The Neo-Georgian 1911 Goodridge Mansion -- 122 East 78th Street

Interior renovations started in 2010 continue in February 2016

The Grace Church wedding of Ethel Iselin and Frederic Grosvenor Goodridge on June 3, 1901 was a notable social event.  The bride had an impressive pedigree, a descendant of three Colonial period families—Morris, Gouverneur and Philipse.  Dr. Goodridge, who had just been graduated from the College of Physicians and Surgeons at Columbia University, belonged to a socially prominent family, as well.

The guests sat among a virtual forest of rose trees that filled the sides of the chancel and lined the nave from the altar a third of the way to the entrance doors.  A month later the newlyweds left on a world cruise.

Goodridge was a busy man.  Not only did he fill his schedule with his medical work, including writing and instructing, but he joined Commander Robert E. Peary on one of his early expeditions to Labrador. 

The couple would have four children, and in 1910 they planned an larger mansion to accommodate their family.  The Goodridges hired the architectural firm of Foster, Gade & Graham to design a double-wide residence on the site of two narrow brownstones at 122 and 124 East 78th Street.

Construction began in 1911 and was finished a  year later.  The resulting five-story neo-Georgian-style mansion of red brick and limestone was striking, mostly due to the three massive arched openings at the ground floor.  Georgian detailing like splayed lintels, carved panels and iron balconettes produced a refined and imposing structure.  Inside were nine master rooms, seven servants’ rooms, ten baths and an elevator.

By the time the family moved in, Frederic Goodridge had essentially retired from his hands-on medical practice.  He mentioned in the 1912 Fourth Report of Harvard College, “During the last three years I have been engaged in research work in physiological chemistry, and have recently been made an associate in that subject at the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Columbia University.”

Ethel Goodridge was well-known for her lavish entertainments, but the dinner parties and dances would become less carefree when the country entered World War I.  Frederic left East 78^th Street to see active duty as an officer of the 5^th Division, not returning until after the war.

With her husband away and social events in New York City subdued, Mrs. Goodridge withdrew with the children to their 5,000-acre country estate in Pomfret, Connecticut.   She leased the house, filled with Colonial silver and exquisite artworks, to Vincent Astor for the 1916 winter season.

From here Helen Astor continued her work toward social reform.  She hosted a series of “social welfare luncheons” in the home.   Manhattan's wealthiest socialites gathered to hear speakers discuss subjects such as immigration and nationalization, and unemployment.

Helen Astor’s luncheons were business affairs--a contrast to the polite social teas or receptions in many of New York's drawing rooms.  Discussions were encouraged, ideas aired and action committees organized.  Following the February 8 meeting concerning immigrants, The New York Times noted that education was of extreme importance to the group and “plans were discussed for forming a national council of all agencies concerned in the work of making American citizens.”

When Frederic Grosvenor Goodridge returned in 1919, having left the military with the rank of major, the house was put up for sale and the family left New York City for good.  Eleven years later, the retired doctor would be found in the woods two miles from his mansion in Connecticut, shot through the heart with his own hunting rifle.

Colonel De Lancey Kountze purchased 122 East 78^th Street.   Like the Goodridges, the colonel and his wife filled the mansion with American antiques, appropriate to the Georgian-style residence.  Among the items was a desk that once belonged to George Washington in Mount Vernon. 

A war veteran, Kountz entertained distinguished military figures in the home--none, perhaps, more prominent than Ferdinand Foch, Marshal of France and Allied Supreme Commander during World War I.  Twice during his 1921 visit to the United States Foch was the Kountzes' house guest.

On November 18 the New York Tribune noted, “When Marshal Foch arrives here at 11 a.m. he will be taken to the home of Mr. Kountze, at 122 East Seventy-eighth Street, where he will receive newspaper men.  He will also receive a delegation from the Salvation Army, headed by Commander Booth, and other organizations.”

Later, General Joseph Jacques Cesaire Joffre would be a house guest.  The general was most remembered for his defeat of the Germans at the First Battle of the Marne in 1914.

The Kountzes would remain at  122 East 78^th Street for five years.  They rented the house in 1923 and 1924 to Guy Cary, an attorney with the firm Sherman & Sterling, then sold it on February 1924.  At the time of the sale, The New York Times remarked, “The house is of the Colonial type, and is considered one of the finest houses in the Park Avenue section.”

The Winthrops erected No. 120, to the right, in 1930.  The striking recessed entrance was based on Thomas Jefferson's University of Virginia pavilions.

Stock Broker Henry Rogers Winthrop would own the residence for two decades.  But the Winthrops leased it for years after they completed their new home next door, at 120 East 78th Street.  Their final tenant was Mrs. Nathalia Collver, who leased it in 1944 for her exclusive and private Collver School.

Renovations, completed in January 1945, resulted in one classroom on the first floor, two on the second floor, and one apartment each on the top three floors.  Other than that of the Collver family, the apartments were, most likely, occupied by school staff.  The certificate of occupancy made special note, “No sleeping accommodation for pupils.”

The school would exist in the house only for two years.  On December 30, 1946, The New York Times announced that Henry Rogers Winthrop had sold the house to A. G. Rowes & Co.  The firm confirmed its plans to remodel the town house “into small apartments.”

The renovations were completed by 1948.  Doctors’ offices shared space with apartments on the first two floors, with four apartments each on the upper stories.  Department of Buildings records noted that the apartments were for the doctors.

In 2010, the ambitious project of restoring the Goodrich mansion to a single-family home was begun.  Still ongoing six years later, the striking house awaits its rebirth as the luxurious residence it was a century earlier.

photographs by the author

The 1932 John J. Sloane Mansion -- Nos. 48-50 East 92nd Street

photo by Alice Lum

In October 1930 John J. Sloane took title to two three-story Victorian brownstone houses at Nos. 48 and 50 East 92^nd Street.   Sloane was president of the W. &. J. Sloane company and a member of the socially prominent and extremely wealthy family that had amassed fortunes from the carpeting and decorating firm.   The family-owned company was among the foremost custom furniture makers, carpeting suppliers and interior design firms in the country.

The Sloanes lived ten blocks south at the time and joined other millionaires who were building restrained French and English mansions in the area.  Earlier that year Virginia Fair Vanderbilt had completed her grand limestone Louis XV-style mansion on East 93^rd Street, next door to the plot where William Goadby Loew was erecting his massive Regency-style home.

Like these, the Sloane mansion would be elegant and chaste—a distinct departure from the overly-ornamented confections of a generation earlier.  Architect James C. MacKenzie Jr. was commissioned to replace the two middle-class brownstones with a 40-foot wide residence worthy of London’s Mayfair district.

photo by Alice Lum

Completed in 1932, the five-story, plus penthouse, limestone-clad residence oozed cultivated taste.  Sitting aloofly behind a tall wrought iron fence on a marble wall, its architectural decoration was understated and refined.   Four stylized Corinthian pilasters defined the first floor which was accessed by a short flight of three marble steps.  The fifth floor, according to the Department of Buildings, was devoted to servants’ quarters.

In 1886, through funds donated by William D. Sloane and his wife, Emily Thorn Vanderbilt Sloane, the Sloane Maternity Hospital had been founded.  Childbirth in the 19^th century was a significant risk and infant mortality rates were high.  The Sloane family's tradition of combating the problem continued through Mrs. John Sloane.

President of the Maternity Center Association, which was founded in 1918 to reduce extreme maternal and infant mortality rates, Mrs. Sloane immediately opened the new house for her charity work.   One of these events she may have later regretted.

On the afternoon of January 22, 1933 she hosted a reception for the cast members of the play “Evensong” which would stage a performance for the benefit of the Association.    Among the guests was British actor Frederick Manthorp who lived in a furnished room at 265 West 81^st Street.  When Manthorp later attempted to extort $2000 from Mrs. Sloane by threatening to murder her, his plan failed miserably.  The intrepid Mrs. Sloane went to detectives and the actor was arrested and held at $10,000 bail.  He explained that he merely “sought money to aid his destitute parents.”

In addition to the 92^nd Street house, the Sloanes maintained a country estate, Pastureland, in Far Hills, New Jersey.  A month after they gave a dance there for “members of the younger set” in anticipation of daughter Grace Elsie’s debut, Mrs. Sloane hosted an afternoon reception at No. 48.  That event was significant for the family, for not only was Grace Elsie introduced to society, but her cousins Alma Nicoll and Elizabeth Nicoll Lawrence were as well.

photo by Alice Lum

One of the most memorable events in the house occurred in 1938 when John was made a member of the French Legion of Honor during a dinner.  The award was presented by Count Rene Doynel de Saint-Quentin, the French Ambassador to the United States.

Unlike the society dinners and balls thrown by Sloane’s turn-of-the-century relatives, affairs in the 92^nd Street house were most often charity affairs.  In addition to the Maternity Center, one of the favored causes was the Union Settlement that worked to educate and assist underprivileged youths.   On April 13, 1943 the Sloanes hosted a concert in the house “to advance the musical education work” at the Settlement, as The Times reported.

Musicales, teas, dinners and receptions were slowly coming to an end here, however.

After Grace Elisie was married to Cyrus Roberts Vance in 1947 the house was, perhaps, a bit too much for the Sloanes.  A few years later, in 1953, the house was turned over to Mrs. Sloane’s most passionate cause, the Maternity Center Association.  The house was renovated as headquarters, with one-family apartments on the fifth and penthouse levels.  The Association worked from the house for half a century, producing the first film on family life and sex education, which was nominated for an Academy Award, publishing pamphlets and guides on childbirth and establishing a nurse-midwife school.

photo by Alice Lum

In 1996 the house was sold to George McFadden of the McFadden Brothers investment firm for $5.5 million.  After McFadden and his wife, Carol, did a multi-million dollar renovation, the mansion was returned to a single family residence.

The interiors, after years of being used by the Maternity Center then renovated into a single family home, would be quite unfamiliar to Mrs. John Sloane -- photo theelitedaily.com

In March 1998 the couple put the house back on the market and it caught the eye of filmmaker Woody Allen.  Allen, 63-years old at the time, was said to have realized his 4,000 square foot duplex penthouse on Fifth Avenue was too small for him, his 28-year old wife Soon-Yi-Previn and their newborn Bechet Dumaine Allen.   Allen paid $17.7 million for the Sloane house in August 1999.

John Sloane’s sedate English mansion was for sale again in 2012 with the somewhat jarring price tag of $43.1 million.  The exterior remains pristinely preserved; an reminder of a time when the fabulously rich built incredible homes in the midst of the Great Depression.

The Endearing 1827 Houses at Nos. 18 and 20 Christopher Street

photo by Alice Lum

In 1825 the streets of New York were overcrowded and unsanitary.  Two years earlier the city had endured a yellow fever epidemic and now doctors noticed an outbreak of another terrifying disease: cholera.

Within two years there was a full-scale epidemic and by July 1832 thousands were dying.

Following a trend begun with the first crisis, panicked citizens with the means to do so fled northward.  The New York Evening Post wrote “The roads, in all directions, were lined with well-filled stagecoaches, livery coaches, private vehicles and equestrians, all panic-struck, fleeing the city, as we may suppose the inhabitants of Pompeii fled when the red lava showered down upon their houses.”

The doorway at No. 20 retains its original 8-paneled door, handsome carved framing and overlight -- photo by Alice Lum

The wealthiest of these frightened refugees headed to the Bloomingdale area at the northern end of the island. Most went as far as the Village of Greenwich where the country air was clean and safe.

A flurry of building resulted in Federal-style homes ranging from modest working-class dwellings to refined brick mansions like Samuel Whittemore’s imposing residence.

The 19th century renovations resulted in charming, country store-like storefronts -- photo by Alice Lum

In the earliest days of the development, builder Daniel Simonson constructed two frame houses at Nos. 18 and 20 Christopher Street.  Completed in 1827, the little two-story buildings were faced with brick. Entrance doors, set to the side, were ornamented with unpretentious Federal details – fanlights and delicate side columns.

Unlike the prim, formal dormers of their neighboring houses, these boasted ambitious grouped dormers.  The AIA Guide to New York City would later describe them as “superdormers;” giant, arched structures that encompassed several windows each and offered nearly a full-floor of usable space in otherwise cramped garrets.

After taking this shot in June 1933, photographer P. L. Sperr wrote on the reverse "18-20 are especially prized for their quaintness."  -- photo NYPL Collection

Before the turn of the century both houses were converted to accommodate commercial space on the first floor. The front walls were knocked out and in their place wood-and-glass storefronts were installed; what the authors of “One Thousand New York Buildings” describe as “perhaps the most charming to be found anywhere in New York…Their show windows and doorways are sheltered under unusual hoods.”

In 1934 shutters adorned the second floors and the large dormers had just begun to sag -- Photo NYPL Collection

Sleepy Greenwich Village changed slowly, but the old-fashioned houses at Nos. 18 and 20 Christopher barely changed at all.  In 1924 the Department of Buildings described both as having a store and “non-housekeeping apartments” above.

Fantastic details include the sunburst in the "superdormer," delicate paneled pilasters framing the dormer windows, and carved brownstone lintels, now painted -- photo by Alice Lum

Nearly two centuries after being built, these two picturesque remnants of a nearly-forgotten period in Greenwich Village remain. The weary-looking over-sized dormers sag backwards with age, perhaps adding to their charm.

Throughout the past few years the Department of Buildings has fought the owners’ attempts to alter the buildings. Somehow, however, the two little houses remain, if not untouched, much-loved.

The 1877 Mitchell, Vance & Co. Bldg. Nos. 836-838 Broadway

photo by Beyond My Ken

Despite the drastic changes along Broadway below Union Square following the Civil War, Judge James Roosevelt refused to budge.  Commercial buildings replaced the fine old homes around his as his wealthy neighbors moved northward to Murray Hill and Fifth Avenue, yet the judge stayed on in the house he had built in the 1840s.

Roosevelt was a member of one of the oldest and most prestigious families in New York.    He had further distinguished the name as a Justice of the Supreme Court in 1851, United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York and a member of Congress.  But finally, in 1875, James Roosevelt died in his house at No. 836 Broadway; one of the last surviving residences in the neighborhood.

Within a year the venerable house and its neighbor at No. 838 had been razed and a new commercial building was going up.   Mitchell, Vance & Co., manufacturers and designers of light fixtures, clocks and bronzes, and ornamental metal work, had commissioned esteemed architect Stephen Decatur Hatch to design the new building.  

The firm was established in 1854 and by now was a leader in the industry.  The wide array of items offered by Mitchell, Vance & Co. required extensive showroom and office space.    Over 600 workmen and artisans worked in the factory and foundry on 10^th Avenue between 24^th and 25^th Street.

To satisfy the needs, Hatch produced a wide, spacious cast iron structure six floors high that terminated in a stylish, steep mansard roof.   Begun in 1876 and completed a year later, the L-shaped building had a side entrance on West 13^th Street.

Despite Mitchell, Vance's own high-end clientele and the exclusive nearby emporiums that also catered to New York’s carriage trade, the architect did not over-embellish.  In fact his understated iron façade has a nearly-industrial feel.   Regimented rows of windows and mostly-unadorned pilasters gave little hint of the elaborate and costly items for sale inside.  Only the fish-scale covered mansard with its attractive dormers gave an aristocratic touch to the design.  And yet the façade, taken as a whole, presents a dignified and upscale presence.

The Mitchell, Vance & Co. Building was the first modern building on the block.

“New York’s Great Industries” remarked that “Their showrooms, salesrooms and offices occupy the entire six-story double building, Nos. 836 and 838 Broadway…The amount of floor space in the establishment is thus enormous, and yet it is none too large for the immense stock here gathered together, and which forms the best exposition of their lines of goods ever presented to a discerning public.  The showrooms make a most magnificent display, and which is a great attraction both to citizens and visitors to the city.

No other house in the world has its equal, while in the qualities of modern adaptability and true art, the firm possesses facilities as regards designing and manufacture admittedly nowhere else to be found.  Artists, native and foreign, are constantly employed in designing and modeling subjects to be produced in both real and imitation bronze.”

Within a decade electricity would begin making inroads in the lighting field.  Mitchell, Vance & Co. was the pioneer in the electrical lighting area.   When Thomas Edison was still engaged in his Menlo Park experiments, he turned to Mitchell, Vance & Co. for his first permanent lighting fixtures.  By 1884 electrical lighting fixtures were a major part of the firm’s offerings.

The electric lamps and chandeliers were based on the existing gas fixtures and were outfitted for both—it would be decades before the reliability of electrical service would warrant electric-only fixtures.    “It is the leading house to enter the field of electric lighting, and plan and bring out multifarious and beautiful designs for electric light fixtures of every description,” said “New York’s Great Industries.”

The new technology was a tremendous boon to the company.  By now it had illuminated the first private residence lit by electricity, the J. Hood Wright house; as well as the mansions of J. W. Doane of Chicago and Marshall Field; the Murray Hill Hotel and the Hoffman House; the Minneapolis Opera House and the “Dakota Flats” facing Central Park, among many others.

The company outfitted the steamer Pilgrim with 912 electric lamps “including two beautiful electroliers ornamental in the highest degree, and shedding a radiance through the main saloons, as grateful as it is effective at night.”

On August 21, 1887 The New York Times said of Mitchell, Vance & Co., “It heads the list of concerns manufacturing and dealing in gas fixtures and similar goods, and so great has been its volume of trade that, last night, it was said to have supplied three-fourths of the fine grade goods in its line used in the United States.”

The firm's cast fixtures were well-designed and executed.

The expansion of the firm’s business was such that in 1889 The Electrical World reported that it “[has] devoted the basement of their large salesrooms entirely to electric fixtures.”     Interior designers, architects and homeowners visited the Broadway building.  “On the main floor an elegantly carpeted and decorated room is assigned to handsome electroliers, fixtures and brackets, and furnished with the electric current for exhibiting them to buyers in all their glory of illumination,” said the magazine.   “This reception room alone is worth a visit to the store to inspect.”

Financial problems forced the company to reorganize and cinch in its belts.   In 1890 Samuel B. H. Vance—who had also been Mayor of New York—died.  That same year the company was leasing space to apparel companies as the dry goods and millinery district engulfed what had formerly been solely high-end retail buildings. 

Malcomson & Co., makers of boys’ clothing moved in after its offices were destroyed in a fire at No. 549 Broadway.   In 1898 Hutchinson, Pierce & Co., “shirt and waist manufacturers,” was leasing space, including part of the retail area.  The American Hatter said its “‘Star’ brand is one of the best known in the market, and having been famous since 1840, Hutchinson, Pierce & Company are proud of their record, as they certainly out to be.”

In 1899 Mail & Express published a sketch of Broadway from 12th to 14th Streets.  Only one Federal-style house, now converted, still survives at the corner of 13th Street.  No. 836-838 sits two buildings to the right of it, labeled by Mail & Express as "Hutchinson, Pierce & Co." -- NYPL Collection

The periodical also noted that Louis Auerbach “has redecorated his establishment, and has made it one of the handsomest in the trade.  Mr. Auerbach is showing an extensive line of high-class novelties in neckwear, which should be seen by the trade.”

In 1906 Mitchell, Vance now shared its building with six other firms.   On February 11 catastrophe would strike Nos. 836-838 Broadway.  Early in the morning a fire broke out on the 2^nd story of the 13^th Street side where the Philip Anderson company made hats.  It quickly spread up the elevator shaft, engulfing the building.  An automatic fire alarm brought fire engines and before long 17 fire companies were battling the conflagration.  The Times reported that “The building—an old-fashioned one belonging to the Roosevelt estate—offered little resistance to the flames.  The ceilings crumpled like paper before the scorching blasts, and the partitions furnished fine kindling material.”

Captain Walsh of Engine Company No. 14 and two of his men, firefighters Healy and Kelley, were on the third floor when the floor above collapsed, burying them.  As firemen poured water on the heap others dug frantically to rescue the trapped men.  The newspaper reported that “The buried men were almost drowned” but they were saved.  “Walsh’s eyebrows were gone and his heavy mustache was singed short when he was pulled out.  The hair of all three of the men was burned close to the scalp and all were bruised, scorched, and cut from head to foot.”

Another firefighter, Ladderman George Knecht plunged two stories to the pavement when he was hit by a falling part of the building.  In the freezing temperatures, the water from the fire hoses froze as it hit the building and it took five hours to extinguish the fire.

In the end there was over half a million dollars in damages.  “The building was wrecked and the stocks of seven firms destroyed,” said The New York Times.  Philips, Anderson & Co., where the fire started, was a complete loss.  J. Goldstone & Company, makers of cloaks and suits lost its entire stock as well.  The same was true of Heller & Company.   The Pioneer Suspender Company, the Savoy Shirt Company and the Heath Krises Company who made felt hats were all heavily damaged.

But it was Mitchell Vance Company that was hit the hardest.   An insurance agent on the site estimated the loss at around $200,000—just under $4 million today.  The company was insured for only $125,000.

Despite the devastation, the structure was rebuilt.  Stephen Decatur’s “fireproof” façade was just that.  It survived intact.    Within months even Mitchell Vance Company was back in operation from its old headquarters.

The new tenants continued to come from the garment and millinery industries.  Crown Suspender was here in 1908 and Phillips, Anderson & Co. was back in the building, doing a brisk business in the straw hat trade.   The company would remain here until 1911 when a fire destroyed its factory.

Finally in 1915 the Mitchell, Vance Company left after nearly four decades in the building and 61 years of business.  The Roosevelt estate leased about 20,000 square feet of the building that year to Weiner Brothers, Inc., a major dealer in “cotton, sleeve, mohair, satin, pocketing, silk and converters of cotton goods.”

Early in December 1921 the Roosevelt family sold the building at Nos. 836-838 Broadway to “a cotton merchant” after having owned the property for over three-quarters of a century.   The building continued house garment firms including the Zeeman & Grossman Bros. Company, manufacturers of young men’s clothing, and the Velvet Sample Card Company.

By the 1930s the garment district had moved upward to Broadway and 7^th Avenue and Nos. 836-838 Broadway saw a variety of tenants.  Among these in 1950 was the J. Beeber Company, makers of surgical and medical equipment.   That year the firm donated ten short-wave diathermy machines and other medical equipment to the new state of Israel and to the National Side Fund of Palestine.

Today the building is little changed.   No modern shop fronts have obliterated the street-level iron work; although the original expansive showroom windows have been reduced in height by half and the attractive entrance doors are gone.    Home to, among other concerns, the NYU Press, Stephen Decatur Hatch’s subdued Victorian design has withstood the onslaught of time, fire and change.

The 1895 Renaissance Revival Nos. 60-62 Lispenard Street

photo by Alice Lum

In the early 18^th century when city alderman Anthony Rutgers purchased the large section of land north of the city, much of which we now know as Tribeca, the area was mostly unusable marshland.   Shortly after receiving a grant on the land in 1730 he began draining the swampy meadow.

Leonard Lispenard purchased the land in 1746, incorporating it into the Lispenard Farm.  It then became part of Lispenard’s tremendous holdings that stretched to the Hudson River, called Lispenard Meadows.   As the city inched northward and streets were laid out, the Lispenard name became attached to some of them:  Leonard’s children, Leonard and Anthony both gave their names to streets; and the small road running parallel to Canal Street to the south was given the name Lispenard Street.

In the first quarter of the century Lispenard Street was lined with modest brick homes, most of which would last only a few decades.    By the time of the Civil War commercial buildings were replacing them as Canal Street and Broadway became important business thoroughfares.    As the century drew to a close, two small houses—each two stories tall—still held on at Nos. 60 and 62 Lispenard Street.  They had been converted to serve as John H. Ireland’s Star Hotel—a somewhat seedy establishment with often-questionable goings on.

On June 12, 1894 the New York Building & Improvement Company purchased the buildings and began plans for an impressive new office and loft building.  Gilbert A. Schellenger received the commission, although his was commonly thought of as a residential architect.  In No. 60-62 Lispenard he would prove that he was up to the task of major commercial buildings as well.

The architect produced a seven-story Italian Renaissance beauty.    Rusticated stone piers at street level were separated by decorative and utilitarian cast iron store fronts.  Above the stone second story, the building rises in buff-colored brick with elaborate carved stone panels delineating the fourth through sixth floors.  The arched openings of the top two floors—four at the sixth balanced by eight at the seventh—complete the design that would be more expected on an avenue than a tiny side street.

photo by Alice Lum

Construction was completed in 1895 and a variety of tenants filed in.  Among them was the John W. Doubleday manufacturing firm.  Working with him were his sons Charles Albert and John M.   

The often repeated Tribeca legend is that former mayor and entrepreneur William Russell Grace ran his business from the building; but Grace had purchased the former Cotton Exchange building at 1 Hanover Square in 1885 and remained there until his death in 1904.

Classical motifs such as urns and cornucopias decorate the panels -- photo by Alice Lum

Firms that certainly were here, however included the factory of C. H. S. Jaffray (who was fined in 1904 by building inspectors for neglecting to light the halls and stairways leading to the workrooms), and P. W. Lambert &amp, Co., that manufactured “fancy leather goods.”  By 1906 the firm was so successful that it moved to the building next door, eventually taking over the entire building and leasing additional factory space again in No. 60-62.

With the millinery and apparel districts nearby on Broadway, the building naturally attracted manufacturers in these or related trades.   In 1910 Schulman & Shapiro was doing business here when the company was charged with employing children under 14 years of age.  The same year America’s Textile Reporter noted the consolidation of two large “balers, folders, and packers of dry goods.”  Upon the death of Col. William H. Hubbel, whose loft was in the building, the Duane Street firm of Hinman & Taylor purchased the business.  “They now have a plant second to none as far as equipment is concerned,” said the Reporter, “and are in a position to double and roll goods by machinery in a manner equal to the best work turned out by the mills, and at low prices.”



photo by Alice Lum

The Dominican Leather & Shoe Manufacturing Company was here along with Joseph Weinstein & Co. in the first decades of the century.  As the age of the automobile arrived, several of the textile and apparel companies turned their attention to the new opportunities—like automobile covers and lap robes.  Among them was the B. E. Mfg. Company which was here in 1913.

Although the building continued to attract mainly apparel and textile firms, there were others as well, like the Boxner Medicine Company.  In 1918 Boxner’s “medicinal preparations” were made for both domestic and foreign trade.

Another tenant, Fisher Stevens Service, liked the building so much that they bought it.  On September 24, 1920 The New York Tribune reported on the sale by owner Hyman Benowitz.   Two years later Leiman Brothers would be renting in the building, making “pumps for automatic feeders, folders and labelers.”

photo by Alice Lum

The dignified building hiding on little Lispenard Street continued to be home to apparel manufacturers throughout the decades.  Federal Sportswear, for instance, was here during the Depression years. 

But with the rediscovery of Tribeca at the turn of the new century, things changed in the Canal Street neighborhood.   In July 2005 No. 60-62 Lispenard Street was converted to nine upscale condominium residences.  Inexplicably called “The Wanamaker” (perhaps as a nod to the great department store that stood several blocks north on Broadway), its apartments retain the exposed 19^th century cast iron columns and high ceilings.  The huge spaces – running from 2,500 square feet to 3,700 square feet—were brought into the 21^st century with fireplaces, central heating and air conditioning and recessed lighting.

But the exterior of Gilbert Schellenger’s handsome and hidden Renaissance-inspired building remains nearly unchanged after nearly a century and a quarter of use. 

Sports Film History and Modeled Clay --Nos. 244-246 West 23rd Street

photo by Alice Lum

Jacob Hirsch recognized the potential of West 23^rd Street in the mid-1890s.  The center of Manhattan’s entertainment district, the wide street was dotted with theaters, music halls and opera houses.  Yet interspersed among them were the mid-century brownstone residences of tenacious residents who refused to move out.

With the commercial district of the city moving ever northward, Hirsch purchased the four-story brownstone house at No. 244 West 23^rd for $23,200 in November 1891.  He then patiently waited (or perhaps not so patiently) for an adjacent house to come on the market.  Finally on May 12, 1894 he bought the near-matching house next door at No. 246 for $30,000.  He now had a sufficiently-wide plot for a commercial building.

Meanwhile Isidor Hoffstadt had erected a six-story business building at No. 248 on the land abutting the property in 1893.  He quickly sold that building In December 1894 for $86,000 and the aggressive developer purchased Hirsch's property for construction of a “seven-story fancy brick business building”, as reported in The New York Times.

Between the two speculators, the complexion of the block was rapidly changing.  At the same time that Hoffstadt bought the two lots at Nos. 244 and 246 from Hirsch, Hirsch was purchasing the “two marble front three-story and basement dwellings” across the street at Nos. 241 and 243.  The newspaper remarked that “This property will doubtless also soon be converted to business uses.”

Hoffstadt’s new building was a welcomed splash of color.  A high stone base supported six floors of contrasting red brick and limestone.  Resourceful brickwork resulted in imitation rough-cut stone pilasters at the second floor, banded three-story pilasters at floors three through five, and fluted pilasters at the top two stories.  Elaborate panels of classical urns of fruit, wreaths and garlands connected the arches.

While Hoffstadt could have used molded terra cotta for the repeating panels, instead each was carved in stone -- photo by Alice Lum

Among the first tenants in the building was the Veriscope Company which took the entire fifth floor.   The motion picture company drew national attention on March 17, 1897 when Bob Fitzsimmons knocked out Jim Corbett, winning the heavyweight championship of the world.  Veriscope had three hand-operated cameras at ringside to capture the Carson City event.

The 11,000 feet of film were edited into the first motion picture sports event.  The event was screened for admission-paying fight enthusiasts in theaters across the nation with live “lecturers” narrating the action.  It reaped large profits for the boxing sport and Veriscope.  But not everyone was happy with the concept.

Religious and conservative groups lobbied Congress to enact a ban against such films.  Editorial pages debated one another.  The New York World insisted that the motion picture camera was “a triumph of science over the poor, imperfect instrument, the human eye, and proves the veriscope camera is far superior."  The New York Times countered “It is not very creditable to our civilization perhaps that an achievement of what is now called the ‘veriscope’ that has attracted and will attract the wildest attention should be the representation of the prizefight.”

Nevertheless, the proposed legislation was defeated, partially due to Veriscope Company’s aggressive publicity campaign.  The film, “The Corbett-Fitzsimmons Fight,” was the first blockbuster motion picture in American history, grossing around $750,000 with profits of around $120,000.

Brick layers successfully created fluted pilasters -- photo by Alice Lum

In June The Times noted that the Corbett-Fitzsimmons fight was showing at the Academy of Music and that “the demand for the pictures has caused the employees of [Veriscope Company] to frequently work overtime.”

One of those working overtime was the Secretary and bookkeeper, 56-year old Charles P. Schribner, whom The Times said was “particularly interested in the brief windfall” and “among the most zealous of all.”

The man would often work after hours and on Sunday when the building was closed and the elevator operator was absent.  Because he was somewhat overweight, the newspaper reported that “to save the laborious climb up the stairs to the fifth floor he had been in the habit of being his own elevator operator.”

On Sunday June 6 Schribner finished his work, opened the elevator screen and reached in for the rope to the elevator.  As the car passed him, he attempted to grab the rope again to stop the elevator, lost his footing and plunged down the shaft.   Within minutes the man whom The Times said was “only moderately situated financially” was tragically dead.

Graceful panels of classical urns separate the pilasters.  An unfortunate coat of red paint hides the limestone banding. -- photo by Alice Lum

In 1888 John Ward Stimson founded the Institute for Artist Artisans of New York—where young students were trained in earning a living by designing wallpaper, carpeting and Christmas cards.  “The necessity of schools for artisans was very clearly seen” by Stimson reported The Times ten years later.  “He was a voice crying in the wilderness, but the voice was not strong enough to enlist the aid of capital.”

In the Fall of 1897 Stimson transferred the school to a group of artists and “art lovers” who incorporated it, hired a staff of instructors and moved into a full floor of No. 244 West 23^rd Street.   By 1898 the enrollment of young people who studied drawing from life, designing, clay modeling, still life painting, costume and “antique” classes topped 100.   The eight-month courses cost $50 for day classes and $25 for nights.

“The pupils are apt to be young women with comfortable homes, who hope in time to support themselves by work in some line of applied art, or young men preparing themselves to be supervisors of labor rather than artisans.  Indeed, there are not a few who in the New York Institute see a good preliminary school on the way to a career as painter or sculptor,” said The Times.  The Artist-Artisan Institute would remain in the building well into the 20^th century.

In 1898 Isidor Hoffstadt lost the building to foreclosure and Jacob Hirsch purchased the property back for $105,487.

The first decades of the new century saw a broad range of tenants.  Van-Ness Cooper Company was here in 1904, “manufacturing chemists” who marketed Lacto-Lithiated Strontium Compound which was guaranteed to cure Bright’s Disease.

One of the longest lasting tenants was the Angle Mfg. Co., makers of oil lamps.  For years the firm would advertise its highly decorative and unique lamps saying they produced “a light that’s near to sunshine than any other artificial glow” and were “entirely free from danger.”

In 1917 the company waged war on the electric bulb.  It warned the consumer of the “over-brilliant white light from electricity,” and cited an unnamed Cleveland eye doctor who reported on its danger.   Angle’s advertisement cautioned that electric light was “responsible for ninety percent of the eyestrains and headaches which endanger sight and health.”

The Angle Mfg. Co. promised that the Angle Lamp "will not disappoint in any way."

At the same time Peerless Printing Company was here, publishing Every Boy’s Magazine, and the U.S. Slicing Machine Company that promised its system of slicing was the “secret of making money on meats” and would draw trade to butcher shops.  The company offered a free book touting its slicing machines entitled “Make More Money in Your Meat Market.”

Other firms in the building included the American Bronze Honor Roll Company and the American Fabric Products Company which manufactured automobile robes and seat covers “for Fords and other popular cars.”

In 1914 the ground floor retail space was home to Cushman & Dennison, stationery dealers.   On June 3 a fire started in their storeroom in the cellar and spread up a pipe casing to the third floor.  Here the fire spread through the Engle Manufacturing Company.  By the time a second alarm was sent, many of the rear windows had blown out.  Ten firefighters had to be carried out, overcome by exhaustion and smoke, and two others were injured in the blaze that cost $10,000 in damages.

In 1922 Mergenthaler & Son leased the third floor and for over four decades the New York Mergenthaler Linotype School would operate here.  The building was purchased in 1938 by the Brodwin Piano Company, Inc.  Established in 1914 by Harry Brodwin, the firm established its “office and modern factory” in the building where it would stay for several decades.

Chelsea residents now live in the spacious rooms where sports film history was made -- photo by Alice Lum

In 1982 the upper floors were converted to twelve large cooperative apartments.  While the interior spaces where young artisans learned to model clay and the first sports films were edited are obviously vastly altered, the striking exterior remains essentially unchanged.

The 1914 Lewis Gouveneur Morris House -- No. 1015 Park Avenue

photo by Alice Lum

In 1908 two of New York’s most impressive pedigrees were joined in marriage.   Alletta Nathalie Lorillard Bailey was descended from prominent colonial leaders including Robert Livingston, the first proprietor of Livingston Manor; Judge Robert R. Livingston and Dominick Lynch.   She married her distant cousin, Lewis Gouveneur Morris, the son of Francis Morris, a U.S. Navy Commander; a great grandson of Jacob Lorillard, and a descendant of Lewis Morris who signed the Declaration of Independence.

At the time of the wedding Park Avenue was undergoing noticeable change.  After the train tracks down the center of Park Avenue were submerged and covered over, the formerly-middle class avenue began attracting the upper crust.  Amos Pinchot, a wealthy attorney, was one of the first to recognize the potential and built an impressive residence in 1905 on the site of two old row houses.   Then, to insure that his investment was secure, he bought up as much of the surrounding property as possible; selling it only to wealthy buyers with the stipulation that the plots be used for private house construction.

In 1912 Reginald DeKoven’s mansion in the style of an English country house was being completed at No. 1025 Park Avenue on land purchased from Amos Pinchot.   The following year Lewis Gouverneur Morris would buy Pinchot property for his own mansion at No. 1021.

The American Contractor reported on February 15, 1913 that plans had been filed by architect Ernest Flagg for a $50,000 residence on the site.  The plans called for a brick and stone structure with “hardwood finish, oak floors, marble, tiling, mantels, gas and electric fixtures.”

What the plans did not reveal was Flagg’s design.   The architect would embrace the revival of Georgian and Federal architectural styles that had recently become popular.  A stark contrast to the gooey French confections of a generation earlier, dignified red brick mansions had already been erected by millionaires like Andrew Carnegie and James Berwind.

photo by Alice Lum

Flagg had already designed at least one neo-Federal home—the sedate four-story Robert I. Jenks house at No. 54 East 64^th Street.  But this house would be much, much more.

While it retained the impressive Park Avenue address of No. 1015, the entrance would be significantly down the block on East 85^th Street.    The narrow 25-foot wide Park Avenue elevation was undeniably the side of the building, with quarter-round windows beneath the peaked roof and six-over-six paned windows on the three main floors.  From this viewpoint the house could have been plucked from Philadelphia’s Society Hill or Boston’s Beacon Hill.

photo by Alice Lum

 The mansion was entered through paneled double doors below a large leaded fanlight to the right side of an unusual recessed court.  A set of wide white marble stairs led up from 85^th Street, making an abrupt turn below a delightful set of three rows of staircase windows that follow the interior stairs upward.

A lantern is upheld by graceful wrought iron arms above the marble stairs.  The the stair-stepped windows follow the interior staircase -- photo by Alice Lum

 On the western wing, above the automobile entrance, Flagg added a complex two-story oriel window.

photo by Alice Lum

While Morris spent time at his brokerage firm of Morris & Pope, Nathalie immersed herself in charity work and tennis.  In addition to the Women’s National Golf and Tennis Club, she was a member of the Badminton Club, and at various times had won the State doubles championships of New Jersey, New York, Connecticut and Florida.  In 1920 she won the national indoor championship.

An avid dog lover, she was vice president of the New York League for Animals and would urge that every fifth block of the park space within Park Avenue be dedicated for dog use.  London and Paris, she argued, had provisions for exercising dogs, but New York had none.

Flagg’s choice of architectural style may have been influenced by Mrs. Morris’s avid interest in Americana.  Her extensive collection of prints of old New York was well-known and in 1927 it would be exhibited in Gracie Mansion.

Flagg's attention to early American detail are evident in the brickword and the exquisite quarter-round spider web windows --photo by Alice Lum

The entertainments given by Nathalie Morris both in the Park Avenue house and their Newport estate, Malbone, were legendary.   But before the reception at No. 1015 in 1929 for the Duchess of Hamilton and Brandon – perhaps Nathalie’s most shining moment—there would be a more humiliating turn of events.

Lewis Morris’s brokerage firm failed in 1917.  A creditor, Charles Morgan, filed charges against the broker and under the Debtor Act he was arrested in White Plains, New York.  Although he paid $22,000 bail, he could not leave the “jail limits” – a radius of two miles of the White Plains jail.  Morris was confined in White Plains from June 18 to October 5, 1921.

When he appeared before Judge Frank L. Young on September 28, Morris pleaded that he had no assets.  “At the time of the failure of my firm,” he told the judge, “I stripped myself of everything, including all my personal effects, even down to my scarfpins.”    On the day of the firm’s collapse, he insisted, he had only $30 cash.

How he managed to live in a Park Avenue mansion, afford memberships to the most exclusive men’s clubs like the Tuxedo Club, the Metropolitan, the Union and Harvard Clubs and the Ardsley Country Club, as well as to maintain a magnificent Newport estate was easily explained.  His wife paid for them.

When Nathalie Morris testified that the deeds to the houses were in her name and that to her knowledge her husband was penniless, the 34-year old Morris was discharged as “an honest insolvent debtor.”

photo by Alice Lum

The news of an heroic rescue of six dogs that had fallen through the ice in Woodlands Lake, New York, caught the eye of Nathalie Morris in February 1925.  Mrs. James Donnet, who lived nearby in Irvington-on-Hudson came upon the struggling dogs and in attempting to save them, was nearly drowned herself.

Nathalie called a meeting of the New York Women’s League for Animals in her home and arranged that a medal for heroism be awarded to Mrs. Donnet.

Late in 1934 Nathalie Morris was confined to her bed at No. 1015 with an illness.   On January 13, 1935 the woman of varied interests and talents died in the house.

Lewis Gouverneur Morris left that mansion he had shared with his wife for two decades.  He leased it in November 1936 to Mrs. Charles R. Scott “for a long term.”  Then in 1941 Mr. and Mrs. Byrnes MacDonald, who had a summer estate in Brookville, Long Island, were leasing the house.  

MacDonald had been brought up to be a gentleman of leisure.  While attending Princeton where he played polo, he lived in a large private house with a manservant because his father felt dormitory life would be too harsh.   Byrnes lived on his father’s money and never held a job.  Instead he was a club man whose interests were in travel and society gaiety.

No. 1015 Park Avenue was the scene of lavish entertaining throughout the MacDonald residency.

In 1946 Lewis Morris married Princess de Braganca, formerly Anita Stewart.  Eventually the couple would move back to No. 1015 Park Avenue.  Here they would live until Morris died in the Newport mansion at the age of 85 on August 15, 1967.

A year later the New World Foundation purchased the 22-room house for $400,000.  Founded in 1954 with a $20 million bequest from Anita McCormick Blaine, the daughter of Cyrus McCormick who invented the reaping machine, the foundation provided grants for the advancement of health, education, welfare and research.

photo by Alice Lum

Today the remarkable house is owned by the Avi Chai Foundation.  The private foundation was endowed by investor Sanford Bernstein in 1984 in an effort to provide outreach for “alienated and assimilated Jews worldwide.”