A Hidden Theater District Treasure -- 690-692 Eighth Avenue

 

Only the Gothic arches and drip moldings hint at the Eighth Avenue facade's original purpose.  photograph by frog17.

On March 21, 1886, the New-York Tribune reported that Rev. Albert Benjamin Simpson, "of the Twenty-third Street Tabernacle" had signed a contract to purchase the Madison Avenue Congregational Church for $126,000.  The article said it would "become known as the Gospel Tabernacle."

Born in Canada, Simpson was ordained as a Presbyterian minister in 1865 and came to New York City in 1881.  The year after purchasing the Madison Avenue church, he founded the Christian Alliance and would be president of the organization until his death.  His ability to amass the funds necessary to purchase the Madison Avenue property--equal to $4.3 million in 2026--had much to do with Simpson's charismatic personality.  The New York Times would later comment that it was not unusual for him to raise tens of thousands of dollars at a single meeting.

Rev. Alfred Benjamin Smith, image via cmalliance.org

Just two years after moving into the Madison Avenue property, on March 9, 1888, the New-York Tribune reported, "It was said yesterday by members of the Tabernacle that...the congregation made a fatal mistake in going there."  The Gospel Tabernacle Church sold the Madison Avenue church in August and the next month Edelmann & Smith filed plans for a complex of buildings on an L-shaped plot around the southeastern corner of Eighth Avenue and 44th Street.

On September 22, 1888, the Real Estate Record & Builders' Guide explained that the Gospel Tabernacle would occupy a 50-foot-wide building at 690-692 Eighth Avenue.  On the 44th Street side, said the article, "there will be a college building five-stories high, 50x45, of which two stories on the first floor will be rented out, adjoining which will be a six-story home, 50x100."  Edelman & Smith projected the construction costs at "between $100,000 and $125,000."  (The figures would translate to $3.5 to $4.25 million today.)

Edelmann & Smith's rendering of the Eighth Avenue elevation was published in The Christian Alliance and Missionary Weekly in March 1890 (copyright expired)

John Herman Edelmann and Lyndon Smith gave the West 44th Street and Eighth Avenue buildings similar designs.  Eschewing the Gothic Revival style more expected in ecclesiastical structures, the architects turned to Romanesque Revival.  

The Gospel Tabernacle and Missionary Home School building on Eighth Avenue was faced in red brick and trimmed stone.  Between the entrances (the Tabernacle was entered at 692 Eighth Avenue and Missionary Home School at No. 690) was a cast-iron storefront.  The asymmetrical midsection featured paired windows, arches and a second-floor oriel.  A square tower with a pyramidal cap and steep mansard composed the top floor.  

Edelman & Smith's design gave little hint that at the back of the building was an impressive worship and meeting space that soared the full height of the building, culminating with a glorious octagonal stained glass skylight.  

The Gospel Tabernacle could be accessed by the Berachah Home at 258-260 West 44th Street.  Its design was similar to the Eighth Avenue building, with a comparable mansard, but with a rounded rather than squared corner tower.

The Berachah Home offered "a place of rest and instruction for persons coming from various parts of the country in order to attend the meetings of the Tabernacle," according to a pamphlet, which added, "It is a commodious building holding about 100 guests and specially adapted to the purposes of the work."

The lower edge of the octagonal skylight can be glimpsed in this early photo.  (original source unknown)

The pamphlet explained that the Missionary Home School at 690 Eighth Avenue provided training for missionaries.  "A short course of Bible study and missionary training lasting about six weeks is conducted in this place and students are chiefly employed in missionary work and house-to-house visitation in the neighbourhood."

On the morning of March 16, 1890, services to dedicate the Gospel Tabernacle were held.  The New-York Tribune said, "Dr. A. B. Simpson, the pastor, addressed the congregation, giving a short history of the non-sectarian movement which led to the building of the Gospel Tabernacle."  The article said that the following afternoon, "the Training College and Berachah Home, which are connected with the institution, will be dedicated."

(original source unknown)

The headquarters of the Christian Alliance was in the Eighth Avenue Building.  The Encyclopaedia Britannica said, "At the opening of the year 1890, the secretary reported having established 23 missionaries in India, China, Japan, Hayti and Congo Free State."  The Alliance also published the Christian Alliance & Missionary Weekly from the building.

Rev. Simpson's ability to generate funds for the various enterprises under his control was mind-boggling.  On October 12, 1903, for instance, the New-York Tribune reported, "Nearly $70,000 was pledged yesterday by members of the Gospel Tabernacle, Eighth-av. and Forty-fourth st., to support the foreign missions."  The article noted, "At the end of the sermon a woman in the congregation jumped to her feet, shouting, and, rushing to the platform, handed $15 to the minister.  Some amounts pledged, ranging from $1,000 to $6,000, aroused enthusiasm when they were announced."

(original source unknown)

The incident was not out of the ordinary.  Three years later, on October 15, 1906, the newspaper reported that $71,773.80 was collected during the previous morning and afternoon services.  (The amount would equal more than $2.5 million today.)  The article said, "the congregation was wrought up to an almost hysterical pitch and threw gold watches and diamonds on the stage of the tabernacle."

Around 1908, the Berachah House was converted to a residential hotel called Alliance House.  An advertisement in the New York Herald in October 1911 read: 

Quiet place for quiet people; in the very centre of the city, catering only to a respectable class; suites consisting of parlor, sleeping apartment and private bathroom; also parlor and sleeping room, with running water; single and double rooms; steam heated; elevator service; popular rates; special rates for permanent guests.

In 1916, the Christian Alliance relinquished the management of Alliance House.  On February 16, The New York Times reported that Dr. Albert B. Simpson had leased it to Arthur K. Bonta, "the proprietor of the Hotels Bonta and Narragansett."

The configuration of the Alliance Hotel and Gospel Tabernacle are clearly seen in this property map.  from the collection of the New York Public Library.

Rev. Albert Benjamin Simpson died on October 29, 1919 at the age of 74.  In reporting on his death, The New York Times remarked, "There was almost no end to Mr. Simpson's religious activities.  He was editor of the Alliance Weekly and proprietor of the Alliance Press Company."  He had written many books, including the 10-volume Christ in the Bible, The Gospel of the Kingdom and The Old Faith and the New Gospel.  Of course, Simpson's funeral on November 4 was held in the Gospel Tabernacle.

Rev. Simpson's funeral was called a "service of testimony."  New York Herald, Nov. 1, 1919 (copyright expired)

In 1925, renovations were made to the two facades.  The mansards were removed, replaced with parapets.  Edelmann & Smith's Romanesque Revival elements were totally eliminated from the Eighth Avenue elevation and Gothic arches and square-headed drip moldings installed at the ground and second levels.  On the 44th Street side, the openings on the upper three floors were squared off, but much of the original appearance of the lower levels was preserved.

The Alliance House facade retained much of its original, lower floor elements after the renovation. vintage postcard from the author's collection.

The Gospel Tabernacle Church welcomed touring evangelists in the 1920s.  Some of their services were almost carnival like.  On July 22, 1922, for instance, the 14-year-old preacher Mary Agnes Vitchestain appeared here.  The Gospel Tabernacle Church's advertisement said, "Miss Vitchestain preaches to the largest audiences everywhere."  And the following month The Bosworth Brothers held a service.  The announcement said, "How sinners may be forgiven and how the sick may be healed are made equally plain by the preaching of Evangelist F. F. Bosworth."  It urged, "come and bring the sick."

The 1925 renovations erased all of Edelmann & Smith's 1888 design.  An electric sign for the Gospel Tabernacle hangs over the entrance of No. 692.  image via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services.

Another renovation completed in 1950 converted the former Alliance Hotel into offices for the International Christian Alliance.  Then, on January 12, 1969, The New York Times reported, "For 80 years Gospel Tabernacle Church...has stood at 690 Eighth Avenue, south of 44th Street.  A domed skylight of stained glass surmounts nine banked rows of pews and a full-immersion baptismal font on the main floor."  Now, said the article, the buildings were "up for sale."  The organization had purchased the former German Evangelical Reformed Church on East 68th Street for its new headquarters.

The complex became home to Covenant House, organized in 1968 to house homeless teenagers.  The facility remained until 1995.  On November 12 that year, The New York Times reported that Peter Castellotti and Robert Vittoria (co-owners of John's Pizzeria founded by their great uncle, John Sasso, in 1935) were "negotiating to open a fourth John's Pizzeria, in the site of the original Covenant House at 260 West 44th Street."

Seven months later, on June 26, 1996, The Times food critic Florence Fabricant announced that John's Pizzeria would indeed open in the space before the end of the year.  Astoundingly, much of the interior of the Gospel Tabernacle was preserved--the galleries, original lighting figures, and all of the stained glass, including the striking skylight.

Before the 400-seat pizzeria was opened, artist Douglas Cooper was commissioned to execute a series of three murals.  The largest--21-feet high and 30-feet wide--adorns a wall in the former worship space.  Cooper describes it in architect Andrew Tesoro's website as: 

A panoramic fly-over of Manhattan visible from the full width of a bi-level mezzanine...The foreground is set in one of the most dramatic views of Manhattan: the view from the New Jersey side of the Hudson River above the entrances to the Lincoln Midtown Tunnels.

Cooper's "Front Room Bar Mural," which is 8-feet high and 30-feet wide, pictures a scene in Times Square including identifiable theaters and throngs of pedestrians and vehicles.  Astute bar patrons can pick out figures like Theodore Roosevelt, Mickey Mantle, Salvadore Dali and Marilyn Monroe from the dozens in the crowd.  And the smallest, the "Mezzanine Mural," is 2-feet high and 28-feet wide.  The separate images, according to Cooper, "focus on the theatrical character of the District [and] illustrate a set of improbably theatrical anecdotes going back as far as the 1880s."

Elements of the 1888 and 1925 designs survive in the West 44th Street upper facade, including the stump of the rounded tower.

Easily dismissed today, the two 1888 buildings are at best unremarkable from the outside.  But inside, better known to tourists than to New Yorkers, is a hidden and remarkable gem.

non-credited photographs by the author

The Lost Folies Bergere (Helen Hayes Theater) - 210 West 46th Street

 

The New York Architect - June 1911 (copyright expired)

The Forty-Sixth Street and Broadway Realty Co. was specifically organized to erect a unique theater at 206 to 212 West 46th Street.  Before ground was broken, on July 2, 1910, the Record & Guide reported that Henry B. Harris and Jesse L. Lasky had signed the lease.  The two producers envisioned a cabaret in New York City based on the restaurant-nightclub-theater in Paris, the Folies Bergère.

Designed by Herts & Tallant, the Folies Bergère cost $200,000 to erect--about $6.62 million in 2024.  The windowless façade was covered with a tapestry of polychrome terra cotta tiles--"old ivory, turquoise blue, and gold," according to The New York Architect in June 1911.  (The journal felt the exterior "presents a convincing argument for a more extended introduction of color in the facades of buildings of all descriptions.")  Below the "wrought bronze cornice" was a panel by eminent muralist William de Leftwich Dodge.  The New York Architect explained, "This frieze represents, in allegory, all the characters of vaudeville."

The Heating & Ventilating Magazine, October 1911 (copyright expired)

Inside the three entrances, the lobby was decorated in white marble with colored mosaic floors.  William de Leftwich Dodge supervised the decoration of the auditorium, drawing on the French roots of the Folies Bergère.  Gilded plaster festoons and paintings by Dodge created a decidedly Parisian atmosphere.  In its July 1911 issue, The Green Book said the auditorium suggested, "with its delicate color scheme, nothing else so much as the interior of a jewel box," adding, "The walls and pillars are covered with damask the shade of salmon, or crushed strawberry, or old rose."

The New York Architect, June 1911 (copyright expired)

Harris and Lansky departed from the traditional theater by treating the orchestra level and the front of the first balcony as a restaurant.  The Green Book Album wrote:

When you enter the auditorium you see, instead of the ordinary orchestra chairs, row after row of tables.  Each row is elevated a foot or so above that ahead of it, so that a good view of the stage is to be had from every seat, and an iron rail separates one company of diners from the next.

Wait staff in white tie assemble in the orchestra and front balcony.  The Heating & Ventilating Magazine, October 1911 (copyright expired)

Patrons in evening dress ordered from menus written in French and were served by white-tied waiters.  Diners would enjoy orchestra music from 6:00 to 8:15, when the curtain rose.  As the evening drew to a close, a call boy glided from table to table asking who needed a taxi.  Those patrons who did were handed numbered cards, eliminating the need for a curbside wait.

The Folies Bergère opened on April 27, 1911.  The New-York Tribune reported, "Dinner with music, dancing and fiery little tabloid shows as an accompaniment, will be served from 6 p.m. to 8:15, when the curtain will go up on 'Hell," a profane burlesque in one act by Rennold Wolf, with music by Maurice Levi...The revue will satirize plays and people of present public interest."  The revue was followed by the American premier of the ballet, Temptation, by Alfredo Curti; which was followed by another revue, Gaby.  

The article noted, "Supper will be served from 11 p.m. to 1 a.m.  During the revues and the ballet refreshments will be served and smoking permitted in all parts of the house."  The supper portion of the evening was accompanied by the cabaret show, "giving New York the first midnight music hall."

Later that year, Harris and Lasky produced A La Broadway.  The "satirical burlesque in one act" opened on September 22.  The Sun reported, "It consisted or large quantities of girls, many changes of costumes and a pair of really funny comedians."  What audiences and critics could not know was that they were seeing the first appearance of an 18-year-old Brooklyn girl who would eventually shake American theater to its foundations.  "Miss Mae West had a song or two that went pretty well and she danced with considerable grace and originality," said the article.

Unfortunately, Mae West's first Broadway show closed after eight performances.  Lasky's and Harris's bold concept had not turned a profit.  On September 30, Variety reported on the closing of the Folies Bergère.  "While it is claimed that the restaurant portion of the enterprise has yielded a profit, the scheme has proved itself impractical owing to the limited seating capacity of the house under the present policy."

That year another producer, Beatrice DeMille, introduced Jesse L. Lasky to her son, Cecil B. DeMille.  Lasky would team with him and Samuel Goldwyn to form the Jesse L. Lasky Feature Play Company, a moving picture firm.  Harris traveled to London in April 1912 to arrange a play.  He was lost on the sinking of the RMS Titanic on April 15, 1912.

With its auditorium remodeled with traditional seating, the theater reopened as the Fulton Theatre.  It offered both live plays and occasional moving pictures.  On November 24, 1915, for instance, an advertisement in The Evening World announced four screenings a day of Fighting In France, "The French Government Official Motion Pictures taken by order of the Great General Staff of the French Army for the National Archives."

The play Penny Arcade opened on March 24, 1930, a three-act drama about bootlegging and murder.  In the audience that night was Al Jolson, who was not taken with the performances of lead actors Eric Dressler and Lenita Lane, but with two supporting players, Joan Blondell and James Cagney.  According to Matthew Kennedy in his Joan Blondell, A Life Between Takes, Jolson purchased the motion picture rights to the play for $20,000.  "He quickly sold it to the Warner Bros. film studio in California, but only under the agreement that Blondell and Cagney come attached with a three-week contract to film the play."  It was the beginning of film stardom for the two unknowns.

The stage of the Fulton Theatre would see famous entertainers over the years.  On January 18, 1932, The New York Times reported, "Maurice Chevalier, the French film actor and entertainer, will begin a limited concert engagement of one and a half weeks at the Fulton Theatre."

Boris Karloff opened in the 1941 play Arsenic and Old Lace,; and on November 20, 1946, Lillian Hellman's Another Part of the Forest, the prequel to her 1939 drama The Little Foxes, opened with Patricia Neal as Regina Hubbard.  Also in the cast were Paul Ford and, Jean Hagen.  In 1951, Audrey Hepburn made her theatrical debut in Gigi.

On November 9, 1955, The New York Times reported, "The incandescent name of Helen Hayes will glow permanently on the marquee of a Broadway playhouse starting Nov. 21."  It was a great honor.  The only other living actress to have a theater name for her was Ethel Barrymore.  When told of the renaming, Helen Hayes remarked, "I burst into tears.  It was too much for me.  An actress' life is so transitory--suddenly you're a building."

The "extensively renovated" theater was dedicated on November 30, 1958 and opened the two nights later with Helen Hayes starring in Eugene O'Neill's A Touch of the Poet.  The New York Times reported the auditorium had been "refurbished in Louis XIV decor" and that the "theatre's seating capacity was increased by 113 to 1,152."  The new decorations included a "mirror-paneled lobby with white marble stairs," and "'royal enclosures' with custom arm chairs and cushions, a series of French Lalique basket lights and crystal chandeliers."

The Helen Hayes sign covered the Dodge mural and a new glass building-wide marquee was installed.  photo from the collection of the Library of Congress.

The Helen Hayes Theatre was the venue of the Pulitzer Prize-winning play Long Day's Journey Into Night, and the long running Mary, Mary by Jean Kerr which opened on March 8, 1961 and ran for three years.

One of the "royal enclosures" with chandelier is seen in this photo of the renovated theater.  from the collection of the Library of Congress.

Henry Fonda was starring in the one-man show Clarence Darrow in the spring of 1974.  Following his performance on the night of April 23, he collapsed in his dressing room.  His wife, Shirley Mae Adams, told reporters the extra strain of the Tony ceremonies two nights earlier had caused exhaustion.   Five days later, The New York Times reported the 68-year-old actor was still hospitalized.  Although Fonda eventually recovered, the play did not.  It was replaced by another one-man show, Will Rogers, starring James Whitmore.

On March 23, 1982, The New York Times reported that demolition had begun on the Helen Hayes Theater.  Preservationists had obtained a temporary stay, but it was lifted by the United States Supreme Court, removing "the last major impediment to construction of the 50-story Portman Hotel in the Times Square area," said the article.  The demolition was part of what would become known by some as "The Great Theater Massacre of 1982."  Four other vintage theaters would be demolished with the Helen Hayes--the Morosco, the Bijou, the Astor and the Gaiety.

A day earlier, 1,000 demonstrators had gathered on West 45th Street to hear pleas from performers including Celeste Holm, Tammy Grimes, Jose Ferrer, Colleen Dewhurst, Estelle Parsons, and Treat Williams.  Producer Joseph Papp broke the news to the gathering.  "I'll tell you frankly, these theaters are going to come down.  The Supreme Court has lifted the stay."

Because of the architectural importance of the Helen Hayes Theater, Portman Properties agreed to preserve one-third of the façade.  But on June 9, 1982, The New York Times reported that the façade "collapsed during demolition work on the remainder of the theater."

photo by Fred R. Conrad, The New York Times June 9, 1982.

The vandalism was not only architectural.  Many saw the demolition of the theater as an affront to Helen Hayes.  The following year, the Little Theatre was renamed the Helen Hayes Theater.

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The Lost Ascension Memorial Church - 245-249 West 43rd Street

 

from the collection of the New-York Historical Society

The congregation of the Church of the Ascension, on Fifth Avenue and 10th Street, was fashionable and affluent.  But their privileged status did not blind them to the needs of the less fortunate.  In a sermon delivered on December 23, 1934, Rev. Donald B. Aldrich recalled:

From 1859 on, a flood of immigration swelled New York City with four hundred thousand additional people.  These newcomers lived in shacks and tenements unspeakable in squalor and poverty.  It was for them that the congregation purchased and cleared a block at 43rd Street and Ninth Avenue, and erected model tenements there, at a cost of $43,000.  As a center of center of worship, recreation and help for these people, the Ascension Memorial Chapel, costing $10,000, was built among them and administered by the congregation of this church.

Aldrich had one detail slightly wrong.  The mission was originally called the Chapel of the Shepherd's Flock.  The original rector was Daniel Thom, replaced in 1870 by Reverend John Floyd Steen, who would remain with the impoverished members for decades.  The were fifty members in the congregation at the time.

In 1894 the mission chapel became an independent church, now named the Ascension Memorial Church.  The congregation celebrated Steen's 25th anniversary on March 3 the following.  The Sun reported that Bishop Henry C. Potter had overseen the "special services."  Steen's outreach to the immigrants who had had little exposure to religion was reflected in the last line of the article.  "Forty persons were confirmed, a number of them being of mature years."

Just weeks earlier, Reverend Steen had begun seeking a larger building for his congregation.  On February 8, 1895, The Churchman explained, "This church has for many years been greatly inconvenienced by the limited accommodations of its present building.  The completion of the twenty-fifth year of the present pastorate is deemed a most opportune time for the purchase of a new site where better conditions of growth may reasonably be expected."

A "Guarantee Fund" was established to finance the project.  The Churchman announced, "A fair for the benefit of the Guarantee Fund of the Ascension Memorial church, West Forty-third street, will be held in the Healey Building, Broadway and Forty-second street, during the days from Feb. 20 to Feb. 23 of this week."

Rev. Steen moved quickly.  In its April 1895 issue, The Arrow reported, "He has purchased the Methodist Meeting house on West 43d Street, and will convert it into a church."  In fact, the congregation did not yet have the money to purchase the building at 245-249 West 43rd Street between Seventh and Eighth Avenue.  It would rent it for three years before buying the property in February 1898. 

The vintage, free-standing brick building was a block to the east of the former chapel.  Its classic Greek Revival design included full-height pilasters and a triangular pediment.  

The congregation renovate the interiors.  On December 9, 1900 Bishop Potter was back for the annual memorial service.  In his remarks to the congregation, he mentioned the renovations:

I wish also to congratulate you upon the success achieved in the recent improvements of this building...I don't know whether you know it, but this building has some of the older virtues--including an old-fashioned gallery.  I am glad you did not take out the gallery.  Too many of our new churches have no gallery, and are so lengthened out that worship is an act of faith in a sense not originally intended.  You have also done well not to have the building smeared all over with the hideous polychrome that is so common nowadays, and for using instead a simply unity of tint.  You have now one of the most dignified church edifices in New York.

Later that year the church received a generous gift.  Prominent merchant and art collection George A. Hearn presented Ascension Memorial five old master paintings in memory of his daughter, Grace Arnold Hearn Wheeler.  On December 23, The New York Times noted, "This gift makes Ascension Memorial Church one of the richest in the city in precious works of art."

The article said art connoisseurs would pick out Hans Memling's Madonna and Child as "the most interesting and valuable of them," adding, "Work by Memlinc [sic] is so rare as to be seen in few even of the national collections outside of Belgium."  The painting had been valued at $50,000 (about $1.6 million today).

The other Renaissance period paintings were Jan Gossaert's Descent from the Cross (the artist lived from 1470 to 1532); Christ Mourning Over Jerusalem, by Benvenuto Tisio, a painter known as Garofalo; Frederigo Barocci's Flight into Egypt; and Bronzino's Madonna and Child.

The neighborhood around the Ascension Memorial Church was transforming into the center of Manhattan's theater district by now.  The church earned the nickname the Little Brick Church in Times Square and gradually the occupants of the pews included more and more musicians, actors and chorus girls.

In reporting on Rev. Steen's 40th anniversary on February 19, 1910, The Living Church recalled, "There were shade trees lining the curbs of what has now come to be the theatre district, and many fine old buildings with old-fashioned columns were still standing in the new parish."  Reverend Steen personally commented on the change in 1911, saying "I have now, as regular churchgoers, many chorus girls.  Some of them have been regular attendants for many years.  I like the theatrical people very much."

His affection for the "theater people" resulted in his offering church spaces for meetings.  A report on the annual meeting of the White Rats Actors' Union and Associated Actresses in The New York Clipper on July 4, 1917 noted, "More than one hundred members of the organization attended the gathering, which was held in the Sunday School room of the Ascension Memorial Church at 251 West Forty-third Street, as the White Rats have had no quarters since the loss of their club house last April."

Amazingly, John F. Steen celebrated his 50th year in the pulpit at Ascension Memorial church in February 1920.  The Sun noted, "Dr. Steen has solemnized 2,221 weddings, and has baptized more than 5,000 children."  Later The New York Times would remark that when he took the position, "Farmers drove in to church from the outlying acres to the north," and noted, "Dr. Steen was so young that one or two of his parishioners objected to his baptizing their babies, on the ground that he was only a boy."

Rev. John Floyd Steen would live to the age of 93, dying on March 29, 1938.  He had seen the Little Brick Church in Times Square demolished eight years earlier.  The New York Times expanded its Annex building onto the site, the construction of which was completed on January 7, 1932.

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Frederick T. Camp's 1884 347 West 46th Street

 

On January 12, 1884 developer John Livingston announced his plans to erect a row "stone front private dwellings" along the north side of West 46th Street, between Eighth and Ninth Avenues.   A month later his architect Frederick T. Camp filed plans for nine "three-story and basement brown stone dwellings," each to cost $11,500 to erect, or about $315,000 in today's money.

Camp designed the identical brownstone-fronted homes in the neo-Grec style.  The architrave stone frames of the windows were miniature versions of the entrance.  Geometric brackets with etched decorations upheld pronounced molded cornices.  The corbels of the cornices, with their paneled frieze, carried on the motif of the openings below.

The houses were completed in December 1884.  Livingston offered 347 West 46th Street for lease at $1,400 rent, an affordable $3,000 per month today.  His listing noted that the 20-foot-wide house was "3-rooms deep."  He rented the house for two years before selling it to Samuel T. Reed on March 15, 1886 for the equivalent of $558,000 today.

It appears that Reed and his family never lived in the house.  Instead it was operated as a high-end boarding house.  Among the high-profile residents here by 1889 was G. Waldo Smith, a wholesale grocer and member of the Chamber of Commerce.  He would remain in the house at least through 1894.

The outspoken Smith was unafraid to make his opinions known.  In 1894, Congress considered a Tariff bill that included an income tax proposition.  On June 2, the New-York Tribune entitled an article "The Metropolis Protests / Away with The Income Tax," and went on to report on a mass meeting of businessmen.  G. Waldo Smith spoke on behalf of the wholesale grocers, and the journalist deemed his remarks, "particularly acceptable."

New Yorkers were concerned with other trouble issues at the time.  The Lexow Investigating Committee, formed by the New York State Senate, was looking closely into corruption among the New York Police Department.  Smith reacted dramatically.  At a special meeting of the Chamber of Commerce on October 34, 1894, he addressed the group, calling for martial law.  He stressed that the force "should be stripped of all civil appearance, and instead, should be changed into a military body, with its members subject to court-martial and the sternest of discipline."

Also living in the house at the time were John F. Suydam and his wife.  Suydam, who came from an old New York family, was a wholesale grocer.  He had fought in the Civil War with the Seventh Regiment, known as the Silk Stocking Regiment, or the Blue Bloods, because a disproportionate number of its members came from the socially elite.  He was a member of the prestigious Holland Society, restricted those who could trace their roots to New Amsterdam.

In 1898 the North American Journal of Homoeopathy reported that Dr. Hugh Kidder had moved his office from the West Side Clinic and Hospital to 347 West 46th Street.  There was already a physician operating from the address at the time, Dr. Santia Crova, who conducted a bizarre set of experiments in "cutaneous metamorphosis."  They resulted in Crova being sued for $10,000 damages by a patient in April 1898.

In his complaint, John Barnes (described by The Brooklyn Daily Eagle as "a stalwart young negro") said that in July 1897, "Dr. Crova told him he would pay him $5 per week if he would submit to certain baths for the purpose of turning his skin white."  The Brooklyn Daily Eagle explained, "At the expiration of six weeks, [Barnes] was informed, he would be a white man."  Crova "represented himself as a scientist in that particular line," and the two signed a contract.  

In court, Barnes detailed the treatments.  "The recital reads much like a chapter of medieval art," said the newspaper.

Barnes would enter the tub and remain there a half hour, sometimes two hours.  He would suffer a burning sensation, whereupon the physician would rub the parts with vaseline and cold cream.  Sometimes he could not renew the bath, so greatly did he suffer from the pain caused by the chemicals in the water, he says.  So powerful were these chemicals that they even penetrated the zinc of the tubs, he alleges, practically ruining the metal.

Barnes testified that his fingernails had turned deep black, parts of his body remained "extremely sore," and his general health had been "weakened and impaired."  He told the court, "Yet my skin is as black as ever."

In the first years of the 20th century single women were boarding in the house, still owned by Samuel T. Reed.  Elsie R. Hirst was here as early as 1906, when she was on the "eligible list" for the position of stenographer and typewriter for the Board of Water Supply.  She got the job, earning $900 a year in 1910.

Actress Marie Burker boarded here in 1916.  The location was convenient, since by now the entertainment district had moved northward to nearby Times Square.  She had a handyman who was doing work in the house arrested on May 7, 1916, accusing him of stealing a ring valued at $600 (a significant $14,600 today).  William Brower, who lived in the Mills Hotel No. 3 (a residence for down-on-their-luck working men), confessed he had stolen the ring.  Unfortunately for Marie Burker, the ring was gone.  "He asserted, however, that some one had since stolen it from him," reported The New York Press.

Another actor who lived here was Edwin "Poodles" Hanneford.  Born in England, he grew up in a circus family.   He and his family were brought to America by John Ringling in 1915.  By then, Hanneford was among the greatest trick horse riders in the world.  He fell in love with well-known actress Grace White, but she refused to marry him until after World War I had ended, fearing he would be killed.

Then, on August 20, 1919 The Brooklyn Standard Union reported, "Edwin Hanneford, an actor, of 347 West Forty-sixth street, Manhattan, was married to-day to Miss Grace White, a well-known actress."  The groom was 28 years old and his bride was 23.  Hanneford would go on to play in motion pictures, including the 1935 Our Little Girl with Shirley Temple; The Red Pony, with Myrna Loy and Robert Mitchum, released in 1949; and the 1952 The Springfield Rifle with Gary Cooper.

Albert E. Smith, who was "in the steel construction business," according to the New York Herald, lived here with his widowed mother, Elizabeth, around the time Edwin Hanneford and Grace White were married.  Elizabeth died on March 11, 1921, and her funeral was held in the house.  

A few months later, Albert Smith's deep sense of patriotism prompted him to have an Englishman arrested.  Smith was at the Strand motion picture theater on August 18.  In the audience was 38-year-old Herbert Blache.  According to Smith, "when a 'close-up' of the [American] flag flying from the battleship Michigan was thrown on the screen, Blache hissed audibly."  Smith had Blache arrested, and two other patrons, Mrs. M. E. Johnstone and Louise P. Sanger, backed up his complaint.

At the station house Blache protested, insisting that he had applied for citizenship.  "I deny hissing the American flag.  I am an Englishman, though I have been in this country fourteen years.  I have nothing against the American flag.  In fact, I prefer it to any other," he told the police lieutenant.  He was held on $500 bail awaiting his appearance in court.

The following year Leonora M. Reed sold the house to Dr. J. Kessler, "for occupancy," according to the New York Herald.  The once-upscale block was undergoing significant change at the time.  The bustle of Times Square spilled into the neighborhood and one-by-one the former private homes were being converted to apartments with businesses in the basements.

In 1971 the basement of 347 West 46th Street was Chez Cardinale.  It was not until 1978, however, that the upper floors were converted to apartments, two per floor.  In 1982 the restaurant space became home to La Vielle Auberge.  On December 3, The New York Times food critic Mimi Sheraton wrote, "Considering the demand for good, pleasant, moderate-price restaurants in the theater district, La Vieille Auberge should develop a loyal following."  And it did.  The restaurant was a fixture on Restaurant Row for more than a decade.

Some interior details, like the staircase wainscot and railings, and a marble neo-Grec mantel, survive.  images via streeteasy.com

In 1997 Les San Culottes, another French restaurant was in the space, replaced by Sushi of Gari, which opened in 2006.   Although the brownstone has been painted, Frederick T. Camp's neo-Grec facade is otherwise greatly intact--even the 1884 entrance doors survive.  Inside, a few of the original details, like neo-Grec marble mantels, remain.

photograph by the author

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The Lost Cadillac Hotel - Broadway and 43rd Street

from the collection of the New-York Historical Society

On January 16, 1882, brothers Robert and Ogden Goelet purchased the vacant land at the northeast corner of Broadway and 43rd Street from Edwin A. Cruikshank.  They commissioned architect Hugo Kafka to design an upscale hotel on the site--a move that surprised most New Yorkers.

The neighborhood, known as Longacre Square, was the center of the carriage making industry and was far north of the business and entertainment districts.  The New York Times later said, "A few blocks to the north, at the upper end of the square, stood the large Brewster carriage factory, and in the adjacent blocks other firms in what was then a flourishing industry operated successfully."

Hugo Kafka was born in Austria and had studied under the well-known German architect Gottfried Semper.  For two years he served as the "principal assistant architect" at the Philadelphia Centennial Exposition."  His plans for the Goelet project called for "one eight-story brick and Belleville stone hotel."  His Second Empire style design was the latest in architectural taste.  

The main entrance on Broadway sat with a columned portico that provided a balcony to the second floor.  A second entrance on 43rd Street was most likely for unescorted ladies.  Intermediate cornices divided the heavy mass of the upper floors into three sections.  By chamfering the corner, Kafa provided visual interest, extra light and ventilation, and downtown views to the corner rooms.  The building was crowned by a parapet that housed a large clock.

The fortunes of Robert and Ogden Goelet came from real estate.  Their business philosophy was to acquire properties while never selling properties.  They were not, however, hoteliers.  And so they leased the new structure to William and Hooper C. Barrett, known as the Barrett Brothers.  Named the Barrett House, it opened on September 29, 1883 "on the European Plan," meaning that meals in the dining room were not included in the room fee.  The suites cost "$1.50 and up," an affordable $40 per night in today's money for the cheapest accommodations.

Like many other hotels, the Barrett House accepted both long-term and transient guests.  The permanent residents were mostly well-to-do professionals, like broker Richard M. Collins, and George W. Sutton, Jr., an executive with the dry goods firm of Passavant & Co.  Perhaps the first theatrical guest was well-known actor James O'Neill.  He took a suite in August 1888 for himself, his pregnant wife, Mary Ellen Quinlan, and their two young sons, James and Edmund.

James O'Neill's career was tainted by repeated scandals involving women.  from the collection of the New York Public Library

O'Neill was best known for his leading role in The Count of Monte Cristo.  A year before he moved into the Barrett House, the San Francisco Morning Call had estimated his personal fortune at $250,000--more than $7 million today.  He may have been eager to get his family settled because he was about to leave on tour.  In his absence, on October 16, 1888, Mary Ellen gave birth to a baby boy in their suite.  Named Eugene, he would go on to become one of America's greatest playwrights and a Nobel laureate.  Reportedly, Eugene O'Neill kept a picture of the Barrett House among his possessions throughout his lifetime.

The dining room (above) and the cafe.   photos by Byron Company from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York.

A heart-breaking story had played out in the Barrett House a few months before the O'Neills moved in.  On the evening of July 28, 1886, a young woman checked in as "Mrs. Stanly, Philadelphia."  She had dinner in the dining room later, and mailed a letter in the lobby.  The New York Times reported, "That was the last seen of her until the chambermaid found her dead body" the following morning.  She had shot herself in the head, leaving a note for the coroner that read:

Dear Sir:  I leave this note so as to obviate the necessity of holding an inquest, as I have deliberately committed suicide for my family's sake.  I beg of you not to try and find out who I am.  Trusting that you will grant me a resting place among God's poor and unfortunate ones in Potter's Field, and conduct this matter as quickly as possible, I am respectfully yours.

Her hopes of remaining anonymous would not come to be.  Just as the hotel's messenger reached the Coroners' office, "an agitated gentlemen went in too, and he heard the messenger describe the suicide," said The New York Times.  "'My God!' he cried.  'She is my daughter.'"

Colonel Robert Johnstone, a lawyer, had already received the letter mailed from the lobby the previous evening.  His daughter, Elizabeth, had married John Clairmonte six years earlier when she was 21.  Clairmonte was "complaining, tyrannical and abusive," according to friends.  The couple had two children.  In December 1885, Clairmonte divorced Elizabeth, accusing her of infidelity.  Elizabeth lost custody of her children.  The New York Times reported, "She was a woman of great will power, and outwardly she made no sign.  but evidently her trouble prayed upon her so that she felt she could to bear it and determined upon suicide."

On the day of her funeral, John Clairmonte rushed into the undertaker's establishment.  Elizabeth had sent him a letter, as well.  The New York Times said, "Young Clairmonte seemed to be not very much grieved over the sad death of his pretty wife."  Her letter had told him of her intended suicide, asked his forgiveness "for all the misery I have caused you," and ended saying, "Kiss Lewis and Emme for me and accept the love of your unfortunate."

William Barrett died of blood poisoning following an operation in 1893 at the age of 46.  Hooper lost the hotel to bankruptcy in 1900.  Next door, on West 43rd Street, was the Cadillac Hotel, which also sat on Goelet land.  On June 22, 1902 the New-York Daily Tribune reported that the Goelets had leased both buildings to Quartus A. Graves for 15 years.  He operated them jointly as the Cadillac Hotel.  

Apparently part of the negotiations was the replacement of the old Cadillac Hotel building with a modern structure.  On March 15, 1903, The Sun reported, "Plans have been filed with the building bureau for a new twelve-story hotel...to be built by the Ogden Goelet estate at 153 and 155 West Forty-third street."  The new building was projected to cost $180,000, or nearly $5.5 million today.

The new building made no attempt at melding with its vintage neighbor.  Other than signage, there was no hint that the two structures composed a single hotel.

The lobby and the main desk in 1907.  photos by Byron Company from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York.

The Cadillac Hotel was the scene of a bizarre hoax in December 1903.  Colonel Henry Gillum, described by The Evening World as "a lawyer and member of an old Virginia family," told police he had come to New York to present the Museum of Natural History with a unique item--a gold watch in the shape of a green beetle which had been fashioned for Queen Maria Christina, the great-grandmother of King Alfonso of Spain.

He said his father-in-law, Colonel William C. Duffield, had purchased the watch in Cuba in 1834 for $500.  The Evening World described the timepiece saying:

The bug watch is two and a quarter inches long.  I has curved horns projecting from the front of the head, six jointed legs, three on each side, wings of solid gold, body of enameled bright green, springs under the hindermost legs which when pressed cause the wings to open and reveals a very small watch with perfect works and white face.

Police Inspector McClusky sent out a general alarm to all pawnbrokers in the city.  He told reported "There is not another watch like it in the world."  The Evening World noted, "When lost the bug watch was in a brown morocco case lined with white satin and containing a peculiar key.  The case bore the name of Tiffany & Co., where the watch was repaired in 1878."

But then, on January 21, 1904, having read the description in the newspapers, attorney Abe Levy called the inspector saying he had the "bug watch."  He had purchased it at a sale on Maiden Lane in December 1899, and had the sale papers.  The Sun wrote, "Why Col. Gillum, of the South, should announce that he'd lost it and that he wanted to present it to the Metropolitan Museum McClusky didn't explain."

Two of the parlors in the suites as they appeared in 1907.   photo by Byron Company from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York.

In 1910 the Wallick Brothers took over the lease, renaming it the Hotel Wallick.  Hotel World recalled in 1919, "When the Wallick Brothers took hold of the hotel, they enlarged it and spent a large sum on improvements."  Indeed, in October 1911 the Goelet Estate hired architect John H. Duncan to alter the original building.  The Real Estate Record & Guide said "Alterations consist of changes to the entrance and sidewalk of the 'Cadillac Hotel.'"  It was most likely at this time that the portico was removed and the entrance shifted to the corner.

By now Longacre Square had been renamed Times Square.  It was the new center of the theater district.  The hotel saw an increasing number of theatrical residents, like actor James Garrison who lived here in 1912.

What the Wallick brothers had not foreseen, however, was the coming of Prohibition, which caused the closing of thousands of restaurants and hotels across the country.  On August 9, 1919 Hotel World announced, "The effects of prohibition, it is said, influenced the Wallick brothers in giving up control of the hotel."  Under new management, the hotel once again became the Cadillac Hotel.

For its 50th anniversary, the vintage building received a facelift in the spring of 1933.  On May 28, 1933, The New York Times reported, "The exterior of the building has been restored to its original freshness by sandblasting and the familiar clock in the little tower surmounting the roof has had its face washed and its works renovated for another long period of utility."

Despite the restoration, in 1935 the lower floors were heavily altered and plastered with advertising.  from the collection of the New York Public Library.

That "long period of utility" was not to be.  Only seven years later, on March 19, 1940, The New York Times reported, "The busy Times Square district is about to lose one of its earliest landmarks."  The newspaper said the hotel "soon will bow to the changing times," noting that the "weather-worn clock at the top of the building, which for half a century was a dependable timekeeper known to thousands who passed the corner daily, has outlived its usefulness."

The land was still owned by the Goelet family.  The New York Times noted that Ogden Goelet had passed title to his daughter, May, "who became the wife of the duke of Roxburghe.  Her son, the present Duke of Roxburghe, now owns the property."  The article noted that the duke's representatives had taken bids "from wrecking firms for tearing down the old structure."

Today the 34-floor 1500 Broadway, designed by Leo Kornblath and completed in 1972, occupies the site.

image via loopnet.com

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