The Rutgers Club - 314 West 91st Street

 

In June 1892 mansion architect C. P. H. Gilbert filed plans for a four-story brick and stone residence for attorney Charles DeHart Brower.  Completed within the year, the 39-foot wide house cost Brower the equivalent of $580,000 in today's money.  A period photograph of an abutting structure gives tantalizing clues to its appearance--a red Roman brick facing and grouped stone-framed windows with colorful stained glass transoms.

Born on December 13, 1856 Charles had married Mary Holly Bailey on October 12, 1880.  The couple had three children, 8-year old Charles Ferguson, 7-year old Fannie, and Bailey, who was born in the new house on May 2, 1893.

Brower had been a member of Ye Olde Settlers' Association of Ye West Side since 1884, a social club for area residents.  He was also highly involved in the West End Association, a more activist group, staunchly defensive of the developing suburb which lobbied for improvements like sewers and mass transportation, and against "nuisances" like the city's proposal to use land below Riverside Drive for incinerating garbage.  He was, as well, a director and treasurer of the Ocean Trading Co., and a trustee of the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

The Brower country home was in Quogue, Long Island.  There Charles berthed his yacht, the Frontenac.  The craft was annually entered in the Westhampton Country Club regatta.   And by the time the younger Charles reached his 18th birthday, he too had a boat.  Father and son did very well in the regatta of 1902.   On August 10 the Brooklyn Daily Eagle reported "In class Q. sloop Frontenac, Charles Dehart Brower, was an easy winner, beating Winnabust over nine minutes, with Wampnissie third.  In class U. sloops, Lass, Charles Dehart Brower, jr., finished first and Atmaq, second."

In 1901 the West End Association began fighting with the Forty-second Street, Manhattanville & St. Nicholas Avenue Railway Company "against the maintenance of four tracks in Amsterdam Avenue, on the ground that the unused tracks are a nuisance as well as a menace to the public," as reported by The New York Times.  When nothing happened after five years, Charles DeHart Brower took the matter in to his own hands, suing the firm and seeking the forfeiture of its charter.

The younger Charles had graduated from Princeton in 1904 with a degree in electrical engineering.  The family was spending the holidays in Quogue in 1907 while Marian Childs was visiting the William E. Barnes family nearby.  The Sun mentioned that both Charles and Marian "are well known in New York society."  

It appears that the two were well-known to themselves as well, for on New Year's Eve Charles proposed that they elope.  The Sun explained it saying he "asked Miss Child's why they couldn't get married then and dispense with the marriage license and a lot of bother and fuss."  Within hours the two were married.  The article said "They and a few relatives got into Mr. Brower's automobile and the trip to Riverhead was made in a hurry."

Fanny's marriage to Harvey C. McClintock on November 11, 1911 was a more traditional affair.  It took place in the Quogue residence with the expected announcement, invitations, and guests.  The newlyweds moved into the West 91st Street house.

In the meantime, Mary Brower was involved in Upper West Side causes.  She was an officer in the Bloomingdale Day Nursery and a member of the Ladies' Association of the Sheltering Arms.  The Sheltering Arms was an institution founded to care for children six to twelve years old "for whom no other institution provides."  The children were not orphans, but placed there by parents or guardians who could not afford to care for them.

Around 1917 Charles Brower fell ill.  His condition worsened over a period of months and he died in the house on May 2, 1918 at the age of 62.

Two years later the Browers offered the residence for sale at $65,000--just under $830,000 in today's money.  The Real Estate Record & Builders' Guide reported that it sold for a startlingly higher amount, $85,000 and that "after extensive alterations will be occupied by the purchaser."

That purchaser was motion picture producer William Fox, founder in 1915 of the Fox Film Corporation.  He was also a director in the Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America.  Born in Hungary as Vilmos Fuchs, his parents brought him to the United States when he was nine-months old.   His name is best remembered today in 20th Century Fox, Fox Broadcasting and similar firms.

Possibly because the motion picture industry was rapidly moving west to California, Fox's residency in the house was short lived.  In 1923 it was purchased by the Rutgers Club which hired architect Samuel Sass to do interior renovations.  Five years later the architectural firm of Gronenberg & Leuchtag completely remodeled the building, giving it a new neo-Romanesque facade.  Stone medieval-inspired corbels over the entrance and below the cornice, and inset heraldic shields provided contrast to the brown-red brick.  The center shield below the gable holds the club's monogram, RC.

From the beginning the Rutgers Club was used by Jewish groups, most notably Ivriah, a women's group which ran a Jewish education center in the building.  On February 15, 1923 the New York Post reported "One of the most unique collections of dolls in the world--representing dolls of twenty-five countries stretching from the inner-most sections of the Orient to the nations of Eastern and Central Europe--will be displayed by...the West Side Division of Ivriah at the Rutgers Club, 314 West Ninety-first Street."

And on April 22, 1934 the Jewish Telegraphic Agency reported on Ivriah's upcoming weekly meeting.  Leo Schwartz was to discuss "Jewish Problems and their solution" and Selma Start would speak on "Creative Listening to Music."

International Jewish issues continued to be addressed in lectures and meetings here.  On November 4, 1937 The New York Sun reported "A symposium on the proposed establishment of a Jewish State in Palestine has been arranged by the West Side Zionist District for next Monday evening at the Rutgers Club."

Little has changed to the exterior of the building since this photograph was shot around 1941.  via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services

On August 2, 1943 The New York Sun announced that the Herzliah Hebrew Academy had purchased the building.  The article noted "the purchaser plans to extensively alter the building and occupy it for education purposes with a curriculum similar to that of a junior college."  The renovations, completed in 1944, resulted in an auditorium on the first floor, class rooms in the second and third, and offices on the top floor.

The Herzliah Hebrew Academy remained for more than two decades.  By the early 1970's the building had become the Walden School, a private school for grades 8 through 12, and in 1974 was home to the Center for Change, "a revolutionary health care and educational service organization," according to WorkForce magazine.

In 2005 The Ideal School of Manhattan was founded and moved into No. 314 West 91st Street.  The independent elementary school remains in the space.  And despite its many incarnations, the exterior is little changed since the Rutgers Club gave it a facelift in 1928.

photographs by the author

Samuel Sass's Nos. 381 and 383 Fifth Avenue

Change often comes quickly to Manhattan neighborhoods.  In 1881 No. 381 Fifth Avenue was home to the wealthy and respected C. Oliver Iselin and his new wife, the former Frances Margaretta Garner.  The couple had been married in the house, owned by the bride’s widowed mother, just a year earlier.   The wedding had been attended by 500 of some of Manhattan’s wealthiest citizens—including Caroline Schermerhorn Astor who lived a block to the south.

Next door lived the Haliburton Fales family at No. 383.  The New York Times would later mention that they have “long been socially prominent in this city.”

But ten years later the Iselin family was gone, their mansion being used by Madame Leoncia Tierce as her millinery shop.  By 1897 the art galleries of Julius Oehme would share the building.  And soon after the widowed Elizabeth J. Fales died in her house next door on October 1, 1900, it was taken over by the Musical Art Society.   The blocks of Fifth Avenue just above 34^th Street had been taken over by every mansion district’s greatest enemy—commerce.

By 1907 once-grand homes in the neighborhood had been razed for modern structures—the Astor mansions had been replaced by the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel; Benjamin Altman’s block-consuming department store now stood on the east side of the avenue between 34^th and 35^th Streets; and real estate operator J. H. Peller leased the old mansion at No. 381 from the Iselin estate as the site of a new commercial building.

On October 27 The New York Times reported that Peller had commissioned architect Samuel Sass to transform the house into a six-story brick and limestone-fronted building to cost $60,000.  Rapid-fire construction resulted in its completion within the year.   Five stories of Beaux-Arts decorated limestone sat above a store front seemingly plucked from the Champs Elysees.  The rusticated façade served as a framework for the four-story cast iron bays; adorned with a lush carved cartouche and palm fronds.  A free-standing Ionic colonnade fronted the sixth floor below a bracketed copper cornice.

The storefront was a slice of Paris.  photograph by Wurts Bros. from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York

No. 381 quickly filled with tenants.  William Bentley Quaintance took the store, basement and second floor.  The wealthy merchant's upscale shop sold imported “madras and muslin piece goods and fancy nets.”  His patrons were the dressmakers of Fifth Avenue who catered to the socialites who had lived in the neighborhood only a few years earlier.

One of those was Miss Alice Maynard, a well-known society dressmaker, who also moved into No. 381.   A. J. O’Donovan & Co., importers of laces took the entire fourth floor upon the building’s opening.

Society women were stunned by a tragic accident that occurred on New Year’s Eve 1909.   Mrs. Florence T. Ellis was celebrating at the exclusive Café Martin when, as reported in The Times, “a tiny flame touched the flimsy fabric of her skirt.”  In an instant Mrs. Ellis’s gown was ablaze.  Horrified patrons watched while everything was done to extinguish the flames.  Yet Florence T. Ellis died of her injuries.

A reporter from The New York Times called on Alice Maynard for her opinion as to the cause.  She blamed “fashion for the increasing danger from fire.”   The modiste pointed to chiffon and celluloid.  “It is not like in other years, when the dresses were made with ruffles.  For where there are ruffles there is a break to check the flames; but in the one-piece chiffons there is no break, and the gown goes up in a puff.  Celluoid is dangerous, and is now only used for spangles in black-spangled gowns.  Several years ago, then there was a craze for spangles, there did not seem to be a great many accidents, for the women knew how dangerous it was to have their spangled gowns come in contact with fire.”

Peller’s project was a success--enough that in December 1910 he leased the former Fales house, recently home to the William Clausen art galleries.  “It is the intention of Mr. Peller to tear down the old structure…and erect a building in keeping with the surrounding property.”

Three months later plans were filed.  “The smaller building will be increased in height to that of the larger, and a pent house for studios built on the roof,” reported The Times.  The alterations to No. 383 would cost Peller about $40,000 and would result in a mirror-image of No. 381.

Alice Maynard's creations targeted Manhattan's "discriminating class of women."  Theatre Magazine, April 1911 (copyright expired)

Tenants of No. 381 stayed on through the construction.  In April 1911 a journalist from Theatre Magazine stopped by Alice Maynard’s shop.  “Always there is something new to be found in this delightfully cosy shop, in which the gowns are distinguished by unusual elegance and refinement that appeals so strongly to the discriminating class of women,” she wrote.

As construction neared completion on No. 383 Fifth Avenue in January 1912 Peller had Samuel Sass made $1,000 in alterations to No. 381 as well.  Skylights were added to the top floor and walls, presumably on that floor, were reconfigured.

The buildings were depicted in P. W. Lambert & Co.'s opening announcement.  Notions and Fancy Goods, May 1914 (copyright expired)

P. W. Lambert & Co. “makers of fashionable novelties in fabrics, etc.” moved into the newly-completed No. 383.  Upon the showroom’s opening on May 1, 1914 the firm advertised its “ideal Afternoon-Tea and Theatre Bag.”

That same year, on July 1, the store space in No. 381 was taken by Cammeyer Shoes.  Since 1892 Alfred Cammeyer’s business—touted as the largest shoe store in the world—was located on Sixth Avenue along the shopping district that would become known as the Ladies’ Mile.  Cammeyer died in 1909, at the time when the great New York retailers were moving northward.   The removal of Cammeyer to No. 381 Fifth Avenue was one of the final dominoes to fall in the death of the Ladies’ Mile.

from the collection of the New York Public Library

In the matching retail space next door was Schrafft’s drugstore.  It was the scene of an unfortunate accident on November 20, 1915 when Marie Ethel Barker dropped in to pick up a bottle of Zoolak. 

(As a side note, Dr. Dadirrian’s Zoolak was made in Brooklyn and advertised as a patent medicine.  It was mostly slightly fermented cow’s milk.)

Marie worked in the office of Dr. Redell at the corner of 35^th Street and Fifth Avenue.  At around 2:00 that afternoon he sent her to the drugstore to pick up the medicine.  As she entered the store, she casually noticed that the iron sidewalk shutters to the basement were closed.    Her errand took about ten minutes, during which time a Schrafft's employee went into the basement.

Marie Barker was looking at the crowd of pedestrians on the sidewalk rather than where she was walking and she dropped down the open trap door.  She somehow grabbed the open door and clung there until a boy helped her to the sidewalk.

A year later the management of Schrafft’s drugstore found itself in court defending against a law suit filed by Marie Barker.

Both Schrafft’s and Cammeyer would remain in the stores for years.  Meanwhile a variety of tenants came and went in the upper floors.  In 1917 general contractors Cauldwell-Wingate Company was here.  That year it received the contract for constructing the Henry Miller’sTheatre on West 43^rd Street.

In 1920 merchant tailor Jules C. Weiss & Co. was in No. 381; and the National Better Business Bureau had its offices in No. 383 by 1927.  In 1929 Max Fertig, a linen dealer, leased the entire building at No. 381.

A nighttime view of Schrafft's in 1939 shows an already-streamlined shopfront.  photo by Gottschol-Schleisner, Inc. from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York

On August 10, 1940 Gerald Shattuck, president of the Frank G. Shattuck Company, owners of the Schrafft’s chain, announced that the firm had hired the architectural firm of Bloch & Hesse to redesign the storefront and modernize the interior of No. 383.   The result was a flat modern façade in keeping with the times and in brutal contrast with the structure.

The 1940 Bloch & Hess storefront was starkly modern.  photo from the collection of the New York Public Library

Throughout the rest of the century the wide range of shops and offices continued.  A Bornand, Inc. music box dealers and repairers was in No. 383 in the 1940s; Ritts Company’s Fifth Avenue Tropical Shop sold contemporary “tropical” furniture of rattan from No. 381 at the same time and into the 1950s; and the Japan Trade Center was also in the building at mid-century.

It was not until 1959 that the Fales Estate finally sold No. 383.

By 1960 the Fifth Avenue neighborhood was slightly tarnished.  Joseph Menaged owned his McCall’s Fifth Avenue gift shop at No. 381 Fifth Avenue that year.  In February he received a special sale license for his Going Out of Business Sale.  A sign in the window read “Everything Must Go.”  A representative of the Better Business Bureau, Claire Frey, stopped in.  Joseph Menaged showed her Oriental rugs.

When the special license expired at the beginning of March, she dropped in again.  McCall’s Fifth Avenue had changed its name.  It was now Regis Fifth Avenue.  But it was the same Mr. Menaged who waited on her and he showed her the same Oriental rugs.

On April 5 The New York Times reported “Yesterday, Mr. Menaged, having neglected to go out of business, was convicted of violation of a local law that prohibits misrepresentation about sales.  He faces a possible fine of $500 and sixty days in jail.”

While the twin buildings appear to be one; Nos. 381 and 383 remain separate structures.  A recent facade unifies the lower two floors where somewhat garish signage mocks the elegant Parisian storefronts of a century ago.  The upper four floors, however are essentially intact since Samuel Sass remodeled two brownstone mansions into upscale commercial buildings.

non-credited photographs by the author