The Afred Rossin House -- No. 15 East 62nd Street

In 1871 brothers David and John Jardine worked both as real estate developers and architects.  Before the century was up, they would line blocks of the newly-developing Upper East Side with long rows of brownstone homes.  But this year they worked on a project as architects only; designing six neo-Grec style homes for contractors William H. and Charles Gedney.

Like Charles T. Wills, W. H. Gedney & Son, would play a major part in building and construction in the second half of the 19^th century.  Their speculative homes at Nos. 11 through 21 East 62^nd Street would be completed in 1872—handsome Victorian residences with broad stoops and carved stone railings sure to lure merchant class homeowners.

By at least 1891 respected dermatologist Dr. Sigmund Lustgarten was living in No. 15.  That year he had written “The Primary Cause of Death Following Burns to the Skin, with Therapeutic Observations” published in the Medical Record.  Born in Vienna, he came to New York in 1889 and became the visiting dermatologist at Mount Sinai Hospital.  He instructed “many of the leading dermatologists of this city,” said The New York Times later; and was a consultant for the Montefiore Home and other institutions.

Dr. Lustgarten and his wife sold the 62^nd Street house in March 1899.  Shortly thereafter The New York Times revealed the buyer as Frank C. Hollins.  But as was often the case, Hollins was apparently acting as an agent to keep the actual purchaser’s name temporarily unknown.

A month later the same newspaper reported on the society wedding of Alfred Rossin and Clara Lewisohn.  The couple was married in the “the newly completed residence of the bride’s father, 9 West Fifty-seventh Street, one of the most beautiful of New York’s newer houses.”  Among the guests that day were some of Manhattan’s wealthiest and best known Jewish citizens, with names like Rothschild, Untermeyer, Stern and Guggenheimer.

The newlyweds would move into the former Lustgarten house—but not before updating the old Victorian.  Rossin commissioned C. P. H. Gilbert, who had recently completed massive mansions for Isaac D. Fletcher and Franklin Winfield Woolworth, to transform the old brownstone into an up-to-date mansion.

Gilbert stripped off the drab stone façade and replaced it with gleaming limestone.  The resulting Beaux Arts beauty bore no resemblance to its former self.  A rusticated basement and parlor floor base supported a bowed second story façade which, in turn, acted as a spacious balcony at the third floor. 

Prior to its remake, No. 15 matched its next door neighbor (right) -- photo by Wurts Bros, from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York http://collections.mcny.org/C.aspx?VP3=SearchResult_VPage&VBID=24UAYW1J2RFV&SMLS=1&RW=1280&RH=915&PN=3#/SearchResult_VPage&VBID=24UAYW1J2RFV&SMLS=1&RW=1280&RH=915&PN=3

Rossin was President of the Public National Bank; and while he busied himself with things financial, his wife was involved with the Hebrew Technical School for Girls as its president.  Working along with her was her father, investment banker Adolph Lewisohn, who served as vice-president.  The school came under fire in January 1917 when Felix Warburg laid plans to update the curriculum.

Warburg was a banker and member of the conference board of the Rockefeller Foundation, which planned to revise primary and secondary education nationwide.  Shocking (and unacceptable) to traditional Edwardian minds was his announcement that Latin and Greek would be replaced by French and German in the “modern school.”  He fired back at criticism saying “It is questionable whether a child can be taught what he ought to know under our present system,” and Adolph Lewisohn back him up.  According to the New-York Tribune on January 22, 1917, he “said the community needed more schools like the Hebrew Technical School for Girls.”

Not far away, at No. 40 East 68^th Street, was the grand mansion of John Daniel Crimmins.  The wealthy contractor had created the lavish home by combining two older row houses.  On November 9, 1917 the aging widower died with seven of his ten children at his bedside.  Within three months of the funeral, the Crimmins family moved out of the family home.

On March 16, 1918 The Sun reported “The Crimmins family…will occupy the dwelling at 15 East Sixty-second street, a small house, in the future.”  Alfred and Clara Rossin used their house, valued at $97,000, as partial payment for the Crimmins mansion, which they purchased for $350,000.

Apparently the “small house” on 62^nd Street was not sufficient for the Crimmins siblings.  Just a year later, on May 5, 1919, The Sun reported that the house was sold to Howard Elliott for $110,000.  “The new owner plans to occupy the house after making extensive alterations,” said the newspaper.

The 59-year old railroad executive and his wife had two married daughters and a son.  He was President of the New York, New Haven & Hartford and the Northern Pacific Railroads.  He was, as well, a director of 17 other railroads, director of the American Railway Association, and sat on the boards of numerous other concerns.

Elliott came from a distinguished family.  His father, Charles Wyllys Elliott was a historian and author of several books.  The Elliott family traced its American roots to John Eliot who settled in Natick, Massachusetts in 1631 and was known as “The Apostle to the Indians.”  On his mother’s side was Samuel Howard, a member of the Boston Tea Party of 1773.

The Elliotts moved into No. 15 in 1919 -- photographs from the Library of Congress

Following his wife’s death in 1925, the semi-retired Elliott lived on in the 62^nd Street house with his son, Howard Elliott, Jr.  Three years later he traveled to Cape Cod to spend the summer in the home of his daughter, Mrs. Frederick Wilson.  There, on July 8, 1928 he suffered a fatal heart attack at the age of 67.

Elliott’s entire estate of about $2.25 million was divided among his family.  On October 29, 1929 the house was sold to real estate operator Charles Brown.   He held the property for only 48 hours.  The New York Times, on November 1, wrote “After an ownership of two days, the five-story limestone residence at 15 East Sixty-second Street was resold yesterday by Charles Brown.”  The newspaper added that the buyer “plans to rebuild the house and occupy it.  The alterations will include the installation of an electric elevator.”

Earlier that year Jennie, the wife of wealthy banker Henry White Cannon, died.  New Yorker socialites were no doubt shocked a year later on September 18 when the 80-year old married Miss Myrta L. Jones.  The Times reported that “After a wedding trip the couple will live at 15 East Sixty-second Street.”

Cannon was a member of the board and a former president of the Chase National Bank.  His illustrious financial career included having been appointed Controller of the Currency by President Chester A. Arthur in 1884 and serving as a delegate to the International Monetary Conference in Brussels in 1892.

Myrta’s family was well respected in Cleveland society; but Henry’s pedigree was impeccable.  On his mother side was Peregrine White, born aboard the Mayflower on November 20, 1620 while the ship was moored in Cape Cod Harbor.  His grandfather fought in the Revolutionary War and died a prisoner of the British in Manhattan.

The millionaire’s age did not prevent him from fathering a son, Harry.  Each winter the family would travel to Daytona Beach where Cannon had owned a house on South Beach Street.  Henry Cannon’s health was been failing for some time in 1934, and it was at the Florida home in April, that he died.

Myrtle and little Harry accompanied the body back to New York and Cannon’s funeral was held early in May in Delhi, New York, where he was born.

No. 15 East 62^nd Street became home to Dr. Johan H. W. van Ophuijsen, an eminent psychiatrist and director of the Creedmoor Institute for Psychobiologic Studies.  Born in Sumatra, he was associated early in his career with Dr. Sigmund Freud and Dr. Ivan Pavov—pioneers of psychoanalysis.

He came to New York by invitation of the Psychanalytic Institute to teach in 1935.  He would teach there from 1938 to 1948.  He served on the psychiatric staffs of Mount Sinai and Lenox Hill Hospitals, and beginning in 1946 was attending psychiatrist at the Veterans Administration.

The New York Times would write of him, “Dr. van Ophuijsen stressed the importance of the role of the father in the psychological rearing of children, taking sharp issue with experts who had ‘told but half the story,’ he said, in blaming psychoneurotic symptoms—which in this country made many young men unfit to bear arms during the recent war—on the mother.”

Ophuijsen renovated a lower floor in the house as an office where he personally saw patients.  As well as living in here, he founded the Van Ophuijsen Center in the house.  In May 1950 he was stricken with a heart problem, “but flew to Detroit to read a paper before the American Psychiatric Association’s annual meeting,” said The Times.

Four weeks later, on Wednesday May 31, the 68-year old psychiatrist said good-night to his last patient of the day.  A few minutes later he suffered a heart attack and died in the house on East 62^nd Street.

The Beaux Arts mansion continues to be home to the Center, a philanthropic, non-profit institution that carries on its founder’s work.  Outwardly, it remains relatively unchanged since mansion architect C. P. H. Gilbert transformed an outdated Victorian to an modern Edwardian for wealthy newlyweds.

non-credited photographs by the author

A 1920s Project Revived -- No. 226 E 68th Street

As the turn of the last century approached, the block of East 68^th Street between Second and Third Avenues was lined with brownstone-clad homes built on speculation by John D. Crimmins.  The three or four story dwellings were little different from hundreds of others in the neighborhood.  Among the respectable families on the block was that of Isaac H. Rothschild who lived at No. 226.

The night of April 19, 1898 was a special one in the Rothschild house.  Daughter Blanche was married to Herman Meyers there that evening.  Newspapers related that Rev. Dr. Kaufmann Kohler of the fashionable Temple Beth-El officiated and that several of the groom’s relatives had traveled from St. Louis for the ceremony.  “The bride wore white satin,” said The New York Times the following day.  “A wedding supper followed the ceremony.”

Also living in the house was the bride's 81-year old George Newburger; Hannah Rochschild’s father. The elderly man's only son, Abraham Newburger, was the manager of the Armour & Co.’s East 35^th Street branch and his nephew, Abraham H. Hummel was a respected lawyer.

Hummel passed down his old silk hats to his uncle, prompting The New York Press to comment “He was proud of the fact that his nephew’s big hats fitted him, and he was kept well supplied with them.”  Oddly enough it would be one of the used silk hats that would bring about the old man’s death.

Within a year of Blanche Rothschild’s wedding, Abraham Newburger was married.  The newlyweds were away on their honeymoon on Sunday March 12, 1899 when George Newburger boarded an uptown-bound streetcar on Third Avenue.  Looking smart in one of his old silk hats, he had just celebrated his 82^nd birthday. 

Just as Newburger and a few other passengers disembarked the streetcar at the intersection of Third Avenue and 125^th Street, Hook and Ladder Truck No. 14 was speeding across 125^th Street headed to a fire.  “Driver J. Sheridan noticed that passengers were alighting from a Third avenue car at the crossing,” reported The New York Press.  “He yelled to them to get out of the way.  Foreman Eugene T. Terpenny rang his gong vigorously.”

Everyone made it to safety, including George Newburger.  But in the rush to the curb his hat fell to the ground and was rolling in the street in front of the galloping horses.  Before anyone could stop him, Newburger rushed to recover his hat.  One of the horses struck the old man, knocking him to the ground, and the wheels of the fire truck passed over him.  Newburger suffered internal injuries and bone fractures.  He was carried into a cigar store where he died within a few minutes.  His nephew’s monogram was inside his hat and in his pocket was a matchbox engraved “GN” on one side and “Uncle George from Abe” on the other.

Later Hannah Rothschild identified her father’s body at the police station.

In the first years of the 20^th century architect Electus D. Litchfield was making a name for himself.  By 1915 he had designed the United States Court House and Post Office building, still under construction, in Denver; and the large Public Library in St. Paul.  Before 1920 he would purchase a number of the brownstone homes on the East 68^th Street block.  It was a time when outdated Victorian dwellings throughout the city were being remodeled as modern, fashionable homes.  Litchfield intended to transform them to the currently-popular neo-Georgian and Federal styles.

On February 20, 1920 the New York Herald explained the project.  “Plans are under way to form the nucleus of a new society neighborhood in the south side of Sixty-eighth street between Second and Third Avenues.  Electus D. Litchfield, architect, purchased twelve old fashioned houses opposite the Schermerhorn properties in the north side of the street and will alter them into the modern American basement type in accordance with the tastes and wishes of buyers.”

It was just the sort of thing that was going on in Sutton Place—a formerly dingy area now being transformed, greatly by architect Mott Schmidt, into neo-Georgian mansions for wealthy socialites.  The Sun deemed the 68^th Street concept an “interesting development” and reported that “A number of sales have already been made.”  The New-York Tribune, on February 26, said “Folks who live in the best Park Avenue apartment houses have displayed much interest in the houses.”

On February 26, 1920 he sold two of the remodeled houses.  No. 242 was purchased by Mrs. Winston Hagen.  The Sun called it “a newly remodeled American basement dwelling.”  The house next door, “a similar building,” went to Francis Danforth.

Interestingly, Litchfield held on to one of the houses as-is.  Rather than remodel No. 226, he and his wife (the title was in her name) leased it to the Hahnemann Hospital “for use as a home for nurses.”

Electus D. Litchfield’s grand scheme for a colonial-styled community that would rival the upscale Sutton Place was never fully realized.  Anyone walking down the block today sees surviving 19^th century brownstones interspersed with Litchfield’s neo-Georgian remakes. 

But in 2009 his cause was taken up again--most likely unknowingly--when No. 226 was demolished and construction began on a five-story neo-Georgian mansion.  The red brick and stone private home is nearly indistinguishable from Litchfied's revival townhouses designed 80 years earlier.

photos taken by the author

The St. John's Day Nursery--No. 223 E. 67th Street

The Day Nursery was indistinguishable from the private carriages houses on the block--like that of John D. Crimmins at right.

In 1886 the Sisters of Charity had operated the New York Foundling Hospital for 17 years.  At the time of its founding in 1869 the problem of unwanted babies born to unwed mothers was a serious problem; resulting in infants being abandoned on the steps of churches or orphanages, or worse, simply discarded to die.  The work of the nuns saved thousands of lives.

But now they recognized another problem.  Indigent mothers who found meager work were forced to leave their children at home alone or on the streets.  The Sisters of Charity organized the St. John’s Day Nursery where impoverished women could drop off their children while they worked.

At the time, millionaire John D. Crimmins and his family were devout Catholics.  Crimmins not only gave generously to the Church, donating altars, sculptures and paintings to St. Patrick’s Cathedral of which he was a prominent parishioner; but the entire family spent each Christmas Day in white aprons serving dinner to the poor, elderly women at the Little Sisters of the Poor on East 70^th Street.

As the wealthy philanthropist planned his upscale private carriage house at No. 225 East 67^th Street, he included another next door for the Sisters' new project.  Completed in 1887 the St. John’s Day Nursery was outwardly indistinguishable from the high-end stables along the block.  Like Crimmins’s, it was brick-faced and generally Romanesque Revival in style.  Brownstone trim and a handsome brick corbel table below the cornice added to the visual appeal.

The interesting square-headed eyebrows with the inward curling ends at the Nursery's second floor reappeared over the Crimmins stable's carriage entrance.

The ground level would provide stable accommodations for the Foundling Hospital while upstairs the Day Nursery had rooms.  On October 30, 1887 The Sun reported on the newly-completed structure. “Sister Irene, Superior of the New York Foundling Asylum, who for a long time back has had greatly at heart the establishment of a day nursery under Catholic management, has charge of the new institution, which is over a large stable built for the use of the Foundling Asylum.”

The newspaper said “The building occupies a full lot of 27x100, is well built of brick with blue stone trimmings, and adjoins one put up for the same purpose in first-class style by Mr. John D. Crimmins.  Access to the upper stories is by wide easy stairs, wainscoted as the building is throughout.”

The New-York Tribune, in announcing that “The nursery enables many mothers to go out and work, while their children are fed, dressed and cared for by charity,” added “The nursery rooms have been given by John D. Crimmins.”  The Sun described the interior arrangements.  “The first and second upper stories form two large, light, and well-ventilated rooms, which can each be divided by sliding doors into large front and back ones.  There is on each story a water closet and a lavatory adjoining to and communicating with the main room in the rear.  The janitor’s dwelling is on the uppermost story.”

Crimmins increased the square footage of the Nursery by dedicating the entire third floor of his carriage house to its use.  A door connected the two buildings at this level.  “This will be used for a refectory and a dormitory, where children can be fed, and, when tired or drowsy, allowed to rest.”  Crimmins installed a bathroom and a range “at his own expense” and paid for the furnishings throughout.

The Sisters of Charity and John Crimmins had carefully selected the location.  While the block was lined with comfortable rowhouses of middle and upper-middle class families, as well as the lavish carriage houses of the wealthy; it bordered on the working class neighborhoods closer to the East River.  The Sun explained “As it is near, on the east, to a populous district inhabited by laboring people, it has before it a prospect of great charitable usefulness.”

The St. John’s Day Nursery was open from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. and accepted the children of working women “from eighteen months to five years old, without distinction of nationality, creed, or color.”  The New-York Tribune praised the nuns’ work saying “The nursery enables many mothers to go out and work, while their children are fed, dressed and cared for by charity.”  The institution relied solely on donations to keep it running and, therefore, there was an endless stream of bazaars, benefits and other fund raising events.

Some of these were held in the nursery building itself; such as the one on Wednesday, May 16, 1888 or the more inventive “chocolate” and bazaar on November 15, 1889.  For the latter, the nursery rooms were decorated and donated items were sold by chance.  The New York Times reported on the articles of “fancy work” including one show-stopping item.  “Chances were sold on a large pillow of chrysanthemums and lilies, given by Miss Addie Hearn,” it said.  “Among other donations were some worsted articles made by the inmates of the Insane Asylum at Harrison, N. Y.”

At the time of the “chocolate” and bazaar The Times reported that “The number of children rescued from the life of the street during the past year by this nursery is 275.”

By 1892 the Day Nursery was handling 50 children per day and John D. Crimmins remained among its staunchest financial supporters.  On December 27, 1893 the toddlers, none older than five, who received little Christmas at home got it here.  They staged a Christmas pageant of sorts for Archbishop Corrigan “and many society people.”  The Times reported “A large Christmas tree, presented by John D. Crimmins, was loaded down with good things for the children, and the walls of the large hall were hung with evergreens.  The children recited poems and sang cradle songs from the top of a table, which had been transformed into a mimic stage.”

The program was closed by an “intricate march” and after the distribution of gifts the children sat down to a real Christmas dinner.  The Archbishop was especially impressed with a recitation and song by a five-year old German girl “in which a cradle and a doll played an important part.”

In 1902 St. John’s Day Nursery was still handling 50 children per day.  “This means that they were not only kept warm and clean and well fed, but were also taught to eat and sleep at regular hours,” said the New-York Tribune.  The Nursery operated an in-house employment agency of sorts to help mothers find work.

On Wednesdays women were invited to the nursery to sew for the children.  Those who did not want to actively participate could become a patron for $15 a year (about $400 today).  Or, if a person did not want to contribute money; food and fabric for making children’s clothing was always accepted.

Without a doubt the most spectacular benefit held for the nursery was the performance of Cinderella at the Metropolitan Opera House in January 1898.  Deemed by one newspaper as a “monster” production, it included fully 3,000 voices and the “World’s Greatest Artists,” according to one advertisement.  John Crimmins was highly involved in arranging the benefit.  Among the features promised, according to the New-York Tribune on November 27, 1897, were “the marches of all nations, by four hundred young girls; the drill of the American Guards, the grand ballet of roses…and the sparkling revel of fairies, butterflies, fireflies, hornets and bumblebees in which several hundred young women will participate.”

By the turn of the century fewer of the benefits were held in the Day Nursery.  Instead concerts, “euchres,” and dances were held at upscale venues patronized by New York society.  On December 1, 1905 a bazaar—which would have been held above the stable on 67^th Street two decades earlier—was held in the Waldorf-Astoria.

Now the nursery had doubled its workload, handling 100 children every day.  The New-York Tribune, in describing what it called “one of the prettiest bazaars of the season,” noted that John D. Crimmins’s daughter was partly in charge of the tea room for the event.

On November 9, 1917 John Crimmins died in his mansion at No. 40 East 68^th Street of pneumonia.  Two years later, on October 21, 1919, J. A. Root purchased the Crimmins carriage house at No. 225 for $22,300.  It was now described as a “three story brick garage, apartment and workshop building."  The sale did not bode well for the St. John’s Day Nursery which had used the upper floors of the Crimmins building.

The Sisters sold their aging nursery building to the fabulously wealthy Robert Goelet in October 1922.  He converted it for use as his private garage.  When real estate operator Bradford N. Swett bought it from the Goelet Estate 45 years later, in August 1967, The New York Times mentioned “The garage can hold five cars.  There is an apartment on each of its two upper floors.”  Swett paid $100,000 in cash for the building.

That the charismatic structure at No. 223 East 67^th Street had ever been the daytime refuge of needy children was long forgotten.  Within the year the former St. John’s Day Nursery had been converted to the New York Zendo Shobo-Ji (Temple of True Dharma) by the Zen Studies Society.  A half century later the institution, founded in 1956, remains here.  It serves as a Zen practice and training center.

photographs taken by the author