The 1896 Adolph B. Ansbacher House - 41 West 87th Street

 

Architect Theodore E. Thompson designed five 20-foot wide houses on the north side of West 87th Street between Central Park West and Columbus Avenue for developer James Carew in 1895.  Like its identical neighbors, 41 West 87th Street was completed the following year, its Renaissance Revival-style brownstone facade splashed with touches of Romanesque Revival.  

A dog-legged box stoop with pierced wing walls rose above the rough-cut basement level to the double-doored entrance flanked with handsome Corinthian pilasters.  Elaborately carved Renaissance-inspired panels decorated the parlor level, the windows of which sat atop carved, faux balustrades.  A two-story oriel dominated the upper floors and a pressed metal cornice decorated with a row of slender colonettes crowned the design.

At the time, the family of Adolph B. Ansbacher lived in a four-story house at 17 West 52nd Street, just around the corner from William Henry Vanderbilt's Triple Palace.  Ansbacher sold that house to Thomas Denny in 1895 for, according to the Record & Guide, about $90,000.  (The figure would translate to about $3.47 million in 2025.)  He and his wife, the former Frances V. Eger, purchased 41 West 87th Street.  Moving from what was known as Millionaires' Row made economical sense.  The Record & Guide reported that they paid "a little less than $40,000."

Born in Bavaria in 1831, Ansbacher was the head of A. B. Ansbacher & Co.  He was described by America's Successful Men of Affairs as, "one of the leading merchants of paints."  He was, as well, a founder and director of Mount Sinai Hospital.

Just over a decade after purchasing 41 West 87th Street, the Ansbachers moved again, this time to Central Park West.  They sold the house on March 1, 1906 to Dr. Clarence Degrand Ashley, Ph.D. 

Ashley was born on July 4, 1851 in Boston.  His family, said the New-York Tribune, "has been well known since the days of settlement."  He married Isabella Heyward Ripely on August 12, 1880 in Geneva, Switzerland.  The couple had three children, Edith Heyward, Clarence Degrand, and Mabel Pierce.

Clarence D. Ashley graduated from Yale University in 1878 and further studied in Berlin.  He co-founded the Metropolis Law School and when that facility merged with the Law Department of New York University in 1896, Ashley became the latter's dean.  An author of law books, among his works were Cases on Contracts and The Law of Contracts.

The summer social season saw well-to-do New Yorkers leaving the city to fashionable resorts or country homes.  Other than indispensable servants--like the valet and lady's maid--the domestic staff was often dismissed, to be replaced in the fall.  On June 9, 1913, Isabella advertised in The New York Times, "A lady closing her house for the Summer would like to find places for her chambermaid and waitress; they can be seen at present employers, 41 West 87th St., Tuesday and Wednesday, from 10 to 12."

Around January 14, 1916, Ashley suffered "an attack of the grip," as described by The New York Times.  The term most often refers to influenza today.  His condition led to "hemorrhages," said the newspaper.  On January 27, the New-York Tribune reported, "Clarence D. Ashley, dean of the New York University Law School, died suddenly yesterday at his home at 41 West Eighty-seventh Street."  His funeral was held the following afternoon in St. Matthew's Church on West 84th Street.

Mabel Pierce Ashley was still unmarried and living with her mother as late as 1922.  Like her older sister, Edith, she graduated from Bryn Mawr College and was now working as the secretary to the principal of the Finch and Lenox Schools.  (She would later found the Edith Heyward Ashley and Mabel Pierce Ashley Scholarship Fund at Bryn Mawr College.)

On October 27, 1928, The New York Times reported that Isabella Ashley had sold 41 West 87th Street to Martin J. Doody and his wife, the former Nellie O'Connau.  The article said they "intend to remodel and use the house for their own occupancy."  Included in their renovations was the removal of the stoop and lowering the entrance to the former English basement level.

With the stoop removed, the Doodys walked a few steps below grade to enter the house.  via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services.

Martin J. Doody was born in Ireland on May 29, 1899, and Nellie was born in Listrowel County, Ireland, 1887.  The couple had two daughters, Josephine Marie and Helen.  (Helen was married and lived elsewhere).  Real estate operators, they owned and managed rooming houses and apartments in New York City and the Rockaways.  One of those, in Rockaway Beach, was named for Josephine--the Josephine Villa.

The Advocate, August 23, 1941

The Doody family was at Belle Harbor, Long Island in 1939 when Martin was taken to St. Joseph's Hospital.  He died there on June 21 at the age of 50.

Josephine Marie was married to Naval Reserve Lieutenant Sydney Conrad Schoenberger in St. Patrick's Church on October 18, 1944.  With no surviving men in the family, Isabella gave her daughter away.  The reception and wedding breakfast was held in the Pierre Hotel.  

Nellie Doody remained in the West 87th Street house until December 1949 when she sold it to David Light.  She moved permanently to Belle Harbor and continued managing the real estate business.  She died there on August 26, 1978 at the age of 91.

For half a century, 41 West 87th Street was operated as respectable rented rooms.  Then a renovation completed in 2000 resulted in a duplex in the basement and first floor, and two apartments per floor above.  

A remarkable five-year renovation started in 2015.  Amazingly, the complicated stoop was refabricated, every detail--including the carved bows on the newels--copied from the surviving examples on the row.  Theodore E. Thomson's 1896 interiors were gutted during the process of returning the house to a single-family home.

photographs by the author

The F. N. Collins House - 323 West 88th Street

When Theodore E. Thomson designed the five 20-foot wide rowhouses along West 88th Street for James Carlew late in 1895, he chose a single plan for all of them.  When completed, the homes between West End Avenue and Riverside Drive would be nearly identical--their differences appearing only in the carvings that decorated the stoop newels, the panels between the parlor floor windows, and the bases of the two story bays.

The Real Estate Record & Builders' Guide noted on December 28 that the cost to construct each house would be approximately $20,000--or about $617,000 today.  The journal noted "specifications will call for all conveniences."

Because James Carlew was in Europe when the plans were completed, the project stalled until his return.  Ground was broken in March 1896 and the row was completed in the summer of 1897.  Like its neighbors, No. 323 rose four stories above a tall English basement.  Clad in brownstone, its double-doored entrance was flanked by fluted Corinthian pilasters which helped uphold a bracketed cornice that ran the width of the house.

The same pilasters appeared in reduced versions along the rounded bay of the second and third floors.  The underside of the bay was decorated with extraordinary carvings of overlapping leaves and berries.  The fluted pilasters made their appearance one more time at the top floor, flanking each window.  The remarkable pressed metal cornice was upheld by a series of small engaged columns; a highly unusual detail.

A stone worker exerted hours of careful labor on the complex carvings below the bowed bay.

On September 16, 1897 The New York Times reported that Carlew had sold No. 323, adding "This is the second house sold by Mr Carlew of the row of five which were completed about three months ago."

The house became home to the Frederick Norris Collins family.  Collins was president of the shipping concern, James Ward & Co.  He and his wife, the former Emily Augusta Cooper, had one daughter, Lydia.  Their summer residence was near Summit, New Jersey where they were members of the Canoe Brook Country Club and the Baltusrol Country Club nearby.  Living with them was Emily's widowed mother.

Emily was visible both in New York society and in political issues during the winter season.  She was a member of the Women's Republican Club and the Women's Auxiliary of Calvary Episcopal Church.  Her name appeared in social columns, as on December 15, 1907 when The New York Times announced that she "has sent out cards for the first Monday of each month during the season."  Another newspaper called those Mondays a "series of informal afternoons."

Earlier that year the family name appeared in newsprint for a less happy reason.  On the morning of May 28 Emily's mother noticed that a desk in her room had been jimmied open.  Investigation revealed that a bar brooch, a pair of earrings and six rings were missing.  The total value was $2,000--more than $55,000 today.  She notified Frederick who quickly suspected the butler.

The following day The Evening Post reported that "John Martin, the negro butler," had been arrested.  "Mr. Collins said that before going on an errand the butler had gone upstairs, and a few minutes after he left the house the robbery was discovered.  None of the other servants had been near the room."

Frederick's cousin, Mildred Louise Collins, was married on February 13, 1915 in the Church of the Transfiguration.  It was, perhaps, a surprising location for the friends of the couple.  Mildred lived in New Haven, Connecticut and the groom, I. Leland Hewes, was from Springfield, Massachusetts.  The reception, therefore, was held in the West 88th Street house.

In 1920 the Federal Government issued an indictment against specific shipping concerns, charging them with price fixing.  Among the executives and agents individually charged was Frederick N. Collins.

As was most often the case with well-heeled couples, the title to No. 323 was in Emily's name.   She sold the house in July 1921 to Lillian B. Smith.

Smith leased the house to operatic coach Florence Mendelson.   A year after moving in she was involved in the formation of the Music Students' League, "sponsored by prominent musicians," according to The Musician in July 1922.  The purpose was to hold "occasional meetings...in consideration of such problems as every music student must have."  The announcement noted "The secretary is Florence Mendelson, who may be addressed at 323 West Eighty-eighth Street, New York."

During the Depression years No. 323 was being operated as a rooming house.  Among the occupants in 1934 was 31-year old taxicab owner Oscar Kates.  At 3:00 a.m. on the day after Christmas that year he pulled his cab into a filling station on West 60th Street.  When the tank was filled, he found he could not shut off the pump.  While he struggled with the pump, the gasoline spilled out and onto the ground.  Somehow it ignited, engulfing Kates in flames.

Taken to The Roosevelt Hospital by another cabbie, his burns were severe enough to require his hospitalization until January 20, 1935.   Upon paying his $197 bill (around $3,600 today), he hired a lawyer and sued.  The jury granted him a $5,000 settlement.

Somewhat surprisingly, the Collins house was never divided into apartments--the fate of so many large Victorian rowhouses.  In 2008 a penthouse level, invisible from the street, was added.  

photographs by the author

The Lost Hotel Beresford - CPW and 81st Street

Real Estate Record & Builders' Guide, September 21, 1889 (copyright expired)

In 1889 Alva S. Walker pioneered a new concept in multi-family living on the Upper West Side.  On September 21 the Real Estate Record and Guide said his Hotel Beresford, which was nearing completion at the northwest corner of Central Park West and 81st Street, marked "the new mode of living due to the desire to avoid the cares of housekeeping."

This would be Alva Walker's second "apartment hotel."  His recently-built Hotel Winthrop on Seventh Avenue and 125th Street, was reportedly "remarkably successful."

In December 1888 he purchased the four Central Park West plots from former Park Commissioner John D. Crimmins for $110,000--more than $2.8 million today.  At the time the Record & Guide reported "Mr. Walker will at once commence the erection of first-class dwellings or an elegant apartment house."

The term "at once" was accurate.  Walker commissioned architect Theodore E. Thomson (who was most often known professionally as Theo E. Thomson) to design his six-story structure which rose with blinding speed.  Less than six months after Walker purchased the plot, the roof of the $200,000 building had been completed.  By September 1889, carpenters and plasterers were working on the finishing touches.

The Record & Guide explained the concept of the Beresford as it prepared to open.  "It is what is in the future to be known as an 'apartment hotel.'  That is, it is comprised of a number of suites for families and bachelors, which they occupy just as though they lived in an apartment house like the Dakota, the Osborne, the Rutland, or any other first-class flat.  But it differs from them in this respect, that no cooking is done in any of the suites, as everyone eats in a large dining-room, the meals in which are cooked, served and supplied by the owner and manager of the building."

That dining room was on the top floor.  "It is delightfully located, as it places the guests, while they are taking their meals, in full view of Central and Manhattan Parks, the Museums of Art and Natural History and other objects.  To dine under such conditions must surely aid both appetite and digestion," opined the Guide.  Residents paid $7 each per week for their meals--a little over $185 today.

But it was not merely the cook's job that was eliminated at the Hotel Beresford.  The building supplied "chamber and waiting service" that would otherwise have been the duties of private maids. 

"All one requires to do is to eat, drink, sleep and pay one's check when it becomes due, the cares of house-keeping being shouldered upon the proprietor of the hotel," said the Guide's writer.  "Ladies who have for years been breaking their hearts over their troubles with servants will no doubt welcome with open arms the new era of apartment hotels which has just dawned upon us."

There were 34 apartments in the Hotel Beresford with rents ranging from $1,200 to $1,800 per year, or around $4,000 per month today for the largest apartments.  New Yorkers lined up to sign leases.  In September 1889 Alva Walker told a reporter "The Beresford is now half rented, though the building will not be finished till October 1."  And seven weeks after the opening he announced that all apartments had been rented "and there is a reserve list of applicants."

The Hotel Beresford's residents were white collar professionals--doctors, brokers, bankers, and lawyers, for instance.   Their new apartment was an outward sign of the prosperity of Johnson Blakeley Creighton and his wife, the former Sarah Tracy, who had been married around 1882.  Creighton came from a respected naval family.  His grandfather was Rear Admiral Silas H. Stringham, and his father was Commodore J. Blakeley Creighton.

At the age of just 16 Creighton, known popularly as Jack, took a job as a clerk on Wall Street with the brokerage firm of J. T. Bates & Co.  Before long he had risen to cashier and seven years later was a partner in W. P. Wright & Co.  The same month that the Creightons moved into the Hotel Beresford, he formed his own brokerage firm, J. B. Creighton & Co.

The Creightons' lifestyle was typical of the Beresford's residents.  They summered in Larchmont, New York, and Creighton was a member of the exclusive New-York Athletic Club and the Manhattan Club.  But the 30-year old was hiding deep secrets; most likely even from his wife.

Almost a year after moving in, on October 23, 1890, Creighton did not come home.  Earlier that day he had spent time talking with the clerk in the drugstore at 82 Broadway about the relative strengths of different kinds of poison.  About an hour and a half later he returned and sauntered casually around the store before being noticed behind the drug case in the back.  When he left there was a bottle of morphine hidden in his pocket.

He had dinner at Rodman's restaurant that evening, then started to leave without paying.  The cashier reminded him and Creighton reportedly replied "Money! Take all you want.  I have no further use for it."

When the janitor opened Creighton's office door to clean up at 5:30 in the morning, he found the broker dead on a lounge.  He had left four letters, one of which, addressed "To whom it may concern," read

I have been through a good square business fight, have lost the battle, and now, when my poor brain is aching with pain, and so badly that it has taken poor Jack's best efforts to hold his head above water, I give way to the word of God and end a life that in the future would no doubt be useless."

After his signature he added the line "Be careful and notify my wife kindly."

It was discovered that Creighton had been playing the stock market for several years, almost always being on the losing end.  Creditors were closing in now, and he was unable to pay.  His funeral was held in the Beresford apartment.

The success of the Hotel Beresford was such that in April 1892 Walker purchased the plot behind the building, running to the 82nd Street corner, for $150,000.  He announced his intentions to build a ten-story extension and told reporters that "Every improvement will be placed in the building, and when it is finished it will be connected with the Hotel Beresford."

The annex would have 64 apartments--nearly double that of the original building.  In August, as the structure took form, the Real Estate Record & Guide took note of the design.  "The front is plain and unpretentious, being of brick, with brownstone trimmings, and corresponds in design to the main building, which was the pioneer apartment hotel built west of Central Park."

The dining room in the original building was remodeled into apartments, and the new dining room was located in the ninth floor of the addition.  The tenth floor contained small apartments for residents' servants.  The plans estimated the construction cost at $350,000--nearly $9.5 million today.

Thompson's rending of the addition was in harmony with the original building.  from the collection of the New York Public Library

The architect, C. A. Thompson, had indeed closely mimicked Theo E. Thomson's original design.  The severe angles of the bays--intended not only for dimension but for added ventilation--were carried out on both the Central Park West and 82nd Street elevations.  Rather interestingly, neither of the entrances faced the park, but the side streets.  The architects' purpose in the placement may have been simply to provide more park views to the residences.

Another of the Hotel Beresford's original tenants in 1889 were millionaire John J. Morris, his wife, and their adult son.  He came from the colonial Morris family "of Revolutionary fame," according to on newspaper.  His father, Jacob, was a Federal Lieutenant in the War of 1812.

After a varied career--he had served as Alderman and Excise Commissioner, and headed a highly successful grocery business--Morris contented himself with retired life.  He remained a member of the West Presbyterian Church, known as "Dr. Paxton's Church," on West 42nd Street.  Each Sunday he would stroll across Central Park to catch the streetcar south.  But he never made it to services on May 14, 1893.

He walked down Central Park West to the 72nd Street entrance to the park.  But rain had fallen the night before and, according to The New York Times, "the road was ankle deep in mud."  Rather than sully his fine shoes he walked along the stone-paved gutter alongside the roadway.  A Central Park policeman took exception to his walking outside the designated path.

Morris explained why he was not walking on the pathway, but the policeman said it was against the park rules.  The former alderman refused to step into the mud and was arrested.  If Morris expected to deal with a more logical mind at the police station, he was disappointed.  The New York Times wrote "The Sergeant in charge at the police station administered a sharp rebuke to the prisoner and ordered the officer to take him to court."

The astonished judge dismissed the case and Morris hurried to church.  But he entered just in time to hear the closing hymn.  Later The New York Times reported "Much indignation was expressed by friends of Mr. Morris over the occurrence, but Mr. Morris declined to prosecute the policeman who arrested him."

Less than a year later, in April 1894, Morris became ill.  He was taken to the Chambers Street Hospital where he died two months later.  His widow and son, W. H. Morris, remained on in the Hotel Beresford.

The original structure's entrance opened onto 81st Street.  The taller annex opened onto 82nd.  A nanny pushes a baby tram along a very quiet Central Park West.  photo by Wurts Bros. from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York

Directly below the Morris apartment was that of the Olin D. Gray family.  Gray was president of the Gray Lithographing Company  His wife, Lydia Blossom Gray, was active socially.  In February 1895, for instance, society columns noted that "Mrs. Olin D. Gray of the Hotel Beresford has sent out cards for Tuesdays in February."

Following Lydia's February "at homes," she and their daughter, Laura, went to St. Louis.  On the night of April 27 Olin left their apartment, headed to the theater.  But on the way there he was passed by galloping fire trucks headed north.  Concerned, he decided to go back home, where he found the flames erupting from his fifth floor apartment.

The building's alarm system had worked perfectly.  It was W. H. Morris who discovered the fire.  "He ran down to the hotel office, and an alarm was rung in.  The electric bells in all the rooms in the building were set ringing," reported The New York Times.  Olin Gray was not so fortunate.

"Every article of furniture in his rooms was destroyed, as well as some valuable oil paintings.  His loss is estimated at $10,000," said the newspaper.  The damage would be nearly $300,000 in today's dollars.  The Grays left the Hotel Beresford, moving into a rowhouse across the park at No. 40 East 80th Street.

Another couple highly visible in social circles were James M. Drake, a partner in the banking firm of Drake, Masten & Co., and his wife.  Like the Morrises, their apartment was on the fifth floor.  The Drakes were patrons of music and literature and their apartment was regularly the scene of musical entertainments and readings.   Their golden wedding anniversary in 1901 was deemed by The New York Times as "one of the great events in the history of the hotel."

Despite their advanced ages and having reared four children, the Drakes remained sweethearts.  The New York Times later recalled "It had been a habit of Mr. Drake every morning on his way to business, rain or shine, to walk over to the park wall, where he would lift his silk hat and bow good-bye to Mrs. Drake, who would watch him from the window."

Residents said that when Drake returned home, he would not pause to chat in the corridors until he had gone to the apartment to greet his wife.  The romance did not end with Mrs. Drake's death in the spring of 1906.  Every morning he would pause at the Central Park wall, turn and tip his hat to the empty fifth floor window.

Soon, though, the broken-hearted old man said that he could not stand the loneliness of the Beresford apartment and he moved out in October that year.  A month later he died at the age of 82.

Alva S. Walker and his family, naturally, lived in the Hotel Beresford.  He had been faced with a difficult decision in 1903 when an employee embezzled a large amount from him.  Walker had hired him around 1893 and said he had implicitly trusted him and put him in charge of large sums of cash.

Walker discovered the skillfully-conducted thefts "largely by accident."  While one report set the amount at $50,000, Walker called that an exaggeration; although he would not say how much was stolen.  His troubling conflict was whether or not to prosecute.  "He hesitated about performing what he thought was a public duty, because of his pity for the man's innocent wife and six children," explained The New York Times.  Walker told reporters "The employee had squandered the money on the races, and there was no possible way of recovery."

photo from the collection of the Library of Congress

Five years later Walker's name would again be in the papers, but this time for a scandalous reason.  On August 20, 1908 The Sun received a wire from Worchester, Massachusetts informing "Alva Walker, a wealthy New York City septuagenarian, owner of the Hotel Beresford at Eighty-first street and Central Park West, was arrested yesterday with a party of ladies for endangering his life and the lives of others by climbing Mount Wachusett in an automobile over a closed route."

Despite admitting owning the car and knowing that he was violating State laws by trespassing on the closed road, The Sun said "Walker threatens suit for false arrest."

Alva Walker died in his Hotel Beresford apartment on February 15, 1911 at the age of 74.  in 1919 his estate sold the building to real estate operators Bing & Bing.

Years earlier, in 1900, retired merchant and Civil War veteran Seth W. Johnson and his wife Ella, moved into a seventh floor apartment.   They maintained a country home in Greenwich, Connecticut.  Their son, John A. Topping, was chairman of the board of Republic Iron and Steel Corporation.

Ella was 69 years old in 1918 when she developed heart trouble.  It became serious enough that for a time she had nurses day and night in the apartment.   But by the summer of 1920 she seemed to have greatly improved.

On the morning of June 13 she, her nurse Effie Swanson, and her husband began packing trunks in preparation to leave for Greenwich.  At one point Ella felt tired and said she would go into an adjoining room for fresh air.  Johnson and the nurse heard the window being raised, and went on with the packing.

A few minutes later the sounds of shouting from the street reached the apartment.  The Times reported "Mr. Johnson, who is nearly 80 years old, called to his wife, asking what the shouting was about.  When he got no answer, he hurried into the room.  It was empty."

The New-York Tribune added "He rushed to the window and saw her body lying in the court below.  She had been killed instantly."  Effe Swanson, who had been Ella's nurse for about five years, thought perhaps she had suffered an attack of vertigo and lost her balance on opening the window.

By 1928 the Hotel Beresford was decidedly out of date.  The Active Properties Company purchased the property in March that year and in August demolition began.  A worker on the project, James Blancett, was checking the cellar when he heard cries.  Checking further, he found a mother cat with four kittens, about a week old.

Blancett notified the S.P.C.A.  An agent arrived and took the mother away, inexplicably leaving the kittens behind, "worse off than they were before," according to the demolition worker.  Working against time, Blancett tried to coax the feral kittens out; but they scurried away whenever he approached.

"He tried leaving milk and appetizing bits of liver where they could find it," reported The New York Times.  "This proved satisfactory to all concerned...Blancett improvised a comfortable nest for them out of an old pillow stuffed into a bushel basket."  Meanwhile, the razing of the building continued overhead.

Finally two kittens became trusting enough that Blancett was able to remove them and they were quickly adopted by families in the neighborhood.  The others, however, remained suspicious.  Blancett said on August 22 that he had only about two weeks to tame the kittens before the building came down around them.

The Upper West Side neighborhood rallied.  On weekends when Blancett was off, women brought the milk and food.  And everyone nervously watched the progress of the demolition.

Finally, almost at the two-week deadline, Blancett was able to remove the kittens.  More than 60 persons had sought to provide homes for them.  The story newspaper readers had been following for weeks had a happy ending.

In place of the Hotel Beresford, Emery Roth's massive The Beresford apartment house rose.

In 1931, before air conditioning, Emory Roth's The Beresford is studded with canvas awnings. photo by Wurts Bros. from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York

The Ambitious Little 1896 Buildings at Nos. 519-527 Sixth Avenue

Thomson's three small buildings successfully pretend to be just one -- photo by Alice Lum

West 14th Street had ceased to be a fashionable residential area in 1896. The brownstone homes had been replaced by retail stores as the neighborhood around Sixth Avenue became a major shopping area.  And by now, the emporiums were gradually moving northward on Sixth Avenue, creating what was known as the Ladies’ Mile.

Albert Wyckoff recognized the trend and rather than erect a new gargantuan retail building like those going up on the Avenue, he planned three office buildings with small stores at the sidewalk level.

The Sixth Avenue elevated train had reached the intersection of 14th Street and Sixth Avenue in 1881 and while it signaled a boom to business, it also brought problems.  Property owners along the route filed suit against the Manhattan Railway Company for structural damages caused by the rumbling vibrations of the passing cars.

Architect Theo Thomson intended to thwart the tremors.

Theodore E. Thomson’s name was routinely abbreviated in publications like American Architect and Building News as Theo. E. Thomson and after some time he was being referred to simply by the shortened version. His works throughout the city were most often clad in heavy stone and brick and his structure for Wyckoff would be no exception.

Thomson placed his four-story brick and stone buildings—there was no steel framework—on a heavily-reinforced foundation.  Located at the southwest corner of West 14th and Sixth Avenues, the buildings pretended to be a single structure.  Their continuous Romanesque Revival façade featured arched windows, a pressed-metal cornice and an eye-catching, slightly-projecting corner turret capped with a tiled cone.

photo by Alice Lum

The yellow brick was trimmed in rough-faced granite.  At street level were decorated doorways--the entrance to the corner retail space was ornamented with Corinthian columns. For those passengers passing above street level inside the elevated trains, the turret and robust stone stringcourses made the structure visually appealing.

The result was three relatively small buildings that combined into a nearly-monumental whole.  Thomson’s heavy, solid design it created a visually larger and more massive bearing—what the Columbia University School of Architecture described as a “mighty” presence.

Wyckoff directed the architect to create multiple rooms throughout the buildings to enable him to rent to a larger number of tenants.  The upper floors were leased to small offices and businesses while the street level was home to a variety of commercial tenants.

In 1907 a moving picture show was operating in 527 Sixth Avenue and by 1916 Child’s Restaurant was in the space.  Child’s had several “Dairy Lunch Rooms” around the city which, according to Rider’s New York City and Vicinity in 1916 “have set a standard in the way of sanitary service and excellence of quality at very modern prices.”

Child's Restaurants were clean and affordable -- vintage postcard

The neighborhood at the corner of 14th Street and Sixth Avenue gradually changed.  In 1936 the Sixth Avenue elevated stopped running and was soon dismantled, spilling sunlight into the ground floor shops for the first time in half a century.  In 1940 519 Sixth A enue was converted to apartments–two per floor, while Nos. 525 and 527 continued as business spaces.  There were twelve retail stores on the first floor.

Little by little the buildings were converted to residential use until, in 1954, only No. 527 rented to commercial tenants.

That year 527 Sixth Avenue had a one-family residence on the fourth floor, sales rooms on the ground floor and cellar, a beauty parlor on the second floor and offices on the third.

Today all three buildings have been converted to apartments above the ground floor.  The handsome brick-and-granite building suffered much abuse throughout the later years of the 20th century.  The conical turret cap has lost its tiles, all traces of the decorative doorways and the ornate corner entrance have been obliterated and the street level is defaced by a mishmash of garish store signs.

The conical turret cap has lost its tiles and the cornice is sadly maintained -- photo by Alice Lum

Nos. 519-527 Sixth Avenue, however, still retains the architectural integrity and powerful presence intended by Theo Thomson in 1896.

UPDATE:  Demolition on the buildings commenced in April 2023.