The Rev. John Leighton Wilson House - 47 East 30th Street

 

Born in Sumter, South Carolina on March 25, 1809, John Leighton Wilson graduated from Columbia Theological Seminary in 1833, sailing almost immediately to West Africa for the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions.

Rev. John Leighton Wilson (original source unknown).

After helping establish a mission in Cape Palmas, Liberia, he worked with the people there until 1834, when he returned to America to marry Mary Elizabeth Bayard, the daughter of a prominent Savannah, Georgia family.  The newlyweds sailed back to Cape Palmas that year to work with the Grebo people.  Over the years, the Wilsons created schools, translated school books, hymns, and parts of the Bible into Grebo, and helped establish other missions.

The Wilsons returned to America in 1852 due to John's health issues.  He was elected Secretary for the Presbyterian Board of Foreign Missions in New York located at 23 Centre Street, and shortly afterward purchased the newly built house at 47 East 30th Street.

Their 19-foot-wide home was four stories tall above a low English basement.  Anglo-Italianate in design, it was faced in brick and trimmed in brownstone.  Ornate Italianate ironwork protected the areaway and stoop.  The first floor openings were fully arched and set within deeply molded frames.  A stone bandcourse introduced the upper floors, and a wooden cornice with a latticework frieze capped the design.

The wooden latticework below the cornice is unusual.

Although the Wilsons were ardent abolitionists, in 1861 (either just before or after the first shot in the Civil War), they returned to the South.

While the Wilsons occupied 47 East 30th Street, Harriet Hunter ran an upscale boarding house on Union Square.  On November 1, 1861, she announced in the New York Herald, "Mrs. Hunter has removed from No. 30 Union square, to No. 47 East thirtieth street, where she can accommodate a few persons for the winter."

Among her first boarders were the unmarried Sayre sisters, Ophelia, Emily A. and Elizabeth H.  The women may have been newcomers to New York City, since they joined the Fifth Avenue Presbyterian Church that same year.

An ad placed in the New York Herald on February 12, 1862 caught the eye of Ebenezer Storer.  "Mrs. Hunter, 47 East Thirtieth Street, has two pleasant Rooms for rent; one suitable for a physician's office.  Possession immediately."  Dr. Storer took the room and lived and practiced there at least through 1880.

Among the boarders in 1864 through 1866 were John H. Anthon and his wife.  Highly involved in civic and charitable causes, Anthon was an inspector of public schools, and his wife was the First Directress of the Orphan Asylum Society of the City of New-York in Bloomingdale (today's Upper West Side).  

By 1867, Elizabeth J. Hunter (presumably Harriet's daughter) was operating the boarding house.  Either she or one of her boarders lost a valuable pet in 1870.  An announcement in the New York Herald on April 28 read: 

Lost--April 27, a small green parrot, with red bead [sic] and red feathers in tail; he is a little larger than a canary; $20 reward will be given to anyone who will return him to 47 East Thirtieth street.  He is the gift of a friend, therefore particularly valuable to the owner.  

The sizable reward would translate to more than $450 in 2024.

Dr. Ebenezer Storer was an ardent proponent of temperance.  In 1874 he joined a long list of physicians who signed a "medical declaration" to the State and Federal Governments that said in part, "We are of [the] opinion that the use of alcoholic liquor as a beverage is productive of a large amount of physical disease; that it entails diseased appetites upon offspring; and that it is the cause of a large percentage of the crime and pauperism of our cities and country."  The declaration proposed state and federal laws that would "confine the traffic in alcohol to the legitimate purposes of medical and other sciences, art, and mechanism."

Laura M. Thorpe, who "belongs to one of the most fashionable families of Philadelphia," according to The National Police Gazette, took rooms in the house in 1878.  The newspaper described her as "a handsome blonde of about twenty-five years."  Her husband, Gould H. Thorpe, a "wealthy produce merchant" had sued her for divorce earlier that year "on the ground of infidelity to her marriage vows."  The indiscretion had been carried out with one of New York's wealthiest young men, Lloyd Phoenix, the son of Philip Phoenix and the grandson of Stephen Whitney.

Both Laura Thorpe and Lloyd Phoenix were "well known among New York 'society' people," said The National Police Gazette.  Their illicit relationship had caused what the journal on January 11, 1879 called "a social scandal which for months has been the talk of the up-town clubs and of 'fashionable' society circles."  On December 26, 1878, the scandal became even more public.  Laura Thorpe sued Phoenix for a physical attack in her rooms here.

According to Mrs. Thorpe, on December 18 Phoenix came to her rooms and demanded his love letters, fearful that they would be used as evidence in her divorce case.  When she refused, he seized an iron poker "and with this formidable domestic weapon inflicted several blows," according to The National Police Gazette.  The article continued,

Then, as she further alleges, Mr. Phoenix, by no means satisfied with the frightful havoc he had made with her beauty, seized a chair and augmented the bruises, wounds and dislocations by at least two.  After that he, so she claims, took from the mantel a majolica vase, which she specifically says cost $20, and with violence threw it at her, thereby breaking it into fragments.

Hearing the crash, two servants rush into the room and Mrs. Thorpe directed one of them to find a policeman.  Phoenix fled.

The National Police Gazette reporter asked Laura Thorpe why Phoenix would think that beating her would prompt her to relinquish the letters.  He recounted the ensuing conversation:

"Oh!  It is not the first time he has done such a thing, and this time he tried to kill me," said Mrs. Thorpe.

"Do you mean that he has beaten you before this?" 

"Twice before this," she replied, "On one occasion he lamed me seriously by the violence of his blows. This time he pointed a revolver at me and was fingering the trigger, when I knocked it from his hand and screamed for help." 

In 1880, Dr. Augustine Arrango shared Storer's office, most likely during a transitional phase.  In 1881 only Arrango was listed here.   

That year, on April 2, Virgil Lopez was sitting in Arrango's waiting room.  Through the window he noticed another patient, Elvina De Molina ascending the stoop.  Suddenly, 14-year-old James Goss rushed up, grabbed Elvina's pocketbook and ran.  Almost before she could realize what had happened, Goss ran down the stoop in pursuit of the teenage purse snatcher.  At the corner of 31st Street and Fourth Avenue (today's Park Avenue South), Goss tackled and overcame the youth.  The New York Times said on April 3, 1881, "The lad was arraigned before Justice Flammer, at the Jefferson Market Police Court, and committed for trial in default of $500 bail."

Never married, Elizabeth J. Hunter died in 1889 and bequeathed 47 East 30th Street to Sarah F. Richards, most likely a relative.  She leased it that year to Dr. John Warren, who would occupy the doctor's office and rent rooms in the upper floors.  Unlike the Hunter women's fashionable boarders, most of Warren's were in the theatrical profession.

Among the earliest was Charles Franklyn Henry De Witt Chatterton, who had for years been private secretary to theatrical manager Henry E. Abbey.  The New York Times called Chatterton "one of the best known and most highly esteemed of the theatrical people of this country."  Somewhat interestingly, when Chatterton was bedridden in the spring of 1891, he did not consult his landlord doctor.  On May 9, The New York Clipper reported, "The condition of Charles P. Chatterton, who has been ill with consumption, at his home, No. 47 West Thirtieth Street, this city, was reported last week as being somewhat improved. Dr. Curtis said the hemorrhages were practically over, and, although the sick man was in a critical condition, it was hoped he would rally."

Chatterton's recurring condition proved fatal three years later.  When he died on October 11, 1894, The New York Times mentioned, "He had been subject to hemorrhages for a long time, and three times within the last three years attacks of this kind have been so severe that his life has been despaired of."

Boarding at 47 East 30th Street at the time were four other theatrical professionals--the married couple Grace Sherwood and Jerome Sykes, 22-year-old actor Ulysses Alton, and 28-year-old John Walton, also an actor.  Grace Sherwood was described by the New York Press as "one of the most popular and charming women in her profession," and her husband was stage manager of the Bostonians.  She became pregnant while living here, and had to give up her role of Chollie Kell in Passing Show.

Tragically, Grace died here on May 2, 1894 while giving birth to twins.  In reporting her death, the New York Press said, "Mrs. Sykes was well known and liked in the profession."

In 1894, both Walton and Alton would be in trouble with police.  The first was John Walton, who landed a role in Mr. Barnes of New York that year.  On September 5, 1894, Walton and a friend, William Harvey walked up Sixth Avenue with two women, dropping them off at 30th Street.  As the females walked away, Walton accused, "You made a fool of me before those women," according to the New York Sun, which noted, "Harvey contradicted him with an oath."

With that Waldon pulled out a knife and made several slashes to Harvey's clothing, but failed to wound him.  The New York Sun reported, "Policeman McDonald, who jumped off a Sixth avenue car just then, arrested the fighters and took them to the West Thirtieth street station.  Walton was bailed out by Shanly, the restaurant keeper."

Ulysses Alton was behind bars a month later.  On October 13, 1894, he and another actor, John E. McGoward, stepped into the cigar store next to Daly's Theatre.  While there, according to The Press, their "discussion waxed warm, and Alton grabbed an automatic slot machine and hit McGowan on the head, inflicting serious scalp wounds."

In 1896, Sarah Richard offered the house for lease again, describing it as an "unfurnished, four-story brown-stone and brick English basement dwelling; newly painted and decorated."  The new proprietor seems to have replaced the sometimes troublesome theater tenants with professionals like Benjamin Orne, a stockbroker.

Sarah Richard's son, J. Swift Richards, sold 47 East 30th Street to Sheppard K. de Forest in September 1913.  He quickly remodeled it into bachelor apartments.  

The New York Times, September 7, 1913 (copyright expired)

Among the initial tenants was N. Val Peavey, a pianist who used his apartment here as his New York teaching studio.  (He lived in Brooklyn.)   Another was stockbroker John F. Murphy, who had started in the brokerage business in 1898.  He and his wife lived here until his death on September 3, 1918.

In 1941, the Italianate ironwork and other Victorian details were intact.  image via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services.

By mid-century the once elegant neighborhood had significantly changed.  A renovation completed in 1948, resulted in a veterinarian office on the ground floor, a kennel in the basement, and a triplex apartment on the second through fourth floors.

Surprisingly, a veterinarian office still occupies the ground floor.  Today there are six apartments in the former Wilson house--its former elegance lost to paint, abuse and a commercial awning.

photographs by the author

UPDATE:  The building is scheduled for demolition in March 2026

The Lost Adams Memorial Presbyterian Church - 207-215 E 30th Street

 

In February 1853 the newly formed congregation of the Madison Square Presbyterian Church purchased a building plot on Madison Avenue and 24th Street, overlooking Madison Square.  While its new location was one of the most fashionable in the city, not far away, near the East River, things were much less affluent.

In 1856 Rev. Dr. William Adams, pastor of the church, prompted the formation of the East Side Sunday School in the gritty neighborhood.  Originally meeting in a carpenter shop, it later moved to a building on Third Avenue between 30th and 31st Street.  Among the teachers was Theodore Roosevelt, father of the future President.

The East Side Sunday School evolved into the Memorial Chapel.  On September 15, 1874 the New York Herald reported, "The corner stone of the 'Memorial Chapel' of the Madison Square Presbyterian church, Thirtieth street, between Second and Third avenues, was laid yesterday, with appropriate exercise."  The "large number of people" heard "an address by the venerable Rev. William Adams," and "some interesting remarks by Rev. Charles Payson, who is to be the pastor of the new chapel."

Designed by J. Cleaveland Cady, the building cost $120,000 to construct, more than $2.8 million today.  It was designed in Cady's own take on Sicilian Romanesque Revival.  Faced in red brick and sparsely trimmed in stone, its uncompromisingly symmetrical design featured two tall bell towers with pyramidal roofs, and a central gabled pavilion with arched openings and a large rose window.

The chapel was dedicated on January 27, 1876.  Rev. Charles H. Payson would not lead his flock for long.  Almost a year later to the day, on January 24, 1877, he died of pneumonia.

Rev. E. A. Elmore took the pulpit until 1884, when he resigned "on account of failing health," according to the New-York Tribune.  He would not be permanently replaced for two years.

Major change to the Memorial Chapel came in 1886.  On January 22, 1886 The New York Times reported, "The Memorial Chapel of the Madison-Square Presbyterian Church was organized last evening as an independent church under the title of the Adams Memorial."  It was named in honor of the nearly legendary Rev. William Adams of the Madison Square Presbyterian Church who had died four years earlier, on August 31, 1880, of liver disease.   

A few weeks later, on March 7, the new pastor, Rev. Jesse F. Forbes, was installed.  There were 276 members within the congregation at the time.  They came from diverse ethnic backgrounds and most struggled financially.  

Rev. Forbes responded to the needs of his congregation.  The New-York Tribune explained that a feature of the Sunday School was the Home Department.  "By this department, mothers and others who cannot attend the school are supplied with books and courses for home instruction and meet occasionally for review and direction."

Children and teens were lured from the temptations of street life by the Young People's Society.  On January 27, 1888 The Evening World reported, "The Young People's Association of the Adams Memorial Presbyterian Church gave a musical and literary entertainment in the Sunday-school hall of the church last evening."  The journalist was particularly taken with one number:

The most interesting event of the evening was the 'broom drill' of the Amateur Cadets, composed of sixteen young ladies, attired in pretty cream-colored gowns, trimmed with red, and wearing caps made of the same material.  Under the captaincy of soldierly Mr. MacConnell, the young ladies performed military evolutions with the accuracy and precision of trained soldiers, considering the difficulty of handling their improvised guns.

Five months later, on May 17, another performance was staged.  The Evening World reported, "The musical and dramatic talent of the Adams Memorial Presbyterian Church, in East Thirtieth street, gave an interesting entertainment in the church last evening under the management of the Young People's Society."  The article noted, "The farce, 'The Elevator,' brought down the house."

Around 1898 a group of Armenian refugees began worshipping together in the Adams Memorial Church.  On December 26, 1900 the New-York Tribune explained that many of them "fled from their own country at the time of the Turkish massacres."   The article said, "It was lately decided that they had become strong enough to organize into an independent body, and it was resolved by them to form a congregation of their own."

The new Armenian Evangelical Church installed its pastor, Rev. Haigag H. Khazoyam, on December 30, 1900.  For decades to come the two congregations would share the East 30th Street building.

On January 27, 1906, as the Adams Memorial Presbyterian was celebrating the 30th anniversary of its building, the New-York Tribune commented on the congregation.  "As an East Side parish in a fluctuating neighborhood with an ever changing but never decreasing membership this congregation claims its chief distinction.  It is an international church, administering to members of sixteen different races."  

New-York Daily Tribune, January 27, 1906 (copyright expired)

The low-income neighborhood presented problems.  On February 13, 1908 The Sun reported that Rev. Forbes "complained to Capt. Byrnes of the East Thirty-fifth street police station last night that he is growing wearing of having windows repaired that are constantly being broken by boys of the neighborhood."  The damage was not the result of vandalism, but of stick-ball played in the street outside.  "He said that within the past week at least one hundred panes of glass in the church and neighboring houses have been shattered by boys who play ball in East Thirtieth street."

During the Great Depression the congregation pitched in to save money on repairs and decoration.   The pastor, Rev. H. S. Rambo and 40 congregants wielded paint brushes and hammers "in their spare time throughout the Summer," according to Pictorial News of the World.  The article said the volunteer work saved the church $2,400.

The end of the Adams Memorial Presbyterian Church in the building came in 1949 when it was sold to the Columbia Broadcasting System.  Named the 30th Street Studios, the building was renovated with the removal of the bell towers and the refacing of the first floor.  

(original source unknown)

According to the 2004 book Studio Stories, "The magical acoustic properties that would soon be 30th Street's trademark would not have been immediately apparent to anyone who first entered 'The Church.'"

Mitch Miller, Columbia's head of A&H at the start of the 1950s, immediately saw the enormous potential of 30th Street's palatial interior.  Once Miller and the Columbia crew had tweaked the building to perfection, Miller issued a directive strictly prohibiting any kind or physical alteration of the main studio.  Janitors weren't even allowed to wash the floors.

Some of the 20th century's most important recording artists worked here.  Bill Christine, in his 2017 They Left Their Hearts in San Francisco, said it was "where Bob Dylan and Miles Davis did some of their best work; there Leonard Bernstein burnished the score for West Side Story; where Glenn Gould recorded Goldberg Variations; where Vladimir Horowitz worked most of the time.  'I wouldn't record anywhere else,' Davis said."

Barbra Streisand recorded her The 1962 Studio Recordings album here, adding her name to artists like Tony Bennett, Duke Ellington, Count Basie, Frank Sinatra and Isaac Stern who worked in the 30th Street Studios.

And then, on January 15, 1981 The New York Times reported, "According to a CBS spokesman, the rumors that the company plans to sell its 30th Street recording studio are true...There were reports that the buyer planned to demolish the building and construct an apartment house on the location."  The article said that not only had it been used by famous musicians and vocalists, but for recording "many Broadway shows, from 'South Pacific' and 'My Fair Lady' to 'A Chorus Line' and 'Barnum.'"

Musicians like Isaac Stern, Frank Sinatra, Itzhak Perlman and Pinchas Zukerman threw their support behind a preservation campaign.  The New York Times added, "the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission is investigating the matter."  Their efforts fell flat.

photo via cityrealty.com

The ten-story Wilshire apartment building was completed in 1985 on the site.

Many thanks to reader Ted Leather for requesting this post

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

The J. W. Oliver House - 31 East 30th Street

 

J. W. Oliver focused much--if not all--of his professional attention to the Temperance Movement.  In 1845 he was president of The Washington Temperance Society and sat on the executive committee of the General Temperance Council of the City of New York.  The following year he was a speaker at the week-long Temperance Convention.

It was about this time that he moved his family into the Italianate style house at 31 East 30th Street in the upscale Murray Hill neighborhood.  Four stories high above an English basement, its parlor level most likely featured full-length windows and a handsome pedimented entrance.

The parlor was the scene of a heartbreaking ceremony in the summer of 1851.  Oliver and his wife, Ellen M., had one son, 4-year old George Briggs Oliver.  He died on June 15 and his funeral was held here four days later.

Soon afterward Oliver sold the house to William Hustace and his wife, the former Rachel Maria Treadwell.  The couple had three young sons, William L., Ephraim Treadwell, and Francis at the time they moved in.  Two daughters would soon follow, Emily, born in 1853, and Grace in 1859.

Hustace operated an extensive shipbread business with two locations, one on Warren Street and the other on Front Street.  Shipbread, today better known as hardtack, was an essential commodity in the larders of every seagoing vessel.  The inexpensive biscuits outlasted perishable foods on long ocean voyages.  Hustace was, as well, a director in the Merchants' Insurance Company of the City of New York.

Ephraim Treadwell Hustace was named after his maternal grandfather.  He died on December 12, 1859 at just 18-years-old.  As was customary, his coffin sat in the parlor until his funeral on December 14.   

As had been the case with the Oliver family, the Hustaces left East 30th Street shortly after their son's death.  Just months later George Guest Haydock and his family purchased 31 East 30th Street.

Born in 1814, George was a partner with Edmund Coffin in the auction business of Coffin & Haydock on College Place (later West Broadway).  He and his wife, Patience Caroline, had married on October 25, 1839.

By the early 1870's George changed course and went into business with his brother, Robert, to import earthenware.  They were in serious trouble in the summer of 1875 when United States District Attorney Bliss began a suit against them "to recover $100,000 duties and penalties alleged to be due the Government by defendants on account of undervaluation and false classification of invoices of earthenware," as reported by The New York Times on June 19."  It was a major case, the amount of the suit being equal to about $2.4 million today.

Patience and George remained in the house at least through 1886.  In 1897 it became the home of newlyweds Joseph and Estelle White.

The bride was the widowed Laurette Estelle Pendelton Horne.  Born in 1853, she had two grown sons by her first marriage, Francis who was 21-years old, and Granville Nathan Horne, who was 22.  Laurette, who went by her middle name, married Joseph Baker White on the evening of November 11, 1897 in All Souls' Church on Madison Avenue.  She was escorted by her son, Francis.  The following day The Brooklyn Daily Eagle announced, "Mr. and Mrs. White will be at home Wednesdays in January from 4 until 9 P.M., at 31 East Thirtieth street, New York."

The Whites' residency would be relatively short-lived.  By the turn of the century the house was being operated as a high-end boarding house.  Among the residents were the attorney Joseph W. Tilton; Police Commissioner Francis Vinton Greene; Dr. William Oliver Moore, a specialist in diseases of the eye and ear; and Dr. Ellice M. Alger, an ophthalmologist.

Being Police Commission had its advantages when it came to neighborhood nuisances.  On January 16, 1903, Francis Greene found a foot patrolman named Magner and complained "that the residence next to his own, 31 East Thirtieth Street, had been undergoing repairs, and that several charcoal stoves had been placed in the rooms to dry the plaster," according to The New York Times.  "The odor from the stoves was objectionable to the Greene family," said the article.

The patrolman "hastened to the station to consult with those more learned in the law than himself."  Greene's complaint was taken very seriously.  The New York Times continued, "telephonic communication was had with the Building Department of the borough.  An Inspector was dispatched to the house of which the Commissioner made complaint, and this morning it is expected that the legality or non-legality of the plan for plaster drying will be decided."

In 1911 the house was renovated as an annex to the hulking apartment building around the corner at 121 Madison Avenue.  The stoop was removed and replaced by a two-story storefront that extended to the property line.   The ground floor space became a restaurant for the tenants.  The new residential entrance was crowned with an elaborate pediment.  No attempt was made to modernize the exterior appearance of the top three floors in the least.

An advertisement in September that year offered "apartments of two large rooms and bath.  $700 to $900."  The rent for the most expensive apartments would equal about $2,000 per month today.  An ad three years later was more specific about the layout, describing a "connecting large living room, bedroom and bath; restaurant and room service if desired.  Restaurant for Tenants Only."

Among the tenants in 1920 was Mrs. M. A. Fanning, who was highly involved in the Service Club, which provided assistance to maimed soldiers returning from the recent war.  On January 25 the New-York Tribune reported that the club had met in the Fanning apartment the day before.  "The club is taking charge of the canteen work of the Carry-On clubs, and plans were made for a card party to be given at the Hotel Pennsylvania on February 27 for the Carry-On work for the permanently disabled men."

The building's most celebrated tenant was Weldon Kees, whose astonishingly broad resume included playwright, poet, painter, novelist, jazz pianist, short story writer, literary critic and filmmaker.   According to biographer James Reidel in his 2003 Vanished Act, The Lift and Art of Weldon Kees, Kees moved in March 1943 "to a furnished apartment at 31 East Thirtieth Street."  He notes, "The apartment on East Thirtieth Street also gave Kees a base from which to promote his anthology and a place to come back to when he met with disappointment."

In 1951 the property was renovated again, resulting in a store on the ground floor and three apartments per floor above.

Masaharu Tomono lived here in 1972.  Born in Japan, the 24-year-old worked as a photographer's assistant.   Tomono attended a New Year's Eve party uptown that year.  For some reason he took a cab to a friend's apartment on East Houston Street afterward, rather than returning home.  He arrived there just after 5 a.m. and was attacked by three youths in the hallway, robbed of more than $500, and stabbed to death.   Two of the boys, just 14- and 15-years old, were captured before the end of the month.

Today the brownstone facade of the Oliver house is painted mint green and a dry cleaners occupies the former 1911 restaurant space.  But, by looking at the upper floors, one can imagine when well-dressed residents descended the stoop to the carriage awaiting them at the curb.

photographs by the author

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

The 1906 Nottingham Apartments - 35 East 30th Street

 

Howard Nott Potter grew up in the magnificent mansion which his uncle, Major General Robert B. Potter, erected at 16 Gramercy Park (home today to The Players).  After studying architecture at Columbia College and in Europe, he went into partnership with Glenville Snelling.  In January 1906 Snelling & Potter filed plans for an upscale apartment house on the triple lot at 33 through 37 East 30th Street for the newly formed development firm of 33 East 30th St. Co.  Howard N. Potter was its president.

The nine-story structure, which cost the equivalent of $6.6 million today to construct, was completed within the year.  Snelling & Potter's tripartite design featured starkly disparate sections.  The two story, deeply rusticated base was faced in white terra cotta.  While service entrances were traditionally underplayed, here the architects gave them dramatic voussoirs that swept over tympanums filled with elaborate terra cotta decorations on a deep blue background.  

A cornice and faux balcony introduced the much less ornamented midsection of variegated brown brick.  Brick quoins which created three vertical sections provided the only visual interest.  Snelling & Potter gave a nod to the currently popular Arts & Crafts style by diapering the brick piers of the top floor in a lattice pattern.  A deeply overhanging cornice--typical of the Arts & Crafts style--completed the design.

The Record & Guide pointed out an innovation used by the architects--concrete and steel construction--which it called "somewhat a novelty."  The fact that the finished concrete floors were only nine inches thick, "makes it possible, with a judicious distribution of the girders, to obtain a 9-sty building where eight stories would be the limit for the same height with any other construction."

The striking, overhanging cornice has been removed.  Apartment Houses of the Metropolis, 1908 (copyright expired)

There were two apartments per floor, "admirably lighted by very large windows," said the Record & Guide.  It noted that the "grand foyer hall" carried the weight of nine stories, "made possible by the nature of the material."

There were two sprawling, mirror image apartments per floor.  Apartment Houses of the Metropolis, 1908 (copyright expired)

An advertisement for the building, called the Nottingham, described "new housekeeping apartments of 9 rooms and 3 baths [which] will be decorated to suit tenants."  (One of those bathrooms, of course, would be relegated for servants.)  Yearly rents ranged from $2,500 to $3,500 depending on the floor (more than $8,500 per month for the most expensive in today's money).  Apartment Houses of the Metropolis said, "The dining rooms are wainscoted to the ceiling in hardwood.  The living rooms have open fireplaces and imported marble mantels, designed from Louis XVI protypes."  The principal rooms had parquet floors and the doors into those rooms were of mahogany.

Among the early residents were broker R. Lawrence Benson and his family.  Like their neighbors, the Bensons maintained a small domestic staff.  On May 28, 1911 one of their servants caused what The New York Press "much excitement."

The newspaper said that on that afternoon "a maid ran screaming from the seventh floor.  Tenants who went upstairs found a man running around the hall almost nude and shouting."  He was, it turned out, Honore Camy, the Bensons' heretofore very proper butler.

The superintendent tried to calm Camy with no success.  Patrolman Donohue arrived on the scene and sent a hurried call to Bellevue Hospital.  Dr. Biram, appeared in the responding ambulance just in time to witness more drama.

The New York Press reported "A maid peeped out of the door of an apartment and the man grasped her.  Dr. Biram...says he found the man apparently trying to choke the terrified girl.  With difficulty the surgeon, the driver, and the policeman rescued the maid, who ran away screaming."

Eventually Camy was subdued, although initially he refused to clothe himself.  He was taken to the psychopathic ward for observation.  R. Lawrence Benson said he had been in his employ for a year "in which time he had not shown eccentricity."

At the time Howard Nott Potter was living in the building which he had erected, as was his unmarried sister, Virginia Potter.  Virginia Potter was, perhaps, more well-known than her architect brother.  She devoted her life to the betterment of women's conditions and was a pioneer in providing housing for working women.  Additionally, in 1885 she helped found the New York League of Girls' Clubs, and she organized the first independent hotel for women in New York and the Manhattan Trade School for Girls.  She was a director of the Association of Working Girls Societies and in 1910 opened the women-only Hotel Virginia.

The New York Press, May 3, 1914 (copyright expired)

It may have been Virginia Potter's influence that drew another women's rights proponent to the Nottingham in 1913.  On November 13 The Evening Enterprise reported, "Mrs. Eugene Boissevain, formerly Miss Inez Milholland, announces she has started housekeeping at No. 35 East Thirtieth street."  The remarkable woman was a labor lawyer, a war correspondent and an ardent suffragist.  Earlier that year she had led the dramatic Woman Suffrage Procession on horseback prior to the inauguration of President Woodrow Wilson.

Inez Milholland Boissevain, from the collection of the Library of Congress

In 1914 the National League of Women's Workers opened its headquarters in the Nottingham.  Another resident, Mrs. Hilborne L. Roosevelt, was involved in the League with Virginia Potter.  

In October 1916 Inez Milholland Boissevain was in Los Angeles, California on a campaign tour of the National Woman's Party when she collapsed during a speech.   On October 26 The New York Times reported "Mrs. Boissevain is unable to lift her head from her pillow.  She is allowed to see no one, and is under the constant care of a doctor and her sister."  She had been diagnosed with aplastic anemia.  The remarkable woman died on November 26 and her body was returned to New York for her funeral.

While Virginia Potter and Inez Milholland Boissevain were known for their reform work, the names of most of the well-heeled residents of the Nottingham appeared in newspapers simply for society engagements, debutante entertainments and travels.  

Above the entrance is a bas relief marble panel depicting a Roman procession.  Unlike the durable terra cotta around it, the marble has been seriously eroded.

Typical was the William Ayrault Hazard family.  The president of the Sterling Salt Mines, the Michigan Salt Works, and head of the William A. Hazard Salt Company, he and his wife, the former Laura Pelton, had two sons and four daughters.  Their summer estate, Meadow Hall, was on Long Island where Hazard was an avid yachtsman and polo player.  He was, according to the New-York Tribune, the "foremost American authority on polo."  On July 12, 1913 the Hazards announced the engagement of their daughter, Jessie Ashley, to Charles Reginald Leonard, from Meadow Hall.

Another socially visible family was that of E. Hicks Herrick.  The apartment was the scene of Margaret Herrick's debutante reception on December 7, 1912.  "After the reception there was a dinner at Sherry's and a theatre party at the Globe Theatre," said The Sun.  Margaret's sister, Louise, took the social spotlight seven years later when she was married in the fashionable St. George's Church to George Alden Cook on November 8, 1919.

On July 19, 1922 William A. Hazard died at Meadow Hall at the age of 68.  Laura Hazard stayed on in their apartment.  Other recognizable names of upper society in the Nottingham included Leland, Cornell, Lacey, Mead and Breese.  Virginia Potter died in 1937 and was buried in Martha's Vineyard where her summer home was.

Society columns continued to follow the movements, engagements, and funerals of the Nottingham residents.  A renovation completed in 1941 divided the sprawling apartments.  Where there had been two per floor, there were now five.

Nevertheless, the exterior of Snelling & Potter's Nottingham apartments, other than the tragically lost cornice, is essentially unchanged.  Its remarkable terra cotta base is as eye-catching today as it was in 1906.

photographs by the author

many thanks to reader Karen L. Green for prompting this post

LaptrinhX.com has no authorization to reuse the content of this blog

The 1853 Andrew L. Vanvaler House - 142 East 30th Street

 

In 1853 builder and developer Thomas Kilpatrick erected the three-story house at No. 100 East 30th Street (renumbered 142 in 1868).  The 25-foot wide Anglo-Italianate residence featured a covered, full-width cast iron balcony at the floor.  Unusual for New York City, it smacked of the ornate iron porches of Nos. 3 and 4 Gramercy Park, most likely designed by esteemed architect Alexander Jackson Davis a few years earlier.  

There were two entrances, explained by The Buffalo Commercial decades later on May 7, 1908.  It said that Kilpatrick had produced "the first flat-house in what is now Greater New York."  In fact, it was less a "flat house," by today's terms, than a "double."  The owner would have the advantage of rental income from other half.  In the rear was a two-story carriage house which would be described in 1872 as having "room for three horses and three carriages."

The newly-completed house was purchased by Andrew L. Vanvaler, who dealt in mahogany and also ran a hoople factory.  Hooples were the current fad in children's toys--the 1850's equivalent of hula hoops or skateboards.  A hoople was a large wooden hoop which a child rolled down a sidewalk by pushing it with a flat wooden stick.  The farther the hoop traveled without falling over, the more successful its owner.

A girl with her rolling hoop, or hoople, and stick.

The other side of the house was occupied by the Coffin family.  Both Edward and William H. Coffin listed their professions as "clerk."  The Coffins moved out in 1862.  Prior to their leaving they placed a detailed advertisement in the New York Herald seeking "Part of a House wanted--By a family of three persons only, in a quiet and respectable neighborhood, on the east side of the city, between Thirtieth and Fiftieth streets; a basement kitchen in connection with other apartments [i.e. rooms] would be required."

By 1867 William S. Wait moved his family in.  He apparently was continuously seeking new business opportunities.  That year he ran a stables on Fourth Avenue.  By 1870 when the family of George N. Sanders took the second part of the house, Wait was also running two coffin stores, one on the Bowery and another on Christie Street.

George N. Sanders was apparently retired by now.  His son, George, Jr. was an attorney with an office at No. 9 Broad Street.

William S. Wait remained at No. 142 through 1880.  By now his stable business had expanded to three locations.  The following year John W. Martin moved in.  An officer in the Court of Common Pleas, he earned a yearly salary of $1,200--about $31,000 in today's money.  The Martins would remain in the house until 1895.  

On the other side lived the family of Charles R. Cuyler.  In the fall of 1887 he and other local residents were irate over a nearby brothel.  The Maison Tortoni, run by "a French madam known as Madam Chaude," was just feet away at the corner of Lexington Avenue and 30^th Street.  In 1887 Cuyler added his name to a petition against granting the “hotel” a liquor license.

The petition explained to officials that the Maison Tortoni was not at all a restaurant nor hotel, but “is in fact principally for the purpose of assignation and acts of the grossest immorality and licentiousness, and these acts are practiced nightly in this house, which is provided with separate wine-rooms, each of which is supplied with a bed, and where wines and liquors are served to the men and women frequenting the place.”  The family's indignation was further explained by Frank Cuyler's position as a Sexton of the Fourth Avenue Presbyterian Church.

The building was purchased in 1895 by Dr. George W. Thompson.  He was highly involved in the local Democratic party when not practicing medicine.

On September 16, 1896 he was called to a case far to the north on East 142nd Street at the home of a midwife, Mrs. C. Becker.  There "a young Danish woman, known only as Miss Smith," was in seriously condition.  The Sun reported "When he reached there he found the girl dying.  He at once went to a drug store and telephoned to the Coroner's office for a Coroner to take the girl's ante mortem statement."  (An ante mortem statement was legally necessary to charge the person responsible for the girl's injuries.)  

She told Dr. Thompson she had been injured by falling from a bicycle.  In fact, as Thompson no doubt readily discerned, she was suffering from a botched abortion.  He later said "she was very stubborn, and would tell absolutely nothing about herself or her friends."

When he returned to the house from the drugstore, he found that Mrs. Becker had ordered her horse and carriage brought around and had fled.  The girl died about two hours after Thompson arrived.  Police now wanted to find Mrs. Becker, "whom they consider responsible for the girl's death," and "the man responsible for the girl's condition."

In June 1899 Dr. Thompson was called to what The Sun deemed a "queer case of poisoning."  Harvey Moshier ran a trunk and bag store at No. 408 Third Avenue.  He and wife of just seven months, Pauline, lived above the store.  While they were visiting Moshier's mother upstate on Sunday, June 25 Pauline became ill.  The following morning she complained of heart pains.

On Tuesday afternoon a neighbor heard her moaning and found her with severe pain around the heart.  "I wish my husband were here," she said.  A few minutes later she fell unconscious and Dr. Thompson was called.  As he treated her, the 35 year old woman died.  The Sun reported "Being unable to obtain a history of the case he diagnosed it as cerebral apoplexy [i.e., a stroke]."  But there was something more sinister going on.

Coroner O'Hanlon determined that she had died of carbolic acid poisoning.  The Sun said that he was "of course, unable to determine whether the poison was taken with suicidal intent or not."  Nevertheless, no one expected that a suicidal woman would draw the painful process out over a three-day period.  Harvey Moshier quickly attempted to deflect suspicion.  The Sun reported he "scouts the suggestion that his wife committed suicide."  He told police that in the seven months of their marriage "they never had a quarrel."

The Thompson family retained possession of the house for years.  Their daughter, Ethel, received her teaching certificate from Normal College in 1901.  In December 1916 Dr. Thompson hired the well-known architectural firm of James B. Snook Sons to renovate the carriage house to a garage.

In September 1919 Dr. Thompson purchased the house just steps away at No. 136 East 30th Street and sold his home of a quarter of a century.  It continued to house two families at a time until 1930 when it was converted by the architectural firm of Scott & Prescott for its offices.  The rear building was now described by the Department of Buildings as a "tenement."

Scott & Prescott was a partnership of William O. Prescott and David Cairns Scott.  During World War I the firm had received government commissions to design the Army Hospital "for shell-shock patients," the remodeling of the Soldiers' and Sailors' Club of New York, the recreation building for the Navy Aviation Camp at Montauk Point, and the Navy Post Office.

Scott & Prescott remained for just over a decade, selling the property in 1941 to "an investor."  In 1945 the Gallery of Jewish Art opened in the building with an exhibition of paintings by Chagall entitled "Synagogues."  The gallery remained at least through 1947.

The house was little changed from the outside when Scott & Prescott operated here.  via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services

In 1955 photographer Mark Shaw renovated the building, creating a "photo workroom" on the ground floor and a single family house above.  The carriage house was converted to a photographic studio.  Shaw is best known as the White House photographer for President John F. Kennedy. 

In announcing Shaw's death on January 28, 1969, The New York Times remarked "After President Kennedy's assassination, Mr. Shaw turned to filming commercials for television.  He maintained a large studio, known as Mark Shaw International, in the townhouse at 142 East 30th Street."

Thomas Kilpatrick's "first flat house" is as charming today as it was in 1853--a delightful discovery on a Kips Bay side street.