The 1891 Hotel Renaissance (Columbia Club) - 4 West 43rd Street

 

photo by Anthony Bellov

Even as he and Bruce Price were designing part of David H. King Jr.'s ambitious "King's Model Houses" in Harlem, Clarence S. Luce was working on another project for the developer--an upscale residential hotel in Midtown.  As the Renaissance Hotel neared completion on August 16, 1891, The New York Times called it, "an ornament to the city" and described it as, "magnificent."

The article began saying, "One of the handsomest and most interesting buildings in the city is the new Hotel Renaissance, in West Forty-third Street, near Fifth Avenue."  The journalist described the style as "a type of the Renaissance with pronounced American interpretations."  Anticipating skyscraper technology, Luce employed an iron skeleton "and hollow terra-cotta brick, strong and light."  The article said the foundations were "like the grave of a tavern keeper's wife, 'both wide and deep.'"  

Luce faced the two-story rusticated base with marble, "calculated to reflect the general renaissance style."  It was dominated by the Caen marble entrance, designed as a double-height porch with paired columns.  

photo by Anthony Bellov

The four-story midsection was faced in tan brick and trimmed in limestone.  The windows of the fifth floor imitated Renaissance balconies, with stone balustrades and engaged columns that upheld arched, shell-filled pediments.  Extravagantly decorated terra cotta panels separated the top floor openings, and a stone balustrade sat upon the overhanging cornice.

Guests entered into a "round arched vestibule" wainscoted in "marble in beautiful tints," as described by The New York Times, and the walls were frescoed.  On either side were the reception room and a cafe, "both of them large and handsomely-decorated saloons [i.e., rooms]."  The vestibule led to the "main hall" and the courtyard, around which the principal ground floor rooms were arranged.  The courtyard featured a fountain surrounded with "growing flowers and tropical plants."  The result, said the writer, was "an effect similar to the interiors of the most celebrated structures of this class in Florence, Paris, and Madrid."  Interior balconies at the second floor were available to all residents from which to enjoy the courtyard's afternoon and evening music.

Residential hotels differed from apartment buildings in that the suites did not have kitchens.  Guests, who signed months- or years-long leases, ate in a large communal dining room, similar to an elegant restaurant.  All the amenities of a transient hotel (like maid service, for instances) were provided by the management.

Also on the ground floor were four private dining rooms, two each on either side of the courtyard.  "From the Florentine galleries that separate the private dining rooms from the court yard, the main dining room in the back of the building is reached," said the article.  The reporter deemed it, "one of the handsomest dining halls in the country."  Engulfing the entire 125-foot width of the building, it was visually broken up by "mural arches" that gave the impression of three rooms "thrown into one."  The Times said, "The ornamentation of this room is in the highest form of the frescoer's art."  (The article mentioned that King had hired "one of the best chefs of Paris.")

The walls of the first floor rooms were decorated with hand-decorated Louis XV-style panels.  The private dining room walls, however, were covered in silk and the furnishings were "in the style of the empire."  The motif was carried into the two oval elevators, which were "finished in gold and Vernis Martin, with painted panels and Louis XV decorations."

The New York Times, October 6, 1891 (copyright expired)

Each of the apartments looked onto the courtyard.  The New York Times explained, "Each suite is entered from the hall through a private vestibule, thus insuring perfect privacy for all."

The Hotel Renaissance opened on October 1, 1891.  It was patronized by some of Manhattan's wealthiest citizens, either as their permanent city residence or during the winter season.  Among them were James and Sarah Roosevelt and their son, Franklin.  In her Franklin and Eleanor, An Extraordinary Marriage, Hazel Rowley writes:

Franklin and his parents (accompanied by servants and tutors) spent time in New York City, where they had an apartment at the Renaissance Hotel, on West Forty-third Street.

C. Grayson Martin purchased the Hotel Renaissance following David H. King Jr.'s death in April 1916.  He quickly swapped it with George N. and Julius Black for the X. Y. Ranch in Colorado.  On January 17, 1917, The New York Sun said the 5,000-acre X. Y. Ranch was "one of the best known ranches in the West."  The value of the Hotel Renaissance was estimated at $1 million, or about $24.5 million in 2026.

The Black brothers closed the Hotel Renaissance and leased the property to the Columbia University Club, which had been located at Gramercy Park for more than a decade.  The club hired architects Henry F. Hornbostel, Kenneth MacKenzie Murchison, and Alger C. Gildersleeve to convert the hotel to a clubhouse.  

A year and "more than $100,000" later, almost to the day, The New York Times reported on January 27, 1918 that the renovations were completed and the opening would be celebrated by a dinner on February 7.  It said the architects had "transformed it into one of the best-equipped clubs in the Forty-second Street club centre."  

The New York Herald explained that the upper floors now contained 104 rooms "for members who wish to live at the club."  There were also exercising rooms, baths, and four squash courts on the roof.  The "immense dining room," said the article, which was designed by Hornbostel, "is in simple white stone, with great light brackets in silver and a frieze that includes some paintings of scenes of the Columbia campus as it is to-day and was in the days of Hamilton."  (The frieze was executed by muralist James M. Hewlett.)  Also on the ground floor were "lunch rooms and private dining rooms," according to the New York Herald.  A large library on the second floor could also be used for meetings.

photo by Anthony Bellov

College life throughout America was disrupted by the country's entry into World War I.  On April 5, 1918, a service flag was raised above the clubhouse and on November 10 that year, the university's president, Dr. Nicholas Murray Butler and Major Herbert C. Earnshaw, Commandant of the Students' Army Training Camp, spoke here.  "The war activities of the college will be the subject," announced The New York Times.

Shortly after the end of the war another issue--Prohibition--would rock the organization.  On the "first bone-dry prohibition day," as worded by The New York Times, an announcement informed members "that afternoon tea will now be a feature of the club's gayeties."  The article then reported on a serious side effect of the law's enactment.  "Prohibition...has also made it necessary to practically double the annual dues."

Prohibition crippled the finances of hotels, clubs and restaurants.  The condition was no doubt a major factor in the club's decision to alter the ground floor to provide additional income.  On October 1, 1922, the New York Herald reported, "The Columbia University Club will install stores in the club property...All but 25 of the 125 feet of frontage of their building will be changed on the grade floor into business use."  The practical renovation unfortunately greatly decimated Luce's Italian palazzo design.

Over the years, the Columbia University Club was home to distinguished alumni.  Among them were prominent architect Henry Rutgers Marshall; poet, novelist and editor Henry Morton Robinson; and retired Brigadier General Rodney Hamilton Smith.

One of the most colorful residents was William Cullen Bryant Kemp, described on the Columbia campus as the "perpetual student."  As a young man, Kemp was attending Columbia when his uncle left him $2,500 a year "as long as he remained at school."  (The income would equal about $50,000 a year today.)  He took the wording seriously and earned his first degree, a Bachelor of Arts, in 1868.  He continued to matriculate at Columbia, earning a list of degrees that included A.M.,  M.D.,  LL.M., LL.B, Ph.D., C.E., E.E., Mechanical Engineering, Pharmaceutical Engineering, and a B.S.  Kemp was living here on February 3, 1929 when he died at the age of 79.

image via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services

In 1922, although Prohibition was still in effect, the Columbia University Club hired Irish-born Michael J. Dunne as its head bartender (presumably dispensing sodas, iced tea and such).  Although his only education was from an Irish primary school, he was a voracious reader.  The New York Times remarked that he, "could converse on a variety of topics with the many men of distinction who patronized his bar."

The members called Dunne "Serjeant," the title bestowed only on the highest class of barristers in England.  In 1960, author Henry Morton Robinson presided over a "large gathering in the club," as described by The New York Times, during which Dunne received the degree of D.D.L.," Doctor of Delectable Libations, and a scroll.

The following year, Dunn visited his birthplace, Engfield, County Meath, Ireland.  On his trip he became ill.  He made it back home before dying at the age of 71 on August 15, 1961.  He had held his position at the club for 39 years.

On February 13, 1973, the club's board of governors voted unanimously to sell the 43rd Street building.  John Reeves, the group's president, explained that the maintenance "had become too expensive for the needs of the 1,500 members."  The club moved into the Princeton Club at 15 West 43rd Street.

The former Columbia University Club building sat vacant for slightly more than two years before a buyer was found.  On May 7, 1975, The New York Times reported, "The Rev. Sun Myung Moon's Unification Church has purchased the former Columbia University Club building at 4 West 43d Street for use as its American headquarters."  The church had paid $1.2 million (about $7 million today) for the property.  A spokesperson said, "the upper floors would be used to house about 50 staff members and their families.

photo by Anthony Bellov

The Holy Spirit Association-Unification of World Christianity continues to use the building for its headquarters.  It, additionally, offers rental offices to non-profit organizations, and large spaces for events.

many thanks to historian Anthony Bellov for suggesting this post

The Lost Thomas P. Rossiter Mansion - 11 West 38th Street

 

To the left, a sliver of 13 West 38th Street, remodeled simultaneously by Hunt for Eleazar Parmly, can be glimpsed.  from the collection of the Library of Congress.

Born in New Haven, Connecticut in 1818, Thomas Prichard Rossiter was well established as a painter of portrait and historical scenes by 1851.  In 1838, at the age of 20, he exhibited two paintings at the National Academy of Design and the following year moved to New York City.  He was elected to the National Academy in 1849.

In 1851 he married Anna Ehrick Parmly, the daughter of wealthy dentist and poet, Eleazer Parmly.  The newlyweds sailed to Europe, settling in Paris in 1853.  Rossiter won a gold medal at the Universal Exposition in 1855 for his Venice in the Fifteenth Century.  

In the meantime, in September 1854 a son, Ehrick Kensett, was born.  The following year a daughter, Charlotte C., arrived, and Anna Rosalie was born in March 1856.  Shortly after Anna's birth, Anna Parmly Rossiter died at the age of 26.

Thomas brought his children back to New York City.  At the time, 30-year-old architect Richard Morris Hunt had relocated to New York from Washington where he had worked on the renovation and expansion of the U.S. Capitol building.  He began work on the design of the Tenth Street Studios Building, the first structure in America designed specifically for living-and-studio spaces for artists.  It was this work, almost assuredly, that brought Rossiter and Hunt together.

Peter Paul Duggan created this black crayon drawing of Thomas P. Rossiter.  from the collection of The Frick

Rossiter and his father-in-law gave Hunt his first domestic commission in New York--two mansions at 11 and 13 West 38th Street.  The neighborhood, just feet from Fifth Avenue, was filling with sumptuous mansions as Manhattan's millionaires inched up the avenue.

Completed in 1857, the Rossiter house at 11 West 38th Street was faced in red brick and trimmed in stone.  The artist's deep interest in history may have influenced Hunt's neo-classical design.  He striated the first floor, above a short stoop, by alternating red brick with stone bands.  The arched entrance sat within a portico supported by banded and fluted columns, and neo-Classical swags decorated the entablature.  The composition was copied at the easternmost window to preserve balance.  

Three grouped floor-to-ceiling windows at the top floor were fronted by a stone balcony and flanked by niches, intended for statues.  Thrown open, the windows flooded Rossiter's studio with natural light.

Richard Morris Hunt's watercolor rendering.  from the collection of the Library of Congress.

Interestingly, Dr. Eleazer Parmly, unlike Rossiter, refused to pay Hunt for the supervisory portion of the project.  Hunt finally sued the dentist and won.  Later, in 1896, Engineering Magazine would credit Hunt's lawsuit for establishing "a uniform system of charges by percentage."

In his new mansion and studio, Rossiter began work on large canvases, including George Washington and Family, Washington and Lafayette at Mount Vernon, and Washington and His First Cabinet.  As part of his research for those works, in June 1858 he traveled to Mount Vernon.

Rossiter completed Washington and Lafayette at Mount Vernon 1784 in his 38th Street studio in 1859.  from the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art

The West 38th Street mansion was filled with antiques.  The Springfield Weekly Republican would later recount,

There were large objects of furniture, such as an oak altar-piece, an oaken buffet of the 14th century, and a sarcophagus of the same age, all quaintly carved with elfish heads, figures of animals, flowers and clusters of fruit.  Also a 13th century armoire, or sideboard, ornamented with Byzantine carving.

In 1860, Thomas Rossiter married Mary Sterling, known as Mollie.  The family moved to Cold Spring, New York and Rossiter's brother-in-law, Ehrick Parmly, moved his family into 11 West 38th Street. 

Born in 1830, Ehrick Parmly, like his father and brother, was a dentist.  All three shared an office at 3 Bond Street.  (David R. Parmly lived in New Jersey.)  Ehrick's wife was Lucie Dubois and the couple had a son, George Dubois, when they moved into 11 West 38th Street.  Another son, John Ehrick, was born in 1861 and a third, Dalton, in 1872.

By the time of Dalton's birth, the Parmly family had been gone from the house for about eight years.  It was now home to Israel David Salomon (who went by his middle name) and his wife, the former Henrietta Luna Hendricks.  Salomon was born in 1820 and Henrietta in 1827.  The couple was married in 1864 and moved into 11 West 38th Street.  Two sons would be born in the house, Salomon in 1865 and Sidney Hendricks two years later.

Also living with the family was David's brother, Benjamin Franklin Salomon, who was 35 years old in 1864.  A bachelor, he died on April 12, 1865.  His funeral was held in the drawing room on the 14th.

In 1870, Douw Ditmars Williamson, Jr. and his wife, the former Mary Frances Dodd, moved into the house.  Born in New York City on November 15, 1830, Williamson graduated from Peekskill Academy in 1844.  Although educated in engineering, he entered business as a clerk.  But his mundane business life turned to the stuff of pulp novels starting in 1849 when he traveled to South America.  The 1896 Genealogical Records of the Williamson Family in America recorded:

In 1851 [he] went to Panama and Ecuador; was ten days crossing the Isthmus on a mule; was with Garibaldi in Havana when Crittenden and his filibusters were shot, and was followed by soldiers, day and night, on his return home.

Back in New York, Williamson married Mary Dodd on November 1, 1853.  The couple would adopt George Norman Williamson, the infant son of Douw's brother, Nicholas.  Then, in 1863, they adopted Cornelia Bodwell, the infant daughter of Mary's sister, Abby Lyman Dodd Bodwell.

In the meantime, Williamson and his brother, Nicholas, founded the Novelty Rubber Co.  Douw Williamson was, as well, an inventor and in 1870 designed an improved traction engine and a steam plow.

Douw Ditmars Williamson, Jr., from the collection of the Century Association.

Despite his swashbuckling past, the Century Association described Douw D. Williamson as "of a retiring, quiet disposition."  Ever expanding his resume, in 1875, he established a chemical works in Long Island City.

The new St. Patrick's Cathedral opened on May 25, 1879.  Its architect, James Renwick, Jr., immediately began designing the archbishop's residence and rectory at the southwest corner of Madison Avenue and 51st Street.  In the meantime, the archdiocese leased the former Williamson mansion.  Four years later, on April 25, 1882, the New York Herald reported, "The new residence of Cardinal McCloskey, which stands back to back with the Cathedral...is very nearly ready to be occupied."  

Cardinal John McCloskey.  from the collection of the New York Public Library

Born in March 1810, Cardinal John McCloskey was appointed the second archbishop of New York by Pope Pius IX on May 6, 1864.  At the time of the New York Herald's article, McCloskey was in ill health.  It explained, "it is said that the Cardinal will not move until his health is better.  His home is at present at 11 West Thirty-eighth street, from which the furniture is now being removed."

Next to occupy the mansion was lace importer Richard Muser and his wife, Cecelia.  On January 4, 1885, The New York Times reported that a defective flue in the basement had started a fire in the house.  It resulted in $500 worth of damages, or about $16,800 in 2026.  On August 13, 1893, The New York Times reported that three days earlier Richard Muser's body had been discovered "at the lodge gate of his Summer home at Suffern, N.Y., with two bullet holes in his head."  The newspaper said there were "divided opinions as to the cause of his death."

The Musers had left West 38th Street several years earlier.  By 1889, No. 11 was home to John O. Donner, his wife, the former Mary Elizabeth Van Arsdale, and their teenaged daughter.  The New York Times described Donner as a "prominent and wealthy man, connected with Havemeyer & Elder in the sugar business."  The family's country estate was in Ramsey, New Jersey.

Mary Donner was experiencing health issues at the time, and on July 17, 1889 she sailed to Europe for treatment.  Accompanying her was her daughter; Mary's physician, Dr. Ruppaner; a nurse; a governess; and the daughter of Marshall T. Davison (apparently as a companion of the Donners' daughter).  The doctor left the party in Vienna and they traveled on to San Remo, Italy.

In February 1890, John O. Donner received a cable informing him that Mary was "in a critical condition," as reported by The New York Times.  He sailed on the steamer Zoller on February 26.  On March 1, The New York Times reported that a cablegram from San Remo announced the death of Mary Elizabeth Van Arsdale Donner.  The article said, "He will not hear of her death, therefore, until he arrives in Europe."

The West 38th Street residence next became home to Elbert Ellery Anderson and his family.  Born in 1833, he was the son of Henry James Anderson, a renowned professor of mathematics and astronomy, the grandson of librettist Lorenzo Da Ponte (who brought Italian opera to America), and a descendant of Founding Father William Ellery, from whom Elbert got his middle name.  As a teen, Elbert accompanied his father on a Dead Sea expedition.  He famously carved his name "E. E. Anderson" onto the wall of the Temple of Abu Simbel, which is visible today.

Elbert Ellery Anderson (original source unknown)

Anderson served in the Civil War, after which he began his law practice.  In 1887, President Grover Cleveland tasked him to investigate the Union Pacific and Central Pacific Railways.  He and his wife, the former Augusta Chauncey, had two children, Henry James and Peter Chauncey.

Peter Chauncey married May Ogden and brought his bride to live in the West 38th Street mansion.  Their daughter, May Ellery, was born in 1891.  The little girl died at the age of 10 on November 9, 1901 and her funeral was held in the house two days later.

On February 24, 1903, The Chicago Tribune reported that Elbert E. Anderson "went to a matinée with his eldest son on Monday afternoon and spent the evening with his family.  About 5:30 this morning Mrs. Anderson heard him call for assistance.  He was almost unconscious when she reached his bedside, and he died in a few minutes."

Anderson's funeral was too large to hold in the house.  It was held in the Church of the Transfiguration on February 27.  Within the church were judges, politicians, and military figures.  The New-York Tribune reported that his estate "would probably be found to be nearly $1,000,000."  (That figure would translate to about $36.8 million today.) 

Peter Chauncey Anderson and his family remained in the house until 1912, when it and the neighborhood mansions were demolished to make way for the Lord & Taylor department store building, completed in 1914.

photograph by Jim Henderson

The Lost Rebecca Mason Jones Mansion - 705 Fifth Avenue

 

from the collection of the New York Public Library

John Mason began his career as a dry goods merchant and branched into banking and railroads.  (He was the second president of the Chemical Bank and a founder of New York City's first railroad, the New York & Harlem.)  In 1825, he purchased several acres of rocky terrain north of the city in what would become Midtown Manhattan.  Three of Mason's daughters married into the socially prominent Jones family.  Mary, the eldest, married Isaac Jones; Rebecca married his cousin, Isaac Colford Jones; and Serena married George Jones.

Mason died in 1839 but his will was tied up in court for 15 years.  Heirs, including Mary Mason Jones, charged that as he was dying, unscrupulous relatives (including Rebecca and her husband) propped him into a sitting position, tied him between a chair in the back and a board in front to keep him from slumping over and forced his signature.  Finally, in 1854, the case was settled and the midtown property divvied up.  Mary Mason Jones received the vacant land between Fifth to Park Avenue and 57th to 58th Streets.  Rebecca inherited a like amount--Fifth to Park Avenue between 55th and 56th Streets.

Both women were widows.  In 1867, Mary Mason Jones commissioned Robert Mook to design a striking row of marble-faced mansions on Fifth Avenue between 57th and 58th Streets, anchored by her own home at 1 East 57th Street.  Rebecca Jones followed suit, hiring architect Detlef Lienau in 1869 to fill the blockfront from 55th to 56th Streets with resplendent Second Empire-style mansions. 

Lienau had come to New York from Paris in 1848.  Called by the Columbia Spectator decades later in 1936 as "the first architect with Paris training to practice in the United States after Colonial times" and a "leading architect of the period," he was instrumental in introducing the Second Empire style to America.  By now, he had designed the mansions of millionaires like Hart M. Shiff at 32 Fifth Avenue, William C. Schermerhorn at 49 West 23rd Street, and John Jacob Astor III at 338 Fifth Avenue.

 

Lienau designed the eight, five-story mansions in an A-B-A-B-B-A-B-A configuration, the mansards of the A models rising slightly higher than those of the others.  Unlike Mary Mason Jones's marble row, Lienau faced these with "Ohio stone," a type of sandstone.  The 1881 New York Illustrated said that, rather than the ubiquitous brownstone in New York City, this gave the homes "the happy union of lightness with the ideal of mass and dignity."  It said the mansions had a "genial, homelike aspect."

(Interestingly, Rebecca's niece, author Edith Jones Wharton, did not agree.  In an article in Harper's Weekly in 1938, she called the row, "a block of pale greenish limestone houses (almost uglier than the brownstone ones)."

Rebecca Colford Jones initially lived in 705 Fifth Avenue, at the far right.  from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York.

Like her sister had done, Rebecca retained the southernmost mansion, 705 Fifth Avenue, for herself.  Her country homes were in Saratoga, New York and Newport, Rhode Island.  Rebecca retained possession of the entire row, reserving two of the homes for the use of her children, Helen and Lewis Colford.  Helen and her husband, Woodbury Langdon, moved into the mansion at the far end of the block; and Lewis and his wife Catharine, moved into No. 707. 

Rebecca's townhouse was the scene of the dowager socialite's polite entertainments.  In 1873, for instance, The Daily Graphic reported on her "rose-bud party."  (The term "rose-bud" referred to debutantes.)  The young women would meet "a select company of gentlemen," and each would receive a bunch of rosebuds.

In 1880, The New York Sun described the entertainments within Rebecca's home, saying that "many luxuries and delicacies, as well as many European forms of entertainment, were introduced which had been unknown to the thrift and simplicity of our grandfathers."

Rebecca Mason Jones died in 1879.  On February 15, the New-York Tribune reported that she left Helen Langdon "the east side of Fifth-ave., from Fifth-fifth to Fifth-sixth-sts."  Rebecca had been concerned that her heirs would break up the handsome row.  She wrote in her will:

It has long been a favorite idea with me that this property should be kept together, both because it was so derived by me from my father, and because it is my judgment that is can be more advantageously improved for future uses if held entire than if I were to divide it by my will.

Sydney Colford Jones was Rebecca's grandson, the only son of Lewis Colford Jones and Catherine Berryman.  Soon after his grandmother's death, the 26-year-old applied to the courts to change his name to Sydney Jones Colford.  On May 27, 1879, the New-York Tribune explained, "the reasons for the change assigned by the applicant...were that the surname Jones was too common to properly distinguish any one hearing it."

These interior shots do not identify the particular mansion within the row.  from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York.

While his widowed mother remained at 707 Fifth Avenue, Sidney and his wife, the former Laura Chartrand, moved into No. 705.  In the spring of 1881, The New York Times reported the heart-wrenching story of "Madani, the poor Arab in the New-York Hospital."  The article initiated donations from New Yorkers.  On May 11, the newspaper reported that a donor who signed his name "a New-Yorker" had sent in $2, and "Lately, a lady, who had also read in The Times about the poor refugee, left him $15."  The article continued, "Mr. Sidney [sic] C. Colford, of No. 705 Fifth-avenue, told the hospital authorities that if there was not a sufficient amount of money contributed for paying Madani's passage home he would make up the balance out of his own pocket."

As early as 1887, Margaret A. Oliver was operating 705 Fifth Avenue as an exclusive boarding house.  Also living in the mansion were her son, William B. Oliver, Jr. and his wife, the youngest daughter of multi-millionaire John W. Masury.  The upscale operation was reflected in her testimony in 1889 when she said:

About the 1st of May 1 [1888] I let [rooms] to Prof. Rees...In the family of Prof. Rees were a gentleman, wife, two children, and maid, five persons.  Prof. Rees paid $45 a week for the whole family.

The weekly board would equal $1,530 in 2026. When asked how she would describe her board (i.e, the food she supplied her guests) she replied, "First class.  Better than a hotel, there is nothing better than I would buy.  Yes, it was as good as a first class hotel board, yes."

Among Mrs. Oliver's boarders in 1887 was Rev. Sullivan H. Weston.  The unmarried cleric was born in Bristol, Maine on October 7, 1816 and had been assistant rector of St. John's Chapel since 1852.  In 1886 he developed a tumor, but only his physician was aware of it.  On the morning of October 3, 1887, "he arose before breakfast, left the house at 705 Fifth-avenue, where he was boarding," reported The New York Times, "and went to a private hospital."  That afternoon, he underwent an operation.  The surgery seemed to have been successful and The Sun reported, "He sent word daily to his boarding house at 705 Fifth avenue of his progress toward recovery."

But then, on October 15, the newspaper reported, "Last Tuesday, however, lockjaw set in, with fatal results."  The Sun commented that his friends "were shocked by the news of his death."  Extensive obituaries of the esteemed cleric were published in numerous newspapers.

Helen Jones Langdon died in 1895 and the Fifth Avenue block was inherited by her son, Woodbury Gersdorf Langdon.  On November 24, 1896, The New York Times reported that he was doing $4,000 worth of "alterations" to 705 Fifth Avenue.  He leased his grandmother's former mansion to railroad mogul Edward H. Harriman and his family.  Born in 1848, Harriman married Mary Williamson Averell in 1879 and they had six children (including William Averell Harriman who would become Secretary of Commerce under President Harry S. Truman, Governor of New York, U.S. Ambassador to the Soviet Union and to Britain.)  The family's country estate, Arden, was near Tuxedo, New York.

On March 19, 1910, The New York Times reported a shocking development.  "The Woodbury G. Langdon house, No. 705 Fifth avenue, was leased...to Eugene Glaenzer & Co., art dealers.  That was the first business invasion of this part of Fifth avenue."  

 

The Evening Post, November 29, 1910 (copyright expired)

In remodeling the mansion for commercial purposes, Langdon created a charming outdoor area with a fountain in his grandmother's rear yard for Glaenzer & Co.

The Air-Scout, January 1911 (copyright expired)

Langdon continued to garner upscale tenants for the property.  In 1912, Bagues Freres Co., a decorative ironwork designer and manufacturer, moved in.

Architecture & Building, November 1912, (copyright expired)

In what most likely would have troubled Rebecca Jones, on December 5, 1912, The New York Times reported that Woodbury G. Langdon had recently erected an apartment house "on the Fifth-sixth Street portion of the block."  Now, said the article, he had sold the entire blockfront to the Number 705 Fifth Avenue Corporation.  (What it did not mention was that Langdon was its president.)

This photograph around 1912 shows Langdon's new buildings on the northern part of the block.  Only a sign for Eugene Glaezner & Co. discreetly placed on the 55th Street side of the Jones house hints that it is no longer a private mansion.  photograph by George P. Hall, from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York.

The Rebecca Mason Jones mansion remained, relatively intact, until it and the houses at 707 through 711 Fifth Avenue were demolished for the National Broadcasting Company Building, which survives.

photograph by the author

The 1927 National Broadcasting Co Bldg - 711 Fifth Avenue

 

In 1918, architect Floyd Brown branched into real estate development, founding the Bethlehem Engineering Company.  In 1925 he acquired the five five-story mansions at the northeast corner of Fifth Avenue and 55th Street as a site for a 15-story commercial building.

When this photograph was taken in June 1925, the end of the line for these handsome mansions was near.  from the collection of the New York Public Library

Construction began in 1926 and as the structure rose on December 8, 1926, The New York Times reported that it "will be known as the National Broadcasting Company Building, as a result of negotiations recently completed."  Saying it would "house the greatest broadcasting plant in the United States," the article explained that the National Broadcasting Company would occupy the 14th and 15th floors.

Construction was completed on October 1, 1927.  Faced in limestone, the tripartite Renaissance Revival design included classical elements, like the two Fifth Avenue entrances below triangular pediments carved with wriggling serpents, and double-height engaged Corinthian columns and pilasters at the second and third floors that separated imposing arched openings.

The entrances within classical Roman-style enframements announce "National Broadcasting Bldg" under the fearsome looking serpents within the pediment.  1928 image by Wurts Bros., from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York

The ground and second floors held stores and a bank.  The Chatham-Phenix Bank engulfed most of the second floor (which had a ceiling height of  22 feet); the Knox Hat Co. leased the store between the two Fifth Avenue entrances "and half of the second floor," according to Men's Wear on May 11, 1927; a Samuel Rugof drugstore moved into the 3,000-square-foot corner space; and the hosiery firm Peck & Peck leased the northern store.  (The wife of Mayor James J. Walker officially opened the Peck & Peck store on November 14, 1927.)

The National Broadcasting Company hired architect Raymond Hood to design their studios and offices.  In April 1927, The New York Times reported that he was designing studios in themes--one based on a Gothic church, another on the Roman Forum, a Louis XIV space, and one studio devoted to jazz.  The article called the latter, "wildly futuristic, with plenty of color in bizarre designs."  Buildings and Building Management said that Hood, "set out to give the rooms an atmosphere in keeping with the spirit of radio...The decorations are simple rather than ornate, and not at all fantastic.  The note of modernity was achieved mainly by the effective use of color."

A National Broadcasting Co. reception room (above) and a studio. Proceedings of The Institute of Radio Engineers, May 1929 (copyright expired)

The Fifth Avenue Association annually honored "the best new and altered buildings constructed during the past year," as described by The New York Times on February 12, 1928.  Bethlehem Engineering Corporation was awarded second prize "for new buildings" as builder and architect.  The committee noted, "The design shows originality in composition, but the details and architectural treatments throughout are copies of pure classical examples, together with a small amount of the Pompeian in the bronze storefront."

Banners in 1928 announce that the Chatham-Phenix National Bank would be occupying the ground floor.  from the collection of the New York Public Library

The National Broadcasting Company aired two stations from the building, WEAF and WJZ.  By the time it moved in, the firm was leasing four floors.  Buildings and Building Management explained on April 9, 1928 that the 13th and 14th floors held the eight studios, while offices occupied the 11th and 12th.

The building's other tenants were almost entirely millinery firms, according to The New York Times on August 22, 1928.

The listeners of National Broadcasting Company shows who gathered around their living room radios could only imagine the scenes in the studios.  The live audiences saw "announcers in dinner jackets and prima donnas in red velvet gowns," as described by The New York Times on November 3, 1928.  

At least two exceptions to that type of entertainment occurred that fall.  On October 4, 1928 the National Broadcasting Company aired the first game of the World Series.  The New York Times reported, "Faraway localities heard the account of the game as a result of a hook-up of more than fifty stations which extended from Maine to California and Georgia to Washington."  And the following month, on November 3, a studio was converted to a newsroom as the results of the Presidential election came in by wire and were updated to listeners around the country.

The following year, the National Broadcasting Company landed three important contracts.  Singer Rudy Vallee and his band, the Connecticut Yankees, signed an agreement; on May 6, John Philip Sousa, "band leader and composer, who has refused until now to appear before a microphone," according to The New York Times, began a series of weekly concerts; and in December, the Metropolitan Opera Company signed an agreement to present the first ever grand opera broadcast, Aida.

On April 18, 1939, the Associated American Artists opened their "sumptuous galleries," as described by The New York Times, with an exhibition of Thomas Hart Benton.  Three months later, the women's accessory store Lederer de Paris, Inc. opened in one of the retail spaces.

Views of the elegant American Artists galleries in 1939.  Photograph by F. S. Lincoln, from the collection of the New York Public Library

In 1941, Le Pavillon opened, with its entrance at 5 East 55th Street.  The exclusive restaurant was the target of a frightening and well planned robbery six years later on March 15, 1947.  At 7:00 that night, a man entered the building on Fifth Avenue.  He stepped into an elevator and told the 19-year-old operator, Arthur Carter, to obey his commands.  He was acutely aware of details about the building and even Carter.  "Remember, you have a wife and baby," he said, brandishing the firearm.  

The gunman apparently knew that the restaurant's cashier would soon be taking the afternoon's receipts to the office.  When Marie Jacqueline Casanova entered the elevator, the thug ordered Carter to ascend to the deserted seventh floor.  Here he took the restaurant's $1,500 receipts and Marie Casanova's handbag.  "Then he walked downstairs and disappeared," reported The New York Times.

While Le Pavillon hosted celebrated and wealthy patrons over the years, one party stood out in 1953.  On November 12, The New York Times reported that President Harry Truman, the First Lady, and their daughter, Margaret (with her escort, Robert Diendorfer), dined here before attending The Tea House of the August Moon at the Martin Beck Theatre.

In March, 1955, the Columbia Pictures Corporation acquired 711 Fifth Avenue "for its own use and occupancy," according to The Times.  The article said that as tenants' leases expired, Columbia would take over those spaces.  The firm's planned $3 million renovations would entail, "new elevators, air conditioning, recessed lighting from soundproofed ceilings, and modern plumbing, lavatory and electrical installations," said the article.

In October 1958, Henri Soulé took over the Le Pavillon space for his La Côte Basque.  The redecorating included murals by Bernard Lamotte.  Like Le Pavillon, it became a center of high-society luncheons and dinners.

Included in Columbia Pictures Corporation spaces was a screening room--in effect a small motion picture theater.  Films were screened here to invited audiences prior to their releases.  On December 13, 1967, for instance, The New York Times reported, "Truman Capote invited about 85 of his friends to a private viewing of 'In Cold Blood' last night in a screening room at the Fifth Avenue offices of Columbia Pictures."  Private screening or not, it was a glamorous affair.  "Women in short dresses, many of them wearing mink coats, and men in dark suits emerged regally from limousines and taxis," said the article.  Among them were Princess Lee Radziwill, Patricia Kennedy Lawford, Leonard Bernstein, Bennett Cerf, the William S. Paleys and Katherine Graham.

The building was sold in 1978, and in 1983 the Coca-Cola Company purchased the leasehold.  The New York Times explained on July 27, "Columbia Pictures, a major tenant in the midtown Manhattan building, is a subsidiary of the Coca-Cola Company."  The Coca-Cola Company installed its New York headquarters in the building.

The once-staid Fifth Avenue neighborhood became less so when Coca-Cola Fifth Avenue, a retail merchandise store, opened in November 1991.  The 500 different items ranged in price from 75 cents to $6,000 for a neon sign.  And then, three years later in December 1994, the Walt Disney Company rented 30,000 square feet for its Disney Store, displacing the elegant La Côte Basque restaurant in doing so.

But Fifth Avenue was not totally ready to accept change.  On October 6, 1996, The New York Times Anthony Ramirez reported, 

On Fifth Avenue, you can have 28 American flags snapping smartly over the front of Saks Fifth Avenue.  Or you can have four elegant white awnings shading Cartier.  Or you can have Atlas holding up a giant clock over the entrance to Tiffany's.  But you can't have man-size brass moldings of Mickey Mouse, Minnie Mouse and Pluto the dog jutting out a good six feet over the front door of the Disney Store.

Brendan Sexton, president of the Municipal Art Society, commented, "I love 42nd Street, but it shouldn't be on Fifth Avenue."

In September 2019, SHVO acquired 711 Fifth Avenue and commissioned architect Peter Marino to remodel the interiors.  The exterior, which does not have landmark protection, was preserved intact, and is essentially unchanged since the building opened in 1927.

photographs by the author