The Lost Scotch Presbyterian Church - 360 Central Park West

 

from the collection of the New-York Historical Society

On July 23, 1892, the Real Estate Record & Builders' Guide reported that the Scotch Presbyterian Church "will shortly commence the erection of a handsome church edifice...on the southwest corner of Central Park West and 96th street."  Simultaneously, said the article, a "lecture room" would be constructed on the north side of 95th Street, just west of Central Park West.  "The church will cost $150,000 and the lecture room $50,000," it said.  The total figure would translate to about $7.3 million in 2026.

The Scotch Presbyterian Church originated following a schism within the First Presbyterian Church in 1756.  After worshipping in several locations, the congregation erected a Sicilian Gothic-style church at 53 West 14th Street in 1852.  Now (despite Dr. Charles Henry Parkhurst saying that the trustees "exhibited cowardice" by abandoning the increasingly commercial West 14th Street), the trustees planned another move.

William H. Hume & Son was commissioned to design what The New York Times promised would be "an imposing Romanesque pile."  Construction on both buildings began in 1892 and by late summer of 1893 the West 95th Street structure was completed.  

The West 95th Street building, like the church, was Romanesque in style.  New-York Tribune, May 31, 1894 (copyright expired)

On September 18, the New-York Tribune reported that the "handsome new Sunday-school room of the Scotch Presbyterian Church...was formally opened yesterday afternoon."  The article noted, "On October 1 the church congregation will begin to worship in the Sunday-school room, which it will use till the completion of its new church...in Ninth-sixth-st., behind the Sunday-school."

On March 31, 1894, The New York Times reported on the cornerstone laying ceremony.  "W. H. Hume, the architect of the church building, spoke briefly, congratulating the officers of the church on the successful beginning of the work."  The newspaper described Hume's plans:

The foundation is of bluestone and the rest of the structure will be of Indiana limestone.  The iron-trussed roof will be covered with Spanish tiles.  The main entrance, on Ninety-sixth Street, will be under three romanesque [sic] arches, above which there is to be a large rose window.  At the northeast corner will be a high square tower.

Nine months later, the structure neared completion.  On December 30, 1894, The New York Times remarked, "The new building of the Scotch Presbyterian Church, Ninety-sixth Street and Central Park West, attracts and rewards the visitor by its solid, impressive architecture and the display of art in the adornments."  The artistic "adornments" included the Scotch thistle motif, which appeared "from the cornerstone to the cornice, over the organ, in the pew ends, and elsewhere."

The article vividly described the 52 stained-glass windows, executed by William Gibson's Sons.  In the center of the "great wheel window over the main entrance," said the article, was "an open Bible with the text, 'Thy word is truth.'"  It was surrounded by seven small round windows.

Completed in 1895, William H. Hume & Son had, indeed, created an "imposing Romanesque pile."  Turning its shoulder to Central Park West, the building faced West 96th Street.  Above a wide set of stone stairs, three arched entrances sat below the complex rose window within a yawning arch.  On the western side of the peaked roof was a romantic turret with a conical cap.  On the eastern side, a formidable bell tower rose high above Central Park West, terminating in a pyramidal cap.

Among the first social functions held by the church was a fund-raising event.  On September 22, 1895, the New-York Tribune said it "has hit upon a novel scheme to raise funds."  Congregants received "the oddest invitation they ever received."  The cards, "printed on coarse wrapping paper of the cheapest quality," invited them to a "Povertie Partie."  Written in Shakespearean-style prose like, "Ye women must wear ye cotton gowne and apron or equally befitting apparel," the invitations explained that the party was inspired by the "hard times which do now prevail."  A list of fines, ranging from 1 to 25 cents, would be levied on guests who violated the dress code, like wearing a scarfpin or silk dress.

Two years later, the rector, David G. Wylie, and his family moved into the new "manse" next door to the church on West 96th Street.  It was designed by Jardine, Kent & Jardine.

A sliver of the new rectory can be glimpsed at the right.  from the collection of the New York Public Library

The Scotch Presbyterian Church, deeply rooted in the British Isles, was the scene of two mourning services for world leaders in 1901.  In his sermon on January 27, Reverend Wylie memorialized Queen Victoria and pointed out the late monarch's viewpoint on women.  He said in part, "she was interested in everything which tended to elevate woman.  She was a queen in her home, and believed that home was pre-eminently woman's real sphere, where she should shine as a queen."

Eight months later, on September 16, The New York Times reported on Wylie's sermon following the assassination of President William McKinley.  He said that the name of the fallen President would "be closely associated with those of Washington and Lincoln--an immortal triumvirate."

The Central Park West elevation.  Streetcar tracks run down the middle of the stone-paved avenue.  from the collection of the New-York Historical Society.

Earlier that year, on July 28, the decorum of Sunday service was shattered.  During Reverend Wylie's sermon, a woman suddenly stood up.  The New-York Tribune reported, "Tearing her collar from around her neck, she placed it around her head and exclaimed: 'I am going to be married to Mr. Rockwell.'"

Wylie stopped speaking, the congregants turned to face the disturbance, and an usher rushed over to the woman.  The New-York Tribune described her as "tall, black haired and neatly attired in a white waist and a black skirt."  When the usher attempted to restrain her, she "fought desperately, and succeeded in tearing the lining entirely out of the man's coat."  She was finally carried to the vestry room where she continued to attempt to "get at the usher, especially after the unfortunate man, in his efforts to quiet the woman, told her that he was Mr. Rockwell."

An ambulance took Pearl Rockwell to the Harlem Hospital.  She was later transferred to Bellevue Hospital and placed in the "insane pavilion."  There it was learned that the 40-year-old and her husband were estranged.  "It is thought that grief over the separation unbalanced her mind," explained the New-York Tribune.

Rev. Dr. David G. Wylie, New-York Tribune, September 17, 1904 (copyright expired)

Reverend Wylie, like other pastors throughout the city, was highly opinionated and announced his views from the pulpit.  On July 3, 1904, for instance, he laid out the evils that threatened the United States.  He said in part:

One of our National evils is Mormonism.  Another is divorce.  The next menace is that of the saloon.  Corporate greed offers a menace not to be forgotten...There ought to be a greater regard for human life in this country than there is at present.  Our street railways are a source of danger because of the gross carelessness often exhibited.  The automobile threatens the lives of children, women, and old people.

In 1907 the Scotch Presbyterian Church merged with the First Reformed Presbyterian Church.  That congregation moved into the West 96th Street edifice and on March 16, the New York Herald confirmed that the consolidated congregations would operate "under the name of the Scotch Presbyterian Church."

David G. Wylie had married Jennie McWilliam in 1884.  The couple had four sons, Howard M., David R., John McWilliam, and Robert Sterling, and one daughter, Jennie D.  The family found themselves in the national spotlight when John went missing.

On April 26, John Wylie, who was 15 at the time, and his best friend, 16-year-old Buster Gutelius, sold their bicycles and took the $25 they obtained to buy train tickets to Port Jervis, New York.  The duo later explained that they "were in search of some needed outdoor recreation."

When the boys failed to come home from school that Friday afternoon, their parents had reported them missing.   By Tuesday the New York newspapers reached the Mill Rift Post Office near the Pennsylvania border.  The boys, who had established a camp within a cave, purchased an axe, some eggs, and other rations, from the general store that shared space with the post office.  

When Wylie and Gutelius returned, Postmaster Maloney compared their faces with the photographs.  Rather than confronting them and risking scaring them away, he quietly mailed off a letter to Rev. David G. Wylie.  On the morning of May 3, Dr. Wylie and another son arrived at the post office while the Gutelius family waited nervously on Central Park West for word.

Maloney sent a neighbor, Samuel Wilson, to the mountain cave with word that the postmaster needed to see him.  Leaving Buster cooking bacon and flapjacks, John Wylie rushed to town.  When he entered Maloney’s store, he was confronted with his father and brother.  The quixotic adventure was over.

The New York Times wrote, “Dr. Wylie was much impressed by the natural habitation, and was delighted to find that the boys had been living in a comfortable manner.  However, they had but $2 left.”

The following morning the New-York Tribune ran a headline reading “Cave Boys Come Home.”  The newspaper advised “The erstwhile cave men, or cave boys, did not willingly leave their subterranean retreat in a mountainside near Millville, Penn., but they came back at the earnest persuasion of Dr. Wylie.”

Reverend David G. Wiley would suffer unspeakable tragedy  in 1910.  On October 8, he conducted the funeral of John McWilliam Wylie, whose adventure had captured America's attention three years earlier.  The New York Times remarked, "members of the [United Boy's Brigade of America], his classmates in public, high, and Sunday schools will be present."

Jennie McWilliam Wylie fell sick upon his son's death.  Less than a month later, on November 4, she died.  The New-York Tribune said that it was thought that the loss of her son had "hastened Mrs. Wylie's death."

After occupying the pulpit of the Scotch Presbyterian Church for 23 years, on February 23, 1914, The New York Times reported that Wylie had resigned to take the position of Secretary of the Board of Church Erection of the Presbyterian Church in the United States.  (On October 1 that year, the newspaper reported on his engagement to Martha Richter Thomas.)

The Reverend Dr. Robert Watson was installed as the new pastor on January 10, 1915.  Two years later, the congregation's name was changed to the Second Presbyterian Church.

In the post-World War I years, congregations nation-wide began embracing a new concept: the skyscraper church.  Parishes replaced their church edifices with office or apartment buildings that incorporated worship space within the lower floors.  On January 17, 1928, The New York Times reported that the Second Presbyterian Church would lease its property "to the Vinross Realties Company, Inc."  The article explained that the developer would replace the church with "a fifteen-story apartment building, which will house and support the church and its various activities."

Demolition of the 33-year-old church structure began in 1928.  It was replaced by 360 Central Park West, designed by Rosario Candela.

image via streeteasy.com

The Stubborn Hold Out at No. 6 Stone Street

In the 17^th century Oloff Stevensen van Cortlandt’s brewery had lent its name to Brouwer (or “brewery”) Street.  But the dust stirred up by the hooves of the brewery’s wagon horses settled on the costly furniture and sullied the curtains in the neighboring houses. Cortlandt’s own wife led a delegation of infuriated housewives who demanded that the city pave the street.  In 1658 it became the first paved street in the city and was renamed Stone Street for its cobblestone surface.

The block long thoroughfare was still residential a century later.  In 1795 No. 6 Stone Street was home to Joseph Fay and his wife, Elizabeth (who was the daughter of Samuel Broome).  But by the first year of the Civil War, moneyed families had moved north, away from the businesses that crowded lower Manhattan as New York City continued to grow.  In 1861 the “vacant house” at No. 6 Stone Street was offered at $1,800 a year rent—about $4,000 per month in 2016 dollars.

Although the house survived at least until 1869; it was soon replaced by a five-story brick warehouse.  Owned by the Emigrants’ Industrial Savings Bank, the building suffered significant damaged in a fire late in 1879.  The bank commissioned the well-known architect William H. Hume to repair the burnt structure.  His $3,500 repairs put the building in shape for the bank to sell.

Shortly after the reparations were completed, Nicholas and Eliza A. Murphy purchased No. 6 for $15,000—in the neighborhood of $360,000 today.  The Murphys had grander plans for No. 6 Stone Street than a warehouse.  Within a year and a half of the purchase they hired A. Hatfield to design a “new front” and “ironwork” as reflected in his plans, filed in May 1882.  The renovations cost the Murphys $16,000—more than they had paid for the property—and resulted in a modern store and office building.

Hatfield’s tripartite design was faced in red brick and trimmed in limestone.  Above the ground floor storefront (created specifically for a restaurant), the two-story upper sections were separated by a heavy stone frieze.  The second and third floors were distinguished by brick piers capped with stylized stone capitals; while the top section featured a stone cornice and triangular pediment.

Only six years later, in June 1888, Eliza A. Murphy commissioned architect J. M. Dunn to modernize the interior.  Walls and offices were reconfigured, costing the Murphys $4,500.  It was possibly at this time that the upper floors were converted to residential space—an early precursor to the trend that would overtake lower Manhattan in the 21^st century.

Meanwhile, the former restaurant space was home to London & Martin in1912; and to John F. McClunn’s stationery store, McClunn & Co. in 1917.  Although McClunn’s lease was for “a long term,” according to newspapers, he moved to Broadway before January 1920 when the estate of Eliza A. Murphy leased the entire building to the National Lunch Company.

The Real Estate Record & Builders’ Guide noted the building was “now occupied as store and apartments” and that the National Lunch Company intended to “remodel the property for offices and salesrooms, having it ready for occupancy about May 1, 1920.”

The renovations apparently took longer than was hoped; but by November 1920 the building was fully leased.  According to the New York Herald on November 1, the new tenants were “J. S. Waterman & Co., Theodore Moss & Co., Caballero & Carvajal, and the New York Signal Trading Company.”

Other tenants in the 1920s were the Molasses Products Company, Inc., which took space in 1922; and the photograph gallery of Samuel Lander by 1924.  Lander was just 18 years old that year, when the teen-aged entrepreneur found himself in serious trouble.

Samuel Lander not only exhibited photographs in his gallery, but he used the space for partying.  His problems came when two 15-year old Brooklyn girls, Lillian Goodson and Anna Willinger, reported to authorities on what was going on there.

The New York Times described the girls on March 22, 1924 saying “Both are large for their ages and wear their hair bobbed.”  The girls shocked the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, where they were taken, with their accounts of the being taken advantage of by five males and having their morals impaired during “parties…in a photograph gallery conducted by Samuel Lander.”

Landau had been arrested the night before along with another teen, 16-year old Samuel Silverman, and three adults.  The respected men were humiliated when their names and professions were published. "Dr. Adolf Stone, 42, a dentist, of 611 West 110^th Street, and Abraham Bimberg, 29, of 103 Ditmas Avenue, Brooklyn, who is married and the father of four children,” and 34-year old David Don who lived in the Bronx.

On April 5 the girls appeared in court and testified against the men before Magistrate Moses R. Ryttenberg.    While the judge held Samuel Lander on $5,000 bail and the others on $500 bail; he was not altogether sympathetic with the bobbed haired girls who had repeatedly returned to the parties on Stone Street.  The Times noted “Magistrate Ryttenberg denounced them as ‘two of the most brazen witnesses’ he ever had heard.”

On June 20, 1929 the Utilities Building Corporation happily announced that after a year of negotiations it had finally assembled a full blockfront building site “on Broad Street from Stone to Bridge Street,” including No. 6 Stone Street.  But the developer’s announcement was premature.

No. 6 Stone Street was still owned by the Murphy family, which was not ready to give up the property.  They retained ownership into the 1930s, as least, and construction projects on Stone Street would not include the 25-foot wide property.

In 1947 41-year old John H. Powers set up his office in the building.  He had held the position of Assistant Port Captain for Cities Service Oil Company from 1938 to 1944.  Now he devised a money-making scheme that took advantage of naïve Puerto Ricans looking for jobs on ships.

The Coast Guard issued certificates to applicants who brought with them a letter of employment.  The certificates authorized the men to work on ships; but were issued only after they had been hired.  Seeing an opportunity, Powers hired a “runner” who stationed himself outside the Coast Guard office.  When applicants were rejected because they had not yet been employed, the runner directed them to “see the captain at 6 Stone Store,” according to John J. Donovan, Jr., Assistant United States Attorney later.

There, John Powers would write a letters of introduction, stating that the men had been hired by the Cities Service Oil Company.  The scheme lasted only a few months.  He was arrested by the FBI on July 23, 1947 for “having aided in the furnishing of false statements to a Government agency, the Coast Guard.”

Donovan told reporters that “the arrest had ended a racket in which inexperienced Puerto Ricans seeking jobs on ships had paid $20 to $25 for false letters enabling them to obtain seamen’s certificates from the Coast Guard.”

In 1949 the headquarters of the Marine Cooks and Stewards Union was in No. 6 Stone Street.  The little winding block was crammed with more than 400 seamen on April 11 that year.  The sailors were protesting the union’s refusal to deny jobs to cooks with Communist leanings.  Steve Cardullo, a representative of the Sailors Union of the Pacific, complained to reporters that “all seagoing unions had expelled their Communist members, except the cooks.” 

The cooks’ union stood firm.  “The Marine Cooks and Stewards has never at any time interfered with the jurisdiction of any other union, and we don’t intend to in the future,” replied one official.

Another marine-related union in the building by 1952 was the Staff Officers Association of America, an affiliate of Seafarers International Union, A. F. L.   The association recognized a serious need for trained pharmacists on board American cargo vessels.  In February that year an official complained of the Government’s failure to reopen its sea-going pharmaceutical school following the war.

Tom Hill said that as a result “American seamen on cargo ships have no guarantee of adequate emergency medical care at sea.”  In response, the union opened its own school in the Stone Street building.  The New York Times noted “The Government has contributed to the school to the extent of providing textbooks, and steamship companies, with which the union has contracts, have provided the types of forms used in connection with their particular type of operations.”

Today the much-altered ground floor is home, appropriately, to Murphy’s Tavern.  Nicholas and Eliza Murphy’s handsome building, looking much as it did when they revamped it in 1882, is squashed between soaring office towers—an out-of-place 19^th century holdover among glass and steel.

photographs by the author

The 1894 Mutual Reserve Bldg -- No. 305 Broadway

On January 16, 1893 the Real Estate Record & Builders’ Guide reported “we find a forty years’ lease consummated…for the Weld estate of Boston, who have invested so largely in New York real estate.  This corner of Broadway and Duane street, the northwest, is to be improved by the erection of a large office building, and it will be rented to a life insurance association.”

A separate article that day announced “The Weld estate will tear down the one-story buildings now on the corner and erect on the site one of the finest ten-story, fire-proof office and banking buildings in the city.

William F. Weld had been among the country’s most prosperous shipbuilders and merchant shipping tycoons.  He was also involved in railroad construction.  But following his retirement in 1861 he devoted his energies to real estate development in Boston and New York.  His will directed his trustees to continue his real estate business.  The development of the Broadway-Duane Street property by his four grandchildren, “The Weld Estate,” had been in process for years by the time of the Record & Guides’ announcement.

The Estate purchased the property in May 1888 at a cost of $350,000.  It would be four years before the project began taking shape.  The Mutual Reserve Fund Life Association, founded in 1881, entered into negotiations with the Estate to construct its impressive headquarters.   Architect William H. Hume filed plans in June 1892, estimating the cost of the structure at $730,000—nearly $2 million in 2016.  The choice of architects was no doubt influenced by Hume’s seat on the Board of Directors of the Mutual Reserve Fund Life Association.

A month earlier the Record & Guide had updated its readers.  “On the northwest corner of Duane street the buildings are in process of removal, preparatory to the erection by the Weld estate…of a fire-proof office building…It is to be a thirteen-story and high basement—substantially a fourteen-story building, with cellar.  The first two story [sic] are to be of granite and the rest of Indiana limestone.”

In 1893 the Mutual Reserve released a sketch of the building.  copyright expired

In the pioneering days of skyscraper construction, Hume’s Mutual Reserve Building was on the forefront.  Hidden behind the heavy masonry was a steel cage framework.  Frederick H. Kindl, chief engineer of Carnegie Steel Company, advised “this method of construction…has only of late been introduced.”

In January 1894 the Mutual Reserve Fund Life Association updated its shareholders, saying the building “will within another month, be about completed” and promised it would be “one of the most substantial buildings ever erected in this or any other city.”  The report announced that the first floor retail areas had already been rented at $30,000 per year and around $75,000 in yearly rents on upper floors had been procured.  (Among those tenants who signed leases during construction was “The Arkwright Club of dry goods men” who took a 10-year lease on the 13^th floor at $9,000 per year.)

The January report was a bit optimistic about the completion date.  Dedication ceremonies were held on June14, 1894; but the building was not officially completed until September.  According to the New-York Tribune the final construction costs had risen to “about $1,200,000.”

Hume had taken the stocky Romanesque Revival style of Henry Hobson Richardson to skyscraper proportions.   The two-story base of rough-cut granite and limestone featured large entrance arches on Broadway—one for the retail spaces and the other for the lobby to the upper floors.  Heavy medieval carvings and bold arches reflected the style; its visual weight broken by slightly projecting cornices at every two of the upper floors. 

The Mutual Reserve Fund Life Association took the second through fifth floors.  Its advertisements for office space on other floors touted the building’s being “absolutely fireproof.”  Potential tenants were offered “Heat, light, attendance, and Safe Deposit Vaults free of charge.  The building will also contain Barber-Shop, Cigar Stand, Ticket Office, Telegraph and Telephone Offices, etc.  Elevators run day and night.”

The New-York Tribune commented “Founded upon bedrock, it rises two hundred feet above the sidewalk, but great as its height, so perfectly is it proportioned and so admirable in its architectural treatment of its two facades, that few careful observers would dream that it attended such an altitude.  Entering the building by a doorway of unusual grace of outline…the visitor finds himself in a spacious and lofty vestibule lined with African marble.”

Among the first tenants was contractor Richard Deeves & Son—the builders of the Mutual Reserve Building.  The firm would remain in the structure they erected at least through 1914. 

One of the retail spaces became home to the bicycle showroom of the “Fowler wheel.”  The New York Times reported on January 6, 1896, “The Metropolitan branch of this hustling concern is managed by James H. Robley.  The 1896 models can be seen in the salesroom in the Mutual Reserve Building.”

The building boasted four Otis & Brother elevators “of the most improved type,” according to the New-York Tribune on December 24, 1898.  But safety engineering did not keep pace with the up-to-date technology.  Because the expandable gates could be opened whether the elevator cab was on the floor or not, high rise buildings were repeatedly the scenes of elevator-related deaths; including that of William B. Cunningham in the Mutual Reserve Building on July 21, 1904.

The 50-year old dealer in burlap and jute yarns was also a member of the Arkwright Club.  He left his office in the building that afternoon, headed home to New Jersey.  “It is supposed that while the elevator car was above him, Mr. Cunningham opened the gate on his floor, looked up for the car, and lost his balance.”  He plummeted nine floors to his death.

When a similar death occurred in the Continental Building one week later a reader wrote to the Editor of The Sun complaining “These cars (frequently running at high speed and to great heights) are a constant danger.  They are often operated by young or apparently inexperienced persons…Is it not perfectly practical to have attached to every car a device, working automatically, whereby the driving power cannot be applied until the door is closed and fastened?”

One tenant who would remain in the building for several years beginning around 1905 was Hapgoods, an employment and “business opportunity” agency.  The firm touted itself as a “National Organization of Brain Brokers.”  In January 1906 it advertised a variety of opportunities in The Business World.  Among them were “a controlling interest in a general jobbing machine business” for $3,000 to $5,000; a one-third interest in “a growing concern manufacturing electrical specialties” for $7,000; and “a substantial interest in a Cleveland, Ohio” firm to represent “and install their system of vacuum cleaning.”

The agency also published the newsletter Opportunities.  On August 4, 1906 an advertisement said the flier contained “descriptions of high grade positions now open for Salesmen, Executives, Clerical and Technical men: salaries $1,000-$5,000.  It is free for the asking.”

The first signs of problems for the Mutual Reserve Fund Life Association came in 1900 after the Superintendent of Insurance initiated “an examination of the officers of this association” regarding corruption.  James R. Maclay applied to the State Attorney General to have Frederick A. Burnham removed as President.  The application was denied on November 23, 1900.  But problems were far from over.

A Board of Director’s meeting on January 16, 1907 resulted in a New-York Tribune headline “Burnham Tightens Grip” and a report that the attempts to “oust President Burnham and Vice-President Eldridge,” had failed.  “Both these men are under indictment.”  Nevertheless, by June Burnham was out, facing five counts of grand larceny and forgery.

The Mutual Reserve was on shaky financial ground.  The Tribune reported on a move made by the Directors which was both economical and symbolic.  On June 12 the newspaper reported “it was learned that the Mutual Reserve has decided to close the president’s private elevator.  For many years, as in several other insurance headquarters buildings in Manhattan, the Mutual reserve has been equipped with a private elevator running from the first to the fifth floor and reserved for the use of the president and the principal officers of the company.”

The Directors explained that “by closing it down the company might at least save the annual wages of an elevator man, the cost of lighting, etc.”

Although the Mutual Reserve Life Insurance Co. renewed its lease in 1908 at $60,000 per year; the end was near.  The firm was placed under receivership and filed for bankruptcy the same year.  Further scandal came on December 23 when Frederick A. Burnham, faced with $300,000 in law suits by the receivers of the Mutual Reserve Life Insurance Co., was found dead in his bed, overcome by gas.   Initial reports deemed his death “probably suicide.”

Earlier that year another tragedy occurred in the Mutual Reserve Building.  In a near repeat of the elevator shaft incident of four years earlier, 45-year old delicatessen owner August Does fell nine stories to his death on August 11, 1908.  He had an appointment with his lawyer, Harold C. Knoppel, on the ninth floor.

When the car reached that floor, several men got off, but Does remained in the back of the car.  The elevator operator, Francis Eunis, started to close the door.  The Sun reported “About ten feet above the ninth floor Does apparently realized that he had gone beyond his floor.  Before Eunis could stop him Does made a jump to get out of the car and through the gate.  The car shot up and he fell down the shaft.”

The newspaper added “The cries of Does as he fell could be heard throughout the building and there was some excitement.”  Rather startlingly, Francis Eunis was arrested and charged with the man’s death.

By 1910 the address was known as the Langdon Building.  The varied list of tenants included the publication office of the Patent and Trade-Mark Review (it had moved in in 1902); the offices of the Miller Bros. Cutlery Co., “makers of steel pens and erasers,” on the third floor; and the architect Max Silverstein.  Another architectural firm, Baggott & Ryall, would be in the building by 1915.

In April 1914 the Standard Lunch Company took the Duane Street stores at Nos. 95-97 “for a long term of years.”   The cafeteria would be joined the following year in June by the Emerson Shoe Company, which opened its shoe store at No. 307 Broadway.

In February 1920 the Broadway-John Street Corporation purchased the Langdon Building for $2 million.  The new owners announced their intentions of leasing to legal firms.  The Sun noted “If the lawyers who are said to be coming to the Langdon Building are leaders in the legal profession the move will have the affect of bringing the law business back to an old stand, that surrounding the courts in Chambers Street.”

The group wasted little time.  On February 6, 1920 an advertisement appeared in The Sun and in the New York Herald offering “Lawyers’ Opportunity to secure office space in a House of Character.”  The ad pointed out that the Langdon Building was “located near the new Court House.”

Nevertheless, contracting and architectural firms continued to seek space in the building.  In 1922 the Marcus Contracting Company was in the building, as was George F. Hardy, “mill architect and consulting engineer.”  Hardy specialized in the design of “paper, pulp and fibre mills.”

In 1923 architects Schwarts & Gross were commissioned to remove the central arched entrance on Broadway.  Subsequently the remaining arched entrance was converted to a less dramatic squared-off opening.

The building was photographed shortly after the 1923 alterations.  photo from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York

Throughout the rest of the century the building saw a long list of owners and tenants.  Along with the large number of law offices, the structure would be come to metals dealer Herman J. Heght, Inc., the cumbersomely-named Lithographers International Protective and Beneficial Association of the United States and Canada, the Jewish Forum Association (publishers of The Jewish Forum), and it would be the first long-term headquarters of the Landmarks Preservation Commission (from 1967 through 1980).

Despite the regrettable loss of the ground floor and the entrances, Hume’s masterful Romanesque Mutual Reserve Building is a remarkable survivor of the early days of skyscraper development.

photographs by the author