Julius Boekell's 1876 205 Chrystie Street

photograph by Anthony Bellov

 
Born in Germany, architect Julius Boekell built his career around the designing of tenement-and-store buildings.  On April 7, 1876, he filed plans for a "five-story brick store and tenement" at the southwest corner of Chrystie and Stanton Streets.  Its construction cost developer H. Riffel $15,000, or about $465,000 in 2026 terms.

Boekell tucked the residential entrance far to the rear, at 19 Stanton Street.  Overall Italianate in design, the building was faced in red brick above cast iron storefronts.  Typical of Boekell's work, stone quoins outlined the corners.  Striking cast metal lintels blended Italianate and neo-Grec styles--the former reflected in the gently arched molded cornices with their lacy cresting, and the latter in the incised decorations underneath.  The marriage of styles returned in the terminal cornice where the corbels began with geometric neo-Grec lines before sprouting foliate Italianate scrolls.

photograph by Anthony Bellov

H. Riffel (who lived next door at 17 Stanton Street) retained ownership of the building.  It held fifteen apartments and their occupants were, expectedly, working class.  

Riffel was faced with a terrifying incident in the summer of 1879.  On August 25, he rented rooms on the second floor to a woman named Rauch.  She told him that she had two children and, according to The Sun, she "was reticent as to where she came from, but implied that she had last lived in California."

The new tenant was also unforthcoming about her family.  The Sun said she moved in with "seven children, one of whom only reaching to adult age."  (In fact, the eldest was 15.)  One of the children, the next day, implied that they had actually just arrived from Memphis.  Not coincidentally, on August 28, The Evening Post reported that five new cases of yellow fever had been reported in Memphis, Tennessee.

The day after the family moved into 19 Stanton Street, Mrs. Rauch showed symptoms of yellow fever.  The Sun said, "other tenants noticed the pungent smell of what were evidently disinfectants."  A tenant who lived on the same floor, John Sullivan, notified officials.  On August 28, Dr. Taylor of the Board of Health, "hastened to the tenement house."  The Evening Post reported, "He was informed that [the family] had come from Chicago."  When Mrs. Rauch could not remember where they lived there, the eldest daughter said they lived on Noble Street, but could not remember the address.  Mrs. Rauch explained that she was simply suffering from "a cold contracted in traveling."  Satisfied that the rumors of yellow fever were "nothing but the loose talk of the other tenants," Dr. Taylor left.

Less confident was a reporter from The Evening Post, who checked the latest Chicago directory and found no Rauches on Noble Street.  He visited the Rauch rooms and when he spoke to Mrs. Rauch in German, she talked freely, conceding that they had come from Memphis.  And The Sun reported that they, "now admitted that all their clothes and bedding had been burned before starting" for New York.

The Evening Post opined that had Dr. Taylor known the details uncovered by the reporter he, "might have delayed his report or slightly altered its tone."  The newspaper concluded, "It may...be wise to watch these new comers."  Frustratingly, newspaper coverage ended with no follow-up on the Rauch family's fate.

photograph by Anthony Bellov

Julius Freeland lived here in the spring of 1894.  The 24-year-old broke into the house of attorney Thomas E Pearsall on the night of May 4, but he was unprepared for his encounter with a feisty servant.  Ellen Lyborn discovered Freeland on the second floor.  She sneaked up behind him and "caught him around the waist, held him fast and yelled at the top of her voice until help arrived," reported The Evening World.  Freeland "was handed over to the police of the Sixth avenue station," said the article.

On May 2, 1899, resident Samuel Bennett took a day trip to Coney Island.  His pleasant outing ended very badly, however.  The New York Journal and Advertiser said, "Sixty passengers on trolly car No. 855...had a thrilling experience during the storm last evening on the way from Coney Island to Manhattan."  The passengers of the "uncomfortably crowded" car would most likely have chosen a different adjective than "thrilling" to describe their ride.

The article reported that a bolt of lightning struck the trolley pole and "ran into the car.  There was a loud explosion, the fuses were burned out and the car appeared to have been set on fire in several places."  Every passenger received a "severe shock" and several were knocked to the floor.  "There was a wild scramble to get out of the car, and men knocked down and trampled upon women in the effort to reach the street."  Among those who were seriously hurt was Samuel Bennett, who suffered injuries to his chest and head.

Hard working residents living in tenement buildings almost always coexisted with criminals.  A Police Department report of "Suspected Gambling Houses" in January 1899 included the raid on a "poolroom" at 19 Stanton Street.  (Poolrooms were illegal gambling dens.)  The officers got more than they expected in this raid, however.  The report said, "One of those poolrooms is an opium joint, No. 19 Stanton street."

John Segallo lived here in 1904.  The New York Times described him as "an Italian, thirty years old."  The newspaper said he "says that he is a tailor, but the police...say he is 'connected with the Mafia.'"  Police were investigating Segallo as "having been connected with the famous barrel murder," according to The New York Times.  The "barrel murder" was the slaying of Italian immigrant Benedetto Madonia, whose slashed body was discovered stuffed in a sugar barrel on East 11th Street in the spring of 1903.  (The murder was later attributed to the Mafia gang headed by Ignazio Lupo and Giuseppe Morello.)

On June 21, 1904, The New York Times reported that Segallo "was shot twice...He was taken to the Hudson Street Hospital in a dying condition.  The article said, 

 

Through an Italian druggist, in whose place Segallo was treated, the wounded man said that he was taking a walk to get the salt air, and that he saw two Italians whom he did not know quarreling in the street.  One of them he said drew a revolver and fired two shots, both of which struck him in the abdomen.

The pharmacist's story was different from other witness accounts.  Detective McGee said that he "believed that there had been a fight between Segallo and other Italians over the division of spoils from a pocketbook taken from a newly arrived Italian immigrant."  Segallo died in the Hudson Hospital that evening.

image via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services

Twenty-eight-year-old Antonio Fedele had much in common with John Segallo.  He was described by the New York Herald in 1912 as "an old member of the Lupo counterfeiting gang."  He lived here that year with his widowed mother and eight sisters.  According to the newspaper, Fedele's sisters "thought that their brother was a hard working contractor who made a good deal of money and treated them with unfailing kindness."

Fedele, indeed, made a great deal of money.  But his sisters certainly knew it did not come from working as a laborer.  He had already served two prison terms, one for counterfeiting and another for burglary.  On January 24, 1912, the New York Herald said, "His picture is in the rogues' gallery and he was arrested a few weeks ago in Passaic for trying to steal horses."

As it turned out, Fedele's involvement with the Lupo gang would not be the only thing that he and Segallo had in common.  On January 23, 1912, the New-York Tribune reported, "The body of the man found in a clump of trees in South Orange Township on Saturday morning with a stab wound in the abdomen and three shots in the head was identified tonight as that of Antonio Fedele, a Sicilian."  

Angelo Lagappato was a member of an Italian-American extortion group La Mano Nera, or the Black Hand.  The terrorist organization used violent and often deadly methods.  On April 11, 1913, the New-York Tribune reported on a massive explosion that occurred on the ground floor of a six-story tenement at 152 Mott Street.  People two blocks away were thrown to the pavement by the shock.  The article said, "The hundreds of Italians who live in the tenement above the store poured into the hallways and down the stairs, shouting and firing off their revolvers in the well known Italian style."

A few moments before the bomb went off, detectives arrested Angelo Lagappato and Gusto Corso for suspicious activity.  "Both prisoners were charged with having loaded revolvers in their possession," reported the New-York Tribune.

Construction of Chrystie Street subway connection was evidenced by barricades and decking in 1959.  Tenants used the fire escapes to dry laundry.  image via the Ne York Transit Museum

Several of the building's residents continued to be on the wrong side of the law over the coming years.  On August 5, 1959, for instance, Philip Stazzone was arrested with two others for running an illegal "policy operation," a sort of lottery that targeted low-income residents.  The New York Times reported that the trio was "doing a $50,000-a-day business."  (The amount would translate to about half a million in today's dollars.)

Changes in the neighborhood were reflected in the ground floor tenants.  Where Isey Wolowitz sold soda water in 1902, the 205 Club opened around 1995.  In its April 17 issue that year, New York Magazine described it as "a stylish, glass-fronted social club for hipsters."  

photograph by Anthony Bellov

In September 2012 Cocktail Bodega opened.  Richard Morgan of The New York Times said, "It is, plainly, a juice and smoothie place where you can get whiskey with your flaxseed."  It was a short-lived venture and by November 2013 Leave Rochelle Out of It occupied the space.  (The tongue-in-cheek name referred to a woman both owners had dated at different times.)  It was replaced by the new 205 Club.

many thanks to historian Anthony Bellov for suggesting this post

Our Lady of Sorrows School -- No. 219 Stanton Street

By the middle of the 19^th century thousands of German immigrants had settled in New York’s Lower East Side.  In 1857 only Berlin and Vienna had larger German populations.  That year Rev. Bonaventure Frey founded Our Lady of Sorrows parish for the area’s German Catholics.

Construction on a permanent church building at No. 105 Pitt Street began in 1867 and was completed the following year.  In 1873 the trustees obtained the lots next to the church building, extending to Stanton Street, as the site of a school.

Another German immigrant, J. William Schickel, was given the commission to design the building.  Known professionally as William Schickel, he had arrived in New York just four years earlier at the age of 20.   Trained in Bavaria, he designed Our Lady of Sorrows School in the Victorian Gothic style popularized by John Ruskin. The plans, filed on February 13, 1874 called for a “four-story brick school house.”  It was an understated description.

Construction progressed rapidly and was completed before the end of the year.  On December 14 the church ladies staged a “grand fair” in the hall of the school to offset the construction costs.  Church fairs were a common means of fund-raising in the 19th century; and The New York Herald said “a number of tables well covered with objects of art and virtu will surround the spacious hall, and tasteful draping depend from the walls and ceiling.”  The newspaper reported that the shopper could find articles “some of great value and rare curiosity, and there is little doubt that with the efficient corps of lady attendants the fair will be an entire success.”

Five stories tall including the mansard roof, the red brick structure was trimmed in limestone.  Ruskin’s influence appeared in the polychromatic alternating of stone and brick over the openings.  The slate-shingled mansard was punctuated by a row of delightful, stone-faced dormers; a centered gable on the Pitt Street elevation; and pyramidal corner caps.  At the fourth floor a stirring sculpture of the Virgin and Child perched below an ornate Gothic canopy.  Internally, the structure was essentially two buildings.  Girls entered on Pitt Street, while boys used the entrance at No 219 Stanton Street. 

 

The stenciled transom over former boys' entrance on Stanton Street survives.

The Catholic students from the surrounding tenements were expected, of course, to attend Our Lady of Sorrows Church.  That meant getting up hours before sunrise, at least for their First Communion mass on November 7, 1886.  The New York Times reported that the high mass commenced at 5:30 a.m.  “After the mass 100 little girls robed in white, with veils and flowers, 60 small boys in black clothes and red sashes, 30 other boys, and the clergy marched through the aisles of the church.”

The school hall of Our Lady of Sorrows was used for various events.  On Monday, November 15 that year, for example, the St, Aloysius Sodality, a men’s fraternal organization of the church, gave a “musical and dramatic entertainment” to benefit the purchase of a bell for the tower of the new Church of Our Lady of Angels far north on 113^th Street.

Like the church, Our Lady of Sorrows School was run by the Capuchin Fathers.  On February 14, 1888 The Evening World reported on the status of the facility, saying it was “now in a most prosperous condition.”  At the time of the article the boys’ school had an enrollment of 352 and the girls’ school 450.  The difference in “average daily attendance” could be explained by the need for young boys to find work rather than attend school, in order to help with family finances.

The school hall was the scene of a reunion of sorts on May 2, 1915.  The New-York Tribune reported that “Present and former inhabitants of Pitt Street foregathered to swap reminiscences in the old school hall…last night.  The meeting, which was termed ‘A Monster Smoker and Oldtimers’ Night,’ was under the direction of the St. Aloysius Young Men’s Benevolent Association.  A vaudeville show and refreshments enlivened the evening.”

 

As late as the 1970s the dormers and the delightful cast iron finials of the roof survived.  photo from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York

The hulking Victorian building served the Pitt Street neighborhood into the 21^st century.  Then, in January 2011, it was closed by Cardinal Timothy M. Dolan.  The building was converted for the Cooke Center for Learning and Development.  A non-profit provider of special education services for students aged 5 through 21, it also provides consulting and training services.

 photographs by the author