The Lost Henry Ammon James Mansion - 735 Park Avenue

 

from the collection of the New York Public Library

British-born architect Frederick Junius Sterner arrived in New York City in 1906.  He purchased an architecturally outdated brownstone on East 19th Street and transformed it into a Mediterranean-style villa with a stuccoed facade and red tile roof.  Within five years, he had remade numerous high-stooped brownstones around the city into modern mansions for numerous wealthy patrons.  

Henry Ammon James would add his name to Sterner's client list in 1916.  On January 29, the Real Estate Record & Guide reported that Sterner was designing renovations to the old brownstone at the northeast corner of Park Avenue and 71st Street.  The plans included the removal of walls and stairs, "rearrange [the] roof," creation of "new areas," and installing modern "plumbing, wiring and heating."  The remodeling would cost James $25,000, or about $756,000 in 2026 terms.

The vintage four-story-and-basement house, built in the 1870s, originally faced 71st Street.  Sterner reconfigured the layout, placing the entrance on Park Avenue.  The "new areas" in his plans included extending the building to the north.  Sterner transformed the high-stooped house into a modern Elizabethan Revival-style townhouse.  Two projecting, two-story bays distinguished the Park Avenue elevation, and multi-paned, leaded windows throughout gave the house a sense of antiquity.  The otherwise symmetrical design was upset by the peaked attic level with its disparate sized gables.  It stopped short of the northern extension.

Hemry Ammon James, Yale College Class of 1874, 1870-1912 (copyright expired)

Attorney Henry Ammon James was a widower.  Born in Baltimore on April 24, 1854, he was educated by a private tutor before entering Yale.  He married Laura Brevoort Sedgwick on September 21, 1891 and they had two children, Dorothy, born in 1892, and William Ellery Sedgwick, born in 1895.  Laura died on November 1, 1907.  

In addition to his law practice, James was the president of the East Hampton Electric Light Company.  The family's country home, which Henry and Laura built the year they were married, was in East Hampton, Long Island.  

A postcard depicts the James' sprawling, shingle-style summer house.

William Ellery Sedgwick James went by Ellery.  When the family moved into the remodeled mansion, he was attending Yale University.  He and Louise R. Hoadley were engaged to be married in Southampton in June 1917, but, as was the case with hundreds of couples across the country, the war in Europe changed their plans.  On April 14, 1917, The New York Times said, "as Mr. James has joined the officers' reserve corps of Yale University the date for the wedding has been advanced."  The couple was married in St. Bartholomew's Church on April 25.

The war did not interrupt Ellery's schooling and he graduated later that year.  But shortly afterward he left his bride at home and went overseas with the American Expeditionary Force.  He would see battle in France with the 324th Field Artillery.

Sterner placed the service entrance in the northern extension, directly under the conservatory.  The American Architect, December 12, 1916 (copyright expired.

Dorothy's engagement to George Griswold Haven was announced on February 2, 1925.  It would be an extremely short engagement.  Three days later, The New York Times reported that the couple had been married the previous morning in St. George's Church.  "When Mr. and Mrs. Haven return from a wedding trip they will live at 6 East Fifth-third Street, which has been Mr. Haven's home for many years," said the article.  George G. Haven was the president of the Metropolitan Opera House Real Estate Company and the senior member of the banking form of Strong, Sturgis & Co.  Dorothy was his second wife, his first having died a few years earlier.

Thousands of diamond shaped panes composed the openings.  The American Architect, December 12, 1916 (copyright expired)

Five months later, on July 21, 1925, George and Dorothy had breakfast in their East 53rd Street mansion at 8:00.  Afterward, Dorothy left to go shopping.  An old friend, Dr. E. Eliot, stopped by unannounced at around 10:30.  The butler informed him that George was in his room.  "I'll go up and see him," responded Eliot.  He entered the bedroom to find George's body on the bed.  The New York Times reported, "He had shot himself through the jaw.  The bullet had lodged in the brain, killing him instantly."

Henry Ammon James died at the East Hampton estate on the afternoon of August 2, 1929 "after a long illness," as reported by The New York Times.  The newspaper noted that he "was a member of the University, Century, Metropolitan, Maidstone, Garden City, National Golf and Jekyll Island clubs."

James left an estate, according to The New York Times, of $2,993,392, or about $57.7 million today.  The bulk of the estate was divided, essentially, equally between Dorothy and Ellery, although Ellery received the Park Avenue mansion and its contents.

Two months later, on October 1, The New York Times reported that Ellery had purchased the abutting house at 103 East 71st Street.  The move was potentially intended to protect the mansion from developers.  But if that were the case, James changed his mind.

In August 1930, he sold the corner properties to developer Michael E. Paterno.  The New York Times reported that he intended to erect an apartment building on the site.  

William Ellery Sedgwick James died at the age of 37 on November 26, 1932.  

Seven years later, the syndicate named 737 Park Avenue Corporation had acquired the additional properties necessary to go forward with the apartment building project.  On November 25, 1939, The New York Times reported that workers "started this week to demolish six old private residences to make way for an eighteen-story apartment house which will go up on that corner."  Designed by Sylvan Bien, the replacement structure was completed in 1940.

photo by Godsfriendchuck

many thanks to Doug Wheeler for suggesting this post

The 1891 Granville Moss White House - 272 West 77th Street

 

Working for developer Francis M. Jenks, in 1891 architect Clarence Fagan True designed a group of seven upscale homes that wrapped the southeast corner of West End Avenue and West 77th Street.  Comfortable with combining two or three historic styles to create residences that were at once fanciful and elegant, True designed this project in three groups, culminating in a striking, unified pair at 270 and 272 West 77th Street.

Looking at a glance like a single mansion, the houses were significantly different in size.  At 28 feet wide, 272 West 77th Street was 11 feet wider than its counterpart at 270.  The arched entrances sat within a Romanesque Revival base of undressed stone above short stoops.  Medieval turned to Elizabethan in the intricately carved stone railing of the full-width second floor balcony.  The smooth-faced limestone upper floors of 272 West 77th Street were divided into two sections--one bowed, the other flat-faced.  They rose to a dormered mansard.

The two houses were meant to appear as one.

No. 272 West 77th Street became home to Dr. Granville Moss White, his wife, the former Laura Dunham Tweedy, and their two sons, six-year-old Theodore Tweedy and two-year-old Nelson Lloyd.  

Born in Danbury, Connecticut on May 21, 1855, Granville M. White graduated from Yale Law School in 1877, then changed course.  He received his medical degree from Columbia University Medical School in 1884.  When he moved his family into the West 77th Street house, he was one of three examining physicians for the Mutual Life Insurance Co. of New York.  (He would later become a vice-president of the firm.)

This photo of a confident-looking Granville Moss White was taken during his senior year at Yale Law School, in 1877.  (copyright expired)

Early in the morning of December 20, 1898, the White family were roused from their sleep.  The family of Charles H. Raymond lived at 260 West 73rd Street and Raymond's sister-in-law, Julia Underwood, was visiting for the holidays from Washington, D.C.  Fire was discovered by a maid and the cook around 6:30.  As the cook, Harriet Fee, rushed upstairs to awaken the residents, "there came a great volcanic burst of flame," as worded by The Sun.  In the end Harriet, Julia Underwood, and Mrs. Raymond were killed, and six people injured.

Charles Raymond had been rescued by firefighters just after his wife jumped to her death.  When he reached street level, he saw the body of his sister-in-law on the ground.  The Sun reported, "He covered his eyes with his arms, and would have fallen had not one of the firemen caught him.  He was taken to the house of a friend, Dr. G. W. [sic] White of 272 West Seventy-seventh street."

Like their neighbors, the Whites had a domestic staff.  Among them in 1894 was a "German nursery governess."  The family would have also employed a cook, and at least one chambermaid, a butler, and possibly a laundress.  On April 13, 1900, a new cook started work and it was not long before trouble ensued.

Two nights later, Dr. White was reading in his study when he heard someone "fumbling cautiously at the knob of the front door," as reported by the New York Sun.  He listened and the noise began again.  "Then he tiptoed to the front door and opened it suddenly," said the article.  A man entered the hall and White "pounced upon him and dragged him into the study, where there was a light on, and demanded to know what the fellow was doing at the front door."

"I am a cousin of your new cook and I have called to see her."

The cook was summoned to the study and she confirmed that the man was her cousin.  She explained that he probably did not know better than to try to enter the house uninvited.  Dr. White was unconvinced and took Samuel Farcusin, who was a Hungarian-born tailor, to the West 68th Street police station and had him arrested as a "suspicious person."  The Sun said, "He could speak little English and seemed badly frightened."

The following year, in August 1901, White hired architect Charles A. Rich (of the recently dissolved firm of Lamb & Rich) to make $500 in improvements to the house, including "new steel beams and girders."  The renovations seem to have been in anticipation of the White family's leaving West 77th Street and leasing the dwelling.  They moved to Morristown, New Jersey where, in 1910, they would acquire the striking Colonial Revival style mansion, Oak Dell.

In 1902, 272 West 77th Street was rented by William Alexander Burrows and his wife, the former Virginia Prickett.  The New York Times described Burrows as "a well-known broker in foreign exchange" who came from "an old English family."  William Burrows died "suddenly" in the house on June 4, 1903 (the term most often suggested a heart attack or stroke).  Virginia Burrows continued to lease the house for several years.

Frances S. Barnes occupied 272 West 77th Street by 1909.  Described by The New York Sun as "a wealthy young woman and an exhibitor at horse shows," she was the unmarried daughter of Thomas R. Barnes and the granddaughter of millionaire publisher Alfred Smith Barnes.  Her affluence was reflected in an article in the New York Herald on July 23, 1909, which reported that she was offering a $200 reward for the return of a three-stone, diamond Tiffany ring which she lost while getting in or out of a taxicab at Broadway and 42nd Street.  The reward would equal nearly $7,000 in 2024.

Frances's luck with jewelry worsened three years later when, on December 27, 1912, The Sun reported she offered a $1,000 reward for "the return of more than $10,000 worth of jewelry" stolen from her.

The White family continued to lease 272 West 77th Street to well-heeled families--James K. Mason in 1913, Anatole Levy in 1915, and Axel Raun in 1919, for instance--until Granville Moss White's death in 1931.

The house was purchased by the Nordacs Club, a Jewish men's social and charitable club established in February 1919.  The club's name was the backwards spelling of its founder's surname--attorney Louis Scadron.  It had been operating from 220 Lenox Avenue.  The club published its monthly magazine The Nordacs News from here.  Among its charitable works was the distribution of baskets of food and toys to the poor during the Christmas and Passover holidays.

The Nordacs Club regularly hosted charity events that were supported by big names in entertainment and sports circles.  On December 18, 1935, for instance, it staged a charity boxing event to benefit the poor.  Guest referees included Jack Dempsey and Irving Jaffee and, according to the Brooklyn Daily Eagle, the event included a "comedy bout between A. Schact, the baseball clown and Milton Berle."  (It would be one of several appearances Berle made for Nordacs Club benefits.)

In his July 3, 1936 "Broadway" column in the Daily News, three years after the Nazi party came to power in Germany, Ed Sullivan wrote about "an outfit that is circularizing clubs and organizations, offering Aryan orchestras, entertainers and serenaders."  Saying that one of the first letters went to "the Nordacs Club, composed of Jewish members," Sullivan said flatly, "New York has no place for these cheap, poisonous Old World hatreds."

In 1941 a Nordacs Club banner hung from the second story balcony.  image via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services.

It may have been that disturbing trend, both abroad and in America, that prompted a change within the Nordacs Club.  In his 1935 The Political Clubs of New York City, Roy V. Peel noted,

The Nordacs Club of 272 West 77th Street, heretofore known as strictly a social club, is now bent on taking an active part in politics.  The club has an active membership of more than 750 members [and] owns its own four-story building in West 77th Street, between West End avenue and Broadway, and is considered one of the best financed social clubs in the city.

Peel said, "Just what the politic of the club will be has not been revealed," but he had been told that "the club shall use its membership, consisting of young men over the age of 21 years, to good advantage and for the mutual benefit of the club and its members."

In 1940, the Nordacs Club shared its clubhouse with the Knickerbocker Post No. 111 of Jewish Veterans.

The club left 272 West 77th Street in the late 1950s.  A renovation completed in 1962 resulted in twelve apartments.  From the outside, the residence is little changed since its completion more than 130 years ago.

photographs by the author

many thanks to Ralph Stone for prompting this post and for his valuable input.

The Charles F. Bauerdorf House - 625 West End Avenue

 

photograph by the author

Developers Terence Farley's Sons completed a row of seven high-end homes that wrapped the northeast corner of West End Avenue and 90th Street in 1899.   The firm was known for erecting upscale residences, and these would not disappoint.

Prolific architect Clarence True had designed them in a modern take on Elizabethan architecture, and the Real Estate Record & Builders' Guide deemed them as "the best design that has ever left his board," adding, "They are as much distinguished by their architecture as by their detail of decoration and finish."

True gave each its own personality, while harmonizing them with Flemish gables and dormers, openings framed in Gibbs-style surrounds, and continuous bandcourses.  No. 625 West End Avenue was given a full-height bowed facade.  The main, arched entrance was centered, while a more discreet service entrance sat to the side.  French windows opened onto a faux balcony at the second floor, and two ornate dormers projected from the steep mansard.

625 West End Avenue is the third house from the corner (behind the white sign).  Real Estate Record & Builders' Guide, October 7, 1899 (copyright expired)

The Record & Guide listed homes' amenities that met the "requirements of a first-class dwelling," such as separate servants' entrances, kitchens, laundries, parlors, drawing-rooms, dining-rooms, butlers' pantries, connected and separate bedrooms, dressing salons, bathrooms, secluded servants' quarters with bathrooms, rear stairs."

In October 1899 Terence Farley's Sons sold 625 West End Avenue to Charles Frederick Bauerdorf for $42,000 (about $1.42 million in 2023).   The wealthy attorney was born on West 14th Street on June 8, 1853, and in 1864 became a clerk in the law office of eminent lawyer David Dudley Field.  He was now a partner in the firm of Deyo & Bauerdorf.

Bauerdorf had married Annie Rohe in 1879.  When they moved into 625 West End Avenue, the couple had three teen-aged sons, Charles Rohe, George Frederick, and Walter Julius.

Empire State Notables, 1914 (copyright expired)

Charles F. Bauerdorf handled the legal affairs of many well-known and moneyed New Yorkers, but none, perhaps, was more colorful than "Al" Adams, known as the "Policy King."  The New York Herald called him "the millionaire policy shark, the released convict [and] more recently backer of bucket shops."  In 1906 Adams, "convinced himself that the future which he had dedicated to his family would be best conserved if he dropped out of it," according to the New York Herald.  He moved his family into a home near the Bauerdorfs at 471 West End Avenue, took a suite for himself at the Ansonia Hotel, and two weeks later shot himself there.  Bauerdorf was tasked with handling his complicated estate.

Early in January 1915, Charles Bauerdorf fell ill.  The 62-year-old never recovered and died a few weeks later on January 19.  His funeral was held in the drawing room of the West End Avenue house two days later.  

Charles Rohe Bauerdorf, the eldest son, followed in his father's professional footsteps, graduating from the Columbia University Law School and becoming a partner in the law firm of Bauerdorf & Taylor.  George became a "Wall St. financier and independent oil operator," according to the Daily News; and the youngest brother, Walter, went on to be a vice-president of the Central Trust Company.  

The cause of Walter's death on June 9, 1925 at just 37 years of age was bizarre.  The New York Times said it was "the result of a skin infection thought to have been contracted while in swimming at a beach resort."  That same year Annie Bauerdorf leased the West End Avenue residence that had been her home for a quarter of a century.  It became a rooming house.

A tragic sidenote to the Bauerdorf family occurred on October 12, 1944.  George's 20 year old daughter, Georgette, was living on her own in Hollywood in what the Daily News called a "luxurious apartment."  

She left work at the Hollywood Canteen at around 11:15 p.m. on October 11.  The next morning Mr. and Mrs. Fred C. Atwood arrived at the apartment to clean it, as they did every day, and found the door half open.  Georgette's body, clad only in her pajama top, was in the bedroom.  The Daily News reported, "The bedclothes were pulled back.  The girl's clothing was scattered over the bed and chairs, and the contents of her purse were strewn over the floor."  A washcloth had been stuffed into Georgette's mouth and "bloodstains were found on the girl's bed and on the floor of the apartment."  Police "pointed to the possibility the girl had been slain."

Daily News, October 13, 1944

Oddly enough, George Bauerdorf was not so sure.  "She may have died accidentally," he said.  "We do know that she suffered from cramps and heart pains, and refused to see a doctor, and we think perhaps they might have caused it."  A medical examination disproved that.  On November 12, the Daily News reported, "the authorities announced that the young woman had been, as they described it, 'raped,' and the accident theory necessarily had to be abandoned."  Her murderer was never found.

In the meantime, Helen Connelley ran 625 West End Avenue as a boarding house during the Depression years.  She lived steps away at 621 West End Avenue.  In 1937 she was cited for violations of the Multiple Dwellings Law because the house had no fire escapes.  

Living in the building at the time was a young German couple, Herman Hahn and his 17-year-old wife, Aimee.  They arrived in New York in the summer of 1936.  Other tenants were 30-year-old Samuel Goldberg; a man known only as Kenny; Joseph Freeman and his wife Mildren; Doran and Angelina Shaw, who were 24 and 20 years old respectively; and Dorothy Connell and Jennie Franklin.

Helen Connelley's failure to install fire escapes proved deadly on August 13, 1937.  Early that morning fire broke out in the rear second floor apartment of the man known as Kenny.  It was discovered around 6 a.m. by the Freemans, who lived on the same floor.  The New York Times reported, "Aroused by smoke, they sought in vain to open the door of Kenny's room, burning themselves in the effort, and then they fled."

The inferno would destroy True's charismatic upper floors.  Daily News, August 14, 1937

The Hahns smelled the smoke and fled downstairs, leaving a valuable cello in their room.  "They reached the ground floor as Freeman broke open the front door," said The New York Times.  "This created a draft which sent the fire roaring up the stairwell."  The roomers on the upper floors were now trapped, and hung out the windows screaming for help.  Living on the top floor was Samuel Goldberg.  The article said, "He apparently was not awakened by either the smoke or noise."  Both Goldberg and Kenny perished in the inferno.  Additionally, eleven people including two fire fighters were injured.

The top two floors were destroyed by the fire.  Charles and George Bauerdorf sold the property to the Hanover Construction Corporation (their mother had died in 1930).  On May 22, 1939, The New York Times reported that the new owners planned "extensive alterations" to the structure.  "When altered the house will have ten apartments of two and one-half rooms each," said the article.  Where Clarence True's mansard and dormers had been, the architect placed an rather uninspired brick wall, the bowed facade of which matched the lower floors.

The house as it appeared two years after the renovations.  Note that the entrance has been moved to the former service door.  image via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services.

The apartments, two per floor, became home to financially comfortable tenants.  In the 1950s, for instance, Joseph F. Keller and his family lived here.  He was the president of Equi-Flow, Inc., a manufacturer of gear pumps and gas compressors.

Living here in 1960 was Phillis Hoffman and her four-year-old daughter, Andrea.  Her husband, Herbert, was the former curator of Greek and Roman art at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.  Phillis Hoffman went to court in May that year to get permanent custody of Andrea.  She told the judge that her husband "has no present interest" in her or her daughter.  The Daily News explained, "As proof, Mrs. Phyllis Hoffman noted that since January, when her husband, Herbert, went to work for a museum in Hamburg, Germany, he has not written or communicated with either of them."

There are still just two apartments per floor in the converted mansion.

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

The 1899 Thomas P. Hughes Mansion - 621 West End Avenue

 

Upon the death of Terence Farley, described by the Real Estate Record & Guide as "one of the most active builders in this city," his sons, John T. and James A. Farley, took over the business.  Operating as Terence Farley's Sons, they continued to make a significant impact on the development of the Upper West Side.

Typical of their high-end work was the row of seven upscale homes that wrapped the northwest corner of West End Avenue and 90th Street, completed in 1899.  They sat within a neighborhood that was filling with opulent residences.  Designed by prolific architect Clarence F. True in the Elizabethan Renaissance Revival style, the homes drew praise from the Real Estate Record & Builders' Guide, which said, "The architect, Clarence True, has had a large experience in domestic architecture, but nevertheless, this is the best design that has ever left his boards."

The group wrapped the corner, with 621 West End Avenue stealing the spotlight.  Real Estate Record & Builders' Guide, October 7, 1899 (copyright expired)

The corner house, 621 West End Avenue, was the showpiece of the group.  At 32-feet-wide on the avenue and 40 feet long on West 90th Street, the five-story structure was intended for a wealthy buyer.  The entrance sat within an ornate stone frame decorated with Renaissance style carvings.  Its cornice supported a pedimented window flanked by serpentine volutes.  True took advantage of the corner site by tucking the service entrance to the back of the house, on West 90th Street.

While the expertly-crafted stonework survives, the door and window above it are unsympathetic replacements.

The four upper floors of red brick were trimmed in limestone.  Below the fifth floor window on the 90th Street side was a large, carved stone cartouche and above it a was a dramatic Flemish gable.  Two large dormers pierced the peaked roof on the avenue side.

The Record & Guide supplied a hint of the interiors of the row, listing "separate servants' entrances, kitchens, laundries, parlors, drawing-rooms, dining-rooms, butlers' pantries, connected and separate bedrooms, dressing salons, bathrooms, secluded servants' quarters with bathrooms, rear stairs and all other requirements of a first-class dwelling."  The journal added, "A lavish use of beautiful woods, marbles, tiles, plate and colored glass, under artistic guidance, evidence the expenditure of the greatest care and generous use of money to produce the best possible results from both the aesthetic and practical points of view."

Thomas P. Hughes purchased 621 West End Avenue.  A stockbroker, his residency would be comparatively short-lived.  In 1904 he sold it to Harry Wiggin Bennett and his wife, the former Agnes Pattie Smith.  Born in Alton Bay, New Hampshire on February 6, 1866, Smith and Agnes had married in 1891.  When they moved in they had two sons, 12-year-old Tom Wiggin, and 9-year-old Dick Woolson.  Another son, Harry, Jr. would come along in 1907.

Bennett had recently arrived in New York City.  For six years he and the family lived in Mexico where he was the manager of the Woolson Spice Co.  Now in New York, he established the banking firm of H. W. Bennett & Co.  He was, as well, the president and a director of the Cuba Eastern Railroad, the Northeastern Cuba Railroad, the North River Improvement Co., and a director in several other corporations.

Annually included in Dau's New York Blue Book of society, the Bennetts maintained a country home, Great Hill, on Buzzard's Bay in Marion, Massachusetts.  The family summered there until 1909, when they sold it to millionaire Galen Stone, who erected an even more lavish mansion, also named Great Hill, on the estate.  Four years later they also gave up their West End Avenue mansion, moving into a nine-room apartment on West 106th Street.  

Moses Charles Migel and his wife, the former Elisa Parada, purchased 621 West End Avenue.  Elisa was born in Santiago, Chile in 1877 and she married Moses in 1906.  The couple had three children, Parmenia, John Charles and Richard Howell.  Their summer home, Greenbraes, was in Ramapo Hills in the mountains of New Jersey.  

Migel was a fascinating figure.  A retired silk dealer, his parents had been married during the Civil War and initially lived on Canal Street.  But Solomon Migel's asthma forced him to relocate his family to Texas, where Moses was born on November 3, 1866.  Following Solomon's death, Moses's mother brought the children to Brooklyn, and by the time he was a teenager, he and his siblings were orphaned.

Moses and his brother somehow managed to get into the silk business, and by the turn of the century had a Greene Street office and a warehouse in Long Island City.  Moses Migel's fortune grew when, during World War I, he formed an import firm, the Allied Silk Trading Corporation, to bring silk fiber from China and Japan for the manufacture of cartridge cloth needed by the War Department.  

It was that work that began Moses's involvement with the blind.  After the Armistice, he accepted the position of overseeing services for American servicemen blinded in battle who were still in French hospitals.  Upon his return to the United States, he served on the Committee of Direction of the Red Cross Institute for the Blind.

Moses Charles Migel (original source unknown)

Moses became highly involved with the American Association of Workers for the Blind, and in 1914 was treasurer of the Uniform Type Commission, formed to perfect an American system of braille.  He was reportedly the sole source of funds for that commission.

In 1923 Moses and Elisa purchased a five-acre parcel adjoining their summer home.  There they developed Rest Haven, a free vacation home for blind women.  Transportation to-and-from New York City was also gratis.  By now Moses was the chairman of the New York State Commission for the Blind.

Elisa Parada de Migel (original source unknown)

In 1924 Elisa traveled to Chile and visited the Santiago College, a Methodist boarding school for girls where she had spent her formative years.  She and Moses donated $150,000 to the school for the construction of new structures and Elisa became president of its Board of Trustees.

By then, the Migels had been gone from West End Avenue for four years.  They sold the house in April 1920 to Juan Cortada.  In reporting the sale, the Record & Guide noted, "The house was free and clear and was sold for all cash."

In 1941 the house was virtually unchanged.  image via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services

Juan and Rita Cortada had two daughters, Josephine and Rita, and a son, George.  As some point following Juan's death in 1929, Rita moved to their summer home in Deal, New Jersey.

In 1950 a renovation was begun to convert the mansion into apartments.  Completed the following year, the building's fifth floor had been replaced with a crisp brick box.  Clarence True's gable window on 90th Street was the sole survivor of his dramatic top floor design.  A pair of windows were punched into the third and fourth floors on this side, as well.  There were now two apartments per floor.  A subsequent renovation in 1955 provided two doctors' office spaces on the ground floor.

John Miller lived in an apartment here in the 1960's.  The military veteran was described by The New York Times on October 13, 1964, as "a tall, burly man of 58 and is a father."  John was walking near 91st Street and West End Avenue on the afternoon of March 24 that year when he was arrested on a vagrancy charge by Detective Daniel Koegh.  The problem was not that Miller was a vagrant--it was his outfit that bothered the detective.  According to Koegh in court a week later, "his prisoner had been wearing a brown, two-piece woman's suit, high heels and a fur cape.  He was carrying a purse.  On his head was a gray wig, and on his face, lipstick and powder."

In arresting Miller, who sometimes went by Joan, Koegh had relied on an 1845 vagrancy statute that made it illegal for a person to appear in public with "a face painted, discolored or covered or concealed or being otherwise disguised, in a manner calculated to prevent his being identified."  

The American Civil Liberties Union struck back, calling the arrest of someone who "has done nothing more than wear the clothing of the opposite sex" unconstitutional.  Entering the case as a Friend of the Court, the ACLU purported that Koegh had not arrested Miller for vagrancy, but "because of distaste for his behavior."

Given Moses C. Migel's work, it is appropriate that around 1969 the office of the Elbee Audio Players opened in 621 West End Avenue.  Headed by David Swerdlow, one publication said it performed "contemporary plays like Marty and A Majority of One, dramatically read by blind actors."  It was still operating from the address in 1988, when Resources in Theatre and Disability wrote, "Blind and sighted performers make up this repertory troupe that [performs] in the greater New York area."

Once an architectural grand dame in the neighborhood, the 1950 butchering of 621 West End Avenue makes it easily passed by, unnoticed, today.  

photographs by the author

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

The 1891 Frederick W. Lewis House - 270 West 77th Street

 

In 1891 architect Clarence Fagan True designed a group of seven homes for developer Francis M. Jenks that wrapped the southeast corner of West End Avenue and West 77th Street.  True drew heavily from historical styles; but he preferred to adulterate them with his own liberal interpretation.  Often melding two or three styles into an attractive and sometimes playful concoction, he produced mansions and townhouses that managed to be at once elegant and fanciful.

He designed this group in three parts--four high-stooped homes on the avenue, a massive corner mansion, and two low-stooped, or American basement, houses on West 77th Street.  The eastern-most house, 270 West 77th Street, was the little brother of 272.  True designed the residences as a unified pair, but 270, at 17-feet-wide, was 11 feet narrower than its fraternal twin.  

270 West 77th Street is a fraction of the width of its commodious neighbor to the right.

The arched, double-doored entrance sat above a five-step stoop.  The Romanesque Revival base faced in chunky, undressed stone abruptly changed style with a richly carved Elizabethan frieze.  Above it, the smooth-faced limestone facade formed a three-faced bay with spiral moldings at the corners of each floor.  A stone balcony fronted the pointed gable at the mansard level.

Frederick W. Lewis and his wife Maggie purchased the house on January 5, 1893.  A diamond and pearl dealer, he was the head of Fred. W. Lewis & Co. at 1 Maiden Lane.  His business was not in finished jewelry, but in the importing, cutting and polishing of the gems.

Following Frederick Lewis's death in 1905, Maggie sold the house, and on May 10, 1906 liquidated the furnishings at auction.  It seems that her husband had left her in financial straits.  It was common in the 19th and early 20th centuries for well-do-to families who were relocating to sell off the furnishings and start over.  But Maggie also sold off what the auction notice called "the Family Jewels."  Considering that her husband had been a high-end dealer, Maggie's collection was enviable, appraised at "over $25,000," or more than $775,000 in 2022.  The listing said:

Every piece of the finest quality and in the latest settings.  A very valuable diamond Necklace, several beautiful Rings, diamond, sapphire and ruby; also Pins, Brooches, Lorgnette chains, Bracelets, &c. &c.

She sold the house to J. Louis Schaefer, president of the Grace National Bank and a vice president of the W. R. Grace Company.  As an interesting sidenote, when World War I broke out in Europe, trapping hundreds of traveling Americans, J. Louis Schaefer hired a steamship company to bring home Americans stranded in Italy.  Before then Schaefer had left 270 West 77th Street, selling it in September 1911 to the estate of James C. Miller.  

Mary Emma Miller was James's widow.  That her late husband's estate purchased the property was most likely the idea of her son, Adna H. Miller.  He had been a partner with his father in the real estate and developing firm J. C. Miller & Son.  Adna now ran the company on his own.

Adna and his brother James Calvin, Jr. moved into the house with their mother.  A mover and shaker within the real estate community, Adna was regularly involved in property deals.

Mary Emma died in the house on the evening of March 26, 1918.  Her funeral was held in the parlor four days later.

James Calvin Miller remained at 270 West 77th Street at least through the mid-1920's.  By 1937 Emery C. Cochran was living here.  A high school teacher, Cochran's quiet life gave little hint of his impressive past.  During World War I he had served as the  War Department's chief military censor.  Cochran remained in the house for a full decade.

At mid-century 207 West 77th Street was being operated as a rooming house.  Not all the tenants were especially upstanding.  Living in Apartment 2 was Doris Garcia.  She became a part of a Congressional Hearing on Juvenile Delinquency on July 14, 1955.

A New York detective testified about the arrest of William John O'Connell, a 29-year-old electrician charged with possessing pornographic films.  In his possession was "this little black book" in which investigators found "many names, addresses and telephone numbers of girls in New York City."  Among them was Doris Garcia.  Questioned, O'Connell "stated that this girl was a call girl; that he met her at the Hotel Peerless."

A renovation completed in 1980 resulted in a total of seven apartments.  Then, in 2000, the former Lewis house became the Country Inn Bed & Breakfast.  It operated until 2018, at which time 270 West 77th Street was returned to a single-family home.

photographs by the author

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The 1898 David Seymour Willard House - 304 West 81st Street

 

The original arched doorway has been converted to a window, while the former service entrance now functions as the door.

Clarence F. True started his career in the office of esteemed architect Richard M. Upjohn.  When he struck out on his own in 1884 the Upper West Side was emerging as Manhattan's newest residential frontier.  True would be responsible for scores of houses and commercial buildings, rarely working elsewhere in the city.

In 1897 he was hired by E. L. Schiller's Metropolitan Improvement Co. to design seven 20-foot-wide houses stretching west on West 81st Street from the corner of West end Avenue.  Before construction was completed, in March 1898, Schiller and True joined forces to create the Riverside Building Company with True as president.  The new firm would finish the project.   

On September 22, 1898 The New York Times reported that Clarence True had sold 304 West 81st Street "for about $34,000."  (That amount would top $1 million in today's money.)   The western-most of the row, it, like the others, was five stories tall.  Its American basement plan forewent the high stoop that was rapidly losing favor.  True, known for his working in historic styles, designed the house in his take on the Elizabethan style.  The arched entrance was centered in a three-story bowed bay.  Above the limestone base the facade was clad in beige Roman brick and trimmed in limestone.  A single dormer with a swan's neck pediment graced the mansard roof.

The home's owners were David Seymour Willard and his wife, the former Amelia Bowers.  The couple had married in Brooklyn in 1878 and had two children, Amelia, born in 1880, and Henry Bowers, born in 1881.  Willard was a member of the brokerage firm, Lapsley, Field & Company.  (One of his partners was Cyrus West Field, who was greatly responsible for laying the Transatlantic cable in 1866.)  

Following Amelia's marriage to Robert Peck in 1901, her parents were mostly alone in the house with their servants.  Howard entered Harvard that year, studying to become an architect.

The Willard summer home was on Hunter's Island, New York.  Following Howard's graduation in 1905, the family closed the townhouse for the summer season.  Often well-to-do families left a live-in servant behind to watch the house.  But Albert Banks, who lived in a fine home just a block away on West 81st Street, agreed to check on the house each day.  Banks had worked for Lapsley, Field & Company since 1899 and he and Willard were well-acquainted.

Banks checked the house just before midnight on August 30 and found everything in order.  But then, according to The Sun, "Next morning he returned to find the place turned up by the roots."   The World reported:

Half the furniture throughout the house was turned upside down.  The hall way at the entrance to the house was littered with furniture and draperies.  Running upstairs, he found that the burglars had gained an entrance to the house by smashing in the skylight...From rooms on the lower floors the thieves took rugs, paintings and small pieces of furniture and bric-a-brac.  They did not bother with the silver plate in the dining-room.

Suspicion fell on a servant.  The Sun reported on September 3, "It has rather the look of an inside job."  Police noted that there were several trunks in the basement, one of which belonged to Willard's mother and only it contained jewelry and furs.  That trunk was broken into while the others were ignored.  It is unclear whether the perpetrator or his accomplice was caught.

Amelia's marriage did not last and she was quietly remarried in the West 81st Street house to Robert White Conrow on May 6, 1908.  A simple one-line announcement appeared in the society columns. 

Around 1914 the Edward Davis family moved into 304 West 81st Street.  Davis and his wife, the former Wilma Wise, had two children, Aaron W. and Ruth M. Davis.  Ruth had graduated from Barnard College in 1913.

Davis was president of the cotton goods manufacturing firm Davis & Catterall.  He had co-founded it in 1897 with Adam Catterall.  Active in the Jewish community, he was a founder of the Free Synagogue on West 68th Street in 1906, and was a member of the exclusive Harmonie Club.

Ruth's engagement to Maxwell Steinhardt was announced in December 1915.  The wedding took place in the 81st Street house on June 5 the following year.

A much more somber ceremony took place in the drawing room the following year.  Wilma's father, Rev. Dr. Aaron Wise, had been rabbi of Temple Rodeph Sholom.  Her widowed mother, Sabine de Fischer Wise, died at the age of 81 on November 29, 1917 and her funeral was held here.

Two weeks later the family's name appeared in newspapers again.  The Davises' chauffeur turned the corner of Eighth Avenue and 44th Street and hit a popular actress.  The Dramatic Mirror reported on December 15, "Mrs. Harry Clay Blaney, professionally known as Kitty Wolfe, was run down by an automobile...last week and severely injured."  The chauffeur had driven her to her home where she remained under the care of a doctor.

In October 1933 the Davises leased the house to "a doctor," according to The New York Sun.  The New York Evening Post added that he "plans to redecorate the house before occupying it."  Redecorate he did.

It became home to the Hamilton Institute, established in 1892.  On July 27, 1935, the New York Post note that the school "has enjoyed years of successful intensive preparation for admittance to leading colleges in the United States."  Describing the school's location as being "in a very accessible portion of the city, away from all the downtown heat, noise and turmoil," the article said that students received "almost individual intensive instruction and preparation."

The Davises retained possession of 304 West 81st Street.  In July 1939 they leased it to S. Bossack who announced plans to renovate it.  Edward Davis died at the age of 75 on May 28, 1942.  Five years later the West 81st Street house was renovated to apartments, one per floor.  It was no doubt at this time that the former entrance was converted to a window to provide more interior square footage.

A year before the conversion, the centered entrance was intact.  302 East 81st Street, a near match, is to the left.  via NYC Dept of Records & Information Services

But major change would come in 1982 when the house was purchased by internationally famous English singer, songwriter, actor, film producer and co-founder of the Rolling Stones, Mick Jagger, and his model girlfriend Jerry Hall.   Jagger had it returned to a single family home.  In his 2009 book, Under Their Thumb, Bill German wrote, "Mick had hoped he could move in quietly, but a deranged groupie graffitied the front wall, 'Jerry Hag Hall pant pant filth filth,' it said.  If the yentas at Zabar's deli counter didn't know who their new neighbor was, they knew it now."

On July 26, 1985 Mick Jagger and Jerry Hall were photographed as they  left 304 West 81st Street headed to his birthday party at the Palladium nightclub.  photo by Frankie Ziths

The couple were married in an unofficial private ceremony in Bali, Indonesia on November 21, 1990.  (The marriage was declared "invalid, unlawful, and null and void" by the High Court of England and Wales in Britain in 1999.)   In his 1993 New York City Starwalks, Larry "Wolfe" Howitz wrote, "Don't be shocked if you see Mick Jagger and Jerry Hall on the Central Park bridle path.  Mick and his glamorous wife enjoy Manhattan's finest pleasures, including horseback riding, clubs, and lots of shows.  Most of his friends in town are ordinary nine-to-fivers."

When Mick Jagger purchased 304 West 81st Street, it was the last house to survive of the 1898 row.  The others had been demolished around 1975 to make way for the Calhoun School.  The institution purchased 304 West 81st Street from Jagger in 2001 for use as an administration building.  Happily, it now sat within a historic district, which precluded the school from demolishing it as it had the others along True's row.  An interior renovation completed in 2008 resulted in offices throughout the building.

photograph by the author

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