The Van Buren Ryerson House -- 129 East 94th Street

 

In 1878 developers Duffy & Bros. tackled the problem of developing Goat Hill--presumably named because its steep slope had made it unworkable for planting, but quite satisfactory for grazing goats.  That year they hired architect F. S. Barus to design nine rowhouses--121 through 137 East 94th Street--between Park and Lexington Avenues.  The 16-and-one-half-feet wide homes were completed in 1879.

Among the group was 129 East 94th Street.  Faced in brownstone, it rose three stories above a high English basement.  Beefy cast iron newels and railings flanked the stoop, and austere stone architraves embraced the openings.  Their sills and molded cornices sat on scrolled brackets.

It became home to engineer and inventor Van Buren Ryerson.  Born in 1805, he was renowned for his inventions, like his 1869 Ryerson Pulverizer used by miners to pulverize dry ores.  But none was more celebrated than his 1858 Sub Marine Explorer, a pioneering diving bell.  Ryerson's residency would be short-lived.  He died in the house on November 16, 1880 at the age of 75.  

Frank R. Houghton purchased the house.  A real estate broker, he was treasurer of the Real Estate Board of Brokers.  Houghton offered 129 East 94th Street for sale in March 1890 for $16,000, guaranteeing its "value [will] surely increase."  

Andrew Fay purchased the house in September 1892 after, apparently, negotiating the price.  He paid $15,500, or about $551,000 in 2026.

An attorney, Fay was an assistant clerk in the District Attorney's office.  He and his wife, Maria, had five children, Elizabeth A., Edward J., Eugene, Loretta, and William A.

The Fay family led quiet lives, never appearing in the society pages.  Other than legal business matters, Andrew Fay's name did not appear in print until his passing here on October 24, 1906.  And even then, his death notice was a succinct, one-sentence announcement.  His funeral was held in the drawing room two days later.

Interestingly, Fay bequeathed the house in equal portions to his children.  Maria was not included in the title.

At the time of their father's death, at least Eugene, Loretta and Elizabeth were still living with Maria.  Eugene was highly involved in civic affairs and on January 24, 1906 was appointed a member of the Local School Board of the 16th District.  

On January 21, 1909, the New York Herald reported, "Mr. John J. Daniels and Miss Elizabeth M. Fay were married yesterday in the Church of St. Francis de Sales."  Loretta was her sister's maid of honor.  The article noted, "A wedding breakfast was served at the home of the bride's mother, Mrs. Andrew Fay, at No. 129 East Ninety-fourth street."

Maria Fay died on August 16, 1912.  Her funeral was held in the drawing room on the 20th, followed by a mass at the Church of St. Francis de Sales.

In 1941, the muscular stoop ironwork was intact.  image via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services.

The house saw several occupants over the subsequent years.  It was lost in foreclosure in the World War II years.  On August 5, 1943, The New York Times reported, "Paul G. Reilly of the law firm of Earle, Rust & Reilly has bought for his own occupancy, the three-story brownstone dwelling."  

Reilly and his wife, Lillian, made substantial changes before moving in.  The stoop was removed and the entrance lowered below grade.  The 1879 details of the parlor floor openings were shaved off.  (Oddly enough, the upper floor windows were left intact.)  A second renovation remodeled the interiors  in 1948.  During one of the projects, the brownstone was stuccoed.

image via Google Streetview

Paul and Lillian had three sons, Willis, Gorman, and Paul Jr., and a daughter, Jane.  Reilly had been a member of Reilly, Fleming & Reilly since the 1930s.  In 1948, he represented the Six Nations of the Iroquois Confederacy for reimbursement for 22 million acres of upstate New York land.  He would work on the case for four decades, amassing a library of photocopies of treaties between Native American nations and the U.S. Government, maps, chapters from history books, and other materials.

In 1954, Reilly unsuccessfully ran for the House of Representatives.  The couple was in San Pedro Cantira, Spain on April 26, 1979 when Reilly died at the age of 70.  His casework materials, called The Paul G. Reilly Indian Collection, was donated to the E. H. Butler Library of The State University of New York.

In 2014, a restoration was initiated by William Vitacco Associates, Ltd.  The stoop was restored, the stucco removed, and the window details refabricated.  Still a single-family home, it has been sympathetically returned to its 1879 appearance.

photographs by the author

The Erica Jong House - 125 East 94th Street

 

In 1878-79, real estate developers Duffy & Bros. erected a row of nine, 17-feet-wide rowhouses along the north side of East 94th Street between Lexington and Park Avenues.  Designed by F. S. Barus, the identical brownstone-fronted homes were three stories tall above high English basements.  Barus's neo-Grec design placed the openings into architraves embellished with scrolled brackets and molded cornices.  Each house terminated with its own pressed metal cornice.

The original residents of 125 East 94th Street were Philip and Annie Smith, whose residency would be short and disturbing.  Philip, it seems, had a drinking problem and when intoxicated became abusive.  A maid, Louise Hughes, testified several years later that on March 25, 1880 Philip was drunk and struck Annie "with his fist around the head."  She said he was "in a great rage and used violent and abusive language."  That night, said Louise, Annie "ran away from the house to get out of his way."  She also testified that Philip would tell his wife, "I will knock your teeth out," and, "I will throw you out of the window."

The Smiths left 125 East 94th Street on May 1, 1881.  The house was leased by Laura M. Boehmann to several affluent tenants over the ensuing years.  Living here in the pre-World War I years was the Kroger family, who announced the engagement of daughter Matilda to Henry C. Reife in April 1916.

Laura Boehmann sold 125 East 94th Street in April 1917 to W. S. Groesbeck Fowler.  He, too, used the property for rental income.  In 1919, he leased it to Colonel Latham Gallup Reed and his wife, the former Mary Newbold Welsh. 

Latham Reed was born in Albany, New York in 1856.  His deep American ancestry included "early residents of the Plymouth Colony," according to The New York Times, and "officers of the French and Indian and Revolutionary Wars."  Reed studied at Columbia University, and at Cambridge University in England where he earned his law degree.  Formerly a partner in the law firm of Bowers & Sands, he retired in 1914.

Fowler sold 125 East 94th Street in May 1921.  The New York Herald remarked, "The new owner will alter and occupy."  The house continued to see a relatively quick turnover of residents.  

Amelia Caroline Taylor Mason was the widow of Reverend Arthur Mason.  Born in 1837 in Cuba, she and her husband, who died in 1907, had two children.  Amelia died in the house on January 11, 1924 and her funeral was held in St. Bartholomew's Church.

Dr. Robert Ogden DuBois quickly moved into 125 East 94th Street.  The 30-year-old bachelor had graduated from Columbia University in 1915 and from the College of Physicians and Surgeons in 1919.  An assistant at the New York Nursery and Child's Hospital, he would not be alone here for long.  On March 9, 1925, The New York Times reported that he was engaged to Elizabeth Harsen Chisolm.   The newspaper mentioned that the bride-to-be "is well known in New York society."

Like Latham Gallup Reed, DuBois had a sterling American pedigree.  He traced his ancestry to Robert Livingston the Elder, who arrived in Albany in 1674 and established Livingston Manor along the Hudson River in 1715.  The couple would have two sons, Robert Jr., born in 1926, and Philip Mason, born in 1932.

In August 1933, Betty Menzel was hired here as a servant.  The 24-year-old had previously worked in the home of Benjamin Friedman in Laurelton, Long Island.  Only days after she moved in, Friedman rang the door.  The Long Island Daily Press reported "on June 28 he missed a gold ring set with a sapphire worth $50, two fountain pens valued at $20, and a cigarette lighter valued at $8."  When Betty quit on August 12, Friedman's suspicions "turned to her."

Faced with her former employer, Betty Menzel crumpled.  The article said, "she returned the pens and lighter, and gave him a pawn ticket for the ring."  That was not enough for Friedman, and Betty was arrested.

image via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services.

The house was next owned by Julia Smith, the widow of John Smith.  She lived here with her young adult daughter, Madeleine Anne.  Madeleine graduated from the College of New Rochelle and received her Master of Arts degree from Columbia University.

Madeleine was married to Lieutenant John Francis Butler in the Church of St. Ignatius Loyola on May 5, 1944.  The groom had just returned from deployment overseas.  

Julia Smith died in 1954.  In reporting that her estate had sold the house, The New York Times remarked, "It has ten rooms, three baths, and a garden."

Novelist and poet Erica Jong purchased 125 East 94th Street following her divorce from Jonathan Fast in 1983.  She moved in with the couple's five-year-old daughter, Molly Jong-Fast.  Jong also maintained a country home in Weston, Connecticut.

Bernard Gotfryd created his portrait of Erica Jong in 1969.  from the collection of the Library of Congress.

Dr. Du Bois's former office was still in the basement level and Jong leased it to what Molly Jong-Fast described as "sexologists."  In her How to Lose Your Mother, Jong-Fast writes:

The house looked like all the other narrow brownstone houses on the sloping block, but it wasn't the same.  She painted the front door bubblegum pink.  People who visited the house said it looked like a haunted bordello, but that wasn't because the house was haunted--that was because my mother had terrible taste.  She put floral wallpaper in each room.  Later she'd hang paintings of people having sex (bequeathed by the sexologists who would move into the basement) on that floral wallpaper.

Erica Jong was best known for her novel Fear of Flying, published a decade before she purchased 125 East 94th Street.  The controversial book's slant on female sexuality would greatly influence what was termed by some the "feminist wars."  By 2022, the book would have worldwide sales of more than 37 million copies, according to The New York Times.

Like her mother, Molly Jong-Fast would go on to a career as novelist and journalist.  By then, she and her mother would have moved on from 125 East 94th Street.

In 1997, it was purchased by Lisa and Perry Gershon--a lawyer and a real estate finance executive, respectively.  In reporting on the sale, The New York Times remarked that of the 1879 row, it was "one of the two brownstones left with its rosettes intact--its stoop standing proud, its interior spaces unblemished by conversion to apartments."  The article said, "the interior spaces were a bit tattered, but the house remained a single-family residence, with an office on the ground floor."

Astoundingly, given its long list of residents and owners, outwardly 125 East 94th Street survives essentially intact.

photographs by the author