The Lost Juilliard Mansion -- No. 11 West 57th Street

photograph by Wurts Bros. from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York http://collections.mcny.org/C.aspx?VP3=SearchResult_VPage&VBID=24UAYWNA38W3&SMLS=1&RW=1280&RH=915

Among the wealthy urban pioneers who ventured as far north as West 57^th Street in the post-Civil War years were John and Elizabeth Auchincloss.  John was the grandson of Hugh Auchincloss who arrived in New York City in 1803 and started the family dry goods business soon afterward.  By mid-century the Auchincloss family was among the wealthiest in Manhattan and the fine 30-foot wide brownstone rowhouse of John and Elizabeth at No. 11 West 57^th Street reflected the fact.  Decades later The New York Times would remember “the couple lived for a time in Whitehall Street, but when crowded out by the encroachment of business houses, moved up to what was then the suburbs, now the very heart of the city.”

After John died in 1876, Elizabeth continued to live on in the 57^th Street house.  She would see the neighborhood change as the mansions of the Vanderbilts, Goulds and Goelets rose along Fifth Avenue, just steps from her door.

Across the street from Elizabeth, by 1895, Augustus D. Juilliard and his wife Helen lived at No. 16 West 57^th Street.  Juilliard had been born on at sea in 1836 as his Huguenot parents headed to the United States.  A self-made man, by now he was well-respected, highly successful and unbelievably wealthy.  The New York Times said of him on September 24, 1895 “Augustus D. Julliard is head of one of the most prominent dry goods commission houses in the city.  He is a Republican, a member of the Union League Club, and a leader in the High-Tariff League.  He is a trustee of the Mutual Life Insurance Company and a Director in the Central Trust Company, the Bank of Jamaica, and the United States Guaranty and Indemnity Company.”

Juilliard was also a Parks Commissioner at the time and would increase his fortune in railroads, as well.  He and Helen were childless and devoted much of their time and money to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Metropolitan Opera (of which Augustus was President), and the American Museum of Natural History.

Meanwhile, Elizabeth Auchincloss continued her regime of summers in Newport.  In 1902 The New York Times mentioned “She returned last week from her Summer home in Newport, of which she was a pioneer Summer cottager more than half a century ago.”  Only days after her return she became ill and on October 27, 1902 the 80-year old socialite died in the 57^th Street house.

A few months later, on January 24, 1903, the four-story house was sold to Augustus D. Juilliard for $215,000—a considerable $5.5 million in today’s dollars.  At the time the house sat squarely in Manhattan’s most exclusive residential neighborhood.  Few recognized the threat of the hotels and business buildings that were creeping up Fifth Avenue—already having claimed as victims the John and William Astor mansions twenty blocks below.  Most millionaire homeowners still believed that the commercial tide could be successfully held off.

Augustus D. Juilliard in 1910 -- The National Cyclopaedia of American Biography (copyright expired)

Among those confident in the stability of the neighborhood were the aging Juilliards.  The architectural firm of Trowbridge & Livingston was commissioned to design a modern mansion to replace the outdated Victorian and by August 5, 1905 things were well under way.  The Real Estate Record and Builders’ Guide reported that “Marc Eidlitz & son…have just obtained the general contract to build the 5-sty stone residence…which Augustus D. Juilliard, 16 West 57^th st., will build at No. 11 West 57^th st., at an estimated cost of $70,000.”  The Auchincloss mansion had already been demolished and the Guide said “operations will be pushed rapidly.”

As construction continued, the couple remained across the street and in their lavish summer estate in Tuxedo Park, New York.  Among the last gatherings in the old house was a somber one.  The funeral of Helen’s young nephew, Frederick Henry Cossitt, was held in the house on July 12, 1906.  Cossitt was killed in the infamous train wreck in Salisbury, England.  The Times reported “A large crowd gathered outside the house and looked on as the coffin, covered with orchids, was carried to the hearse.”

Helen soon erected an addition to the Young Men’s Christian Association on West 57^th Street in memory of Frederick.

Trowbridge & Livingston’s completed five-story mansion was masterful.  The French Renaissance façade was not overly-ornamented; relying on the broad oriel that rose floor-after-floor to a climax of finials, carved decoration and an arched pediment.  A steep mansard punctuated by two delightful pointy dormers and elaborate cresting completed the design.  Inside the 16^th century motif continued, heightened by the Juilliards’ extensive collection of vintage tapestries and antiques.

Visitors entered a marble-walled foyer, beyond which was the staircase hall.  photographer unknown, from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York http://collections.mcny.org/C.aspx?VP3=SearchResult_VPage&VBID=24UAYWNA38W3&SMLS=1&RW=1280&RH=915

In July 1910 the Juilliards arrived in Europe and on August 7 were motoring from Geneva to Evian-les-Bains.  Their chauffeur, according to a Swiss reporter, was driving “at a rapid pace, when a girl on a bicycle appeared almost directly in front of them.”  The frightened girl lost control of her bicycle and zigzagged across the roadway.  In order not to hit her, the chauffeur “was compelled to swerve his machine sharply.”  The limousine landed in a ditch and both Augustus and Helen Juilliard were thrown out of the vehicle.  Augustus received a serious head wound.

The New York Times reported that “A passing automobile found the injured man lying by the roadside, his head supported by his wife.  The car was a wreck in the ditch.”

 

Compared to most over-decorated and crowded Edwardian interiors, the Juillard rooms were understated.  Huge tapestries cover the walls in this sitting room --   photographer unknown, from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York http://collections.mcny.org/C.aspx?VP3=SearchResult_VPage&VBID=24UAYWNA38W3&SMLS=1&RW=1280&RH=915

Juilliard recovered and the accident did not discourage the couple from traveling.  The following summer they were back in Switzerland for the entire season.  Although warring in Egypt with what The Times called “its possible consequent inconveniences” had caused many wealthy Americans to forego trips to the Mediterranean; the idea of a European war was unthinkable.  Millionaire New Yorkers who were not idling their time away in Newport, Bar Harbour and other American summer resorts, were flocking to Paris, London, and Rome.

On October 28, 1911 the Juilliards boarded a luxury steamer back to New York.  Also on the passenger list was George Gould (he told a reporter that day “I do not take a very active interest in business myself.  My great hobby is traveling.”  The Goulds and the Juilliards steamed home on the RMS Lusitania—the civilian ship that would be torpedoed by the Germans in 1915.

In the dining room, too, tapestries are the chief decoration --   photographer unknown, from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York http://collections.mcny.org/C.aspx?VP3=SearchResult_VPage&VBID=24UAYWNA38W3&SMLS=1&RW=1280&RH=915

Helen Cossitt Juilliard was more well-known for her philanthropy than her lavish entertaining.  Wealthy in her own right, for years she managed the Lincoln Hospital and Home and around 1895 gave the St. John’s Guild its first hospital boat, the Helen C. Juilliard.  Another hospital boat (with the same name) was launched in Wilmington, Delaware in 1915.  When her sister, Mrs. George E. Dodge, died in 1911 Helen paid for part of the new building of the New York Orthopedic Dispensary and Hospital on East 59^th Street; and financed Colorado College’s “Frederick H. Cossitt Memorial” complex.  It contained a gymnasium, reading and club rooms, dining hall and stadium.

The upholstered furniture in the Library, with its built-in bookcases and stenciled beamed ceiling, give the room a homey feel --   photographer unknown, from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York http://collections.mcny.org/C.aspx?VP3=SearchResult_VPage&VBID=24UAYWNA38W3&SMLS=1&RW=1280&RH=915

Helen’s health began failing in 1915 and on April 2, 1916 after a long illness she died in the house on West 57^th Street.  Of her $5 million estate, one-fifth went to Augustus, as well as the Tuxedo Park estate and the carriage house at No. 111 West 51^st Street.  The remainder went to relatives and to charitable and educational intuitions..After nearly 40 years of marriage, Augustus now lived on alone in the cavernous house surrounded by his staff. 

An antique Asian jardiniere serves as a cane stand in the entrance hall --   photographer unknown, from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York http://collections.mcny.org/C.aspx?VP3=SearchResult_VPage&VBID=24UAYWNA38W3&SMLS=1&RW=1280&RH=915

Just three years later the 83-year old millionaire contracted pneumonia and died in the house on April 25, 1919.  Mourners at his funeral in St. Thomas Church five days later composed a virtual Who’s-Who of New York businessmen and tycoons.  The ten pallbears were among the city’s richest and most respected citizens:  Elihu Root, George F. Baker, Charles A. Peabody, W. Emlen Roosevelt, Edward J. Berwind, Adrian Iselin, Frederick de Peyster Foster, Frank K. Sturgis, Chester A. Braman, and Charles H. Sabin.  In the pews were businessmen like Rodman and John Wanamaker, J. Pierpont Morgan, Robert Fulton Cutting, Ogden Mills, Thomas F. Ryan and his wife, and Mr. and Mrs. Henry Seligman.

Now New York and, indeed, the entire country paused to discover what would become of Augustus D. Juilliard’s vast millions.  Two months later the will was filed for probate.  After a few provisions for relatives and charitable institutions, Juilliard had left the bulk of his estate--$15 million—to found a fund “for the advancement of music in the United States.”  It was the beginning of the Juilliard Foundation, created in 1920 and the Juilliard School of Music.

Despite the valiant attempts of the Vanderbilts and other millionaires, the once-exclusive Fifth Avenue neighborhood, by now, had been lost to commerce.  Before long the Juilliard mansion was converted for business on the ground floor and rooms upstairs leased as apartments.  The Dudensing Gallery was an early tenant at street level.  It provided exposure to young American painters.  Here in 1927 Peter Evergood had his first one-man show.

As the Nazi Party gained power in Germany, the former Juillard house became headquarters of the German Railroads Information Office.  The director was Ernst Schmitz.  Later, as the United States was pulled into World War II, an investigation by Washington’s Special Committee on Un-American Activities discovered that Schmitz’s office was less benign that it seemed.

The investigation revealed “Although this agency was ostensibly a business enterprise set up for the purpose of promoting rail travel in Germany, it was in fact primarily a Nazi propaganda outlet.”  Among the evidence seized was a letter from Schmitz dated November 30, 1939 which read:

Dear Dr. Zapp:  On Wednesday, December 6^th at 7 P. M. a number of people of the Intelligence Service of the Rome-Berlin Asix are meeting at my private apartment on the third floor of the house, 11 West 57^th Street, for a very informal dinner.

I would be happy if you could join and I should be grateful if you could give me your answer by Monday afternoon, by telephoning by my office, using the number Wickersham 2-0224.

With kind Regards, Heil Hitler!

On June 16, 1941 the German Railroads Information Office was ordered to leave the United States.

The magnificent Juillard residence survived for another three decades.  For most of the time art galleries operated from its street level.  Then in 1974 it and several surrounding buildings were demolished to be replaced by George Bunshaft’s iconic Solow Building.  

The site of the Juilliard mansion is now occupied by the western portion of the sloping Solow Building.  photo by Alice Lum

The Emanuel Libman House -- No. 180 East 64th Street

Jonas Langfeld’s brownstone clad house at No. 180 East 64^th Street was different from the rest of the homes on the block.  His, like the others, was three stories tall over an English basement and featured a tall stone stoop.  But Langfeld’s, completed in 1879, broke the flat-faced mold.  The architect had increased the living space of the somewhat narrow home by jutting two of the three bays out to the property line.  The result was a crooked and charming footprint and interiors awash with sunlight.

Langfeld, like his neighbors, was financially comfortable; the owner of a pocketbook factory.  The New York Times described him on February 27, 1886 as he was considered for jury duty in a murder trial.  “Mr. Langfeld has a high, bald forehead, small, dark side whiskers, and a small mustache.  He said he was a Pennsylvania German, was in the pocketbook trade, had a factory in Philadelphia, an office at No. 336 Broadway, and a residence at No. 180 East Sixty-fourth-street.”

Three years after Langfeld served his jury duty the house was sold to Fajbush Libman, a successful picture framer who had emigrated from Poland in 1865.  Libman and his wife, Hulda Spivak Libman, had 11 children, two of which died in childhood.  He was determined that his children would be raised in intellectual atmosphere.  According to a relative later, each night after dinner they were required to take a role in a classic work like a Shakespearean play.

Among those reciting Shakespeare in the dining room was Emanuel Libman—somewhere in the middle of his siblings age-wise.  The boy would study at the College of Physicians and Surgeons and do post-graduate work in Berlin, Vienna, Prague and Munich.  Back in New York he became Professor of Clinical Medical at Mount Sinai Hospital in 1900.

Hulda Libman died in 1904 and the following year Fajbush retired and moved to an apartment in the Hotel Breakers in Atlantic City.  Emanuel kept the family home which included his father’s classical library; sharing it with his unmarried sister, Esther, who kept house.  Around the time that their father left, another man appeared on the scene. 

Esther had attended Hunter College and held a teaching degree.  Now, at the age of 27, she was wooed by a 37-year old successful businessman of Austro-Hungarian descent.  When he applied to the family to marry Esther, he was flatly told that he could do so only if they would remain in the 64^th Street house.  They did.

Now a household of three, they maintained a staff of three most of the time.  There was a cook, a maid and a chauffeur.  Life in the house with Dr. Libman was apparently not normal.  Highly esteemed and remarkably adept at his medical practice, he was reclusive in his own home.  One of Esther’s twin sons who grew up in the house later reported that Libman took his meals in his bedroom and never socialized with the family.  Guests of the doctor would be taken to his office or his bedroom—never the living room.  Libman played the piano, but according to his nephew would do so only when no one was around.

Despite his idiosyncrasies at home, Libman was tremendously successful professionally.  His patients included Dr. Albert Einstein, Lord Northcliffe, Dr. Hideyo Noguchi, Sarah Bernhardt, and Dr. Chaim Weixmann.  His motivation was medical rather than financial and he never garnered the fortune his fame and reputation could have afforded.  The Canadian Jewish Review would remark “Dr. Libman did much charity work particularly in hospital clinics, and his charge to his wealthy patients were moderate, so that it was reported that he never earned more than $50,000 in a single year, although he could have amassed much more money had he so desired.”

Dr. Libman made the cover of Time magazine on June 10, 1935

Libman had an uncanny—some said “sixth sense”—ability to diagnose disease.  He often said he could “smell” certain diseases.  While watching a motion picture he might lean to his companion to say that the movie star was “working up to pernicious anemia;” and once while looking at an old master painting of a mother and child in the mansion of a friend he muttered, “rickets.”

Perhaps his most famous off-the-cuff diagnosis happened in 1923 when he was invited to the Harding White House for dinner.  The following morning he called a protege and said “Who is the Vice-President?  Because whoever he is, within six months he will be President.  The President has a disease of the coronary arteries.”  On August 2, 1923 Warren G. Harding suddenly collapsed and died.   His Vice-President, Calvin Coolidge became President as Libman had predicted.

Emanuel Libman never married.  According to his prominent psychiatrist nephew George L. Engel in a 1985 interview, Libman was doubtlessly a homosexual, as was the chauffeur.  In the first half of the 20^th century the discovery of a prominent physician’s homosexuality would have devastated his career.  It is possibly this strain of needing to repress his natural inclinations that resulted in the doctor’s reclusive and authoritarian behavior at home.

Esther Engel’s husband died in 1928.  She and her famous brother continued to live in the East 64^th Street house together.  Libman sloughed off any acclaim for his continuous philanthropies saying “Most people do nothing and so when one does something, most people think he is doing a great deal.”

His charitable work did not always involve merely money.  When Hitler rose to power he threw himself into helping expatriated German physicians.  In 1939 he worked arduously to find positions for exiled German doctors throughout the world. 

Within four years Emanuel Libman’s glorious career would begin unraveling.  In 1943 he suffered a stroke while attending a cardiology conference in Mexico City.  When he was met by family members in St. Louis the formerly fastidious and brilliant man was suddenly confused, disheveled and unable to see on the left side.  Back in New York he attempted to continue his practice, but understandably it fell off.

In the spring of 1946, in typical fashion, Libman diagnosed himself.  “In about six or seven weeks, I will be dead of a coronary thrombosis, a cerebral thrombosis, or a mesenteric thrombosis.”  Doctors dismissed his prediction.

A few weeks later he was operated on for appendicitis, after which Libman complained “These damn fools!  They operated on an old man for appendicitis.  They should know that it was mesenteric thrombosis.”  The doctors—some of whom had been students of Libman—humored him and went on with the post-surgery regime.  Five days later Libman was dying.  Dr. Robert Loeb, Chairman of Medicine at Columbia arrived and examined him.  He diagnosed mesenteric thrombosis.  Libman died the following day.

Emanuel Libman’s will stipulated that the house on East 64^th Street be sold within two years of his death.  The house with the quirky angles became apartments in the second half of the 20^th century.  Then, in 1997, the new owner, Austrian developer Peter Cervinka commissioned Scarano Architects to do what the firm called “the gut renovation of 180 East 64^th street” that “converted a four-family brownstone into a single-family ‘mini-mansion.’”

A three-year renovation resulted in a 6,000 square foot residence attempting on the outside to be a miniature royal palace and on the inside a Parisian maison.  Behind the somewhat self-important gates the stuccoed façade is ornamented with pseudo-royal symbols and over-the-top decoration.  The New York Observer called it “Viennese elegance.”

It was the sort of house—with its 8-person Jacuzzi--that attracted Mike Tyson to put a bid on it in 2002.  At the time the newly-renovated property was listed at $10.75 million.  But not everyone was as enthusiastic.  One real estate broker remarked to the New York Observer “It is not in the New York spirit.  Of course, if somebody wants to have a little Versailles in New York, you might go for that.”

The formerly-unpretentious home now has its own set of palace gates.

There is no trace left of Dr. Emanuel Libman’s brownstone that prompted The New Yorker’s S. N. Behrman to say on April 8, 1939, “The Doctor is proud of the antiquity of his house; he will seize you by the arm, take you to the front windows on the fourth floor, and make you look back through the hall and his study to the windows facing on the garden.  The line is not true.  The house curves somewhere along its middle, and this architectural eccentricity Dr. Libman cherishes.”  

It remains, however, an architectural eccentricity, sure to catch the eye of the casual passerby on East 64^th Street.

Royal symbols surmount a third floor window.

photographs taken by the author

The 1909 Hook & Ladder 40 Firehouse -- No. 6 Hancock Pl.

Howard E. Constable came from a proud Philadelphia family.  He could boast of ancestors like William Constable, Aide-de-Camp to General La Fayette; William Richards who fought with George Washington at Valley Forge; B. W. Richards, who had served as Philadelphia’s mayor from 1829 to 1832; and Samuel Witherill, “one of the founders of the free or fighting Quakers.”

After serving several years in the bridge and building departments of the Reading, Pennsylvania and Erie railroads, he studied architecture in Europe.  Upon his return he opened an office in New York City in 1886.  By 1902 he had become, according to Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain in his Universities and Their Sons, “one of the prominent architects and engineers of the metropolis.”

Howard E. Constable's large reputation was equal to his large mustache -- photograph "Universities and Their Sons" 1904 (copyright expired)

Three years after Chamberlain lavished praise on Constable, the New York City Board of Estimates considered a new firehouse for the expanding Harlem neighborhood.    The Commissioner of the Fire Department had chosen a site at No. 46 Hancock Place and on June 9, 1905 the Board approved it.

Howard Constable would eventually receive the commission to design the new station for Hook and Ladder Company 40; but then as now the wheels of New York City bureaucracy ground slowly.  Not until August 1908 were plans filed.  On Auust 23 the New-York Tribune reported that “a three story and basement fire station house is to be built for a hook and ladder company on Hancock Place, west of Manhattan avenue.”  The newspaper estimated the cost to be around $40,000 (about $975,000 in today’s dollars), and noted that the façade would be “of ornamental limestone lighted by large mullion bays.”

As 1909 drew to a close, the new firehouse was completed.  Constable had produced an imposing Beaux Arts structure equal to any downtown or in Brooklyn.  Designed during the City Beautiful Movement which proposed that monumental public buildings prompted civic pride and civilized behavior, it featured a rusticated base supporting two planar floors and a grand two-story arch.  Carved limestone panels, a decorative balcony over the bay entrance, and a ponderous stone cornice sitting on miniature brackets created a dignified home for Hook and Ladder 40.

The Company moved into the building on New Year’s Day, 1910.  On street level the fire truck, horses, hay and other equipment were housed.  Above were accommodations for the fire fighters, including an office for Battalion Chief P. Callahan and one for Captain Robert Potter; and drying racks for the hoses.  But there would be little time for unpacking.

The following day The Sun reported “Hook and Ladder 40 moved into new quarters at 6 Hancock place yesterday and the first thing on the programme was an alarm of fire at 104^th street and Amsterdam avenue.”  The fire was at the farthest reaches of the ladder company’s area of coverage and The Sun mentioned “This is the longest run the company has to make.”

For decades the fire house would be in the spotlight of good press—except for the messy incident in October 1911 when the Captain’s wife sued him for separation.  Elizabeth E. Potter accused her husband of “abusive language, intemperance and cruelty” and added “he got $2,000 from her at the time of their marriage by cajolery,” according to The New York Times.

The incident was soon forgotten and New Yorkers would repeatedly read of the heroic and daring deeds of Hook and Ladder No. 40’s men.  On December 9, 1911, for instance, 13-year old Mary Holmes was rescued by Lt. William Brindle Jr.  The girl was trapped on the second floor of the burning building at No. 2112 Eighth Avenue.  “The lieutenant went up the rear fire escape and fought his way through four rooms filled with fire and smoke,” reported The Evening World, “found the child and carried her to safety.”

An even more astounding rescue was performed by rookie George P. Fowler on the afternoon of April 18, 1917.  With less than a year in the Department, fireman Fowler responded with Company 40 to a blaze at No. 307 West 127^th Street.  One resident, Mrs. Filomena, was crouching in an open window “in an agony of panic,” according to the New-York Tribune. 

Fowler started up a ladder to rescue her, but the panicked woman jumped.  “As she leaped Fowler braced himself with one arm and caught her in mid-air with the other.”  After catching the full-grown woman with a single arm, he carried her down the ladder to the ground.  The unbelievable act earned him the Hugh Bonner Medal and the department medal the following year.

As with all fire stations, the men were called for other emergencies than merely fires.  On October 18, 1918 9-year old Barbara Blanke was crossing Broadway at 120^th Street when she had to jump out of the way of an oncoming car.  In doing so she ran directly into the path of a northbound streetcar.

“When David Ingman, the motorman, had slammed on his brakes and leaped to the ground he found the body wedged under the forward truck,” reported the New-York Tribune the next day.

The little girl was calm and quickly said to him “Please send for my mother at once.  I am Barbara Blanke, of 49 Claremont Avenue.  Tell her I am all right, but I want her.”

Ingman ran to a telephone and called Hook and Ladder Company 40.  Before the firemen arrived, Patrolman Tobin had crawled under the streetcar, only to find the girl tightly wedged in.

“While he attempted to loosen it the little girl talked with him calmly and offered suggestions as to how she could be soonest released,” said the Tribune.

By the time  the firemen and Officer Tobin got Barbara out, her mother had arrived.  “Barbara went home with her, refusing medical aid,” reported the newspaper.

When the men of Hook and Ladder No. 40 arrived at a tenement building fire at No. 187 St. Nicholas Avenue on October 19, 1924, they found five children hanging from he window ledges of the fourth floor. 

Lieutenant Byrne shouted to the children to hold on.  Even as the aerial ladder was still being raised, Fireman Patrick Russell clambered up it.  Simultaneously a 30-foot hand ladder was raised and Fireman Wesley Williams climb that one.  Suddenly, just as Williams reached the top of his ladder, 19-year old William Thompson let go of the window ledge and fell to the aerial ladder.  He held on for a second, then began to lose his grip.

“Williams, by a daring jump from his ladder to the aerial, caught Thompson as he seemed ready to fall and carried him to safety,” reported The New York Times the following day.

The fire had started in a baby carriage on the first floor, investigators later learned.  It spread up through the stairway, mushroomed, and engulfed the top floor.  The children were forced out of the windows and were clinging there four floors above the pavement.

“Its rapid ascent through the wooden stair well cut off escape by that way,” explained Chief Martin later.

All of the remaining children dangling from the windows were rescued by the ladder company.  Despite the severe damage to the building, only seven persons were injured.  Because of the professionalism and training of the Ladder Company, there were no fatalities.

The stories of the heroism of Hook and Ladder Company 40 would make headlines for decades to come.  The following year The New York Times ran a headline that read “Rescuers Catch Infant Flung from a Fire-Escape Ladder by Father.”  But in 1966 the fire fighters would be called on for a far different act of civic duty.

The once-quiet Harlem neighborhood had vastly changed in six decades.  On November 9 at around 11:15 a.m. a would-be robber entered the coin-operated laundry of Martin Pollan at No. 41 Bennett Avenue.  The 45-year old store owner struggled with the robber and was shot in the arm.  The crook fled, pursued by the injured Pollan.

When he fled into a building next to the firehouse, the store owner shouted to the fire fighters.  They joined in the pursuit and search.   As police arrived, the combined force of firemen and officers spread out, finally nabbing the 37-year old suspect in the basement of No. 373 West 123^rd Street.

By now the 1909 firehouse had outlived its functionality.  Constructed for a single horse-drawn truck, the 28-foot wide structure could not accommodate modern equipment.  When George Faison came across the building in 1999 it had been abandoned by the Fire Department.

Faison had been a member of the Alvin Ailey American Dance company and had choreographed Broadway plays like The Wiz, for which he earned a Tony Award; and Don’t Bother Me, I Can’t Cope.”  He was also awarded an Emmy for choreographing the HBO movie The Josephine Baker Story.

He purchased the old firehouse and, after considerable renovation, opened The Faison Firehouse Theater.  Faison saw the opportunity not only to promote Harlem and live theater; but to give local youths an introduction to the stage and possible job opportunities.

He told the Daily News’ writer Clem Richardson in 2011 “We’re trying to open these kids’ minds to the possibilities of working in the theater, whether they work behind the scenes, sing, dance of write.  Most of us never the the chance to play with all the things the theater offers.”

Howard E. Constable’s handsome Beaux Arts fire house survives today, if a bit grimy, because of the efforts of George Faison--an outstanding example of recycling vintage structures for the benefit of the immediate community.

photographs by the author

The May Van Alen House -- No. 125 East 69th Street

It was not grand mansions individually designed for Manhattan’s wealthy class that appeared east of Fourth Avenue (later renamed Park Avenue) in the 1870s.  Those palaces would be closer to Central Park and on Fifth Avenue proper at the time.  Instead, developers threw up rows of more affordable, speculative rowhouses aimed at the middle and upper-middle classes.

Christopher Keyes was one of these real estate operators and between 1872 and 1873 he erected 11 such homes on East 69^th Street.  Designed by architect John Sexton, they stretched from No. 107 to 127 engulfing most of the north side of the block between Fourth and Lexington Avenues.  The four-story brownstones lined up like soldiers and attracted businessmen like Samuel Stirn.

No. 125 became home to Stirn—he was most likely the original owner.  He had come to America from his native Germany in 1847, settling in California.  After establishing a general merchandise business he made the grueling trip across the continent two years later, opening his Stirn Brothers store in New York with his brother Bernard.

In 1852 he married Johanna Michel and they had five children.  When he retired in 1868 at the age of 46, Stirn Brothers was, according to The New York Times, “one of the leading importing houses of this city.”  Now living at No. 125 East 69^th Street he invested his time and money in real estate.  In 1893 Stirn (whose name was often misspelled as “Stern” in newspapers) recognized the potential of new technology and became a major investor in the Universal Electric Pull Socket Switch Company. 

The Stirn family would stay on in the house until shortly after Samuel Stirn’s death.  On the morning of July 22, 1902 the 80-year old died in house he had called home for decades.  For two years the family leased No. 125 to the Somborn family.  Daughter Edith was enrolled at Barnard College in 1903 and was a valued member of the girls’ freshman basketball team.

Then on March 11, 1904 the Stirns sold the house to Mrs. Julia Friend.  She quickly turned the house around, selling it seven months later on October 4.  The new owner had big plans for the property.

James J. Van Alen had married Emily Astor, the daughter of William Backhouse Astor and his indomitable wife, Caroline Schermerhorn Astor—“the Mrs. Astor”—in 1876.  Emily died during the birth of their third child in 1881 and Van Alen essentially left the schooling and rearing of his children to tutors and relatives in England.  Now daughter May was not only one of the most eligible debutantes in Manhattan, she was the apple of her Grandmother Astor’s eye.

It was James Van Alen who purchased the old Stirn residence.  He set to work having the house remodeled into a suitable mansion for his unmarried daughter.  A month after the purchase The New York Times reported “Plans have been filed at the Building Department for the remodeling and enlargement of the four-story dwelling at 125 East Sixty-ninth Street, into a town house for Miss May Van Alen, daughter of James J. Van Alen.”

Van Alen had commissioned architect S. Edson Gage to do the make-over and plans were well underway.  The Times said on November 3, “A new façade of Colonial design is to be erected of ornamental brick, with stone trimmings, and having a portico supported by four columns.”  Gage estimated the cost of the renovation to be about $16,000 (a significant $400,000 in today’s dollars).

As contractors worked on the house, May steamed off to Europe with Caroline Astor.  A generation earlier a single woman living alone would have been scandalous.  Now, however, modern heiresses flexed their independence.  The Los Angeles Herald on July 30, 1905 referred to them as “bachelor girls in society.”

The newspaper said somewhat sarcastically, “She may design her own decorations, select her own furnishings, but she cannot carry her oft-debated plans out piecemeal and single handed as does her less wealthy sister.  A host of decorators and architects, art furnishers, picture dealers, curio and antique dealers wait upon her commands, and she must have her future residence rebuilt and furnished throughout in a style of approved elegance before she takes possession of it, if she is to merge independent existence successfully with her social career.”

To illustrate the point, the Los Angeles Herald turned to May Van Alen.  “Thus Miss Van Alen’s new house at 125 East Sixty-ninth street is being entirely made over for her occupancy.  S. Edson Gage, the architect, is remodeling the house on the style of the Adam houses, of which there are quite a number in London, but not many in New York.

“The house will have an entirely new façade, in the Adam style, made of ornamental brick.  The interior also will be entirely remodeled, and a thirty-three foot extension is being built across the entire lot.”  The newspaper described the street level entrance—all the rage in upscale residential architecture—and the servants areas to the rear.  On the second floor were the drawing room and dining room and one flight up were May’s bedroom and dressing room.  “The principal fireplaces will also be in the Adam style of decoration,” said the Herald.

With barely disguised disapproval the newspaper said of the group as a whole, “But the society bachelor girl is a bachelor girl without a chafing dish.  Incongruous though it may seem it is true.”  The writer compared the society bachelor girl's meals with those of the working girl.  “She has regular suppers prepared for her by cooks and butlers when she gives parties, and she never has midnight feasts of preserves on cheese—and calls it delicious.” 

May and her grandmother were still in Europe on July 2, 1905 when The New York Times mentioned “The Newport season is never considered actually opened until Mrs. Astor arrives.”  Newport society waited patiently for the opening of her villa.  “With her will come Miss May Van Alen,” said the newspaper, “who has taken the Louisday house for the Summer.”

The summer season in Newport would give the contractors the time they needed to finish any details on the 69^th Street mansion.  But May Van Alen would not spend a great deal of time in the completed house.  Summers in Newport and more and more time spent in London left the East 69^th Street house empty for long periods.

An immense Palladio-style window dominated the second floor, above the delicately-carved portico.

For the winter season of 1910-1911 she leased the house to Arthur Iselin.  The son of the hugely wealthy William E. Iselin he had married Eleanor Jay in 1904.  Now 33 years old, Iselin was a well-known yacht racer and polo player.  The New York Times said “He is also an automobilist.”

The following year James Van Alen sold May’s house to Mrs. Albert H. Gallatin.  The Sun reported on October 27, 1912, that “Mrs. Albert H. Gallatin and her family will pass the winter at 125 East Sixty-ninth street, a house recently purchased by them.”  Instead, however, the Iselins leased it for the winter season once again and the Gallatins moved into No. 15 East 64^th for the winter.

Arthur Iselin noticed a problem with the ceiling in one of the servant’s rooms on the fourth floor.  Early in December 1912 he arranged for a contractor to look at it.  On December 6 the butler answered the door to find a “blond young man, offering the plea that he had come to examine a ceiling,” according to a report in The New York Times.  The man was wearing blue overalls and carrying a large leather tool kit.

The butler knew about the problem with the ceiling and, after hesitating a moment, brought the workman in.  Iselin was at his downtown office and Mrs. Iselin was out.  As luck would have it, the telephone was out of order.  The butler turned the man over to a maid, telling her he would phone Mr. Iselin from a neighboring house to inform him that the workman had arrived.  The maid ushered the workman to the fourth floor room, watched him tap and walls for a few minutes, then left him to his business.

Once alone, the man sneaked to the second floor bedroom of Mrs. Iselin where he helped himself to $1,500 worth of jewelry—brooches, bar pins, rings, and small articles—left in the drawers.  Although most of the most valuable items were locked up, in the adjoining room were several items that, in his haste to escape, the burglar missed.  Among them was a $40,000 diamond tiara.

Detectives surmised that the thief overheard workmen discussing the ceiling project and went to the address, waiting outside until the Iselins were gone.

Despite the theft, the Iselins continued to lease the house for at least one more season. But by 1917 Mrs. Gallatin was living on Gramercy Park and son Albert Eugene Gallatin was living at Np. 125 East 69th along with his sister Cornlia.  Sophisticated and learned, Albert was a member of the Society of Independent Artists and of the Grolier Club.  He was the author of Aubrey Beardsley’s Drawings, Whistler Notes and Footnotes, and other books.

In May 1919 Gallatin wrote to President Woodrow Wilson urging him to send artists to the front lines to document the war in Europe.  He proposed including a permanent pictorial history of the war on exhibition in the proposed $9 million National Soldiers’ Memorial in Washington.  He told reporters “I do not believe in posthumous paintings any more than posthumous portraits, and I abhor a fake battle picture.  If, as proposed, a museum is erected in Washington as a memorial, and in this is housed paintings by our really original and vital artists, showing the American occupation of the Rhine, American battlefields as they look now, the wonders that the engineers accomplished in building railways and docks, such a museum unquestionably would be the finest kind of memorial.”

Among the artists Gallatin had in mind were Childe Hassam, George Bellows, George B. Luks and Joseph Pennell.

That same year the owners of the brownstone next door at No. 127 commissioned S. Edson Gage to update their house, as well.  Gage’s resulting Adamesque residence beautifully harmonized with the Gallatin home, giving the impression that the pair had been constructed simultaneously.

The two Gage-designed homes, renovated 15-years apart, co-exist beautifully.

Following the war Cornelia threw herself into work for disabled veterans.  The Junior League member was Treasurer of the Seamen’s Benefit Society and a member of the Citizens’ Committee of America.  That group was composed of leading citizens across the country and organized “for the purpose of arousing public interest in the welfare of the disabled veterans.”  The Citizens’ Committee was founded by Alfred FitzRoy Anderson. 

Their similar interest in aid to the veterans resulted in the December 5, 1923 announcement by Albert Gallatin that his sister would be married to Alfred Anderson.  Albert gave his sister away in Grace Church in April 1924 and the reception afterward was held in the 69^th Street house.

Just weeks before the wedding Gallatin had sold the house.  It became home to Wallace Reid and his wife, Emma.  Emma died in the house on Saturday, July 12, 1941 and Wallace stayed on for another three years.  The upscale neighborhood had drastically changed from the middle-class tone of the block in 1873.  When Reid sold the mansion to figure skater Oscar L. Richard on April 5, 1944 The New York Times remarked “Among the residents of this street are Mrs. Edgar S. Auchincloss, George B. Agnew, Ernest T. Carter and Eugene W. Mason.”

It appears that Richard was dabbling in real estate investing at the time.  “This is the sixth property to be acquired by Mr. Richard through the same brokers,” said The Times.  And indeed, within two weeks he resold the house to John P. Cunningham.

In 1950 the house was converted to apartments—a spacious duplex on the first and second floors, two apartments on the third floor and one on the fourth.  Today the Victorian brownstone that was converted to a lavish home for one of Manhattan’s most pampered Bachelor Society Girls is nearly unchanged since 1905 when she moved in. 

photos taken by the author