The Lost 1826 New York Theatre

 

image by Alexander Jackson Davis by Imbert's Lithography, from the collection of the New York Public Library

On November 25, 1783, George Washington gathered his entourage at the Bull's Head Tavern on the Bowery before re-entering the city upon the evacuation of the British.  The tavern was acquired by Henry Astor, brother of John Jacob Astor, two years later.  In 1824, he moved the operation uptown and assembled a group of businessmen who sold shares "for erecting a theatre on the grounds of Bull's Head."

The group commissioned 40-year-old architect Ithiel Town to design the structure.  Town was among the first American professional architects, and his rekindling of historic styles like Gothic and Greek would transform American tastes in architecture.

On June 19, 1826, The Evening Post reported, "The ceremony of having the corner stone of the new Theatre on the site of the old Bull's Head Tavern, took place on Saturday afternoon."  Mayor Philip Hone officiated, "assisted by a number of distinguished individuals," said the article.  A leaden box inscribed with the date held "a variety of articles, such as boxes and medals, also several valuable newspapers of the latest dates."  

The journalist waxed poetic, saying the box would be a link to the future, "when some musty antiquarian will be called on to decypher [sic] the forgotten characters in which the literature of the present age is recorded in these, then invaluable relics."

Construction cost $175,000 to build, according to Thomas A. Bogar in his Thomas Hamblin and the Bowery Theatre.  (The figure would translate to about $5.7 million in 2026.)  Town had produced a dignified, two-story structure inspired by classic Greek temple designs.  Atop a broad flight of stairs, two heroic, fluted Doric columns fronted the recessed entrance.  Triglyphs decorated the frieze below a triangular pediment.  To appear as marble, the brick facade was covered with hand-veined stucco.

image most likely by Alexander Jackson Davis, from the collection of the New York Public Library

The theater would hold 3,000 patrons.  It included concessions, including three saloons and a ladies' lounge.  A notice in the New-York Evening Post on September 30, 1826 offered:

New-York Theatre--Bowery--To let, the saloon, punch room, pit and gallery bars and fruit stands for the New York Theatre.  These places will be let separately at public auction to the highest bidder, on Wednesday, the 2d day of October next, at 12 o'clock noon, at Morse's Hotel.

The New York Theatre opened in October 1826.  The saloons within the venue and the resultant behavior of the more rowdy attendees prompted the drama critic of The Evening Post to raise concerns for the female patrons.  He suggested on October 26 that the boxes should be priced higher than the seats in the pit.

The boxes are certainly the most quiet and orderly, and in some respects the most convenient of the two, and should therefore be set at a higher price.  Besides, the boxes are the only place for ladies, and something should be done to protect them from the troublesome neighbourhood of persons who now may not scruple to intrude among them.

The critic suggested "that a price of a seat in the boxes should be raised to six shillings, or that of a seat in the pit lowered to three."  The management was paying attention.  Five days later, a notice appeared in The Evening Post that announced the new rates of 75 cents for boxes and 37.5 cents for the pit.  (The cost of a box would equal $24.50 today.)

On November 25, 1826, exactly 43 years after Washington assembled his retinue at the Bull's Head, the site was commemorated in the New York Theatre with a "Grand Military Gala Night."  An announcement in The Evening Post said it would be in "celebration of the Evacuation of this city by the British Army," adding, "It is expected that the theatre will on this evening be honored by the presence of his Excellency the Governor and suite, and several Officers of distinction.  The front of the Theatre will be splendidly illuminated."

watercolor by Alexander Jackson Davis, from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York

The success of the New York Theatre caused a logistical problem.  On December 20, 1826, Mayor Philip Hone announced new traffic laws, "in order to prevent the difficulty and confusion which has existed among the carriages in attendance at the New York Theatre."  To keep vehicles moving, among his seven directives was that the theater would employ an attendant "to open the doors and let down the steps of the carriages, and no driver will be permitted on any pretence [sic] to leave his box."

Among the first actors to appear was Edwin Forrest, who performed in the role of Damon in Damon & Pythias on November 21, 1826.  The Evening Post remarked, "This very promising young actor has already gained great credit."  Two months later, however, the critic was less generous.  "His voice, however, wants cultivation, and there is occasionally too much violence of declamation and extravagance of gesture."

Forrest, according to Thomas A. Bogar, was paid $28 a week (about $915 today).  By the end of the season, he was earning $200 per week.

Forrest's large income was by no means routine for most actors.  To support them, theaters would hold "ticket nights," on which all the ticket sales went directly to the actors.  Loyal fans would mob the theaters on those nights to support their favorite actors.  

The practice horribly backfired on July 19, 1827.  That night two of the cast members were taken sick.  The New York Courier reported, "consequently, a dance was omitted, and one farce substituted for another."  The audience was enraged.  The article said the theater "was a disgraceful scene of riot and disorder at this elegant establishment."  Several of the "beautiful lamps" were broken and some other damage done.  The newspaper said, "We do not believe that any blame can attach to the manager; he did all his power, and endeavored to explain all things, but when did ever a furious mob listen to reason."

The Evening Post's journalist who imagined that the New York Theatre and the leaden box within its cornerstone would last far into the future was woefully mistaken.  On the night of May 26, 1828, a fire broke out.  Before morning, Ithiel Town's handsome Greek Revival edifice was burned to the ground.

Joseph Sera's Greek Revival design honored its predecessor.  Bourne Views of New York, 1828 (copyright expired)

On its site, a new venue, the Bowery Theatre, designed by Joseph Sera, was erected.  Completed in 1828, it burned in 1836.

The Lost University Building - Washington Square East and Waverly Place

from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York

In February 1830 a group of esteemed New Yorkers including Morgan Lewis, John Delafield and Myndert Van Schaick, proposed the organization of a university, "the great object" of which, according to the New York Spectator, "shall be to extend the benefits of education in greater abundance and variety, and at a cheaper rate, than at present they are enjoyed."  The Sun later remarked that it was intended "to far overshadow Harvard, Yale, and Princeton."  The University of the City of New York was founded that fall and incorporated by an act of the state legislature in April 1831.

Classes were temporarily held in Clinton Hall at Beekman and Nassau Streets.  The building committee appointed to plan for a permanent home for the school selected the eminent architectural firm of Town and Davis to design the structure.  The Sun said it was meant to be "the most splendid building in New York."

George Rogers had began construction of the first mansion on Washington Square in 1828 and within the next few years other elegant homes were rising along its borders.  The University of the City of New York acquired the southeast corner of Washington Square East and Waverly Place as the site for its home.  According to Julia M. Truettner in her 2003 Aspirations for Excellence Alexander Jackson Davis submitted the first design in the classic revival style.  "This design, however, was rejected by the university in favor of one of the newly emerging Gothic Revival style."

Construction began in the summer of 1833.  Marble quarried at Sing Sing, New York created a gleaming white presence amid the red brick mansions.  Completed in 1836 it featured a castellated roof line, turrets and corner towers.  A three-story Gothic window flooded the chapel, which doubled as the lecture room, with natural light.

A column of a portico of one of the Washington Square North mansions was included in this 1850 print.  To the right are the towers of the 1840 Reformed Dutch Church.  from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York

The northern portion of the University Building contained housing for students.  They could expect a no-frills existence.  Decades later, in 1887, the New-York Tribune explained "The rooms...were fair for those days.  All of them had thick walls and high ceilings, with broad windows encrusted in heavy stone sills and cornices.  There was no running water, it is true, and steam-heaters and hot-air registers were alike unknown.  The rooms were warmed partly by the sun, partly by open grate fires or stoves.  Coal and gas were extras of course.  So was all but the minimum of service."

The New Yorkers gave the institution the popular name of New York University.  The expansive lecture room of its marble building was used not only for class instruction, but for public lectures.  On January 30, 1836, for example, The Herald reported:

Professor Bush last evening at the New York University, explained the Egyptian Hieroglyphics.  He read distinctly the inscription on the Rosetta stone, and explained every character on the Pyramids.  What prodigious learning!

Dr. Sleigh gave a weekly lecture on Saturday evenings at the time.  On February 24 The Herald reported on his latest talk, saying "The lecture room was crowded to excess with the fashionable world, ladies and gentlemen."  The women in the audience were warned against the physically constricting fashion trend--the corset.  He reminded them that "figure did not constitute beauty" and was sure that by evening's end "he would bring conviction home to the heart of every female of the destructive and pernicious effects of the corset."

drawing by John Disturnell, from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York

The Financial Panic of 1837 erased the institution's endowment, and finances worsened following Dr. Morgan Lewis's death in 1844.  He had headed the trustees of the university since its inception.  An article in The New York Times entitled "A Financial Explosion" on February 8, 1849 lamented "Dr. Matthews was one of its most efficient founders; but unfortunately, of late years, it has fallen into quite different hands, and has been diverted from its original broad character, to a narrow and puritanical course.  Its prayers and piety, as far as lip service goes, the New York University is a perfect pattern; but in solid learning, sound sense, and flourishing funds, it has been as bad as it well could be."  The writer bemoaned "Is there no mode of resuscitating such a noble institution as this ought to be, and so useful in promoting the intellect and learning of this great metropolis?"

With enrollment falling off, a decision had been made to convert some of the dormitory rooms into bachelor apartments in 1840.  The New-York Tribune remarked in 1887 "The big, square marble building with its shortened towers, was long ago found too large for all its students, and, to help the college treasury along, nearly half of its living rooms were let out to bachelor tenants.  The Waverly Place wing was shut off as far as possible from the main hall, doors were cut at convenience through the inner walls to make suits, or barred up again to please tenants who took only single rooms."

Bachelors fitted up the apartments to their liking, like this artist's studio.  The Sun, March 6, 1892 (copyright expired)

While the accommodations needed the tenants' dressing up, the Washington Square location was fashionable and convenient.  "Rooms were taken bare of everything except the paper left by the last tenant on the wall, and were furnished to suit the taste or pocket-book of the owner."  It was a favorite among journalists and artists.  In 1892 The Sun recalled "they find in its cloister air and in the fine views from its windows a sympathetic place for their labor."  

In the years following the Civil War men paid from $300 a year for a single room, to $700 for a large suite--or about $1,450 per month for the most expensive in today's dollars.

In another move to augment the struggling university's coffers classrooms were leased to outside groups.  An announcement in The New York Herald on October 20, 1867 touted "A Ladies' Class, for the Study of the various stages of the English Language and Early English Literature is now being formed...This course is under the patronage of several ladies."  

Others who rented space were J. Jay Watson who advertised "Private lessons, piano, organ, violin, guitar, singing, languages, University Building, 36 Waverley place" on April 1, 1877; and his apparent competition, "Miss Watson's Select Music School for ladies and children.  Piano, Organ, Guitar, Singing, Languages."

Mrs. Henrietta A. Matthews and her husband occupied an apartment in the building where she held the position of "janitress"--more like a manager or superintendent in today's terms.  On Wednesday evening, March 27, 1878 three burglars broke into the third floor rooms of F. S. Comstock.  They loaded a bag with $250 worth of clothing and jewelry and were on their way out when they were frightened.  As they fled they left the bag on the staircase landing.

The Sun, March 6, 1892 (copyright expired)

The cause of their alarm was the approach of Mrs. Matthews who had been informed of the break-in.  The feisty, no-nonsense women had no intentions of allowing a burglary on her watch.  As the thief who dropped the bag scrambled to get away, "Mrs. Matthews caught him at the main door, grasped him by the arm and dragged him, notwithstanding his efforts to escape, to her room, where her husband assisted her in holding him until the arrival of Officer Kenny."

Part of the problem was that there was no security in the building as is expected today.  There were no guards to question anyone who wandered in or out, and because a long corridor ran from one end of the building to the other, crooks found it an inviting spot.  On November 24, 1889 The New York Times wrote "'Dead beats' and petty swindlers have discovered that the arrangement of the first floor of the building is specially well adapted for their thieving needs."

One scam was to order merchandise to be delivered to the University Building, then wait for the messenger.  The thief would ask him to wait while he hurried upstairs to get the payment, only to exit out the opposite side of the building.

Around 1877 the soaring chapel space, "which was one of the wonders of New York," according to The Sun, was floored over and divided into additional bachelor apartments.  While the lower two floors were much like the other rooms in the building, the article described:

...the top rooms have the vaulted roof of the chapel for a ceiling.  Turning from the windows one sees an interior like that of some mediaeval palace.  There are queer corners.  The pendants, massive and reaching nearly to the floors, make odd nooks and unexpected partitions.

Huge stars of gold glitter in the elaborate carving of the stone ceiling.  Gargoyles peer and grin.  there are Latin inscriptions half effaced.  In several of the rooms colossal figures, flowing and mysterious, rise from the floor to grow ghastly in evening shadows.

One of the upper apartments in the former chapel.  The Sun, March 6, 1892 (copyright expired)

In 1891 the university considered opening a northern campus.  On May 5 The New York Times reported that a committee meeting "took place last evening at the University Building, in Washington Square.  Plans for enlarging the scope of the university were discussed."  

The resident who had lived in the building the longest at the time was also its most eccentric.  Henry T. Gamage, known as the "University Building hermit," had moved into his room on the top floor around 1842.  During his half-century residency, according to The Evening World, "not more than two persons besides himself had been admitted there."  He cooked his own meals and "waited upon himself in every respect."  The newspaper said "The other tenants had become accustomed to his peculiarities, but the oldest of them had no more than a nodding acquaintance with him."

On February 13 1892 a servant passing by his room smelled a suspicious odor and pushed open the door, which was ajar.  Gamage had died in his chair and his head had fallen onto a small stove.  "He found that the old man's head was burned to the bone on the right side."

from the collection of the New York Public Library

There were more than fifty oil paintings stacked throughout the room.  Five days later The Sun reported that those who had called "the University building hermit [a miser] did the dead man a great injustice."  His will revealed that he had saved up his fortune as well as the accumulated paintings to pay the debts "incurred many years ago by his father."

The University Building--the symbol of the school--was included in the ambitious plan of the uptown campus.  The firm of McKim, Mead & White provided general plans to the university in April 1893 "for removing the historic building on Washington Square and reconstructing it" at University Heights.  The architects placed the cost of the project at $200,000--more than $5.75 million today.

The University Building took center stage in the original uptown plans.  The New York Times, April 29, 1893 (copyright expired)

The problem was that while the university did not want to see the venerable structure razed, it did not intend to pay for the expensive undertaking of moving it.  The New York Times explained that the trustees "feel unwilling to adopt plans which will obliterate the old edifice until they have invited citizens to assist them in preserving this notable structure."

The private donations did not come in.  And without the upgrades it would have received in the rebuilding, University Hall was unusable for the Washington Square campus (which would be officially named New York University in 1896).  It was demolished in 1894 to be replaced by the Main Building, designed by Alfred Zucker (renamed the Silver Center of Arts & Science in 2002).

photo by Wurts Bros. from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York

Noble Remnants - Leake & Watts Orphan Asylum - Amsterdam Ave and 112th Street

photo by Helena Kubicka de Braganca, via www.stjohndivine.org

When attorney John George Leake died on June 2, 1827 at the age of 75, he left a significant fortune (more than $9.75 million today).   With no children nor close relatives, Leake left the entire estate to Robert Watts, the son of his best friend, with the stipulation that the young man would change his surname to Leake.  He did so, but died intestate only a few months later.  The Leake inheritance now passed to Robert's father, John Watts, as next of kin.  However, given the circumstances, Watts was uncomfortable accepting the unintended windfall.

Found among Leake's papers was an unsigned draft of an earlier will which left funds to create an orphanage.  John Watts was named in that draft as its administrator.  The courts granted Watts's petition to use Leake's estate to establish the institution, which was incorporated in 1831.

On January 16, 1838 the State Assembly unanimously passed a bill "to vest in the trustees of the Leake and Watt's Orphan House of New York, the escheated estate of Mr. Leake."   The state had liquidated 2,236 acres of Leake's real estate upstate, the $8,000 net (a little under a quarter of a million dollars today) being added to the coffers of the institution.

According to the Morning Herald, during the process one Assemblyman, a Mr. Wardell, "showed himself the warm friend of the orphan and hoped that every man's feelings would prompt him to do at one an act of justice too long delayed."   He ended his speech saying "I am glad to see the Assembly awake to this subject.  Let it be our pride to verify the old Greek maxim: 'The Orphan--first and last in our hearts.'"

The trustees of the Leake & Watts Orphan Asylum (or, sometimes, the Orphan House) chose Ithiel Town to design its facility, far north of the city in what was known as Manhattanville.  Among the preeminent architects of the period, Town was an early proponent of the Greek Revival style, as evidenced in his 1829 temple-like Church of the Ascension on Canal Street.

The grounds of the asylum engulfed 50-acres in the area that today would roughly be Amsterdam Avenue to Morningside Drive, and from 109th to 113th Street.  Even while the building rose, the orphanage began functioning.  Vegetable gardens not only taught boys important skills, but provided the institution with food.   The asylum's gardens got a surprise gift of fertilizer in November 1839.

In its meeting on November 18 the Board of Aldermen voted "In favor of giving 250 loads of street manure to the Leake and Watt Orphan Asylum."  It was, perhaps, not so gracious a gift as it might appear on the surface.  Thousands of horses filled New York City streets with manure, keeping cleaners busy all day, every day.  The Aldermen were no doubt happy to get rid of at least some of it.

The building was completed and formally opened in 1843.  Thiel had created a classic Greek temple faced in red brick, flanked by two projecting wings.  The monumental Ionic columns, which appeared to be marble, were in fact plaster-covered brick.  The majestic structure, which a traveler might mistake for a major civic building, commanded an imposing presence atop the hill in the rolling green countryside.

The resplendent structure appeared in a guidebook around 1861.  from the collection of the New York Public Library

The dormitories were on the second and third floors.  Each bed in the second floor rooms were shared by two children.  "The others are not so greatly crowded," commented The Times.  The dining room was situated in one of the wings; school rooms were in another.  The facility admitted children between the ages of three and twelve only.

A one-line notice from Albany appeared in The New York Herald on March 21, 1847.  "The bill authorizing the Trustee of the Leaks and Watt Orphan House to bind out the orphans as apprentices in other States, was passed."  The innocuous-sounding practice would be heavily criticized decades later.

"Binding out" the boys was, in fact, indenturing them to farmers, factory owners, and the like.  Paid only in shelter and food, they were essentially slave workers.  While some boys were well taken care of and welcomed nearly as a family member; others were cruelly used.

Two weeks earlier the institution had proudly reported "There has been but one death in the Asylum during the last year."  That figure was, in fact, quite impressive among similar facilities in 1847.

Later that year President James K. Polk passed by the orphanage on his way to see the engineering marvel, the High Bridge aqueduct, which was nearing completion.  Word had reached the institution weeks earlier and the excited children were ready.  On June 27 a reporter  wrote "As we approached the Leake and Watts Orphan House, we observed about an hundred of the children, boys, awaiting our approach, and as the President's carriage came up, they raised their tiny voices in three cheers."   The President did not disappoint the boys.  He ordered his driver to stop, "and addressed a few words to them...and then we went again."

Eight years later 136 of the orphans got a special treat.  They went on what today would be termed a "field trip" to the nearly-opened Crystal Palace on the site of today's Bryant Park.  On September 25, 1855 the Crystal Palace was closed to the general public  A "special holiday" was held for 1,719 children from missions, orphanages, trade schools and similar institutions.  The New York Times reported "The Leake and Watts Orphans were nearly of a size--comely and well-behaved."

In 1892 the area around the former orphanage was still undeveloped.  The cross had been erected a year earlier when the Episcopal Church purchased the property.  from the collection of the New York Public Library

In 1861 the orphanage was at the center of a horrifying tragedy and scandal.  In 1859 24-year old Mary Dunlop had arrived in New York from Scotland.  She was taken in by the family of her uncle, Hugh McAlpine, a blacksmith.  Six months later she was hired at the asylum as a seamstress, and, according to The New York Times, "her character for virtue does not seem to have been questioned."

On Friday, September 6, 1861 Mary fell ill.  After being sick for a few days, she confided in a co-worker that all was not well at home.  The Times said "she made confessions to one of her associates, charging her uncle with having abused her and caused her ruin."  Hugh McAlpine had not only sexually assaulted her, he had impregnated her.

Mary's sickness was the result of an attempted abortion.  The New-York Daily Tribune later reported "Mrs. Guest testified that she, having heard what was wrong with the girl, determined that she must leave the [asylum], and advised her to go to the Bellevue Hospital, but she preferred to go home to her uncle's house."   Mary died there on September 15.

The family made rapid preparations for a funeral to be held the following morning but officials stepped in.  "Just prior to the removal of the remains, some members of the Police took charge of them, by order of Coroner Schirmer," reported The Times.  Everyone involved scrambled to clear his name.

Dr. Norval, who had attended Mary in the Hudson Street house, had listed the cause of death as "disease of the heart," although the coroner's examiner "found undoubted evidence that death had resulted from the cause stated," reported The New York Times, delicately avoiding the term "abortion."

At the coroner's inquest Mary's co-workers told everything they knew about sordid circumstances leading up to Mary's death.  Shockingly today, no one was held responsible.  The Times described McAlpine as "bearing a good reputation," and The New-York Daily Tribune reported "A strong effort was made by way of hearsay testimony, on the part of the Orphan School witnesses, to prove that the uncle of the deceased had seduced her, but there being no testimony bearing on the abortion, the Jury rendered the following verdict: 'Metro-peritonitis supervening upon abortion, induced in a manner unknown to this Jury.'"

Around 1869 the Asylum sold off a large part of its property, realizing $1 million in the sale, more than 18 times that much today.  Although it foreshadowed the development of Morningside Heights; there were still only three major structures in the area at the time.  As late as 1879 The Sun wrote "That large columned building on the heights at 110th street is the Leak [sic] & Watts Orphan Asylum.  North from it that spacious and well-preserved frame, buff-colored, old, but comely fashioned, is the 'De Puyster Mansion.'  Over the heights, at about 114th street, is a glimpse of the Bloomingdale Asylum."

photo by E. P. MacFarland, May 10, 1934, from the collection of the Library of Congress.

One of the indentured orphans was Charlie Harper.  He had been sent here by his relatives following his parents' death in the mid 1870's.  In August 1878 the asylum "bound him out to David Terry, a farmer at Southampton, Long Island," according to The New York Times.  But in December the 13-year old escaped, hopping a freight train back to the city.  He made his way back to the asylum, and hid in a barn.

"There he lay concealed for two weeks," reported The Times on January 25, "and was supplied with food by the other inmates of the institution.  This would not last long, however, and yesterday afternoon Charlie was handed over to Officer Connolly, who took him to the Harlem Police Court."

A glimmer of hope was sparked when Judge Bixby listened to the boy's story and seemed genuinely interested.  He asked Charlie if he had any relatives, and was told that he had an uncle and two sisters in New York City.  Bixby next asked if they "took any interest in his welfare."  Charlie admitted that he doubted they did.  It was not the answer the judge hoped for and the boy was, at least temporarily, jailed.  "The magistrate locked him up until he could have an opportunity of communicating with them."

When a scourge of typhoid fever broke out in the Deaf and Dumb Asylum in Washington Heights in the winter of 1879, the Sanitary Committee made an inspection of similar institutions.  They were not pleased with the results of their December 1 visit to the Leake and Watts Orphan Asylum.  On one hand, the facility was well run; on the other, its outdated sanitary conditions were deplorable.

The New York Times reported "Only full orphans are admitted to its benefits and there are at the present time 160 children within its walls, all of them apparently well fed and cared for in every particular, save a sanitary one.  The Asylum having stood for twenty-seven years utterly lacks all the modern appliances for ventilation, sewerage, &c., and though it has a magnificent annual income, no effort has been made during those years to improve the sanitary condition of the place."

On each end of the building were two water closets for the little children.  The raw sewage emptied directly into the street.  The article explained "the urine and all the waste water of the house passes into a sink, or cistern, from which it soaks or escapes through a half-choked sewer to One Hundred and Tenth-street, and thence finds its way along the gutter down to the low ground at Eighth-avenue, where it becomes a stagnant pool, or else is gathered into the numerous shallow wells dug about there by the squatters."

Outhouses (or "night-soil closets") for the older orphans were no less offensive.  The Times said they were "of the rudest description--mere surface pits, half the time choked up...They are emptied about every two years, and the excrement made into compost for the adjoining gardens.  They were in a pretty bad condition yesterday, and the effluvia from the stream of sewerage on One Hundred and Tenth-street, was anything but pleasant."

As the city pushed northward in the 1880's it slowly engulfed the once-bucolic district, making it less agreeable as the site of an orphanage.  Simultaneously the Episcopal Church was searching for a site for its proposed cathedral--one that would outdo even the Catholic Church's majestic marble St. Patrick's Cathedral.  On October 15, 1887 the Real Estate Record & Builders' Guide reported that the Church had made an "offer of purchase, more or less formal," for the orphanage land.

On April 22, 1888 the New-York Tribune wrote "Building a cathedral worthy of the site at Morningside Park, and worthy of the city as it will be fifty years from now, is a great project and the trustees are wisely anxious to do nothing in a hurry...The Leake and Watts Orphan Asylum will keep possession of the Morningside Park grounds until the summer of 1889."

The orphanage acquired 33 acres of land overlooking the Hudson River in Yonkers in 1888 and in 1891 the Episcopal Church purchased the Morningside Heights property for $850,000--about $23.6 million today.  The Real Estate Record & Guide pronounced it a "very low price" owing, in part to the trustees being "affiliated with the Episcopal Church."

Construction began on the massive Cathedral Church of Saint John the Divine, directly behind the orphanage structure.  Over the decades the cathedral grew, eventually butting up against the rear portico.

In October 1924 the wall of the Cathedral edged just feet away from the orphanage's rear portico. from the collection of the New York Public Library

As mid-century approached, it became evident to all that the 1843 structure sat directly in the path of construction.  In 1950 the east wing was demolished.

from the collection of the New-York Historical Society

On December 9, 2004 The New York Times architectural journalist David W. Dunlap called the former orphanage "a landmark in the way of a landmark" and noted "Wary that Leake & Watts would jeopardize their ability to build the south transept, cathedral officials once resisted any talk of preservation.  The columns, stucco over brick, crumbled.  Column capitals and other woodwork rotted away.  The roof leaked.  A lot."

The church was engaging in what preservationists call "demolition by neglect."  But then it changed its mind.  In 2006 it embarked on a $1.5 million restoration which was completed six years later.  Renamed the Town Building in honor of its architect, it currently houses the Cathedral's Textile Conservation Lab and its social service arm, Cathedral Community Cares.

Nevertheless, it does not have landmark designation and sits directly on the intended site of the South Transept.  And in speaking to David Dunlap in 2004 the cathedral dean, the Very Rev. Dr. James A. Kowalski pointed out that "the investment in the Town Building does not signify a retreat from the hope that one day St. John will be completed."

In the meantime, the 175-year-old Greek temple nudges up against the Romanesque-Gothic behemoth; the two architectural masterworks coexisting as uneasy bedfellows.

The Lost Brevoort Mansion -- Fifth Avenue and 9th Street

Shortly after this photograph was taken in 1925 the Brevoort mansion would be demolished -- NYPL Collection

In 1828 George Rogers began construction of his country home on the northern edge of what would soon become Washington Square.  An unpaved road named Fifth Avenue stretched north of the square through the farmland of Henry Brevoort—a wealthy landowner so influential that when the City Fathers planned the extension of Broadway they were forced to swerve it to the west at East 10^th Street rather than demolish his orchard. 

Brevoort’s son, also named Henry, was born in September 1782.  In 1817 he married Laura Carson of South Carolina.   Brevoort was what The Evening World would later call a “gentleman of great wealth and unlimited leisure.” 

He was a patron of literature and arts and became close friends with Washington Irving and Sir Walter Scott.  The World said “Himself a writer of no mean skill, Brevoort stood always ready to aid those who found writing, in a day when writing won little material reward, a gateway to financial embarrassment.  To him Irving owed much of his fame and happiness.”

In the first years of the 1830s the younger Henry began plans for a new mansion and looked towards the Bond Street neighborhood, then among the most exclusive residential areas in New York.  But his feisty father had other ideas.  Almost a century later a relative would recall, “I remember hearing the family tell how great-grandfather wanted to build his home on Second Avenue, which was then the fashionable section, but his father, who owned all of the Brevoort farm, running back to where Grace Church now stands and taking up considerable space along Fifth Avenue, greatly objected to giving him land on Second Avenue.  ‘No, sir, go further back on the farm; go back to Fifth Avenue, for things are going to move that way,’” he reportedly directed.

Henry, “feeling very much in the woods and quite out of it,” therefore constructed the first house on Fifth Avenue.  His mansion would set the tone of the street for a more than a century to come.

Brevoort commissioned Ithiel Town and Alexander Jackson Davis to design his new townhouse.  The pair was among the most highly respected architects in the country and they produced an imposing Greek Revival  home surrounded by gardens.  Completed in 1834, it broke ground with several architectural innovations—a sectioned Greek key pediment and a “paneled” front façade accomplished by slightly recessing the two outer bays, for instance.

The house in 1900 -- from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York

The house was designed as much for entertaining as for living.  There was a billiard room, a library and two large parlors separated by the entrance hall.  William Cullen Bryant would call it “a kind of palace in a Garden.”  Upstairs were seven large bedrooms on the second floor and nine servants’ rooms on the third..

The sophisticated Brevoorts stepped out of the box, once again, in 1840 when they planned the first grand entertainment New York society had seen.  Until now, entertaining was relatively understated.  Yet in Europe extravagant fetes were not only commonplace, they were expected.  Invitations went out in February 1840 for a bal costume, so popular in European society.  It would set the pace for social events of high society for the rest of the century.

Anticipation among wealthy New Yorkers was fevered.  Philip Hone, former mayor and family friend, wrote a few days before the event, “Nothing else is talked about; the ladies’ heads are turned nearly off their shoulders, the whiskers of the dandies assume a more ferocious curl in anticipation of the effect they are to produce, and even my peaceable domicile is turned topsy turvy by the note of preparation which is heard.”

The Herald noted that people were “moving heaven and earth to get an introduction to this highly respectable Dutch family, and hence an invitation.”  The final guest list included old New York names, foreigners including the Swiss and Neapolitan consuls, literary figures, and relatively new names in society like John Jacob Astor and August Belmont.

On the evening of the ball, Philip Hone threw a “preparatory gathering” of friends so they could see his family’s impressive costumes.  Philip dressed as Cardinal Woolsey in a scarlet merino robe and ermine cape.  His three daughters came as Day and Night and as a character from “The Legend of Montrose.”

Between five and six hundred of New York’s wealthiest citizens filed into the Brevoort house for the ball.  Socialites and moguls appeared as historic and literary characters such as Joan of Arc, Queen Esther and Diana.  Mrs. Jonathan Ogden dressed as Queen Catharine of Arragon; author Charles A. Davis was a Quaker; Mrs. Robert Gracie came as Portia; Delancy Kane as a goldfinch and her sister Lydia was a sorceress; Bache McEvers dressed as William Penn; Mrs. Rufus Prime was Esmeralda; close family friend Henry C. De Rham, Jr. was “a Greek;” and Nicholas Schermerhorn most assuredly raised eyebrows when he arrived as “a Dutch girl.”

Philip Hone was rightfully impressed.  He wrote in his diary “The mansion of our entertainers, Mr. and Mrs. Brevoort, is better calculated for such display than any other in the city.  Mrs. Brevoort, in particular, by her kind and courteous deportment, threw a charm over the splendid pageant, which would have been incomplete without it.  Never before has New York witnessed a fancy ball so splendidly gotten up, in better taste, or more successfully carried through.”

The glamorous party, however, resulted in scandal and public outrage. 

The scandal involved Matilda Barclay, the daughter of British Consul George Barclay.   Mr. and Mrs. Barclay came to the party dressed as a fox hunter and a peasant woman.  Matilda came as Lalla-Rookh in a costume made by Madame Harche that reportedly cost $300—about $8,000 today.  The Herald snidely reported it was “a thin slice from the fortune of $150,000 which, with her excellent heart and beautiful self, she intends to bestow on one of the gallant young gentlemen whom she meets at the ball.”

Matilda had no intentions of bestowing her fortune or heart on any gallant young gentleman, however.  Also attending was the dashing T. Pollock Burgwyne of South Carolina, dressed as Feramors, a character in the same poem as Lalla Rookh.   When the evening was over and the Barclays prepared to leave, their daughter was nowhere to be found.  She had slipped out with the Southerner and married him.

The Herald gleefully reported that the newlyweds were seen at the Astor House the following day where Matilda was “playing the fancy dress character of a married lady.”  The elopement caused a righteous backlash and, as The Evening World later reported “As a result masked balls were made taboo, and a fine of $1,000 was imposed on any one who should give one—unless the giver told on himself, in which event the fine was reduced one-half.”

A tintype captured the Brevoort doorway which would have been described when the house was built as "pure Greek."  from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York

James Gordon Bennett took advantage of the affair to sell papers.  His Herald fueled an uproar among the working class when, on March 2, he devoted his entire front page to the Brevoort ball.  He countered his description of the extravagant ball and over-the-top expenditures with the suffering of the laborers.  The article added the floor plans of the house for good measure.

Philip Hone was outraged at Bennett’s meddling.  “This kind of surveillance is getting to be intolerable and nothing but the force of public opinion will correct the insolence.”  He gathered support from wealthy merchants, financiers and politicians in an effort to urge “respectable people [to] withdraw their support from the vile sheet.”

For a while The Herald lost advertisers and it was boycotted by clubs, fashionable hotels and homes. 

Henry Brevoort died in 1848 and two years later Laura sold the house to Henry De Rham for $57,000 (over $1 million today).  Henry was a dry goods merchant and banker and the De Rhams were not only close friends of the Brevoorts, they were distant relatives. 

The De Rham family remained in the house through the First World War as the lower Fifth Avenue neighborhood changed from one of mansions and carriages to businesses.  Little changed to the great house, including the name—New Yorkers continued to refer to it as the Brevoort Mansion, despite the De Rhams living here four times as long as the original owners.  The New York Times later suggested that “The house, however, has always retained the name of its original owners, partly, perhaps, in view of the prominence of the family and partly because of the unusual magnificence of the house in its early days.”

In the summer of 1903 the De Rhams had the shutters tightly closed against the heat.  The Brevoort carriage house can be seen behind on 9th Street -- from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York

In July 1919 the house was finally sold, and again it went to a distant relative.  The New York Times reported that “it was bought by George F. Baker, Jr., whose wife is the great-granddaughter of the builder of the house.”  The fabulously wealthy Bakers lived on Madison Avenue and toyed with the idea of restoring the old mansion for their personal use.

“The return of the venerable house to a twentieth century descendant of the original Brevoort farm owners is an interesting incident in the vagaries of real estate changes on Manhattan Island,” said The Times.  “It is now assessed at $205,000.”
 

Edith Kane Baker told The Evening World in October of the following year, “Yes, I intend to entertain quite a lot when I move into this ancestral home.”  She added that the purchase was “of a sentimental nature.  I greatly appreciate Mr. Baker’s thoughtfulness and desire to have our children live in a home which their great-great-grandfather built so many years ago.”

“Mr. and Mrs. Baker will have a great deal of remodeling and altering to make their new, old-fashioned homestead as modern and as comfortable as their present home at No. 260 Madison Avenue,” said the article.  “The house has no way of heating besides an old-fashioned furnace and grates; parquet flooring is only laid upon the first floor, while the upper floors bore traces of carpets and the kitchen is still in the basement.”

Renovations, however, did not come to be.  In November 1920 Baker leased the mansion to the Red Cross for $1 a month.  By April 1925 nothing had been done to the old house and, in fact, the Bakers were eying another mansion far uptown at 93^rd Street and Park Avenue.

On April 4 of that year The Times reported with regret “To the residents of [Washington Square] and to every lover of old New York there will come a feeling of personal and civic loss when the stately Brevoort mansion [is] leveled to the ground.”  George Baker had sold the property for the erection of an apartment house.

In an earlier article in 1919 the newspaper said “Few residences on Manhattan Island have such an interesting history as the old Brevoort mansion on lower Fifth Avenue.  Situated on the northwest corner of that thoroughfare and Ninth Street, it suggests, as it did more than three-quarters of a century ago, the quiet dignity and social elegance of New York aristocratic life long ago.”

A view up the Avenue on May 26, 1912 shows still-extant mansions.  In the distance is the tower of First Presbyterian Church -- photo from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York

The Outlook perhaps captured the mood of New Yorkers best.  On April 8, 1925 it wrote “But the old Brevoort mansion is to be destroyed, to make way for another apartment-house and the modernization of that section of the avenue will be practically complete—and wholly depressing to those who love some flavor of the past.”

A high-end apartment house fills the site of the old Brevoort Mansion -- photo by the author

The 1842 Federal Hall National Memorial

photograph from the collection of the New York Public Library

Perhaps no single site in the United States has seen so many formative events in early American history as that where Federal Hall National Memorial now sits.  In 1699 construction began on the third of New York's City Halls, completed the following year.  Here the beginning of America's venerated freedom of the press took root when, in 1735, John Peter Zengel was tried and acquited of libel against the Crown.  And it was here in 1765 that the Stamp Act Congress met, starting the movement against taxation without representation.  It became the first Capitol Building after the Revolution, saw the first meeting of the United States Congress, and it was here that President George Washington was inaugurated.

the former Federal Hall - NYPL Collection

Although the building, now called Federal Hall, had been richly refurbished by Pierre Charles L'Enfant, designer of Washington DC, it was abandoned when the Government moved to Philadelphia in 1790.  In 1812 it was razed and the polished marble mantles, crimson draperies and other remnants sold for $425 in scrap.

from the collection of the New York Public Library

When, 24 years later, a Customs House -- the first in the country -- was deemed necessary, partner architects Alexander Jackson Davis and Ithiel Town were called in.  They had earned a reputation designing villas and other buildings in various revival styles and for this commission chose restrained Greek Revival.  Started in 1836 and completed in 1842, the Greek temple design connoted the democratic ideals of the young nation.  The interior, designed by John Frazee, drew its inspiration from the Pantheon and the economic power of the Roman Empire.

The rotunda as later outfitted for financial business.  photographs from the collection of the New York Public Library

Before the end of the century it was also being used as The New York Sub-Treasury Building with gold and silver stored below street level in vaults.  Here the Independent Treasury System was initiated in 1862 and in 1913 the Federal Reserve System was born.  In 1907 the new US Customs House at the foot of Broadway, covering three city blocks, was completed and the Customs business left the Wall Street structure.

On December 6, 1920 the building ceased its functions as a Sub-Treasury; although the name remained.  For a few years it was used by the Mint and Assay Offices and The Federal Reserve Bank.  On its last day as the Sub-Treasury The New York Times wrote "History is deep there. The Subtreasury Building richly deserves to be made a public monument."

Nineteen years later The New York Times got its wish.  The building was declared a National Historic Shrine by the Secretary of the Interior in 1939 and in 1955 Congress renamed it Federal Hall National Memorial.

But troubles for the building lay in store.  Structural problems became apparent after 2000.  Constant vibration of passing cars and trucks and the subway underneath caused the ground on which the building sits to continue to shift and settle.  Small cracks which had begun appearing in the masonry suddenly widened alarmingly after September 11, 2001.  Apparently the impact of the imploding World Trade Center buildings exacerbated the problem.

The National Parks Service brought in architectural and engineering firm Einhorn Yaffee Prescott who, working with Langan Engineering and Environmental Services used ground penetrating radar to investigate the problem.  What they found was shocking.

In some areas there was a full two feet of empty space between the foundation and the soil below.  Those parts of the building were suspended in air.  The venerable Greek temple was in serious danger.

A $16 million rehabilitation was initiated that included driving four steel pilings 60 feet down into the bedrock and further stabilization using mini-caissons of a concrete-like substance injected into pre-drilled cavities.

Today Federal Hall National Memorial is as beautiful architecturally as it is significant historically.  A century and a half after being built, it is considered one of the finest examples of classic architecture in the United States.  It is opened to the public five days a week with free admission.

The famous statue of George Washington was unveiled in 1883.

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