The Humphrey Bogart House -- No. 245 West 103rd Street

photo by Alice Lum

Adam Bogart had greater ambitions than continuing his family’s tradition.  The Bogarts were among the earliest of the Dutch settlers; one of Adam's ancestor being the first European infant born in New York State.  While Bogart’s family had been burghers, they more recently made their living as truck farmers.  Adam instead became an innkeeper and fiddled with printing on the side.    When he invented a process for transferring lithographs to easily-manipulated tin sheets--an innovation that transformed the printing industry--his fortunes soared nearly overnight.

With his new found wealth, Adam transplanted his wife and son, Belmont, to Manhattan.   Here the Bogarts would rub shoulders with other families with old names and relatively new money like the Astors and Rhinelanders.  Adam Bogart’s primary drive was the elevation of his son within society.

Belmont DeForest Bogart was outfitted in gentlemanly clothes, polished in his social demeanor, and sent to private schools.   He graduated from Columbia College medical school and, at the age of 30, met the striking and successful Maud Humphrey who was one year younger than he.

Unusual for a woman in the 1890s, Maud had already made a professional name for herself.  At the age of 16 the talented artist had already sold her drawings to publications.  Like most artists at the time, she studied in Paris.  Among her compatriots there was James McNeill Whistler.  She then returned home to ply her trade.  Maud Humphrey focused on commercial art rather than pretty landscapes and portraits.  She illustrated calendars, books and advertisements for highly-visible products like Ivory Soap.

Belmont and Maud’s courtship was strained from the beginning.  She was an early feminist with strong ideals.   His beliefs were rooted deeply in masculine Victorian values that clearly rejected women’s equal rights.  Belmont would go on to earn the handsome salary of $20,000 a year as a surgeon and heart and lung specialist—about $500,000.   But Maud was the highest-paid female illustrator in the nation, earning more than double his salary.  Her $50,000 income was well over a million dollars in today’s money.

The differences were too strong and amicable good-byes were said.   It would have been the end of the road for the couple had not a horrific accident occurred.    As Belmont was riding in an ambulance one of the horses pulling the vehicle became spooked.  It reared, causing the ambulance to topple, seriously fracturing the physician’s leg.  The leg was poorly set, then rebroken and set again to correct the botched procedure.  For the rest of his life Dr. Belmont Bogart would suffer pain and rely on medications like morphine.

Hearing of the accident, Maud Humphrey paid a visit to offer consolation.  One visit turned into another, then another, and before too long the unlikely couple was married.

While all this was happening the Upper West Side was developing at an astonishing rate.  Clusters of modern speculative rowhouses had cropped along the side streets and the avenues were lined with grand mansions.  On West 103^rd Street, between West End Avenue and Broadway, a row of brownstone houses had appeared.  Intended for well-to-do families, they sported up-to-date features to lure new homeowners—angular bays, decorative carved panels and handsome interiors.



Carved panels of faces among vines and fruity garlands decorate the facade -- photo by Alice Lum

The newlyweds purchased No. 245 and on Christmas Day 1899 their first child was born.  The boy took his mother’s name—Humphrey.  Along with the family in the house were four servants: a laundress, two maids and a cook.  Later two little girls would arrive—Frances (known at Pat) in 1901, and Katherine (known as Kay) two years later.

Marriage did not necessarily bring the end to the stark disparities between Belmont and Maud.  She headed the household and continued her career; a somewhat shocking choice for a turn-of-the-century woman.  The children were raised, for the most part, by nursemaids.  Nevertheless, Maud grasped the opportunity of readily-available models in the household.

The bowed, upper bays created a eye-pleasing undulation.  Originally tall brownstone stoops accessed the parlor levels -- photo by Alice Lum

Little Humphrey’s chubby angelic face began appearing on advertisements and jar labels of Mellin’s Baby Foods.  His early and unwilling celebrity would irk him throughout his life.  According to author George Perry in his “Bogie: A Celebration of the Life and Films of Humphrey Bogart,” the actor later said “There was a period in American history when you couldn’t pick up a goddamed magazine without seeing my kisser in it.”

Belmont was addressed by the children as “father,” and the feminist Maud instructed the children to call her by her first name.    Neither parent was emotionally demonstrative.  Reportedly the children were never hugged; instead they received the more properly-Victorian pat on the head or back.

Belmont was not totally without some input into the children’s lives.  While Humphrey was still a toddler his father made preparations for the boy’s entrance into Philips Academy Andover; a prestigious boarding school.  The school would be an effective stepping-stone for the boy to enter the medical profession his father envisioned for him.

The 103^rd Street house was modified to accommodate the Bogarts’ professions.  The English basement was modified into an office for Belmont’s medical practice; and an upper floor was converted to a studio for Maud.  On the roof Belmont kept coops of pigeons which he raised as a hobby.

The children enjoyed the fruits of privilege that came from two highly successful parents.  The family owned a sprawling 55-acre estate, Willow Brook, on the shore of Canandaigua Lake in Seneca Point in upstate New York.   Here Belmont taught his son to sail.

Life in the Bogart household was troubled, however.  Maud suffered migraines and bouts of mental instability.  Belmont more and more showed signs of morphine addiction.  The significant differences that had led them to part company years earlier were now magnified.  The children would later relate of frightening nights spent lying in the dark listening to their parents verbal fighting.

Young Humphrey was sent to the exclusive Trinity School where he spent eight years being prepared for the Ivy League.  He was, at best, a mediocre student; excelling in nothing.  Neither academics nor sports interested him; yet Maud held out hope that he would go on to Yale and Belmont held fast to the idea that he would go to Phillips.

The United States’ entry into World War I offered Humphrey Bogart an escape from the house on 103^rd Street.  In the spring of 1918 he enlisted in the U.S. Navy, officially reporting for duty on July 2 in the Bronx.  After weeks of instruction he boarded the U.S.S. Leviathan as a seaman.  Two days later the Armistice was signed, ending the conflict.   Rather than seeing fighting, the teenager became part of a crew transporting the war-weary soldiers back home from Europe.  He later remembered “At eighteen war was great stuff.  Paris! French girls! Hot damn!” 

When he returned to New York he got an office job at World Films.  He first appeared on stage in 1921 and within the next 16 years he would appear in 17 Broadway shows.

The Bogart family moved out of the 103^rd Street house in 1925, relocating to No. 79 East 56^th Street.  It would not be long before the homes of the once-fashionable block became boarding houses and apartments.  In the spring of 1938 the former Bogart house was listed as having 13 furnished rooms.   It would remain that way until 1962 when it was converted to apartments—one per floor.  It was most likely at this time that the brownstone stoop was removed that the entrance moved to the former English basement, a few steps below sidewalk level.

The stoop was removed to be replaced by a featureless doorway into the basement. -- photo by Alice Lum

Today the house is owned by the city as low-income housing.   The attractive but typical row house would draw no attention at all were it not for the baby born here in 1899—the boy whose face on a baby food jar would later become a silver screen icon.

The Lost John D. Rockefeller Mansion - 4 West 54th Street

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

The area around Fifth Avenue and 54^th Street during the Civil War was still mostly undeveloped.  Construction on St. Patrick’sCathedral four blocks south had ground to a halt as workers marched off to war.  The block between 50^th and 51^st Streets, on same side of the avenue was filled with the Roman Catholic Orphan Asylum, and St. Luke’s Hospital took up the block along West 54^th Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenues.  In between, the building sites were mostly vacant.

Around 1864, wealthy merchant William P. Williams shot ahead of the northward progression of New York’s wealthy by constructing a fine brownstone residence at 4 West 54^th Street, directly across from the hospital.  Taking full advantage of the available lot, he constructed a two-story carriage house to the side, rather than to the back as might be expected, and surrounding gardens.  The Italianate-style, brownstone-clad house rose four stories over an English basement.  The dignified façade offered little embellishment to call attention to itself.   A handsome portico sheltered the entrance and provided support to a bay window at the second floor.  Quoins ran up the corners and Italian pediments surmounted the front windows.

Looking west from Fifth Avenue in 1867 St. Luke's Hospital is on the right, William P. Williams' house is on the left.  The low brick building in front of the house is the two-story carriage house.  -- photo The Sun, March 7, 1915 (copyright expired)

Williams then sat back and waited for the neighborhood to come to him.

While the mansion was being constructed, a drama was unfolding in Richmond, Virginia.  Catherine Yarrington’s husband died in 1859, so she opened a boarding house to support herself and her five children.  But in 1865, much of the surrounding neighborhood had been burned to the ground by Union troops and her options were dismal.

With the war ended, the married New York City railroad tycoon Collis P. Huntington initiated a series of visits to Richmond that would culminate in his purchase of what would become the Chesapeake and Ohio Railroad.  Uneducated and unpolished, he was described by newspapers as, “As ruthless as a crocodile” and “scrupulously dishonest.”  And he was rich.

Catherine Yarrington recognized an opportunity.   Her daughter, Arabella, was 19 years old and attractive.   Huntington played cards at a faro parlor owned by John Worsham, not far from Catherine Yarrington’s boarding house.   Huntington was introduced to Arabella and before long they were involved in a torrid affair.

In 1869, Collis P. Huntington drove the golden spike into the rail line connecting the East and West.  There was no longer a reason for him to travel south.  That same year, the entire Yarrington family moved to New York City—including John Worsham.  

To keep the affair discreet, Arabella Yarrington and John Worsham posed as a married couple (in fact, Worsham had a wife, Annette, back home).  With Huntington footing the bills, Catherine and Arabella dressed in the finest of fashion.  No one suspecting that the refined women with their Southern accents were anything but the most respectable Mrs. Yarrington and Mrs. Worsham.

A year after they arrived, Arabella Worsham bore a son and soon after was tragically widowed.  At least that was what respectable society was informed.  In fact, John Worsham had returned to Richmond to his wife.  In all probability little Archer Worsham was the son of Collis Huntington.

The millionaire moved the clan into a smart house he owned at 109 Lexington Avenue near fashionable Gramercy Park where many of the leading names of New York society lived.  In the meantime, Elizabeth Huntington, aware of the affair or not, continued to live on in their Park Avenue mansion at 38^th Street.

By 1877, Arabella would move again.  By now Fifth Avenue was Manhattan’s most exclusive address and with Huntington money she purchased the brownstone at 4 West 54^th Street and the garden lots surrounding it.  The class-conscious Arabella had one problem with her new mansion however.  It was out of date.

Arabella added the extension to the house near the rear -- photo Brooklyn Museum

Arabella Yarrington Worsham was well trained in fashion.  She studied architecture and decorating books.  She spoke French and read extensively about art history.  Although polite society living in the homes around her—Astors, Vanderbilts and Goulds—did not include her name on their guest lists, she nevertheless had the money to redecorate her house in the latest fashion.

The remodeled house included stained glass (as in the entrance doors) and built-in furniture, like the entrance hall sideboard -- photo by Samuel Herman Gothscho, Library of Congress collection

She enlarged the residence to the side and contracted a foremost decorating firm—either George A. Schastey or Pottier & Stymus—to completely renovate the interiors.   The concept of interior decorators was relatively new, as wealthy citizens focused more on the overall design of the room, rather than individual pieces.  There is little doubt, however, that Arabella had a great deal of input into the décor.

The 1870s were the hey-day of the Aesthetic Movement and Arabella’s house would be the epitome of the style.  All traces of the stuffy, restricted Civil War period décor were ripped out, replaced by Moorish, Oriental and Eastland designs.

A dizzying array of materials decorated the dining room:  stained glass, stenciled patterns, hand painting, carved woodwork and gilding -- photo by Samuel Herman Gothscho, Library of Congress collection

There was a Turkish bath, a Japanese bedroom with ebonized woodwork and a silver and gilt chandelier.  The smoking room was Moorish.  Woodwork was inlaid with ivory, ceilings were stenciled or frescoed, mantels were carved in exotic patterns.  While the work was being done, Arabella and her son, now 7 years old, traveled.  They returned to a magnificent transformation.  The somber interiors were now brilliant with primary colors, gold leaf, and sumptuous furnishings and draperies.

The dazzling Moorish Smoking Room included ebonized woodwork, elaborate, polychrome plasterwork and exotic furniture -- photo brooklynmuseum.org

In 1883, after having suffered from cancer for some time, Elizabeth Huntington died.  Now Arabella, 34, and Collis, 64, were free to marry.  On Friday July 7, 1884, Huntington transferred the deed to his Park Avenue mansion “and two houses and lots around the corner of Thirty Eighth street” to “Mrs. Belle D. Worsham,” as reported in The Atlanta Constitution.  The following day they were married in the parlor of 4 East 54^th Street.  The newspaper added, “Rumor had it that Mr. Huntington purchased the house many years ago and presented it as a testimonial of friendly regard to Mrs. Worsham.”  The famous minister, Henry Ward Beecher, performed the ceremony.

The newlyweds took up residency in the Park Avenue house and Arabella looked for a buyer for 4 West 54^th.  She found one in oil tycoon John D. Rockefeller.

Rockefeller, a devout Baptist, had been spending more and more time in New York and less in Cleveland.  He brought his family with him, staying in expansive suites in the Buckingham, Fifth Avenue and Windsor Hotels.  By now, he decided on a permanent New York residence.

While other Manhattan millionaires were building lavish palaces along Fifth Avenue, the somber Rockefeller disdained ostentation.  He purchased Arabella’s house and moved in with his wife, Laura, and their children.  Although he was quickly becoming one of the richest and most powerful men in America, Rockefeller saw no need to change anything in the house—except for the purchase of new rugs.

photo by Samuel Herman Gothscho, Library of Congress collection

Six years later, on November 25, 1890, The Evening World described the tycoon.  “John D. Rockefeller is fifty-one years old.  He is a plain, ordinary man in appearance.  He wears a mustache, is a good husband and a kind father, enjoys his home, which is at 4 West Fifty-fourth street, opposite St. Luke’s Hospital, and looks like a solid businessman.

“He puts on no airs, but is a natural gentleman—polite, suave and gentle to all, be they rich or poor, lofty or humble.  He claims no praise for getting rich, and sticks faithfully to Dr. Armitage’s Baptist Church, of which he is a member.”

The painted ceilings and walls, such as those in the parlor above (looking into the dining room) installed by Arabella Worsham were kept intact -- photo by Samuel Herman Gothscho, Library of Congress collection

The newspaper claimed “there are few servants,” although census records a decade later would count ten.  Daughters Alta and Edith, “two pretty girls just growing into women, have but one maid between them,” and “all the members of the family wait on themselves as a rule.”  The article even claimed that Laura Rockefeller “is her own housekeeper.”

The exquisite inlaid doors and wainscot in the rear hallway were never seen by guests -- photo by Samuel Herman Gothscho, Library of Congress collection

The thought of the mistress of a mansion behaving as a housekeeper and young heiresses sharing a maid was no doubt shocking to the likes of Caroline Astor or Alva Vanderbilt; yet the Rockefellers were not like most fabulously wealthy families.  Dividing their time quietly between their country estate, Pocantico Hills, and the 54^th Street house, The Evening World said they had never “been prominent in society simply for the reason that they never desired to be.  To lead a simple, unostentatious life is one of the strongest characteristics of all of the members of the Rockefellers, and they are all religiously inclined.”

Stained glass separates a small sitting area in the extension and the master bedroom -- photo by Samuel Herman Gothscho, Library of Congress collection

As it does today, wealth brought notoriety and possible danger.  In February 1892, Jay Gould received threats against his life.  Rockefeller hired three private watchmen to guard the 54^th Street house in successive eight-hour shifts.  The oil man played down the security move to the press.  “Mr. Rockefeller, like all notoriously very rich men, receives many begging letters and letters from cranks, but he said last evening that there was no especial incentive of this kind that led to setting so strict a watch upon his house,” said The Sun on February 29, 1892.  “The reason for employing watchmen was that he was out of town frequently and that the family felt more secure with a watchman within call.”

The guards did not suppress every "beggar or crank," however.   In the spring of 1894, while Rockefeller was at his office, a “wild-eyed, poorly-dressed man, with a shuffling gait, walked hurriedly up Fifth Avenue…and turned west into Fifty-fourth Street,” reported The New York Times on May 1.  The man, whom the newspaper said, “swung his arms above his head in an excited manner and mumbled something to himself,” mounted the steps to the Rockefeller mansion and rang the doorbell.

The Rockefeller butler, Christopher Allson, opened the door and, according to The Evening World, “saw at a glance that the man was crazy.”  Camille Reinhardt, Jr., 26-years old, demanded to see Rockefeller or the lady of the house.  The butler said that no one was at home and shut the door.

Undaunted, Reinhardt waited in the vicinity, then climbed the steps again.  This time he informed Allson that a friend in heaven had informed him that the end of the world was at hand and “for that reason he wanted to ask Mr. Rockefeller to give him a few of his millions, which he knew the latter would not need at all after a short time, and which would keep Reinhardt in very comfortable circumstances,” said The World.

Allson persuaded Reinhardt to leave, but he merely hid behind a bush in the hospital yard.  Within a few minutes of  John Rockefeller’s return home, the doorbell rang again.  It was, of course, Reinhardt.  Rockefeller was a kind, patient and religious man.  But this was apparently enough.  “He saw at once that the man was demented,” reported The New York Times, and while the butler engaged the latter in conversation, Mr. Rockefeller sent for a policeman.”

Camila Reinhart spent the night at the East 51^st Street Police Station.  The end of the world never came.

Reflected in a large mirror, a dressing room included a lavatory with running water -- photo by Samuel Herman Gothscho, Library of Congress collection

Later that year, The Sun commented on daughter Edith’s musical talents.  “Miss Edith Rockefeller has a fancy for pianos.  There are five in her home, 4 West Fifty-fourth street.  She likes them in wood to match her boudoir, or in rosewood like the drawing room.  She plays beautifully, and is rich enough to indulge the fancy to her heart’s desire.”

By the turn of the century Rockefeller had ostensibly retired, although his enormous holdings in Standard Oil continued to enlarge his fortune.  He purchased large tracts of land in the surrounding area to protect his mansion from encroaching commerce.   While Fifth Avenue began changing, John D. Rockefeller’s free-standing home with its gardens and quaint carriage house steadfastly remained.

Behind the Rockefeller house was St. Thomas Church.  The tall white building is the enormous mansion built by John D. Rockfeller, Jr.  The quaint two-story carriage house is separated by a wide garden. -- photo from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York

In 1902 the butler was Nicholas Stanton and, like Christopher Allson before him, he was tasked with turning away beggars.   But on Christmas Eve that year, his job was more difficult.   He answered the doorbell to find a shabbily-dressed nine-year-old girl on the stoop.  She asked for Mr. Rockefeller, “saying that he was to give her money to buy Christmas presents,” said The New York Times on Christmas morning.

Little Mary Basanian had spent much of the day on the 9:30 train from Worcester, Massachusetts.  She roamed the streets, asking various people how to find the Rockefeller house.  Now at the door, she explained that her father had given her money for the trip, saying that “Mr. Rockefeller would give her money for Christmas.”

The butler explained that Mr. Rockefeller was not in the city, and he had her wait in the warm foyer while he got his coat.   With the family gone, he had no choice but to take the little waif to the East 51^st Street Station, the same police station where the demented beggar had ended up 13 years before.   Sadly, little Mary spent Christmas in the station house.  “She will be in the Children’s Court on Monday,” reported The New York Times.

The block where just one house and a hospital stood in 1865 was now lined with impressive mansions.  John D. Rockefeller, Jr. moved into 31 West 54th Street in 1905.  Philip Lehman lived at No. 7 and neurologist Moses Allen Starr was at No. 5.    Everything on the tree-lined street was prosperous and happy.  But inside the house at 4 West 54th Street, Laura Rockefeller was failing.

She spent the first years of the century as a semi-invalid and by 1910 was essentially bed-ridden and in pain.  John Rockefeller was her thoughtful companion.  On September 8, 1914, as they celebrated their 50^th wedding anniversary, he proclaimed, “I have had but one sweetheart and I am thankful to say that I still have her.”

As the world changed outside the double entrance doors, everything stayed the same in the Rockefeller mansion -- photo by Samuel Herman Gothscho, Library of Congress collection

Six months later, on March 12, 1915, the 75-year-old Laura Spelman Rockefeller died of a heart attack.   John D. Rockefeller closed the New York house he had shared with his “sweetheart” and never returned.

During the war years, the mansion was opened to Red Cross workers.  The Sun reported on May 12, 1918,

Mr. Rockefeller had their workrooms equipped with sewing machines, chairs and tables.  The dining and reception rooms on the first floor are used by Auxiliary 236, New York County Chapter, of the Fifth Avenue Baptist Church.  Mrs. John D. Rockefeller, Jr. is general chairman of this unit.  The basement is used by Auxiliary 211, composed of older workers from the church.  Special lighting was installed for the work, and workers have the use of the kitchen for preparing their lunches.

 

Later that year, in October, the three upper floors were outfitted as dormitories for the Y. W. C. A., “for women taking special courses in recreation.”  Fifty resident students lived in the bedrooms where Rockefeller children had grown up.

On May 23, 1937, John D. Rockefeller, Sr., died in his winter home, The Casements, at Ormond Beach, Florida.  He had hoped to live two more years “until July 9, 1939, when he would have rounded out a century of life,” said The New York Times.  Because his death was sudden, he died with no family members with him.  Over the course of his life, the quiet-living philanthropist had given away more than $530 million.

With the end near, Samuel H. Gothscho photographed every room of the house -- photo Library of Congress

The following year John D. Rockefeller, Jr. announced plans to raze the family mansion on West 54^th Street.  The house was an unbelievable time capsule of 1870s Aesthetic Movement décor.  Unfortunately, not many recognized the irreplaceable value of the museum-like interiors.  Edward R. Walsh, in charge of the demolition, told The New York Times, “Little of the expensive carved hardwood stair rails, wall paneling and pillars will be salvaged.  They would be out of place in the smaller rooms of modern homes, and will not be of much value after being torn out of their present setting.”

John D. Rockefeller, Jr. donated two rooms—the master bedroom and dressing room—to the Museum of the City of New York, and the Moorish smoking room to the Brooklyn Museum.   And then the demolition team descended.  The New York Times said of the house, “Its old walls, dating back more than eighty years, will offer no particular problem for the wrecking crew.”

The site of the old mansion became the Sculpture Garden of the Museum of Modern Art, which was co-founded by Abby Rockefeller, John’s wife.  

The site of the Rockefeller mansion as it appears today -- photo by Alice Lum

Mckim, Mead & Bigelow's Nos. 62-64 E. 34th Street

photo by Alice Lum

Edward Nicoll Dickerson, by 1877, had created a name for himself and amassed a sizable fortune while doing so.   After being admitted to the bar in 1845, he practiced law in New Jersey and New York and became a household name after representing Samuel Colt and Charles Goodyear in two highly publicized cases.  All the while, he was a mechanical engineer and inventor, wrote several books, and his engineering expertise led to consulting work for the Suckasunny Mining Company and the Society for Establishing Useful Manufactures.

Dickerson, his wife and their daughter, Louise, and son, also named Edward Nicoll Dickerson, had lived at No. 62 East 34^th Street for over two decades.  The house sat on the broad thoroughfare, just off Madison Avenue.  Around the corner to the north were the mansions of John Jay Phelps, Isaac N. Phelps and William E. Dodge (the John Phelps home would be purchased by J. P. Morgan in 1882); and a block away on Fifth Avenue were the twin mansions of John Jacob and William Astor.

The homes along Dickerson’s block were staid, brownstone residences, near carbon copies of one another.  While perfectly respectable, they  were slightly out of fashion in 1877.   Dickerson approached the fledgling architectural firm of McKim, Mean & Bigelow to design an updated residence.

Just a year old, the firm had been established when Charles McKim, who was already partnered with William Rutherford Mead, brought his brother-in-law, William Bigelow, into the practice.  It was given the task of designing a new home at No. 64, next door to the Dickerson mansion, and redoing the existing house.  And if Edward N. Dickerson wanted up-to-date, he definitely got it.

The architects turned to the newly popular Queen Anne style, recently introduced in England and embracing many of the Eastlake and Esthetic Movement traits.   Dickerson’s houses would practically introduce Queen Anne to New York, being edged out as the first by Sidney V. Stratton’s New York House and School of Industry by a year.

No. 64 burst forth with a showy gable.  No other wealthy New Yorker had a mansion in the innovative style.  photo by Alice Lum

The five-story brownstone-clad houses were completed in 1879 and the Dickersons moved into the slightly larger and wider No. 64.   Quite accurately, the New-York Tribune called the house “spacious and unlike any other in the city.”  Fantasies in stone, the two structures were embellished with arcades, gables, pediments and carved panels.    The bold step away from convention was too much for the often-acerbic architectural critic Montgomery Schuyler who likened the homes to “a monumental sideboard.”

Harper’s New Monthly Magazine begged to disagree.  In November 1882 it touted the Dickerson house as “one of the triumphs of both a new and admirable system of ventilation, and of internal decoration of a high order.”  The magazine praised the broad open staircases of unvarnished mahogany “with paneling of the same at the side” as a superb feature of the house.

With Queen Anne and the Eastlake Movement came stained glass and the Dickerson houses made full use of the colorful material.  “Mr. Dickerson has much beautiful stained glass; his drawing-room windows are made to repeat the delicate scarlet and dove-color of the paper and window curtains, while in a bedroom swallows fly through apple-blossoms, and are in more imperishable form represented in the glass window.”

McKim, Mead & Bigelow emphasized No. 64 by with more elaborate embellishment -- photo by Alice Lum

The interiors were decorated by the currently well-known designer Remigio Loforte, who would work with the architects for years as they became McKim, Mead & White.   The dining room walls were covered in stamped leather and the carved buffets had inset painted leather panels, imitating tiles.  The focal point of the dining room was a large stained glass window framed in Japanese carving.  “This piece has given the key-note to the room,” said Harper’s, “which has also a ceiling of painted plaques, very harmonious, curious, and ornamental.”

The Aesthetics Movement influence was evident in a bedroom paneled in ebonized cherry, “with tile fire-place, the tiles painted with bright flowers, and much ornamental brass-work about, is extremely pretty, as is the whole of this artistic dwelling.”

Two years after they moved in, the Dickersons gave perhaps their grandest entertainment in the house on January 20, 1881.  Louise was married to Charles W. Gould in Trinity Chapel in what the New-York Tribune called “one of the most brilliant weddings of the season.”  Afterward a reception was held in the 34^th Street house.  Of the 2,100 persons who received invitations, about 1,500 were present, according to the press.

Among those receiving invitations were President and Mrs. Hayes, all the members of the Cabinet, the judges of the Supreme Court of the Unites States, the German Ambassador, and European nobility.   Mrs. Dickerson worked with society’s favorite sources.  The florist was Kinnder who supplied what the Tribune called “a mass of rare flowers and plants.”   The caterers were the Pinard Brothers, who provided the mansions of Fifth Avenue and Newport with exquisite fare; and music was provided by Lauder.

Louise’s wedding gifts were on display:  a sterling tea service from her father, a full set of silverware from her brother—totaling 330 knives, forks, spoons, and other pieces—a diamond bracelet from Mrs. Gould.   There were “numerous candelabra,” a clock in the shape of “the Moscow bell,” bronze vases, mirrors and a rare cloisonné plaque.   The table was piled with a hammered silver pitcher and tray with repousse of oyster shells, an after-dinner coffee pot, a silver cream and sugar set, another silver cream pitcher, “a silver vase in the shape of a log of wood,” and a silver vase from Alexander Graham Bell (Dickerson was counsel for the American Bell Telephone Company).

Sadly, Louise lived only about three years after her wedding day.

Edward Nicoll Dickerson died on December 12, 1889.   Seven days later The New York Times reported his estate, saying “One of the shortest wills ever offered for probate is that of Edward N. Dickerson, the patent lawyer.”    Essentially one sentence long, he left “all of his estate to his wife, the principal at her death to revert to Edward N. Dickerson, their son.”

Dickerson and his mother lived on in No. 64 as he took up his father’s practice.  In the meantime, he ran the house next door as a sort of high-end boarding house.    In 1894 Captain Frank Roosevelt was living there.   The 32-year old was a member of Company E, Twelfth Regiment as was another resident, the architect S. Breck Parkman Trowbridge. 

The following winter Roosevelt was on duty with his regiment in Brooklyn.  Exposed to the frigid weather, he contracted pneumonia which led to his extremely untimely death.   A full military escort accompanied his casket from the house at No. 62 East 34^th Street to the Church of the Holy Communion on 6^th Avenue at 20^th Street.   The church was filled with important military figures including General Daniel Butterfield, Colonel Barber, Major Crocker and Colonel Dowd.

Architect Trowbridge moved out when he married in 1896.  At the turn of the century, Abel Mix Phelps, a physician and surgeon who lived across the street at No. 40, had his office in No. 62.

Before long No. 62 would become the headquarters and “exchange” for the New York State branch of the Shut-in Society.   The organization had begun in 1884 when two crippled girls wrote back and forth to brighten each other’s life.  By 1885 their two-person club had gained such popularity that it was incorporated.   As explained in The New York Times in 1911, it was an organization “of persons aiming to bring cheerfulness, contentment, and helpfulness into the lives of those who, because of sickness and injury, are unable to go outside of their own homes.” 

In its headquarters at No. 62, the Society maintained a circulating library, published a monthly magazine, The Open Window, and operated an exchange.   Invalids sent their homemade embroidery, lace, and “fancy things” for sale here.  As the First World War sent crippled soldiers back home, the Society’s outreach broadened.

In 1915 Mrs. Edward Nicoll Dickerson hosted one of the last social functions in the mansion next door.  When her sister, Josephine Ogden, married Pierpont Davis in a socially noticeable wedding, the reception was held here. 

But by now residential life on East 34^th Street had nearly come to an end.  As the mansions of Fifth Avenue were replaced by retail concerns and the city’s millionaires moved northward, the blocks immediately off the avenue followed suit.    The Shut-in Society moved further east to No. 123 East 34^th Street and the lower floors of Nos. 62 and 64 were converted to stores and the buildings combined by Abraham Reich and Adolph Fortgang.

The parlor and basement floors of the two mansions have been sadly obliterated -- photo by Alice Lum

Today the two lower floors are a mangled cacophony of signs and awnings that hawk pizza, skin care and pasta.   An incongruous penthouse has been plopped on the mansard roof of the Dickerson house.  Inside are thirteen apartments which, amazingly, according to a real estate listing “still maintain much of the original detail, especially in the upper floor apartments.”

Above the desecrated parlor level of the two houses, McKim, Mead & Bigelow’s groundbreaking Queen Anne design--an early and important commission for the young firm- still survives.  Abeit somewhat careworn.   

photo by Alice Lum

Murder in The Collegian Flats -- No. 345 West 21st Street

The Collegian Flats was the the latest in multi-family residential design in 1884.

By 1884 the quiet and respectable block of West 21^st Street between 8^th and 9^th Avenues was undergoing change.  The brick and brownstone one-family homes were slowly being converted to boarding houses.   And before the end of the century many of them would be razed to make way for modern apartment buildings.

Among the very first of these would be built by the Evans Estate at No. 345 and would be, as The New York Times put it, “dignified by the title of the Collegian Flats.”    Built for middle-class families, the five-story building offered two roomy apartments per floor, with tall double-hung windows for ample ventilation.

The red brick building was trimmed in stone with up-to-the-minute Eastlake touches—a sawtooth cornice between the first and second floors, for instance, and incised lintel carvings.   The rows of windows at each level were connected by a stone course at the sills and at the lintels, and by a decorative floral tile band –a nice added touch.  Two semi-attached polished granite columns supported a solid stone hood over the entrance, proclaiming that this was not another tenement building.

Bands of decorative floral tiles at each floor were a colorful added touch.

The Collegian Flats would quickly become the center of a scandalous murder trial that started far away in a Cleveland, Ohio.

In May 1884 24-year old George W. Evans stopped at the American Hotel in Cleveland.  Across the street was the Johnson House where Annie Belts, “a very attractive young woman,” according to newspapers, was a guest.  Annie was the daughter of a Steubenville livery stable owner and had argued with her parents and run away from home.

Evans flirted with Annie through the hotel windows, finally becoming acquainted with her.  What Annie did not know was that he was also the son of Alexander Evans, a notorious pickpocket and sneak thief also known as “Nevins,” and “the milkman.”  Nor did she know he was cruel and abusive.

Evans was attracted to the young girl not only for her good looks, but for the $40,000 of Steubenville property of which she would become the sole heiress.  He convinced Annie to come back to New York with him and in the Fall they were married.   On November 1 he was hired as janitor of the new Collegian Flats.  The couple was given the four-room apartment in the basement.   Things seemed to be going well for the newly-weds.

Trouble soon surfaced.   The jealous husband felt that Augustus White, a partner in the management company of the building, W. A. White & Sons, was taking too great an interest in his wife and that she appeared to reciprocate.  Quarrels ensued.

Tenants began complaining that Evans would lock himself in the apartment with his wife and beat her.  According to The New York Times “sounds of blows and shrieks indicated that he was chastising her, and she afterward complained that he not only beat her, but tried to strangle her.”  The residents were, said The Times, “shocked by Evans’s brutality to his wife.”

The Sun was less sympathetic.  It reported that the tenants “suggested to the agents that he should be removed from the flats, as the woman’s cries were annoying.”

By January Annie Evans was fearful for her life.  When White called one morning and Evans was not at home, she implored the man to help her.

“She said she had discovered that her husband, whom she married hastily, was a villain,” White later recounted.  “He had a bad temper and had beaten her and threatened to kill her.  She told me she was afraid of her life and begged me to help her to get back to her home and friends in Ohio.  Unless I did so she would be driven to killer herself.”

A plan was hatched whereby Annie would have enough time to pack and escape.  On Wednesday, January 28, Evans was summoned to the White offices at 1:00 to discuss maintenance of the water pipes in the building.  When he arrived, White told him he had to take care of something, but not to leave until he returned.

White finally came back at 6:00 in the evening, apologized and asked Evans to return the next day.  When the janitor arrived at the basement apartment, he found that his wife had packed and left.   In the morning he was fired and told to leave.

George Evans, however, did not take losing his wife nor losing his job easily.  He spent 24 hours searching for Annie and at one point was informed she had been seen “walking with Mr. White.”  Evans was enraged.

When he returned to the apartment on Friday night at 11:30, he encountered the new janitor, a black man named Thomas Currie.  The two got into a violent argument which was heard on the upper-most floor.  The apartment of Edmund Coon was on the top floor and in the rear room was top of a shaft that connected to the cellar by the coalbins.  Thomas Coon, a nephew, was awakened by the angry voices below.

“I want you to understand I’m janitor here until tomorrow; then my time’s up.  I have orders not to let anyone in the house at night.  So you get.”

The 36-year old Currie argued that he was obeying the orders of White to stay.

Edmund Coon, who was in the front room of the apartment at the time, was startled by a gunshot.  His nephew told him what he had heard and the pair listened at the shaft, first hearing groaning, then “What did you expect—that I’d let you ‘boss’ me?  I had to defend myself.  Do you want a doctor?”

The men rushed to the basement to find a dazed Currie at the foot of the cellar stairs, bleeding  from the head.  He was able to say that Evans had shot him.   He was taken to New York Hospital where he died four days later.

The manhunt was on for Evans whom police described as “5 feet 9 inches in height, small side whiskers, small black mustache, black hair and eyes, ruddy complexion, medium build, dark clothes and a derby hat.”

Assuming that Annie fled to Ohio, Evans headed there.  Authorities tracked him to Cleveland, Chicago and St. Louis; and then lost the trail.  Nearly a year would pass before Evans was caught.  Detectives rented a room across the street from Evans’s aunt who lived at No. 312 East 105^th Street on a hunch that he might return to New York.  Finally, in December, they spotted him at the window of his aunt’s apartment.

He was arrested later on the street.  In the waistband of his trousers was a pearl-handled double-edged dagger 7 inches long.   Evans confessed to the killing.

But it would not be the end of the story.

On January 21, 1886 George W. Evans appeared in court to face his first-degree murder charge.   The Times sized him up for its readers.  “As he sat in the Court of Oyer and Terminer yesterday, on trial for murder in the first degree, he looked very different from the typical criminal.  He had a clean-cut face, a clear complexion, and a bright, intelligent expression.  By his attire he showed himself possessed of good taste.  But there was a flippancy about him that was not pleasant to see in the manner of a man on trial for murder.”

When Evans’s attorney, William f. Howe, stood before the jury, the account of the killing was drastically changed.  According to Howe's version, Evans had acted solely in self defense.  The counsel told that when Currie was told to leave he refused and drew a revolver.  Evans then pulled out his own gun and Currie relented, putting his in the pocket of his overcoat.   When Evans turned to leave to summon a policeman to oust the intruder, Currie said “Now I’ll kill you.”

But Evans was faster than Currie, recounted Howe, and his bullet stopped the would-be murderer.   When Evans realized that the new janitor was shot, he fled because he did not have enough money to hire an attorney to defend him.

Two days later a verdict was reached.   Evans was guilty of manslaughter in the first degree, punishable by 15 years in prison.  “He took the verdict of the jury and his sentence coolly,” said The Times, “and without evident emotion, nor did he break down or show either the quivering of the lip or the moistening of an eyelid when his father, mother, and grandmother gave vent to their feelings in great sobs of grief.”

Evans’s attorney had more tricks up his sleeve, however.

When Thomas Currie had identified Evans as the shooter, detectives were required to ask the question “Have you any hope or recovering from the effects of the injury you have received?”  The question was necessary to establish an “ante-mortem statement;” one which was made by a person believing he was about to die. 

Currie replied “It is hard for me to say.”

William F. Howe appealed to the Supreme Court.  If Currie was not certain that he was going to die, his statement could not be “ante-mortem.”  Evans was granted a new trial.

In a plot twist that is inconceivable today, the General Term of the Supreme Court set aside the verdict on June 1, 1886 on the grounds that the dying man’s statement was not “a legal ante-mortem statement.”    There was no retrial because, as reported in The New York Times, “the only evidence against him beyond the excluded statement of Currie is circumstantial and not strong.”

George Evans, the cruel and malicious physical abuser of his young wife and the cold-blooded murder of Thomas Currie was a free man.

The Collegian Flats never again was the subject of such dark publicity.   Reputable tenants continued to live here like Susanne Pallet who was here in 1911.  A member of the Daughters of the American Revolution, she was descended from John Hart who served under Captain John Prout Sloan on the Marine sloop Enterprise in 1775.

There was, however, a bit of embarrassment when truck driver William P. Jones was arrested for his involvement in a band of pier thieves.  John Quinn was employed as a checker by the Lehigh Valley Railroad at Pier 30.  Quinn would steal valuable freight, like silverware, that was transported by Jones to others who would sell the goods.

But for the most part, the lives of residents at No. 345 West 21^st Street like Lt. Francis E. Liszanckie of Fire Engine Company 8 who lived here in 1951, was quiet and unexceptional.

In 1974 the building was converted from two to four apartments per floor.  Otherwise, the prim and attractive Victorian apartment building is unchanged.   Its Chelsea residents come and go unaware that its basement was the scene of one of the most publicized murders in New York in the 1880s.

non-credited photographs taken by the author