Emery Roth's 1924 Hotel Whitby - 325 West 45th Street

image via caldwellbankerhomes.com

Developers and contractors Bing & Bing often worked with architect Emery Roth.  Separately and together, they were among the most influential apartment building developers and architects in New York City in early 20th century.  In 1923, Bing & Bing, in cooperation with Gresham Realty Company (of which Alexander Bing was head), acquired the old buildings at 325 through 329 West 45th Street between Eighth and Ninth Avenues.  The firm hired Emery Roth to design a ten-story residential hotel on the site.  (Although tenants of residential hotels had long leases, like apartment buildings, they enjoyed the amenities of transient hotels, like maid service.)  

Completed in 1924, the Hotel Whitby was faced in beige brick and trimmed in limestone.  Roth's U-shaped, tripartite Renaissance Revival-style design placed the entrance deeply and dramatically recessed between the main wings.  Double-height stone architraves with large, full-relief daisy-like rosettes in their spandrels lined up along the base and decorative piers with sweeping volutes flanked the entrance.

The spartan, six-story midsection was sandwiched between intermediate cornices.  The top section featured double-height, Renaissance-inspired arches that framed stacked pairs of openings, each separated by Scamozzi columns.

The Hotel Whitby attracted artistic residents early on.  Among the initial tenants was silent film critic for The New York Herald Tribune, Harriett Underhill.  Beginning her career shortly after her marriage at the age of 16, she played minor parts on the stage and in road shows.  She was a chorus girl in the original Floradora company.  She joined the The Herald Tribune in 1908.

Also living in the Hotel Whitby at the time were artist Carl Wuermer, singer Ivan Alexis, and writer Mary Margaret McBride.  Born in 1899, McBride contributed articles to periodicals like Liberty, Pictorial Review and Delineator, and was the author of Jazz and Charm.  She would become the host of a radio interview show that lasted more than four decades.

Ivan Alexis was, in fact, the stage name of Ivan Alexievitch Romanoff, a nephew of the late Grand Duke Nicholas and the son of Prince Nicholas Feodorovitch Romanoff, a former attaché of the late Tsar.  He came to New York City in 1921 for "training his voice for grand opera," according to The New York Times.  In January 1929 the 27-year-old basso was appearing in The Red Robe.  After the performance one night, he stopped into Joe Ward's Uptown Club on West 125th Street where Evelyn Nesbit was conducting a revue.

Nesbit had been a central figure in the murder of architect Stanford White by her husband, Harry Thaw, in 1906.  She was now married to Jack Clifford, her former dancing partner.  On February 6, 1929, three weeks after Alexis walked into the cafe, Evelyn Nesbit announced their engagement to reporters. 

"I am still the wife of Jack Clifford," she said, "but I expect to get my divorce in New Jersey very soon.  I vowed I would never marry again, but this is a real love affair, and when I get my divorce I shall become Princess Evelyn."

Alexis was no doubt well acquainted with another resident, William J. Guard, who had been the press agent for the Metropolitan Opera Company since 1910.  A widower, he was described by The New York Times as "one of the most colorful and familiar figures in musical circles."  Born in Ireland in 1862, he had been involved in the opera long before joining the Metropolitan Opera.  He downplayed his importance to those he represented.  "Hammerstein never needed a press agent, and Gatti-Casazza doesn't need one either," he once said.  Nevertheless, he made stars of rising singers.

On February 25, 1932, Guard suffered a heart attack.  A week later, on the night of March 3, he died in his apartment in the Hotel Whitby.  Within 30 minutes, the moving electric bulletin on Times Square notified crowds as they left the theaters.

Guard donated his body to a medical school for dissection.  He bequeathed his estate to a niece, Marguerite McAllister Taneyhill with one stipulation.  If his cousin Lorna Barrett Hall "learns shorthand and typewriting and can prove herself self-supporting," said his will, she would inherit one-third of the estate.

Former vaudeville entertainer Frank Wallace lived here as early as 1935.  In April that year, he wrote to Register of Deeds George A. Bowman saying:

Kindly advise me of proper steps necessary to obtain a photostatic copy of my marriage license to Mae West April 11, 1911.  Let me know what evidence or information you require.

Wallace told a reporter from the Associated Press that he had not publicized his marriage to the famous actress through the years "because I didn't want to pull Mae down."  But recently he read an article in which "Miss West told at length her reasons for remaining a spinster."  Wallace said that when he saw the article, "it was like a great light dawning and I saw no reason to deny it any longer."  The Racine Journal-Times quoted him on May 2 saying, "Everybody who knows me on Broadway believes I was Mae West's husband.  Why, Wall street is betting 4 to 1 on me."

Frank Wallace and Mae West in 1911.  (copyright expired)

More than two years later, on July 7, 1937, The New York Times reported, "Mae West, screen actress, admitted for the first time today that on April 11, 1911, she was married to Frank Wallace, former New York vaudeville performer."  The star was forced into the admission in order to fight Wallace's attempt "to establish a community property interest in Miss West's holdings."  West finally obtained a divorce on May 7, 1943.

Grover Cleveland Alexander lived in the Hotel Whitby by 1941.  Born in 1887, he was known to baseball fans as "Old Pete" and "Alexander the Great."  The former pitcher was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1938.   

Grover Cleveland Alexander in 1915 while playing with the Philadelphia Phillies (copyright expired)

Fame did not translate to fortune, however.  After he was found on the sidewalk on Sixth Avenue at 39th Street with a cut above his left eye on August 25, 1941, The New York Times remarked that he "has been appearing in a sideshow in a West Forty-second Street amusement hall.  A New York morning newspaper has been raising a fund for his benefit."  (Alexander would be played by future President Ronald Reagan in the 1952 film The Winning Team.)

Actor, director and producer Clarence Derwent, who was born in England, was president of the Actors Equity Association in 1949.  He left his apartment in the Hotel Whitby that year with 14 other actors to perform for United States troops in Germany.  Upon his return on August 17, he was detained by immigration officials at La Guardia Airport.  He was heatedly questioned about any affiliation with the Communist Party.  Back in his apartment, he told a reporter, "It was a surprising end to what has been a wonderful, exciting trip.  I repeatedly asked whether there was anything I was charged with or accused of and I got no answer of any kind."

Clarence Derwent, from the collection of the New York Public Library

Four years earlier Derwent had established the annual Clarence Derwent Awards "for the best performers in supporting roles."  He was the president of the Dramatic Workshop and Technical Institute and established a two-year scholarship to the facility in 1952.  He published his autobiography, The Derwent Story in 1954.

In the summer of 1959, Clarence Derwent was in rehearsals for the NBC television show The House on High Street.  When he did not show up at the studio on August 6 and friends could not reach him, the Hotel Whitby's manager used a pass key to enter the apartment and found him dead of natural causes.

Other thespian residents in the 1950s were singer and actress Lillian Boardman Smith, known on stage as Lillian Boardman; and her actor husband Howard Smith.   Lillian began her career in revues and in vaudeville.  Although she retired in 1930 after marrying Smith, he continued to act.  In 1953 he appeared in A Red Rainbow on Broadway.

Among the tenants in the building in the 1970s were actor and director Fred Stewart, a co-founder of the Actors Studio; character actor Joe E. Marks, best known perhaps for his portrayal of Pappy Yokum in the stage and screen versions of Li'l Abner; and dramatic actress Grania O'Malley, widow of William Dunham, her former vaudeville partner.  Also here in the 1970s were husband and wife actors Nina Olivette and Harry Stockwell.   (Stockwell was the father of actors Dean and Guy Stockwell.)

Joe E. Marks in his role as Pappy Yokum.  from the collection of the New York Public Library.

In 1988, the owner of the Whitby began selling the 200 apartments as cooperatives.  Writing in The New York Times on January 4, 1988, Elizabeth Neuffer explained, "Should 15 percent of the apartments be sold by summer, the entire building would go co-op."  The residents were fearful, she said, that it would alter "its affordability and its bonhomie."

"The Whitby, its residents say, is not just any apartment building."  Neuffer wrote, "Since 1923 [sic] it has been home to generations of struggling chorus girls, traveling jazz musicians, theater stars and fresh-faced Broadway hopefuls.  Whitby lore has it that Doris Day lived there, as did Betty Grable, and even today, the Whitby's apartment directory--if it had one--would read like a Stagebill."  (Incidentally, there is no firm evidence that either Day or Grable lived here.)

The conversion from residential hotel to cooperative apartments was finalized that year.  Twenty-four years later, The New York Times journalist Matt A. V. Chaban returned to see what the change had made.  The title of his article said much:  "At 90, Still a Haven for Broadway Performers."

The result, Chaban found, was "rather than being a haven for struggling artists, the building is now much more a home for successful ones."  Still living here since 1983 was rehearsal pianist Paul Ford, "a frequent Stephen Sonheim collaborator," according to Chaban.  Other residents at the time were dancer Michael Apuzzo, who performed with the Paul Taylor Dance Company; and actor Austin Colyer, whose Broadway shows included Singin' In the Rain, I remember Mama and Pal Joey.  (Colyer would die in his apartment here on June 25, 2015 at the age of 84.)

photograph by Michael Bednarek

Well maintained, The Whitby survives not only as a handsome example of Emery Roth-designed works, but an important part of New York theatrical history.

many thanks to reader "Fat Al NYC" for suggesting this post

The 1900 Century Hotel - 119 West 45th Street

 

photo by Sean Khorsandi

Maxwell S. Mannes, a highly active real estate operator and developer, purchased the three-story former house at 119 West 45th Street from Lefferts and Agnes M. Strebeigh on June 29, 1899.  In the rear yard was a two-story brick building.  Mannes paid $25,000 for the property--about $975,000 in 2025 terms.

Within a year, Mannes opened the Century Hotel on the site.  Designed by the architectural firm of Israels & Harder, the six-story structure was clad in red brick and limestone.  Drawing from Tudor and Italian Renaissance precedents, the architects focused greatly on fenestration--the facade being as much glass as masonry.  The second and third floor windows were flanked by brick panels framed in stone.  The elliptically arched second-floor openings were capped with layered, scrolled keystones and those of the square, angled bays of the third floor wore dignified molded cornices.  

Israels & Harder framed the fourth and fifth floors with stone quoins.  The windows, including faceted oriels at the fourth, shared limestone frames.  Paneled brick pilasters separated the openings of the sixth floor under a cast metal cornice with foliate brackets.

The Century Hotel was a "bachelors' hotel," a concept that was popularized in the 1880s.  The number of unmarried men in the city skyrocketed between 1870 to 1890, when about 45 percent of the male population was single.  In 1890, The Real Estate Record & Builders Guide called the bachelor flat, “a product of our modern life.  It is not a social fad, ready to disappear directly.  It has ceased to be a novelty.  It has come to stay, for it filled a gap in the life of every unmarried man who has become weary of the boarding house, the furnished room, or the hotel.”

Bachelors' hotels offered the necessities of an unmarried man--a parlor, a bedroom and a bathroom.  Bachelors were presumed to be unable or unwilling to cook for themselves, so bachelor apartments did not have kitchens.  The Century Hotel had four apartments per floor--two in the front and two in the rear.

Architectural Record, July 1901 (copyright expired)

Rents ranged from $35 to $50 per month, about $1,930 for the most expensive today.  Occupants would enjoy "hotel services," which included maid service and hall boys, who delivered mail and other sundry tasks.

Among the early residents was Henry Romeike, born in Riga, then part of Russia, on November 17, 1855.  Educated in Russia and Germany, he began collecting press clippings while living in England.  Romeike opened the first press clipping bureau in the world.  He immigrated to New York City in 1885 and established his business here.  The New York Times explained, "Politicians, lawyers, and heads of great enterprises found it of great value to know what the newspapers had to say of themselves and of their adversaries."  

Romeike's clients included, according to The Times, "Americans of prominence and many royal personages."  The newspaper said, "Few persons of any prominence were disappointed when they applied to him to learn the world's opinion of themselves as reflected in the public press."

On June 3, 1901, the 48-year-old suffered a heart attack in his apartment.  Newspaperdom reported, "His death was almost instantaneous.  Dr. Frauenthal...was hastily summoned, but he found Mr. Romeike beyond aid."

The Sun, July 18, 1900 (copyright expired)

Living in the Century at the time were James E. McGahen, the treasurer of the American Bridge Company; and Dr. John English McWhorter, a clinical assistant in diseases of the genito-urinary system at the Medical School of Columbia University.

"Jack" C. Wilmerding moved into the Century Hotel in 1907.  Fifteen years earlier, on March 25, 1892, the New-York Tribune reported, "Miss Marie de Lex Allen, daughter of Colonel Vanderbilt Allen, was married to John Christopher Wilmerding, jr. yesterday at noon in the chantry of Grace Church."  The bride was the great-granddaughter of Cornelius Vanderbilt I.  The marriage had a rocky start.

In March 1898, Marie was committed to the Bloomingdale Insane Asylum.  Asylums were a common means by which spouses or relatives disposed of troublesome family members.  Marie's society friends rallied to her aid, prompting a hearing that summer.

Marie testified that she had been forced to marry Wilmerding by her stepmother.  On August 9, 1898, the Chicago Tribune quoted her, "I was obliged to marry Jack Wilmerding by the influence that woman brought to bear upon my father...Jack Wilmerding was a brute.  Why, he struck me in the face in a ballroom even before we were married.  I was obliged to marry him under threats that my character would be ruined if I didn't."  She told the court, "He beat me, and insulted me, and cried our troubles from the rooftops."

Now, in the spring of 1907, Jack Wilmerding was living alone in the Century Hotel.  He sued for divorce on April 6, alleging that Marie had fled to England where she was living with James Coates.  Although she and Wilmerding were still married, she and Coates had an "alleged marriage ceremony" in London on January 14, 1907, according to Wilmerding.

Edmund Mitchell moved into the Century Hotel in October 1916 on an extended business trip.  His permanent home was in Los Angeles where his wife and daughter lived.  An author and journalist, he was born in 1861 in Glasgow, Scotland.  Mitchell graduated from Aberdeen University in 1881 and became an editorial writer for The Glasgow Herald, The Melbourne Times and The Los Angeles Times.  Among his several fictional books are The Temple of Death, Plotters of Paris and The Despoilers.  

On April 1, 1917, the New York Herald reported that a maid entered Mitchell's apartment to make the bed and "found the body of the author lying across it."  Mitchell had suffered a heart attack.

The property was sold and renovated in 1920.  Now called the Rialto Apartments, an advertisement in the New York Herald on July 12, 1921, offered, "just completed" and "newly furnished" two-room-and-bath apartments at $30 and up weekly, and $125 and up monthly.  (The least expensive monthly rent would equal about $2,000 today.)

Like Jack Wilmerding, motion picture actor Kenneth D. Harlan moved into a Rialto apartment amid marital upheaval.  On October 15, 1921, his wife, Florence C. Harlan, filed suit for separation.  Prior to her marriage, she was Flo Hart, a showgirl with the Ziegfeld Follies.  The couple was married in June 1920 and soon afterward Harlan "began treating her cruelly."  Florence testified, "on Christmas Day he threw her around the room and on December 31 hurled her against a window so that she almost fell out," reported The New York Times.  On July 24, 1921, she alleged, he "threw her into the gutter, banged her head on the sidewalk, and then abandoned her."

A 1918 publicity photo Kenneth Harlan  (copyright expired)

Florence told The New York Clipper that while they were in California where he was making a movie, they were happy.  "Kenneth didn't get much attention.  Women didn't pet him or make a fuss over him."  That changed, she said, when they moved back to New York.  "When we came here they went wild about him.  He treated me in an inhuman manner, beating me."  She told the reporter, "I don't want to cause my husband any trouble.  He was a good boy.  Women spoiled him."

Harlan would have a 25-year career in motion pictures, making 200 feature films and serials.  His most famous role came in 1923 in the title role of The Virginian.  Florence would not be the last of his wives to file for divorce--there would be a total of nine.

Novelist and poet Maxwell Bodenheim had an apartment here in 1928.  Born in 1892, he and other writers including Carl Sandburg, Edgar Lee Masters and Theodore Dreiser founded The Chicago Literary Times in 1923.  In New York, he became a favorite of the Greenwich Village Bohemian community, including being a member of the Raven Poetry Circle.  His books of verse, including his 1923 Against This Age and the 1928 The King of Spain made him a leading American author.

Maxwell Bodenheim, New York World-Telegram & Sun, 1919 (copyright expired)

Bodenheim apparently used this apartment as a pied-à-terre at best, or for extra-marital trysts at worst.  He was married and had an eight-year-old son.  

On July 19, 1928, the body of 24-year-old Virginia Drew was pulled from the Hudson River.  The New York Times reported that she had committed suicide, "shortly after she had left the apartment of Maxwell Bodenheim...whom she had chosen as her adviser in letters."  Virginia had gone to Bodenheim's apartment in the Rialto supposedly to show him the manuscripts of two novels she had written.  She was seen leaving the apartment around 1:30 the next morning.  Virginia went directly to the river and threw herself in.

Detectives who attempted to interview Bodenheim, "found he had left his apartment," reported The New York Times.  He had left New York the day after Virginia's death with two suitcases and a portable typewriter.  One of Virginia's friends told detectives that she had told her of a "suicide compact" she had made with "a literary light."

Maud Drew, Virginia's mother, thought her daughter's death was not merely a suicide.  "It was foul play," she told officials.  "Virginia did not jump into the water.  She was killed."  She pointed out that Virginia was the second pupil of Bodenheim who "became despondent recently."  She said that less than two weeks ago, "a 19-year-old girl was found unconscious in her apartment in Greenwich Village" with gas escaping from the stove.

The teenaged girl was Gladys Loeb.  Now, she too, was missing.  When her father, Dr. Martin J. Loeb, read the reports of Virginia's suicide, he trailed Bodenheim to Provincetown, Massachusetts.  He searched house-to-house, according to The New York Times, asking for the whereabouts of the novelist.  With police accompanying him, he confronted Bodenheim, who admitted that Gladys was on the way there from Boston.  Before leaving for the train station to intercept Gladys, Loeb warned Bodenheim to stay away from his daughter.  "I'll be very pleased to stay away from her," he replied.

A renovation completed in 1929 resulted in a store on the ground floor.  The hotel was renamed the Hotel Normandie.  

A sign on the Normandy notes that transient guests were now accommodated. via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services.

Living here in 1937 was empresario Mischa Ross (born Mischa Rosenbaum).  The 31-year-0ld was estranged from his 20-year-old wife and their 3-year-old daughter.  The estrangement was likely the result of Ross's romantic affair with a violinist, 24-year-old Julia Nussenbaum.  

The couple met in 1935 at an audition for Ross's and his brother's musical troupe.  Julia was hired at $40 per week to play in an act with five other musicians and three dancers.  An affair developed.  According to Julia's sister, Edith Schnee, Julia was unaware that Ross was married. 

On Sunday afternoon April 18, 1937, Julia's "hammer-bludgeoned body," as described by The New York Times, was discovered in a rehearsal studio.  A bloodied hammer was found at the scene.  Investigators went to the Hotel Normandie.  Among those they interviewed was the superintendent, James Cockrell.  He recognized the hammer as being his.  He told investigators, "he went to Ross's fifth-floor room Thursday morning to repair some drapery.  He left a kit of tools inadvertently and returning later discovered the hammer was missing."  A grand jury indicted Mischa Ross for first-degree murder on April 21, 1937.

By the early 1980s, the name of the Hotel Normandie was spelled Normandy.  It was now being operated by the city as a welfare hotel.  City Council President Carol Bellamy declared that the families housed here had "an average of three school-age children each."  

The Normandy operated as a welfare hotel until around the turn of the century, when the building was converted to the Big Apple Hostel.  Then, in 2018, it returned to a main-line hostelry, the Merrion Hotel.  On December 31, 2018, The New York Times food critic Florence Fabricant commented on the ground floor restaurant.  "Named for a street in central Dublin, this theater-district pub in a new boutique hotel takes a fairly traditional route when it comes to pub fare, like fish and chips, burgers, smoked salmon and a seafood chowder."

image via michelin.com

Throughout its several phases, the former Century Hotel building has survived without extensive outward changes.

The Marble "Doll House" - 12 West 45th Street

In the decade before the outbreak of World War I the old houses along the block of West 45th Street, between Fifth and Sixth Avenues, were disappearing one by one.  In December 1910 developer James A. Farley bought Mary G. Duffy's four-story house at No. 12.  The Real Estate Record & Builders' Guide commented "Mr. Farley will erect on the site a 2-sty building, which is to be leased to one tenant for a term of years."

The New York Times announced that Farley's projected building would have "a roof and facade entirely of glass."  While that would have been remarkable, what developed instead was no less striking.

Farley commissioned the architectural firm of Pollard & Steinam to design the diminutive structure.  Undaunted by the minute proportions--just 16.5 feet wide and two-and-a-half stories tall--the architects set to work designing a memorable edifice.

Costing $15,000--about $375,000 today--the building made up for size in dignified elegance.  Clad entirely in polished white marble, its storefront featured a large eliptical arch; the only ornamentation being two roundels.  Above a carved wave crest band was a classically-inspired temple front, the pediment of which dictated the shapes of the unadorned openings of the top floor,  The marble cornice was, somewhat surprisingly, starkly unadorned.  The New York Times commented "It is a typical reminder of the small-shop facades on the best thoroughfares of Paris."

The little building took only about three months to build.  Farley most likely had his tenant lined up before construction even began.  On April 15, 1911 the Record & Guide announced he had leased his "2-1/2 sty marble 'doll house'" to "Moulton & Ricketts, art dealers, of Chicago and Milwaukee."

Two months later the Fine Arts Journal reported on the dealers' new home.  "It is a handsomely fitted place and the situation, a few steps from the Fifth Avenue, is in the midst of the group of art stores kept by widely known experts.  The Waldorf-Astoria, where rich people gather, stands but a few steps away.  The Chicago dealers are certainly very much alive."

The Sun, January 7, 1912 (copyright expired)

James A. Farley was most likely annoyed when his tenant purchased the American business of Arthur Tooth & Sons in 1913.  The International Studio called the deal "one of the important business changes of the season in New York" and added "The New York galleries of Moulton & Ricketts have now been transferred to the premises previously occupied by Arthur Tooth & Sons at 537 Fifth Avenue."

No. 12 was leased next to Harris & Harrington, clock manufacturers and importers, who had been doing business far downtown at No. 12 Barclay Street.  The New York Times called the move "significant" and said "This is another illustration of the northward trend of all mercantile business now in the lower section of the city."

The Fifth Avenue neighborhood had been a center of art dealers for years; but would soon see the arrival of piano and organ showrooms.  Among the first to arrive would be the Vermont-based Estey Company, makers of pianos and organs.  The firm signed a lease with Farley in July 1916 and The Times noted it "will remodel the building and use it as showrooms."

As Christmas approached in 1917 the Vermont factory sent a shipment of discontinued styles to the 45th Street showroom.  An advertisement announced "They have just sent us 21 instruments which we are able to offer at reduced prices."  While the sale offered reduced prices, the instruments were still by no means inexpensive.  The lowest price for a grand piano was $550--more than $10,500 today.

Another sale took place seven months later after The Estey Company apparently rethought the advisability of managing its own showroom.   In July the firm turned over the distribution of its stock to the Frederick Loeser & Co. music stores.  The entire stock of pianos in the 45th Street store was liquidated.

Estey still held a long-term lease on the building; but it found a sub-tenant in March 1919.  An announcement in The Record & Guide entitled ""Doll House' for Restaurant" explained that Paul Fischer had leased the building from Estey Piano.  "He will alter it into a high-class restaurant and French pastry shop, to be known as 'La Maisonnette."

In reporting on the lease the journal reminded readers "The building, which was erected by James A. Farley in 1910, is one of the most unique in the midtown section.  It has a white marble facade in Colonial design and is only 16.5 feet wide.  Upon completion the builder named it the Doll House."

In 1927 at the end of Fischer's lease, George W. Gittens, president of the Estey Piano Co., purchased No. 12.  A fourth floor, set back from the cornice line, was added which became the firm's executive offices.   Then, in 1927, the building was once again converted to the Estey showrooms.  Music Trade Review announced that "A complete line of Estey pianos, including the new period models, which are very much in demand, are displayed on the three floors."

Once again, however, the Estey showrooms would be short-lived at the address.  Within a year another piano dealer, Henry J. Eilers, was operating here.  He found himself before a judge in January 1922, charged with "misrepresenting the age of a piano."

The trouble started when Mrs. Ida Littauer of Coney Island responded to an advertisement for second-hand piano.   She sent a friend, a piano teacher, to see the instrument.  According to Mrs. Littauer, the salesman told the woman that the piano was eight years old.  Mrs. Littauer put $200 down on the $750 instrument and accepted delivery.  Then a friend told her the piano was at least 41 years old.

Eilers was enraged that at what he called "repudiation."  He insisted, first, that his salesman would not have given the age as eight years "because he did not even know the serial number."  Then he pointed out "As a matter of fact, we could prove that a good piano is good for satisfactory service for, not merely a lifetime, but, with care and attention, would serve well the purchaser's grandchildren.  On the other hand a piano, even though only eight years of age, might have suffered abuse and injury from improper care and use so as to be entirely worthless."  Therefore, he said, age was not a marker of worth.

The judge agreed and dismissed Eilers's bail, saying there was insufficient evidence against him.

The victory was not enough to keep Eilers in business however.  He declared bankruptcy in 1930.  He was followed in No. 12 by the music publishing firm of G. Ricordi & Co.   The firm was founded by Giovanni Ricordi in Italy in 1808.  It opened its first branch in America in 1897 a block away at No. 14 East 43rd Street.  It was still there when it signed the lease for No. 12 West 45th Street.  The rent, $14,000 per year, would be in the neighborhood of a quarter million today.

In April 1951 the building was vacant.  After 40 years the ground floor was still intact.  photo by Wurts Bros. from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York

When the building became available in 1951, it was taken by the country's oldest theatrical costuming house, Louis Guttenberg's Sons.  The firm filled all three floors with costumes which were available both for rental or sale to theatrical companies.

Established in Greenwich Village in 1869, the company moved about 100,000 costumes into the building.  Over the decades Louis Guttenberg's Sons had provided costumes for  illustrious thespians like Mary Pickford, the Barrymores, and John Drew.  So well-known was the company that in stage lingo a "Guttenberg" was any rented costume.

On August 5, 1953 The New York Times noted "It was in the Guttenberg establishment that Mack Sennett and Mr. Guttenberg devised the costuming for the Keystone cops who became identifying characters in most Sennett comedies."

Samuel Guttenberg had taken over the company with his brother William, in 1885.   Samuel retired in 1943 and William died in 1949.  Samuel's son, Harry, now ran the operation.

Samuel Guttenberg's Sons was still in the building in 1959 when costumer Ed Wittstein began work on a new off-Broadway musical, The Fantasticks.   According to authors Donald C. Farber and Robert Viagas in their 1991 The Amazing Story of The Fantasticks, Wittstein headed off to Louis Guttenbeg's Sons, which he dubbed a "wonderful attic of ancient costumes."


Perhaps not unexpectedly Pollard & Steinam's storefront, where artwork and pianos were once displayed, has been obliterated.  Today a bar and grill operates from the ground floor.  But not so expected is the slathering of gray and maroon paint over the marble facade above--a decision that prompts the often-heard exclamation "What were they thinking?"

photographs by the author

The 1913 Goupil Building - 56-58 West 45th Street

At the turn of the last century West 45th Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenues was still holding on as an upscale residential block.   The widowed Mrs. Henrietta Holbrook lived in the three-story brownstone at No. 56.  Before long her next door neighbor would be a men's social club.  In 1906 the Caduceus of Kappa Sigma noted "The Cornell Club also has a house of its own, having recently made its home in a five-story, brown-stone house at 58 West Forth-fifth street."

But change was most definitely on the horizon.  Already hotels and shops were inching into the neighborhood.  The end of the line for both buildings came in 1912.

George Backer ran the George Backer Construction Company and he often acted as his own developer.  On August 3, 1912 the Real Estate Record & Builders' Guide noted that "Work will start immediately on the 16-sty office building to be erected at 56-58 West 45th st. for George Backer."

Backer commissioned the firm of Wallis & Goodwillie to design the structure.  Frank E. Wallis was a respected architect who also wrote articles and books like his ABC of Architecture.  His partner, Frank Goodwillie, specialized in the engineering aspects of their projects.

Costing $300,000--a stunning $7.3 million today--the building was completed in September 1913.  The New-York Tribune commented that it "is considered one of the finest office buildings north of the Grand Central Station."   Wallis & Goodwillie had produced a striking neo-Gothic structure entirely clad in white terra cotta.  A two-story eliptical arch at street level fronted the retail space.  A row of medeival masks connected by ribbon decorated its edge.

Elaborate Gothic elements decorate the lower facade.

The lower three floors and top two were heavily embellished with Gothic motifs--quatrefoil panels, heraldic shields, and pointed arches, for instance.   The spandrel panels of the midsection offered repeating tapestries of geometric lines and rosettes--a bit more Tudor than Gothic.

There was one non-commercial occupant.  The 17th-floor contained a nine-room apartment for George Backer.  He also moved the offices of his construction firm into the building, and, interestingly, Wallie & Goodwillie moved in as well.

The retail store was leased to Goupil & Co., of Paris, dealers in costly prints, paintings and other artwork.  The firm had established a New York City branch as early as 1857.  George Backer named his building after his prize tenant.

The Sun, April 30, 1916 (copyright expired)

While the bulk of the early tenants were unexceptional--the Parks & Weiss Agency, real estate offices; the Falk Tobacco Co., and James M. Faust real estate, for instance--one stood out.  On October 4, 1913 the Record & Guide ran a headline reading "A Novel Lease" and explained that Dr. Watson L. Savage intended to open what today is commonplace--a gym.

The article said "An interesting lease was closed yesterday...whereby an opportunity will be presented to overworked business men and women to regain their strength, without interfering seriously with their business."  It explained that Watson had leased an entire upper floor.  "He will install exercising apparatus for the convenience of those who are in need of such, and will also install squash and handball courts for recreative purposes."  The writer noted "The game of squash, a form of tennis, has become very popular here, and many wealthy people are constructing courts in their homes."

The George Backer Construction Co. was still headquartered here when Backer sold the building to Conrad Hubert in 1915.  Backer essentially doubled his money in the sale, which grossed him $600,000.  It was not a cash deal, however.  The Record & Guide noted that in part payment Hubert gave his "country estate, 'Vista Range,' near Summit, N. J., comprising 160 acres, with a large residence and outbuildings."

The terra cotta panels of the lower floors are veined to imitate marble.

Hubert was owner and president of the American Ever Ready Company.  He had purchased the rights in 1898 to the battery-powered "electric device" or "torch" which would become best known as a portable flashlight.  His firm manufactured and sold batteries under the brand name "Ever Ready."  (The trademark would later be shortened to Eveready.).

Hubert moved his firm into the building and made one significant change--he got rid of George Backer's penthouse apartment.  The New-York Tribune explained "the demand for space in the building caused Mr. Hubert to convert the apartment into offices."

The American Ever Ready Company remained in the building until 1921 when Conrad Hubert sold it to Herman Lakner on May 9--ironically the day after George Backer died.   Like Hubert, Lakner (who paid $700,000) immediately made one noticeable change.  The New-York Tribune reported on May 10 that the building "will be called the Lakner Building by the new owner."

When Lakner purchased the building, two old brownstones, altered for business, still survived next door.  photo by Wurts Bros. from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York

At the time of Lakner's takeover, the building was rented at about $102,000 a year, or about $1.6 million in today's dollars.  He added new tenants that year, including the newly-formed George K. Culp, Inc., the California-based May, Sherman, Clay & Co., and the Savings Bank Association of the State of New York.

George K. Culp had been involved in the tire industry for a decade.  His new firm was organized "for the purpose of putting into effect the 'Culp Plan' of co-operation in the manufacturing and merchandising of tires, tubes and other automotive accessories," according to Elastomerics magazine on July 25.  In effect, the firm marketed surplus tires to foreign countries.

The May, Sherman, Clay & Co. was also involved in the automobile industry, providing "associated auto loans."

The Savings Bank Association took over the space formerly occupied by Goupil & Co.  The Evening World, April 21, 1921

The highly-esteemed architectural firm of Buchman & Kahn were in the building at the time.  Albert Buchman and Jacques Kahn had formed the partnership in 1917 following the dissolution of Buchman & Fox, "well known for many years in the practice of architecture," as pointed out by Architecture and Building that year.  From its offices here the firm would produce some of Manhattan's most recognizable structures like the jazzy 2 Park Avenue and the 1930 Squibb Building on Fifth Avenue.

Nos. 56-58 was also home to the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers, best known today as ASCAP.  Its president, internationally-known music publisher George Maxwell, brought scandalous attention to the group when he was indicted on charges of "forgery in the third degree and a misdemeanor in sending scurrilous letters to Allan A. Ryan, the financier, reflecting on the latter's wife," as reported in The New York Times on May 11, 1923.

As it turned out, Maxwell had apparently been sending slanderous letters under false names for years to respected businessmen.  They laid out in detail the supposed affairs the men's wives had been carrying on.

On May 16 the board of directors of ASCAP met, and then released a resolution to the newspapers which said in part that they "unanimously record its complete and entire confidence in its President, George Maxwell, and in his complete innocence of the accusations made against him and in his ability to secure complete vindication of the charges."

Although experts testified that the handwriting on the letters was Maxwell's, the charges were dropped in July 1923.  With the ugly affair behind them, the ASCAP members turned to other business.

One of the organization's most illustrious members was composer Victor Herbert.  On the day of his funeral, May 28, 1924, ASCAP members assembled in the 45th Street building, then processed up Fifth Avenue to St. Thomas's Church for the ceremony.  The Police Band led the procession.  Herbert's honoary pall bearers included orchestra leader Nathan Franko., Jerome Kern, John Philip Sousa and Max Dreyfus.

Another tenant at the time which seemed to be associated with the entertainment industry was the Amusement Privilege Company in Room 412.  And while it could be argued that the firm provided entertainment of a sort, it was not in the form of music or theater arts, as newspaper readers discovered following a raid on its offices in November 1925.

Prohibition had been in effect for five years and the Amusement Privilege Company had devised a clever scheme--what Federal officials called "a mail order rum ring."  On November 17 U.S. Attorney Emory R. Buckner alleged that "the activities of the alleged ring had been nation-wide, that its work has been carried on in many States and that its customers had been numbered by the thousands."  The company hired traveling salesmen who covered the entire country.   They would take orders for liquor, which were then filled and delivered.

But unlike speakeasies or underground distilleries, the offices here had no liquor on premises.  Before they could make their raid, the Federal agents needed clear evidence.  Working with the building management, they instructed the janitor to save the contents of the wastebaskets from Room 412.  During the trial in March 1926, the rental agent, a Mr. Whiteford, testified "that he pasted together many torn bits of paper from these waste baskets and later turned them over to the Government in the form of valuable evidence."

The pasted-together documents were customer orders ranging from $50 to $500, and price lists of cases of liquor costing as much as $100 ($1,400 today).  The quality of that liquor was beyond questionable.  In reporting on the case, The New York Times revealed "It is alleged also that the so-called Scotch whisky sold by the company was manufactured on a few hours' notice."

Ironically, the following year, on April 17, 1927, the Government announced it was opening the Government Service Institute in the 45th Street building.  "The school is the first institution, so far as is known," said The Times, "to undertake the training of men for prohibition enforcement.  It was formed for that specific purpose...The general idea will be to utilize the practical experience of the members of the Faculty, which includes all branches of prohibition work."

ASCAP was still in the building at the time.  Music publisher A. J. Stasny Music Co., was also here, as was the publishing firm of Walker V. McKee.   With the onslaught of the Great Depression, the Regional Planning Association of America established offices here by 1932.  Part of President Roosevelt's New Deal, it highly involved in developing the Tennessee Valley Authority.

The architectural office of Kohn & Butler, formed in 1917 by the partnership of Robert D. Kohn and Charles Butler, was here by 1934.  Among their associate architects were Clarence S. Stein and Henry Wright (both of whom received fellowships to the American Institute of Architects that year), Frank Holden, and Frank E. Vitolo.  Like Buchman & Kahn, the firm was responsible for striking structures, like Congregation Emanu-El on Fifth Avenue.

A repeating honeycomb-like pattern with three-dimensional rosettes fills the upper spandrels,

The post war years saw a change in the type of tenants.  In 1950 Jay Florian Mitchell had operated his photography and camera business here for several years.  Working in cooperation with the Yacht Racing Association of Long Island Sound that year, he came up with an innovative scheme for his patrons, what he called a "regatta camera trip for amateurs."

He told reporters on July 15, "This new kind of camera trip gives the amateur a chance to photograph yachts of many classes competing in actual races in Long Island Sound."  He had arranged on-shore visits for close-ups of the boats and crews, and scenes in the clubhouse and piers.  It was not all work, however.  "Everyone is urged to bring a bathing suit, as provisions have been made for swimming as part of the trip's program."

Radio and television distributor Monarch-Saphin Company was in the building at the time; and architect Charles Butler was still working from his office here in 1953 when he died at the age of 82.

By the 1960s the West 45th block was just steps away from the Diamond District, and jewelry manufacturers and sellers took advantage of the proximity.  Among them was the Jack Beck Diamond Company on the 17th floor on Nos. 56-58 which became a victim of a rash of violent jewelry heists in October 1960.

On Thursday night October 27 Beck was waiting on a customer, Sam Sharaby, when two gunmen rushed into the shop.  Both Beck and Sheraby were bound with tape and rope, then the robbers made off with $50,000 in loose diamonds (more in the neighborhood of $413,000 today).  The Times reported "Detectives said later that Mr. Beck was so unnerved by the incident that they were unable to obtain much information."

The following year the Greater New York Anglo-Jewish Publications, Inc. moved its offices to the building.  The firm published the Long Island Jewish Press and the Westchester Jewish Tribune.  By 1966 the ground floor space was home to the Low & Hughes Golf Shop.

In 2008 trouble played out in the sixth floor shop of NS Diamonds.  Pritam Sharma, a 38-year old diamond importer, was owed money by the owner, according to him.  In a fit of rage over the unpaid debt, he walked into the office around 12:45 on the afternoon of February 25, and drew out a knife.  He stabbed and slashed the man in the torso, according to police.  An employee who tried to intervene was cut on his right hand.  All three men were taken to Bellevue Hospital and Sharma was arrested, charged with two counts of assault and criminal possession of a weapon.

Today the space where Goupil & Co. sold artwork and pottery, is home to a clothing store.   The Midtown Center for Treatment and Research of addictive drugs, run by the Weill Cornell Medical College occupies the ninth floor.  Through it all, other than the remodeled storefront, Wallis & Goodwillie's remarkable terra cotta facade is essentially untouched.  A striking relic of a time of change on the 45th Street block a century ago.


photographs by the author
many thanks to reader Michael Schwenk for suggesting this post