The 1860 Joseph Murray House - 175 East 73rd Street

 

image via douglaselliman.com

In 1860, E. H. Robbins completed construction of six 20-foot-wide rowhouses on East 73rd Street between Lexington and Third Avenues.  Three stories tall above English basements, they were clad in red brick and trimmed in brownstone.  Although they were intended for middle-class families, Robbins splurged by giving the homes elaborate cast iron porches.  The parlor level featured floor-to-ceiling parlor windows and the scalloped fascia of the cornice echoed the segmentally arched windows of the third floor.

In 1862, Joseph Murray, who listed his profession as "machinery" at 126 Broadway, purchased 22 East 73rd Street (renumbered 175 in 1867).  The Murray family took in at least one boarder during their residency.  John Callaghan, possibly a relative, lived here in 1868.

On February 15, 1873, the New-York Tribune reported that Joseph Murray had sold 175 East 73rd Street for $15,500.  The price would translate to about $430,000 in 2026.  The buyers were Dr. Charles Smith Robert and his wife, the former Adelina Trudeau.  The couple was married on January 29, 1867 and had four children: Mary, who was six; five-year-old Lelia Adelina; Francis Berger, who was three; and Caroline Elizabeth, who was one year old.

Robert was born in Mastic, Long Island on March 5, 1839.  He entered Yale College in 1858, but left during his junior year to pursue medicine.  He graduated from the College of Physicians and Surgeons in 1864, just in time to serve in the Union Army as an assistant surgeon.  The New York Herald would later remark, "Mrs. Roberts [sic] is an unusually refined and accomplished woman of French extraction."

Like their neighbors, the Robert family maintained a domestic staff.  In 1875, they employed a laundress, a cook and a nurse.  The staff undoubtedly also included at least one maid, and likely two.  The Robert family's country home was in Westport, Connecticut.  

In April 1875, Robert listed the Westport estate for rent.  Simultaneously, three domestics advertised for new positions.  The moves suggested that the Robert family would be spending an extended period away, possibly in Europe.  (Families who were away for extended periods often dismissed their domestic staffs, other than the lady's maid and valet, to be replaced upon their return.)

A spectacular cast iron porch, like the surviving example at 171 East 73rd Street, once fronted the parlor of No. 175.  photograph by the author

While the Roberts were away, 175 East 73rd Street was occupied by the John S. Patterson family.  Patterson was a lawyer and he and his wife, Emily, would be here through 1877.  During their residency, they experienced a tragedy.  On May 4, 1876, their son William Fisher died at the age of 27.  His funeral was held in the parlor on May 6.

The Roberts continued to lease 175 East 73rd Street.  Following the Pattersons, Baptiste E. Wehner, who ran a storage warehouse on West 33rd Street, occupied the house.  And in May 1880, Charles Robert leased it to Jacob Thalman.  By the time the Robert family returned to 175 East 73rd Street in the mid-1880s, Robert had retired.  

On October 9, 1889, Leila Adelina was married to Charles H. Hallock.  The newlyweds moved to Moriches, Long Island, where they had a daughter. 

Leila's marriage would not survive.  According to Hallock in September 1893, "We were very happy until last January, although we had occasional 'spats.'  About the middle of that month I noticed that she had changed in her manner toward me."  Leila began spending time away from their home, traveling to Manhattan to visit her parents or to Brooklyn to see other relatives.  Hallock became suspicious that her frequent trips were not innocent when she talked in her sleep about "Bert."

The relationship continued to devolve.  Hallock said later, "She finally locked me out of our house on one occasion.  Then she blackened my eyes, and once said she wished our three-year-old child was dead."  Leila perceived an escape from her situation in the summer of 1893 when she received $1,800 from the estate of an aunt.  She told Charles that she was going to the Chicago World's Fair, packed her suitcases, and on September 2 he drove her to the train station.

Leila joined Berthold Popper, an usher in the Academy of Music, and the two went on to Chicago.  Leila's relationship with Popper was even shorter than that with her husband.  Once there, Popper abandoned her.  On September 6, 1893, just days after arriving in Chicago, Leila Robert Hallock "blew her brains out," as worded by the New York Press.  

Charles Hallock begrudgingly told the New York Herald, "She has dishonored my name, but I shall probably have her body brought here and buried in the graveyard at Center Moriches, where her father has a plot."  (Berthold Popper was convicted  of "illegally marrying Mrs. Leila Hallock" on March 22, 1894.)

Shortly after the tragedy, the Roberts sold 175 East 73rd Street to Daniel Healey.  Their decision was, no doubt, influenced by the many stables that were replacing the private homes along the block.  Healey was a blacksmith and on July 22, 1896, The New York Times reported that he was making $700 in alterations to the house.  The basement was now converted to a blacksmith shop, a convenience for the nearby carriage houses and stables.

Living above a commercial space did not deter Tracy and Frances Lyon.  Born in 1865 and 1866 respectively, the couple had four adult children.  The affluence and social standing of the family was evidenced in daughter Frances Tracy Lyon's wedding to Sidney E. Brewster on October 17, 1923.  The New York Times said the newlyweds were "socially prominent," noting that Frances was a member of the Junior League and Brewster was a descendant of Elder William Brewster of the Mayflower.

Like Leila Robert Hallock, Frances and her husband moved to Long Island.  And like Leila, Frances's marriage would end tragically.  At around 7:00 on the evening of June 22, 1926, Frances telephoned her parents.  The New York Times reported, "She told her mother that her husband had beaten her and that she was going to come home."  The servants told investigators later that "a quarrel had been going on all day."  Then, shortly after Frances called her parents, the servants heard shots.  They rushed to Frances's bedroom to find both of their employers dead.  Brewster had shot his wife in the chest then turned the gun onto himself.

In June 1928, architect Francis Livingston Pell purchased 174 East 73rd Street.  The Real Estate Record & Builders' Guide noted, "After extensive alterations the purchaser will use the property for his own occupancy."  That was partially true.  Pell's alterations resulting in a "store" in the basement level, one apartment each at the parlor and second floor, and a "non-housekeeping apartment" on the third.  (The term meant there was no kitchen.) 

The cast iron porch was removed in the renovations.  via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services.

The Pells moved into one of the apartments.  Born on September 23, 1873, Pell was a descendant of founding father James Duane.  He studied architecture in Rome and Paris after receiving his Ph.B. in architecture from the Columbia University School of Mines in 1895.  He married Ellen Van Buren Morris on October 9, 1899.  Her pedigree matched that of her husband.  The daughter of Stuyvesant Fish Morris and Ellen James Van Buren, she descended from the Fish, Morris and Stuyvesant families and was the great-granddaughter of President Martin Van Buren.  They had three sons, Francis Jr., Stuyvesant Morris, and Walden.  Their country home was in Lenox, Massachusetts.

The occupants of the "non-housekeeping" apartment were equally prominent.  Anna Giralt Farrar Goldsborough was born in New Orleans in 1882.  She married Richard Francis Goldsborough in 1904 and had four children.  She and her unmarried daughters, Lucinda Davis and Ellen Roy, moved into the top floor apartment following Richard Goldsborough death in 1929.  

When Anna Goldsborough announced Lucinda's engagement to William Fitz-Randolph Ballard on December 14, 1929, The New York Times remarked that Lucinda was a great-grandniece of Jefferson Davis and was "a direct descendant of Nicholas Goldsborough, who settled [in] Maryland in the middle of the seventeenth century" and of Colonel Tench Tilghman, "aide-de-camp to George Washington."

Five years later, on March 8, 1934, Anna Goldsborough announced Ellen Roy's engagement to Talbot Otis Freeman.  Almost simultaneously, the Pells announced Stuyvesant Morris Pell's engagement to Katherine Louise Weston.  As Stuyvesant's marriage in Dalton, Massachusetts neared on December 19, 1935, The New York Evening Post said, "there is much interest in the event among local fashionables and members of the exclusive little coterie that make up the Berkshires colony."

The Pell and Weston families were apparently already close.  Two years after the wedding, the bride's mother was a long-term houseguest here.  On October 29, 1936, The New York Sun reported that Clarissa Wardwell Hewlett "is now residing with Mr. and Mrs. F. Livingston Pell at 175 East Seventy-third street."

In 1940 Pell converted the basement into half of a duplex apartment with the parlor level.  At the same time, the third floor apartment received a kitchen.  The Pells remained here until April 1944, when they sold the property to Wooster Properties, Inc.  The firm resold it in May the following year to a investor.

The house was sold in 1978 for $170,000, according to Observer.  A renovation completed the following year resulted in four cooperative duplexes.  During the remodeling, the parlor and second-floor windows were shortened.  

An out-of-focus 1980 tax photo reveals the shortened parlor windows.  via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services.

In July 2006, fashion designer Steve Madden and his wife, Wendy Ballew, purchased the the rear, lower duplex for $3.6 million.  Three years later, they bought an upper apartment for $2.2 million.  In 2010 they purchased another, and in February 2011 bought the last apartment, now owning the entire property.  The Maddens returned 175 East 73rd Street to a single-family home.  They remained here until 2019, selling it for $9.1 million according to The New York Post on January 23.

The John J. and Emma G. O'Brien House - 208 East 78th Street

 

Howard A. Martin purchased 200 feet of property in 1861 along East 78th Street, which at the time existed only on paper.  His deed included a $128 assessment (about $4,830 in 2026) to open the street.  Martin divided the parcel into 15 building plots, each 13-feet, 4-inches-wide.  His builders, Warren and Ransom Beman (possibly brothers) and John Buckley, were most likely responsible for the charming design of the challengingly narrow homes.   

Martin's project stalled when, that same year, the Civil War broke out.  Thousands of laborers marched off to fight and construction in New York City ground nearly to a halt.  Finally, in 1865 (the year the conflict ended) construction of the 15 identical houses was completed.  Each rose three stories above high basements.  Two bays wide, their red brick facades were trimmed in brownstone.  Each of the openings was fully arched.  Bracketed Italianate-style cornices graced the rooflines.

Possibly strapped for money because of the delay, Martin had sold the uncompleted project to investor William H. Brower.  It appears, because of the regular turnover in occupants, he rented 208 East 78th Street.  

Interestingly, despite its narrow proportions, two families initially occupied the house.  William Rosenberg and Jacob Weinman were partners in three dry goods stores--at 28 West Broadway, 221 First Avenue, and 224 Avenue A.  The families remained until 1869, when an auction of their household goods was held on April 28.  The inventory revealed that these were middle-class families, with items like "walnut and mahogany Parlor and Chamber Suits."

James Campbell, a merchant, occupied the house through 1874, followed by Morris Kuttner and his family.  Kuttner operated a fancygoods store at 201 Church Street.  The family was affluent enough to hire at least one servant.  An advertisement on May 29, 1876 read, "A girl to do housework in small family.  208 East 78th st., near 3d av."

The Morris Jacobson family occupied the house in the 1890s.  Jacobson was a real estate operator and ran his business from the house.

image via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services.

It appears that Moses Hirsch Sr. purchased 208 at the turn of the century as a wedding present for his son, Moses Jr. and his bride, the former Hannah Rothschild.  He transferred title to the property to the couple in April 1901.  They would suffer heartache four years later.  On February 3, 1905, Ira Arnold Hirsch died at the age of three months.

The following year, on September 17, Moses Hirsch sold 208 East 78th Street to John J. and Emma G. O'Brien.  The couple had one son, Thomas K.

Born in 1862, John J. O'Brien was a fascinating figure.  In 1884 he earned the title of "amateur wrestling champion of the United States," according to The New York Times.  He never totally abandoned the sport.  In May 1905, for instance, he was one of the two judges of the Madison Square Garden "world's championship at catch-as-catch-can wrestling," as reported by The New York Times.

O'Brien sat on the last New York Board of Alderman prior to the consolidation of the boroughs into one metropolis in 1898.  That year he was appointed an official of the Department of Sanitation.  He still held that position when the family moved into 208 East 78th Street.  He was, as well, the head of the John J. O'Brien Printing Co.

John J. O'Brien's expertise in wrestling resulted in his becoming a judge during the 1920 Olympic Games in Belgium.  

Thomas K. O'Brien graduated from Yale University in 1922 and then entered the Fordham Law School.

John J. O'Brien suffered a heart attack in January 1942.  He died in the Misericordia Hospital a week later, on January 21.  By then, Thomas had moved to Pelham Manor, New York and Emma sold 208 East 78th Street to Isaac D. Bachmann.

Isaac D. Bachmann, The New York Times, January 1, 1949

Isaac Bachmann was born in 1878.  In 1900 he co-founded Bachmann, Emmerich & Co., Inc., a textile factoring firm.  He and his wife, the former Aimee Lubelski, had a son, Harold S., and two daughters, Edith and Peggy.  The family's country home was in Mount Vernon, New York.  In 1939, Bachmann left the firm he had co-founded and joined James Talcott, Inc., another textile factor.

Bachmann's health began failing in 1948, and he died in the East 78th Street house at the age of 71 on December 30.  The New York Times said simply that he died "after a long illness."

The house was purchased by Frederick Arthur Collins.  Born in Boston in 1898, he was known as Arthur Collins throughout his adult lifetime.  He was president of Collins, Tuttle & Co., Inc., a real estate firm he and Wylie F. L. Tuttle established in 1954.  Prior to that, Collins had been a vice president and partner in Brown, Harris, Stevens, Inc. for more than two decades.

On March 7, 1953, Collins (who had two sons, Frederick Arthur Jr. and Hunt Turner by an earlier marriage) married Lucia Baldwin.  It was Lucia's fourth marriage.  This one, too, would not last and Lucia left 208 East 78th Street around 1957 to begin divorce proceedings.

Arthur Collins died in the house at the age of 60 on June 16, 1958.  The divorce had not been finalized, and a long court case over the estate between his sons and Lucia began.

In 1964, the four 1865 houses to the west were demolished.  Those at the far east of the row were razed before 1900, replaced with a tenement building.  There were now just five houses, including 208 East 78th Street, that survived.

No. 208 is at the far right.

In 1988, an apartment was installed in the basement.  At some point the homeowners of the row agreed to paint the brownstone trim white, giving the charming residences a unified appearance.

photographs by the author

The Lost Samuel and Abigail Waterbury House - 34 East 30th Street

 

When this photograph was taken in 1912, buildings had crowded around the property.  from the collection of the New-York Historical Society.

Samuel Waterbury was born on January 25, 1795 and his wife, the former Abigail Williams, was born on March 21, 1806.  By the 1840s, when the couple lived in a vintage house on Beekman Street, Waterbury was a well-established cabinetmaker.  And their once-refined neighborhood was being rapidly transformed by commerce.

The couple were last listed on Beekman Street in 1848.  They had purchased land north of the established city on East 30th Street between Madison and Fourth Avenues.  (The latter would become Park Avenue South in 1959).

The Waterburys erected a 34-foot-wide frame house on the plot.  Two-and-a-half stories tall, its charming semi-rural design straddled the Greek Revival and Italianate styles.  The former was reflected in the sidelights and transom of the paneled door, in the Doric corner pilasters, and in the "end returns" of the gable eaves.  The Italianate style influenced the floor-to-ceiling parlor windows, the exceptionally tall second floor openings, and the wooden decorations atop the porch and roofline.

The house sat back on the property behind an especially tall iron fence and gate.  On the property was an apple orchard and decades later Abigail would tell a guest, "I could see from my windows the sun rise over one river and set over the other."

Samuel was one of four children born to Henry and Margaret Waterbury.  None of his siblings would marry and at some point his only brother, David H. (born 1807), moved into the East 30th Street house.

Samuel Waterbury retired in 1866.  By then, brownstone houses had begun appearing in the neighborhood.  As more and more crowded in around the Waterburys' house, it became a picturesque anachronism on the block.

David H. Waterbury died on January 14, 1873.  His funeral was held in the parlor on the 17th.  Five years later, on July 26, 1878, Samuel Waterbury died.  His funeral was held in the house three days later.

Abigail Williams Waterbury remained in the house, maintaining its pristine flowerbeds and tidy yard.  Gradually, the outbuildings and the orchard were sold off, until Abigail's carefully preserved slice of 1849 countryside was surrounded by modern structures.

On April 20, 1904, Abigail celebrated her 99th birthday by hosting "a dinner party to three of her friends," as reported by the New York Herald.  A week later, on May 29, 1904, the newspaper remarked:

A little white frame house, two stories high, with a pointed attic above them, a narrow piazza, a little stretch of ground in front and a white picket fence [sic] running between its grounds and the sidewalk is an odd thing to find in a great city like New York of to-day.

The article said that Abigail, "except for her servants and a woman companion, lives alone in her quaint abode, which has been her home for half a century."  The newspaper described Abigail as "a neighborhood celebrity" and "a fine looking woman."  She was particularly fond of "all dumb animals," said the article, which said she "often stopped on the street to pat a dog or cat when she was out walking."

The New York Herald went on to describe the house, saying in part:

Passersby can see right through the rooms of the first story.  The shades are drawn high and the old fashioned white lace curtains do not hide from view the masses of beautiful flowers standing in the drawing room, or the green parrot in a big cage before the window of the back parlor.  The flowers are famous in the neighborhood.  Relatives send them in from the country twice a week.

Abigail's birthday dinner would be her last.  On April 22, 1905, one month before her 100th birthday, she died in the house.  In reporting her death, the New York Herald reminded readers, "For over half a century she had lived in the little old fashioned frame house in East Thirtieth street, which with its prim flower beds in front had for many years been a curious landmark among the brick and brownstone houses which line the street on both sides and which had grown to be landmarks themselves."

Abigail's funeral in the drawing room on April 22, 1905 would be the last function in the house.  Seven months later, the Waterburys' furnishings were auctioned.  The announcement gives a hint of the couple's comfortable interiors: "Grandfather's clock, Colonial chairs, tables, old paintings, engravings, miniatures, arms, armor, curios, ivory carvings, draperies, genuine antiques."

For decades, developers and real estate operators had been waiting in the wings for the Waterbury property to become available.  On May 18, 1905, The Evening Post reported, "The most noteworthy [real estate news] was the sale by the Waterbury estate, of the frame thirty-four-foot dwelling at No. 34 East Thirtieth Street, only another evidence, of course, of the insatiable demand for property in the Park Avenue neighborhood."  

The purchase by George Rosenfeld initiated a series of turnovers.  He resold it to the New York Operating Company in April 1908, which sold it two years later.  On March 12, 1910, The New York Times reported, "The purchaser is a builder, who will erect a business structure on the site."

The quaint Waterbury house was demolished.  Its idyllic site was used, temporarily, by baseball teams.  On March 23, 1913, The New York Times remarked, "Pee Wee Park, that now famous baseball lot at 34 East Thirtieth Street, was invaded yesterday by a squad of militiamen from the Twelfth Regiment, looking for baseball action."

Teams would have to find a new venue in 1921.  That year, on May 19, The New York Times reported that George F. Pelham had filed plans for a nine-story office and store building.  That structure survives.

image via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services

William Waring's 1881 104 West Houston Street

 

In 1881, architect William E. Waring designed two identical tenement-and-store buildings on the northeast corner of West Houston and Thompson Streets for separate owners.  Five stories tall, they were clad in brownstone above cast iron storefronts.  A blend of Italianate and neo-Grec styles, their segmentally arched openings most likely wore molded lintels, typical of the Italianate style.  The crisp geometric lines of the cast metal cornices, however, were neo-Grec.  Waring embellished the cornices with triangular pediments topped with anthemions and classical urns.

No. 104 West Houston Street was built by Louis P. Dexheimer and his wife, Julia.  Louis established his "eatinghouse," or restaurant, in the ground floor and there were eight apartments, two per floor, in the upper portion.  An advertisement touted "latest improvements, rent $25."  (The monthly rent would equal $900 in 2026.)

Dexheimer's venture was short lived.  In January 1882, he offered his "neat oyster and dining room cheap."  When he had not sold the restaurant by April 15, he advertised again, saying it was doing "good business" and adding, "$75 will buy to-day; must close by Monday on account of sickness."  (The term "cheap" was accurate.  The figure would translate to only $2,440 today.)

The former restaurant space became home to Charles Reichert's butcher shop in 1888.  He and his wife moved into an apartment upstairs.  They were affluent enough to afford a live-in servant.

In June 1890, 17-year-old Caroline Henneman arrived in America from Germany.  She found employment as a servant in the Prospect Hotel in Newark, New Jersey.  The World said, "becoming dissatisfied with her situation, [she] wrote to her lover, William Burgess, of No. 410 East Fifth street, asking him to procure her a situation."  Burgess talked to Reichert and Caroline moved into their apartment on September 19.

The New York Herald reported, "When she went to bed she was instructed in the management of the gas, with she said she was already familiar."  (Illuminating gas was among the "latest improvements" boasted in the Dexheimers' ad, and its use was unfamiliar to the less urbane.)  On September 22, 1890, The World reported, "Caroline Henneman...a domestic in the family of Charles Reichert, at No. 104 West Houston street, was found dead in her bed yesterday morning with the gas partially turned on."  The article mentioned, "She was to have been married to Burgess next month."

Charles Reichert kept up with technology within his butcher shop and on December 1, 1897, The Butchers' Advocate reported on the "successful gas engine operated refrigerating plant" he had installed in the cellar.  Its engine also operated "a meat chopper and a number of fans and pumps."  The article said the equipment "has proved in every way an economical and paying investment, and Mr. Reichert expresses himself as much pleased with his acquisition."

Two of the cornice-top urns survived as late as 1940.  via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services.

Harry Neid and his family occupied an apartment here as early as 1905.  He spent time at the Delmonico Club on Broome Street near the Bowery.  Early in the morning of March 26, Neid was playing cards there when police terrorized him and the other patrons with a violent raid.  The New York Times said, "The raid was made with drawn revolvers, after the doors had been battered down with axes."  Neid and 31 other patrons were arrested.

Otto Rosalsky was hired to defend all of them.  He told reporters he would "show that the raid was a political outrage, the place being a social club where some little games were carried on for fun."  Authorities countered his assertion.  "The police say that craps and stuss were going on, with some money on the tables," reported The New York Times.

Charles Reichert's butcher business was highly successful.  He was affluent enough to purchase a three-story tenement building at 166 Thompson Street by 1908.

Although the apartments within 104 West Houston Street were decidedly dated by World War II, the tenants remained middle-class.  Mario Gennaro and his family lived here in 1945, for instance.  They maintained a "one-story bungalow" on South Beach, Staten Island.  

By the early 1960s, a cafe operated by Arthur Giunta, La Casa Di Arthuro, occupied the ground floor space next door.  The name eventually was honed down to Arturo's, a famous Greenwich Village spot for Italian food and pizza.  As Arturo's success burgeoned, it spread into the space that had been Charles Reichert's butcher shop for decades.

At some point, the masonry of 104 West Houston Street was painted, the lintels shaved, and the urns atop the cornice removed.  

photographs by the author

The Philip Minis House - 117 East 78th Street

 

photograph by the author

As laborers returned to New York City following the end of the Civil War, construction resumed.  Within a few years years development was inching northward into the Upper West and Upper East Sides.  Around 1871, Nicholas McCool erected a dozen high-stooped brownstones at 103 through 125 East 78th Street, between Lexington and Park Avenues.  Like its neighbors, 117 East 78th Street was just under 19-feet wide and rose three stories above a high English basement.  The Italianate design included an arched entrance below a classical pediment supported by foliate-carved corbels.  The architrave framed parlor windows, as well, wore triangular pediments.

It appears that McCool originally leased the house.  Robert Wild Todd was a Yale University educated attorney.  He married Mary M. Shields on December 14, 1871, and they lived here as early as 1873.  By 1876, John B. Carroll, who worked in the city's Bureau for the Collection of Assessments, occupied 117 East 78th Street, followed by Joseph and Sophie Newman.

Sophie Newman died in the house in 1881.  Within months, George Frederick Seward and his wife, the former Kate Sherman, moved in.  The couple were married in 1870 and had four children.  Born in 1840, George Seward was the president of the Fidelity and Casualty Co. and a director in several other firms.

George's uncle, William H. Seward, had served as Abraham Lincoln's Secretary of State.  It may have been his influence that landed George's appointment as United States consul to Shanghai in 1861.  He became Consul General and, in 1875, Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary to the Court of Peking.  When he and Kate moved into 117 East 78th Street, they had just returned to New York from Washington D.C. where he was the American Minister to China.  He had held that post from 1876 until 1880. 

George Frederick Seward.  from the 1911 "George F. Seward: Born November 8, 1840, Died November 28, 1910" by the Fidelity and Casualty Company of New York.

Seward was, as well, "a writer on political and financial matters," according to The Milwaukee Journal.  Among his works was the Chinese Immigration in Its Social and Political Aspects.

Around 1883, Martin Freeman and his wife, the former Henrietta Wise, purchased 117 East 78th Street.  The couple had two adult sons.  Freeman arrived in New York City from Belvidere, New York around 1879 and found employment in the clothing and men's furnishings business of Henry Wise & Co.  He would not only rise within the firm, but he would marry the owner's daughter.  Martin's brother, Joseph Freeman, also got a job within the firm and he, too, married one of Henry Wise's daughters.  Upon the death of Henry Wise, the firm was renamed Freeman Bros.

Martin Freeman, The American Hatter, June 1902 (copyright expired)

The Freemans maintained a country home in Elberon, New Jersey.  In April 1895, they advertised the property for rent, possibly because the family would be summering in Europe.  The ad described: "15 rooms; all modern improvements; with stable having accommodation for coachman's family and room for four horses; location the best."

Despite his relative youth, Martin Freeman suffered from heart disease.  On the evening of May 26, 1902, he died from a heart attack.  The American Hatter noted, "He was not quite 58 years of age."

On May 2, 1905, Henrietta Wise Freeman sold 117 East 78th Street to Philip H. Minis for $28,250, just over $1 million in 2026 terms.  

Before the Minis family moved in, they hired architect Henry Brooks Price and Hunt & Howells to make what the Real Estate Record & Builders' Guide described as "extensive alterations."  Almost assuredly, one firm handled the structural changes and the other the interiors.  On March 21, 1906, the New-York Tribune reported, "The interior is to be remodelled [sic] and a new staircases installed."  The residence was enlarged by the seamless addition of a fourth floor.  It was likely during these renovations that new iron stoop railings in a Classical Roman cross-hatch design were installed.  The remodeling cost the Minis family the equivalent of $554,000 today.

A 1940 tax photograph captured the distinctive ancient Roman-inspired stoop railings.  via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services.

Philip Minis was born in Savannah, Georgia in 1843 and fought for the Confederacy during the Civil War.  He came to New York City in 1871 and founded the brokerage firm P. H. Minis & Co.  Among his most visible clients was William K. Vanderbilt.

He and his wife, the former Roberta Dudley, had one son, Robert B. Minis.  According to the New York Herald, Minis was a founder of the Metropolitan Club and (ironically) a member of the Union Club.  By the time he purchased 117 East 78th Street, he was a partner in the brokerage firm of Minis & Davis.  

In October 1911, Philip H. Minis fell ill.  His condition worsened to pneumonia and he died in the house on October 22, 1911 at the age of 68.  In reporting his death, the New York Herald described him as "one of the oldest members of the New York Stock Exchange."

Upon the appraisal of Philip Minis's estate, many in the financial community taken aback.  On September 25, 1912, the New York Herald reported, "A woman as equal partner in a Stock Exchange firm was revealed yesterday...The report stated that Mrs. Roberta B. Minis, the widow, claimed to have been admitted to membership in the firm in 1906 and remained in it until her husband died."  Minis may have made his wife an equal partner to guarantee her financial future.  She received half of the firm's assets and about one-third of her Philip's estate.  Robert received the other two-thirds.

Robert and his wife, Janet, shared the house with Roberta.  On July 10, 1911, The Wall Street Journal reported that Robert had been appointed cashier of the National Reserve Bank.  It was a highly responsible and visible position.  Three years later, on February 5, 1914, the newspaper reported that he had been elected as a vice-president of the Mutual Trust Co., "which absorbed the National Reserve Bank."

In the meantime, Janet, was visible in high society.  In reporting on the activities in Southampton on August 28, 1922, for instance, the New York Herald said, "Mrs. Robert B. Minis, who for some weeks has been at the Irving House, gave a luncheon yesterday at the Meadow Club."

The house was photographed in 1940, just before the stoop was removed.  via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services.

The Minis family sold 117 East 78th Street to Harold Joseph Roig and his wife, the former Henrietta Bartlett Havens (known familiarly as "Henri"), in 1939.  Born in 1885 and 1892, respectively, the couple had three daughters, Jean, Carol and Leila.  Like their mother, at least two of them went by nicknames--Jean as "Cookie" and Leila as "Dee Dee."

As the Minis had done, the Roigs made significant alterations to the house before moving in.  They hired architect William Lawrence Bottomley to remove the stoop and lower the entrance below grade.  In transforming the original entrance to a window, Bottomley recreated the triangular pediments of the original windows.  And he skillfully removed the foliate entrance brackets and reinstalled them on either side of the new doorway.  (Tellingly, the certificate of occupancy noted, "entire premises to be occupied as [a] dwelling for one family and servants.")

Although Harold was born in Poughkeepsie, New York, his father, Adolph S. Roig, was Cuban-born.  Harold graduated from Columbia Law School and became CEO of W. R. Grace & Company and a co-founder and president of Pan American Grace Airways.  The family maintained a country estate in Great Neck, Long Island.  

Harold Joseph Roig, (original source unknown)

The Roigs moved in just in time for the announcement of Jean's engagement to John Thompson Ross.  The article in The New York Times on July 12, 1940, testified to the Roig sisters' privileged youth and their significant educations.  

Miss Roig attended the Brearley School in this city, was graduated from the Shipley School, Bryn Mawr, Pa., and in 1939 from Smith College.  She was introduced to society at a supper dance at the St. Regis in December, 1936, and is a member of the Junior League of New York.

Perhaps not coincidentally, the article noted that the prospective groom "is now with W. R. Grace & Co.

When the United States entered World War II, Carol enlisted in the U.S. Navy.  Her sense of patriotic duty led to romance and on August 19, 1945, The New York Times reported, "Lieut. (j.g.) Carol Roig of the Waves...was married [in Coronado, California] to Lieut. David Gapen Watrous, USNR."  Interestingly, none of the family members other than her father, was mentioned in the article.

On August 28, 1946, the Pan American-Grace Airways launched two passenger-cargo ocean liners, the Santa Sofia and the Santa Clara.  A crowd of about 500 watched as Henrietta Roig christened the Santa Sofia.  (The other was christened by the wife of another W. R. Grace & Co. executive.)

That would be perhaps that last time the Riogs' names would appear in the newspapers for quite a long time.  In 1946, Harold and Henrietta relocated to Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

By the mid-1960s, the house was owned by Andrew Y. Rogers.  He was president of The Park Association of the City of New York, a civic and advocacy organization.  The group often battled city officials, like Parks Commissioner Robert Moses, regarding urban planning and the loss of public green spaces.

George A. Kellner occupied 117 East 78th Street as early as 1981, when he was an incorporator of Kellner, Dileo & Co., an investment firm.

photograph by the author

At some point, an unofficial renovation resulted in three units within the house.  The exterior, however, is little changed since William Lawrence Bottomley removed the stoop and remodeled the lower floors for the Riogs in 1940.  And, perhaps coincidentally, the lost stoop railing's Roman cross-hatch design is reinvented in the ground floor openings.

William Jose's 1873 5 Spring Street

 

image via apartments.com

On June 17, 1873, the "brick house in front and small brick building in rear" at 5 Spring Street were auctioned.  Their sale would doom the two buildings, which, like nearly all the vintage structures in the neighborhood, were falling victim to the drastically changing demographics in what a century later would be called Nolita.

On month later, architect William Jose filed plans for a 25-foot-wide, "five-story brown stone store and tenement" for developer F. Herlein.  His Italianate design was typical of the ubiquitous tenement buildings being erected throughout the Lower East Side.  Sheet metal lintels with molded cornices sat atop the upper floor windows and an arched pediment crowned with a Greek-inspired antefix sat atop the building's pressed metal terminal cornice. 

photograph by Ted Leather

What was not typical was the cast iron storefront.  Between two entrances--one accessing the upper floors and the other the store--was a triple arcade.  The paneled piers between the windows contributed to a handsome presence, but restricted the ability to display wares.  The lack of a vast show window did not deter Joseph Hugo to open his bakery in the space.

The 1873 storefront survived in 1940.  via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services.

No. 5 Spring Street filled with blue collar and middle-class tenants.  Living here in 1877 were three clerks, two carpenters, a shoemaker, a hatter, a laborer, a cigarmaker, a butcher, a maker of awnings, two widows, and an ostler (or stable worker). 

Many of the tenants were Irish-born, like Michael J. Riley, who worked as a letter carrier, and his wife and five children.  One afternoon in October 1884 he delivered mail to a Bond Street machine shop.  He placed a package of 125 letters on the counter.  They were addressed to Bond Street businesses that had already closed for the day.  The New York Herald explained, "In such cases the mail is taken back to the station and stamped with an explanation of its non-delivery."  Riley, perhaps distracted, "picked up his pouch and went out of the shop, leaving the package."

On October 8, the New York Herald reported that Michael Riley had been arrested, "on a charge of unlawfully detaining the mails."  Riley stressed that he "forgot all about it."  Perhaps coming to his defense, the article concluded, "Riley had a sunstroke last summer."

Sam Erwin Ryan, born in 1828, was described by the New York Herald as "one of the oldest Irish comedians on the American stage."  The widowed entertained died here on November 15, 1891 at the age of 63.  In reporting his death, the New York Herald remarked, "He had been forty years on the stage, and had been a conspicuous actor in his day."

Unthinkable today, working class parents often sent their small children on errands, even at night.  On Saturday night January 9, 1897, Detectives Summers and Lynch noticed five-year-old Lee Collins, whose family lived at 5 Spring Street, "walking along that thoroughfare...with a can."  They asked the boy where he was going and he said he was off to get some beer.

The policeman followed him to Henry Barr's saloon at 14 Spring Street, "and saw the bartender, Clement Kirschner, sell him a pint of beer."  Although Kirschner was arrested, Lee Collins' parents were not accused of any wrongdoing (and apparently Lee Collins went on his way home unaccompanied with the pail of beer).  When the bartender faced Magistrate Deuel in the Centre Street Police Court, he received "a severe lecture."  Deuel "told him he ought to be ashamed of himself to sell beer to a child" and placed his bail at $1,000 (a stunning $40,000 in 2026 terms).

The Commerford family lived here in 1898.  The New York Journal and Advertiser said that Patrick Commerford "is accustomed to putting a little whiskey in his black coffee at breakfast."  On September 4, however, there was no whiskey in the apartment, so Maggie Commerford was sent to the apartment of her aunt, Kate White, at 239 Mulberry Street to get some.  The New York Journal and Advertiser said Maggie was three-and-a-half years old.  The New York Herald placed her age at nine.  Either way, the newspapers' reporting on the events that followed, however, were consistent.

Maggie went to her aunt's home and, according to Kate White, she filled Maggie's pint bottle with whiskey "and told the little girl to carry it home to her father," as reported by the New York Herald.  On the way, "Little Maggie evidently became thirsty," said the newspaper.  The girl drank the entire pint bottle of whiskey.  The New York Herald said she "was picked up from the sidewalk in Mulberry street yesterday in an unconscious state and carried to St. Vincent's Hospital."

Maggie told officials, "It felt just like I had played too much 'ring-around-a-rosy.'"  And asked why she drank it, she replied, "Oh, I just tasted it, and it seemed to taste good, and I tasted it all up."  Mrs. Commerford took the girl home and Patrick Commerford was arrested.

By the turn of the century, Mary Seibert ran the bakery.  The workspace and ovens were in the basement and Mary lived in an apartment above the bakery.  The business was apparently successful, because Mary could afford a live-in servant.  

The neighborhood was, by now, greatly filled with Italian immigrants.  In 1899 Paolo Lecestra arrived from Italy, "leaving his wife, Luigia, behind until he could get money enough to buy her passage with," explained The New York Sun.  He was not here very long before he found a job as a pressor in a tailor shop.  Just as quickly, he fell in love with a co-worker, Rosina Ignelia.  

Lecestra married Rosina in November 1899 and they moved into 5 Spring Street.  In the meantime, Luigia Lecestra was also working towards her passage.  On April 4, 1901, The Sun reported, "Six months ago Luigia, the first wife, scraped together enough money to come to this country."  Paolo Lecestra met Luigia at the pier, "but gave her an angry reception," reported The Sun.  What followed was remarkable.  The article recounted:

Then he took her to his home at 5 Spring street and introduced her to Rosina, who he said was his lawful wife under the laws of the United States.  Lecestra told Luigia that she might remain if she did as she was told.  Her duties were to keep house for her husband and Rosina, who worked together in the tailor shop.

Luigia later described the arrangement.  The Sun recounted, "Lecestra maintained wifely relations only with Rosina who is younger and prettier than Luigia," adding, "Luigia was the household drudge."  The heartbroken Luigia spilled out her woeful condition in a letter to her uncle in Italy, who was an attorney.  He forwarded it to the Italian Consul, which turned it over to the New York District Attorney.  On April 3, 1901, Paolo Lecestra was arrested for bigamy.  The New York Sun reported, "Rosina kissed him and wept when Lecestra was taken away."

The Pavone and Versa families lived here in 1906 when their mischievous sons went on a rampage.  On August 29, they and three other Italian boys boarded a subway "loaded down with apples," as worded by the New-York Tribune.  The article said they "amused themselves by throwing apples at everybody in the rear car."  The motorman stopped the train "and blew the train whistle repeatedly."  Two officers responded and the "boys resisted arrest, but were subdued."  The five were "locked up charged with disorderly conduct," said the article.

Joseph Marino, who lived here in 1935, was doing well enough financially to afford an automobile.  In September that year, the car was stolen and the thieves removed the license plates.  Although the vehicle was not readily recovered, the plates showed up the following month as part of a grisly discovery.  

On September 30, gangster Joseph "Pretty" Amberg and his chauffeur, Morris Kessler "were lined up against the wall in a Brownsville garage, after the fashion of  the celebrated St. Valentine's Day massacres in Chicago, and were riddled with bullets," reported The New York Times.  On October 24, the newspaper revealed, "'Pretty' Amberg's body was found early yesterday morning in a blazing automobile which had been left in front of 131 North Elliot Place, Brooklyn."  The plates on the car belonged to Joseph Marino.

image via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services

Joseph Bianco was discharged from the Army in October 1945.  The veteran returned to New York, got a job driving a milk wagon, and moved into 5 Spring Street.  His heroism ended at the end of the war.  

In March 1946, five teenaged boys were arrested "as juvenile delinquents," explained The New York Times.  The boys confessed in a string of tenement building burglaries and arsons.  One of the fires nearly resulted in the death of a sleeping girl.  In interrogating the teens, police discovered that 22-year-old Joseph Bianco was a modern day Fagan.

On March 11, 1946, The New York Times reported that he "looked defiantly yesterday in Felony Court as the prosecutor related...that Bianco trained five boys, all under 16 years old, not alone to be burglars but to set fire to three lower East Side tenement apartments to conceal their crimes."  Bianco pleaded ignorance of the crimes, saying he had accepted the loot from the youths, but insisted, "I didn't know they had stolen that stuff."

When Bianco got out of prison, he remained friends with a resident of 5 Spring Street, Joseph Trulio.  On December 26, 1950, The New York Times reported that the two men confessed to "holding up thirty hotels in the last two weeks, nine of them on Christmas morning."  In court, Magistrate Brenner asked Bianco, "Why pick hotels?"  He replied, "Hotels are easier.  They have big lobbies and you can make a quick getaway."

photograph by Ted Leather

Changes in the neighborhood were reflected by Sweet and Vicious, a night club, occupying the ground floor space in the early 2000s.  A renovation completed in 2016 modernized the storefront, home to The Tavern today.  Although the paneled piers remain, the arched openings are either squared off or covered by signage today.

many thanks to reader Ted Leather for suggesting this post