The 1878 82 through 88 Horatio Street

 

photograph by Frank Hosticka

Developer John H. Selzam hired architect Theophilus G. Smith in 1878 to design four flat buildings at 82 through 88 Horatio Street.  Just one-and-a-half blocks from the riverfront, they would be home to working-class families, many of them newly arrived in America.  But unlike tenement buildings that would be built throughout Greenwich Village and the East Side, Smith did not encrust these flats with grotesque masks and shields and other over-the-top ornament.  He created a dignified marriage of the Anglo-Italianate and Renaissance Revival styles.

The buildings were 25- and 18-feet-wide.  The wider buildings cost Selzam $9,000 to erect and the others $8,000--$292,000 and $260,000 respectively in 2026.

Rounded arched windows and elliptically arched entrances distinguished the first floor, which sat a few steps above the sidewalk.  Above a molded band course, the upper four floors were faced in orange-red brick and trimmed in brownstone.  The second floor windows sat atop molded sills supported by decorated brackets.  Above their paneled lintels were Renaissance-inspired pediments with similar carved brackets.  The openings of the top two floors were treated with identical elements, but without the pediments.  Elaborate, individual pressed metal cornices included paneled fascias and paired scrolled corbels and brackets.

photograph by Frank Hosticka

There were four apartments per floor.  An advertisement offered "choice apartments of two, three and four rooms."  The residents ranged from laborers to those who had at least high school educations, as was reflected in their various advertisements looking for work.  Nellie J. Duke, who lived in No. 86 in January 1891, wrote, "A young girl, experienced cashier and bookkeeper, wants employment." Another tenant in the same building placed an advertisement that same month.  "A respectable young girl as chambermaid and waitress in a private family or would do plain cooking; good references."  And another resident advertised in October 1894, "Waiter; good oyster opener; 10 years' experience; married.  Coombs, 86 Horatio Street."

Among the initial residents of No. 88 was the Scholl family.  Born in Germany, John Scholl had a wife and at least two grown daughters.  The New-York Tribune reported on February 16, 1880, "He had worked at several breweries in the Ninth Ward, but his habits of intoxication had alienated him from his wife and daughters."  They had expelled him from the apartment.

Early on the morning of February 15, Patrolman Walsh was passing some piles of lumber at West and Bethune Streets, "when he noticed the body of a man dangling by a rope between two of the piles," reported the New-York Tribune.  It was John Scholl.  The article said, "It was not known by the police where he lived recently."

Also living at No. 88 that year were Louis Gluck and his wife.  Louis and his brother, Gustavus, were carvers in the Weber piano factory.  Gustavus and his wife lived on Seventh Avenue.  On the evening of December 15, 1880, Gustavus opened a box that he kept in the bedroom and noticed that $25 was missing.  (It was a substantial amount, nearly $800 in today's terms.)  His wife told him that his step-father, Justus Schilling, had stolen it.

Gustavus informed his brother and the two of them headed to Schilling's apartment on Third Street and First Avenue.  They rousted Schilling from his bed and demanded the missing money.  Schilling called Gustavus's wife a liar.  The Sun reported that Louis, "struck him on the head with some hard instrument" and Gustavus drew a pistol.  He shot Shilling in the forehead and as the wounded man rushed from the apartment, shot him again in the back.  Gustavus fled to his brother-in-law's apartment, where he was later tracked down.  Louis was arrested in his Horatio Street apartment later that night.

Ellen Sullivan and her adult son, John, occupied an apartment in 84 Horatio Street as early as 1895.  On May 1 that year, the exasperated Ellen walked into the Charles Street station house with her son and announced, "I want to have my boy committed for a month.  He's been drinking steadily for two weeks now, and, if he is sent away for a time, he will straighten up and go to work again."

The Sun reported, "The man, who plainly showed that his mother's story was true, said he was willing to be put out of the reach of temptation."  A policeman escorted the two to the Jefferson Market Court.  As they waited to be called before Justice Taintor, Ellen wept.  Finally, Taintor called her forward and asked her to swear to the complaint.  Ellen broke down, crying, "Oh, I can't, I can't do it.  Oh, Johnny, Johnny, my boy, what made you drink?"

Suddenly, as reported by The Sun, "As she stopped speaking she clutched at her left side, staggered and fell into the arms of a court attendant."  She was carried into the hall where she died.  A court officer explained to the judge that Ellen had just died "of a broken heart."  The doctor who had been called in clarified that the cause was heart disease.

In the meantime, Ellen's body "lay in the court hall for several hours, with a red handkerchief thrown over the face," said the article.  Finally a wooden box was brought in.  The body was placed in it and the lid nailed shut.  The Sun reported that it was "removed to the dead woman's home."

At the turn of the century, Bernard and Madeline Nagel occupied an apartment on the top floor of 84 Horatio Street.  Nagel was a lithographer with the Federal Lithographing Company nearby at 91-97 Horatio Street.  Early in the morning of July 13, 1901, the couple got into a heated argument.

At around 3:00 a.m., Mary Doran, who lived below the Nagels, was awakened by Madeline's cries.  She ran upstairs to find the woman standing in the doorway, "bleeding so profusely that she was frightened and ran downstairs," as reported by The New York Times.  Madeline had been shot in the chest.

After a few minutes, Mary got the courage to return and "give her a glass of water."  Madeline needed more than a drink of water, however.  At St. Vincent's Hospital, Coroner Bausch, who did not expect her to survive, took the 44-year-old woman's ante-mortem statement.  The article said police were looking for Bernard Nagel.

82 and 84 Horatio Street in 1940.  via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services

Patrick O'Connor, who worked as a longshoreman, lived with his wife Mary and their nine-year-old son at 86 Horatio Street by 1904.  Among their neighbors was Mary Callahan and following her death in September that year they attended her funeral at Calvary Cemetery.  Like Bernard Nagel, it appears that Patrick O'Connor's differences with his wife could result in violence.

Another mourner, a young man, shared a cab back to Manhattan with them.  The New York Herald reported that O'Connor, "accused the young man of being too friendly with Mrs. O'Connor."  He ousted him from the cab "and turned on his wife," said the article.  The New York Times reported, "Then came the sounds of a struggle from the interior of the cab, interspersed with the shrieks of the woman and the frightened cries of the boy."  The cabbie, Patrick O'Brien, called a policeman to help.

The officer found Mary O'Connor, "thrown into a heap in the corner, while the son had hidden under a seat," according to The New York Times.  The New York Herald added, "Mrs. O'Connor had two puffy eyes and her gown had been almost entirely torn off.  The boy was lame and sore."

Expectedly, Patrick O'Connor was arrested.  "Mary was permitted to go home and promised to come back after her husband," said The New York Times.

In 1927, all four buildings were converted to apartments by architect Ferdinand Savignano.  It was most likely at this time that a coating of stucco was applied to the first floor facade.  Two years later, despite the ongoing Depression (or because of it), on October 31, 1929 The New York Times reported that the 70 apartments were "now 95 per cent rented."

Among the early residents of the remodeled No. 82 was fledgling playwright and actor Clifford Odets, who rented an apartment in 1933.  Born in Philadelphia in July 1906, he began as an apprentice actor with the Group Theatre led by Lee Strausberg, Cheryl Crawford and Harold Clurman.  Margaret Brenman-Gibson, in her Clifford Odets, American Playwright: The Years from 1906 to 1940, describes the Horatio Street space as "a tiny, airless apartment."

Odets's parents, L. J. and Pearl Odets, had differing opinions on the accommodations.  Brenman-Gibson writes:

The first piece of furniture he moved into the dark, divided living room and bedroom was a large phonograph.  Pearl...arrived from Philadelphia bringing staples, cookies, and a pair of pongee curtains she had made to spruce up the airshaft window.  L. J. Odets scathingly assured her they made no difference whatever in this "hole in the wall."

Clifford Odets, Stage magazine December 1938

While living here, Odets wrote the one-act play Waiting for Lefty and Awake and Sing!.  The successful productions of both resulted in his becoming Group Theatre's signature playwright.  He left Horatio Street in 1935.

Pleiades Fieldgrove moved into a rear fifth-floor apartment in 86 Horatio Street in July 1956.  The New York Times said that the 26-year-old had left Brooklyn "for the glamour of Greenwich Village."  One month later, on August 31, the building superintendent found her body in the courtyard behind the building.  The medical examiner said she died of a stab wound in the chest.  The Staten Island Advance added that her violent death came "apparently at the hands of a rapist."

While police questioned Edward Peter Lamp, the 72-year-old superintendent, they noticed an unusual item in his apartment--a woman's black hatbox.  Investigation revealed that Pleiades had borrowed the hat from a friend the evening before her body was discovered.  Lamp told detectives "conflicting stories about how he had come into the possession" of the box, reported The New York Times.  Lamp was arrested as a material witness.

photograph by Frank Hosticka

Other than the stucco at the first floor and the necessary fire escapes that detract from their design, 82 through 88 Horatio Street survive remarkably intact.  Theophilus G. Smith's handsome design is exceptionally refined for tenement buildings of the time.

many thanks to reader (and resident) Frank Hosticka for suggesting this post

The Chrystie Street Settlement House - 75-77 Horatio Street

 

Builder William R. Halsey purchased land from Francis B. Cutting on the north side of Horatio Street between Washington and Greenwich Streets in 1835.  The following year five Greek Revival style homes were completed on the plots.  Two of them, 89 and 91 Horatio Street (renumbered 75 and 77 in 1854), were built for politician Henry J. Wyckoff as investment properties.

Faced in brick above a brownstone basement level, the identical homes were two-and-a-half stories tall and 24-feet-wide.  Handsome iron fencing protected the areaways, and stepped and paneled stone wingwalls flanked the stoop where only the topmost level held iron railings.  The elegant single-doored entrances were recessed behind stone pilasters that supported a heavy entablature.  They were flanked by narrow sidelights and capped by multi-paned transoms.

Wyckoff leased 89 and 91 Horatio Street.  No. 89 became home to the William Knowles family, while next door lived William Henry Tinson and his family.  Tinson ran a printing concern at 43 Centre Street.  In 1847 his family was searching for a live-in servant through a highly detailed ad:

Wanted--A neat and industrious girl, English, Scotch or German, to do the general house work of a family of three persons.  She must be a good plain cook, washer and ironer; to one answering the above qualifications (and none other need apply) a comfortable home and good wages will be given.

William Knowles was born in Halifax, Nova Scotia in 1806.  Living with him and his wife Elizabeth (known as Eliza) were their grown sons, William F. and Frederick C., and William's wife Margaret.

Knowles died at the age of 47 on March 23, 1853.  As was customary, his funeral was held in the parlor of 89 Horatio Street.  A second funeral was held there on September 26, 1859 for Norman White Knowles, the seven-month-old son of William F. and Margaret.

The Tinsons moved to 40 West Washington Square in 1863, after which 77 Horatio Street was leased to two families at a time--one each in the "upper" and "lower" portions.  Eliza Knowles remained in 69 Horatio Street through the mid-1870s.

For years 77 Horatio Street was shared by the families of Stephen Curtis and Robert Thompson.  Curtis was in the Brittania business (a metal alloy similar to pewter).  His son Stephen Jr. was involved in the firm with him, and his daughter, Emily taught at Grammar School No. 10 at 180 Wooster Street.

Two young men living at 77 Horatio Street, Daniel M. Hogan and John H. Allen, were accepted into the New York City Police Department one year apart--Hogan in 1891 and Allen in 1892.  Hogan astonished physicians during his physical examination on February 21, 1891 simply because they could find nothing to fault.  Of the 300 applicants, the Board of Examiners said he was "the most perfectly developed man of the lot."  The 30-year-old was currently employed by the Pennsylvania Railroad as foreman of Pier 16 on the Hudson River.  

The Sun reported that he lifted 660 pounds "on the lifting machine," and 1,188 pounds with his legs.  The doctors measured his biceps at 15.5 inches.  "With the right arm he put up a dumb bell weighing seventy-five pounds, and with the left one of sixty pounds," said the article.

By the turn of the century, the titles to 75 and 77 Horatio Street had passed to a daughter of Henry J. Wyckoff with the married name of Bright.  On February 8, 1902 the New-York Tribune reported on their sale to Maria S. Simpson.  The reporter got the history only slightly wrong when he commented, "The property had been owned by the Bright estate for more than one hundred years."

Simpson resold the houses in November 1905.  In 1909, the homes became the northern annex to the Chrystie Street House, a settlement house that had focused on helping homeless boys and young men for years.  Wallace Gillpatrick, who had been associated with the Chrystie Street House downtown, moved into the Horatio Street facility.  

In 1908 he explained, "The Chrystie Street House is ready to help any homeless boy or young man who wants to improve his life.  But I suppose easily 75 per cent of the young men who come to the Chrystie Street House have been through the workhouse, where they have been committed on a technical charge of vagrancy."  The 1913 Documents of the Senate of the State of New York was more direct, saying the Horatio Street facility, "aids young men who have been in prison."

In May 1912, the downtown Chrystie Street House was discontinued and the entire operation moved to Horatio Street.  In anticipation, 75 and 77 Horatio Street were renovated and combined internally.  On January 27, 1912, The New York Press reported that they "are to be remodeled for use as a home for friendless boys.  It will replace the present house in Chrystie street...The new home will be prepared at a cost of $8,000."  Included in the plans were "a gymnasium, reading and dining rooms, and accommodations for twenty boys."  

Expectedly, not all the residents were upstanding citizens.  On September 14, 1913, The New York Times reported, "After being sheltered and fed at the Settlement Workers' House, 77 Horatio Street, for several days, Joseph Toy and Leroy Matlock, 23 and 24 years of age respectively, repaid the hospitality...by breaking into [superintendent M. Heilbroner's] room on Friday and taking two suit-cases filled with clothing and small articles of jewelry.  The thieves were arrested later in a Chatham Square lodging house."

In 1917, Wallace Gillpatrick read a paper to the American Prison Association in which he described the work of the Horatio Street facility.  He said in part:

Young men on leaving prison seek companions and recreation.  Unless some special form of effort is made in their behalf, they frequently find both companions and recreation under unfavorable conditions...The effective way to help them is by means of recreation centers, with club features, as a library, music, billiards, games, etc., under the supervision of a board of directors and with a competent secretary always in charge.

The Chrystie Street House remained in 75-77 Horatio until the late 1920s.  In 1927, the combined property was renovated for the Winfield Day Nursery, Inc.  It now held a day nursery and kindergarten on the first and second floors, and a caretaker's apartment on the third.  It was inaugurated on May 4.  The New York Sun reported, "Members of the board of managers of the Winfield Day Nursery, Inc., formerly the Bloomingdale Day Nursery, at 75 Horatio street, will give a tea on Wednesday afternoon from 4 to 6."

The success of the facility was such that in 1930 73 Horatio Street was purchased.  While that house was operated as an adjunct to the main property, they were not joined internally.

Repeated benefits were held for the Winfield Day Nursery over the years.  In reporting on an upcoming lecture at the Plaza Hotel ballroom for the facility on November 7, 1938, The New York Sun described its operation:

The nursery, at which babies as young as two weeks old have received care, maintains a kindergarten and provides warm mid-day dinners for the children after they have gone on to public schools.  Facilities for supervised play in the nursery yard are also available for the children who have reached school age.

There were meeting spaces, as well, for Boy Scout and Girl Scout organizations.

The Winfield Day Nursery operated from the houses until 1957, when 75-77 Horatio Street became the Masters Children's Center.  It opened in September that year and, according to The New York Times, "provides a therapeutic program for disturbed children in a nursery school setting."  Like its two predecessors, the Masters Children's Center remained for decades.  Then, in 1986, a renovation resulted in two and three apartments per floor within the combined homes.

photographs by the author

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

The James McComb House - 64 Horatio Street

 

When former British Major Horatio Gates learned of the outbreak of war in 1775, he left his Virginia plantation, Traveller's Rest, to fight for the patriot forces.  In 1790, he and his wife, Mary Valens, relocated to Manhattan.  In honor of his service in the Revolution, a street in Greenwich Village was named for him--Horatio Street.

As Greenwich Village expanded in the early decades of the 19th century, surrounding farmland was rapidly developed.  In 1844 a local builder, Abraham Demarest purchased five empty lots at 58 through 66 Horatio Street from two cartmen, Cornelius Ackerman and Peter Van Natter.  (They had bought them from the Ireland family just months or weeks earlier.)  Demarest erected five identical, brick-faced homes on the plots.

Intended for middle-class families, their Greek Revival design featured handsome entrances with three-paneled sidelights and transoms.  Simple brownstone lintels crowned the windows and orderly dentil molding ran below the cornices.

By 1854, 64 Horatio Street was run by Ann Redway as a boarding house.  The widow of Maturin Redway, who had died in December 1847, she was born Ann Martin in New Jersey in 1795.  Her select boarders were professionals, like Abraham W. Martin, who was listed as an "agent" at Pier 15 on the North River (today's Hudson River); and James Boden, who operated a railing, or ironworks, business on Eighth Avenue.

There was no doubt a commotion within the house on the morning of August 15, 1856.  The New York Herald reported, "Between 11 and 12 o'clock on Friday forenoon, a quilt took fire from a furnace on the back piazza of [the] house No. 64 Horatio street, occupied by Mrs. Radley [sic]."  The article said that the flames spread to the piazza (the wooden extension or porch), "but were soon extinguished before much damage was done."  The newspaper placed the damages at "probably $3," or around $100 in 2023 terms.

In 1860, the house was offered for sale, the advertisement noting, "The house is in good order and is supplied with gas and Croton."  Both amenities were modern conveniences.  Not all New York City homes were lighted by gas in the pre-Civil War years, and "Croton" meant that it had running water.  (The term referred to the Croton Reservoir on the site of today's New York Public Library, opened in 1842.)

The house became home to Albert Anderson and his family.  Anderson's occupation was listed as a carman, however his ability to purchase a modest house suggests he owned a delivery operation rather than simply driving a dray.  

The family took in one or two boarders at a time.  Living with them in 1863 was a young man named F. Gayner.  His residency was cut short when he was drafted into the Union Army on March 16, 1865.  (Happily for Gayner, General Robert E. Lee surrendered at Appomattox Court House just over three weeks later.)

An interesting boarder at the time was Jacob C. Banta, his wife Sarah, and their six-year-old daughter, Lillie.  Born around  1832, Banta was a pioneer in the professional photography business.  His studio was at 328 Bleecker Street, where he created posed "cabinet cards." 

Banta shot this cabinet card later in his career. image via cabinetcardgallery.com

Anderson and his family left 64 Horatio Street in 1866.  It was home to another carman, Simon Doremus for two years.  He also volunteered with the Columbian Hook & Ladder Company No. 14 at 96 Charles Street.

The house was purchased by James P. McComb around 1869.  A produce merchant, he and his wife, Elizabeth, had a 14-year-old son, William A.  Six years after the family moved in, on November 20, 1875, Elizabeth died at the age of 39.  In a somewhat surprising breach of tradition, her funeral was not held in the Horatio Street house, but in the Thirteenth Street Presbyterian Church.

By then, James McComb had become involved in real estate development, as well.  In November 1877, for instance, he hired architect J. M. Dunn to design a three-story brick tenement in Harlem; and in April 1880 constructed a two-story brick warehouse on Washington Street.

McComb had a boarder in 1880, E. H. Fullerton.  He became a hero of sorts on Friday afternoon, April 30 that year.  Fullerton was seated on the Bleecker Street streetcar next to E. P. Fritz.  The men noticed a suspicious looking passenger next to Mary M. Barr, a widow.  They concluded he might possibly be a pickpocket.  The New York Times reported, "When the man left the car, Mr. Fullerton asked Mrs. Barr if she had lost anything.  She missed her pocket-book, which contained $18.76."  Fullerton bolted from the streetcar and alerted a police officer, who overtook Isidore Mauger.  He still had Mrs. Barr's purse in his clutches.

William A. McComb died at the age of 28 on March 19, 1882.  Unlike his mother's, his funeral was held in 64 Horatio Street.

It was around this time that James P. McComb remarried.  His new wife became involved in his real estate business.  When J. M. Dunn filed plans for another tenement building in Harlem in March 1887, it was Mrs. J. P. McComb who was listed as owner of record. 

The McCombs sold 64 Horatio Street on December 4, 1889 to Robert Fash, a real estate agent for $8,350, or about $254,000 today.  He leased it to a succession of tenants over the next years.

Following the Stock Market crash, the aversion to capitalism held by many liberal-thinking citizens increased.  The collective or cooperative housing concept, formed in the 1920s, spread, and in 1932 it reached 64 Horatio Street.

A group of young people including 18-year-old David Jenkins, Muriel Reiker, and Gittel Poznoski Steed leased two floors of the house for $60 per month.  Jenkins described it later as a "collective," meaning the tenants pooled their financial resources.  

Steed was a successful model for the Art Students' League and a dancer.  Her father was a Yiddish scholar, according to Jenkins.  The artistic tone of Greenwich Village was reflected in Jenkin's recalling in 1988:

Gittel particularly introduced me to a lot of the artists.  Raphael Soyer, whom I met there, and [Yasuo] Kuniyoshi, who was a famous Japanese painter.  Arnold Blanche, and later on Doris Lee, one of the famous women painters.  Louis Spieker, who was a famous painter, whose paintings still hang at the Whitney and places like that.  I also met this guy, V. O. [sic] Matthiessen , who was a literary critic at Harvard, who was gay and later killed himself.  Then I also met some of the poets: Horace Gregory, Kenneth Little.

Soon, both Steed and Jenkins joined the Young Communist League, and the Horatio Street house was the scene of meetings and other gatherings.  On May 26, 1934, for instance, The Daily Worker, a Communist newspaper, reported that there would be a "house party" at 64 Horatio Street that night "for $1,000 drive of the Workers School."  For 15 cents admission, the revelers would enjoy "dancing, games, refreshments."  Another house party was held to benefit a labor group on September 7 that year.

The house was purchased by Henry Brant in 1953.  Four years later it was converted to two duplex apartments.  The configuration that lasted until 1997, when the venerable house was returned to a single family home.  

photograph by the author

LaptrinhX.com has no authorization to reuse the content of this blog

The 1848 Isaac Vannorstrand House - 57 Horatio Street

 

In 1847 carpenter Isaac Van Nostrand and mason John O'Donnell purchased the two 20-foot-wide building lots at 55 and 57 Horatio Street, just east of Greenwich Street, from Elizabeth Lawrence.  They erected two mirror-image Greek Revival residences on the properties.  Three stories tall above English basements, they were clad in red brick and trimmed in brownstone.  As expected in the style, the third floor was significantly shorter and capped by an unpretentious wooden cornice with block modillions.

Van Nostrand moved his family into 57 Horatio Street (the family's surname would be variously spelled as Van Ostrand and Vannostrand).  He and his wife, the former Sarah A. Van Houten, would have at least three children, Jacob, John  E., and Louisa.

The family took in borders, one or two at a time, most of whom were associated in the building trade.  In  1851 James Cooper, a builder, and B. Harmen, a carpenter, lived with the family.  Five years later Alfred C. Hoe, another builder, was their boarder, and in 1861 roofer John Nicolson lived here.

Although they retained possession of the Horatio Street house, the Van Nostrand family left around 1871.  It was leased to Oscar F. Hawley Jr. in 1872.  The well-heeled businessman owned a box factory on Gold Street and a lumber yard on West 12th Street at the riverfront.

In 1873 the Van Nostrands hired the real estate firm of E. L. & B. T. Burnham to manage the property.  On April 28 that year it advertised, "A second floor and two rooms on third floor to let--57 Horatio street; improvements; immediate possession."  "Improvements" could have referred to lighting gas and running water, but most likely called attention to the recent updating of the outdated structure.  Around this time the third floor was raised to a full floor and a stylish Italianate cornice with an elaborate fascia was added.  Projecting cornices were added to the window lintels.

The rent for the five rooms on the third floor in 1875 was $15 per month, or about $382 by 2023 conversions.  The tenants were middle class.  In 1876 Edward M. Higgins, who ran a stable business on West 52nd Street, lived in the house.  Also living here was George Woolley, a driver and possibly an employee of Higgins.

Louisa Van Nostrand married Henry Bardon on June 11, 1879, and the newlyweds moved to Rockland County.  Louisa's brothers were married by now, too.  Jacob's wife's name was Magdalena and John's was Gertrude.  A widowed Sarah briefly moved back into 57 Horatio Street, living here from about 1885 through 1887. 

The house was listed for rent again in 1888.  The advertisement on January 12, described it as "a three story and basement high stoop house, 57 Horatio st, 12 rooms; rent $800, immediate possession."

Following Sarah's death, the Van Nostrand siblings inherited 57 Horatio Street in equal shares.  In 1907 Louisa Bardon, with her husband, bought out her siblings' portions.  Still living upstate, they couple continued to lease the property.

Sylvester and Mariam C. Pardee lived here in 1908 with their daughter Maud and son-in-law Joseph Lamb.  The family's dog scampered away while on a walk on Gansevoort Street on February 12 that year.  They offered a reward for the return of the "small black female Spaniel."

Maud Lamb died in the house in January 1909.  Her funeral was held in the parlor on the evening of January 15.

By 1914 57 Horatio Street was once again being operated as a boarding house.  John Sullivan and his brother, William, both lived here in 1914.  They ran an express business next to the 23rd Street ferry landing.  William and his family would remain in the house at least through 1920.  Other boarders were engaged in similar trades, like Tony Zwetchick, a tug boat worker, who lived here in 1926.

Change came in 1938 when the house was converted to apartments--one each in the basement and former parlor level, and two each on the top two floors.  The stoop was removed and the entrance lowered to the former English basement level, a few steps below the sidewalk.

Seen here in 1941, the entrance was now below sidewalk level.  The original configuration of the third floor can be seen in 55 Horatio, a mirror-image of 57 when constructed in 1848.  via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services.

Living here in 1959 was television and stage director Stevenson Phillips.  That year he was hired to direct the Broadway play The American.  And by the mid-1980s, artist Eva Ettisch was a resident.  She was active for years in the Greenwich Village neighborhood.

The vintage house was purchased around 2016, and its owners embarked on an ambitious plan.  They hired Andrew Wilkinson Architects PLLC to return the exterior to a 19th century appearance.  The stoop was refabricated and paneled double doors were installed under a projecting lintel.  Few passersby would guess that the entrance is not historic.  There are two duplex residences in the building.

photograph by the author

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

The 1848 Abraham B. Skillman House - 51 Horatio Street

 

51 Horatio (left) was designed as a mirror-image of its neighbor.  The addition of the fourth floor is evidenced by the change of brick color.  

In 1847 Magdelena Gray, the wife of attorney Farley Gray, purchased land from Jane Gahn on the north side of Horatio Street between Greenwich and Hudson Streets.  The well-to-do Grays lived in an elegant home nearby on Clinton Place (today's West 8th Street).  They erected a row of three-story, brick-faced homes on the plots.  By reducing the width of the houses to just 16 feet, the Grays were able to squeeze five rather than the more expected four homes on the 80-foot parcel.  

Their builder tackled the problem of their narrow proportions by designing four as mirror-images.  Above the side-by-side stoops, each of the entranceways received one sidelight, so that taken together each pair simulates the appearance of a normal Greek Revival double-doored entrance.  His inventive design went further with the parlor floor windows, the sidelights of which echo the entrances, and in the c0ntinuous, hefty brownstone bandcourse that runs between the first and second floors along the row.

No. 51 Horatio Street became home to the Abraham B. Skillman family.  Skillman was born in New York City on January 8, 1806 and was in the hardware business with his brothers.  He and his wife, the former Catharine Heroy had four children, Martha B., Isaac Brower, George Augustus, and James Henry.

By 1855 the Skillmans were taking in a boarder, Madame Buckingham.  The title reflected her profession as a society dressmaker.  Madame Buckingham's shop was at 505 Broadway.  

In April 1856 both 49 and 51 Horatio Street were offered for sale.  The ad touted their "modern improvements," which most likely included running water and gas lighting.  Madame Buckingham was still living at the address in October that year when she advertised for dressmakers and apprentices, noting "none but those fully competent need apply."

The new owners apparently operated 51 Horatio Street as a boarding house.  It became home to professionals like William E. Berrien, a builder, and accountant John Alwaise in 1859.  The following year the Laboyteaux family took rooms.  Joseph and William H. Laboyteaux were both clerks, while Peter was in the shoe business.

The landlady placed an unusual advertisement in the New York Herald on September 11, 1861.  It read, "Board for Children--An American Lady of experience and capability will take the entire care of two or three children on very reasonable terms.  Apply at 51 Horatio street."

In 1868 Alexander Bowden purchased 51 Horatio Street as an investment, leasing it along with other properties he owned in Greenwich Village, including others on Horatio Street.

By 1872 the McCarthy and Mingey families were sharing the address.  (It is possible that one of the families occupied the smaller house in the rear.)  Richard J. McCarthy and Lawrence Mingey were partners in Mingey & McCarthy, wholesale meats at 115 Greenwich Avenue.  Walter Mingey was also involved in the business, as well as in Mingey & Callen, collars, on New Chambers Street.

It was at about this time that the entire row of homes was raised to four floors.  Their short third floor windows were raised to full height and a fourth floor was added.  Because the continuous Greek Revival cornice with its delicate dentils was decidedly out of fashion by then, it is possible that the builder carefully removed the original and reinstalled it.

Boarding here in 1875 was John Maloney.  He was arrested on March 4 that year for running a saloon without an excise, or liquor, license.  

When the house was again offered for rent six months later, it was described as a "four story House, 11 rooms."  The asking rent was $800 per year, or about $1,700 per month by a 2023 conversion.

And when Bowden advertised 51 Horatio Street in April 1877, he reduced the rent from $800 to $700 per year, noting that it had "all improvements."  

Reuben R. Codling answered that ad.  A native of Poughkeepsie, New York, he was a broker with offices at 114 Broadway.  Unfortunately, the young man would not enjoy the house for very long.  He died on February 14, 1879 at the age of 32.  His funeral was held in the parlor two days later.

Somewhat interestingly, Alexander Bowden's son, Robert J. Bowden, moved into the house following the Codlings.  He operated two grocery businesses, one at 627 Hudson Street and the other at 606 Ninth Avenue.  Boarding with his family in 1879 and 1880 was George M. Hitchcock, a clerk.

Bowden and his family had moved out by the mid-1880s when the family of Robert Abbott rented 51 Horatio Street.  He and his wife, the former Eliza Nightingale, had two children, James who was born in 1860, and Renwick Wylie, born in 1876.  Living with the family was Eliza's aged parents, John and Ann Jane Agnew Nightingale.  

Another funeral, that of Jane Nightingale, was held in the house on August 31, 1886.  She had died at the age of 82 two days earlier.

Following their father's death, in April 1891 Robert J. and Samuel C. Bowden sold 51 Horatio Street to Du Bois Smith.  The house was once again operated as a boarding house for years.  Its tenants were no longer professional class by the turn of the century when Charles Schweizer lived here.

A cab driver, Schweizer was involved in a potentially devastating accident on April 27, 1903.  A group of women  including Mrs. David Bayer and her one-year-old son started to cross Fifth Avenue at 13th Street that afternoon.  The New-York Tribune reported, "Believing they saw their opportunity they started over, when Schweizer's cab came bowling along at such a rate as to threaten to run down several of them."

Halfway into the intersection and carrying her toddler, Mrs. Bayer realized she could not escape being run down by the galloping horse and cab.  The newspaper said, "she used all her strength and threw the baby from her so that he, at least, should not be harmed.  The child fell near a woman, who picked him up and scampered to the sidewalk with him."  In the meantime, Schweizer's horse knocked Mrs. Bayer to the ground, where a wheel of his cab ran over her leg.

Patrolman Kenny, who witnessed the incident, arrested Schweizer and used his cab to transport the victim to the New-York Hospital.  There Mrs. Bayer pressed charges of assault and Kenny added a charge of reckless driving.

The Nelson family was living at 51 Horatio Street when the United States entered World War I.  Joseph Nelson joined the army and was deployed to the battlefront.  The family received the terrifying news on January 5, 1919 that he had been listed as Missing in Action.  They endured four months of uncertainty until on May 3 the New-York Tribune reported that Private Nelson was found and had returned to duty.

In the 1920s artist Archibald Bonge rented the rear building as his studio.  Interviewed by the New York Evening Post in May 1928, he explained his so-far colorful young life.  

I was brought up on a ranch and until sixteen practically lived in the saddle.  At the university [of Nebraska] I ran the mile, 220 yards and 440, was in the high and broad jump, was basketball center and would have made the football team if Notre Dame hadn't stopped me by attacking commercialism in college sport.  I quit and attended the Chicago Art Institute for three years, working my way as doorman at the Roosevelt Theatre.

The money he saved as a theater doorman allowed him to attend the Academy of Fine Arts in Philadelphia for a year before moving on to the Art Students' League in New York.  Once again, he supported himself mostly by working as a doorman at the Times Square Paramount Theatre.  He painted in his Horatio Street studio from 8:00 in the morning until time to work.  (The New York Evening Post noted that Bonge's residence "is in violent contrast with the Paramount.  No lobby, no sidewalk canopy.  Indeed the house itself is not visible from the street.")  At the time of the interview, he was preparing a one-man exhibition in the lobby of the Fifth Avenue Playhouse.

But the newspaper was less interested in the doorman-painter's artwork than his romantic life.  He found a model for his large canvas Spring in actress Eunice Lyle, who was appearing in The Shanghai Gesture.  But posing was not in her future.  The two became so "interested" in each other "that she never did pose," Bonge said, "but she is going to marry me."

The twist was that the athletic cowboy-turned-artist-turned-doorman was engaged to an heiress.  Off the stage Eunice Lyle was Eunice Swetman, daughter of millionaire O. G. Swetman, president of the People's Bank in Biloxi, Mississippi.  

Living here by 1934 was children's author Iris Vinton and her husband Louis German.  Born in West Point, Mississippi in 1905, this was most likely her first address after upon moving to New York City.  While her first works were short plays, she became known for her children's novels, like the 1957 Flying Ebony (made into the film The Mooncussers), The Black Horse Company, and Longbow Island.  She also contributed to several of the Nancy Drew mystery books.

Iron fire escapes zig-zag down the facades of the row in 1941.  image via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services.

A renovation completed in 1972 resulted in a duplex in the basement and first floors and a triplex above.  The triplex was leased in the summer of 1973 by musician and producer Todd Rungren and model/singer Bebe Buell.  They paid $600 per month (about $3,660 by 2023 terms).  In her 2001 Rebel Heart: An American Rock 'n' Roll Journey, Buell says that upon seeing it, despite the price, they fell in love with the triplex.

"Well, you know," he rationalized, "I just made all this money for doing Grand funk and I'm going to be getting a big check, and I'm getting ready to produce Hall and Oates next, so, all right, let's go for it."

According to Buell, "That place became our rock 'n' roll palace.  It helped emphasize Todd's success.  And of course it was effortless for him to pay for it."  She described the apartment saying, "There was a spiral staircase connecting the three levels...The first floor consisted of a kitchen, a dining room, and a living room with a fireplace."  She and Rungren's bedroom was on "the mezzanine" where there was a second living area that held Rundren's piano.  On the top floor were two more bedrooms "where everybody would go to have sex" during their "divine parties."

In her book, Beull says the parties reminded her of Beyond the Valley of the Dolls.  "People were everywhere, hanging off the staircases, strewn throughout the living rooms.  God knows what went on in the bathrooms."

The pair remained together until shortly after Buell gave birth in 1977.  Although the infant, named Liv, was the daughter of Steven Tyler, Rundgren agreed to pose as her father to protect her from Tyler's drug addition.  Liv Tyler did not discover her biological father's identity until she was 11 years old.

They had been gone from 51 Horatio Street for two years when Liv was born.  It was purchased by Robert Hope Fuller, the controller for I.T.T.-Raynonier, Inc. for $200,000 that year.  He moved into the triplex and rented the lower apartment.  Fuller had inherited "a large sum of money," according to Newsday, and furnished his home with Persian rugs and "antique European pieces."

On December 25, 1979 the 43-year-old bachelor made Christmas dinner for three former female neighbors from the East Side.  The following day, a friend became worried when he could not contact Fuller by phone.  He entered the unlocked house around 8:30 p.m. to find the triplex ransacked and Fuller's nude body in the bedroom with a bullet wound to the neck.  One detective told reporters "that police believe robbery was the motive," said Newsday, while a "second detective said he was leaning to the theory that the killing was the result of a homosexual lovers' quarrel."

In 2016 51 Horatio Street was re-converted to a single family house.  It and its architectural siblings create a charming enclave along the block.

photograph by the author

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

The 1846 Ellis C. Finch House - 60 Horatio Street

By 1850 Ellis C. Finch and his bride, the former Anna Maria Van Natter, had moved into the newly-completed house at No. 60 Horatio Street between Hudson and Greenwich Streets.  The couple did not hold the deed, however.  It was the property of Ann Maria's father, Peter Van Natter, who not only lived next door at No. 62, but had developed the plots.   A cartman, he and Cornelius Ackerman (who lived on the opposite side of the Finches) had purchased the land in 1845 and a neighborhood builder, Abraham Demarest was responsible for constructing the five Greek Revival style homes.

Three stories tall above a brownstone basement level, the homes were clad in red brick and trimmed in brownstone.  The were given simply embellishments, like the handsome sidelights and paneled transoms of the entrances.  

The opposite side of the block was still undeveloped and years later The Sun recalled that when the Van Natters moved into their house "the land opposite his house was used as a cow pasture, and his wife objected to the new home because it was so far from the city."

Like his father-in-law, Ellis C. Finch was a cartman--a deliveryman who drove a horse-drawn dray.  He and Ann would have five children while living here, Sara, born in 1853; Ella in 1858; Carrie who came along in 1862; Harry in 1865 and William born five years later in 1870.  

Nevertheless the couple periodically found space for a roomer, almost always a cartman.  In 1853 Daniel H. Vanderpool roomed with the family; in 1855 and '56 it was Moss Y. Dunn.

Tragedy came to No. 60 Horatio Street on March 16, 1860.  Little Ella Clarinda (whose middle name was the same as her maternal grandmother) was two months shy of her second birthday when she died.  On the day of her funeral the house filled with member of the Odd Fellows Perseverance Lodge No. 17 of which Ellis was a member.

Thomas Jefferson Van Natter was Anna Finch's only sibling.  He lived with their parents next door.  On February 28, 1867 he married Elizabeth Onderdonk (known as Libbie).  It seems that the bride and groom were cousins.  Peter Van Natter's wife was the former Clarinda Onderdonk.  A child, Charles H., was born on March 11, 1868.  

The marriage seems to have sparked a swapping of residences.  The following year Peter and Clarinda were living with the Finches at No. 60; but by 1870 Thomas and his wife joined his parents in the No. 60 and the Finches had moved to No. 62.  It was a perplexing arrangement.

Peter Van Natter was retired by now.  Born in Orange County in 1803, he and Clarinda were already married when he came to New York around 1828 at the age of 25.  They settled in Greenwich Village and never left.    

Thomas Jefferson Van Natter was born on January 4, 1845.  He went by his middle name (or sometimes by T. Jefferson), and was in the coal business at No. 73 Wooster Street.  Ardently religious, for years he sat on the board of the Church Extension and Missionary Society of the Methodist Episcopal Church.

The elderly Peter Van Natter had seen enormous changes to Greenwich since the days when cows grazed across from his house.  One day in April 1891, according to The Sun, he commented to Clarinda, "I have outlived all the old Ninth warders.  I go around the streets and never see a face which was here in the old days."  A few days after making the remark Peter Van Natter died in his sleep on April 14 at the age of 88.

Losing her husband may have been too much of an emotional toll on Clarinda.  Two months later almost to the day, on June 15 she died in the house at the age of 84.  Her funeral was held in the parlor two days later.

The house was inherited jointly by Anna Finch and her brother.  Just two weeks after their mother's death Anna transferred her share of No. 60 to T. Jefferson.

He and Libbie took in a roomer by the end of the year.  An advertisement appeared in The Sun on December 15, 1891 which read:

Horatio St., 60, near Hudson, convenient 14th st. station--Nice large hall room, $1.50; private family.

The reasonable rent would equal about $43.50 per week today.

By the first years of the 20th century the Van Natters had moved to Brooklyn and No. 60 was being operated as a rooming house.

Michael Burke, who lived here in 1911, was affluent enough to afford a motor car.  It got him into trouble with police on June 24 that year, however, when he was fined $2 "for letting his car smoke."

The house was owned and operated by Ruth Fifer Davis by the 1920's.   She received a minor windfall in March 1925 when she inherited her mother's estate of $2,550.  The amount left her by Adaline Fifer would be equal to about $37,200 today.

Among her roomers at the time were the widowed Lorette Dumphy and her son, William.  A year earlier William was hailed as a hero in all the local newspapers.  Early on the morning of June 5, 1924, he had seen flames in a lodging house at No. 332 West 30th Street.  The Brooklyn Daily Eagle reported "Rousing 15 sleeping roomers and warming them, at the risk of his own life, that the lodging house in which they lived...was on fire, William Dumphy, 28 years old, of 60 Horatio st., was so badly cut by the ragged edges of window panes, which he smashed in with his fist, that every sinew of his wrist was severed, shortly before 7 o'clock."

Policeman Walter Rose applied a tourniquet made from the cord of his nightstick.  William received a hero's fanfare and enjoyed adulation despite his badly wounded wrist.

Lorette Dumphy examines her son's wounded wrist.  The Daily News, June 6, 1924

Lorette had a second son, James, who was three years younger than William.  He too appeared in newspapers after a fire, but for far different reasons.  On August 15, 1931 the Daily Star reported "Mrs. Lorette Dunphy [sic], 60 Horatio street, Manhattan, told police that her son started five fires in her home on Tuesday morning.  The fires were extinguished, she said, before they had an opportunity to spread and damage was comparatively slight."

Lorette, however, had no intentions of letting her firebug son go free and turned him in.  Dumphy admitted he started the fires, but said it was an accident and he "had no intention of burning the house."  He explained that he was carrying a lantern which exploded.  The resultant spray of burning kerosene set the five separate fires.  The police were unconvinced.  Detectives asserted that "they found the lantern intact" when they investigated his story.

Ruth Fifer was still renting rooms in No. 60 in 1940.  One of her tenants, Carl Chapman, prompted a headline in the Daily News on March 20 that year:  "You Figure It Out."

At 5:40 on the previous morning, a policeman happened upon the 24-year old.  The article said "He was singing.  There was a radio on his shoulder.  In his pockets were a veal cutlet, a quarter pound of butter, salt and pepper shakers, and an alarm clock set to go off at 6 A.M."  The patrolman found it "pretty puzzling" and since Chapman could not explain any of it, he was charged with disorderly conduct.  It ended happily for the cutlet-carrying young man when the judge let him off with a suspended sentence the following day.

The house is little changed since this photograph around 1941.  via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services

A less understanding judge was Anna Kross.  Alfred Keating was a longshoreman  who lived in No. 60 on March 19, 1944 when he appeared before Magistrate Kross in Felony Court.  He explained that when he beat another longshoreman, Gastis Manesis, to death on March 10 it was a case of self-defense.  She ordered the 36-year old held without bail for trial.

The Peter Van Natter house next door, at No. 62, has fared less well than Nos. 58 and 60. 

A renovation completed in 1971 resulted in an apartment in the basement below the single family residence.  When it was placed on the market in 1991 the realtor listed three bedrooms, and six fireplaces in the main house and made special note of the "pumpkin-pine floors" in the basement apartment.  It sold for $990,000--about $1.86 million in today's money.

photographs by the author