The Lost Hoffstatter & Revillon Frères Bldg - 668-670 Fifth Avenue

To the left of the new building is the William K. Vanderbilt Jr mansion.  The Brickbuilder, November 11, 1916 (copyright expired)

On March 23, 1913, The New York Times began an article saying, "The business invasion of Fifth Avenue north of Forty-second Street goes on ruthlessly."  Sumptuous mansions were rapidly being replaced by commercial buildings.  The article reported, "Workmen last week began tearing down the big Gallatin house on the southwest corner of Fifty-third Street, purchased a short time ago by Michael Dreicer for over $1,000,000.  Two six-story business buildings are to be erected on the 50-foot Fifth Avenue frontage."  

Michael Dreicer was the son of Jacob Dreicer, who opened his jewelry business in 1868.  They are credited for bringing cut gems into fashion, surpassing pearls.  The younger Dreicer had now branched into real estate development with the Dreicer Realty Company.   He hired Henry Otis Chapman to design the side-by-side buildings.  Construction would cost $130,000 to erect, or about $4.4 million in 2026 terms.

Chapman's Francois I Revival design was intended to harmoniously co-exist on the block with the magnificent Petite Chateau, erected for William K. and Alva Vanderbilt, and 666 Fifth Avenue, the Willie K. and "Birdie" Oelrichs Vanderbilt mansion.  The Real Estate Record & Builders' Guide approved, calling 668-670 Fifth Avenue "one of the most attractive on the avenue, built in the Francois Premier style of architecture."

Like the two surviving mansions on the block, the buildings were faced in limestone.  The first and second floors of 668 Fifth Avenue were dominated by a vast, double-height show window capped by a French Gothic header and crocket.  Grouped windows at the third and fourth floors sat below square-headed drip moldings.  The steep mansard was fronted by a French Gothic dormer and crowned with lacy cast iron cresting.

The corner building continued many of those motifs--the double-height show window and the grouped openings at the third and fourth floors, for instance.  A row of ornate dormers lined the mansard on the 53rd Street side, and identical  rooftop cresting visually unified the structures.

No. 668 had been leased before the first shovel broke ground.  Nearly two weeks before The New York Times article, on March 10, 1913, The Furniture Trade Review reported that Theodore Hofstatter & Co. had "closed negotiations" for leasing the building "for a term of twenty-one years."  The article noted, "Hofstatter & Co., are in the interior decorating and furniture business, are now located at 589 Fifth avenue."

The buildings were completed in 1914 and very quickly the Hofstatter Building was the center of excitement.  On May 19, 1914, an alarm "brought the firemen to the home of Mrs. William K. Vanderbilt, Jr., at 666 Fifth Avenue," reported The New York Times.  The Vanderbilts were at their summer estate and heavy smoke was seen pouring out of one of the chimneys.

The Vanderbilts' caretaker notified the responding firefighters that there was no fire.  "About ten minutes later the blaze was discovered in the building occupied by Hofstatter & Co.," said the article.  "Decorators had been working on the fifth floor, and in some manner, a curtain became ignited."  Happily, the fire was extinguished before it could spread.  The New York Times said, "More than $500,000 worth of art treasures are in the building."

It would be nearly a year before the corner building was leased.  On February 6, 1915, the Record & Guide reported that Revillon Frères had leased "the new six-story building" for 21 years.  Revillon Brothers established its fur company in 1723.  Now known as Revillon Frères, it was a leading retailer and manufacturer of luxury furs and accessories.

The New York Times, September 26, 1915 (copyright expired)

Both firms sublet space in their buildings, with most of the tenants being in the arts or decorating business.  One notable exception was the Sonora Phonograph Corp.  On July 25, 1915, the New York Herald reported that the firm "has leased salons at 668 Fifth Avenue adjoining the Vanderbilt residence, for demonstration rooms."  

A Sonora Phonograph ad in December 1915 depicted the entire blockfront. The Pharmaceutical Era (copyright expired)

Also in 668 Fifth Avenue at the time was the Kent-Shmayon Galleries.  The firm dealt in imported art and antiques, like Persian faience, rare manuscripts, Chinese porcelains, and Spanish, Italian and English antique furniture.  Not long after its opening, it was the target of two slick thieves.  On December 1, 1914, Joseph Hess and "another well-dressed man" entered the Kent-Shmayon Galleries "to look at some antiques," reported The New York Times, "and carried off jewelry valued at $7,900."  (The heist would equal $261,000 today.)  Hess, who was known to police as "the man with many aliases," was captured in Indianapolis on January 6, 1915.

Unfortunately, the war in Europe disrupted the firm's ability to import goods.  On February 27, 1915, The Evening Post reported, "The Kent-Shmavon Galleries, 668 Fifth Avenue, have been forced by present conditions, due to the war, to close their galleries."  A six-day liquidation auction began on March 1.  The article said, "Altogether there are nearly fourteen hundred items now on exhibition."

via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services.

On March 2, the New-York Tribune reported on the first day's sales, saying, "Lovers and students of Eastern art filled the large ground floor salon."  The article noted, "Lillian Russell was an interested and liberal buyer.  She obtained, among other things, an Asia Minor silk rug."  Other items that were sold that day was a "Persian carpet of Kerman weave" which sold for the equivalent of $19,500 today, and a "Persian Goerevan carpet with a camel's hair field" that brought nearly the same amount.

The Bourgeois Galleries replaced the Kent-Shmavon Galleries in the building.  The art dealers catered to wealthy patrons.  Somewhat ironically, one of its first exhibitions was the private collection of Albert Eugene Gallatin's paintings and graphic art.  Certainly many of the artworks had hung in his family's mansion on the site.

The gallery's firm reputation did not require anything other than a dignified, understated ad.  The Arts, August-September 1921 (copyright expired)

Other tenants in the buildings in the 1920s, along with Hoffstatter and Revillon Frères, of course, were Stair & Andrew and the Kingore art gallery.  Stair & Company, which occupied space on the fourth floor of 668 Fifth Avenue, specialized in old English furniture, paneling, tapestries, and antique mantelpieces. 

By the mid-1920s, John D. Rockefeller Jr. owned 668 and 670 Fifth Avenue.  On February 16, 1928, The New York Times reported that he was erecting a six-story building on the southwest corner of Fifth Avenue and 54th Street and that it "will be occupied under lease by Revillon Frères, furriers."  The firm was replaced by Raymond & Whitcomb, Inc., which made "extensive alterations," according to The New York Times on June 6, 1929.

Raymond & Whitcomb, Inc. was a travel agency.  In 1934, the Museum of the University of Pennsylvania loaned the firm eight items from its collection of Central American relics to display.  It did not end well.  Three items, a gold sacrificial cup, two Zapotec funerary urns, and a solid gold breastplate, were displayed in the show window.  On June 5, The New York Times reported, "A stone hurled through the show window of Raymond-Whitcomb, Inc...at some time early yesterday morning, enabled a thief to obtain a rare Mayan relic worth $5,000."  The stolen relic was the sacrificial gold cup.  The stone that smashed the window also broke one of the urns.

from the collection of the New York Public Library

In October 1938, John D. Rockefeller Jr. filed plans to replace the buildings with "a new nine-story office building," as reported by The New York Times.  Something derailed those plans, however.  Two years later, Theodore Hoffstatter & Co. moved to its own newly built structure at 9 East 56th Street.  Lanz Inc., took over the lease of 668 Fifth Avenue for its clothing store.

In June 1945, Doubleday, Doran, Inc. opened a bookstore in the basement, first and second floors of 670 Fifth Avenue.  The following year, Russell Stover Candies took over the first and second floors next door.  

The Doubleday book shop was the scene of a raid on August 8, 1946.  Responding to a complaint by the New York Society for the Suppression of Vice, four plainclothes detectives entered and "removed 130 copies of Edmund Wilson's book of short stores, 'Memoirs of Hecate County,'" as reported by The New York Times.  Blotter entries at the West 54th and East 51st Street station houses called the books, "salacious and lascivious literature."  While the Society called the book "obscene," The New York Times said, "virtually all reviewers regarded it as a serious literary work."

Just before demolition in 1955, the Russell Stover signage covered the 2nd-floor show window of No. 688 and the iron cresting was gone.  Supreme Court evidence photo May 1957.

In 1955, Russell Stover Candies announced it would be moving into the Gotham Hotel.  The move was no doubt prompted by the sale of 668 and 670 Fifth Avenue for redevelopment.  On February 13, The New York Times reported that a 36-story office building designed by Carson & Lundin would replace the buildings from 52nd to 53rd Street.  Demolition of the structures began that April.  

many thanks to reader Doug Wheeler for prompting this post

C. P. H. Gilbert's 23 and 24 Riverside Drive

In 1893 the trustees of the New York Orphan Asylum sold off its sprawling grounds overlooking the Hudson River.  Stretching from Riverside Drive to West End Avenue and from 73rd to 75th Streets, it had been bucolic in 1836 when the orphanage was erected.  Now it was among the city's most valuable property.

The orphanage grounds were divided into building plots; many of which were purchased by individuals rather than developers.  In an unusual cooperative move, eight such buyers hired mansion architect C. P. H. Gilbert to design harmonious side-by-side homes on West 74th Street.  Almost simultaneously Asa Hull and George McKesson followed suit.  They purchased the lots at Nos. 23 and 24 Riverside Drive, respectively, in 1895 and hired Gilbert to design nearly matching homes.

Gilbert turned to ornate Francois I Revival style for the project, completed in 1897.  As he had done on some of the 74th Street homes, he place the upper floors upon a somewhat boxy and unadorned limestone base.  Dog-legged stoops with solid wingwalls led to entrances.

The upper three floors were faced in beige Roman brick and trimmed in terra cotta.  Two story rounded bays provided balconies at the fourth floors. Above the trios of elaborately decorated fourth-floor openings pairs of fearsome griffins stood guard below an intricate metal cornice.  The subtle difference between the two homes was the absence of the center bay windows at No. 24.

Gothic tracery executed in white terra cotta is echoed within the metal arches of the cornice.

Asa Hull was the principal of Asa Hull & Co. at No. 132 Nassau Street, printers of hymnals and religious songbooks.  As was often the case within moneyed families, he put the title to No. 23 in the name of his wife, the former Sarah J. Warren.   (Although, mysteriously, the earliest building documents list "Lisa Hull" as owner.)  The couple's summer home was at Shelter Island.

Hull not only printed the hymns, but wrote them.  He had stepped away from his niche of Sunday School songbooks and hymnals briefly in 1877 when he published Hull's Temperance Glee Book.  The cover described it as containing "a choice variety of Temperance Songs, Duets and Choruses suitable for the sociable entertainments of the several Temperance Organizations."

Hull produced scores of song books for Sunday Schools like this one. (copyright expired)

Sarah shared her husband's uncompromising moral views and held the office of vice-president of the National Christian League for the Promotion of Social Purity.

When a tax was proposed on "country checks," (or out-of-state checks) in 1899, Asa Hull protested by means of a letter to the editor of the New-York Tribune.  It shed much light into the operations of his business, saying in part:

My business is mostly mail business, and nine-tenths of the remittances come from the country in checks, many below $1 each, and the result will be that I shall be obliged to decline all small checks...The nature of my business is such that I could not stand any further taxation.

The houses, seen mid-block here in 1903, were surrounded by mansions when the Hulls and McKessons lived here.  from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York

In the meantime, George C. McKesson was a partner in the wholesale pharmaceutical firm McKesson & Robbins, founded in part by his father, John.   The McKessons summered at Monmouth Beach in New Jersey.  (George's son by a former marriage, George, Jr., had taken his adopted father's surname.  George McKesson Brown would eventually build one of Long Island's most magnificent estates, Coindre Hall.)

Almost assuredly, the lifestyles of the McKessons and the Hulls were starkly different.  The McKesson name appeared regularly in the social activities of New Jersey resort district.  Such was the case on July 3, 1915 when the McKessons were among the more than 200 guests at Hilden, the summer estate of the William Barbour.  There they rubbed shoulders with millionaires with names like Schiff, Borden, Fahnestock and Straus.

Sarah J. Hull died on June 29, 1909 and her funeral was held at No. 23 three days later.  Asa lived on in the house for another eight years.  He died on April 4, 1917 at the age of 92.  His funeral, too, was held in the house. 

While No. 23 was soon sold to Sarah T. Adams, the McKessons remained next door through the 1920's.  But by 1930 both residences were being operated as rooming houses.

The tenants during the Depression years were not all upstanding citizens.  "Major" Irving F. Coleman was living at No. 24 on December 3, 1930 when he was arrested there "on the charge of writing worthless checks passed in Washington," according to The New York Times.  The article added that he "faced the additional charge of impersonating a Federal officer."

Colman's roommate, John Otis Handy, was an accessory to the crimes.  The Times reported that he "had cashed one of the worthless checks."  As for Coleman, he had invented his rank.  "It was learned that Coleman was no major and that he had found persons willing to cash his checks, it is charged, because of a portly and dignified bearing, which fitted the borrowed title."

The former Hull house had its own criminal tenant.  On April 2, 1943 Robert J. Cassidy and three cohorts stole a truck containing $85,00 in liquor in Long Island City.  It was a major haul, worth $120,000 today--or it would have been had they not gotten caught.  Cassidy pleaded guilty in the Queens County Court on May 17.

On January 13, 1945 The Times reported that Stanley Estates, Inc. had purchased the "rooming house at 23 Riverside Drive."  It was quickly converted to apartments, two per floor.  The same firm acquired No. 24 and converted it to apartments two years later.

The conversion to apartments did not initially improve the respectability of the buildings' tenants.   Thomas Hirsch, who lived in No 23 in 1958, went by the street name "Schoolboy."  He was arrested in a drugstore on Broadway and 50th Street on May 9, 1953 charged with bookmaking.  The police called him a "known Broadway figure" in illegal gambling.

Martin J. Yamin lived next door in 1955.  A former Baltimore judge, the 32-year old was accused of taking part in the hold-up and murder of Joseph Aronowitz on February 15 that year.  Aronowitz, who lived on West 83rd Street, was scheduled to testify for the state in a Baltimore hold-up case.  But, according to police, he was "taken for a ride" before that could happen.  His body was found in an abandoned automobile in Brooklyn.

On April 7 that year The New York Times reported that Stanley Estates, Inc. had sold the "two four-story converted buildings containing nineteen apartments" to Mary Ley and Helen Jambor.

Happily, unflattering press ended around the same time.  By the end of the century there were small commercial tenants as well.  Birch Music Press was in No. 24 in the early 1970's; and Riverside Books, a publishing firm, was in No. 23 by the early l990's.

photographs by the author

C. P. H. Gilbert's No. 330 West 76th Street

Where Gilbert had placed a conical turret and mansard roof, a Soviet-style addition now rises.

In the 1890s speculative developers were erecting entire block fronts within the rapidly-developing Upper West Side.  Their architects often created harmoniously-designed rows of similar rowhouses.  But wealthy realtor Bryan Kennelly’s home would stand apart.

In 1894 he turned to one of Manhattan’s foremost architects to design his residence at No. 330 West 76^th Street, steps from Riverside Drive.  Thirty-three year old Charles Pierrepont Henry Gilbert, better known as C. P. H. Gilbert, had already designed lavish mansions, including that of Jules G. Bache at No. 10 East 67th Street.    His best-known commissions would later include the mansion of Joseph R De Lamar and the Felix M. Warburg house

Completed in 1895, the Kennelly house rose three stories to a tiled mansard level.  Gilbert’s Francois I design featured an imposing limestone base with shallow stoop that projected nearly to the property line.  A decorated stone wall protected the full-width balcony at the second floor.   The second and third stories were clad in beige Roman brick and embellished with frothy limestone carvings.  

Bizarre winged beasts crouch below the balcony wall, on either side of the doorway.

The decoration of Francois I buildings often included images of salamanders—the emblem of King Francis I.  Gilbert, however, transformed the salamanders to dragons—one fearful beast appearing in the foliate design above a second floor window; and five full-relief dragons holding shields lining up below the third floor balustrade.  The stone balustrade crowned the façade, fronting the dormered mansard and the conical cap of the turret.   

Fearsome dragons clutch shields along the rim of the third story, while a gruesome horned creature snarls from amid the foliate carvings below.

The Kennellys enjoyed the lifestyles of the privileged class.  Mrs. Kennelly’s “at homes” were routinely announced in the society columns; and the couple spent their summers at upscale resorts like the Hathaway Inn in Deal Beach, New Jersey.

They would not remain long in their new home, however.  Three years after moving in, Kennelly sold the house for $51,000 in March 1898.  The price Alfred Lee Manierre paid was equal to about $1.5 million in 2016 dollars.

Manierre had married Cornelia Putnam Lockwood four months earlier on November 10, 1897.   A partner in the legal firm Manierre & Manierre at No. 31 Nassau Street, he and his wife were highly involved with reform groups.  Alfred was proactive in his temperance beliefs.   He was a member of the New York Prohibition County Committee and the City Vigilance League and had been an honorary Prohibition Candidate for Congress in 1888.

In 1908 he would explain his staunch temperance stance saying “in a quiet way for twenty years and more I have tried to help those who are seeking to outlaw the liquor business.  The indiscriminate sales of intoxicants I believe to be the most prolific source of waste, financial, physical and moral.”  By now he was also secretary of the N.Y. State General Committee for Safeguarding the Sale of Narcotics; secretary and treasurer of the N.Y. State Central Committee for Scientific Temperance Instruction in Public Schools; and Manager of the National Temperance Society. 

Manierre’s reform concerns went beyond alcohol and narcotics.  He was also a member of the Committee for Improving the Industrial Condition of the Negro, and was a director and treasurer of the New York Red Cross Hospital.

Like Mrs. Hennelly, Cornelia hosted teas and receptions in the drawing room; but the most noteworthy gathering here occurred on April 15, 1905.  The Rev. Edward Everett Hale was both famous and wildly-popular.  An author and historian as well as minister, his writings had made him a household name.  Cornelia Manierre had arranged for him to address the Young People’s Loyal Legion Temperance Society that afternoon.

Architectural Record, October 1899 (copyright expired)

The New York Times reported the following day that “because it was known that Dr. Hale would be there the gathering was large enough to fill a public hall.”   Instead of the West Side socialites that normally visited the Manierre parlors; that day it was mostly young people who filed into the house.  “The scene was most picturesque and charming.  In the midst of a group of lads and lassies in their brightest and gayest dresses was the leonine head and square-shouldered figure of the writer of ‘The Man Without a Country’ and ‘In His Name,’ tall and straight as a forest pine in spite of his fourscore years and three.”

Hale, of course, included temperance in the several issues he spoke about.  “Only in a pure body can the soul be pure,” he told the youths.  “And it is for this reason that we take and keep the pledge framed by this organization to which you all belong.”

Alfred L. Manierre described his wife as “amiable, beautiful and accomplished” and wrote in 1908 “The finest three children in the United States reside in my house: Ruth Lockwood Manierre, aged nine; B. Franklin Manierre, aged seven; Alfred Lee Manierre, Jr., aged four.”

Manierre died in the 76^th Street house on October 1, 1911 at the age of 48.  Cornelia and the children appear to have remained in the home for several years.  When it was advertised for sale on March 20, 1921 the house was described as a “very high-class 4-story American Basement House.”  The notice pointed out that the free-standing residence had windows on all four sides—a rare plus in a townhouse.  The ad mentioned that there were six “master’s” bedrooms, four baths and “6 toilets.”

Although the house was leased and released over the next few years, it remained a single family home until mid-century.  Fifty-four year old Oscar Ebert lived here on March 9, 1937 when he planned a trip to Germany.  That day he went to the office of George Steinweg and dropped off $1,000 to be exchanged for German marks.

Steinweg was well-respected, having been in the foreign exchange business for 35 years.  But instead of providing Ebert with his marks, Steinweg made off with his cash.  Ebert sued and the case came to trial on July 9, 1937.  Other clients had also been defrauded, it turned out, bringing the total thefts to $15,000.  George Steinweg’s attorney, Jacob I. Horowitz, presented a bizarre defense.

He told the court that his client’s nose had been broken in an automobile accident a year earlier “and since then he had been so confused he neglected his foreign exchange business.”   Despite the creative defense, Steinweg was found guilty and on July 24, 1937 was sentenced to not more than three years in the state penitentiary.  Ebert, it seems, was out $1,000.

The Herman family lived in the house in 1939, the year that 10-year old Jerome Herman received first price in the “Best-displayed fish-guppies and other tropical fish” category of the Upper West Side Pet Show.  His was the last of the positive press residents of No. 330 West 76^th Street would receive.

By mid-century the once lavish home was being operated as a rooming house.  Howard Brown, “a laborer,” lived here when he was arrested on June 2, 1954.  The New York Times reported “A 32-year old man, described by the police as ‘the brains’ of Westchester County’s ‘party bandits,’ was arrested last night in front of a tavern at 160^th Street and St. Nicholas Avenue.”  Brown had organized a gang of burglars and carried out a string of robberies in the wealthy upstate neighborhood.

Harry Ramirez was another roomer.  The 21-year old’s uncle, Manuel De Jesus, was a passenger in Ramirez’s car on January 9, 1955.   According to Ramirez, he accidentally shot his uncle; but when a doctor arrived to find the 31-year old seaman dying in the front seat of the car, Ramirez fled the scene.

He was later held on $3,500 in his uncle’s death.  Records revealed that the young man had already been arrested three times.

Two years later another resident faced a judge.  Raudo Alvarez was arrested in April 1956 for disorderly conduct.  The 19-year old complained to Judge J. Randall Creel that his raucous behavior was not the reason he had been arrested, but “because I am Spanish.”  Considering his argument, Creel sentenced him “to write a song about the Spaniards who settled St. Augustine.”

Five months later Alvarez reappeared before Judge Creel empty-handed.  “When he appeared yesterday, Alvarez said he hadn’t had time to write the song’ he had been too busy,” reported The Times on September 8, 1956.  Despite this, Creek suspended his sentence, “noting the good probation report.”

The replacement stoop railings and entrance door are sadly utilitarian.

Before the end of the century, the mansard roof was removed and two stories—which could be only described as an insult to Gilbert’s cultured design—were added, and the original stoop replaced.  But despite the architectural carnage, the lower three floors still suggest the refined lifestyles of the original residents.

photographs by the author