The Dr. Marshall C. Pease House - 155 East 62nd Street

 

On September 7, 1870 an advertisement appeared in the New York Herald:

For Sale--A splendid new small three-story basement and cellar stone front House, has all the improvements, No. 155 East Sixty-second street, near Lexington avenue; prince $14,500; terms to suit.   G. Fountain, No. 153 East Sixty-second street.

G. Fountain was active in the rapidly developing Lenox Hill neighborhood.  His "small three-story basement" house had been designed by Robert Mook, who three years earlier had designed the magnificent row of marble mansions for society grande dame Mary Mason Jones on Fifth Avenue.  This project was substantially more understated.

At just 12.5-feet-wide, it was noticeably narrower that its neighbors, appearing almost dollhouse like.  The rusticated parlor floor included alternating rows of smooth and vermiculated stone--carved to appear worm-eaten.  The understated upper floors rose to a deeply overhanging bracketed cornice.

The house first became home to the Richard Heckscher, Jr. family.  Heckscher was in the coal business at 111 Broadway.  Their residency would be relatively short-lived.  On April 26, 1873 an advertisement read: "A family about to break up housekeeping will sell extra size Mirror, handsome Carpets, Oil Paintings, and Household Articles at very low prices."

Importer Abraham Wimpfheimer and his family next moved into 155 East 62nd Street.  Like all residents along the block, they had a small domestic staff.  According to help-wanted ads, the Wimpfheimers had at least a live-in cook and a chambermaid.

Despite what must have been somewhat tight living conditions, the family took in a boarder.  Living here in 1888 was a cultured young woman who advertised, "A Lady Teacher (diplomee) for French, German, music, has afternoon hours disengaged; highest references.  Address: Teacher, 155 East 62d st."

The narrow house appears scrunched in by its wider neighbors.

In 1891 Samuel Thalman "took a room" with the family, as he worded it in court testimony.  That year the well-to-do merchant got a young woman, Sarah G. Hussey, "in a family way."  After repeatedly putting off his promise of marrying her, he finally consented.  She told the court that he said, "Yes, Sadie, I think it is right, we will be married at once, but as you are a Christian, and I a Jew, we will have to be satisfied with a contract marriage."  Thalman arranged a civil ceremony.

The baby arrived on November 20, 1892.  Shockingly, Sarah was called to the office of Thalman's lawyer who attempted to "buy her off," in her words.  He told her there had been no legal marriage, and when she sued, Thalman swore he had never promised marriage and while he admitted to having been intimate, insisted their relationship was casual.  Tragically for Sarah, the judge sided with Thalman.

Not long after the affair, 155 East 62nd Street was purchased by L. C. Schoneman and his wife.  Schoneman boarded his horses and vehicle at the Mutual Club Stables at 152 West 56th Street.  Early in 1895 a coachman there named Michael Scanlon "annoyed him," as reported by The Sun.  Schoneman gruffly "told the man to go about his business."  The upbraiding seriously offended Scanlon.  

The Sun said of the coachman, "His chief failing was his love for liquor, but until Saturday night he had managed to avoid trouble by remaining at home while in his cups."  On the night of January 19, 1895, Scanlon showed up at the stable drunk and "began to vow vengeance against L. C. Schoneman."  The article continued, "The coachman became so boisterous on Saturday evening that some of the men at the stable advised him to go home and sober up.  He left about 6 o'clock still uttering threats against Mr. Schoneman."

A few hours later the night watchman was surprised to see Scanlon "staggering down the stairs" from the loft where the horses were boarded.  Sometime later he noticed one of the stalls on the second floor was open, and the bay trotting horse Great Eastern, which belonged to Samuel Levy, had been horribly mutilated.  The Sun reported, "As Scanlon had no grudge against Mr. Levy it is evident that in his drunken condition he mistook the stall occupied by Great Eastern for that which contained one of Mr. Schoneman's horses."  A warrant was issued for Scanlon's arrest and he faced a prison sentence of four years.

In the late 1890s 155 East 62nd Street was the home and office of homeopathic doctor Charles Gennerich.  He would be the first of a tradition of physicians in the residence.  He had graduated from the New York Homeopathic Medical College around 1892 and was a lecturer there.

The house was put on the market in January 1904, the advertisement in The New York Times reading: "Bargain--Charming modern house, $16,000; will pay to see it."  The asking price would be equal to just over $500,000 in 2023.  It was purchased by architect William A. Boring.

Boring had worked in the offices of McKim, Mead & White before striking out with co-worker, Edward Lippincott Tilton to form their own firm.  Among their most recognizable projects was the United States Immigrant Station on Ellis Island.

If Boring intended to live at 155 East 62nd Street, he quickly changed his mind, and sold the house to his partner, Edward L. Tilton, in January 1904.  It was most likely Boring or Tilton (probably the latter) who installed the diamond-paned windows at the parlor and second floors.  Interestingly, later that year Boring and Tilton amicably dissolved their partnership.  While they now conducted independent practices, the men continued to share an office.

from Empire State Notables, 1914 (copyright expired)

Born in 1861, Tilton was married to Mary Bigelow and had a son, Charles Edward.  By 1906 Dr. Alfred C. Henderson practiced from the address, most likely establishing his office in the basement.  The Tilton family would remain in the house until 1912.  

Henderson continued to rent space after the house was sold to Mary A. Dempsey.  He was still here in December 1915 when she resold it to Dr. Marshall Carlton Pease, Jr.

Pease was a professor of pediatrics and a lecturer at the Post Graduate Medical School and Hospital, an attending physician at the Willard Parker Hospital for contagious diseases, and a consulting physician at the Lutheran Hospital of New York City.  He and his wife, Edith May King, were married on September 25, 1907 and living with them in the 62nd Street house was Edith's mother, Elizabeth Eccles King.

Edith filled her time with charitable works.  She was highly involved in the Babies' Wards Guild of the New York Post Graduate Hospital, for instance.

Elizabeth King died in the house on December 18, 1917.  Her funeral was held in the parlor two days later.

In 1925 Dr. Pease added one more item to his resume.  On October 17, The New York Times reported that he had been appointed commanding officer of Laboratory Centre No. 4 on Governors Island where the Second Reserve Corps was headquartered.

Around the time of the Great Depression, Marshall and Edith Pease opened their home to nurses.  Almost unbelievably, given the size of the house, living with them in 1940 were six nurses, all but one of whom were in their 40s (Subov Shiraeff was 54).

The Peases left East 62nd Street in 1955.  Dr. Frank C. Keil officially converted the basement and parlor levels to a doctor's office that year.  Just two years later, on October 15, 1957, he died here.

The skinny little house was renovated in 1994, but it still retained a doctor's office in the basement.  The upper three floors are a single family residence.

photographs by the author

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The George F. Coddington, Jr. House - 64 Perry Street

 

Although essentially identical, the four abutting houses erected on Perry Street between West 4th and Bleecker Street in 1866 were designed by two different architects.  Robert Mook, who a year later would design the magnificent marble mansion of Mary Mason Jones at 1 East 57th Street, was responsible for  50 and 54 Perry Street (renumbered 60 and 64 in 1879).  

No. 54 was built for George F. Coddington, Jr., a "carpenter and builder," or what would be considered a contractor today.  Described by The New York Times as "a substantial brown-stone mansion," like its neighbors it rose three stories above a tall English basement.  The robust cast iron stoop newels and railings and the grand arched pediment over the entrance reflected Coddington's affluence and social station.  Coddington and his family remained in the house until 1868, when they moved to a new home he had constructed down the block.

The residence briefly became home to merchant Edward P. Young, who was followed in 1872 by "mirror and frame" manufacturer William F. Blanck, his wife, the former Elizabeth Quinn, and four of their five children--Thomas, Lizzie, Sadie, Jennie and Mamie.  Mamie, the youngest, was four years old.

Born in 1827, Blanck had gone West during the 1848 California Gold Rush.  There, according to The Sun later, he "made a fortune in the gold diggings."  He increased his wealth back in New York by establishing Blanck & Co. furniture dealers, and then his frame and mirror factory.

Like all affluent families, the Blancks summered at fashionable resorts.  They were still at Saratoga on October 17, 1873 when Elizabeth died.  Her body was brought back to New York City and her funeral was held in the parlor here.

Following Lizzie's marriage to Alfred W. Gedney, the couple moved in.  Lizzie, according to The New York Times, became "mistress of her father's household, and [was] at all times disposed to exercise her authority as such and resent all encroachments on her prerogatives."  She would soon have serious reasons for additional resentment to "encroachments on her prerogatives."

Beginning in 1879, William F. Blanck was secretly "keeping company" with Amanda Waring.  The New York Times described her as "a quiet, well-preserved little brunette, widow of a master truckman."  Amanda, who was 20 years younger than Blanck, lived with her 18-year-old son in Brooklyn.  The New York Times said, "Her husband died leaving her comparatively poor."  In contrast, the newspaper estimated Blanck's worth at "from $175,000 to $200,000"--about $5 million on the higher end in 2023 terms.

After a two-year courtship, in October 1881 Blanck introduced his sweetheart to his shocked children.  One week later the couple was married.  None of the children was present at the ceremony.  Amanda now supplanted Lizzie Gedney as mistress of the house.  It did not go well.  The New York Times reported, "the bride found herself regarded as an interloper by Mr. and Mrs. Gedney, Thomas Blanck, and Miss Sadie Blanck.  They soon rebelled openly, but their step-mother acted decisively and quelled the revolt against her so far as to be able to assume full control of the house."

Eight months later, Lizzie and her husband left, moving in with Gedney's father,  The New York Times commented, "They and their step-mother were bitter enemies when they parted."  Amanda did not have problems with the two youngest children.  The New York Times wrote, "Misses Jennie and Mamie Blanck were dutiful, and their relations with their step-mother were affectionate and agreeable."  On January 18, 1882 Sadie married Edward Ten Eyck, and on June 15 Thomas J. Blanck married and he, too, moved out.  It would seem that now peace would reign within 64 Perry Street.  But despite William Blanck's love for Amanda, which "apparently increased rather than wanted," the three eldest children continued to plot against her and poison their father's mind.

William, Amanda and Mamie spent the summer of 1882 at Sea Cliff, Long Island (Jennie was summering with they Gedneys).  On August 18, William came to town on business.  He secretly met his son, Thomas, and son-in-law Alfred Gedney, at his lawyer's office and executed a lease for 64 Perry Street to Gedney for one year and eight months.  He then wrote out a bill of sale for its contents to his son.

Blanck returned to Sea Cliff, giving no hint of the subterfuge.  Three days later, on Monday, he made an excuse to come to New York again.  "He said he would return with his carriage and a horse, and was as affectionate as ever when he kissed his wife good-bye," said The New York Times.  Amanda received a telegram the next day that he would be delayed until Wednesday.  Suspicious, Amanda left Mamie at Sea Cliff and rushed to Manhattan.

She was unable to get into the Perry Street house.  And when she returned to Sea Cliff she found Mamie gone.  A letter left by Thomas Blanck said he had taken Mamie, and that if she would call at the attorney's office, "she would obtain full particulars."  It was the beginning of a nightmare for Amanda Blanck.

Using keys she had made by a locksmith, Amanda entered the Perry Street house.  Before long, Gedney, Thomas Blanck "and a foul-looking fellow, James Barry, alias Gany, alias Chambers--scaled the fence from a neighboring yard and entered through the rear basement window."  Confronted by Amanda, Gedney told her he had a lease on the house.  "You turned me and my wife out; now we'll turn you out and have no mercy on you," he said.

Refusing to leave, Amanda went into the back parlor.  Gedney and Thomas Blanck pulled the pocket doors closed and locked her in.  James Barry was left as a sort of prison guard.  She had already ordered groceries, but when the delivery boy arrived, Gedney ordered him away.  "Mrs. Blanck had to contend herself with tea and dry bread, as she had determined not to leave the house," said The New York Times.  Around 4:00 a friend of Amanda, John G. Smithwick, arrived.  Gedney tried to refuse him entrance, but he was pushed aside.  He "saw the imprisoned lady, who begged him to inform her counsel."

After Smithwick rushed out, a second guard named Dillon was brought in.  He and Barry drank freely from the Blanck cellars, making "a tap-room of the front basement," according to the article.  When Amanda attempted to sleep and asked them through the door to be less noisy, "One of them shouted, 'Go to----.' and she, fearing violence, retreated."

The following day saw a standoff in the Perry Street house.  Amanda's sister-in-law, her son, former Judge Thompson and his partner, William A. Crolius came to rescue her.  Gedney brought James Dillon, a special Deputy Sheriff.  James Barry was still drunk.  Gedney produced his lease.  Judge Thompson called his presence "an invasion" and told Amanda to order them to leave.  "This Gedney declined to do, and instructed his hired menacers not to budge."

Thompson then went to Justice Ford and made a complaint on Amanda's behalf.  Barry and Dillons were arrested for disorderly conduct.  With her antagonists gone, Amanda had friends come "who held the post for her while she went to court," on August 24.  The New York Times reported, "William F. Blanck did not appear, and it was understood that his children had obtained complete control over him and had spirited him away to Hackensack, N. J."

The justice ruled that Gedney and the others, despite the lease, were trespassers in the house.  Amanda returned to the house, but hired an armed guard to stand sentry at the basement gate, while the front door "remained chained and barricaded," according to The New York Times.

As Amanda Blanck remained blockaded within her home, her lawyer arrived to say that her husband had offered her $35,000 to settle her claims.  It was a substantial amount, equaling more than $950,000 today.  It all came to a pitiable end four days later.  On August 28 the New York Herald entitled an article, "Mrs. Blanck Capitulates," and said Amanda was "in a depressed state yesterday in her husband's house, No. 64 Perry street.  She was melancholy and utterly disinclined to talk."  The article said her lawyer had "advised Mrs. Blanck to give up the house and told her that she would be amply provided for by her husband.  To this she acquiesced and agreed to leave to-day."

The house was purchased by wholesale grocery John Henry and Louise C. Mohlmann.  The couple had three children, George A. Jessie T. and Albert John.  John Henry Mohlmann was athletic, his name appearing routinely in newspapers for his swimming and rowing achievements.  Tragically, his athleticism would end his life.  On September 30, 1890, The Press reported, "John H. Mohlman [sic] of No. 64 Perry street was accidentally drowned at Brielle, N. J., on Sunday while rowing on the Manasquen Inlet."

Following his death, Louise's father, chemist Albert G. C. Hahn moved into the house and was made a legal guardian of the children.  Hahn had graduated from Cornell University and the University of Freiburg, Germany.  In 1885, the Nepera Chemical Company, makers of photographic papers, sought out him.   At the time photography had come into its own as an important technology.  Hahn was brought on as an officer of the company, co-heading the chemical department.

The family remained at 64 Perry Street until July 1900 when Henry E. Schwitters and his wife Margaretha purchased the house for $16,500 (about $550,000 in 2023).  Like John Mohlmann, he was in the grocery business.  He and his son, Edo, owned the fruit and produce commission firm of H. E. Schwitters & Son on Washington Street.  

The family leased a room in their home.  In 1910 80-year-old Jacques Lowe was renting here.  The German-born photographer was still active, a member of the staff of Jubilee Magazine and freelance photographer for periodicals like Red Book, Fortune, Life, Coronet, Argosy and Sign magazines.

Henry E. Schwitters died on November 20, 1912, leaving an estate of about $1.65 million today.  He left the entire estate to Margaretha.  

Throughout the succeeding decades, the Schwitters family continued to lease a room.  Policeman Emilio Antonelli of the 16^th Precinct lived here in 1948 when he experienced an unusually embarrassing accident on the Fourth of July.  That year the city banned fireworks of any kind.  It was a move that many youngsters disapproved of and one boy thought an excellent expression of protest would be to toss a lit firecracker into the station house window.  Patrolman Antonelli was working the switchboard there and momentarily got up from his seat.  Just as he sat down again, the firecracker landed on his chair and exploded.

 

Antonelli was treated at Polyclinic Hospital and a spokesperson for the police told reporters that the  injured cop “would spend the Fourth of July face down in bed and would be on the sick list for several days.”  The tosser of the firecracker was not caught.

At some point around the Depression years, the Schwitters modernized the house by removing the Victorian detailing and replaced the cornice with a paneled parapet.

image via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services.

On December 17, 1955 Eleanora Schwitters sold the house to Alva L. Harrington, who resold the house to Harold Eliot Leeds and his partner Wheaton Galentine.  Leeds was an architect and interior design instructor at Pratt Institute.  Galentine was a documentary filmmaker and theirs was a particularly touching love story.

The men had already been together for nearly a decade.  Greenwich Village had been a haven for artists, street philosophers, writers and others who varied from the mainstream since prior to World War I, and by now was the center of New York’s gay life.   

The couple's hospitality and love of entertaining was famous among their friends.  Across the street lived poet and short story writer Elizabeth Bishop.  She wrote to poet Robert Lowell on January 22, 1962, in part mentioning the couple and the house:

I gave your plays—with a hurriedly written and illegible note—to Harold Leeds across the street at 64 Perry Street…Perhaps you have met by now.  I’d like to have you, and E, see his house.  It’s the prettiest one I know in New York.  He is a very good architect—a bit chi-chi and difficult at first, but improves rapidly, and his friend Wheaton Galentine makes, also, very good movies—really.  Ask to see his Singer Sewing Machine movie sometime!  They are hard-working and quiet and ultra-ultra-refined.  I like them both.

The interiors, in 2012, were pristinely intact.  Note the stained glass panel in the arched doorway at the rear of the entrance hall.   images via sothebyhomes.com

Taking a page from the Schwitters, Leeds and Wheaton rented an apartment to fashion executive Tim Gunn for 16 years. 

In 1990 Woody Allen filmed scenes from Alice here, then in 1998 the house was used by HBO as the exterior of Carrie Bradshaw’s home in its series “Sex and the City.”   Three years later the network quietly moved the shots to the house next door, at 66 Perry Street; but for years tourists and New Yorkers alike posed in front of both houses for photographs.

In 2002 Harold Leeds, who had designed structures like the Paris Theater, died in the Village Nursing Home.  Wheaton Galentine, stricken with Alzheimer’s disease, lived on in the lower part of the house attended by an aide.   A real estate agent told Diane Cardwell of The New York Times that after more than a half century of being together, the confused man would sometimes ask his aide, “Are we going to the nursing home to see Harold?”

The house as it appeared in 2012, prior to the restoration.  image via sothebyhomes.com

In June 2011 Wheaton Galentine died.  The remarkable house sold later that year for $9 million, with much of the proceeds earmarked for the Village Center for Care.  It was resold in 2013 for $13.5 million, its new owners initiating a three-year restoration/renovation.  The architects used surviving examples along the 1866 row to amazingly recreate the lost Italianate elements.

photograph by the author

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Robert Mook's 1869 Cast Iron 483-485 Broadway

In 1869 Manhattan's theater district had moved northward from the neighborhood which would later be called Soho.   That year the Broadway Theatre, originally built as Brougham's Lyceum, was demolished as developer Helen Langdon laid plans for a modern store and loft building on the site.

from Memories of Fifty Years, 1889 (copyright expired)

Architect Robert Mook received the commission to design Nos. 483-485 Broadway.  Clad in cast iron, the five-story building extended through the block to Mercer Street.  Mook divided it vertically with stacked pilasters, nearly matching those on the ends.  The floors between the rusticated storefront with its engaged Corinthian columns and the modillioned terminal cornice were given little ornamentation.   

The spartan treatment went as far as the columns between the windows.  Rather than capitals Mook gave them a ring of egg-and-dart molding.  Nevertheless, he added three classical urns atop each of the piers above the cornice.

Among Helen Langdon's initial tenants was William H. & Co.  William H. Lyon had an interesting past.  Born in Holland, Massachusetts in 1819, he was educated as a lawyer, but instead went into teaching.  He was principal of the Clyde High School in Wayne County, New York when Samuel Morse put his telegraph in operation.  Fascinated, Lyon experimented on his own and subsequently invented a "printing-telegraph."  On July 11, 1844 the Clyde Eagle announced "With this machine Mr. Lyon is able to write with pen and ink with the same facility that Professor Morse scratches characters upon paper with points of steel."

The impressive William H. Lyon as he appeared in 1884.  By the time of this photograph he had been nominated as a both a mayoral and congressional candidate.  The Civil, Political, Professional and Ecclesiastical History of the County of Kings (copyright expired)

The following year Lyon changed his professional course once again.  He moved to New York and opened his wholesale dry goods business, the Yankee Notion and Fancy Goods company.  Later renamed William H. Lyon & Co., the successful firm took the store level and the top two floors--50,000 square feet--in No. 483-485 Broadway in 1870.

In 1884 historian Henry R. Stiles said the firm "import goods from Europe, China, India, and Japan, and their sales extend not only to every State in the United States from Maine to California, but also to Mexico, West Indies, South America, and Canada."

Also in the building was the dry goods firm Hecht Brothers, on the second and third floors.

Wm. H. Lyon & Co.'s extensive offerings went beyond dry goods. The Christian Union, December 18, 1878 (copyright expired)  

Fire broke out in the building on the night of January 30, 1879.  In the course of battling the blaze, Fireman Edward McGaffney of Engine Co. 33 was permanently blinded.   Two days later William H. Lyon & Co. placed a notice in The New York Herald that read:

To The Trade:  The fire in the lofts of Nos. 483 and 485 Broadway will cause no delay whatever in transacting our business.

On March 7, 1877 attorneys had been attempting for a month to compile a jury to try Thomas Cleary on charges of attempting to bribe an alderman.   The following day the New-York Tribune reported on their frustration.  "As the people came and went, the ordinarily bad air of the court-room got worse and worse.  The Judge buried his nose in a bottle of smelling-salts.  The lawyers drew their handkerchiefs wearily across their brows and looked frequently at the clock."

But then, wrote the newspaper, "The dreary level of the mental shallows through which the lawyers have all day been wading was happily broken when Bernard Hecht came on the stand.  He is a fancy goods importer at No. 485 Broadway."  Although Hecht admitted to having an opinion in the case, he "felt himself entirely competent to adjudge the evidence impartially."   Cleary's attorney was not convinced.  "The defense, acting on their settled policy of excluding intelligent men, challenged him for bias."

Hecht had other problems to deal with before the month was up.  On Saturday night, March 26, 1887 fire again erupted within the building.  It caused $100,000 in damages to Hecht Brothers, who carried insurance of only $75,000.  The different would amount to about $683,000 today.  The New-York Tribune reported "William H. Lyon & Co., dealers in white goods and hosiery, who occupied the first, fourth and fifth floors of the same building, refused to make any statement as to their losses or insurance."

Whether the fire prompted the decision to close William H. Lyon & Co. is unclear.  But in December 1889 the firm closed out all its stock at half the wholesale prices.

The artist got the cornice-top urns slightly wrong, and omitted the middle one.  New-York Tribune, December 29, 1889 (copyright expired)

Taking William H. Lyon & Co.'s place in the building was Weil, Haskell & Co.  In its November 1889 issue The Clothier and Furnisher reported that the firm "will occupy the old stand of W. h. Lyon & Co., 483 and 485 Broadway, after the first of January where they will be glad to meet their old friends, or whoever may be in search of good goods from first hands."  

The "good goods" made by Weil, Haskell & Co. were men's and boys' clothing.  Their product line included "boys' waists," flannel shirts, night shirts, "underwear, hosiery, novelties, etc., etc." according to an advertisement that year.

The Clothiers' and Haberdashers' Weekly, February 7, 1896 (copyright expired)

Having been in the building for three decades, Hecht Brothers may have shocked the dry goods community when it failed in 1899.  Both Bernard and Meyer Hecht followed up by filing personal bankruptcies that August.

Replacing them at No. 483-485 was William Meyer & Co., makers of embroideries, handkerchiefs and lace.  The firm employed a relatively small work staff of 15 men and 12 women.

The estate of Helen Langdon still owned the property in 1904.  By now Weil-Haskell Company and William Meyer & Co. shared the building with Rich & Hochster, makers of tortoise shell goods.  The success of that firm was evidenced in the luxurious living conditions of William R. Hochster who lived with his wife in a seven-room apartment in the Ansonia Hotel.  The Evening World deemed him "a man of large means."

The Hochsters returned from dinner at around 10:00 on January 17, 1904 to a shocking scene.  Because it was Sunday, their two maids had the day off.  Burglars had ransacked the apartment.  "The thieves took away jewelry valued at about $2,500 and left a lot of silverware strewn over the floor," reported The Sun.  The haul would equal just under $75,000 today.

Hochster's firm used the sub-cellar as storage space.  It was a condition that had deadly consequences that summer.  On June 29, 1904 fire, discovered just before noon, broke in the sub-cellar.  The New York Times reported "About fifty girls employed by the Weil-Haskell Company and William Meyer & Co. behaved calmly and reached the street unharmed, but frightened."  

It took firefighters three hours to extinguish the blaze, which did the equivalent of $3.6 million in today's money.  But far worse was the toll the toxic fumes of the burning celluloid took on the responders.  As they attempted to enter the cellar, "The firemen and their officers did not flinch, but reeled and fell where they were at work, and were carried to Broadway or Mercer Street by gasping comrades."

The following day The Evening World ran the headline: "Firemen Dying From Fumes of Gas and Smoke / Victims Swept Down Like Soldiers On Battlefield."  Of the nearly 50 hospitalized firefighters, the article said "It is feared that four firemen will die."

The history of fires in the building seem to have weakened the internal structure.  In 1908 W. G. Langdon hired esteemed architects Clarence True and Warren Conover to make renovations.  Their plans called for "remodelling [sic] the five story loft building...and strengthening the fourth and fifth floors."

On December 21, 1910 the New-York Daily Tribune reported that William Meyer & Co., "one of the largest embroidery firms in the country," had leased the old W. & J. Sloane building on Broadway and 19th Street after having been in No. 493-495 for nearly two decades.

Smaller firms now took over the building.  In 1914 the Aluminum Sales and Manufacturing Company operated from the second floor, William Reichman & Co. was on the third, Benjamin Shrage was on the fourth and Aaron L. Small on the fifth.  The Small company manufactured muslin underwear, employing 58 women, 4 men and one teen under the age of 16.

In 1916 building became home to three businesses, all co-owned by Frank Levy and Frederick W. Ellis.  Wholesale sellers of "bedding manufacturers' supplies" Taylor & Ellis moved into the store and basement.  Their goods came from L. E. Ellis & Son upstairs.  Also in the building was the Frank Levy Paper Company, makers of envelopes and dealers in cardboard, tissue and blotting papers, and "book papers."

The names L. E. Ellis & Co. and Frank Levy are prominently displayed on the facade in 1920.  Geyer's Stationer, September 9, 1920 (copyright expired)

The Frank Levy Paper Company had been in operation since 1882.  On September 9, 1920 Guyer's Stationer noted that the firm's salesroom and warehouse "is in the heart of the paper trading district."

The cast iron urns were the building's most distinctive element.  photo via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services

As the decades passed, little changed to the building's exterior appearance.  In the 1930's the Weiss Shirt Co. operated here; and by the early 1990's the warehouse of Donghia Furniture and Textiles was in the building and would remain into the 21st century.

A renovation completed in in 2020 resulted in office and retail space throughout the venerable building.  At some point the wonderful rooftop urns, which were still in place in as late as 1973, were removed.  They were a significant loss to Robert Mook's rather austere design which relied so much on their whimsical touch.

photographs by the author

The 1882 Kursheedt Building - Nos. 145-149 West 19th Street

In 1862 Frederick A. Kursheedt took a job in a trimmings factory at the age of 16.  The diligent young man thoroughly learned the business.  By 1882 he was president of his own firm and had been awarded patents for time and labor savings inventions like his "fluting machine" and "plaiting machine," both of which produced pleats in fabrics.

That year in February prominent architect Robert Mook filed plans for a "seven-story brick factory" to replace the old buildings at Nos. 145 through 149 West 19th Street.  Frederick Kursheedt had come a long way in twenty years.  The cost of his new structure was projected at $55,000; more than $1.3 million today.

Mook created an attractive, industrial building faced in beige brick with minimal stone trim.  Its three sections were separated vertically by shallow pilasters.  The brick was used to give texture and interest in the form of bandcourses, capitals, and cornices.  Especially eye-catching was the corbel table between the sixth and seventh floors, which seemed to delightfully echo the campanile of the Palazzo Pubblico in Tuscany.

The original brick cornice was shaved and covered at some point.

The Kursheedt Manufacturing Company produced a variety of trimmings used by garment manufacturers--plaitings, braids, laces, buttons, and embroideries, for instance.   Here hundreds of workers, many of them young girls, worked at a myriad of specialized machines.  The building also contained Kursheedt's extensive library of pattern books; books of antique textile designs, and photographs of European and American embroideries and laces from as early as the Renaissance.

As was the case with most wealthy businessmen, Kursheedt held directorships in other concerns.  While the Kursheedt Manufacturing Company weathered the devastating Financial Panic of 1893, the Madison Square Bank was not so lucky.  The bank failed and warrants were issued to its officers and directors to appear before a grand jury in October--including Frederick A. Kursheedt.  There was, it seems, a question about the legality of $50,000 in securities that had been sold and a lawsuit to recover $750,000 in funds.

Getting the men to appear in court was a challenge.  On October 26 The Sun ran the headline "All The Directors Bailed" and reported "On Tuesday afternoon District Attorney Nicoll was informed that Director Frederick A. Kursheedt was too ill to leave his room at the Imperial Hotel."  Nicoll was prepared to hold him on a $5,000 bail (more than $135,000 in today's dollars); the same amount as the other directors.

Nicoll lost patience with the men and within the month doubled their bail--except for the bank's president whose bond was set at $25,000.  It would seem that The Evening World had already decided the men's guilt when it reported on November 28 "How many others were implicated in the looting of the institution was still a mystery" and advised "The prospect of additional developments in the case to-day had aroused curiosity to the highest pitch.  It was known that several other indictments were brought in yesterday in connection with the 'wrecking' of the Madison Square Bank."

Kursheedt had nothing to say to reporters.  Attorneys merely noted "that it was a very disagreeable piece of business."

Frederick Kursheedt survived the years-long case with only a temporarily bruised reputation.  In the meantime the Kursheedt Manufacturing Company enjoyed such success that in 1906 architects Davis, McGrath & Shepard were commissioned to design an annex next door.  On February 10 the Real Estate Record & Builders' Guide reported "A new loft building, to be known as the Kursheedt Building, will be erected at Nos. 139 to 141 West 19th st....The front will be faced with light buff brick and Indiana limestone."

The architects renovated the lower two floors of the existing Kursheedt Building to match; replacing with brown brick with beige and updating the openings to more or less meld with the new building.

The architects extended the lower floor facade treatment of No. 143 (right) to the older building.

Frederick A. Kursheedt died in 1906 while in Paris.  An auction was held on October 10, 1910 to liquidate the estate.  The two buildings, which shared heating and electricity, were to be sold as a package.   The auction was unsuccessful and it would be two decades before the property was sold.  While the Kursheedt Manufacturing Company remained in business until 1912, when it was absorbed by Einstein,Wolff, & Co., it left West 19th Street for No. 356 West Broadway.

The floors of the Kursheedt Building were leased to smaller manufacturers.  In 1913 The American Clothes Drying Company took the ground floor for its showroom.   Founded in 1903 it manufactured driers for houses, apartment buildings and institutions such as "police stations, fire engine houses, [and] post offices."

The American Clothes Dryer Company's appliances had nothing in common with those used today.  The housewife who purchased the residential model could expect to give up a hefty amount of floor space.  And the larger affairs--used in apartment houses, for instance--were the size of a large room.  Decades before the tumbler was invented, clothes were draped over aluminum bars on asbestos-filled frames which then slid into super-heated compartments.

The household version of the clothes dryer required significant floor space.  Sweet's Architectural Catalog 1911 (copyright expired)

Many Manhattan apartment buildings installed the American Clothes Dryer Company's massive appliances.  Above is the one in The Apthorp.  Architects' and Builders' Magazine, September 1909 (copyright expired)

Although the upper lofts were occupied mostly by apparel making firms, there was one glaring exception in 1923.  Trouville & Co. was a brokerage firm and its unlikely location, far from Wall Street, was most likely explained late that year.

The first years of the 1920s saw stocks rising rapidly.  The prospect of quick riches and brokers' offering the purchase of shares with small down payments--some as low as 10 percent--soon had ordinary citizens gambling their savings.  One was a Mrs. Huey, who opened an account with Trouville & Co. on March 22, 1923. She placed an order for 100 shares of Kelly-Springfield Tire.

Two days later she received her confirmation that her purchase, totaling $6,035.31, had been made.  Then came the insistent demands from Vernon Victor Trouville for money.  She sent cash and securities totally around $4,000; but then asked for her certificates before providing the balance.

That caused a problem for Trouville, who according to Mrs. Huey's attorney, Edwin A. Falk, "presumably never having purchased same, was unable to deliver."

The incident sparked an investigation which landed Vernon Trouville in trouble.  Attorney General Carl Sherman filed a complaint that said in part "The defendant has been conducting a bucket shop and has made no bona fide purchase, and sale of securities when orders were placed with him."

Upstairs the Crown Piece Dyeing Company had a particularly talented employee.  Max Berman had owned his own small tailoring shop on East 115th Street in the early 1920s.  His debts had accumulated to several hundred dollars, so he applied for a porter's job here.  Now he earned $20 a week doing janitorial work.  He later told a reporter "my wife and three children were actually facing starvation.  I saw an advertisement that Mr. Geller wanted help and I applied, and when he heard my story he gave me a job, although he didn't need me."

Berman's most pronounced talents were neither tailoring nor sweeping.  It was his voice.  Back on East 115th Street he had been known as the "singing tailor."  Now, in April 1923 he made his debut at Carnegie Hall.

Despite what The Indianapolis Star later deemed "rave reviews," the concert initially seemed a tarnished success.  Berman had to pay $100 for the tickets, himself, and his take was just $33.  On the bright side, he told a New York Times reporter "Right now I have a chance for four engagements at $500 each in Chicago."

The singing janitor went on to operatic success and today the Max Berman Prize for vocal excellence is still awarded annually by the Cleveland Institute of Music.

Other similar garment factories like Star Piece Dyeing and Finishing occupied the former Kursheedt Building until the garment district moved north of 34th Street.  It became home to a more diverse list of tenants, like Norton Centerpieces, Inc. which moved in in 1950; and the School of Printing in 1970.

Then in 1981 the upper floors were converted for residential use--just two massive apartments per floor.  Although the 1906 renovations of first and second floors are regrettably bland, and the later entrance can be described as functional; Robert Mook's upper section deserves a look up.

photographs by the author

Schwartz & Gross's neo-Federal No. 1000 Madison Ave.

During the Civil War construction came to a near-halt in Manhattan.  But among builder Joseph Hewlett’s first projects following the war was his own home at No. 1000 Madison Avenue, between 77^th and 78^th Streets.  A block away development of Central Park continued, as the blocks spreading east were filling with brownstone rowhouses.

Hewlett hired prolific architect Robert Mook to design the house.  Construction on the brick-faced structure was started in 1869 and completed the following year.  Hewlett and his wife, Mary Ann would live in the house for years.  He died here on Saturday morning, May 19, 1888; and Mary Ann A. Hewlett died in the house on Friday morning, April 17, 1896.  Her funeral was held in the house the following Monday morning.

A year later, on March 27, 1897, auctioneer Peter F. Meyer announced that “the valuable dwelling parcel” at No, 1000 Madison Avenue would be sold at auction.  By now Madison Avenue, unlike Fifth Avenue just a block away, was seeing the incursion of commerce.  Many of the old mansions were being converted for business purposes at ground level.  The winning bidders for No. 1000 had the same idea—but they met unexpected resistance.

In January 1898 the new owners applied to the Department of Buildings for permits to alter the house “to a building to be used for stores and offices, and extending the building out to the street line.”  Removing the stoop and extending the façade outward would result in the structure projecting several feet beyond the adjoining buildings.  The permit was denied for structural reasons.  The walls and floor beams were of residential strength and did not meet building codes for an office building.

The owners tried again.  They amended the permit to provide alterations to “a two-family residence and stores on the first floor.”   The Commissioner of Buildings denied this application as well.  The 8-inch thick walls were too thin for the proposed use.  Within a ten-day period, their architect busily produced three different plans.  Finally the owners went ahead with the renovations--and were fined.

On February 19, 1898 the Real Estate Record & Builders’ Guide reported “The alteration work was in progress and the usual violation notice was served on the owners.”  The owners took the Commissioner of Buildings to court “to compel him to issue a permit.”  The judge sided with the Buildings Department and the dramatic makeover of No. 1000 Madison Avenue came to a halt; at least for now.

Victor Hugo Mathushek soon moved into the former Hewlett house.  He was a partner in Matheshek & Son, piano manufacturers, at Broadway and 47^th Street.  The 44-year old left home for work on Monday morning, October 29, 1900; but he would never return.

The drug manufacturing firm of Tarrant & Co. was located in a large building at the northwest corner of Greenwich and Warren Streets.  Just after noon that day a fire was discovered.  As firefighters fought the blaze, it finally reached a storage area for chemicals.

The following day The New York Times reported “The greater part of two business blocks was wiped out of existence yesterday, and under the ruins this morning it is probable lie the bodies of forty or more unfortunate victims of fire and explosion.”  Among those listed as missing was Victor Mathushek.

By 1911 Henry Hart lived here.  He owned and operated commercial properties throughout the New York area; but was best known for his Lorraine Hotel in Edgemere, Long Island.  The fashionable resort hotel sat on the beachfront and Hart marketed it as “New, modern, strictly up-to-date.”  Not only did the rooms have running water; there was a telephone in each in 1909.

New-York Tribuze, June 6, 1909 (copyright expired)

Henry Hart remained in the house until 1914 when in June Elinor Comstock leased it for her newly-founded Elinor Comstock School of Music.  She had taught music in New York for 15 years and was well-known in musical circles.  A Handbook of the Best Private Schools of the United States and Canada noted “The members of her school have opportunities for carrying on academic as well as musical study.”

Shortly after she leased the house the New-York Tribune, on June 28, reported that she would sail on the steamship Bremen for Europe on July 4.  “She will go direct to visit her friend, Ignace Paderewski, and will be accompanied by some of her pupils, who desire to study with this celebrated artist.”

Elinor was back in New York by the middle of September to start the fall session.  But the school would not remain in the house for long.  Elinor Comstock moved her school to another former dwelling at No. 41 East 80^th Street at the corner of Madison Avenue, two blocks north.

No. 1000 Madison was purchased by the Ritz Realty Corp., owned by Robert M. Catts.  Catts succeeded where the 1898 owners had failed.  His firm contracted the architectural firm of Schwartz & Gross to transform the old house to a modern, neo-Federal store and apartment building.

The completed alterations, which cost Ritz Realty $10,000 (in the neighborhood of $125,000 in 2016), resulted in a dignified brick-faced façade above the storefront.  The architects used charred header bricks to give the illusion of age.  Carved panels, splayed and paneled stone lintels, an a wrought iron balconette carried out the Federal motif.  A dramatic stone tympanum featured an unfolded fan fronted by a basket overflowing with flowers and ribbons.

The lovely carvings are demeaned by years of accumulated grime.

Henry Hart did not totally abandon his former property.  The ground floor retail space became home to the Henry Hart, Inc. Florist shop.   Hart advertised his flower store as being “in the heart of the most exclusive residential section.”  The florist would remain here at least until 1919.

In the meantime, Ritz Realty Co. marketed their upscale apartments in “exclusive Lenox Hill.”  An advertisement in The Sun on July 15 1919 offered “2, 3 and 4 large rooms and bath with very large closets, open fireplaces, etc.; must be seen to be appreciated.”  The least expensive apartment rented for $1,300 a year; about $1,500 per month today.  The most expensive was more than double that amount.

Ritz Realty Co. offered both “housekeeping” and “non-housekeeping” apartments. Non-housekeeping apartments did not have kitchens and that may have played a part in the decision to renovate the interiors in 1934.  Architect Albert Humble’s redesign resulted in two apartments on each floor.

Among the new residents was Oliver Hazard Perry La Farge who signed a lease in August 1937.  La Farge led a double-life, of sorts.  A respected anthropologist, he had explored early Mexican sites in 1925 and continued to study sites in Central American and the American Southwest.  A rigorous fighter for Native American rights, he was President of the Association on American Indian Affairs and wrote more than 15 scholarly books, mostly on Native Americans.

But La Farge was even more well known as a Pulitzer Prize-winning author for his 1929 Laughing Boys.  His short stories were published in popular magazines such as Esquire and The New Yorker.

Another noted resident was William Barnes Morgan and his wife, the former Louise Sureth.   For several years Morgan was a foreign representative of the Twentieth Century-Fox Film Corporation.   The couple was living here on July 23, 1944 when Morgan died at the age of only 39.

The last half of the 20^th century saw upscale art and antiques galleries moving up Madison Avenue.  In 1960 the Bernard Danenberg Galleries moved into the former Henry Hart florist shop.  During the remainder of the century the building would be home to the Royal Athena Gallery and the Haime gallery, as well.

In 2003 the ground floor was taken by the Sant Ambroeus restaurant, which remains there in 2016.   There are still two apartments per floor above.   Although a coat of grime disguises its architectural details, the upper façade is essentially unchanged since Schwartz & Gross transformed Joseph Hewlett’s post-Civil War home in 1916.

photographs by the author