Wm. E. Mowbray's 1890 No. 454 W. 144th Street

In December 1886 wealthy silk dealer William M. De Forest and his son, also named William, were poised to make their mark on the recently-developing Hamilton Heights neighborhood.  Once part of Alexander Hamilton's extensive estate, The Grange, it was quickly becoming an upscale northern suburb.

That month the Real Estate Record & Builders' Guide noted "More than twenty elegant houses, of English Gothic, Flemish and other styles, as modified by the taste of the architect Mr. Wm. E. Mowbray, are already planned and will be built without delay."  Among these was a row of eight houses on the south side of West 144th Street, between Convent and Amsterdam Avenues.

William E. Mowbray's picturesque medley of Queen Anne, Tudor Revival, Flemish Revival and other styles would create a fantasy neighborhood.  But William H. De Forest's bankruptcy and subsequent commitment to an insane asylum brought the project nearly to a full halt.  William Jr. took over, and the row, stretching from No. 452 through 466, was finally completed in September 1890.

No. 454 sat within an architecturally delightful row.

No. 454 was a quaint marriage of neo-Tudor and Gothic.  Mowbray used beige brick and brownstone to create a vibrant two-colored facade.  The eye was drawn upward from the understated, planar parlor level to three floors of energetic design.  Three grouped openings at the second floor were unified below a Queen Anne-style sunburst transom panel.  A stone pseudo-balcony sat on tightly-packed corbels.   Like those below, the grouped openings of the third floor were outlined in stone quoins.  The fourth floor was highlighted by a charming row of Gothic-pointed windows below a deeply-overhanging cornice.  By lessening the successive bulk of the elements--from the heavy brownstone base to the delicate top floor windows, Mowbray kept the residence visually grounded.

The house would not be sold for two years.  In 1892 William H. De Forest, Jr. and his wife, Harriett, sold four houses in the row, including No. 454, to operators Edwin H. and Walter J. Peck.  The men paid $45,000 each for them--about $1.2 million today.

No. 454 was leased to wealthy produce merchant Charles W. Weston.  The family maintained a summer estate in Milton, New York.  In March 1892, about the same time that the Pecks were receiving title to No. 454, the Weston's closed upstate home was being enjoyed by 20-year old William Williams and an accomplice.

On March 10 The New York Times reported "Williams has made a confession in which he says that his first idea was robbery, but he and his companion found the accommodations of the house so comfortable that they determined to spend the Winter there."  The newspaper noted they had broken into the wine cellar "and used the contents freely."

Williams told police "We just had things as we wanted 'em; we was the bosses of a regular sinners' hotel, and as long as the wine lasted we had a----of a time."  Unfortunately for the Weston family, things "just as we wanted 'em" included expensive damage.

"Carpets were cut up, soiled, and besmeared with dirt; valuable paintings were cut and their frames broken; costly bits of statuary were destroyed; bric-a-brac had been hurled through the glass doors of bookcases, and the walls of the rooms had been disfigured by the bloody heads of chickens and other fowl that were killed and cooked in the house."

To keep warm, the squatters broke up furniture for firewood.   Jewelry and other valuables were sold in nearby towns and, as described by The Times, "Every room in the house had been turned topsy turvy."  And the problem of bathroom hygiene was solved when "Much costly underwear and wearing apparel, which had been put into cedar closets for protection, was cut into shreds and besmirched with the filth of the marauders."

The Weston family remained in the West 144th Street house for about two decades.  By 1913 they had moved permanently to the Milton estate.

In October 1916 the Pecks transferred title to Kate A. Hastings.  Like the Pecks, Kate and her husband, Charles S. Hastings, had purchased multiple properties in the area in 1892 and continued to manage leased residences.  In August 1917 she leased No. 454 to Lindsay S. Perkins who had become a minor celebrity for toppling a German spy and terrorist ring.

Perkin's early life held no hint of the colorful career as a Secret Service agent to come.  A short story writer, he became city editor of Georgia's The Macon Telegraph in 1889.  Two years later he relocated to Washington DC as a Patent Office employee. Then, with the outbreak of World War I, he joined the Secret Service. Although the U.S. had not yet entered the war, spies and saboteurs were a threat to American munitions plants, ships carrying supplies to warring countries, and such.

The agency was closely monitoring the moves of a group of German businessmen and diplomats in 1916.  They were suspected of conspiring to blow up of the Welland Canal connecting Lake Erie and Lake Ontario in 1914.  Among them was Captain von Papen, Military Attache of the German Embassy, and his secretary, Wolf von Igel, described by Current History and Forum later, in October 1917, as "a large, suave man of Teutonic aspect."

On April 16 Linsday S. Perkins entered von Igel's supposed "advertising" office at No. 60 Wall Street.  A month later Information: A Monthly Digest of Current Events wrote "Before submitting, von Igel struggled until the Federal agents were compelled to draw their revolvers."  According to Current History and Forum, when their guns were drawn, von Igel shouted "This is German territory.  Shoot me and you will bring on war!"

The New York Times said Perkins "is accredited with the capture of Wolf von Igel, a German spy."  And Information reported that his involvement in the Welland Canal plot and "many bomb outrages on munition carrying ships...were described by a high Federal official as the biggest haul made by the government since the activities of the agents of the Central Powers in this country were first uncovered."

Five months before the 54-year old Lindsay moved into No. 454 he was involved in defusing another nearly disastrous plot.  The German ocean liner Friedrich der Grosse was moored at Hoboken.  Lindsay and other agents stormed the ship where a bomb making factory was being operated.  Within 12 days workers had created 250 bombs, intended to be smuggled onto ships carrying food to the allies.  Five German insurgents were arrested.  On March 16, 1917 Lindsay S. Perkins testified in United States Court, identifying two of the spies.


The Secret Service agent leased No. 454 until around 1920, when he retired to his farm in Seat Pleasant, Maryland.  (He did not remain retired, however; he returned to the State Department as a Russian and Spanish translator in 1931.)

In August 1920 Kate Hastings put the house on the market for $20,000 (around $240,000 in 2016).  It was sold to Valentine M. Kelley, who immediately leased it to the former police officer with the appropriate name George J. Law.   Law had joined the New York City Police Department on September 11, 1886 and retired from the 31st Precinct on April 7, 1905.

By the Depression years John H. Fay lived here with his wife, Elizabeth, and their adult son, Thomas.  Elizabeth and her son stayed on for a few years following John's death in the house on May 5, 1931.  The following year Thomas was a witness in court over an annoying incident.

He had been a passenger on August 2, 1932 in the automobile of 24-year old friend Arthur J. McQuade, son of former judge Francis X. McQuade.  Following in his father's footsteps, Arthur was secretary to General Sessions Judge John J. Freschi.

When McQuade parked near the intersection of 54th Street and Broadway, he was given a ticket by Patrolman Charles L. Klkia for obstructing the crosswalk.  The young men protested and all three ended up in traffic court on October 18.

Both Fay and McQuade insisted that 'pedestrians had plenty of room to move past the parked automobile," according to The New York Times the following day.  The policeman "admitted they could get past, but insisted part of the automobile was on the crosswalk."  It may have been because of Arthur McQuade's ties to the courts or simply the judge's frustration with Officer Klika's pettiness; but Magistrate Aurelio dismissed the charges.

The last occupants of No. 454 as a private home was the Thomas Family.  Anthony B. Thomas and his wife, Marie, had three sons, Francis, Robert and John. Francis graduated from West Point in January 1943 with the rank of Lieutenant; and Robert was a Private First Class in the army. 

Francis A. Thomas was deployed to Del Rio, Texas following his graduation.  Tragically, just four months later the 24-year old died suddenly of unexplained causes there.  His funeral was held in the West 144th Street house on May 10 and he was buried in the United States Military Academy Cemetery at West Point.

In 1952 the house was converted to "furnished rooms."  Today there are seven apartments in the building.  Outwardly, however, other than replacement windows, the charming Victorian is little changed.

photographs by the author

The J. Romaine Brown Mansion - No. 340 Convent Avenue

In 1886 William Mowbray was busy transforming the blocks around Convent Avenue and West 144th Street into a fashionable neighborhood.  The area, once part of Alexander Hamilton's estate The Grange, was quickly developing.  In December that year the Real Estate Record & Builders' Guide noted "More than twenty elegant houses, of English Gothic, Flemish and other styles, as modified by the taste of the architect Mr. Wm. E. Mowbray, are already planned and will be built without delay."

Many of those homes were designed for developers William H. DeForest and his son, also named William.  Mowbray's builder father, Anthony, constructed the residences.  But for Nos. 340 through 346 Convent Avenue, at the corner of West 144th Street, Mowbray acted as both developer and architect.

Not completed until 1890, the row was anchored by the impressive corner mansion.  Although the entrance was unquestionably located at No. 451 West 144th Street, the house took the address of No. 340 Convent Avenue.  All Mowbry's houses along the street were modern takes on historic styles.  But the red brick mansion was less quaint and more imposing than its neighbors.  A Victorian adaptation of French Renaissance, it featured a large corner tower with a conical cap, a basement level of rough-cut granite, and pedimented dormers which cut through the steep slate-tiled roof.

The neighborhood at the turn of the last century was charming.  The tower of No. 340 Convent Avenue (right) still retained its conical cap.  photograph by Thaddeus Wilkerson, from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York

In 1905 the mansion became home to Joseph Romaine Brown and his wife, the former Annie Elizabeth Lockwood.  The 72-year old was still highly active in the real estate business and headed the J. Romaine Brown Company at No. 10 East 43rd Street.  He was deemed the "Dean of Manhattan Brokers."

He and Annie had married in April 1865.  By then he had had a widely-varied career.  He had started business by learning the locksmith trade; then in 1854 purchased the 34th Street stage coach line (it ran from 34th Street, down Broadway to 26th Street, then to Third Avenue and back), and two years later started his real estate business.

By the time the Browns moved into the Convent Avenue mansion, their four children were grown and Joseph Brown had accumulated a significant fortune.   That was partly due to the street car line which was formed in the 1850s.  Its founders wanted to run it along the same route as Brown's coach line, so they bought him out for $150,000--in the neighborhood of $4.25 million today.

J. Romaine Brown -- photo via werelate.org

In 1913, when the country was still suffering through the crippling financial depression known as the Panic of 1907, a reporter from The Sun visited Brown to get a veteran's views on the economy.  The article, which appeared on Sunday, August 31, encompassed half of the front page.  Brown boosted optimism among the newspaper's readers by retelling stories of earlier depressions--like the paralyzing Panic of 1873 that lasted until 1880.  The article noted "Mr. Brown expects that the experiences of 1878 are soon to be duplicated here, that is, the real estate market will turn from a period of inactivity to one of splendid business."

Two months later, 345 lots on Jerome Avenue were sold at auction.  The New York Times noted on November 2, "J. Romaine Brown, whose knowledge of New York real estate extends over a longer period that the great majority of brokers, showed his faith in the future of the Jerome Avenue lots sold by purchasing nearly the entire block front on the east side of Jerome Avenue" at 174th Street."

Brown used his reputation to further bolster confidence in the economy.  He chided other real estate men for not bidding, saying "the lots sold for absurdly low prices" and adding "anyone who will look back at the growth of New York can readily see that Jerome Avenue, in a short time, will be far better than Eighth Avenue, and more like Sixth Avenue, below Fifty-ninth Street, with stores and substantial improvements."

Brown sold No. 340 Convent Avenue in May 1916 to an investor.  Annie died in 1923 at the age of 87; and Brown died the following year at the age of 91.

The house was the scene of considerable excitement the year after the Browns moved out.  Burglars did not expect Thomas Stuart to be in his West 142nd Street apartment on the afternoon of July 18, 1917; but he worked nights and was sleeping.   He was wakened by the sound of men trying to jimmy his front door open.   He surprised the would-be crooks but, "by reason of his attire was unable to pursue the burglars, but gave the alarm to passersby in the street," reported The Sun.

The two men were chased down 142nd Street and onto Convent Avenue "by an ever increasing crowd."  The accomplice of Charles J. Miller (described by the newspaper as "a Swiss, 26 years old) ducked into a construction site, then managed to reappear and slip into the crowd unobserved.  To distract the pursuers, he pulled a fire alarm at 145th Street and Convent Avenue.  The Sun reported that the ploy worked for him, but not for Miller who began "a systematic series of fence vaulting from one yard to the next."

As Miller jumped over one back fence to another, Patrolman Whelan had joined the chase.  Unfortunately for the crook, the policeman had "won fame not long ago as a pole vaulter and gymnasium expert with the Irish American A. C."  The athletic cop "showed such superior technique in fence vaulting that he caught Miller in the yard of 340 Convent avenue."

Although Miller put up a fight, he was subdued and arrested.  At the police station, it was confirmed that he had been involved in several other burglaries in the neighborhood.

The following year, in June 1918, the mansion was purchased by the Little Sisters of the Assumption.  Their convent had been located since 1899 at Nos. 125-127 West 130th Street which a spokesperson said was, at the time, "a desirable residence locality."

Now, the President of the Little Sisters, Claire Daburon, explained the move in terms disturbing to 21st century readers.  She said a reporter from The Sun in late June that "within the last few years the character of the neighborhood had so changed because of an influx of colored residents that the site was no longer desirable for a residence and convent."

The Little Sisters of the Assumption was founded in 1864 in Paris.  The Catholic Encyclopedia described its work in 1922.  "The Little Sisters nurse the sick poor in their own homes, without regard to creed or nationality, accepting no remuneration of any kind.  In addition to caring for the patient, they keep the house clean and in order, prepare the meals for the family, dress the children and send them to school."

In 1922 the Little Sisters purchased and demolished the abutting house at No. 342 Convent Avenue.  Architect P. F. Brogan was commissioned to design a four-story addition to the mansion; a strikingly dissimilar red brick structure in a toned down version of the French Classical style which continued the original mansard.

A section of the 1922 addition can be seen above.

The convent remained in the mansion until about 1960, when it became home to the Greater Tabernacle Baptist Church, which describes itself as "a small church with a big heart."  Although the conical cap of the tower has been lost and the facade painted red, the house is as attention grabbing as it was in 1890.

photographs by the author

Fantasy on West 144th Street--Wm. Mowbray's Nos. 453-467 West 144th

By the mid 1880s the once pastoral area surrounding Alexander Hamilton's 23-acre estate, The Grange, was becoming a suburb of New York City.  Extended public transportation and the high location near the Hudson River made it a desirable residential neighborhood.

On December 4, 1886 The Real Estate Record & Builders' Guide remarked on the development of what would be known as Hamilton Terrace.  "The situation of the Hamilton Grange property is just far enough back from the river front to be sufficiently sheltered from winds, and for convenience of access to every part of it by the established means of transit."  In addition to a landscaped park, the article said, the "tasteful dwellings" would bear "more resemblance in the suburbs of London than to anything in the vicinity of New York.

The Guide went on to note "More than twenty elegant houses, of English Gothic, Flemish and other styles, as modified by the taste of the architect Mr. Wm. E. Mowbray, are already planned and will be built without delay.

William H. DeForest, a wealthy silk dealer, and his son, also named William, had gotten into the real estate development game.  They partnered with William Mowbray's contractor father, Anthony, in the ambitious development project that would transform stretches of 144th Street and Convent Avenue.

Nos. 453 through 467 were among the houses designed by William E. Mowbray.  Late Victorian architects held the conviction that they were the rightful heirs to all that had gone before.  And on West 144th Street Mowbray unleashed that premise with gusto.

At a time when rowhouses were completed within months, the eight residences would not be finished until 1890.  (This was due in no small part to William H. De Forest's bankruptcy and subsequent commitment to an insane asylum during the process.)

The wait was well worth it.  Mowbray had created a romantic row--a nonchalant blending of Tudor and Flemish Revival, splattered with Romanesque Revival and Queen Anne.  The finished project on the quiet residential block provide was a much an enchanting fairy tale stage set as a row of upscale houses.

Wm. De Forest Jr.'s house, No. 453, had the date 1887 carved into the gable.

William H. De Forest, Jr. took No. 453 as his own home.  He was gone by 1902 when it was home to Sophia Curtiss Hoffman, the wealthy widow of real estate operator George Hoffman.  Sophia was well known among society and philanthropic circles.  Having seen the suffering of an invalid aunt during her childhood, she helped found the Chapin Home for the Aged and Infirm.    Although the building was named after the Rev. Edwin H. Chapin; it was Sophia's brainchild and her large financial contribution earned her the right to lay the building's cornerstone.

An ardent reformed, she was also highly active in the Association for the Advancement of Women, and the treasurer of the nation-wide Federation of Woman's Clubs.  She was a founder, as well, of Sorosis, the first professional women's club in America.  Like many of the residents along the row, Sophia was a member of the Universalist church.

Sophia Hoffman's married daughter, Kitty Morse, was living in Highland Park, New Rochelle by 1903.  Around May 1 that year Sophia hired the Metropolitan Express Company to transport household items to her daughter.  Included with the glassware and china were family heirlooms, most importantly an oil portrait of George Hoffman.  The large, gilt-framed artwork was five feet high and four feet wide.

When the "open van" reached the Morse residence, Kitty Morse was crestfallen to find her father's portrait had been damaged.  The express company refused to admit responsibility and a long court battle lasted into 1905.  Sophia, who had paid $15 for the transport, sued for $1,231.05 damages--more than $34,000 in 2016.

Sophia had been ill for more than a year when the trial wound down in 1905.  Her troubles worsened when her only son, Curtiss, died in Brooklyn in early summer. A few months later, while visiting Kitty's home in New Rochelle, Sophia died on September 12, 1905.  Her funeral was held in the 144th Street house the following day. The house was bequeathed to Allan Curtiss Hoffman who leased it until 1921, when he sold it.  Hoffman was general manager of Outing Magazine and a Director in The Scientific American.

In 1902 the Universalist minister Dr. Augusta J. Chapin had briefly shared No. 453 with Sophia Hoffman.  Soon thereafter she purchased No. 459.  The remarkable woman was the eldest of 11 children born to Almon Morris Chapin and Jane Pease Chapin.  At just 16 years old she entered Olivet College and in 1864 became one of the first ordained female minsters.  In 1893 she was the first woman in America to receive a Doctor of Divinity degree.

Dr. Augusta Chapin moved into No. 459 with its stepped Flemish gable (left).

The 1898 book What Women Can Earn noted "Besides holding a number of pastorates, she has been a wide lecturer, and was chairman of the Woman's General Committee of Religious Congresses at the World's Fair."   Like Sophia Hoffman, Augusta was moneyed and involved.  In addition to her religious work, she was a charter member of the American Woman Suffrage Association, and of Sorosis.  She still had time, however, to spend her summers in Newport.

Dr. Augusta Jane Chapin -- from the collection of the Harvard Square Library

Three months before the death of her close friend Sophia C. Hoffman, Augusta Jane Chapin died on June 30, 1905 at the age of 68.  No. 469 was purchased by attorney and vice-president of the Western Union Telegraph Company, George Chew Atkins.  Atkins was also a Universalist and his wife was a patroness of the Chapin Home.

The upscale tenor of the block at the time was exemplified by the William L. Swan family, who purchased No. 461 next door by 1904.  The house was originally owned by stone merchant James Sinclair, who died in 1892.  The head of James Sinclair & Co. he had supplied the stone for such notable structures as the Washington Square Arch, the Trinity Church steeple, and the Stock Exchange.

Like No. 459, the James Sinclair house at No. 461 (right) sprouted a stepped gable.  The Thomas Vermilye family lived next door in the delightful No. 463 for years.

Henry B. Bates was next in the house.  A member of the New York Athletic Club, the Down Town Association and the Metropolitan Museum of Art, he was a founder of the Heights Club in 1898; an exclusive men's social club for the rapidly-developing neighborhood.  Shortly after Martha Elizabeth Bates' death in the house on Sunday, June 23, 1901, the Swan family took possession.

William L. Swan had graduated from Princeton in 1869.  Like a few other "clubmen" of the city, he preferred to live on his inherited wealth rather than pursue a profession.  The family owned a large summer estate, The Terrace, near Theodore Roosevelt's home in Oyster Bay, Long Island.  He was one of the founders and the first Commodore of the Seawanhaka Corinthian Yacht Club, and would ever after carry the title of Commodore.

Swan and his wife, the former Isabel Thurston, had two children, William Jr. and Elizabeth.  In October 1905 12-year old Elizabeth was given a birthday party.  She described her Halloween-themed party it in a letter to the New-York Tribune.  The four-hour soiree (from 5:00 to 9:00) included the expected games and favors of any children's birthday party, as well as supper.

But Elizabeth's description not only reflected the family's well-do-to circumstances; but the innate racism of the period.  "The ice cream was in several forms," she wrote.  "One was a little darky and a watermelon.  One was a cute little 'Jap' holding a Halloween lantern...The place cards had little darkies, one on each end, courtesying [sic] to each other."

The Swan's Oyster Bay home would be the scene of a murder in spring 1923.  Swan's Japanese chef, Isaak Namba, and his chauffeur, Robert Stuart, had a disagreement over breakfast in the kitchen.  When Stuart grabbed the cook by the neck, Namba seized a six-inch kitchen knife.

Hearing the scuffle, William Swan entered from the dining room.  Namba later testified "Mr. Swan told me he didn't know what was the custom in Japan, but that in his country a knife is not used for fighting.  Mr. Swan went into the dining room smiling." The fight continued, ending in Robert Stuart's death by stabbing.  Isaak Namba was convicted on manslaughter charges.

By, now, however, the Swans had moved from West 144th Street. Although their former home was described in a 1921 advertisement as "private house, large and airy;" it was operated as a "15-room rooming house" by the late 1930s.

No. 463 had been home to the Thomas E. Vermilye family for years.  A wealthy contractor, his family summered in Seabright, New Jersey when not traveling abroad.  (On March 22, 1908 The New York Times advised that Susan Gertrude Vermilye and her daughter, Gertrude, would be receiving informally on Wednesday afternoons until June 1.  "They will leave with Mr. Vermilye some time during the first week of June for the other side.")    Now, in 1938 it was operated as a rooming house by Delia Ward, who owned at least one other house on the block.

The same fate came to No. 465, which had for decades been the home of John H. Morrison and his family.  Morrison was the senior warden of St. Luke's Protestant Episcopal Church on Convent Avenue and 141st Street.  When he died in the house at the age of 83 on May 16, 1933, he willed the house to St. Luke's.  The church promptly sold the property a year later to Hugo Lange "for a rooming house."

Mowbray's quaint detailing includes half timbering in stone, and amazing stylized dolphins projecting above the bay of No. 465.

The change in the neighborhood was partly due to white panic.  Wealthy families abandoned the neighborhood as the black community shifted into the area from downtown in the late 1920s and early '30s.  By 1947, for instance, the offices of the Association of Negro Life and History had its offices in Augusta Jane Chapin's house at No. 459.

An important figure in African American history, Hubert Thomas Delany lived in the neo-Tudor fantasy, No. 467 at left.

And No. 467 had become home to Hubert Thomas Delany, the first African American Tax Commissioner of New York, one of the first black judges in New York City, and Assistant United States Attorney.  A civil rights pioneer, he was a Director of the NAACP, and attorney to black poet Langston Hughes and civil rights activists Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Adam Clayton Powell, Jr.

Hubert Thomas Delany in 1938.  photo via NAACP archives

On November 14, 1943 Eleanor Roosevelt was the guest of honor at a reception in Delany's house celebrating the inception of the Harlem Activities Committee of the Colored Orphan Asylum of Riverdale.  The First Lady stressed that "while war conditions had accentuated the problem of juvenile delinquency, the problem always had been with us in all parts of the country."

She stressed that a "helping hand" was necessary "to every young person, regardless of race or religion...Our juvenile delinquents for the most part never had a fair chance in life--their background, poverty and family life, or lack of it, area really to blame for what they are."

More than 125 years after the fanciful row was completed, its charm remains undiluted--an architectural treasure hidden in plain sight.

photographs by the author