Mills & Bottomley's 1920 1049 Park Avenue

 

photograph by Deansfa

J. Lang Mills and W. L. Bottomley worked as Mills & Bottomley in 1919 when they received the commission to design a 13-story apartment building on Park Avenue near the southeast corner of 87th Street from Katharine Abbot, head of the Abbotsford Realty Corporation.  Faced in brown brick and trimmed in stone and terra cotta, 1049 Park Avenue was completed in 1921 at a cost of $350,000 (about $6.5 million in 2026).

The tripartite, neo-Renaissance design included a three-story base, the lower two floors of which were enhanced with decorated quoins.  The centered entrance was flanked by double-height fluted Corinthian pilasters.  Above the doorway was an entablature with intricate Renaissance decorations and a window fronted by a faux balcony.  The pilasters rose to a broken pediment from which emerged a window topped with yet another broken pediment.  Portrait keystones enhanced each of the third floor openings.

While the architects left the seven-story midsection essentially unadorned, they gave the top section exuberant decoration.  Between the openings of the 11th and 12th floors were double-height, terra cotta cartouches filled with dangling garlands.  Smaller examples decorated the top floor above a terra cotta intermediate cornice.  A decorative parapet above the cornice was interrupted by paneled blocks that sprouted towering finials.

In 1922, a private house survived on the south side of 1049 Park Avenue.  photograph by John Wallace Gillier, from the collection of the New York Public Library.

The American Institute of Architects presented Katharine H. Abbot the gold medal for apartment house buildings completed in 1921.  It praised Mills and Bottomley "for the originality of its design, the pleasing proportions, the clever use of materials, and the domestic feeling of the building."

There were three apartments per floor--four, six or seven rooms each with two or three baths.  The penthouse apartment had nine rooms.  Rents ranged from $3,000 to $6,000 per year, or about $9,500 per month for the most expensive.

On Christmas night 1921, the Robert L. Huntzinger family was away from the city.  Their servants, according to the New York Herald, were "at a party."  With the apartment temporarily unguarded, burglars moved in.  The New York Herald reported, "Several thousand dollars' worth of silver and jewelry was reported taken."  Police surmised that the thief was "some one familiar with the premises and habits of the tenants."

Among the Huntzingers' neighbors in the building was the socially prestigious Caroline Suydam Whitney Fellowes, the widow of Colonel Cornelius Fellows.  As the daughter of Henry Whitney, the New York Herald remarked that she "was a member of one of the oldest New York and New England families" and was related to the Livingstons and Kernochans.  Caroline Fellowes's health began to decline in 1922 and she died on September 22, "in her seventieth year of infirmities from which she had suffered for months," as reported by the New York Herald.  

A young Caroline Suydam Whitney Fellowes, from a family album.

Canada-born siblings Florence Mary Lynch and W. F. Lynch were initial residents.  Florence was educated in Ottawa and at the Villa Marie Convent in Montreal.  W. F. Lynch was with the Cuba Railway Company and "was for some years secretary to Sir William Van Horne, predecessor of Baron Shaughnessy as president of the Canadian Pacific Railway," according to the New York Herald.

It was possibly through her brother's involvement in the railroads that Florence met D. C. Coleman, who lived in Winnipeg.  The 43-year-old was vice-president of the Canadian Pacific Railway's western lines.  The couple was married in St. Ignatius Loyola Church on October 28, 1922.  The New York Herald reported, "A small reception will follow at the home of Miss Lynch and her brother."

On April 9, 1924, the New York Evening Post reported that Barry Doyle, "the illustrious cousin and adopted brother of the originator of the famous Sherlock Holmes, was the guest of honor at a reception "at the home of Mr. and Mrs. Stuart Pullman West."  The article said the reception was being held "in the interest of the fund being raised for the relief of the starving children of the Near East."

Born in Providence, Rhode Island on December 18, 1876.  Stuart Pullman West was the nephew of George M. Pullman, the founder of the Pullman Company.  He graduated from Harvard in 1897 and was was the financial editor of The Evening World and contributor to the Wall Street Journal.  He and Eliza Von Bretton Di Zerega were married in January 1902 and they had one son and one daughter.  The couple's movements were followed by the society columns and on June 12, 1924, the Chicago Daily Tribune remarked, "Mr. and Mrs. Stuart Pullman West of 1049 Park avenue will pass the early summer at Whiteface Inn, Lake Placid."

Eliza West died on December 11, 1925 at the age of 46.  Before long, Stuart began a romantic relationship with Loren Oldham Crenshaw, described by The Yonkers Statesman as "a prominent society woman."  But tragedy interrupted their courtship.  Stuart Pullman West was diagnosed with tuberculosis early in 1927.  The Arrow of Pi Beta Phi explained that his illness was not discovered before it "was critical."   

photograph by Wurts Bros. from the collection of the New York Public Library

On February 19, 1927, The Yonkers Statesman reported, "Romance dared to defy death two weeks ago."  The article said that Loren Crenshaw went to Stuart's bedside where they were married by a municipal court justice.  It continued, "Yesterday death won, when West's game fight against the ravages of tuberculosis proved unavailing."

Stuart Pullman West left an estate equal to $5.56 million today.  On March 1, 1927, The New York Times reported that his will "made no provision for his wife, Mrs. Loren Oldham Crenshaw West, whom he married a week before he died."  A reporter called on Loren West in her 1049 Park Avenue apartment.  She explained, "The will was made before I met Mr. West and I knew all about it.  Its provisions were not in any way a surprise."

In the meantime, H. Ivan Stengel and his wife, Marguerite, occupied a sixth-floor apartment.  Stengel was an engineer with the Cadillac Automotive Company.  He was, as well, the president of the Automobile Merchants' Association.  Their country home was in Larchmont, New York.

On the morning of April 8, 1924, the couple had a "shopping engagement."  Marguerite returned to 1049 Park Avenue around 11:00.  Hoping to summon a servant to help with her packages, she rang the apartment's bell from the lobby, but got no response.  The New York Times reported, "on alighting from the elevator again, [she] again rang to save herself the trouble of getting her keys from her bag."  Again she got no response.  Assuming that her maid, Louise, and her cook, Mary, were "in the rear of the deep apartment," she let herself in.

As she passed through the foyer, she could see a diagonal view into her bedroom through the half-opened door.  Marguerite later explained that she was frozen in fear seeing a man going through her dresser drawers.  "He had extracted a jewel case Mrs. Stengel kept there and before her eyes he proceeded to take from it two strands of pearls, one valued at $14,000 and the other at $10,000," said The New York Times. 

After approximately a minute, Marguerite uttered a sound and the burglar "glanced up sharply to catch her reflection in a mirror across the room."  He drew a revolver and Marguerite fled down the stairway all the way to the lobby.  The superintendent blew a police whistle and "mustering a posse of house attendants," headed upstairs.  The New York Times reported that they found "the servants, locked, terror-stricken, in a small room adjoining the bedroom."  The burglar had gotten away with jewelry valued at the equivalent of $940,000 today.

Marguerite described the thief as being "stumpy" and wearing a red wig.  The New York Times reported, "A red wig and a cap found on a rear fire escape marked his trail."

Four months later, on August 18, Louis Hernandez Campos (called the "red wig robber" by newspapers) was arrested in Washington D.C.  Campos had attempted to pawn one of the valuable pearl necklaces.  The New York Times reported, "In a canvas belt around his waist were jewels valued at $60,000."

The Stengels were at their Larchmont home at the time.  The following day, detectives arrived there and arrested their maid, Louise Provnka (who had been tied, gagged and imprisoned with the cook during the robbery).  In questioning Campos, they had discovered that Louise was his wife.  The New York Times reported, "the maid admitted she was the wife of Campos and had planned the robbery with him."

Helen Churchill Hungerford Candee lived here at the time.  Born in October 1858, she had divorced her abusive husband, Edward Candee in 1896.  An early feminist, her first book, How Women May Earn a Living, published in 1900 was a best-seller.  She went on to be a journalist, author, interior decorator, and geographer.  She was a close friend of Theodore and Edith Roosevelt.  Her personal account of surviving the RMS Titanic, Down To the Sea in Ships, would be published by her granddaughter years later.

Helen Churchill Candee, (original source unknown)

Helen eventually wrote eight books, traveled throughout the world, and even consulted with the Roosevelts in the remodeling of the White House's West Wing in 1909.  The remarkable author and lecturer died in York Harbor, Maine at the age of 90 on August 23, 1949.

The building continued to be home to well-heeled residents.  In August 1941, assistant publicity director of R. H. Macy & Co. John Goodwillie leased "a large penthouse apartment," as described by The New York Times.  Living here at the time was Oscar Gavrilovich, the Yugoslav Consul General.  His brother, Otto Gavrilovich, was Secretary of the Treasury of Yugoslavia.

In 1947 Josip Broz Tito created a new Yugoslavian Communist Government.  The Gavrilovich brothers found themselves in a difficult position.  On October 15, The New York Times reported that Oscar "is about to become a press agent" and that he would soon open a "diplomatic public relations office."  Otto, mentioned the article, "last month opened a retail women's apparel shop here."

Following World War II, Captain Stephen Booth McKinney and his wife, Sarah, moved into 1049 Park Avenue.  McKinney graduated from the United States Naval Academy in 1903 and had been Chief of Staff of the Third Naval District during World War II.  He commanded the battleship Idaho from August 1939 to February 1941.  He was retired in 1946 "for medical reasons," according to The New York Times.  Now he was an executive in the law department of the National Association of Credit Men.

On October 9, 1953, McKinney was placed under the care of a heart specialist.  Three days later the 68-year-old plunged from the couple's apartment window.  The New York Times reported, "His pajama-clad body landed in a rear yard."

In 1960, 1049 Park Avenue underwent a cooperative conversion.  Among the residents at the time included Claudius D. Duncan, vice president of the Chemical Bank New York Trust Company and his wife, the former Mary Martin.  Claudius died of a heart ailment on September 1, 1961.  Three years later, on November 29, 1964, Mary announced the engagement of their daughter, Mary Martin Duncan, to Charles Francis Clement 3d.  In reporting the announcement, The New York Times remarked that Mary graduated from the Chapin School and was presented to society at the Grosvenor Ball in 1961.

The entrance of 1049 Park Avenue became familiar to television viewers nationwide starting in 1970.  The opening scene of every episode of The Odd Couple depicted Oscar (Jack Klugman) and Felix (Tony Randall) emerging from the building--Oscar throwing his cigar butt to the sidewalk and Felix picking it up with the point of his umbrella.

image via cityrealty.com

At some point the crowning parapet and its remarkable finials were removed from the building.  And unsympathetic masonry repairs have resulted in a patchwork of brick colors.  But, overall, 1049 Park Avenue survives highly intact.

John Sloan's 1924 898 Park Avenue

 

photo by Jim Henderson

In 1923, two years after Henry Mandel hired architect John Sloan to design his Pershing Square Building at Park Avenue and 42nd Street, he commissioned Sloan for a much different project--an ultra-exclusive apartment building at the southwest corner of Park Avenue and 79th Street.  The posh tenor of the neighborhood was reflected in the price Mandel paid for the corner.  The $207,500 would translate to $3.8 million in 2026.

Although Adolph E. Nast was listed as assistant architect, it is Sloan who routinely gets credit for the design.  Drawing inspiration from what The New York Times described as "the pre-Renaissance style of Northern Italy," Sloan's tripartite was sprinkled with arched corbel tables above the first, fourth, twelfth floors, and fourteenth floors, and a stately arcade above the entrance.  His choice of variegated beige, black and brown brick prompted The American Architect to say he used it "in the same way the artist painter mixes his colors."  The roof was paved in red tile and an arcaded penthouse.

Completed in October 1924, the the 14-story building held only six cooperative apartments on the upper floors (there was a simplex and a doctor's suite on the ground floor).  An advertisement called them, "8 exclusive apartments at Park Avenue's most exclusive corner."  Each of the other apartments were duplexes--each comprising two full floors, "with a private stairway of travertine stone and wrought iron balustrade, leading from the living room floor to the bedroom suite on the upper floor," explained The New York Times on October 6, 1924.

Among the initial buyers were George Winfield Fairchild, Allerton Seward Cushman, and Charles X. Cordier.  

Born in Oneonta, New York on May 6, 1854, Fairchild had served as a U.S. Representative from 1907 to 1919.  He had been, as well, the vice president of the 1919 International Peace Conference.  Before his political career, he owned the Oneonta Herald Publishing Co. and president of the Computing-Tabulating-Recording Company.

Fairchild married Josephine Mills Sherman in 1891 and they had one child, Sherman Mills Fairchild.  He purchased his 13th-and-14th floor apartment in May 1924, five months after his Josephine died.  

George Winthrop Fairchild, from the collection of the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress.

Fairchild was still president of the Computing-Tabulating-Recording Company when he left Congress, and was its chairman in February 1924 when the firm was renamed IBM.

George Winthrop Fairchild would not enjoy his sprawling apartment for long.  On December 31, 1924, newspapers throughout the country reported that he had died "of acute heart trouble."

Like Fairchild, Allerton Seward Cushman was a recent widower.  Born in the American Consulate at Rome in 1867, he earned his M. A. and Ph.D. in chemistry at Harvard in 1896 and 1897.  In 1910 he founded the Institute of Industrial Research in Washington D.C.   Cushman's wife, the former Sarah Hoppin, died in 1921.  They had one son, Charles Van Brunt Cushman.

Three years later, he relocated to New York City as a consulting chemist, and purchased the fifth-and-sixth-floor apartment.  He married Katherine McCausland Inglis-Jones in 1926.  

Allerton Seward Cushman and his second wife, Katherine Inglis-Jones.  (original sources unknown)

Katherine (known familiarly as Kay) was in Europe on April 30, 1930 when Allerton underwent an operation at the Park East Hospital.  The 62-year-old died there two days later.

Charles Xavier Cordier and his wife, the former Suzanne Sanford, took the second-and-third-floor apartment in May 1925.  Both were born in 1875 and had a daughter, Marjorie Case.  The family maintained a country estate, The Four Ways, in Sharon, Connecticut.  

The Cordiers announced Marjorie's engagement to William Holland Lawrence Shears on December 22, 1926.  Four months earlier, another family in the building, the Haley Fiskes, had announced their daughter's engagement.

An attorney, Haley Fiske was born on March 18, 1852.  He was a partner in the law firm Arnoux, Ritch & Woodford and since 1891 had been president of Metropolitan Life Insurance Company.  He and his first wife, Mary Garrettena Mulford, who died in 1886, had one daughter, Helen.  Fiske married Marione Cowles Cushman on April 27, 1887.  (The New York Times noted that she "is a descendant of Robert Cushman of Mayflower fame.")  They had five children and their youngest daughter, Margaret Lois, was still unmarried and lived with her parents.  The family's country home, Overcross, was in Bernardsville, New Jersey. 

Haley Fiske, Nation's Business, May 20, 1927 (copyright expired)

On August 15, 1926, The New York Times reported on Margaret Lois's engagement to Martin Edwin Walker 3d.  The article mentioned that the prospective bride "was presented to society several years ago."  The ceremony was held in the Church of St. Mary the Virgin on October 28 that year and the reception was held in the Fiske apartment.

Two years later, on March 19, 1928, The New York Times reported on Fiske's 76th birthday celebration, which was highlighted by "five children, seven grandchildren and a clean bill of health."  The Metropolitan Life Insurance Company's physicians had examined him a few days earlier and "gave up and admitted that they could find nothing wrong with him."  The article said that the Fiske apartment "looked like a florist shop, every room except the kitchen being filled with flowers, while hundreds of telegrams were received."

Ironically, one year later almost to the day, at around 12:30 on March 3, 1929 the Fiskes' chauffeur pulled up to the curb in front of 898 Park Avenue following church services at the Church of St. Mary the Virgin.  Before he could exit the automobile, Fiske died from an embolism of the heart, as reported by the newspaper.

(Eerily, according to Metropolitan Life Insurance Company employees, when someone entered Fiske's private office the following morning, the "large grandfather clock in Mr. Fiske's inner office, which had run steadily for twenty years, had stopped.")

The New York Times reported Fiske's estate at the equivalent of $15.6 million in 2026.  Marione inherited the apartment, Overcross and the bulk of her husband's fortune.  

Ery Euripides Kehaya and his wife, the former Grace Whittaker, were also initial residents.  Born in Ordou, Turkey on February 18, 1885, Kehaya was the son of a Greek Orthodox priest.  He grew up in the tobacco growing regions of Asia Minor and southern Europe.  He came to the United States in 1910 and founded the Standard Commercial Tobacco Company in 1912.

Grace Whittaker was born in Winston-Salem, North Carolina.  Her father, William A. Whittaker was a prominent tobacco merchant.  The couple was married in 1917 and they had one son, Ery W. 

Ery Euripides Kehaya (original source unknown)

Like their neighbors in the building, society columnists followed the Kehayas' movements.  On February 20, 1927, for instance, The New York Times reported:

Mr. and Mrs. Ery Kehaya and Ery Kehaya Jr. [sic] of 898 Park Avenue have gone to Whitehall, Palm Beach, for the remainder of the season.  In the Spring they will tour Europe.  In Greece they will visit President Condouriotis, who recently, through the Greek Minister...bestowed on Mr. Kehaya the highest decoration of the Greek Republic for his relief work and his services in the cause of education.

The Kehayas also routinely appeared in the society columns for their entertainments both here and at their Westchester home.

Dr. George David Stewart and his wife, the former Ida Robb, purchased the 13th-and-14th-floor apartment in May 1924.  Born in Nova Scotia in 1862, Stewart graduated from Bellevue Hospital Medical College in 1889.  He was president of the American College of Surgeons, of the New York Academy of Medicine, and headed the medical boards of St. Vincent's and Bellevue Hospitals.

This portrait of George D. Stewart was painted by H. Harris Brown.  from the Lillian & Clarence de la Chapelle Medical Archives

The couple had four daughters, the youngest of whom, Mary Leslie, was unmarried and lived with her parents.  The family's country home was in Great River, Long Island.

Although Mary Leslie would not be introduced to society until the winter season of 1930-31, her parents got ahead of the game a year earlier.  On November 6, 1929, The New York Times reported, "Dr. and Mrs. George David Stewart of 898 Park Avenue will give a dinner dance on Dec. 27 at the Central Park Casino for their daughter, Miss Mary Leslie Stewart."  

On February 27, 1933, Dr. Stewart became ill.  Eleven days later, he died in the Park Avenue apartment from uremic poisoning.  In reporting his death, The New York Times called him "one of the foremost surgeons in the United States."  The article recalled that on April 18, 1928, a bronze bust of him had been placed in the Carnegie lecture room of the Bellevue Hospital Medical Centre.

via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services

By 1934, the Hoyt Augustus Moores occupied an apartment here.  A native of Ellsworth, Maine, Moore graduated from Bowdoin College in 1895 and received his law degree from Harvard Law School in 1904.  He and his wife, Lora, had two children, Edward P. and Dorothy Parsons.  

Edward was the first to marry.  His marriage to Barbara Freeman took place in Mount Vernon, New York on June 13, 1934.  Dorothy was not far behind.  Her engagement to James Wilson Tower was announced in September 1937 during her senior year at Smith College.

The wedding would have to wait until Dorothy's graduation, but anticipatory celebrations took place before that.  On January 3, 1938, The New York Times reported that the Moores hosted a reception the previous day "for their daughter, Miss Dorothy Parsons Moore, and her fiancé."

Among the Moores' neighbors in the building were the Alanson Gibbs Fox family.  Fox was born in 1879 and his wife, Mary Cumming Humstone, was born in 1881.  The couple was married on September 29, 1923 and their son, Alvin Gibbs, was born in 1927.  The family's country home was Pittsfield, in Berkshire Hills, Massachusetts.

No. 898 Park Avenue was the only town home that Alvin Gibbs Fox ever knew.  He attended the Collegiate School of New York and graduated from Yale in 1950.  His engagement to Nancy Louis O'Connell was announced on June 28 that year.  

Alanson Gibbs Fox died on February 9, 1951 at the age of 71 and was buried in the Pittsfield Cemetery in Massachusetts.  

Unexpectedly, his father's death did not delay Alvin's wedding plans.  He and Nancy were married in Pittsfield, Massachusetts five months later, on July 28, 1951.

Perhaps the most socially prominent couple in the building at the time were I. Townsend Burden Jr. and his wife, the former Florence Sheedy.  The couple, who were married in 1911, had two sons, I. Townsend Burden III and Dennis Sheedy.  Burden was the corporation lawyer for the New York Transit Company and the president of the Burden Iron Company, founded by his grandfather, Henry Burden.  The family's Newport estate, Fairlawn, was formerly owned by Levi Morton.  

The Burdens' Newport mansion, Fairlawn, sits on Bellevue Avenue.  image via americanaristocracy.com

The family was at Fairlawn on August 10, 1949, when Florence died at the age of 61.  Almost immediately, I. Townsend Burden sold the estate. 

On July 16, 1953, Burden and his sister, Evelyn Bird Burden, arrived in Newport.  Three days later he suffered a heart attack and died on July 20 at the age of 77.

The second half of the century saw two entertainment figures in the building, conductor Richard Kaye Korn, here as early as 1956, and theatrical producer and director John Chapman Wilson.

Korn and his wife, the former Peggy Rosenbaum Lehman, had two daughters, Penelope Lehman and Wendy Lehman.  A graduate of Princeton University and the Yale Law School, Korn turned his back on law for a full-time musical career.  He studied conducting under Leon Barzin at the Juilliard School of Music and Serge Koussevitzky at Tanglewood.  He was assistant conductor of the National Orchestral Association and appeared as guest conductor throughout the United States and Europe.

In 1959, Korn founded the Orchestra of America, described by The New York Times as "one of the first orchestras designed to encourage the participation of minority-group musicians."  The Korns were still living here in 1981 when Richard died in the apartment from leukemia on April 27, 1981.

Born in 1899, John Chapman Wilson was a long-time associate of Noel Coward, acting as his business manager, director or producer.  His wife was the former Princess Natalie Paley, daughter of Grand Duke Paul of Russia.  Among the many Broadway hits he either directed or produced were Kiss Me Kate, Private Lives, Gentlemen Prefer Blondes and Blithe Spirit.

In 1970, James and Manuela Goren (both of whom were born in Italy) purchased the thirteenth-and-fourteenth-floor apartment and connected it to the penthouse by an elevator to create a triplex.  James was a partner in the investment bank and real estate development company Goren Brothers, and Manuela was a correspondent for Italian Vogue and L'Uomo Vogue.  The couple had two children.

Their resultant four-bedroom apartment included a 550-square-foot wrapped terrace, a library with the original 1924 paneling, and a living room ceiling, "brought over from a chateau in France," as reported by The New York Times.  Manuela described it as having, "all the advantages of a town house, and none of the disadvantages."  Thirty years after moving in, the Gorens placed the triplex on the market in 2010 for $15 million.

photograph by Deans Charbal

As it was in 1924, 898 Park Avenue is one of the most exclusive apartment buildings in New York City.

Schwartz & Gross's 1926 215 West 78th Street

 

When Leopold M. and Lina R. Whitehead moved into the high-stooped brownstone at 215 West 78th Street, their home was the height of domestic fashion.  It was one of ten high-stooped brownstones designed by Thom & Wilson in 1890.  By the post-World War I years, however, the vogue for apartment living had supplanted that of private homes.  In 1926, the Brevoort Estates, Inc. demolished four of the vintage homes--211 through 217 West 78th Street, and hired the architectural firm of Schwartz & Gross to design a nine-story apartment building on the site.  

Construction cost $300,000, or about $5.5 million in 2026 terms.  The architects designed the building in a 1920s take on Renaissance Revival.  A classic broken pediment with a cartouche and shield sat above the centered entrance within the rusticated limestone base.  The upper eight floors were clad with red brick and trimmed in stone and terra cotta.  Schwartz & Gross arranged them into two matching side-by-side sections--both flanked with full-height rounded bays.  Every other spandrel of the bays were ornamented with elaborate Renaissance-style decorations.  The architects forewent a cornice in favor of a brick parapet.

Canvas awnings at every window shielded heat and damaging sunlight.  The building replaced brownstones like those seen on either side.  via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services.

Potential renters could choose apartments of either four or five rooms.  An advertisement in The New York Times on November 14, 1926 was headlined "New Building" and touted, "Baths, glass enclosed showers, beautiful bay windows."  It noted there was a "special doctor's or dentist apartment with A-C and D-C current" available.

Among the early residents was bachelor William McCabe, also known as "Tough Willie."  He was described by The New York Evening Post as a "Broadway sport."  McCabe owned a stable of race horses and financed prize fighters.  Most importantly, however, he was a close associate of gangster Arnold Rothstein.  

On November 1, 1928, Willie McCabe and Arnold Rothstein joined other underworld figures in a "high spade" poker game.  Three days later, the game was still going on and Rothstein had lost $320,000.  Claiming the game was fixed, Rothstein refused to pay and was gunned down.  Willie McCabe suddenly disappeared.

The New York Evening Post reported on November 14, "McCabe has not been at his home, 215 West Seventy-eighth Street, since the shooting."  The article said, "McCabe, now sought by [District Attorney Jaob H.] Banton, is in Savannah, Ga., promoting dog races."

But then, The New York Times reported that McCabe had "dropped out of sight...only to bob up a week or so later with what District Attorney Banton said was an iron-clad alibi."

Willie McCabe continued to skirt law enforcement, but his gangland career ended on August 26, 1931.  The New York Times reported, "The underworld went about its robberies, its stabbings and its threats yesterday."  The article said that while McCabe had managed for years to be "unmolested by the police, [he] got into trouble with his own kind."  McCabe was fatally stabbed "in an early morning brawl in the 61 Club at 61 East Fifty-second Street."   

Details inspired by the Italian Renaissance decorate the facade.

Willie McCabe was assuredly well-acquainted with another resident, Herman Handler and his wife, Thelma.  Born in 1895, Handler was, like McCabe, a bookie.  In April 1935, while he was in Hamburg, Germany, he met Margie Lee, a "member of a group of acrobatic dancers," as described by The New York Times, while her troupe was touring.  Herman and the blonde dancer began an affair, although Margie would later insist she never knew he was married.

In July, Thelma found a photograph of Margie and the couple separated.  Thelma "insisted, however, that she and her husband remained friendly and kept in touch with each other by telephone," said The New York Times.  Herman moved into the Hotel Belvedere on West 48th Street.  Like Willie McCabe, he would run afoul of "his own kind."

Two months after leaving 215 West 78th Street, on September 12, 1935, The New York Times reported, "Herman Handler, 40 years old, a bookmaker...was found shot dead at 7 o'clock yesterday morning in his roadster."  Detectives said that evidence showed that Handler was shot in his car and "driven to the place as he was dying."

The family of David and Etta Simon, lived here in the early 1940s.  Born in 1902, he was an insurance broker.  The couple had two sons, Lewis and Robert, born in 1928 and 1932 respectively.  On December 8, 1941, the day after the attack on Pearl Harbor, America declared war on Japan.  It would make a significant impact on the Simons. 

On March 18, 1942, The New York Sun said that "everything was peaceful in the household of David Simon, 43...until a reporter arrived with the information that Simon's serial number was drawn fourth in the draft."  The article said that Robert and Lewis "started jumping about the living room, shouting, 'Daddy's in the army, Daddy's going to war.'"

Simon told the reporter he was ready to fight.  "I'd like to be with MacArthur."  And Etta was equally enthusiastic.  "They ought to take all the men," she said, adding, "I can go to work.  I was a stenographer before I was married and I could go back to that."

Another family in the building directly affected by the war was that of Eugene and Florence B. Moses.  The couple was married in 1914, and had two children, Eleanor, born in 1916, and Charles G., born in 1919.  Like David Simon, Charles was inducted into the army.  On September 2, 1943, the War Department issued the latest list of missing and wounded in action.  Among those injured in the "North African Area including Sicily" was Charles G. Moses.  (Happily, Charles returned to America safely, and on February 28, 1947, The New York Times reported that he and his wife, the former Peggy Levi, had welcomed a daughter.)

In 1957, singer Johnny Mathis released his second single to sell one million copies, "Chances Are," and later that year his "Wild is the Wind" was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Original Song.  Riding high on his success, the following year he purchased 215 West 78th Street.  It was, perhaps, his first real estate investment.  He later would tell a British reporter, "I've bought apartments in New York, and a post office in the Midwest."  Mathis owned 215 West 78th Street until April 1963.

Among the tenants at the time was Lucy Seckel Stark, the widow of surgeon and gynecologist Meyer M. Stark, and former wife of poet and novelist James Oppenheim.  Lucy graduated from Hunter College and Teachers College.  She began teaching English in 1925 and did not retire until 1955.

Freelance photojournalist Solomon Charles Tobach and his wife, Dr. Ethel Tobach, were residents by the 1960s.  The couple was married in 1947.

Ethel was born on November 7, 1921 in the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic and was brought to America as an infant.  She received her Ph.D. in comparative psychology from New York University in 1957.  By the time she and Solomon moved into 215 West 78th Street, she was affiliated with the American Museum of Natural History.  She co-founded the Animal Behavior Society in 1964 and in 1972 became vice president of the New York Academy of Sciences.

Solomon Tobach "specialized in taking pictures of news personalities," according to The New York Times.  He worked for The Associated Press, the Agence France Press, United Press International and The Medical Tribune.  Solomon suffered a fatal heart attack in their apartment at the age of 51 on February 19, 1969.  Ethel would survive to the age of 93, dying on August 14, 2015.

The building became a co-op in the 1970s.  It is essentially unchanged, sans the canvas awnings, since its opening in 1926.

photographs by the author

The 1889 Wickliffe - 226 West 78th Street

 

image via apartments.com

In 1899, builder W. G. Horgan acquired the two rowhouses at 226 and 228 West 78th Street.  He hired architect George F. Pelham to design a six-story apartment building on the site.  Pelham had learned his trade in the architectural office of his father, George Brown Pelham.  He opened his own office in 1890 and would focus on apartment buildings, hotels and commercial structures, drawing from a variety of historic styles.

For the six-story Wickliffe apartments, completed the following year, Pelham drew on Renaissance prototypes while giving it a decidedly 19th century flair.  He created three vertical parts by rounding and projecting the two-bay-wide end sections.  Verticality was softened by intermediate cornices at the second, third and sixth floors, and by decorating the turret-like bays with intricately carved bands at the fourth and fifth.  Classical Renaissance-style pediments crowned the center windows at the third and fourth floors.  The building wore an ornate bracketed cornice crowned with alternating stylized anthemions and fleurs-de-lis.  

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

An advertisement in The New York Times touted, "Elegant light, large 8-room apartments, all improvements, near Subway and all cars.  Rents $1,200 to $1,350."  The monthly rents would translate to $3,500 to $4,000 in 2026.

The tenants were, expectedly, professional.  Among the initial residents were Dr. James J. Phillips, a graduate of North Carolina University; and Prince and Princess Auersperg.  The Austrian Prince had recently relocated to New York City.  His wife was what newspapers called at the time, "a penny princess."

Earlier, The New York Times reported, "Miss Florence E. Hazard...created a sensation by her marriage on June 14, 1899, to Prince Francis Joseph von Auersperg," and the Morning Call said that when the engagement was announced, "much surprise was manifested on account of her youth.  She was then but sixteen years old."  Florence's father, Edward C. Hazard, was described by The New York Times as "the wealthy wholesale grocer."  

Florence Ellsworth Hazard was young, beautiful and wealthy when she met the prince.  from the collection of the Library of Congress

Prince Francis Joseph von Auersperg was 30 years old when he married Florence.  (original source unknown)

Prince Auersperg desperately needed a wealthy wife.  His title "dates back to Charlemagne," said the Paterson, New Jersey newspaper The Morning Call.  But, said the article, "Adventures in Vienna and in other European cities took much of the prince's money."  The New York Evening News was more direct saying, "the Prince came to America in 1896 having exhausted his patrimony and run half a million dollars in debt."  He entered the Long Island College Hospital to study medicine and it was shortly after that he met his future wife.

At the time of their marriage, the groom's older brother sent Florence "several rings, and a valuable diamond necklace," said The Morning Call, and her "father settled a fortune upon her."  But the titled newlyweds would not be living in the prince's homeland.  The newspaper explained, "in spite of her immense dowry, the princess would not be received by the Austrian nobility."  And so, they secured an apartment in the Wickliffe and, like Dr. Phillips, the prince opened a medical office.

The road for the titled couple was rocky nearly from the start.  On April 18, 1900, The New York Times reported that Princess Auersperg, "was robbed of jewels to the value of nearly $10,000 yesterday by an unknown man."  Those jewels included the wedding gifts from Florence's brother-in-law.  A workman was in the apartment because "all the electric bells in the house were out of order."  When Florence was called to the telephone, the workman grabbed her "heart-shaped silver box on the bureau" and left.

Less than a month later, on May 9, 1901, The New York Times reported that Prince Francis Auersperg had declared bankruptcy.  The article explained that his problems arose "out of a real estate transaction which took place in Austria, in which the Prince obtained possession and ownership of an old ancestral estate belonging to [Count Ernest and Countess Gabrielle Coreth] and never paid them for it."  The couple sued him for $40,000 (about $1.5 million today).  The New York Times said, "His visible assets he enumerated as twelve pairs of silk stockings."  Luckily, Edward Hazard had wisely put his wedding present into Florence's sole control.

Then, on March 30, 1903, The World titled an article, "Doctor Of Royal Birth Is Sued."  Prince Auersperg had borrowed $1,000 from Theodore Marburg in 1901 and failed to repay it.

The couple's relationship finally faltered following the death of Florence's father in 1905.  He left her a large inheritance and her husband insisted that she transfer it into his name.  Well aware of his financial history, Florence refused.  It resulted in her leaving him and moving into her mother's home in  Seabright, New Jersey.  She obtained a divorce in 1915 and married businessman John J. Murphy on May 1 that year.

In the meantime, The Wickliffe attracted several artistic residents.  Living here in 1903 was photographer Julius Ludovici.  He catered to well-heeled patrons and produced informal portraits with hand-colored tints.  He had a "photographic and crayon studio" on Fifth Avenue and, during the summer social season, a studio in Newport.

This charming portrait of a child--so unlike the stiff, posed images of most photographers--was typical of Ludovici's work.  from the Getty Museum Collection.

Also living here at the time were H. R. Humphries and Henry A. Ferguson.  Humphries advertised in the New-York Tribune on November 24, 1907 that he, "teaches singing, from rudiments of voice placing to artistic finishing for concerts, oratorio and church work, at his studio, No. 226 West 78th street."

Landscape artist Henry Augustus Ferguson, who lived here with his wife, Eleanor, and daughter, was born in Glen Falls, New York around 1842.  (The New York Times said, "his exact age was not known, as he never confided it even to his most intimate associates.)  He started painting in his teens and, according to The Times, "first gained recognition following a world tour in which he painted many pictures in Mexico, Italy, and Egypt."

This portrait of Henry August Ferguson may have been posed in his Wickliffe apartment.  via Seraphin Gallery.

In January 1911, he gave a private exhibition of American landscapes at the Century Association.  Two months later, on March 20, he became ill.  Pneumonia developed and he died in his apartment two days later.

A prominent resident at the time was author, artist and explorer Frederick Samuel Dellenbaugh.  Born in McConnelsville, Ohio on September 13, 1853, he began exploring as a youth and was part of the expedition that found the Escalante River, the last unknown river in the United States, and discovered the Henry Mountains.

Frederick Samuel Dellenbaugh, Touring Topics, November 1929 

In 1904 Dellenbaugh co-founded the Explorers Club.  While living here, in 1909 he was appointed librarian of the American Geographical Society.  Among his books are Breaking the Wilderness, published in 1905; the 1908 In the Amazon Jungle; and Fremont and '49, first published in 1913.

Dellenbaugh joined another expedition in 1923.  On November 11, The New York Times poetically reported, "The roaring, rapid-strewn reaches of the Colorado River, plunging down to the Gulf of California between the towering cliffs of the Grand Canyon, once more have been conquered."  Dellenbaugh was a member of the Geological Survey expedition headed by Colonel C. H. Birdseye.

Another writer living here by 1914 was journalist and author John Walker Harrington.  Born on July 8, 1868 in Plattsburgh, Missouri, he was on the staff of the New York Herald.  Among his works was the 1900 children's book The Jumping Kangaroo and the Apple Butter Cat. 

Illustrator Paul Goold returned to 226 West 78th Street and to his wife, the former Edith Chapman, after serving on the front in World War I.  He served as a captain with the First National Army and was celebrated with his comrades on October 16, 1918 as the members of the "Lost Battalion" of the Battle of Argonne.  Born in 1875, Goold began his career as an illustrator on the Portland [Maine] Sunday Press and Sunday Times after high school.  In 1899 he joined the art staff of The New York Times, leaving four years later to work as a magazine illustrator.  

Now back home, he opened a studio in Carnegie Hall.  He and Edith were still living in The Wickliffe on December 7, 1925 when he "jumped or fell from his studio on the twelfth floor of Carnegie Hall through a skylight into a hallway four floors below," as reported by The New York Times.  The article said, "The crash of the body plunging through the skylight aroused artists and musicians in near-by studios."  Goold had left a letter for Edith in the studio.  He was taken to Roosevelt Hospital with a fractured skull and died a few hours later.  Goold's private funeral was held in the apartment on December 10.

image via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services.

The press coverage of residents became less positive in the Depression years.  On November 28, 1931, for instance, Stephen A. Tillinghast and Joseph D. Kogan, presumably roommates, were arrested with 15 others as "a group of alleged racketeers who are said to have smuggled aliens into the United States," according to The New York Times.

Five years later, on May 14, 1936, 26-year-old dancer Margaret Rand was arrested for operating a "questionable 'studio'," as described by The New York Times.  Rand hired young women to provide "private dancing instructions."  Police highly suspected that dancing was not the only activity being practiced there.

In 1961, the once-proud apartment building was converted to a single-room-occupancy hotel.  Expectedly, not all of the residents were upstanding.  At 5:30 on the morning of October 5, 1968, two patrolmen saw smoke billowing out of an apartment window.  They rushed in and broke down the door of Antonio Cartagena who was semiconscious on the burning bed.  They extinguished the fire themselves, then discovered "three pistols, .22- and .25-caliber automatics and a .33-caliber revolver, on a night table next to the bed," reported The New York Times.  Cartagena was treated for smoke inhalation and then taken into custody.

image via apartments.com

A renovation completed in 1973 returned 226 West 78th Street to apartments, seven per floor.  Although nothing survives of George F. Pelham's 1899 interiors, the exterior survives remarkable intact.