The Brunjes, Ockershausen & Co. Bldg - 288-289 West Street

When this photo was taken the buildings on either side had been demolished. photo via https://theeklundgomesteam.elliman.com/new-york-city/medium-lipstick-288-west-street-8-manhattan-heikoes 

In 1859 Herman H. Brunjes, Peter Brunjes, Henry Luers, Jacob Fincke and Henry Attenhorn reorganized their sugar refining company as Brunjes, Ockershausen & Co.  It was about the same time that the firm erected a substantial refinery and warehouse building at Nos. 466 through 470 Washington Street, extending through the block to Nos. 288 and 289 West Street.  An early example of commercial Romanesque Revival architecture, the ground floor loading bays sat within massive brick arches.  The arched openings of the upper floors were arranged in pairs.  Below the cornice and simple pediment a brick corbel table and blind roundel provided interest to the otherwise un-apologetically utilitarian structure.

Although this 1869 rendering on a Brunjes, Ockershausen & Co. bill of sale depicts the West Street elevation (to the rear) of equal proportions, the West Street address always covered just two plots, as opposed to the three on Washington Street.

Although Henry Luers's son, Henry, Jr., continued in business with the other partners after his father's death in 1864, there seems to always have been tensions.  On January 17, 1865, for instance, Peter Brunjes filed suit against Luers's family members "relating to real and personal estate duly proved as the last will and testament of Henry Luers."  

The Luers family eventually got even.  Around the time the refinery was erected, the partners had taken out a $13,430 mortgage--around $418,000 today.  When the mortgage came due in the spring of 1875 the executors of Henry Luers's estate loaned the firm $38,000 with interest to pay the mortgage and continue operation of the business.  In order to ensure repayment, the firm "gave a mortgage of real estate to secure the payment of the bond," according to court papers.

Four years later the Luers family foreclosed.  On May 18, 1879 a judgment was entered in New York Supreme Court giving Elizabeth Luers $33,015.86 worth of "the stock and fixtures of a brewery [sic]."  On May 5, 1881 the Real Estate Record & Builders' Guide reported that the Luers estate had received "in foreclosure" the West Street section of the refinery building.  The definitive cutting of ties came in 1885 when builders John D. McBrien and Samuel Smyth were hired to erect a brick party wall between the Washington Street and West Street buildings.

Now a separate structure, Nos. 288-289 West Street became home to the Frederick M. Stetler & Son warehouse.  Stetler and his son, Henry J., operated bonded warehouses in the city.   Frederick's success was a Horatio Algier-worthy story.

Born in the farm country of Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, he received a "common-school education."  At the age of 16, according to the New-York Tribune later, "he started from his country home for the metropolis with the determination of earning his own living."  He landed a job as a messenger boy for Arnold, Constable & Co. and slowly advanced within the department store.  After saving enough money, he bought an established bakery; then sold it at a profit to begin his storage warehouse business

Frederick lived in Jersey City Heights.  In the spring of 1897 he was thrown from a trolley car in Jersey City.  He suffered what the New-York Tribune described as "several hemorrhages."  Although he recovered from his injuries, he had never really felt well afterward.  About three months later, on July 1, he was feeling especially bad and his wife "prevailed on him to remain home...but he insisted upon going to his business," according to the New York Herald.  

Frederick made the trip to Manhattan and entered the office around noon.  He asked Henry to get him a glass of ice water, then "sank into the chair in which his son had been sitting," according to the newspaper.  Before Henry could return with the water, his 66-year old father had fallen unconscious to the floor.  He died before the physician could get to him.  The New York Herald reported "Apoplexy is believed to have caused his death."  [The condition is most often diagnosed today as a stroke.]

Five months later the Luers estate placed the West Street building on the market.  It was purchased by Herman Reessing on January 20, 1898 for $45,900 (about $1.53 million in today's dollars).

Reessing leased the warehouse to Julius Wolff, who hired architect A. N. Sloan in April to increase the height of the cellar, by lowering the "bottom," as described in the plans.  Two year later Reessing sold a fifty-percent stake in the building to Wolff. 

By 1906 the Diamond Match Company leased the building for storing its stock.  Matches are by their very nature highly flammable, and so when a fire broke out on April 25 that year there was no doubt a rush to control it.  Happily, The New York Times reported that the small fire resulted in "no damage."

Diamond Match Company was gone by the summer of 1919 when the building was offered for lease.  An advertisement in The New York Times that June described the up-to-date amenities:  "Electric elevator, Steam heat, Shipping platform.  Floor area of 40000 square feet; heavy carrying capacity."

Instead of leasing it, however, on December 5, 1912 The New York Press reported that Reessing and Wolff had sold Nos. 288-289 to wheelbarrow manufacturers The Lansing Company, of Lansing Michigan.  The article noted "The buying company will occupy the building."

The Lansing Company stored its wheelbarrows here through 1920.   In January 1921 the firm sold the building to Theodore Ficke, Jr.  The transaction came about when the massive Holland Tunnel project was getting underway.  In reporting on the sale, The New York Herald noted "The property is in the New Jersey vehicular tube terminal zone."

The Theodore Ficke Warehouses, Inc. was not in the building long before trouble arrived in the form of Federal agents.  In October 1923 eleven men were arrested in a "beer bribery plot" and the investigation was far from over.  On October 20 The Sun and The Globe reported "Two search warrants were given to Federal agents who went up to 289 West street to hunt for some alcohol.  That building is a warehouse and it had figured in the evidence against the eleven men."

The raid proved fruitful.  "According to the agents, they found 1,000 barrels of alcohol," reported the article.  "The value of the alcohol, according to the agents, was $400,000."  It was a significant amount, more in the neighborhood of $5.88 million today.  Theodore Ficke did not help his case by offering Special Revenue Agent Earle R. Barnard a $3,000 bribe.

Ficke had two other warehouses, one on Crosby Street and another in Brooklyn.  His largest client was the Federal Food Stores, Inc., owners of 200 grocery stores.  Having weathered the Prohibition raid, his problems only got worse in the spring of 1925 when the Federal Food Stores, Inc. went bankrupt.  The Standard Union ran an article entitled "Ficke Warehouses Hit In Wake of $4,000,000 Federal Food Crash" on April 21, 1925.  The article reported that the Theodore Ficke Warehouses "have upward of $3,000,000 worth of merchandise stores on its premises."  The same day The New York Times reported that the Theodore Ficke Warehouses, Inc. had been placed in involuntary bankruptcy.

Amazingly, the original bay doors survive.

Ficke might have seemed at first an innocent victim of his client's bad business practices.  But that picture changed a few months later in June when he was indicted as an accomplice in the Federal Food Stores, Inc. illegal practices.  On June 29, 1925 The Standard Union reported that Theodore Ficke, Jr. had testified "that he had signed duplicate warehouse receipts."  

Following Ficke, the West Street building was home to The North River Stores, Inc.  The warehouse was used for storage of "general merchandise."  The firm would remain here for years.

By the early 1980's the flanking structures were demolished and Nos. 288-289 West Street stood like a lonely relic of a much different era.  Despite that, in 1986 a conversion resulted in two loft apartments per floor.  Today the 150-year old structure is wedged between luxurious residential buildings.

Ralph Walker's 1927 New York Telephone Building - 140 West Street

from the collection of the Library of Congress

On June 7, 1926 The Lima New York Recorder reported "Today a huge buff and gray mass adds another prominent feature to the famous profile of lower Manhattan; it is the building of the New York Telephone Company recently complete at 140 West Street."  Touting it as the "World's Largest Telephone Building," the article noted that it accommodated "an army of 6,000 telephone workers"--essentially the population of a small town.

The massive building project had started three years earlier, in 1923.  The newspaper explained that following World War I "the clamor for telephone service swelled until it bid fair to overwhelm a company whose reserve resources had been drained."  The New York Telephone Company's greatly enlarged staff and equipment were scattered throughout the city, often in leased space.

The newspaper noted that "To the architects, McKenzie, Voorhees and Gmelin was presented an exacting task.  Their plans had to provide a structure of a kind peculiar to the requirements of a telephone company and of a design which would not be unsightly and therefore objectionable to the citizens of New York."  The article failed to give credit to the specific architect responsible, however, and that was Ralph Walker.

Walker had not only produced a monumental structure, he set a new course for architects nationwide.  According to Margaret M. M. Pickart writing in the Landmarks Preservation Commission's designation report in 1991, "A pivotal structure in the history of skyscraper architecture, it is a prototypical example of what came to be regarded as the American Art Deco style."  As the building neared completion, celebrated artist Joseph Pennell deemed it "the most impressive modern building in the world."

Walker carried his Art Deco motif inside, most noticeably at the lobby level.  Painted ceiling panels done by muralist Hugo R. B. Newman and bronze plaques embedded in the flooring depicted events and developments in the history of communication.  Even the Art Deco chandeliers mimicked the setback configuration of modern skyscrapers.

photo via WFC Architects

Managing the transfer of the equipment and employees was a herculean task.  The Daily Star, a Queens newspaper noted on June 7, "The migration has been under way since last February."  The transfer required 1,650 moving vans.

photo via WFC Architects

Included in the building was the New York Telephone Company's Training School, where switchboard operators went through a four-week training period.  The company was precise in the type of women it needed (there were no male operators).  The Lima New York Recorder, in 1927, wrote "The successful applicant for telephone operating possesses quick mentality, a pleasant disposition and physical and mental alertness."

There was an on-site General Employment Bureau on the ground floor to handle filling the hundreds of positions.  "At this bureau, applications from young women are accepted for telephone operating positions and for the various kinds of clerical employment," explained the Millbrook Mirror and Round Table.  The applicants waited in a lounge furnished in a home-like atmosphere with tables and fringe-shaded lamps before being escorted to one of ten interview rooms.

Another necessity in such a mammoth building with hundreds of daily visitors was a lost-and-found room.  The Telephone Review reported in 1929 "During the past two months the lost articles returned to owners included: Gloves, rings, silk hose, handbags, money, wrist watches, pocket books, cameo, hand bag, keys, fraternity pin, scarf, umbrellas, x-ray picture, pay envelopes, cosmetic sets, ear rings, and one bag containing apples and potatoes."

Although actual fighting during World War II was taking place in Europe, New York was well aware that it was a potential target for enemy planes.  Even before the attack on Pearl Harbor drew the country into the conflict, the city was on alert.  On January 10, 1941 The New York Sun reported that several hundred "observers" had been placed at observation posts throughout the city.  Not surprisingly, one of them was the New York Telephone Building.  

In 1928 the New York Telephone Building loomed above all downtown buildings.  from the collection of the New-York Historical Society

By now the legions of New York Telephone workers had been creating Christmas cheer for years.  The Great Depression left many families without money to pay for gifts.  With their own jobs secure, the telephone workers shared their good fortune.  On December 8, 1938 The New York Sun reported "More than 2,000 members of the staff of the New York Telephone Company, 140 West street, are playing Santa Claus this year, and on Saturday will begin the initial distribution in hospitals, institutions and poor homes toys and playthings for approximately 3,000 children, who otherwise might have no Christmas."  

As in years past, the female employees provided dolls.  "These, in most cases, have been elaborately dressed by women employees of the Manhattan offices of the company, their hand-made costumes portraying every nationality and color and a wide variety of fashions."  The men contributed things like books, scrapbooks, "stream-lined trains, automobiles, airplanes and other mechanical novelties."  The annual Christmas toy distribution continued at least through 1946.

The New York Telephone Company embarked on another program in 1971 which was only marginally related to the telephone; but continued the firm's concern over families and children.  That year it began distributing free Child Return Kits.  It was a simple pocket-sized folder with space for the child's information on one side, and a slot for a dime on the other.  With the folder in his pocket, a lost child was identifiable; and if he were old enough to use a pay phone, he had the coin.  The company's announcement cautioned parents, "But don't forget to remind your child not to spend his emergency dime on an emergency like soda."

A large fire broke out in the building in 1975.  According to Steven Scher in his New York City Firefighting: 1901-2001, "hundreds of firefighters were injured and sick for months afterward from the burning wire insulation.  The fire knocked out wide areas of phone service as well."

New York Telephone Company ceased to exist when NYNEX was formed; the building became headquarters of Bell Atlantic after that firm merged with NYNEX; and eventually it was home to Verizon.  It all resulted in a change in the building's name as well.  The New York Telephone Company tag was dropped and 140 West Street became officially known as the Barclay-Vesey Building.

The damage of the 1975 fire was nothing compared to the carnage caused by the collapse of the World Trade Centers on September 11, 2001.  The government's May 2005 Environmental Impact Statement explained "When 7 WTC collapsed directly onto 140 West Street, Verizon's building was severely damaged and telephone and other communication services were cut off to large parts of Lower Manhattan."

Thousands of Verizon employees had to be temporarily relocated while repairs were made.  Glenn Collins, writing in The New York Times on January 6, 2003 said "The gaping holes in the tan-brick facade of the Verizon Building are still open to the ground zero void.  The blasted steelwork is jacked up like a Rube Goldberg contraption.  Only four tortured pieces of the 72-foot ornamental entranceway bronze work now exist.  Such are the wounds inflicted by the crushing debris from not one, but three, neighboring buildings: the north and south towers of the World Trade Center, and 7 World Trade Center, which pancaked next door."

photo by the Federal Emergency Management Agency

Verizon's New York manager for design and construction, Dominic P. Veltri, said of the massive project "What we're doing here is engineering on the fly.  We're changing a flat tire on a bus going down the highway at 60 miles an hour."  At the time $70 million had been spent to stabilize the building and, according to Collins, "the restoration is expected to cost at least $140 million more."

Each of the 1,800 windows were replaced, 520,000 facade bricks were recreated in Stone Creek, Ohio, and 22,500 cinder blocks and 93 tons of structural steel were required.  Inside the 15 ceiling murals had been damaged by burst water mains and firefighting efforts.  Four of them required extensive conservation and all needed to be cleaned.   The bronze entrance on Washington Street and the decorations above the ground floor windows were mutilated.  They were recast at the Excalibur Bronze Foundry under direction of William F. Collins, AIA Architects, LLP. 

photo via WFC Architects

Verizon brought its employees back in December 2005.   But yet another devastating event would take place seven years later.  On October 29, 2012 Hurricane Sandy hit New York City.  Lower Manhattan was swamped by an immense storm surge; the flooding reaching four feet high in the lobby.  Once again the 1,700 employees were relocated.

On April 11, 2013 The Times's architectural columnist David W. Dunlap, who called the lobby "a masterpiece of Jazz Age decorative art," wrote "As the company began recovering from the worst of the destruction, it became clear that the flooding had even affected 12 monumental ceiling frescoes...Paint was peeling, flaking and blistering."

The paintings were in danger of being lost.  The EverGreene Architectural Arts studio was hired to repair and stabilize the panels.  The meticulous, labor intensive project cost Verizon $160,000.

A conservator of William F. Collins Architects brings a ceiling panel back to life.  photo via WFC Architects

Only a month after The Times article Verizon announced it would move 1,100 employees from No. 140 West Street "and offer half of the 31-story tower for sale or lease."  Before the year's end developer Ben Shaoul purchased 22 floors for conversion to residential condominiums, known as One Hundred Barclay.

photo by Beyond My Ken

And Verizon had learned a valuable lesson in the meantime.  In October that year it began construction of a nine-foot high wall to protect the building against flooding.

Unexpected: A District Attorney, a Gourmet and a Spy - 391 West Street

Men's apparel merchant Solomon Lent dabbled in real estate at the turn of the last century.  He bought and sold properties, mostly on the west side of Manhattan.   When he purchased the two-story store at Nos. 391 West Street and the house directly behind at No. 8 Weehawken Street on February 4, 1902, however, he had another purpose in mind.   (The venerable buildings were originally a single structure, part of the wooden Greenwich Market House, built in 1834.)

The tiny block was only 28 feet deep--exactly the width of the properties--relatively a sliver of a normal city block.  Despite the sketchy riverfront neighborhood, Lent paid the equivalent of $325,000 for the property.  He then put Prussian-born architect Richard Rohl to work designing a store and tenement building to replace the old structures.

Completed within the year, the five-story building was faced in red brick.  The West Street facade was ornamented with terra cotta, its neo-Renaissance design presenting a handsome presence on the thoroughfare.  The Weehawken elevation, where the tenement residents entered, was left undecorated and factory-like.

A neo-Classical pressed metal cornice tops the otherwise neo-Renaissance design.  Rohl's heavy use of terra cotta on the West Street elevation resulted in a pleasing appearance.

Lent may have anticipated similar development along the block.  That never happened and the Lent building towers above its two- and three-story neighbors even today.  At one point it held the neighborhood nickname of "the Skyscraper of the West Side."  The street level store was home to the Lent men's furnishings store, run by Solomon and his son, Milton.  The shop would have catered to the longshoremen, sailors and other workers along the riverfront.

It appears that Lent considered selling No. 391 in June 1908.  The Real Estate Record & Guide announced he had given a $14,000 mortgage to Edward E. Black; but that deal fell through and the Lent family would hold title to the building for decades.  The family's men's store continued through 1922.

As blue collar tenants came and went through the back door over the years, one in particular stood out.  Unlike his neighbors, Frederick A. Sperling was a lawyer and on New Year's Day 1931 District Attorney Thomas C. T. Crain announced he had appointed Sperling as Assistant District Attorney.

Sperling started out with unremarkable cases, like his prosecution of attorney Benjamin Weissman in July that year.  Weissman was accused of cheating a client.  He had represented shoemaker August Sardo in a suit against the Interborough Rapid Transit Company after his son was injured.  Weissman settled the claim for $1,350, but gave his client only $50.

Before long, however, Sperling was making a name for himself in high-profile cases.  In 1933, for instance, he led the charge against union-run "rackets," and in June 1934 he represented the people against ten Communists, accused with rioting and attacking police with nail-studded clubs.

In 1929 No. 391 towered above the 1834 structures, one of which it replaced.  from the collection of the New York Public Library

Another surprising resident was John (known as Jack) Van Bibber--an amateur chef, cookbook author and literary agent.  He moved into a second floor apartment in the late 1940's.  The young bachelor had a mural painted on a dining room wall for which he paid $50.  He later described it as "an awful mural with columns designed from every known style of architecture and Cuban ladies in Empress Eugénie hairdos."  As his success and subsequent finances increased, he filled the apartment with art and antique furniture.

With the repeal of Prohibition, the former clothing store was converted to a tavern, the Glascow Bar & Grill.  A bar would remain in the space until 1960.

In the meantime, in 1948, Alger Hiss, president of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace  had made headlines across the country.  Hiss had been highly involved in the establishment of the United Nations, had been both a U. S. State Department official and a United Nations official.  But now he was accused by the infamous House Committee on Un-American Activities of being a Soviet spy.

Although he maintained his innocence until his death and the charges were never fully substantiated, Hiss received two concurrent five-year sentences.  He served three and a half years.

On February 17, 1959 The New York Times reported that Hiss and his wife, Priscilla, were separating after the 30 years of marriage.  Alger moved out and into an apartment at No. 391 West Street.  His troubles continued here.

On May 14, 1960 police reported "that the apartment of Alger Hiss on the lower West Side waterfront had been ransacked."  The Times described the building as "crumbling" and reminded readers that "Mr. Hiss, who is 55 years old, served a prison term for perjury after denying that he had passed confidential paper to Communist couriers in the Nineteen Thirties while he was a State Department official."

The disarray of the apartment was disproportionate to the items taken--a $30 gold ring and a $5 pair of cuff links.  The police told reporters "there was no indication whether the motive was burglary or other reasons"

In 1967 the Lent family sold No. 391 to a most unlikely buyer--long time resident Jack Van Bibber.  He was lesser known to Greenwich Village residents for his culinary and literary work than for his outspoken push-back against Robert Moses's proposed Lower Manhattan Crosstown Expressway.    The project would have connected the Holland Tunnel with the Williamsburg and Manhattan Bridges.

The New York Times food critic Craig Claiborne had visited the Van Bibber apartments (there were two by now) in January 1967, the same year he purchased the building.  Claiborne dismissed Van Bibber's harsh critique of his dining room mural.  "The truth of the matter is that the mural, done in pastel tones, has a good deal of charm."

Claiborne described the spaces where "the 45-year-old bachelor frequently whips up buffets for 20, occasional cocktails for 50 and formal dinners for six to eight."  In addition, he wrote, "there is a large living and dining area in his second apartment, two flights below the first  It is decorated with art collected both in this country and abroad, pre-Columbia art from Mexico and last year's Christmas tree.  He also has a summer house on Fire Island."

A table was set up for a buffet in Van Bibber's apartment in January 1967.  The New York Times January 12, 1967

The writer was no less unkind to No. 391 than his newspaper had been seven years earlier.  "Mr. Van Bibber's apartment faces Pier 48, in a five story building with a dilapidated front."  At the time of the article Van Bibber had recently translated an Italian encyclopedia of cooking; and was at work translating a cookbook by Raymond Oliver, the proprietor of the Paris restaurant Grand Vefour.

The building was purchased in 1996 by Eight Weehawken LLC.  By then the once-gritty waterfront was noticeably changing.   Upscale high-rise apartment buildings and trendy restaurants and boutique hotels would soon pop up along the blocks to the north and south.  Today the Waterfront Bike Shop operates from the shop where longshoremen purchased work clothes from Solomon Lent.

Craig Claiborne had begun his 1967 article saying "Jack Van Bibber lives in a tenement."  Today that description no longer applies  A two-bedroom apartment here recently rented for $3,800 per month; the real estate agent boasting "it is located on the 4th floor of a walk-up building but is worth every step."

photographs by the author

The 1831 Isaac Amerman House - 398 West Street

In 1830 flour merchant Isaac Amerman began construction of a house and store at No. 293 West Street, between Amos (later renamed West 10th) and Charles Streets.  Completed the following year, the Federal style structure was faced in Flemish bond brick.  Its ample 22-foot width and two-and-a-half stories above the store would provide Amerman and his wife, Jane Maria, comfortable living quarters.

Despite the pretentious proportions of the structure, it sat within a sketchy neighborhood even in 1831.  Amerman almost assuredly chose the location in anticipation of selling bags of flour to the ships that moored across West Street.  Other merchants, like ship chandlers and crockery shops, began lining the street at the same time.  But as the Greenwich Village docks soon multiplied, West Street would become often dangerous, especially after nightfall, when rough-edged sailors roamed among the riverfront saloons.

A section of a map published in 1832 shows that the only docks in Greenwich Village at the time were directly across from Amerman's house and shop.  from the collection of the Library of Congress.

It seems Amerman borrowed the money for his venture from a relative; for only a year into his business Peter Amerman along with cabinetmaker John Vanboskerck foreclosed.  In 1832 they sold the building to William and Gerardus Post.

There is little doubt that the Post brothers purchased the building merely as an investment.  They were partners in the large paint establishment founded by their father, William, in 1754.  Upon his death in 1800 the firm name had become William & Gerardus Post.  By now they were among New York's wealthiest businessmen.

The brothers retained possession for eight years, selling the property in 1840 to merchant James Dean.  Like the Posts, he and his wife, Elizabeth, would not live in the building.  Having amassed a fortune through his linen business that included a London branch, the same year that he bought the West Street building he began construction of four other structures nearby on Hudson Street.  Dean died in 1847, but Elizabeth retained possession of all the Greenwich Village real estate.

Two years before Dean's death West Street had been renumbered, giving No. 293 the new address of No. 398.  The tenants in the upstairs rooms were, expectedly, blue collar.  In 1851 two carpenters, Robert Tai and John Aikin, and shoemaker Michael Fanning had rooms here.

In 1853 the Scott family lived in the building.  The couple's lives were no doubt already difficult when tragedy struck.  On Saturday evening June 4, at around 6:00, their son, William, stepped into the path of an Eighth Avenue street car at the corner of Charles and Hudson Streets.  The New York Herald said that one of his legs was "dreadfully mangled."  He was carried into the drugstore of Dr. Muller at the corner of West 11th Street (then still named Hammond Street) and Greenwich Street, and then transported to the City Hospital.  The New York Herald reported "Notwithstanding this care, however, bestowed upon him, he died in the course of the same night."

At the time the storefront was leased to J. H. & W. W. Rimmey, which included in its business the booking of river vessels.  An advertisement in The New York Herald on June 17, 1856 read: "The charter for excursions--the large and commodious double decked barge Superior, of Cedar Hill, in complete order  Can be seen at the foot of Amos street.  For terms apply on board, of Captain Geer, or at the office of J. H. & W. W. Rimmey, 398 West street."

A possible disaster had been averted a month earlier when a fire broke out in one of the upper rooms on May 17, 1856.  The cause was listed as "children with matches."

After George Roahr leased the store space in 1865, its personality would be drastically changed for decades.  Known familiarly as "Buck," he was only 27 years old at the time; but had already made a name for himself in boating circles.  A partner in Roahr & McGrady, he not only designed and built sports boats, but was highly involved in racing them.  On October 1, 1865, the same year he leased the West Street store, for instance, The New York Herald reported on the races held the day before.  It listed Roahr among the crew of The Atlanta, a "six oar, lapstreak outrigger, built by George Roahr."   He was made the "stroke oar" of the Atlanta Club 1857 and would retain that position for more than a decade.

Roahr converted the former flour store, then office, into a saloon.  He escaped bad press in 1867 when, on Sunday June 30, officials raided the saloon.  It was not Roahr's name which was printed in the newspapers, but that of Joseph B. Boyce, most likely his barkeeper.  Boyce was held on $300 bail for selling liquor on Sunday.  (It was a significant amount, equal to more than $5,000 today.)

It was most likely Roahr who battled the City for a "cross-walk" to be laid from the docks directly to the front of No. 398 in 1868.  Cross-walks were essentially the same as the wooden "side-walks," except they were laid across a thoroughfare rather than beside it.  The boards would make crossing the dusty or muddy West Street easier, and would definitely be a boon to Roahr's saloon business.

The Board of Aldermen rejected his request.  But Roahr was determined.  He took his case to the Court of Appeals, which set aside the Board's decision.  On July 30, 1868 The New York Times reported that the Board of Councilmen had conceded and that the mayor had approved the crosswalk on June 19.

George Roahr was still a bachelor at the time and, despite his successful business and sterling reputation, he listed his address above the saloon until 1870.  That year the business was leased to J. A. Wilson.  The saloon went through a number of proprietors in rather quick succession.  In 1875 James Conchin took it over, and then sold the business to J. Smith the following year.  Smith paid the equivalent of $21,000 today.  Two years later Patrick Shanahan ran the saloon, installing a new store front in April 1878.

Ellizabeth Dean died in 1891, however her estate continued to own and manage No. 398 and the Hudson Street properties.

In 1903 the saloon got its most colorful proprietor yet, Russian-born Herman Klatzko.  Described by The New York Times as being "of distinguished bearing," Klatzko also owned a restaurant on the Lower East Side, where most of his countrymen lived.  He preferred be present himself in a grander, more flattering light than a saloon or restaurant keeper, however.

In October 1903, the same year he took over the West Street saloon, his wife, Minnie, sued him for "money advanced on December 8, 1902."  The action was the first hint of problems.  Herman and Minnie were essentially newlyweds; having married on June 25, 1901.  Less than a year after the first lawsuit, on May 24, 1904, she had him arrested--this time for a more shocking allegation.

The Sun reported that he was being held in the Tombs, charged "with having unlawfully married his niece, Minnie Klatzko."  When reporters interviewed him in his cell, he informed them that he was a riding master and "says he once taught an Austrian prince."  The newspaper said that at the time of the marriage Minnie was 19 years old "and had been in this country only a month."  Herman counter-sued and both were held on $1,000 bonds for trial.

It may have been that ugly affair that prompted Klatzko to give up the saloon business that year.  But his name would be in the newspapers again before long, for even more nefarious reasons.

Although he still ran his Grand Street restaurant, by 1909 he was identifying himself as a Russian count.  His eye had been caught by the popular and lovely Lizzie Shapiro, described by the New-York Tribune as "an actress, well known in Jewish circles."  Although Klatzko lavished his attentions on her, Lizzie's heart belonged to Max Goldberg, a dresser at the People's Theatre.

On December 15, 1909 the New-York Tribune ran the headline "AN ACTRESS SHOT / Victim, Apparently, of Jealousy, with Her Companion."  The article explained that Lizzie Shapiro and Max Goldberg had been standing at the doorway of her apartment building on Forsyth Street when they "were shot and probably fatally wounded."  It added "Herman Klatzko, known as 'Count' Klatzko...was locked up in the Eldridge street station, charged with the shooting."

Police talked to Sigmund Schwartz, a neighbor.  The New-York Tribune repeated what they learned in florid prose.  "Klatzko carried out his plan of revenge with all the diabolic nonchalance of the villain of a thrilling melodrama.  He is forty-eight years old, and has been in love with Lizzie Shapiro, who is twenty-four years old...for a long time."  Schwartz told police he noticed Klatzko loitering around the block the afternoon of the day before and "that for hours he never took his eyes from the entrance to the building where Miss Shapiro lives."

Schwartz was awake at 3:00 on the morning of December 14 and saw Lizzie and Goldberg arrive at her door, where they paused to talk.  He heard six shots and saw them both sink to the pavement.  He rushed out just in time to see Klatzko light a cigarette and walk calmly away.  Both victims, before their deaths, identified Klatzko as their assailant.  When he was arrested and searched, a photograph of Lizzle Shapiro was in his pocket.

The shocking details of the trial were covered by newspapers as far away as Utah.  Readers were, perhaps, shocked when the trial was briefly stopped on May 23, 1910 when the judge, the Assistant District Attorney, and Klatzko's lawyer stepped out for a private two-hour discussion.  Klatzko offered to plead guilty to manslaughter in hopes of getting a lesser sentence.  The D.A. refused to accept a a plea to any crime less than murder in the second degree.  The trial resumed.

The evidence against Klatzko was overwhelming.  One witness, actor Boris Thomashefky, said Klatzko told him after the shooting "It had to be done.  Don't ask me any questions."

The trial finally came to an end on May 24, 1910 when Klatzko pleaded guilty on both counts.  Newspapers like the New-York Tribune were no longer referring to him as a count, but as a "saloon-keeper."  He was sentenced to between 19 and 29 years in prison, which the New-York Tribune said "is almost equivalent to life imprisonment, for Klatzko is now fifty-five years old."

In the meantime, Charles J. McQuade took over the lease of No. 398, including the saloon, in May 1907 at an annual rent of $1,900--about $51,000 today.  He and his brother, William, ran the saloon for years.

A horse drawn dray sits outside the white-painted No 398 in 1927.  Although difficult to read in this photograph, a large sign "RESTAURANT" hangs above the storefront.  photograph from the collection of the New York Public Library.

Prohibition caused the McQuades to change the saloon to a "restaurant."  But while the name changed, the patrons and the operation remained essentially the same.  Then, on January 8, 1923, William McQuade was arrested after a raid by Prohibition agents.  He was held on $1,000 and arraigned before Prohibition Commissioner Horace G. Hitchcock.

The McQuades left No. 398 in 1925.  During the Depression years Raymond Thompson leased the shop, beginning in 1935.  His West Shore Grill was well known to dock workers for more than a decade.

When the estate of Elizbeth Dean sold the building, along with the Hudson Street properties, in June 1956, The New York Times remarked "The transfer was the first since 1840."

The riverfront neighborhood was slow to share in Greenwich Village's emergence as a Manhattan's cultural and bohemian epicentery.  Except for a stint as the home of Alexander Zeitlin's truck covers business for 1955 through 1965, the former saloon space continued to see coffee shops, delicatessens and food shops come and go throughout the 20th century and into the 21st.

The building was still painted in 2006.  photo via the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission designation report

Upstairs, however, things were slightly different.  Erik Wensberg lived here in the 1960's and as late as 1970.  A reviewer for The New York Times, he was also editor of the Columbia Alumni News / Columbia University Forum.  Simultaneously, Cuban-born playwright Rene A. Buch lived in the building.  He founded the Greenwich Mews Spanish Theater in 1968 and was its artistic director.  (It was renamed Repertorio Espanol.)  He would go on to receive an Obie Award for "sustained excellence in direction" and a Drama Desk Award in 1996 for "sustained excellence."

Despite the alterations throughout its nearly 190-year history, No. 398 West Street retains much of its domestic Federal period appearance.

photograph by the author