name painted on the wagon was Lauer."

The building's residents were, expectedly, working class.  Among the initial tenants were the Stock family, which had significant domestic problems.  On January 31, 1880 The Evening Telegram reported, "Frederick Stock, a sallow-complexioned, broad-shouldered young man of twenty-two years...was this morning arraigned before Justice Duffy, in the Jefferson Market Police Court, by a policeman of the Charles street police station, and called upon to answer for an assault committed by him upon his mother, a lady of about fifty-five years of age."  Mrs. Stock appeared in court with a swollen and badly bruised face, "the result, she said, of her son's brutality."

Additionally, when Frederick's father had attempted to intervene, Frederick threatened to kill him with a "huge knife," according to the arresting officer.  The young man's sister was also in court, testifying that he had previously stolen various pieces of jewelry from her.  When Frederick was unable to post the $700 bail (more than $18,000 today), he was sent to the Workhouse on Blackwell's Island.

The socio-economic level of the residents in the mid-1880's was reflected in their various jobs.  Francis Albony, for instance, was a bootblack; William Coffey was a watchman (a security guard by today's terms); Jonathan L. Cole was a house painter while John W. Cole was a carpenter.  

A young French couple named Tillard arrived in New York in 1883 and moved into the building.  Tillard had been a lieutenant in the French Army and now went into the wine business.  On the afternoon of August 31 another tenant heard moaning coming from the Tillard apartment.  The Evening Post reported, "Madame Tillard...was found lying on the bed, and when questioned as to what was the matter, said she felt very badly."  The neighbor assumed she was suffering from a toothache and left. 

The situation was much worse than a toothache.  When her husband returned home at about 6:00 that evening he found her "in a serious way" and, when he looked closer, "discovered that she had been shot in the neck."  A French-speaking physician was called, who sent for an ambulance.  The 25-year-old woman was critically injured.  According to The Evening Post, "The bullet had entered close to the wind-pipe and lodged in the back of the neck.  The bullet was of a large calibre."

Police assumed that Madame Tillard "was cleaning out a bureau drawer, when she found a pistol which her husband had placed there.  She did not know it was loaded, and while carelessly handling it, it went off."

By 1896 Joseph Schenone ran his fruit store in the former cigar shop and lived with his mother upstairs.  On April 16 he placed an advertisement in the New York Herald that read, "LOST -- An old woman (Italian): strayed away from home; aged about 65 years; any information will be rewarded; $10 reward, dead or alive."

Teresa Schenone spoke no English.  She left the apartment on April 10 and walked to her daughter's home at 119 Baxter Street.  She arrived there, spent some time, and headed back at 5:00, but never arrived home.  Now, a week later, Joseph gave a detailed description:

She wore a black calico dress with white lace on it, a white shawl and a black wrap.  She was small and had gray hair.  She was very strong for her age, however, and could easily walk from Baxter street to this place.  She did this repeatedly.

Joseph's statements, however, were a bit concerning.  "It is my opinion that she came out of my sister's and started east instead of west for Hudson street.  She probably got lost, and has been staying with Italians on the east side," he told reporters.  The idea that the woman would not have tried to get home after week made no sense; nor did her making such a drastic mistake after having made the trip "repeatedly."  And the fact that her son waited nearly that long to look for her was even more suspicious.  Whether Teresa was ever found is unclear.

Irish-born Sullivan family lived here in 1905.  Tom Sullivan passed by the brother of Tony Salamone--a member of the Black Hand terrorist group--on Hudson Street that summer, ignoring him.  According to The Sun on July 25, "The latter walked up to Sullivan and asked why he didn't speak.  'I knew you all right,' replied Sullivan, 'but I don't have to speak to the likes of you.'"  Hearing of the affront on his brother, Tony Salamone set out to "fix things."

A few nights later, on July 24, Tony found Tom on the street and said something.  Tom responded and wisely hurried on.  When he reached the door to the Christopher Street building, Tony stopped him from entering, "and asked him to walk along the street a bit further."  When they got to the corner of Washington Street, Tony pulled out a razor.  Sullivan ran to the door of the parish house of St. Veronica's Church, where he had been an altar boy.

The Sun said, "He rang the bell, but his call was not answered, and almost at once the Italian was at him slashing with the razor until Sullivan sank in a pool of blood on the steps of the house."  Although none of the terrified bystanders came to Tom's aid, someone did run to the Sullivan apartment and notified his brother, James.  While James chased Salamone, "a large crowd had gathered and nearly 300 joined in the hunt."

James Sullivan overtook Salamone at the corner of Barrow and Hudson Streets, "and the crowd closed in."  Luckily for Salamone, Detective Carmody was quickly on the scene.   Otherwise, said The Sun, "Tony might never have needed the services of anything but a coroner's jury.  As it was, Carmody had a hard fight to land his prisoner in the station house."  In the meantime, Tom Sullivan was taken to St. Vincent's Hospital where he was given "a small chance to live."

At the time of that episode Minnie Belle McAvoy had just taken over the corner commercial space for her M. B. McAvoy Pharmacy.   William Lauer's saloon had survived through the 1880's, replaced by the McRae & Co. drugstore.  On July 27, 1905 The Pharmaceutical Era reported that Minnie McAvoy "succeeds McRay & Co."  She paid $3,500 for the business--a significant $105,000 in today's money.

Born in Rome, New York in 1876, she had graduated from the New York College of Pharmacy in 1902.  She had initially worked in a drugstore before deciding to strike out on her own.  

Minnie McAvoy's business drew its customers from three main sources--the blue collar neighborhood residents, the crowds of people who streamed past on their way to and from the ferry to New Jersey at the foot of Christopher Street, and the hoards of sailors whose ships docked along the waterfront.  The stout woman's personality--a mixture of no-nonsense business and maternal compassion--quickly made her a beloved figure.

The Brooklyn Daily Eagle later described her saying she "runs a pharmacy, is guide and philosopher to sailors and marine workers...and trusted by everybody.  She'll pass the time of day, hold money and valuables for seafaring folk, talk shop about her medicines, run a little post office for seamen who even entrust her with personal matters."

Stockbroker Walter B. Boyle was passing by the pharmacy on July 18, 1908 after getting off the ferry from Hoboken.  At the corner of Washington Street he came across two men loudly arguing.  "Gentlemen, don't quarrel!" he said.

The San Francisco Call reported, "That mild remark cause two men...to stop their altercation, pick up the speaker and throw him through a big plate glass window into McAvoy's drug store, at 163 Christopher street.  They fled, but Policeman Beggs of the Charles street station arrested the peace maker as he lay amid broken glass and patent medicine bottles."

Boyle was charged with intoxication.  In the Jefferson Market Court an hour later he pleaded that he was a witness, not a culprit.  Magistrate Walsh seems to have believed him, but wondered aloud who was going to pay for Minnie McAvoy's window.  The would-be pacifist discovered that his good intentions would cost him.  He promised to replace the window.

"That's the proper spirit," said the judge, "I'll fine you $2."

The opening of the Hudson River Tubes on Christopher Street in 1908 put an end to the ferry service.  Nevertheless, Minnie McAvoy's business prospered and the story of the plucky woman spread across the nation.  

On February 4, 1924 The Alaska Daily Empire said, "she is a manufacturing chemist, shipping her preparations to all parts of the world.  At the same time she is known as 'Doctor' all over her neighborhood, where people take their minor ills to her."  Among her self-made tonics was an herbal compound the sailors swore cured a hangover.  According to The New Yorker in 1938, "She has sold 50,000 bottles in the last 29 years."

Minnie McAvoy shakes a barrel of her remedy before bottling it.  She told a reporter "The agitation has to be kept up continuously for half an hour before it is ready to be drawn."  The Spatula, February 1924 (copyright expired)

In the early hours of August 22, 1925 two patrolmen, officers Joseph McAllister and Thomas Rooney, were passing the drugstore when they heard the sound of crashing glass.   Three burglars had gotten into the cellar by breaking a padlock and then cut a two-foot hole in the basement ceiling to gain entrance to the store.  Two of them,  James McArdle and Frank Brien, shimmied up, leaving the Joseph Kopp to stand guard.  But in the darkness they bumped into a pile of Minnie's glass chemical containers which crashed to the floor, alerting the police on the sidewalk.  At the same time the burglar alarm went off.

The New York Times reported, "The police were already at the door when the bell started clanging, and at this instant...Brien and McArdle, deciding it was time to leave, ducked through the hole in the floor and dashed out of the cellar exit, leaving Kopp behind."  The officers chased the two down Christopher Street until two pistol shots into the air convinced the crooks to stop.

Back at the drugstore Officer Rooney found Kopp hiding in the dark basement.  "Then were sounds of a scuffle, and the policeman appeared with his man," said the article.  A block away the police found the getaway car, stolen a week earlier.  The men were later identified as the trio that had held up a Chinese restaurant on West 42nd Street earlier that night.

Minnie Belle McAvoy's reputation continued to spread.  On May 3, 1939 the Danville, Kentucky newspaper the Kentucky Advocate reported, "Seafaring men from all over the world drop in at Miss Minnie Belle McAvoy's drug store in Greenwich Village, New York, to have her give them medicine and kind words.  To many of them she is 'Mother McAvoy,' and her acquaintance with truckmen, sailors and clerks from wholesale houses has grown considerably in the thirty-three years since she first opened up her shop."

Minnie McAvoy tends to a neighborhood boy's scalded arm.  The Alaska Daily Empire, February 4, 1924

The New York Times said, "Mother McAvoy learned phrases from half a dozen foreign languages, so that she could converse with sailors who knew only Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, French and a few others.  From her old-fashioned desk in the store she also acted as a notary public and helped many sailors who turned to land-lubbing to become citizens."

Minnie McAvoy was so trusted that, according to The New Yorker in 1938, "Many sailors make straight for Mother McAvoy's when they get paid off and give her most of their money to put away in her safe to prevent wild spending."  The New York Times added, "Occasionally, when a sailor boisterously demanded all of his pay so he could 'see the town,' Mother McAvoy would look at him cautiously, hand him a dollar and tell him to come back for more when he felt better."  

The McAvoy Drug Store window noted that services like "citizen papers filled out here" and "notary public" were available.  from the collection of the New York Public Library

The Kentucky Advocate noted on May 3, 1939, "Sometimes [her customers] borrow money of her and she boasts that she has never lost a cent.  They are goodhearted and honest, she says, and adds that you get what you give in this world."

Then, on November 12, 1940, The New York Times reported, "Miss Minnie Belle McAvoy, known to sailors of the seven seas as 'Mother McAvoy,' and one of the few women proprietors of a drug store in this city, died yesterday at the age of 64.  For more than forty years she had spent her days from sunrise to sunset in a small old-time drug store at 163 Christopher Street...just a block from the teeming Chelsea waterfront."

The article recalled, "To sailors and truckmen of the neighborhood she was more than a druggist who had invented her own special vegetable tonic that was excellent for a hangover.  She was a friendly counsellor and a 'bank' and 'post office' for sailors on their brief stays ashore from far-away lands."  The newspaper quoted her as once stating, "Folks sometimes say this is a rough, tough neighborhood.  'Pshaw,' I tell them, it's the nicest, kindest place in the world."

Minnie Belle McAvoy's funeral was held in St. Veronica's Church just up the block on November 13.  It ended a remarkable chapter in Greenwich Village history.

The McAvoy pharmacy entrances were on either side of a show window, unlike the corner configuration today.  via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services.

The second half of the 20th century saw tremendous change in the neighborhood.  By 1975 the smaller store was the home of Edward Gilly's custom made stained glass shop, and the former McAvoy pharmacy had become the Silver Dollar Restaurant.  

As had been with case with the drugstore, the restaurant was broken into in the early morning hours of May 13, 1977.  The burglars did not make off with cash and their loot was easily detected.  The Villager reported, "Two suspects were reportedly found walking along West 11th St., with cases of meat after a robbery at a restaurant at 163 Christopher St."  Anthony Bosco was charged with burglary, possession of stolen property, and resisting arrest, while the other culprit escaped.

Mother McAvoy's funeral was held in St. Veronica's Church, to the right.

Both commercial spaces house restaurants today, while the upper portion of John B. Snook's 1880 structure remains remarkably unaltered.  And Mother McAvoy, a significant figure in Greenwich Village history, has largely been forgotten.

photographs by the author

many thanks to reader Joseph McConnell for suggesting this post

no permission to reuse the content of this blog has been granted to LaptrinhX.com

The Lost 1797 N. Y. State Prison - Christopher Street near West Street

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

After the last of the British soldiers left New York City on November 25, 1783 the newly-formed state government was faced with deciding how to handle crime and punishment.   On March 26, 1796 the State Legislature passed an act directing the erection of two New York State prisons--one in Albany and the other in New York City.

Testimony given during a property suit a century later mentioned "In 1786 Christopher Street was a lane, and had fences on each side of it.  It terminated in Sandy Hill Road east, and Greenwich Road west."  

That remote, rural area was chosen for the prison site.  (In fact, at the time the street was known as Skinner Road, named for Colonel William Skinner.  It would not be renamed Christopher Street, after Christopher Charles Amos, until 1799.)  The road was extended to access the site.  It now reached the Hudson River where a dock was erected to receive prisoners.

French-born architect Joseph-Francois Mangin was selected to design the Federal style prison.  He is best remembered today for his magnificent City Hall, completed in 1811.   He created a massive and dignified structure within a four-acre walled yard that stretched to Amos Street (later renamed West 10th Street).  Above the 22-foot high stone wall could be glimpsed a classical triangular pediment over the projecting central pavilion.  An octagonal belfry atop the roof could, no doubt, be seen from far away.  

image from In Old New York, 1894 (copyright expired)

On November 25, 1797 the Governor, John Jay, issued a proclamation which said in part "the State Prison in the City of New York is ready for the Reception of Prisoners."  Three days later 71 prisoners arrived at the prison wharf.

That wharf, incidentally, was ill-planned.  Historian Thomas A. Janvier recalled in his 1894 In Old New York that the "wharf was built out into the stream, but that it did not extend far enough to be available at all stages of the tide."  This meant that if the boat carrying prisoners arrived during low tide, it could not access the pier.  Janvier spoke to a former river captain.  "His passengers did not like it at all, he said, when, the tide not serving, he was compelled to carry them past the prison to which they were bound and to land them at the Battery."

Among the earliest prisoners was a Quaker, Noah Gardner, who was initially sentenced to be executed for forgery.  He was taken to Washington Square to be hanged, but, according to Grant Thorburn later, "One day I went up to the Park to see a man hung.  After gazing two hours at the gallows the Sheriff announced a reprieve.  I must own I was disappointed."

Gardner's life had been spared by the pleas of the Society of Friends.  A boot maker, he was eventually permitted to have the tools necessary to continue his craft inside.  Maud Wilder Goodwin wrote in her 1897 Historic New York, "He undertook to teach his trade to his fellow-prisoners, and soon had organized a body of three hundred skilled shoemakers, and thus began the system of State Prison Manufactures."

An ironic twist came about several years later when Grant Thorburn was imprisoned and was put to work under Gardner.  According to Goodwin, when Gardner chastised Thorburn for failing to deliver work on time, he replied "yes, I know it's a terrible thing to be disappointed.  I remember I went to see you hanged and was so disappointed when the Sheriff read the reprieve."  (Incidentally, after his term was served, according to Maud Wilder Goodwin, Gardner went back to boot making and "gathered up all the money he could lay hands on, eloped with a young and pretty Quakeress, and was never heard of again.")

The prison manufacturing system started by Gardner expanded.  An advertisement in The New York Evening Post on May 27, 1817 offered for sale "brushes, cedar pails and tubs, large and small wheel barrows, children's waggons, trunks, a general assortment of whips, oakum, mats and points, curl'd maple bedsteads, a number of baskets, spinning wheels, reels and swifts, a general assortment of Chair Stuff, together with a variety of other articles, not mentioned."

Trouble first came on June 13, 1799 when, according to historian Emmons Clark in 1889, "a desperate attempt was made by the convicts to escape from the State-prison, located at the foot of Christopher Street.  They seized the keepers and such of the prisoners as were not disposed to join in the revolt."  Thomas Janvier estimated the that "fifty or sixty men revolted."

Coincidentally, the First Battalion of Artillery of the Seventh Regiment was drilling in Washington Square.  The Gazette reported "information came that the prisoners were forcing the gates and making their escape.  The companies formed instantly, marched out to the prison on the run, and were soon followed by many other uniformed companies."  The soldiers fired on the prisoners and quelled the revolt.  No one was killed in the uprising.

But that was not the case four years later, in April 1803, when, according to Janvier, "about forty men broke from the prison to the prison-yard, and, after setting fire to the building, attempted to scale the walls; and again the guards came with their muskets and compelled order--this time killing as well as wounding--while the keepers put out the fire."

Only a year later an even more serious attempt occurred.  On May 8, 1804 The Evening Post reported that the previous evening at around 5:00 six prisoners plotted a break that again included arson.  They overtook guards in several areas "and made the keepers prisoners" and then set the fire at around 11:00.  Thankfully one of the plotters had a change of heart.  The newspaper reported that he "refused going any further and returned and liberated the keepers least they should perish in the fire also."

The bulk of the prisoners were unaware of the danger.  The Evening Post reported "The inhabitants were with much difficulty roused from sleep, for it was nearly an hour after the bursting out of the flames from the roof before much assistance arrived from town.  It was not got under until the north west wing had been burnt down to the tower story; damaged estimated at 25,000 dollars."  It was significant damage, equal to about $560,000 today.

The State Prison was given the nickname Newgate by locals.  It was a reference to London's notorious prison known for its harsh conditions.  While not nearly so bleak as at Newgate, life in the Christopher Street facility was not comfortable.  A request for bids to provide rations to feed the criminals on May 13, 1817, gives a glimpse of their daily meals.  The Agent of the State Prison sought: potatoes, salt, "beans or pease," pepper, "1-2 lb of salted Codfish per man once a week," vinegar, salted pork, rye flour, Indian meal, and gill molasses.  The list flatly noted "Beef is not mentioned."

The worsening conditions were pointed out by The Evening Post on January 8, 1819.  The article complained about overcrowding and the mixing of white collar criminals with murderers and thieves.  Each cell, said the article, held 18 prisoners.  "All descriptions of convicts are crowded together without distinction--the young and the old--the healthy and the unhealthy--the novice and the adept in crime; and here the hardened offender boasts of his vices, unfolds his expedients and completely eradicates every remaining impression of rectitude."

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

Two months earlier the prison held 603 convicts.  Of those, said The Evening Post, "410 were convicted of grand larceny, and 36 for offences relating to the counterfeiting & uttering [i.e. altering] bank notes."  

In February 1820 a committee of commissioners was formed by the State Assembly "to examine into the propriety of disposing of the present state prison at New-York, and erecting a new prison at some other place on the island of New-York."  But instead, the location chosen was Ossining, New York on the Hudson River in Westchester County.   Construction was begun in May 1825 and was completed in the 1828.

The male prisoners were transferred to Sing Sing that year and the female prisoners in the spring of 1829.  (Their transport by boat led to a popular expression.  For more than a century afterward convicts sentenced to prison were said to be "sent up the river.")

The old State Prison building--only 22 years old--was demolished.  Little Weekhawken Street was laid out on the site and a brewery and markets rose on the former grounds.  A solitary reminder of the State Prison can be found in the Christopher Street subway station, where mosaic depictions of the old facility adorn the walls.