Gross & Kleinberger's 1913 11 West 25th Street

The 25-foot wide, four-story brownstone house at No. 11 West 25th Street was built in a prestigious location.  Steps away from Fifth Avenue and Madison Square, it was next door to the fashionable Trinity Chapel where some of Manhattan's wealthiest families worshiped.   But by end of the 19th century the neighborhood had mostly ceded to commerce as millionaires migrated north.

On August 3, 1912 the Real Estate Record & Builders' Guide reported that Benjamin Barnett had purchased the property.  "Mr. Barnett will erect a loft building on the site."  Barnett and other investors formed The 11 West 25th St. Co. and within the week of buying No. 11 took out a $135,000 building loan--a significant $3.61 million today.  

The developers wasted no time.  The architectural firm of Gross & Kleinberger was hired to design a 12-story loft and store building and on August 17--just two weeks after the purchase of the property--plans were filed.  

On September 8, 1912 The New York Times reported "One of the latest additions to the many tall lofts now in course of construction in the mid-town zone is a twelve-story structure, now well under-way at 11 West Twenty-fifth Street...It will be of fireproof construction throughout, with a facade of enameled terra cotta."

Gross & Kleinberger released this rendering to the press.  The New York Times, September 8, 1912 (copyright expired)

On June 21, 1913, as construction was nearing completion on No. 11, the Record & Guide commented on the flurry of development along the block.  In an article entitled "West 25th Street / Loft Buildings Displacing More Private Dwellings There," it detailed eight buildings under construction, mentioning that "At 11 West 25th street plastering and interior equipment is being installed."

At the time terra cotta clad commercial buildings in the neo-Gothic style were rising throughout Manhattan; the most notable being Cass Gilbert's masterful Woolworth Building under construction downtown.  Gross & Kleinberger followed suit, embellishing No. 11 with shields, crockets and other Gothic elements.  

Construction was completed in the summer of 1913 and tenants were signing leases by August.  Among the first was the Singer Sewing Machine Company which took the ground floor store and basement level.

Interestingly, both offices and factories shared the upper floors.  Apparel firms like H. I. Cohen,  the Madison Carnet Company and John O. Powers took floors.  H. I. Cohen, who leased the 7th floor, hit the ground running.  He ran two wants ads in The New York Times on November 29, 1913.  One read "Jobber wants Spring samples of silk waists; also contractors wanted to take out work," and the other "Jobber looking at Spring skirts from $2 to $7.50."

Another initial tenant involved in the garment trade was Joseph A. Herzberg, maker of women's dresses.  He had serious problems in 1914, but they were not associated with his business.  Herzberg and his wife had been married in 1888, but lately their relationship had soured.  He moved out of their home when, according to him, "she threatened to pour kerosene over the bedclothing and set fire to the bed while he was asleep."  

On October 20, 1914 The Sun reported that he told a judge "that once in the Fifth Avenue Building his wife hit him with her fist and cut his face with her rings and on another occasion she chased him out of his office at 11 West Twenty-fifth street, threatening to shoot him."  On that occasion, as Herzberg ran down the block in terror, his wife shouted "Stop, thief!  Murder!  Police!"  Herzberg filed for separation on the grounds that his wife "treated him so cruelly that it is unsafe for him to live with her."

In the meantime other spaces were leased to apparel and millinery firms like F. A. Harris Co.  On March 1914 it was looking for "Milliners and preparers; first-class operators only."  Other firms in the building at the time were the Ascot Manufacturing Co., and Kasse & Goldberg, makers of cloaks and suits.

At the time the high-end retailers along Fifth Avenue above 32nd Street were battling the encroachment of loft buildings along the side streets.  The hundreds of factory and shop workers mobbed the sidewalks and spilled onto upscale Fifth Avenue.  Refined shoppers were loathe to battle the hoards of workmen and the fashionable tone of the avenue was threatened.  The Save New York Movement was born.

The Movement established a “restricted zone” and encouraged manufacturers to avoid it.  The mayor supported the program and initiated zoning restrictions for construction going forward from 32^nd Street to 59^th Street, from Third to Seventh Avenue.   The pressure convinced fur manufacturers Friedman, Schindler & Co. to move into No. 11 in 1916.  On the same day that The Evening Post reported that the firm had signed a lease, The Save New York Commission applauded the move in print.

Celluloid had been patented in 1869 but its use for making jewelry became highly popular in the 1920's.  Among the tenants of No. 11 in 1922 was A. Reinheimer & Co. which made celluloid buckles and buttons in its 7th floor factory.  On the afternoon of July 27 a fire broke out while most of the firm's 100 employees were at lunch.

A pedestrian was nearly hit by a shower of glass from a window, blown out by the heat.  He turned in a fire alarm, but by the time the fire fighters arrived the blaze had spread to the sixth floor, occupied by dress makers Hahn & Benjamin, and to the eighth, where embroider company Robert David, and furriers Harris & Victor leased space.  The mostly female workers in the building scrambled to escape.  The New-York Tribune reported "Some of them were carried down by elevators, others went down fire escapes at the rear of the building and about 150 ran to the roof and made their way across the Townsend Building, at the Broadway corner."

Although the blaze was extinguished within 20 minutes, it did considerable damage.  The 7th floor was essentially gutted and the 6th and 8th were heavily damaged.  The total loss was estimated at $50,000 (just under $750,000 in today's dollars).  And if the loss of its factory was not enough, A. Reinheimer & Co. was soon hit with a summons from the Fire Department which charged the firm "with unlawfully having celluloid in its premises without a permit."

Even as the Garment District moved northward above 34th Street, No. 11 continued to lease to apparel and millinery firms.  Enterprise Accessories, Inc. was here in the early 1930's.  In 1934 it was embroiled in labor conflict with the International Pocketbook Workers Union, which fought for higher wages for its members.  Enterprise Accessories, Inc. decided simply to move its operation to Greenfield, Massachusetts, where wages were cheaper.  But with the nation in the throes of the Great Depression, the National Recovery Administration stepped in.

On August 27, 1934 The New York Times reported "The first move under the NRA to prevent employers from moving their plants from this city to communities with lower work and wage standards and to escape higher union obligations was announced yesterday by the Regional Labor Board."  A representative of the Labor Board stressed, "if this firm is allowed with impunity to lock out its union members and to remove to another place for the purpose of obtaining cheap labor there will be an exodus of such firms from New York."

Other apparel firms in the building in the 1930's and '40's were the Beauty Brassiere Company (makers of "brassieres, bandeaux, and corsets"), the Lace Process Corporation, and Hexter Millinery.  World War II brought extra business to the Fisher-Mair Uniform Company.  But the firm's greed brought not only unwanted publicity but Government action.

Enlisted men were issued uniforms at no cost by the military; however many purchased additional uniforms from retailers like Fisher-Mair.  In the summer of 1944 sailors complained to the Office of Price Administration that they were being charged $45 for uniforms that should cost $28.  Werner Ilsen, the regional enforcement executive, investigated and disclosed "The overcharges were for Navy 'blues'--woolen blouses and pants--and for 'skivvies,' a cotton basque-type undershirt."  Fisher-Mair Uniform Company was sued by the Office of Price Administration for violating ceiling prices and for "having failed to keep proper records."

The second half of the 20th century saw the neighborhood changing once again.  By 1966 the offices of the Lift Extension Institute were here.  Formed in 1913, the philanthropic institution has a goal "of prolonging human life through hygiene and disease prevention."  Over the years its officers had included William Howard Taft, Alexander Graham Bell, William James Mayo and Russell Henry Chittenden.

No. 11 was home to the Capricorn Gallery by 1968.   That year in November a benefit exhibition and sale of original costumes and scenic designs and posters of the City Center of Music and Drama was held here.

In 1984 the advertising agency of J. J. Gross & Company was in the building, and by the late 1990's Haas Company occupied the store level.  On September 24, 1997 The New York Times' food columnist Florence Fabricant wrote "A little-known source for baking equipment at low prices is the Haas Company."  The described the firm as "Mainly a wholesaler that sells just about everything for professional kitchens, from whisks to Traulsen refrigerators."

At the time Frenchway Travel Agency occupied offices on the eighth floor.  The all-female firm specialized in getting the fashion industry to exotic spots for photo shoots and such.

Gross & Kleinberger's Edwardian Gothic building has survived more than a century with almost no change--unlike the Nomad neighborhood in which it sits.

photographs by the author

The 1916 Silk Exchange Cafe -- No. 47 E 29th Street

The Arts & Crafts architectural details were obliterated in a 2014 makeover.

When the esteemed dentist, Dr. Elbert Todd, died in his handsome four-story home at No. 47 East 29^th Street on January 8, 1902, the neighborhood was in flux.  Fifteen years after beginning his practice, Todd had purchased the house in 1876.  Sitting between Madison and Park Avenues, it was just a few blocks removed from the Fifth Avenue and Murray Hill mansion districts.

Dr. Todd’s first wife had died in 1881; but he remarried.  A grown son, Ezra Washburn Todd, was also a dentist.  At the time of his death, Todd’s 14- and 17-year old daughters lived in the house with him and his wife, Caroline.  Friends and family who pulled up to the East 29^th Street house for the doctor’s funeral in stylish black carriages would have noticed that the private homes on the block were being converted for business purposes.

By now even Fifth Avenue had changed below 34^th Street.  Not only had upscale shops like art galleries and dressmakers taken over the brownstone mansions; but many had been replaced by commercial structures.  Only four months after Dr. Todd’s funeral an advertisement appeared in the New-York Tribune seeking bachelor tenants for the house.  “Large rooms, newly furnished; bath on each floor; gentlemen only; house in charge of caretaker.”

For the next decade the Todd family continued to lease the house as a boarding house for respectable single men.  Then in October 1912 the Real Estate Builders’ Record & Guide announced that it had been leased to the Proudman Realty Co. “for business purposes.”

The altered building served as offices for tenants like John Arschagouni, a homoeopathic doctor.  But the upper-most rooms were apparently still being rented as living quarters.  Matylda Neiman, called “a pretty Russian girl” by The New York Times, was living here in 1913.  Although she was employed at the Martha Washington Hotel, she heavily augmented her salary by picking pockets.  When she was arrested on January 11 that year, the newspaper’s headline announced “Detectives Flock to See Pretty Girl.”

Matylda was an expert at her craft.  One detective estimated that her daily take was around $605—in the neighborhood of over $13,000 today.  Matylda answered flatly, “You don’t know that.”

But soon neither the pick-pocketing Neiman nor Dr. Arschagouni would be listing No. 47 East 29^th Street as their address.  While the millinery and garment districts had inched north of 23^rd Street on the West side of Fifth Avenue; the silk district was engulfing the neighborhood around the Todd house.  Silk merchants and jobbers bustled along the once-placid streets, hurrying to their offices and showrooms.

On May 20, 1916 the Record & Guide reported that Caroline M. Todd had commissioned architects Gross & Kleinberger to replace the old brownstone with a “two-story brick restaurant building.”  Before the first brick was laid, she had leased the property to the Silk Exchange Café.

The architects produced a no-nonsense commercial building clad in variegated brick.  A cast iron-framed storefront nestled within the brick piers.  The charm of the structure was in its creative brickwork, most notably the herringbone pattern between floors, and the grouped set of windows at the second story.

The herringbone pattern of the brickwork, the inset stone panels and the grouped upper openings created the charm -- Google Maps, May 2009

Perhaps it was limited funds that caused Caroline Todd to erect a two-story building rather than a modern loft and store structure.  Her restaurant would cost her just $12,000 to build; significantly less than a large commercial structure (nevertheless a substantial quarter of a million dollars today for the widow).  Or she may have simply been a shrewd businesswoman.  The Silk Exchange Café would thrive in the little building for years.

If the second floor was originally intended as part of the restaurant; that plan quickly fell through.  In March 1917 silk dealer Seville & Jonas leased that space for its offices.  Three years later Arrow Silk Mills, silk jobbers, was doing business there. 

Apparently the silk business was not all work and no play.  In 1921 Max E. Klein, principal of Arrow Silk Mills, was sued by William J. Smith Silk Company.  At the trial on February 6, 1922 Philip Getzoff was called as a witness for the defendant.

Getzoff was asked if he had visited Klein’s place of business on Saturday, January 31, 1920.  He testified that he had, and that along with Max Klein, there were six other men in there.  The attorney then asked Getzoff what the men were doing when he arrived.

“They were shooting a game of crap dice.”

In the 1920s journalist O. O. McIntyre fascinated readers with his syndicated column “New York Day by Day” in which he chronicled his observations about everyday Manhattan.  On January 1, 1926 he turned his attention to the Silk District, clearly describing the sweeping changes since Elbert Todd purchased his home exactly 50 years earlier.

“The silk district is in the upper East Twenties.  I notice a Silk Exchange café, a pool parlor and a shoe shine stand catering exclusively to the men who deal in silks.”

But by mid-century the silk district had essentially disappeared from the east side of Fifth Avenue.  The Silk Exchange Café became home to Design Techniques by 1954; a home furnishings retail store where fabrics and wallcoverings could be purchased.

Then in 1989 the little building returned to its original purpose.  Just around the block on Park Avenue was Park Bistro, described by The New York Times in November that year as an “immensely popular French restaurant.”  The owners branched out, taking over No. 47 (which it preferred to call a “townhouse”) and opening Park Avenue Gourmandises.  Where silk jobbers had lunched on corned beef  and crap games went on in the second floor, now trendier New Yorkers purchased “pastries, croissants, cheese and prepared imported foods.”

The gourmet store would remain in the building for years; replaced after the turn of the 21^st century by Red Sky, a sports bar and restaurant popular for its roof deck.  But that, too, of course, would not last.  It closed sometime around 2013.

Through it all the tiny little café building had survived remarkably intact.  Then the overlooked relic of the Silk District received a cosmetic updating that effectively obliterated all of the structure's Arts and Crafts charm.

non-credited photographs by the author