The Lost 1858 10th Street Studios Bldg. -- 51 West 10th Street

On November 10, 1938 Berenice Abbott captured the building -- photograph from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York

In the decade prior to the Civil War, the concept of American art was preposterous to most collectors.  Haughty European art connoisseurs dismissed the idea, while snobbish American collectors lined their picture galleries with imported antique works.  It would not be until 1878, when an American art section was included in the Paris Exposition, that the Continent took notice.  The New-York Tribune noted that year, “It was the real initiation of the French people into a realization that such a thing as American art existed.”

But in 1857 that realization was a long way off.  So James Boorman Johnston’s idea that year of a studio building solely for artists was remarkably forward-thinking.

Johnston was a well-to-do real estate speculator living at 56 West 10^th Street in a fashionable neighborhood just north of Washington Square.  He understood the plight of artists—they lived mostly in boarding houses and rented barely-serviceable rooms with poor natural light as studios.  He envisioned a residential/studio building designed specifically for artists with a large communal gallery for exhibiting their works.

Johnston sought out 30-year-old Richard Morris Hunt, an architect who had just returned to America two years earlier.  Hunt had distinguished himself as the first American to study at the prestigious Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris, and had supervised the renovation of the Louvre for Napoleon III.

Hunt was given the commission to design the 10^th Street Studios at 51 West 10th Street, across the street from Johnston’s residence.   

Hunt’s Parisian schooling was evident.  The Studio Building took the form of a French-style hollow square.  The brick-faced building was not showy—in fact years later, in 1887, the New-York Tribune would say, “At a glance one might almost take it for an average West Side primary or grammar school."  Instead, the design focused on function.  Expansive windows flooded the studios with sunlight.  The inner openings looked out onto the glass roof of the gallery. 

The decorative elements of the three-story façade were accomplished by creative brickwork and a few touches of stone.  The Crayon, in January 1858, lamented the mediocre decoration.  “The front of the building is wholly constructed of brick; its ornamentation, such as the window-mouldings, pilasters, cornices, etc., being developed in that material.  The opportunity does not afford a chance to display the beauty of brick-work in all its fullness, but it indicates use of brick which we hope will become more general.”

A photograph taken shortly after the building was completed looks amazingly like Abbott's shot 80 years later.

“The north and south sides…have two sets of windows, inside and outside,” reported The Sun. “The east and west tiers front only on the open court.  The north and south sides, alone, are used for studios proper.  The rest of the building is given up to sleeping and living rooms.”

The twenty-five rooms were available in two sizes:  20-by-30 feet, and 20-by-15 feet.  Each was provided with a coal-burning iron stove and adjoining studios were connected by doors which could be thrown open for individual showings.

The red brick building was highly anticipated and although it was not completed until mid-1858, by January 1 of that year many of the studios were already occupied.  A rent book documented the first tenants beginning on January 6, 1858—a list of now-acclaimed artists:  John LaFarge, Frederick E. Church, J. F. Kensett, J. W. Casilear, Sanford R. Gifford, Jervis McEntee and W. S. Haseltine.  The men paid an average rent of $200 per year – about $4,000 today (or $330 a month).

As the building was completed, the studios filled.  “Nor was the building given over exclusively to painters and sculptors,” noted The Sun years later.  “In the fall of 1858 at the earnest solicitation of several aspirants for architectural knowledge, Richard Morris Hunt took one of the studios and fitted it up as an architectural atelier.”  Hunt’s architectural school—the first in America—began with four students and before long would list among its pupils George B. Post, William R. Ware, Frank Furness, Henry Van Brunt and Charles D. Gambrill.

Normally, on Saturday afternoons the studios were neatened up and afternoon receptions were held from 1:00 to 5:00.  Studio doors were thrown opened and the public was invited to stroll through the building inspecting the paintings and sculptures.  For the most part the visitors were stylishly dressed society women who could afford art and had the leisure time for such pursuits.  The artists reportedly trimmed their beards and dressed for the occasion.

When Frederick Church showed his masterful Heart of the Andes here in 1859, crowds lined 10^th Street waiting for their turn to view it.  Church exhibited the painting in typical Victorian style, surrounded by potted palms and illuminated by gas lamps.

Church's Heart of the Andes created a sensation at the 10th Street Studios -- metmuseum.org

Twice a year, formal exhibitions were staged in the grand, glass-domed gallery.  The 10^th Street Studio Building became the most prestigious address for artists and the waiting list grew.  Through the 1860s and into the '70s artists like Winslow Homer, William Bradford, W. H. Beard, Homer D. Martin, and Worthington Whittredge were added to the tenant list.  To accommodate the demand for space, in 1872 an annex at 55 West 10^th Street was added to the original building.

Well-dressed ladies examine paintings at a reception in 1869 -- Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper (copyright expired)

In 1879, James Boorman Johnston conveyed the Studio Building to his brother, John Taylor Johnston.  The artists could not have hoped for a better landlord.  John Taylor Johnston was the founding president of the Metropolitan Museum of Art.  That same year, esteemed artist William Merritt Chase returned from Europe and moved in.  He initially occupied a small studio on the ground floor, but he envisioned painting grand, oversized paintings and needed more space.  The exhibition gallery was transformed for him into a spectacular, two-story sky-lit studio.

Henry Rankin Poore later remembered, “I well remember how Chase, small of stature and bristling with enthusiasm, had walked up and down this sumptuous apartment declaring that he had secured a big place because he wanted to do big compositions; but they never came.  Chase was too much of a technician for big enterprises.”

 

Whether those big enterprises came or not, the gallery was gone.  The Sun would later remark, “the old days were over and a new era began.”  The New-York Tribune bemoaned the loss:

The annual receptions formerly held by the artists in the Tenth Street Studio Building will be remembered as among the pleasantest occurrences of the art season.  They were designed to afford opportunities to friends of the artists and other invited guests for a leisurely inspection of the pictures before they were sent to the Academy.  The receptions were formerly held in the exhibition hall, on the first floor, now occupied by W. M. Chase as a studio.

Chase was undeniably eccentric, filling the studio with thousands of items and decorating in lavish Victorian style.  Henry Rankin Poore recalled visiting the studio shortly after Chase moved in.  “One’s knock was then answered by a negro in a red fez; the door as it opened automatically gave forth music from a stringed instrument which died away in the screech of macaws and parrots; a greyhound stretched himself from a polar rug; in each corner were canopied divans; the whole great apartment was a riot of color.”

Chase's greyhound lounges at his feet in the sun-drenched studio -- photograph from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York

Interestingly, Chase used his studio as a subject or background for at least a dozen paintings and it became known popularly as “Chase’s Tenth Street Studio.”  He quickly took the lead among the artists and his studio became a gathering place.  For a decade the meetings of the Society of American Artists were held here, and The Art Club was organized that included himself, Saint Gaudens, Church, and other eminent artists.

Chase's "The Tenth Street Studio" was one of about twelve paintings depicting the space -- the St. Louis Museum of Art

The building was unquestionably the most famous studio building in America.  On October 10, 1887, The Evening World described it succinctly.  “The Studio Building, West Tenth street, is a painter's Bohemia.  The studios are working places, without much bric-a-brac, or tapestries, or old carved wood.”

By now rents had gone up.  That year, the New-York Tribune noted, “A good studio in West Tenth-st., twelve by sixteen feet, perhaps, rents for about $400 a year.  Some go as high as $500.  William M. Chase, who has a ground floor one on the north side and the use, too, of the old skylight gallery, pays $1,000 a year for both.”

Once in the building, artists were loath to leave.  “J. G. Brown has been here over twenty years and all the tenants, so the agents say, stick until they give up studios altogether,” reported the Tribune.  “The demand is brisk for rooms here, many of them being now pledged several years in advance.”

In 1893, John Taylor Johnston died and the building passed to his son, J. Herbert Johnston.  Two years later, William Merritt Chase decided to give up his famous studio to travel to Madrid with students.   He held a farewell banquet for his friends in the studio, which was specially decorated for the event, and then auctioned off his all his possessions.  The Sun later wrote, “Almost the very plates from which they ate were carried away to go under the hammer, but Chase’s serene hospitality lasted until an unusually late hour—a courageous climax, an undaunted, spirit.”

On January 6, 1896, The Sun reported on the auction.  “William M. Chase, N. A., is pretty widely known, not alone by his own works, which are many and interesting, nor by his pupils only, but as much by reason of his having had for years, in the old Tenth street studio building, the one conspicuous show studio of the town.”

For the auction, Chase's studio was recreated in the American Art Galleries on 23^rd Street.  “The unconventional and picturesque effect of his former workshop has been reproduced in a measure, and the result is a public display that is not alone interesting to the connoisseur and collection, but is important as affording opportunity to our public museums to acquire some few worthy paintings and art objects,” said the newspaper.  It listed some of the nearly 1,800 items in the catalog, including 200 paintings, 600 finger rings (his collection of rings, said The Sun, was “not unknown to fame”), 40 Russian samovars, “a hundred or more brass candlesticks of very early patterns, besides copper pots and kettles, and an infinite variety of other objects.”

The Sun listed antique glassware, lanterns and lamps, old Spanish and Italian locks, “curiously bound books,” musical instruments, tapestries, draperies, rugs, old furniture and clocks.  The article summed it all up saying “But it is a hopeless task to undertake to describe in detail so various an aggregation of artistical junk.”

If Chase never produced “big enterprises,” the next tenant surely would.  The studio was taken over by sculptor Stirling Calder.  Henry Rankin Poore, visiting Calder in the same studio he had spent time with Chase, noted, “To-day it was difficult to realize that one stood at the same threshold…But the West Tenth Street studio was destined in time to bring forth great compositions, all of Calder’s conceptions of heroic size for the San Francisco Exposition being designed here.”

The building was essentially unchanged in 1914 -- photograph from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York

Artists brought, for the most part, positive attention to the 10^th Street Studio Building, but one would be an exception.  During World War I, etcher William J. Quinlan had his studio here.  A mute since childhood, he drew the attention of military sentinels when he was discovered sketching the approaches to the tunnel to New Jersey on April 4, 1917, just two days before the United States officially entered World War I.

“The soldiers rushed their prize to the Union Hill police station,” reported The Sun the following day.  “He will probably be taken early this morning to Governors Island.”  The newspaper warned, “Painters and etchers, famous and otherwise, would do well these plotting and spying days to choose with skill and care the spots where they set their easels”

In 1920, near panic broke out in the building when it was learned that J. Herbert Johnston planned to sell the property.  The Sun and the New York Herald reported on June 20, “When the rumor began to percolate through the labyrinthine corridors of the Tenth Street Studios that the famous old structure was about to go on the market it is said that ancient tenants appeared in the hallways who had not been seen for decades and whose existence was known only to the rent collector, and that one of the younger artists who had never been known to wear any other costume than smock and sandals was so galvanized into action as actually to appear in a business suit.”

The artists joined together to form The Tenth Street Studios, Inc. and purchased the building.  The New-York Tribune happily reported, “the property will be retained in its present form and used for artists’ studios.”

In 1947 Josephine Barry sketched a portion of the facade --  from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York

The reprieve would last for another thirty years.  On May 23, 1952, The New York Times casually remarked that, “A Greenwich Village landmark has passed to new control as the result of the sale stock controlling the studio building at 51 West Tenth Street.”

Three years later, on November 3, 1955, the same newspaper reported, “Buyers of the old Tenth Street Studio Building, a Greenwich Village landmark for almost a century, announced yesterday the letting of a contract for demolition of the building.  The razing is to start next Monday.  A ten-story and penthouse apartment building for ninety-three families will be erected on the site.”

Within the Tenth Street Studio Building many of the Hudson River School paintings had been executed.  Here John La Farge, who moved in “before the plaster was dry,” according to The Sun decades earlier, worked for over half a century until his death.  Frederick McMonnies, Winslow Homer and Albert Bierstadt were among the dozens of influential artists who lived and worked here. 

The venerable building, one of the first American structures by Richard Morris Hunt and home to some of Americans most celebrated artists, was demolished with little notice.

A mid-century apartment building replaced the Studio Building.  The old Greek Revival house next door still survives.  photo by the author

many thanks to reader Pam Barkentin for suggesting this post

LeBrun's 1892 Engine Company 18 -- No. 132 West 10th Street

By the last decade of the 19^th century, the booming population of Greenwich Village required increased fire protection.  In 1891 the city purchased the old rooming house at No. 132 West 10^th Street as the site of a new firehouse for Engine Company 18.

N. LeBrun & Sons was responsible for the design.   Since 1879 Napoleon LeBrun had been designing all of New York City’s fire houses—around 40 of them so far.   For this narrow firehouse he turned, mostly, to understated Romanesque Revival.  The first floor was composed of rough-cut stone blocks surrounding a cast iron frame for the double wooden truck doors. 

Above, orange brick was highlighted by terra cotta, with stone trim at the window openings.   LeBrun creatively used brown-orange terra cotta tiles, looking much like Lego blocks laid on end, to create handsome pseudo quoins along the sides and an outline above the arched windows of the third floor.

Two large foliate terra cotta disks, like sunbursts, embellished the top floor and an elaborately-decorated cornice announced the influence of the new Classicist movement.

Engine Company 18 moved into the completed building in 1892.   Its horse-drawn engines would be seen speeding through Village streets for decades; often narrowly avoiding street cars, pedestrians and other vehicles.

A tender, like the one above, carried John J. Harvey on the outside step in 1907.  In the center of West 10th Street can be seen the tracks of the street car that caused so much trouble.  (Note that the left bay door seems to slide open, rather than swing.)  photo from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York

On September 29, 1907 one such run nearly cost fireman John J. Harvey his life.   Harvey was riding on the step of the tender, or hose wagon, on way to an alarm at Washington and Christopher Streets.  The tender was just behind the speeding engine and both trucks were clanging their bells.

In the meantime, motorman Frederick W. Unkelman was running his streetcar along 10^th Street without slowing or stopping for the emergency vehicles.  Finally, at Washington Street, he paused long enough avoid a collision with the engine; but as it passed he started up again. 

“When the tender came tearing along in the wake of the engine the driver had great difficulty in steering through the narrow space between the curb and the car.  His horses barely got through, but the car, keeping on, swung still more out over the roadway and struck the wagon broadside,” reported the New-York Tribune.

The collision knocked Harvey off his feet and his legs and feet smashed through the streetcar windows.  “He pluckily held on until the tender cleared the car,” said the newspaper.  “With the worst of the danger over, he dropped to the street and stooped to pick up his hat, but then his strength gave way and he toppled over unconscious.”

The motorman was arrested and, ironically, the call turned out to be a false alarm.

In a training exercise, a trusting fireman prepares to jump from the second story into a net held by his fellow firefighters. -- photo from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York

Earlier that year, in February, Engine Company 18 had responded to a call that was most definitely not a false alarm.  Nearby the old Tracy & Russell Brewery building at 11^th Street and Greenwich Avenue caught fire.  It was now being occupied by the Manhattan Screw and Stamping Company and the lunchtime blaze spread rapidly.  Most of the 300 employees were out at lunch, and those left in the building were able to escape.  But the growing inferno was dangerously close to Grammar School 41 with its 1,400 little girl pupils, and the House of Calvary on Perry Street near Greenwich Avenue, a cancer hospital.

Engine Company 18 worked feverishly to keep the flames from spreading, as the crowds of terrified little girls were led from their school building.  “The fight to keep the flames from reaching the cancer hospital was long and hard,” reported The New York Times.  “Three  firemen, under the direction of Capt. Roach…were overcome while clinging to the fire escapes and training streams of water on the flames that constantly menaced the walls of the House of Calvary.  They quickly revived and returned to the fight.”

The one hundred horses in the stables on the first floor of the burning building were rescued; but in the end the building was in ruins—a loss of about $100,000.

The company’s sterling reputation came into play during the visit of Raoul Frere, the head of the Paris Fire Department in August 1910.  He spent a week studying the operations of the New York City Fire Department and told reporters that “the New York firemen were ahead of those in London and the big European cities.”

On August 19, after being escorted by Engine Company 18’s Captain Howard Rusch to observe night court, the French fire chief came back to West 10^th Street.  Here he “and remained there all night in order to answer all alarms with the apparatus,” said the New-York Tribune.

The unit responded not only to nearby emergencies, but traveled across town when necessary.  Such was the case on Saturday March 25, 1911 when the Asch Building caught fire.   Home to the Triangle Shirt Waist factory, the fire would result in one of America’s worst industrial tragedies with 146 fatalities.

The female workers trapped in the burning 10-story building panicked and scores threw themselves to their deaths.   One young fireman from Engine Company 18 later told reporters that his first image “was a man’s body come crashing down…We turned into Greene Street and began to stretch in our hoses.  The bodies were hitting all around us.”

The first two decades of the 20^th century were plagued with terrorist attacks by anarchist groups like the Black Hand.   Business buildings and even apartment houses were targeted for bombings; one of which was thwarted by a quick-thinking Engine Company 18 fireman in 1910.

Joseph Halpin, on leave of absence, was passing a building when he noticed a small fire.  He entered only to find the structure was filling with gas from open lighting jets.   He blew out a lighted candle that was connected to a blasting fuse which led to a bomb filled with gunpowder.

The terrorist, Andrea Galasso, had attempted to level the structure.  He was sentenced to Sing Sing Prison for four and a half years.  Fireman Halpin received a medal from Mayor Gaynor.

By the roaring 1920s Greenwich Village was not just the center of bohemian cafes and tea houses; it was still a close-knit neighborhood of families and children.  The firehouse on West 10^th Street was a familiar summer haunt of the youngsters who “come to the engine house in their bathing suits to prance under the street showers,” said the New-York Tribune in 1921.

That was the year that the firemen had an idea.  The members pooled $50 of their own money to purchase materials and five firemen—Engineer Patrick Vak and Firemen Peter Brennan, Patrick Foley, Dennis Collins and Joseph Lally—designed and built a “portable swimming tank” for the children.

The Tribune said “The tank is an elaborate affair made of wood, with steps leading to the top of it and slides to carry the kids into the water.  It is set on wheels and it is planned to be rolled under the shower.”

The “perambulating running water swimming tank” was a hit and by the end of July the Tribune reported that “many hundreds of children daily” used the pool.   And so the adults wanted to get into the act.

Engineer Frank Patzak told reporters on July 24 “We already have a good many women and girl bathers.  They appear for their shower baths after the kiddies have all been tucked into bed…We have had a heavy demand from adults for use of the big tank between 10 and 12 at night.”

So the firehouse hosted “grown-ups’ evening” on July 26, 1921 and “the whole of Greenwich Village was expected to take a splash,” said the Tribune.  “Most of the inhabitants did turn out, but they came as spectators.”

Crowds jammed West 10^th Street hoping to glimpse flappers in their bathing attire.  “Four young women appeared in bathing suits and splashed in the water for a while, but before their frolic was over the spectators had found the well-advertised spectacle rather tame, and flocked back to the underground tearooms.”

All the publicity caused Fire Captain James Simms to shut down the swimming tank, even for children.   When 400 neighborhood children showed up, they were told there would be no more swimming.  A meeting of parents was called, appealing to Fire Commissioner Drennan “asking for immediate restoration of the tank,” and "hundreds of children staged protests.”

“The shouting of the children’s chantey, ‘We want our tank’ to the tune of a hymn with which all the little Italians and other children of foreign born in the districted appeared to be familiar, drew hundreds of persons to the locality,” reported the New-York Tribune on August 1.  “When the youngsters were ordered to move on by patrolmen they formed a line and paraded in bathing suits timing their steps to the monotonous repetition of 'We want our tank.’  The manifestation of juvenile displeasure lasted until late in the evening.”

As it turned out, the children did not get their tank back and things returned to normal at Engine Company 18.

On October 18, 1966 the Engine Company responded to a particularly lethal blaze on West 22^nd Street and Broadway.  It would be the darkest day for the company to date.  The old converted brownstone buildings were engulfed, necessitating a response from not only Company 18, but Engine Company 5, Ladder Company 7 and Ladder Company 2.

While the fire fighters struggled with the blaze, the cellar was becoming an inferno, unbeknownst to the crews inside.  At the last minute a cry of “get out, get out” was raised, but it was too late.  “All at once, with a thunderous crash, a 20-by-5-foot section of floor gave way.  There was a burst of flame that rolled along the ceiling of the drugstore and flared out into the street,” said The New York Times.

In the worst disaster in the Fire Department’s history, twelve firefighters were killed that night.  Of the seven members of Engine Company 18 to respond to the blaze, only two returned; Fireman John Donovan who arrive d late, and Fireman Manuel Fernandez who was connecting hoses in the street.

In 1976 the country was taken with renewed patriotism as the nation’s bicentennial was celebrated.  For its part Engine Company 18 painted its baydoor—now a single garage-type door that replaced the originals—with a remarkable mural depicting a fire engine heading forward along a red, white and blue path. 

The vibrant, colorful mural became a Village landmark and the City of New York budgets funds each year for the restoration and preservation of the urban artwork.

As terrorism and the threat of hazardous materials attacks grew, the City responded by increasing its specialized units trained in handling hazardous materials and weapons of mass destruction.  On July 1, 1998 Engine Company 18 was designated Squad Company 18.  It would not be long before the new squad’s training and expertise would be called upon.

The tragedy of the fatal 1966 fire was surpassed on September 11, 2001 when terrorists flew airliners into the World Trade Towers.   Eight brave men from Engine Company 18 who rushed to the aid of the innocent civilians targeted in the mindless attack were lost.

LeBrun’s handsome firehouse is little changed since it opened in 1892.  It is a familiar Village landmark that has seen joy and tragedy and, briefly, a few women in bathing suits.

contemporary photographs taken by the author

The 1894 Hotel St. Cloud Annex -- No. 143 West 41st Street

photo by Alice Lum

Along with its extensive real estate dealings, the Astor family was familiar with the business of running hotels.    The first John Jacob Astor started the tradition in 1836 with his Astor House—at the time the most opulent hotel in New York at the time.

In 1892 the fashionable St. Cloud Hotel sat at the corner of 42^nd Street and Broadway.  When it was built in 1868 it was far uptown and considered a risky proposition.   But the owners gambled on potential business from Cornelius Vanderbilt’s ambitious Grand Central Depot which was about to be constructed.  The New York Times later reported that “proved to be the case.”

For over two decades the Rand brothers had operated the St. Cloud.  Now, on October 19, 1892, John Jacob Astor IV purchased the hotel for $850,000—a staggering $19.5 million today.   In reporting the deal, The New York Times noted “In addition to the hotel proper, the property includes two four-story brownstone houses adjoining on Forty-second Street and a narrow vacant plot in the rear on Forty-first Street.”

Astor kept the Rand brothers on as proprietors and the press announced “no intention at present of rebuilding or in any wise altering the property.  It was bought merely as a real-estate investment for surplus funds, in accordance with the well-known policy of the Astors.”

Nevertheless, the pesky 16-foot wide lot behind the hotel was soon improved.  A year later Astor commissioned architect Philip C. Brown to design an annex to the hotel here.   If Brown designed any other buildings in his career, they are undocumented. 

photo by the author

Completed in 1894 the eight-story Romanesque Revival style structure was connected internally to the main hotel.  Brown faced the structure in buff-colored brick and stepped away from the Romanesque style long enough to lavish it with Beaux Arts decorations.  The architect treated the skinny addition with dignity, adding a dramatic three-story arched opening above the second floor.  Decorated with terra cotta, it foreshadows the self-confident theater architecture that would soon flood the Times Square area.

The annex offered additional rooms and rentable semi-public rooms.  As it was being constructed the Knickerbocker Whist Club was incorporated in the fall of 1893.  Organized by Edward A. Smith, Harry S. Williams, John Hopper and J. C. Wilson it started in the Broadway Central Hotel.   The card game had fallen out of fashion for a period, but was suddenly regaining popularity.

On March 8, 1894 The New York Times noticed that “The game of whist has been having a quiet but unmistakable revival not only in this city, but in other parts of the country, this Winter.  The youngest organization in New-York which devotes itself entirely to the game is the Knickerbocker Whist Club, whose rooms are in the Hotel Wellington Annex, at Madison Avenue and Forty-second Street.”

Although the Knickerbocker was the youngest of the clubs, it was among the best.  “The Knickerbockers do not say much, but they go right on winning matches with a regularity which is exasperating to their rivals,” said The Times.

In 1897 the club moved its headquarters to the St. Cloud annex; what The Sun called “larger and better quarters.”  The club managed to have its own private entrance to the building on 41^st Street.   The strait-laced Victorian players were quick to point out that there was nothing illicit in their games.

“The fundamental idea of this club is the encouragement of playing whist strictly as an intellectual amusement, no betting of any kind being permitted.”

The Sun commented on the affordable cost of joining the club.  “The annual dues have been fixed at the very moderate sum of $10, no initiation fee, and the rooms will be open to members from 2 to 12 daily.”

A year after moving in, the Knickerbocker Whist Club initiated a startling concept—they invited women.   On February 2, 1898 The Sun reported that “To-night will be the second guest night at the Knickerbocker Whist Club, 143 West Forty-first street, and a large number of women are expected.  The game will be conducted on the Mitchell compass system, and valuable prizes will be given to the women making the best scores.”

The experiment worked.  On February 13 The Sun announced “The Knickerbocker Whist Club has determined to place its quarters at 143 West Forty-first street at the disposal of women players, for their exclusive use every Monday from 2 to 6 o’clock, beginning to-morrow.  Several New York women have arranged to be on hand to organize a club of some kind.  The only expense for the use of the rooms will be the card money, 10 cents for each player.”

The newspaper approved of the forward thinking move that included the feminine sex in the games.  “This is certainly a move in the right direction, and it is an opportunity that should not be neglected by the many women players who have been wishing for suitable quarters in a convenient neighborhood.”

Other rooms were leased as the committee headquarters of the Republican County Committee and the Republican Party in the City of New-York.

In 1902 Astor ordered the demolition of the aging Hotel St. Cloud.  In its place he stipulated a grand hotel that would cost no less than $2 million.  The 16-foot wide annex on 41^st Street was allowed to stay; possibly because of its problematic dimensions.

It is tempting to think that the Knickerbocker Whist Club had something to do with the naming of the grand new hotel.  Whether or not, the 16-story Knickerbocker Hotel opened on October 23, 1906, after a full four years of construction.

The first floor of the annex was converted to the service entrance to the new hotel—removing the unglamorous deliveries from the sight of patrons and passersby.    At the same time an attic addition was constructed.  Two handsome copper-clad dormers crowned by peaked pediments were guarded by menacing griffins on pedestals.

photo by Alice Lum

John Jacob Astor died when the R.M.S. Titanic sank on April 15, 1912.  His 20-year old son, Vincent, immediately became one of the wealthiest young men in America, and new owner of the Knickerbocker.  In 1920 he converted the massive hotel to retail space on the ground floor and offices above.  The New-York Tribune mentioned that the property included “a 16.8 foot outlet at 143 West forty-first Street,” but gave no details on any related conversion.

However the annex, too, was transformed into office space.  In 1930 the new publishing firm, Walton Book Co., established it offices here.  One of the first books It published from No. 143 was a new edition of John Marshall’s “Life of Washington.”

The block of West 41^st Street suffered indignation throughout most of the 20^th century as industrial buildings, many connected with the garment industry, replaced older structures.   By October 1988 when the Landmarks Preservation Commission met to discuss landmark designation for the Knickerbocker, the 41^st Street block was decidedly gritty.

During the hearings the owner of the old hotel building objected “to including a small annex on 41^st Street,” according to the then-building manager Holly Hunter.

The stone griffins and marvelous copper dormers steal the spotlight from the building's other decorative elements -- photo by Alice Lum

Philip C. Brown’s only known work, the skinny St. Cloud Hotel Annex, survives today probably because of its abnormally narrow footprint.   Despite its arcane location and less-than-gentle use for nearly a century, it retains its dignified posture and its scary griffins on the roof.

 Many thanks to reader Rich Stueber for requesting this post

A House Where Art was Created -- 61 Perry Street

photo by Alice Lum

In 1828 the population of the Village of Greenwich was steadily increasing.  Attractive brick homes in the Federal style were quickly appearing on its winding streets to accommodate the new residents.  That year two identical homes were constructed at 61 and 63 Perry Street, each two-and-a-half-stories tall with Flemish bond brickwork.  A narrow horse walk burrowed between the houses which led to a small building in the rear yard.

The horse walk, today, is protected by an attractive iron gate -- photo by Alice Lum

New Jersey real estate investor James P. Demarest built the homes which were intended for financially-stable working families.  Demarest added small architectural touches like the wooden enframement of the entrance carved to mimic rusticated stone, the two columns flanking the eight-paneled door, and the delicate iron railings and newels with their cast pineapples—the symbol of hospitality.

photos by Jim Pontarelli

Throughout the Civil War years and afterward, the family of Chardavoyne W. Smith lived in the house.  Smith was listed in city directories as a “builder.”  Havilah M. Smith followed in the family tradition and for at least two years, in 1879 and 1880, was Chairman of the Finance Committee of the General Society of Mechanics and Tradesmen of the City of New-York.  He would later be elected president.

By the turn of the century the little house had become a multi-family building, and in 1906 the owner was cited for his failure to provide fire escapes.  Robert Johnson was living here around that time.  The tenant would find himself in the wrong place at the wrong time a year later.

Campbell & Co. was a trucking firm located at No. 436 West 57^th Street and the Irish-owned operation employed Italians to drive their carts and Irishmen to drive the trucks.  “Recently the Italians discovered that the truck drivers were getting $18 a week while they were getting only $12,” reported The New York Times.

The Italian workers requested $15.50 a week and demanded that the Irish workers’ wages be reduced to $15.  Management refused the demands and the already-strained relations between the Irish and Italians grew more heated.

The foreman of the truck drivers, an Irishman named George McAuliffe, had only one arm.  On the morning of January 19, 1907, the Italian cart drivers “pitched upon” him.  In the attack Dominick Leddo bit off a piece of McAuliffe’s ear.  While the melee was going on, Robert Johnson was innocently passing by the Campbell stable.

McAuliffe may have had only one arm, but he had a revolver.  “He fired it when he was attacked, but instead of hitting any of the Italians, he hit Robert Johnson,” reported The New York Times.

Johnson suffered a hole through his hand and a bullet wound to the left cheek.  (Leddo, by the way, was held on $1,000 bail for biting off the chunk of McAuliffe’s ear.)

By now Greenwich Village was becoming the Bohemian section of Manhattan, drawing artists, musicians, writers and poets to its quaint winding streets.   In 1904, artist John Sloan and his wife Dolly had moved into 61 Perry Street.

The artist, whose studio was at 35 Sixth Avenue, represented a stark change in American art.  A founder of the Ashcan School, he presented life as it was—often gritty and always realistic.  While living here he produced some of his best works—McSorley’s Bar, Wake of the Ferry, and the Sixth Avenue Elevated at Third Street among them.

Although he had created dozens of oil paintings, Sloan had not yet established himself as a force in the art world and augmented earned his income by drawing weekly puzzles for The Philadelphia Press and doing illustrations for Collier’s Weekly, Good Housekeeping, Harper’s Weekly, Scribner’s and the Saturday Evening Post.

Sloan captured McSorley's Bar while living here -- http://www.the-athenaeum.org/art/full.php?ID=27194

John and Dolly Sloan joined the Socialist Party in 1910 as their disenchantment with the political status quo festered.  He became art editor of The Masses and provided stirring anti-capitalist and anti-war drawings to the magazine as well as other socialist periodicals.

In February 1913 the Sloans moved to No. 240 West 4^th Street in order to be nearer to the studio.

Architect Arthur Paul Hess was hired to reconvert the house to a single-family home in 1927. 

In 1936, sculptor Alice Decker left her husband, political activist and sculptor John Calvin Ferguson.  Two years earlier, while still married, she had entered into an affair with the widely-talented and married Lewis Mumford.  Although she attempted twice to end the relationship (at her husband’s demand), she was extremely unhappy in her marriage and, instead, ended that.

photo by Alice Lum

By 1942 she was living in the house at 61 Perry Street and turned the little two-story building in the rear into her studio.  Using a variety of materials she created modern art sculptures ranging from social comment, like her Scrubwoman carved from wood, to purely artistic forms like sleeping cats.

In 1949, although Department of Buildings records still listed it as a single-family dwelling, it was listed for sale as a “four-family home with rear two-story studio house.”

The artistic tradition of the house continued when it became home to poet Lloyd Frankenberg and his wife, artist Loren MacIver.  The pair became close friends with poet E. E. Cummings who also lived in the Village in Patchin Place, and poet Robert Lowell. 

A frequent house guest was poet and short story writer Elizabeth Bishop who would stay for extended periods.  Bishop was the Poet Laureate of the United States from 1949 to 1950 and a Pulitzer Prize winner for Poetry in 1956.

On March 4, 1975, poet, critic and anthologist Lloyd Frankenberg died in the house on Perry Street at the age of 67.  Loren MacIver lived on here until she died at the age of 90 on May 3, 1998.  The artist, whose work was exhibited in retrospectives in museums like the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Phillips Collection in Washington DC, and the Newport Harbor Museum, once said “I never thought of painting as a career.  I cannot tell you how casual it was.  I never intended to be a painter.  I just like to paint.”

photo by Alice Lum

The house, today, is divided into two duplex apartments.  The Federal-period interiors have been gutted and modernized, but the exterior retains its 1828 appearance.   Through its charming doorway have passed some of America’s most talented artists, poets and writers.