The Hiram and Henrietta A. Pettibone House - 124 East 10th Street

photograph by the author

In 1651, Peter Stuyvesant established two farms far north of New Amsterdam.  The lane that separated Bouwerij #1 and #2 would eventually become Stuyvesant Street.  When East 10th Street (part of the rigid street grid of the 1811 Commissioners Plan) was opened in 1826, the diagonally-running Stuyvesant Street created an odd shaped parcel, the triangular point of which Elizabeth Stuyvesant retained as her garden.  Four years after Elizabeth's death on September 16, 1854, Matthias Banta purchased the point for development.

Most historians attribute the resultant rowhouses to James Renwick, Jr., who had designed the magnificent Grace Church about three blocks to the west in 1846.  Completed in 1861, the Anglo-Italianate, five-story-and-basement homes varied from 16- to 32-feet-wide and (because of the triangular plot), their depths ranged from 16- to 48-feet.  

Like its neighbors, the rusticated brownstone basement and first floors of 192 Tenth Street (renumbered 124 East 10th in 1867) sat below four stories of red brick trimmed in brownstone.  The tall, fully-arched windows of the second floor held hands by means of a stone bandcourse.  Each of the architrave frames of the upper openings were treated slightly differently.

The first occupant of the house was James G. Maeder, who listed his profession as "music" and likely rented it from Banta.  In 1863, Hiram A. Pettibone and his wife, the former Henrietta Davenport, moved in.

Pettibone was a stockbroker with an office at 70 Broad Street.  Born on January 19, 1805 in Syracuse, New York, he and Henrietta were married in Worchester, Massachusetts on June 13, 1859.  The newlyweds' bliss would be short-lived.  Hiram died the same year they moved into their new home.

Henrietta A. Pettibone remained, taking in respectable boarders.  Living here in 1864 were two lawyers, Andrew J. Coe and Robert A. Piper.  An interesting boarder arrived in 1867.  Christian von Hesse was listed in directories as "lawyer, notary and commissioner of deeds for all the States and Territories."

Von Hesse continued to board here after Phoebe Shaw began operating 124 East 10th Street as a boarding house in 1868.  Phoebe was the widow of Joshua Shaw.

Unlike Harriette Pettibone, who took in one or two boarders at a time, Phoebe Shaw ran a true boarding house.  In 1869, Edmund and Germaine Duverger arrived from France and took rooms.  Duverger was an importer and dealer in French lace.  His factory was in Brussels and he opened a store here for the sale of his goods.  He was quickly a success.  The New-York Tribune said his store "is well known to many prominent business men on Broadway."

On Saturday evening of November 13, 1869, "two men called at the residence of Mrs. Phoebe Shaw, No. 124 East Tenth-st., and inquired for Mr. E. Duverger," recounted the New-York Tribune.  They asked to see examples of Duverger's laces and, although they were unable to provide business cards, Duverger complied.  They left but returned five minutes later.  They declared, "These are smuggled goods and we seize them!"

When Duverger insisted he had paid duty on the goods and refused to relinquish them, one of the men displayed a Custom House badge and the other "drew a revolver and repeated the order."  Unwilling to allow his valuable laces out of his presence, Duverger accompanied the men to the St. Charles Hotel.  Here a "large man, with a huge black mustache and jet black hair," as described by the New-York Tribune, represented himself to be Collector Grinnell.  He looked over Duverger's certificates and told him the duty he had paid was insufficient and demanded more.

On Monday morning, Duverger protested to Deputy Collector Clark of the Custom House.  The case was turned over to Treasury Department agents and a Federal investigation was launched.  Edmund Deverger accompanied two agents to room 15 at the St. Charles Hotel.  There they found two of the bogus collectors, both of whom held responsible Government positions.  John W. Lalor was a clerk in the Naval Office and Frederick G. A. Keever was a Custom House broker.

Phoebe M. Shaw died on June 6, 1879.  Her funeral was held in the parlor of 124 East 10th Street on June 9.

As early as 1886, Martin and Mary Burke occupied the house.  They apparently did not offer meals to their tenants because the house was no longer listed as a boarding house, but as "lodgings."

An interesting tenant was Eugene Thwing, who lived here in 1888.  An ardent prohibitionist, he and a comrade, George B. Smith, were accused by The Evening World on November 2 of stuffing a ballot box with votes for a Prohibition candidate.  Similar to the mail-in ballot controversy today, The Evening World charged that a Prohibitionist had falsified Postal-Card Votes "on the ground that the handwriting on many of the cards voting for Prohibition candidates is the same."

Thwing and Smith fired off a letter to the editor of The Evening World, saying, "While the charge is a decidedly unpleasant one and throws disgrace upon members of the party, it is very easily explained away."  They said that they took a stack of voting postcards to "a large rally at Cooper Union and a parade before the meeting."  Because the marchers were marching and the rallyers were rallying, "many of them requested that the cards be filled out for them."   

The fervent Thwing sent another letter to the editor of The Evening World the next day:

Should a million dollars come to be sudden one-half of it would certainly go to the National Prohibition party as the best way to [stamp] down rum and secure a clean and non-sectional party.  With the other half I would quit business, and, after travelling awhile, would settle down and study music.

Mary Burke died on May 14, 1893 and, once again, a funeral was held in the parlor here.  Her husband continued to operate the lodging house for at least another year.

The change from a boarding house to a lodging house reflected the decline in the neighborhood.  The tenants of 124 East 10th Street also reflected the changes.

Among those renting rooms here in 1899 was Viola Randall.  The 22-year-old worked as a waitress in the Sharon Hotel on Third Avenue.  On August 14, she got into a quarrel over a man with another waitress, Lottie Herman, who was 19.  The Morning Telegraph said, "trays, glasses, chairs and other things were thrown about."  Viola took things a step further by stabbing Lottie in the side and arm.  The injured teen was taken to Bellevue Hospital and Viola was taken to the Yorkville Police Court.

Adolph Schilder and his family occupied rooms here in 1904 when their 17-year-old daughter, Annie, disappeared on April 17.  The Evening World described her as "a pretty girl of the brunette type."  The newspaper said, "Her father searched every hospital and police station in greater New York, but found no trace of her."  Then, ten days after her disappearance, Schilder was walking along Third Avenue near 13th Street when he saw Annie arm in arm with 24-year-old Abraham Grossman.  According to The Evening World, Annie was caught in a tug-of-war between her father and suitor, each one pulling on an arm.  Two detectives came upon the scene and, after hearing Adolph Schilder's story, arrested Grossman for abduction.

Annie later told officials that the older man "had promised her a trip around the world, fine silk and satin dresses, a life of unbroken ease and all the happiness to be found on earth."  The Evening World concluded, "She liked his story and went away with him."

Resident Mrs. Angelina Piliero was the guardian of her 17-year-old sister, Josephine Belmont in 1912.  The girl had recently "escaped" from the House of the Good Shepherd after being "rescued at sixteen from the clutches of white slavers," said The Evening World.  She fled to Angelina's house where her older sister kept a "close watch on her."  But despite those precautions, Josephine "got into communication with a man she had known before her commitment," reported the newspaper on January 18, 1913, "and yesterday she disappeared."

After several failed attempts, including a visit to "Boob" Walker's ball in the Long Star Hall on First Avenue (where she was refused entry), Angelina heard that Josephine had taken a room at 124 East 10th Street.  She went there with six policemen.  Josephine's room was empty, but officers discerned a "stifling, pungent odor" in the hallway.  They recognized it as opium.  Going to the third-floor room where the smell was heaviest, the detectives kicked in the door.  The Evening World reported:

Six men were stretched out on the floor, stupefied by the drug.  A girl, her body draped with a flimsy kimono, lay at one end of the room.  She was the only one who seemed to hear the noise.  She stirred uneasily.  "I'm too happy to get up now," she murmured.

A detective asked Angelina, "Is this your sister?"  She screamed "yes" and "fell headlong across the girl's body."  Angelina had fainted at the sight of Josephine's condition.

image via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services.

Things had not considerably improved by midcentury.  Living here in 1954 was Walter Latoski.  The 32-year-old earned his living, outwardly, as a mechanic.  He augmented his income by joining a gang of thieves.  In July that year, he and seven other men highjacked a truck "transporting $30,000 worth of coffee beans from Brooklyn to Jersey City," as reported by The New York Times.  Five of the gang were found guilty on December 3, while three, including Walter Latoski, were acquitted for a lack of evidence.

On April 2, 1960, The New York Times reported that Mildred Frankel had sold "the five-story rooming house" to Albert Dionne and his wife.  The article said, "It will be altered and continued as a rooming house by the new owners."

Then, in 1976, the vintage house was renovated into a two-family home.  Happily, the exterior of 124 East 10th Street survives nearly unchanged since its completion in 1861.

The 1883 236 East Sixth Street

photograph by Carole Teller

On January 5, 1882, Joseph Schwarzschild and Ferdinand Sulzberger sold the four "five-story stone front tenements" at 230 to 236 East Sixth Street to architects and builders William P. and Ambrose M. Parsons for $48,500 (about $1.48 million in 2026 terms).  The brothers replaced the buildings with four identical structures.  Completed within the year, they were faced in brownstone.  Their neo-Grec design included centered entrances above short stoops.  The windows sat within prominent architraves upheld by scrolled brackets and their molded cornices sat upon corbeled piers.  Cast metal cornices, more in keeping with the earlier Italianate style, crowned the buildings.  The Parsons brothers sold the completed row on November 29, 1882.

Like the others in the row, 236 East Sixth Street was a "double flat," meaning there were two apartments per floor--one each on either side of the centered hallway.  They became home to a variety of tenants.  Living here in 1895 was William Bader, who worked for the city as "assistant to deputy sheriff."  He earned $1,000 a year, or about $40,000 today.  And Dr. Leopold Hibbe and his wife, Anna, and their child lived here as early as 1897.  Sharing the apartment was Leopold's brother, Dr. Henry Hibbe, and their widowed mother.

Leopold Hibbe was born in 1866 and graduated from the Medical Department of the University of the City of New York (where he had been an athlete) in 1891.  On the morning of March 2, 1897, he sat at his desk writing.  The New York Journal reported that he "struck a match to light his pipe."  It broke and the burning portion fell into a waste basket filled with papers.  Hibbe panicked and, rather than rushing the flaming basket into the street, he ran outside to get help.  The New York Journal said that in doing so, he forgot that his little child was asleep on the sofa in the room.  The article continued, "When he remembered it he could not get back."  Happily, Patrolman Wichman courageously rushed into the flaming room and rescued the child.

Dr. Hibbe had his wits together seven months later.  On October 25, 1897, The New York Times reported that the Hibbe apartment "served as the theatre for a scene in which a night marauder and a physician were the chief actors, and which had a ludicrous as well as a dangerous side."  In the middle of the night, Hibbe awakened to footsteps in the hall.  He discovered an intruder shoving "a few odds and ends into his trousers pockets."  The article said that Dr. Hibbe "caught the man he had been following unceremoniously by the throat and threw him to the floor."  The "rough-and-tumble scuffle" aroused Henry Hibbe who entered the affray.  Finally two policemen arrived and took into custody the "submissive and badly battered prisoner."

Within five years, the extended Hibbe family had moved to 23 Stuyvesant Street.  (There the two physicians were arrested, charged with performing an abortion.)  Another doctor, Albert S. Gombar moved into 236 East Sixth Street in 1909.

In the meantime, John Graham and his wife occupied an apartment at the turn of the century.  The 25-year-old was waiting for an elevated train at Second Avenue and 23rd Street on the afternoon of February 11, 1900 when he tumbled down the two-story tall staircase to the pavement below.  A witness said, "He was a laboring man, evidently, as he wore overalls and jumper, and his hands were soiled and calloused."

A doctor was summoned.  Before he arrived, two priests happened by and noticed the growing crowed.  One of them noticed "a little brown ribbon which came just over the edge of the injured man's shirt," reported The New York Times.  "He's a Catholic, Father," said the priest to his companion.  "See, he wears a scapular."  The priests knelt beside Graham, who was unconscious.  "The crowd fell back reverently, the Catholic ones uncovering and joining silently in prayer," said the article.

Dr. Graham Roberts transported John Graham to a hospital.  He told reporters that the young man's skull was fractured.  Tragically, he was given little hope of surviving.  Graham, who had just a nickel in his pocket, had not been drinking.  Doctors opined "that when near the top of the stairs he was attacked by heart disease and fell."

image via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services

Minnie Wagner lived here in 1911.  She worked as a sewing machine operator on the eighth floor in the Triangle Waist Company at 23-29 Washington Place.  On Saturday morning, March 11, that year, she went to work as always.  The day would end tragically, however.  At around 4:45, just 15 minutes before the workday ended, fire broke out.  Minnie testified later:

[I] was near my machine when I heard the cry of "Fire!"  I rushed to the Washington Place door, and there saw Eva Harris...and she rushed by me and shouted to me, "My, God, the door is locked!"  After that I saw Louis Brown, who was wiping his hand, drop the towel and come to where we were standing, and, he said, "Wait a minute, girls, and don't get excited.  I will open the door for you."  He reached in his pocket and took out a key and turned the lock.  The door would not open, and he smashed another lock.  It then opened and we went out.

Minnie Wagner was one of the fortunate women in the building that day.  Trapped inside on two floors, 146 female workers perished, having either jumped to their deaths or burned. 

Emily Davisson was convalescing from an operation on April 26, 1915, and her 21-year-old son, Benjamin, was suffering from pneumonia.  They occupied a fifth-floor apartment.  Both were in their beds that day and were unaware of "the shout of fire which drove the other ten families from the building," according to the New-York Tribune.  Someone ran to a fire alarm box, but it was stuck.  The newspaper said that Ladder Company 3 was "late in responding to the blaze because the alarm box refused to open until after a five-minute struggle."

It was only when smoke and flames entered their apartment did Emily and Benjamin Davisson realize they were in danger.  Policeman Healy saw the panicked pair as they clung to their windowsill.  "They intended to jump," said the article, but Healy "warned them to stay where they were."  Minutes later, fire fighters arrived.  A ladder was raised and the Davissons were rescued.  The newspaper said that the damage to the building was estimated at about $331,000 in today's money.

At least two more physicians would live and work here.  Dr. Michael Shander was listed at the address in 1916, and Dr. William Steinhauser was here in 1927.  Among Dr. Steinhauser's neighbors in the building at the time was Rabbi Julius Boloker of the Congregation First Mihailener and the Independent Burdujener.

By the third quarter of the century, the East Village neighborhood had a more avant-garde demographic.  Head shops occupied former deli spaces and Mod Art posters hung in store windows.  In 1970, 22-year-old Bruce McKeithen, a Bernard B. Baruch College student, occupied an apartment here.

On May 21 that year, Narcotics Division detectives arrested a Barnard College co-ed, Andrea Rosenberg, in her West End Avenue apartment.  Police called her "a major supplier of drugs" at Columbia University.  They discovered $100,000 worth of illegal drugs in her apartment.  Unfortunately for Bruce McKeithen, he and two young Columbia students were in the apartment at the time of the raid.  They were arrested for drug possession.

photograph by Carole Teller

At some point, the brownstone was painted cream and white.  The original stoop ironwork and entrance doors survive.

many thanks to artist Carole Teller for suggesting this post

The Skinny 144 First Avenue

 

photograph by Anthony Bellov

In the 1830s, the eastern blockfront of First Avenue between Eighth and Ninth Streets was lined with low Federal-style store-and-house buildings.  Change would soon come as throngs of immigrants inundated the neighborhood.  Private homes were converted to rooming houses and vintage buildings on the avenues were replaced with tenements and stores.  Around 1851, a row of Greek Revival store-and-flat buildings was erected at 142 through 148 First Avenue.

The buildings were faced in red running bond brick above the storefronts.  Their Greek Revival design included featureless brownstone lintels and wooden corbeled cornices.  No. 144 First Avenue was just 16-feet wide.  As early as 1852, Mary McGuinness, a widow, lived here, working as a seamstress.  She may have operated the upper floors as a boarding house.  Living here at the same time were Edward McGorren, a real estate agent, and carpenter James Robinson.

At the same time, Gaius H. Nash operated his pharmacy in the store.  He had a short commute to work, since he lived in the new building next door at 146 First Avenue.  (He and his family would move above the store around 1857.)  After working for Nash for several years, an employee became disgruntled by his lack of advancement in 1854.  In June he advertised:

To Druggists--The Advertiser having had eight years experience in the compounding of medicine, is anxious to obtain a clerk's situation.  Best city Reference.  Apply at Dr. Nash's store, 144 First avenue, for two days.

Calling the proprietor "Dr. Nash" was a stretch.  It would not be until around 1859 the he closed his drugstore here and enrolled in the New York University School of Medicine.  He would earn his title "doctor" in 1864.

Sharing the upper floors with the Nash family in 1856 were  a young Irish-born couple, John J. and Margaret Ahern (John worked as a clerk); the extended Ramsey family; and policeman Charles McMillen.  

Margaret Ahern, "formerly of the city of Cork, Ireland," as reported by The New York Sun, died in her rooms here on November 28, 1856 at the age of 18.  Her funeral was held in the couple's rooms.

There would be another funeral in the building within a few months.  The Samuel Ramsey family, who would remain at least through 1865, crowded into an apartment.  They included adult sons James (an engineer) and Robert, and the latter's wife, Margaret, and their three-year-old son, John.  On May 1, 1857, little John succumbed to "congestion of the brain," as described by the New York Herald.  His funeral was held here on June 2.

Joanna Regiersky opened a jewelry store in the former pharmacy space in 1859.  On January 31, 1860, she took two $1,000 St. Louis and Iron Mountain Railroad Company bonds to Jacob Little & Co. on Wall Street to have them cashed.  The New York Times reported, "but as it was after banking hours, she was requested to call the next day."  In fact, the astute clerk was stalling.  He recognized the bonds as having been stolen from the home of Alexander H. Nones two months earlier.  When Joanna returned, an officer was waiting for her.

As it turned out, the burglar (who also took $400 worth of jewelry) was Joanna Regiersky's brother-in-law, Julius Werner.  She told the officer that he had promised her $100 if she successfully cashed the bonds.  Joanna was ordered to send him a message saying that he was needed to "attend the business."  When he arrived, he and Joanna were arrested.  

The incident apparently ended Joanna Regiersky's jewelry shop.  The space became the barbershop of Franz Haberstroh.  (He would alternatively spell his first name Frank and Francis.)

John Wille, a tailor, not only occupied an apartment here by 1868, he owned the building.  Also living here that year was Charles A. Cappa, a musician.  In June 1868, Wille sold the structure to Franz Haberstroh.

Haberstroh did not retain ownership for very long.  By 1872, he closed his barbershop and sold 144 First Avenue to Michael Klopf and his wife, Anna M. H. Klopf.  The couple had three children, Henry, Katie and Lizzie.  Michael opened his "stoves" store in the ground floor space.  It may have been Klopf who slightly updated the appearance of the building by having cast metal cornices added to the lintels.

Michael Klopf died in 1900.  The store space became home to Paul Limbach's "butter and egg" store.  The entrepreneur struggled in business.  On November 9, 1904, the New York Produce Review and American Creamery reported that Paul Limbach's business had failed.  He, nevertheless, rallied and on March 28, 1906, The City Record reported that he had been given a license "to sell milk at No. 144 First avenue."  Only four months later, on July 31, The New York Times reported that he had declared bankruptcy.

While the simple blocks and wooden fascia board were typical of the Greek Revival style, the full-height of the top floor and the slightly-molded cornice showed the emerging Italianate style.  photograph by Anthony Bellov

Rutilio Colorosso, a coal dealer, his wife and six children arrived from Italy in 1892 and moved into 144 First Avenue in 1900.  In the summer of 1911, he opened a second coal store at 406 East 9th Street.  The Italian community was plagued by a terroristic group called La Mano Nera, or the Black Hand, at the time.  The Italian-American group used violence, including assassinations and bombings, to extort money from well-to-do Italians.  On September 11, 1911, The Evening World reported, "Outward evidence of prosperity, manifested by the opening of a new place of business for the sale of coal, wood, ice and cheap wine has brought upon Rutilio Colorosso the unwelcome attention of Black Hand extortioners."

Within four weeks of opening the new store, Colorosso received two Black Hand letters, each demanding $1,000.  They warned him that "he and his family would be blown to pieces in their home unless he paid the money," reported The New York Times.  Colorosso dismissed the letters until the night of September 4.

At 10:30, janitor David Leper locked the street door.  About an hour later, residents of the top floor heard someone walking on the roof.  Minutes later, a massive explosion shattered the doors "of every flat in the four stories of the building," reported The New York Times.  Plaster from the ceilings fell upon sleeping tenants.  The bomb had been placed directly in front of the Colorossos' door.  Where the door had been there was now a four-foot wide hole in the floor.  The article said, "In every room in the house debris crumbled from the ceilings to a depth of several inches."  The Colorossos' 15-year-old son, Joseph, "was thrown out of his bed against the opposite wall."  Happily, he was not hurt.

Two days later, The New York Times reported on the arrest of Giuseppe Costabile, "a shrewd, narrow-eyed Italian," for the bombing.  The article said, "the police believe they have caught the chief and master-mind of a gang of blackmailers who have set most of the thirteen bomb explosions reported in the last month."  If Costabile was, indeed, the bomber, his arrest did not deter the determined extortionists.

That same day, Colorosso received another letter and the following week, on the morning of September 11, a second bomb was discovered in the building.  The Evening World said, "The explosive was dynamite, properly equipped with a detonating cap.  Only two inches of the twelve-inch fuse was burned.  Doubtless the fuse went out while the man who placed the bomb was running way."

The New-York Tribune reported, "The bomb, the police said, was unmistakably designed for Frank [sic] Colarusso [sic]."  The Evening World added, "The bomb found at Colorosso's floor this morning was of sufficient strength to have blown in the front of the building."

In 1940, the sheet metal cornices over the windows were deteriorating.  One of top floor examples had already fallen off.  via the NYC Dept of Records Information Services.

Most of the residents of 144 First Avenue continued to be Italian in the succeeding decades.  Salvatore Rezze and Charles Carnesi lived here in 1929.  On June 1 that year, the Daily Star reported that they had been arrested as part of a "counterfeiting gang."  Rezze, Carnesi, and Anthony Scarpello were arrested after a sharp-eyed taxi driver recognized the $5 bill they paid him was a fake.  Their capture led to "the seizure of the 'plant' where, it is believed, several hundred thousand dollars in bogus bills have been manufactured since the first of the year," said a Secret Service spokesperson.

By the Depression years, the store was home to the Italian American Grocery & Delicatessen.  At the end of Prohibition, Fortunato Liberto obtained a liquor license for the business.

The contemporary building next door, one-third wider than No. 144, received a replacement cornice at some point.  photograph by Anthony Bellov

Today a laundromat occupies the ground floor where a modern storefront and replacement entrance doors can be seen.  The Victorian window cornices are gone, but the vintage wooden terminal cornice survives.

many thanks to Anthony Bellov for suggesting this post.

Kurtzer & Rohl's 1892 338 East 5th Street

 photograph by Carole Teller

Born in Germany, August Ruff was responsible for erecting dozens of apartment buildings before his death in 1921, often hiring two countrymen--Frederick William Kurtzer and Richard O. L. Rohl--to design the structures.  On October 29, 1891, Ruff purchased the five-story mineral water factory at 338 and 340 East 5th Street for $42,000.  Within a month, Kurtzer & Rohl filed plans for two "five-story brick flats" on the site.  The construction cost of each would be $18,000, bringing Ruff's total outlay for the project to about $2.85 million in 2026 terms.

The architects drew from a grab bag of styles in designing 338 East 5th Street (which was a close match to 340).  The undressed brownstone bands that alternated with planar stone at the first floor were Romanesque Revival inspired; but the skillfully carved square, engaged Corinthian columns that flanked the entrance were purely Renaissance Revival in style.  The latter style made an encore in the carved panels between the first and second floors, the Corinthian capitals of the double-height piers of the third and fourth floors, and in the terminal cornice.

Decades of paint have obscured the once-crisp, expertly executed carvings.  photograph by Carole Teller

The brick-faced upper floors were trimmed in terra cotta and brownstone.  A blend of neo-Grec and Queen Anne, the latter appeared in honeycomb brick panels.  Ornate terra cotta tympana decorated the top floor windows. 

The four apartments per floor--two in the front and two in the rear--were rented to working class families.  While wealthy families uptown feted their daughters with debutante dances and sent their sons off to Columbia or Harvard University, the families of 338 East 5th Street sent their children to work.

Among the early residents was the Levy family.  Fanny Levy, like hundreds of young women in the neighborhood, worked in a clothing factory.  In the fall of 1895, the cloakmakers' union went on strike.  On November 8, Fanny joined "a mob of women and girls" who assembled in front of A. F. Hochstaders' cloak factory at 84 Greene Street to protest non-union workers.

According to the New York Herald, this protest was one of several that were made up mostly of women.  The article said, "It is now believed that their participation is encouraged by the leaders of the strike, on the supposition that the police will deal more gently with women rioters than with men."  Several of the protests devolved to "riots," including the one on Greene Street.  The New York Herald reported that the strikers "made a furious attack on both non-union men and women when they came to work," adding, "Some of the women tore the whiskers of the men and others made a rush for the non-union girls and tore their clothes and pulled their hair."  Four women were arrested, including Fanny Levy, who was fined $10 (about $386 today).

Living here as early as 1895 were Gustave Hammer and his wife, Louisa.  That spring, according to Hammer, Stanley Glass visited their apartment "and told him of a wonderful secret a friend of his possessed," recounted the New-York Tribune on September 19, 1895.  Glass told the couple that his friend was an alchemist, "and with a little brass, some copper, a few platinum filings and the wonderful secret could procure any amount of gold."  The problem, of course, was funding the process.  The New-York Tribune reported, "Hammer and his wife became interested and consented to go into the business."

Glass took Hammer to meet M. Pearlman, who not only "claimed to be able to turn common metals into pure gold, but said they could make gold swell itself until ounces of it grew into pounds."  The gullible Gustave Hammer invested $250 in the venture.  And, not surprisingly, the gold was not manifested.

In September, Gustave had Stanley Glass arrested "for swindling."  According to Louisa Hammer, "Mary Pearlman, wife of the alchemist, had sought to have the case dropped by offering various sums of money, beginning with $50 and getting up to $100," reported the New-York Tribune.  In the meantime, the "alchemist" had skipped town.

The following year, another resident, Mamie Roberts, was scammed.  Starting in September 1896, William Doyle placed advertisements searching for "chorus girls to take out on the road in two theatrical companies which he said he was forming," reported the New York Herald.  They said that successful applicants would receive "good pay and steady employment."  Hundreds of young women, including Mamie Roberts, answered the ads.  As it turned out, William Doyle was both a scammer and a molester.  The "interviews" were held at Doyle's office--his bedroom in a Sixth Avenue house.

The New York Herald reported on November 15:

Many of them went there and upon his demand, they say, allowed themselves to be measured for costumes.  Doyle had samples of tights in his room and undertook, they say, to furnish costumes.

In each case, after the applicants had tried on the tights, they were hired.  Doyle told them he would order their costumes.  The women were charged $2 each for "registration on the books of the company" and $10 for a pair of tights.  He promised to deliver the costumes at the first rehearsal. 

An excited Mamie Roberts and around 100 others crowded into an Eighth Avenue music hall for rehearsal at 8:00 on the night of November 14.  The New York Herald reported, "Doyle did not appear, and as new squads of women kept arriving during the evening some of the would-be chorus girls became suspicious."  At 10:00 a few women went to the manager who told them that Doyle had not paid for the hall.

Doyle and his "clerk" were arrested on Eighth Avenue later that night.  The next morning Mamie Roberts was one of the throng of women who appeared to testify against Doyle in the Jefferson Market Police Court.

The Ginging family lived in a rear apartment on the fourth floor as early as 1902.  The Gingings had two young adult children, a son (who had served in the Spanish-American War) and a daughter.  Annie Ginging worked in a Lower East Side necktie factory "from ten to fourteen hours every day," according to The Evening World.  Annie's parents were rigidly strict, the newspaper saying, "Her mother kept close watch over her and refused to allow her to join the diversions of the other girls of the neighborhood."

On Saturday February 7, 1903, Annie went to Harlem to visit her aunt.  The Evening World said, "There was dancing and it was late when Annie reached her home."  Waiting up for her was Annie's mother, who "reproved her in no gentle language.  The father added his protests."

All day long on Sunday, according to the newspaper, Annie's parents berated her behavior.  When Annie got up to go to work on Monday, her mother started in again.  Annie had already put on her coat to leave when she finally snapped, "If you don't quit talking about this I'll kill myself."

Annie's mother replied that her daughter would be better "dead than going to dances," and walked out of the room.

Annie Ginging climbed out of the kitchen window onto the fire escape and then waited for her mother to return.  When she did, Annie said, "Come here.  I am going to kill myself."  As her mother rushed to the window, Annie flung herself from the fire escape.

The Evening World reported, "Mrs. Ginging, peering through the fire escape, saw the flight of her daughter through the air and heard the sound of the body striking."  After striking several clothes lines, Annie hit the pavement on her head and was instantly killed.

On June 15, 1904, Kate Metteer and her six children boarded The General Slocum, a 235-foot steam sidewheeler chartered by St. Mark's Evangelical Lutheran Church for a day trip up the East River.  Around 10:00, as the vessel entered the treacherous Hell Gate section of the East River, fire broke out below deck, quickly reaching a locker filled with gasoline and other flammable liquids.  Panic ensued as the flames broke through the deck.  The life boats were stuck to the side, having been painted in place.  Pandemonium broke out as children jumped or were tossed into the river, some sucked under in the turbulent Hells Gate eddies, others pulled into the side wheels and beaten to death. 

Kate Metteer and her six children were among the throngs on the General Slocum, seen here just after setting off from the East River pier.  New York's Awful Excursion Boat Horror, 1904 (copyright expired)

Kate Metteer later told investigators:

I was sitting on the upper deck with the two smaller children and the others were playing around the boat.  When I heard the cry of "fire!" I yelled for my children.  They ran to me, and I told them to stay near me and they would be saved.  I climbed over the railing, holding the baby tight in my arm.  Somebody loosened my hold on the stanchion.  At that time a tug came alongside and I fell right on its deck with the baby in my arms.  The other children called after me, but when I looked up they had disappeared.  I was taken to North Brother Island and from there came home.  I got word William was in the Lebanon Hospital.  I can only hope my other children are saved.

The "baby" that Kate Metteer had held onto was three-year-old George.  William, who was four years old, was, indeed, in the Lebanon Hospital, as was his sister, 15-year-old Elsie.  Tragically, Albert, Robert and Frederick, 11, 10, and 8 years old respectively, were lost.

image via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services.

Not all of the tenants, of course, were hard-working and respectable.  Living here in 1911 were John Palismo and Morris Horowitz.  In the early hours of April 1 that year, they and three other men came across Charles Herman, who was a baker and lived across the street.  The New York Press reported, "Two of them beat him while the others were robbing him."  (The five thugs would have had a difficult task in dividing their spoils.  Herman only had a single dollar bill and some change on him.)

Herman's cries attracted Detectives Hooker and Ransberg.  They ran down and arrested four of the men, including Palismo and Morris.  The other culprit escaped.

By the end of the century, the East 5th Street neighborhood was seeing change.  Trendy shops and cafes opened on the avenues and in 2001, Jason Tang and Maki Kawasaki opened the tang kawasaki studio in 338 East 5th Street.  

Jason Tang and Maki Kawasaki were both born in 1977, Tang in Vancouver, Canada and Kawasaki in Kobe, Japan.  They met while studying architecture at Cornell University.  In their studio, they worked together on interior design, furniture design, and architectural commissions.

Even the heavily-carved entrance doors, painted today, with their interesting basket-weave panels survive after nearly 135 years.  photograph by Carole Teller  

Other than replacement windows and layers of paint on the basement and first floor masonry, Kurtzer & Rohl's tenement design survives remarkably intact.

many thanks to artist Carole Teller for suggesting this post

The Hotel Albert - University Place and 11th Street

 

Midway between two elegant residential enclaves--Washington Square and Union Square--the block of East 11th Street between University Place and Broadway was lined with elegant Greek Revival and Italianate homes in the mid-1850s.  In 1875, businessman Albert S. Rosenbaum hired architect James Irving Howard to convert three of them--32 through 36 East 11th Street--into a hotel.  (The addresses would be renumbered 46 to 50 later.)  Containing 120 rooms, the Hotel St. Stephen was opened in 1876 under the proprietorship of hotelier William Ryder.

An advertisement on October 8, 1876 read:

11th St. West, Nos. 32, 34, 36--Elegant Rooms, newly furnished, stationary washstands, ample closets, all conveniences, with or without Board; terms very moderate; strictly first class.  Hotel St. Stephens [sic].

The History and Commerce of New York called the St. Stephen, "one of the best appointed hotels in a city noted for its superior hotel accommodations."  Rates "are $1.00 per day and upward," said the article.  The base figure would translate to about $35.50 in 2026.

Soon after opening, the hotel was nearly the victim of a sneak thief.  On November 28, 1876, Henry Bird checked in.  That evening, a clerk, De Witt Bogardus, walked through the halls "to see if everything was right," according to the New York Herald.  He saw Bird, "leave his room and stealthily secret something under the carpet of the main corridor."  Bogardus summoned Detective Slevin who discovered that Bird had hidden a pair of "nippers."  Slevin said they "are used by hotel thieves for opening room doors."  When Bird could not provide an explanation, he was arrested for carrying burglars' tools.

In 1882, Albert S. Rosenbaum increased his enterprise by erecting the Hotel Albert, an apartment hotel, abutting the St. Stephen at the corner.  Henry Janeway Hardenbergh (who was simultaneously working on the Western Union Telegraph Building and a long row of houses on West 73rd Street off Central Park West), was the architect.  As he had done in his Dakota Apartment two years earlier, he creatively blended styles--in this case French Renaissance and Queen Anne.  William D. Ryder now managed both properties for Rosenbaum.

An advertisement on November 5, 1883 called The Albert, "One of the finest furnished and safest apartment-houses in New-York City."  Almost as a post script, "Also, Hotel St. Stephen," was added at the bottom.

Stereopticon slide by Byron Company, from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York

The two venues coexisted--the St. Stephen as a transient hotel and The Albert as an apartment house.  Perhaps the first artistic figure to patronize either of them was writer Robert Lewis Stevenson, who occupied rooms in the St. Stephen in 1888.  In January 1919, The New York Times recalled his posing for Auguste Saint-Gaudens for his "medallion portrait."  The article said, "His method of 'sitting for his portrait,' however, was to lie, always smoking his inevitable cigarettes, in his bed in the old Hotel St. Stephen."

Living in The Hotel Albert in 1890 were Charles and Anne G. Rhind and their 47-year-old daughter Frances.  They were members of "one of the oldest Southern families in the city," according to The Evening World, and "belong to an ultra-fashionable set."  

At around 1:00 on the morning of December 14, T. P. Sorrenson, who was staying in the St. Stephen and whose rooms looked into the courtyard, "saw a white object pass his window," as reported by the New-York Tribune.  The object, it turned out, was Frances Rhind in a suicidal plunge. 

Living in The Albert in the 1890s was author Kate Douglas Wiggins, best known for her novel and stage play Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm.  

An seventh floor was added to the Hotel Albert in 1891 and by 1895 the two operations were merged as the Hotel Albert-St. Stephen.

An 1896 ad touts the combined hotels. (copyright expired)

The operation continued to expand.  In 1903 the architectural firm of Buchman & Fox was hired to design a 12-story addition at 67 University Place.  The architects' design made no attempt to meld into the earlier structure.  An advertisement in the September 1906 issue of American Education listed the room rates at "$1 per day up.  100 rooms with private bath $2 per day up."

The addition was depicted in an advertisement in American Education in September 1906 (copyright expired)

In 1918, the Knott Hotels took over the management of the complex.  It wasted little time to disassociate the vintage St. Stephen buildings from the hotel operation.  On May 19, 1920, the New-York Tribune reported that the A. S. Rosenbaum estate had leased the Hotel St. Stephen building, "a landmark of the University place section," to the Bonar Phelphs Company, "manufacturer of straw hats."  The article said the firm intended to "convert the hotel into a mercantile structure."

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

With the loss of significant income-producing square footage, the operation, like a kudzu vine, again expanded southward.  In 1922 The Caterer reported, "The Knott Hotels will add 150 rooms to the Hotel Albert...The annex will be ready for the fall."  The six-story building, at the northeast corner of University Place and 10th Street opened in 1924.  Designed by William L. Bottomley with Sugarman, Hess & Berger, it, too, did not attempt to meld into the earlier structures.

An announcement in The New York Evening Post informed the public, "We have opened [a] new addition of 119 rooms in Hotel Albert.  This addition faces Southwest at corner of University Place and 10th Street."  The "permanent occupancy" rooms and baths rented for $75 to $100 a month.  (The most expensive rent equal to $1,840 in 2026.)

By the 1960s, rooms in the Hotel Albert were rented by the week.  An advertisement in July 1970 listed the rents for a room with private bath starting at $40 a week, and for rooms with shared baths starting at $23.

An article in The Villager on August 28, 1969, recounted the hotel's celebrated guests over the decades.  "It is believed that Jennie Lind, Edwin Booth and Thomas Edison were patrons of the hotel," said the article.  At the time of that article, embedded letters spelling out "Hotel St. Stephen" were still visible in the stone sidewalk on East 11th Street.

The article missed a few names.  Decades later The New York Times columnist Christopher Gray would recall,

Hart Crane wrote part of his 1930 poem "The Bridge" while there, and Thomas Wolfe used it as inspiration for the Hotel Leopold in his 1935 novel "Of Time and the River...It became the crash pad for rock musicians, checking in [were] the Electric Flag, Canned Heat, Cream, Paul Butterfield and the Blues Project.

In 1975, the Rockrose Development Corporation acquired the complex.  It evicted the residents and on December 30, 1976, The Villager reported that the developer "is trying to recapture, if not its most glamorous past, at least a touch of the elegance that was associated with the Hotel Albert a half-century ago."  The now-vacant buildings, said the article, "are being renovated into luxury apartments for what the developers call 'brownstone-type' living with the advantages of doormen and elevators."

The architecturally dissimilar buildings that made up the Hotel Albert retained the historic name following the renovation.  Originally rental apartments, the Albert became a co-op in 1984.

photographs by the author

The 1837 Jonas Wood House - 285 East Third Street

photograph by Carole Teller

 

In 1837, just 26 years after the Commissioners' Plan laid out on paper the streets that would dissect lands owned by Nicholas and Elizabeth Fish, ship carver Charles Dodge erected a row of six brick-faced homes on the north side of the newly opened Third Street between Avenues C and D.  Three stories tall and 22-feet-wide above English basements, the houses reflected the emerging Greek Revival style.  The builder arranged them as three mirror-image pairs that shared a stoop divided by a wing wall and iron railing.  The side-by-side doorways were framed by brownstone pilasters that upheld a single-layered entablature and molded cornice.

Attorney Jonas Wood first occupied 285 Third Street (the "East" in the address would be added in the early 1860s).  Highly involved in local politics, he had run for assemblyman in 1833.   He was, as well, a "trustee of the funds" of the Eight Ward Mutual Assurance Association.

The house saw a succession of residents through the 1840s and 1850s.  Charles H. Hillard was listed here in 1845; Robert I. Furney, a teacher in Public School No. 13 on Madison Street in 1847; and engineer Charles Garrison in 1850 and '51.

In 1852 Frances M. Murray and her daughters moved in, almost assuredly leasing the house.  Born in 1797, she was the widow of Thomas Murray.  

The two eldest daughters, Frances J. and Anna Murray, worked in Public School No. 22 on the corner of Stanton and Sheriff Streets in 1852.  Francis was the principal of the Girls' Department and Anna was a teacher.  Their positions were reflected in the women's salaries.  Francis earned $600 a year, and Anna $200.  (The figures would translate to $23,000 and $7,680 in 2026.)  Their younger sister, Louisa, would also become a teacher and in 1858 she worked at P. S. No. 15 on Fifth Street. 

Like many middle-class widows, Frances M. Murray took in boarders.  Living here that first year were Frederick Bevin, a real estate agent, and seaman David Hall.

Frances M. Murray moved to 817 East 4th Street in 1864.  She died there on March 8, 1869.

No. 285 East 3rd Street continued to house boarders.  Living here in 1864 were William Raise; Jacob Basch, a turner (the operator of a lathe to make items like spindles); and cigarmaker Samuel Goldberg.  Nicholas Baum, a smith, occupied the smaller house in the rear yard.

Although William Raise still listed his address at 285 Third Street that year, he was off fighting with the Union Army.  On July 15, 1864, he and 127 other Union guards were transporting 833 Confederate prisoners of war from Point Lookout, Maryland to Elmira, New New York on a 17-car train pulled by a wood-burning steam locomotive.

At around 2:45 p.m. the train collided head-on with a coal train at Shohola Township, Pennsylvania, about 19 miles from Port Jervis, New York.  At least 51 Confederal soldiers and 17 Union guards were killed instantly or within a day after.  The next day, the Troy, New York Daily Whig reported that among those who were injured, but not killed, at "Shin Hollow," was William Raise.

The Levy Hirsch family first occupied 285 East 3rd Street around 1867.  A cigarmaker, his family also took in boarders.  In 1868 tailor Michael Durmann occupied the rear house; and Simon Falk and Andrew Lynch lived with the Hirsches.  Simon Falk listed his profession as "segars," suggesting that he worked for Hirsch; and Lynch was a carpenter.

Jacob Kettner, who purchased 285 East 3rd Street around 1872, most likely knew Levy Hirsch.  He, too, operated a cigarmaking business.  Joseph R. Kettner worked for his father.  Boarding with the family in 1873 were fruit dealer Daniel M. Vineberg, and Maximilian Kutz, a real estate agent.

In 1876 George Davis, a police officer, boarded here and he would remain through 1879.  It was possibly his influence that prompted Joseph Kettner to leave his father's cigar business and apply to the Police Department.  In 1879, he was accepted as a patrolman earning $1,000 a year (about $33,000 today).

In March 1900, the Kettner family leased 285 East 3rd Street to Jacob and Rosa Lewis.  Jacob, who was in the clothing business, dabbled in real estate.  On May 19, 1905, for instance, The New York Times reported that he was making $5,000 in alterations to a "five-story brick tenement" at 218 East 7th Street; and in September 1909 he updated two "four-story brick tenements" on Avenue A.

The Kettner family sold the house to Abraham Heiler around 1909.  He continued to lease it to the Lewis family.  In June 1910, Heiler modernized the house by adding indoor plumbing and, importantly, "toilets."  The renovations cost him the equivalent of $52,400 today.

image via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services

After Morris Beck purchased 285 East 3rd Street in October 1921, it became a rooming house.  The Depression years saw mostly German families living here.  Among the residents in 1932, for instance, were the Waldstreichers, who operated a grocery store at 256 East 3rd Street, and Dr. Leo Rosenberg.

The third quarter of the 20th century started badly for 285 East Third Street.  When a two-alarm fire broke out in June 1972, The New York Times described it as being vacant.

But then, as early as 1984, I. Reed Books operated from the house.  And by the mid-1990s, Steven Cannon's "Gathering of the Tribes" was here.  It included the Tribes Gallery and space for emerging artists to network, trade ideas, and expose their works.

On January 5, 2001, in reporting on its latest exhibition, The New York Times journalist Holland Cotter described the Tribes Gallery, saying in part:

Tribe's latest offering has ambitions as big as the venue is small.  Organized by Christine Wang, it squeezes inself into three rooms, climbing up walls and spilling from shelves.  Three dozen or so international artists, several well known, jostle for attention.

On May 23, 2012, Stephen Rex Brown, writing in The New York Times, began an article saying, "Yesterday the founder of the art space at 285 East Third Street, Steve Cannon, was served with a formal '10-day notice of termination' for 'continued use of the premises as an office and art gallery, which is contracted to the lawful usage permitted by the certificate of occupancy for the building."

A year earlier, the Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation had begun a push to have 285 and 287 East 3rd Street designated individual landmarks.  It cited the importance of No. 285 in Black History (because of its connection with Steve Cannon and the Gathering of the Tribes), and the significance of both buildings as being "highly intact Greek Revival" examples.

photograph by Carole Teller

The last two survivors of Charles Dodge's 1837 row, the pair has managed to escape the brutalization or demolition of similar relics in the East Village.  Neither has landmark protection at this writing.

many thanks to artist Carole Teller for suggesting this post