The Remarkable Hold Out at No. 249 West End Avenue

No. 249, the last of five rowhouses designed as a unit, now stands vised between two soaring apartment buildings -- photo wirednewyork.com

Sometimes when owners refuse to sell to developers—becoming “hold outs”—amazing results come about.

Architect Clarence Fagan True was busy on the Upper West Side in the 1890s.  He was responsible for dozens of row houses and commercial buildings; earning acclaim from some critics for creating the architectural personality of the area.

Among his townhouses were five speculative row houses built for Harry Chaffee, including No. 249 West End Avenue.  The five 15-foot wide residences were designed to imitate a single building with a unified rusticated base.  The end homes rose straight up from the property line while the three middle residences had two-story bowed, undulating facades above the first floor that created third floor balconies.

Originally, No. 249 West End Avenue was one of five handsome residences designed as a unit -- print NYPL Collection

Clad in buff-colored ironspot brick, the fifth floor windows were framed by ornate terra cotta panels that created artistic openings--the one spot where True allowed embellishment to flex its muscle.  The narrow, restrained residences were intended for successful, upper-middle class families.  The three relatively unadorned middle homes relied on the end houses to carry off the design.

Joseph Powell and his wife lived in No. 249 for a time.   The pair had an unfortunate incident on December 14, 1894 when they thought that a ride around Central Park would be refreshing.   Cabman John Dermody was driving the Powells and things were going nicely enough until the horse was spooked.  The frightened animal ran away, overturning the carriage and tossing all three occupants to the stone pavement.   Powell and the driver sprained their arms but Mrs. Powell escaped uninjured.

As the Upper West Side developed and gained popularity with financially-comfortable families, property values rose substantially.  In 1898 the five homes were assessed for tax purposes at $16,000 each.  One year later the figure rose to $18,000.

By the turn of the century the respectable house at No. 249 was home to the Cook family.  Ferdinand Huntting Cook was a director of the New York College of Dentistry and, according to The New York Times, “a descendant of one of the earliest American settlers.”   

Mrs. Cook, the former Mary Aldrich, came from an old New York family as well.  The Aldrich family name carried some weight at the time among social circles.  A graduate of Columbia University, Mrs. Cook was a member of the Daughters of the Revolution and active in the YWCA.   Her husband was a member of the Society of Colonial Wars.

In addition to Cook’s duties with the dental college, he was appointed a foreman of the Department of Parks in 1912 due to his “knowledge of trees in City streets.”

Things were going well for the Cooks and their five children until the night of January 3, 1913.  Despite the severe wind storm that was raging in the winter night, Cook left the house to go to a store at 72^nd Street and Columbus Avenue.  He never returned home.

The distraught Mary issued “a confidential alarm” the following day asking that the hospitals be searched “in the expectation that Mr. Cook was injured in the wind storm.”  Mary’s fears were well-founded.  Ferdinand Huntting Cook died one month later, on February 1.

Mary Cook remained in the house, sending her children off to college and entertaining for weddings and other social events.  By 1915 the neighborhood was undergoing change, however.

Stretches of brick and brownstone row houses, once the private homes of families like the Cooks, were being demolished by developers to be replaced by modern apartment buildings.   Mary was approached with an offer to sell.  She declined.

Although her home was shaken and her peace broken by the demolition of her neighboring homes to the north, and the building of an apartment building there in 1916; Mary stood pat.

Then, three years after she issued invitations for the marriage of her daughter, Beatrie Valerie Cook to Lester Darling Egbert, the process was repeated in 1924.  The remaining houses on the block to the south were demolished and another gigantic building erected.

Mary Cook had refused to sell and now her narrow, handsome home was an anachronism; a relic from the past sandwiched between the pages of the present.

In May 1932 newspapers announced the death of Mrs. Ferdinand Huntting Cook.   Her remarkably-surviving townhouse became the Uptown Gallery, run by Robert Ulrich Godsoe.  Here for a decade the works of cutting-edge artists like Adolph Gottlieb and Mark Rothko would be shown.

Then in 1941 the building was converted to apartments.  Today the house that Mary Cook refused to sell sits tightly squeezed between its giant neighbors, looking much like an illustration from a children’s story book.

The John Burgess Leech Mansion -- No. 520 West End Avenue

High above the sidewalk a lone gargoyle stares down -- photo by Alice Lum

In the 1890s homes and mansions on the Upper East Side of Manhattan were built in refined, conservative architectural styles.   Italian Renaissance and French Gothic residences oozed correctness and formality.

Across the park, however, things were a bit looser.  On the Upper West Side Romanesque brownstone fortresses sprouted gargoyles, Celtic designs and stained glass.  Stoops that rose in disciplined attention on the East Side here turned to the left or right or split down the middle.  Flemish Revival churches and businesses lent a quaint, historic atmosphere to the area.  Even the conservative Real Estate Record and Guide in 1890 made note of the difference, using West End Avenue as its example.

“No avenue in New York City is lined with more attractive houses for a distance of one mile north of 70^th street than West End Avenue.  Fifth and Madison, though adorned with residences, in many cases more costly, display row after row of brown stone fronts of the older type; houses that, architecturally speaking, are devoid of originality, framed as they are on a general plan of a somewhat stereotype character.”

Instrumental in the developing personality of the Upper West Side was speculative developer Richard Goodman Platt and architect Clarence Fagan True.  The two would work together several times and True would go on to design dozens of houses and other buildings in the neighborhood.

In November 1891 Platt purchased the corner lot at West End Avenue and 85^th Street from Robert and Joseph Gordon.   The deed restricted building on the plot to no more than two residences.  Platt intended however, to build just one monumental house on the 27 foot-2 inch by 100 foot site.

That same month The Real Estate Record and Guide reported that architect Clarence True had designs for a house of “red stone and Tiffany brick.”   Two months later he filed plans for the $40,000 structure.

Construction began on February 16, 1892 and less than three weeks later, on March 7, Platt sold the work-in-progress to cotton broker John Burgess Leech.  Leech paid $60,000 and was obligated to complete the construction to the architect’s specifications.

The house rising at 520 West End Avenue would be one of the largest houses on the Upper West Side.  But with nine children and a wife, the spacious home made sense for Leech.   The broker was born in London and immigrated to Memphis, Tennessee in the 1850s where he became a partner in W. A. Goodwyn, cotton merchants.

Oddly enough, the Southern firm opened a branch office in New York in the midst of the Civil War.  When things quieted down, Leech moved to New York in the 1870s, eventually working on his own.  He became a member of the New York Cotton Exchange, the Coffee Exchange and the Consolidated Exchange.    The New York Sun would later note that during his career “he acquired a large fortune.”

The home was completed on November 26, 1892 and the deed, as was typical with upper-class families in the 19^th century, was listed in the name of Leech’s wife, Isabella M. Leech.    The Leech family moved from the Hotel Bristol into the enormous home which was as picturesque as it was impressive. 

A scary bat, carved beneath the window sill beside the ornate entrance, doubtlessly gave shivers to the Leech children -- photo by Alice Lum

The entrance, above a side-hugging stoop, sat within a Romanesque arch with an ornate wrought-iron fan.  True borrowed from Romanesque, Elizabethan and Gothic Revival styles to create a romantic, fairy-tale castle of rough-cut sandstone, tan brick and orange roof tiles.  A curved corner semi-turret, multiple gables and balconies resulted in a solid yet delightful structure.

Multiple gables, a corner balcony and abundant carvings embellish the mansion -- photo by Alice Lum

Leech suffered from diabetes and only three years after moving into No. 520 West End Avenue, his health failed.   Eventually, his condition worsened, developing into what contemporary doctors called “consumption.”  He died in his bedroom in May 1897 at 66 years old.

Isabella Leech stayied on in the house until 1905 when she leased it to Mary W. Somerville who converted it into the Gordon-Winston School for young girls. The fifteen-year old house would never be a private residence again.   In 1907 the teacher purchased the building from Mrs. Leech.

Here Mary Somerville lived, with the other teachers, and up to sixteen boarding students.  The American Educational Review in 1909 noted “This school provides a beautiful home, and thorough preparation for colleges.  The wonderful advantages of the city are made a part of the daily life through environment and association.”

The same year an ad in the New York Tribune described “School for young ladies.  To specialize: music, art, languages literature, history, etc.  Every care and protection given while there is perfect freedom from the discipline of School Life.  Students introduced to what is best socially and educationally.”  The advertisement stressed that the house had steam heat and a hot water plant.

The stoop takes a turn before opening to the sidewalk -- photo by Alice Lum

In 1909 Mary Somerville transferred ownership to Virginia millionaire James Overton Winston.  Quickly, the exclusive Gordon-Winston School disappeared and Winston converted the house to eight apartments and a doctor’s office in the basement.  By 1922 the American Waldensian Aid Society had its offices here.  The organization collected funds for the aid of the Waldensian Church in Italy for “evangelistic, institutional and educational work.”

A cozy, enclosed balcony graced the parlor floor -- photo by Alice Lum

Winston’s interests were in business and definitely not in architectural preservation, especially of an aging white elephant sitting on a potentially valuable corner lot on a major New York avenue.  His millions had been made constructing bridges, dams, railroads and reservoirs.   He noticed that many of the great single-family residences of the Upper West Side were being demolished to be replaced with modern apartment buildings.

In 1931 he filed suit against the original deed restricting construction on the lot to no more than two single-family homes.   The court ruled in his favor, opening the door to the demolition of No. 520 West End Avenue.

But the Great Depression halted his plans.  Winston lost the property to foreclosure a year later.  Through a series of subsequent owners the hulking structure remained a multifamily residence and, at its lowest point during World War II, was a flop-house of 20 furnished rooms and a “community kitchen.”

Today No. 520 West End Avenue remains apartments.  The parlors and bedrooms that Isabella Leech decorated with hand-painted Japanese fans and potted palms in great majolica pots are now stripped of most architectural interest.  But the exterior remains nearly untouched; once among the grandest of the Upper West Side mansions.

The 1900 William Jay Schieffelin House -- No. 5 East 66th Street

photo by Alice Lum

In 1891 Maria Louise Vanderbilt Shepard was married to William Jay Schieffelin.  Maria’s mother, Margaret Vanderbilt Shepard, was the eldest daughter of William H. Vanderbilt; her father was Elliott Fitch Shepard.  Schieffelin came from one of the oldest and most respected patroon families and was the grandson of the first Chief Justice, John Jay.

It was one of the premier social events of the year.  Before the ceremony, 600 guests attended a wedding breakfast in the two picture galleries of William Henry Vanderbilt’s double mansion.  Among the astonishing array of wedding gifts were a silver dinner service for twenty-four, given by Mrs. William Vanderbilt; two silver dishes sent by President Benjamin Harrison and the First Lady; and “a completely-furnished house, the gift of the bride’s mother,” as reported in The New York Times.

The mansion was on West 57^th Street, just off Fifth Avenue in the most exclusive residential neighborhood in the city.  The couple lived in the house for just a few years; but Fifth Avenue in the 50s was drastically changing and millionaires were fleeing further north to escape the hotels and businesses that were encroaching.  Mother stepped in again.

Around 1898 Margaret Shepard purchased the two residences at 5 and 7 East 66^th Street, next door to the former home of Ulysses S. Grant.  She hired Richard Howland Hunt to design a grand residence in their place.  Hunt, the son of esteemed architect Richard Morris Hunt, did not disappoint.

photo by Alice Lum

Construction was completed two years later, in 1900.   For the wide, imposing mansion Hunt worked in the French Renaissance, or “cartouche-style.”  He produced a Parisian townhouse worthy of the pedigree of its owners.

Above the rusticated limestone base, a balcony with a wrought iron railing spanned the width of the structure.  Red brick and limestone rose two stories to a cornice that doubled as a second balcony.  Here, behind three robust hooded dormers, the tall mansard roof was punctuated by four copper-framed oculi, or round windows.

Hunt lavished the mansard level with exuberant ornamentation -- photo by Alice Lum

Inside, the library ran the length of the second floor and the ballroom, with dramatic arched windows. It was graced with an immense stone fireplace carved by sculptor Karl Bitter, who was simultaneously working on the façade sculptures of the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

As would be expected, the house was the scene of lavish entertainments for the cream of New York’s social circles.  When, for instance, on December 5, 1909 Mrs.Schieffelin gave a tea dance to introduce her daughter, Louise Vanderbilt Schieffelin to polite society, she was assisted by her sister, Mrs. Ernesto Fabbri, Mrs. James Henry Hammond and her daughter Emily Sloane Hammond, Cornelia Vanderbilt and Mrs. J. Cameron Clark.  These were names any social climber would had dreamed of having included on her guest list.  To have them assist in the entertainments was inconceivable to most.

Guests passed through gracefully carved oaken doors into a grand marble foyer -- photo by Alice Lum

But life at 5 East 66^th Street was not just about glittering entertainments.  The Schieffelin’s were liberal-thinking philanthropists whose social concerns were ahead of their time.  Dr. Schieffelin, who was director of his family's wholesale drug firm, Schieffelin & Co., was also the president of the Armstrong Association, “which has for its object the stimulation of interest in schools for the industrial education of the negro in the South.”  

He was also a member of the National Society for Vocational Education and the National Tuberculosis Association at a time when the disease struck terror across the country.  Mrs. Schieffelin was a member of the Indian Rights Association and a director of the City Y.W.C.A.  On November 26. 1906 the Association met in the Schiffelin residence; its main speaker that night being Booker T. Washington.

By 1928, when this shot was taken, the Schieffelins had moved to Park Avenue -- Photo NYPL Collection

Around 1925 the Schieffelins joined other wealthy New Yorkers who gave up their grand private mansions and took large apartments.  The couple moved to 620 Park Avenue, leaving the house on East 66^th Street to their daughter.

By the middle of the 1930s, Dr. Carl Eggers and his wife lived here.   The rooms blazed as dances and dinners here given here, much as they had while the Schieffelins owned the house.

photo by Alice Lum

Then, just after World War II came to an end, the house was sold to the Lotos Club.  The club was founded in 1870 as a literary club and its members selected the name—derived from Tennyson’s The Lotos Eaters—to suggest “rest and harmony.”  Among its earliest members was Samuel Clemens.

On June 13, 1947, with about 85 percent of the renovations completed, the club opened its doors to the members.  Here were a library, card room, ballrooms, meeting rooms and a domino room.  The New York Times mentioned that “according to a recently established custom, the first floor is given over to women.  A man may enter the lounge and dining room on this floor only when escorted by a woman.”

The 778 members would enjoy the latest in luxury in the grill room, located below street level.  A member had donated an air conditioning unit for the room; a rare innovation.  Two other members presented the bar.

photo by Alice Lum

Today the club still operates from William and Maria Schieffelin’s barely-altered, lavish home.  Paul Goldberger of The New York Times  said of the house, “The detailing is lavish, and comes tantalizingly close to excess.  The ability of Hunt…to push this design right to the edge and yet never lose control is impressive.”

The Lost 1840 Orphan Asylum Society -- Riverside Drive at 73rd Street

Youth Magazine, in 1840, called the above print "an exact and beautiful representation" of the new Orphan Asylum Society building.

In 1853 The Nation magazine described the living conditions for some in New York City. “There is evil enough here in New York, and suffering enough too, to appall Beelzebub himself—the commixture of all nations nearly, so many thousands of people constantly in transit, the great ingress of criminals and paupers, the very debris of European populations, and not a littler suffering from the usual misfortunes of life among our own people, make of this vast community a strange, phantasmagoric picture of life.”

It was a dismal outlook at best.

But the writer gave hope. “No city in this country—and that is equivalent to saying no city in the world—provides more abundantly, in proportion to its magnitude, for the claims of the poor.” It was the journalist’s roundabout way of introducing the reader to the Orphan Asylum Society.

Over half a century before the article was published, Scottish immigrant Isabella Marshall Graham took note of the plight of the less fortunate. Graham had established a highly successful school in the city and in 1797 founded the Society for the Relief of Poor Widows with Small Children.

Her daughter Joanna married the well-to-do merchant Divie Bethune in July, 1795.  Bethune's profitable business made it possible for him to support his mother-in-law and the newly-weds joined in her charitable cause.

Although the Society was able to provide help for many indigent widows; when these women died their children were most often left on their own. In the late 18th and early 19th centuries, orphans often fended for themselves, joining in ragged packs to survive.  Called “street Arabs,” they existed through begging and stealing.

Joanne Bethune was moved to do something about it. In 1806 she recruited some of the most influential and wealthy women of the city for her Orphan Asylum Society. Taking the position of treasurer herself, she convinced her mother’s friend Mrs. Sarah Ogden Hoffman, a woman “of commanding social position,” to become first directress—a position we would now term “president.” The Society’s second directress would be Elizabeth Schuyler Hamilton, the widow of Alexander Hamilton.

For three decades the Orphan Asylum Society operated from a small frame house on Bank Street in Greenwich Village. During the period 765 children passed through its doors. Of them 411 boys were apprenticed to mechanics or farmers and 273 girls either entered a trade (such as flower or hat making) or became employed as servants in private homes. The other 81 children died.

As the need for a larger facility became evident, contributions were solicited. Wealthy citizens were contacted and advertisements were placed in newspapers such as the Observer. Not only did substantial donations result, but small ones as well. One young man who had been taken in by the Orphan Asylum Society sent one dollar, saying in his letter “I throw in my pence, in hopes it may aid you in adding one stone, at least; but take it—it is all I have to give, but I give it with a cheerful heart.” The letter was signed “Your Orphan Boy, Wm. C.”

By 1836 the contributions were such that a new building could be planned. On June 9 the cornerstone of the new Asylum building was laid in an impressive ceremony about five miles north of the city on Bloomingdale Road.

The Bloomingdale area was a favorite among wealthy New Yorkers for erecting fine summer residences where the breezes of the Hudson River cooled the rolling landscape. Three years later on Independence Day the orphans were brought to the grounds to celebrate with “some speeches and dialogues…with alternate singing by the children, after which they partook of an excellent entertainment provided for them by their kind neighbours, Mr. and Mrs. Perrit,” according to Youth’s Magazine.

On November 19 the chapel was opened for religious worship to “a highly respectable and apparently gratified audience."  Finally in 1840 the new building was completed.

The Nation published a print of the Asylum in 1853

Although the name of the architect seems to have been lost, his work was strikingly similar to the Gothic Revival style of Alexander Jackson Davis.  A massive stone English Gothic structure, two rectangular wings flanked a gently-protruding central section. Here a flight of wide stone steps rose to a Gothic double-doored entrance under a two-story chapel window. Lancet windows, square-headed lintels, a crenelated roof line and minaret-like spires added to the romantic Gothic composition.

To the rear, the wings stretched beyond the central section, creating a courtyard -- print NYPL Collection

Youth’s Magazine praised it, saying “the beautiful building on the banks of the Hudson is alike an ornament to the city and a memorial of the liberality of its inhabitants.”

Carroll’s New York, New York City Directory was more florid in its description. “This noble institution designed for the care and culture of the tender plants of misfortune riven from the parent stem by death, is delightfully situated on the brow of a gentle slope, on the banks of the Hudson.”

Queen Victoria was married to Prince Albert the year the new building opened. The British consul invited the 45 British-born orphans to a celebration where “every attention was paid to them.” The children received an “excellent dinner” then each had “a slice of the largest wedding cake probably ever made,” according to Youth Magazine. The orphans repaid the British dignitaries by singing “Home Sweet Home.”

The youngsters were still naive regarding class and social proprieties.  That first year when two of the boys were walking along the road on an errand, a gentleman passed in his elegant carriage. Unaware of the violation of etiquette, the boys asked for a ride. The gentleman, in good humor, agreed.

Upon discovering that the boys were from the new Asylum, he asked how they liked their new home.

“Very much, sir,” they replied.

“Why do you like it?”

“Because we have not heard any one swear since we have been here.”

The gentleman subsequently used the story as an indication of the high moral character of the Bloomingdale area.

The Asylum continued to care for up to 200 children at a time. Here, said The National Magazine in 1853, they received “every necessary comfort of life, good food and clothing, protection from the corruptions of the world without, and excellent training in physical, intellectual, and moral education. No sectarianism corrupts their religious instruction.”

Elizabeth Hamilton was, as her son James Alexander Hamilton would remember, “incessant” in her involvement with the Asylum. One little boy named McKavit became her special project. Mrs. Hamilton found the boy “in the arms of a fireman whose parents had been destroyed by the burning of their house,” according to James Hamilton’s autobiography.

She instructed the fireman to take him to the Asylum and gave him the money for a carriage along with her card as introduction. The boy grew and at 16 years old, when orphans were “at the proper age” and turned out, Mrs. Hamilton arranged entry for him at the Military Academy. With some academic difficulty, he was finally graduated.

Elizabeth Hamilton stepped in again, obtaining a commission for McKavit as Second Lieutenant of Infantry. The young man was promoted to captain, served in the Mexican War, then was tragically killed at Monterey leading his company in battle.

McKavit had contributed to the Orphan Asylum Society every year after leaving and the day before he died he wrote his will, leaving all he owned to the Asylum; about $1800.

Joanna Bethune died in 1860 at the age of 90, ending over half a century of charitable work. Two years later the Society’s annual report showed there were 180 children in the institution. Over the past year 70 had been admitted, 20 were discharged and four had died. It was noted that, with the onset of the Civil War, that several boys had left to join the army. “There are several youths, formerly here and who had not yet completed their terms of service, who have enlisted in the volunteer army with zeal and strong patriotism.”

print NYPL Collection

The war had another effect on the Asylum. By the 1st of April, 1865 the number of orphans had risen to 211. Five years later, on April 12, 1870, the Rev. Dr. Hall first mentioned the need for a new asylum.

Meanwhile the city was filling with German immigrants; the Lower East Side neighborhood around the Bowery becoming known as Kleindeutschland, or “Little Germany.” The influx of German orphans caused the Asylum to institute an early example of a “You’re In America Now” attitude.

In 1873 a volunteer for the New York Bible Society dropped off 25 pocket Bibles and noted “They now take into the institution half orphans and German children. Mrs. Pell said they do not need German books as the new rule is that the German children shall be taught English only.”

In 1889 the Asylum augmented its instruction. The New York Times noted that “The teaching of singing and the drilling of the boys by a Police Sergeant had been introduced and found valuable additions to the curriculum.” By now property values along Riverside Drive were increasing as wealthy New Yorkers began moving northward.

Where, earlier, country estates had been, architects like Clarence F. True were building rows of fashionable rowhouses for well-heeled residents. The Orphan Asylum Society’s quaint Gothic Revival orphanage was not only out-dated, it was sitting on extremely valuable land.

In 1901 steel magnate Charles M. Schwab purchased the property for an astronomical $865,000—the highest price ever spent to date on a building site. Before long the Asylum was demolished, to be replaced by Schwab’s gargantuan French chateau.

The Exclusive 1902 Simpson-Crawford Dept. Store -- 641 6th Avenue

The restrained stone facade of Simpson-Crawford reflected the aloof quality of its clientele.

In the 1860s, when New York’s great retail emporiums like Arnold, Constable & Company were still doing business along Canal Street, Richard Meares opened his small dry goods store on 6th Avenue at 19th Street; an unexpected but successful location.

Meares partnered with William Crawford in 1878 and the store became known as Richard Meares & Company. A year later he left the firm and Crawford brought in Scottish-born brothers Thomas and James Simpson. The Simpsons had been operating their own fancy goods shop on 8th Avenue, called T. & J. Simpson. With the new partnership came a new name: Simpson, Crawford and Simpson.

The three set out to create not merely a dry goods store, but one that would lure the most fastidious of shoppers. Renovations were done to combine the existing store with the two adjoining structures to the north. Thomas Stent was hired to essentially construct a new building using the standing framework.

The merchants filled their elegant new four-story Renaissance Revival store with luxury items aimed at the wealthy female consumers to whom price was no object. As a matter of fact, for decades Simpson, Crawford and Simpson did not affix price tags to their merchandise—doing so would be insulting as it would suggest that perhaps the customer could not afford the item.

Here the New York’s socialites shopped for gowns by Worth, for French and Belgium laces, and for imported linens. The finest of gloves, furs and hosiery were displayed for the discriminating and fabulously wealthy shopper.

The quality and cost of the wares was evident when, on April 12, 1880, fire raged through the building.  Started by a window dresser named Maloney who, in lighting a gas jet in a show window  ignited a “gauzy article of apparel,” it quickly spread to three floors. Included in the $170,000 loss was $95,000 in dress goods—about $375,000 today.

By the turn of the century, 6th Avenue would be lined by enormous, block-wide retail palaces and would become known as The Ladies’ Mile.  Simpson, Crawford & Simpson, however, would remain aloof, preferring to avoid the middle-class clientele.

Thomas Simpson died in 1885 and the firm name was changed to Simpson-Crawford. Its customers, however, would forever refer to the store as Simpson, Crawford & Simpson. When James Simpson died in 1894, William Crawford became sole owner; but retained the store’s name.

With the great emporiums rising around it, Simpson-Crawford decided to expand its store to a full block width and erect a new commercial showplace. In 1899 the store commissioned William H. Hume & Son to design its new home.

On August 6 The New York Times described what was to come. “One of the largest and most architecturally elaborate department stores in the city will be the new building which is to house the business of Simpson, Crawford & Simpson,” the newspaper said.

Thistle-themed entrance mosaics, now caked with grime an chewing gum wads, gave a nod to the Simpsons' Scottish roots.

In a thinnly-veiled reference to the other stores on the avenue, the article said “There will be none of the cheap imitation stone and carvings often used in similar buildings. The front will be of granite and limestone, elaborately carved, and the lower story polished. The most striking feature will be the large entrance in the middle of the block, with a vestibule 50 feet in width and 13 feet in depth—the largest of its kind in the city—flanked by monolith columns of polished granite and with richly carved caps and entablature.”

The crisply-fluted columns were carved from single blocks of granite.

Living up to the press release, the building was seven stories of limestone and granite that looks disapprovingly at its more garish neighbors. The restrained Beaux Arts design reflected the conservative customers it to whom it catered.

But architectural conservatism did not rule out innovations. The first escalator (called “moving stairs”) to be installed on 6th Avenue was here, and the unusually large show windows required custom-made panes—no glassmaker in the country made plate glass produced sheets so large.

Simpson-Crawford dressed the windows with another marketing novelty, the mannequin. The paper-mache and wax figures displayed gowns and hats to ladies passing by; affording a much more realistic idea of how the items would appear when worn.

The beautiful cast iron atrium, or "vestibule" -- photo NYPL Collection

While Simpson-Crawford avoided the cast iron façade used by mammoth stores like Hugh O’Neill next door, it lavishly used the material inside. The Hecla Iron Works of Brooklyn created a show-stopping center atrium that rose seven stories to a colored-glass dome. At the top level, classical caryatids ringed the open space, staring down on the mosaic floors below.

Graceful caryatids support the glass dome seven floors above -- photo NYPL Collection

The ladies’ parlor on the second floor was decorated in the Empire style. On the roof was an enormous dining room “with decorations of the Louis Seize period,” capable of seating 1,200 guests.  Between 12:15 and 2:15 every afternoon, ladies having lunch would enjoy the music of Nahan Franko’s orchestra. In the warm months, the dining room was transformed into an open-air palm garden.

The 8th Floor Dining room -- vintage postcard

On the 19th Street side, a carriage entrance provided access for well-heeled customers alighting from sleek black broughams, thus preventing their being jostled on the 6th Avenue sidewalk. The impressive structure cost around $1,8 million.

Before the building was completed William Crawford retired. On January 15, 1902 he sold the business to Henry Siegel, owner of the Siegel-Cooper Department Store across the avenue. As the deal neared completion, Crawford noted to the press “I wanted to make the best store in the world, and believe that I succeeded. My chief aim has been to please, and I am not disappointed at the result when I look back over the growth of my business.”  There store had 2,500 employees at the time.

As business continued to grow, William Hume designed a 10-story brick-and-stone annex behind the store in 1902.

The department store steadfastly catered to the carriage trade and in 1904 Printers’ Ink magazine made note of Simpson-Crawford’s unusual advertising policy to attract the wealthier customers. Rather than advertising in both the morning and afternoon newspapers, the store focused only on the morning papers. “A full-page appears in both the Herald and Times daily,” the magazine said, “and the copy for both is very nearly the same—rather an unusual fact in New York, where each paper has a distinct following.”

By 1909 the store had branched into mail-order.

The store’s advertising manager, William H. Campbell, explained tactfully about his audience. “The Simpson-Crawford establishment is essentially high-class” and “the morning papers go into the homes of the women he wants to reach,” explained the article.  The readers of afternoon newspapers “are such a clientele as is most profitable to stores carrying popular-priced goods.”

That year the store spent $300,000 on newspaper advertising.

The store, like the others along the avenue, hired many newly-arrived immigrants as stock boys, sales girls and other untrained jobs.  On November 25, 1909 the German steamer Prince Friedrich Wilhelm arrived in New York Harbor. The 24-year old Erich Oswald Stroheim disembarked and, before he entered the Great Hall of Ellis Island, reinvented himself as the son of a German baroness and Austrian count. His name was suddenly Count Erich Oswald Hans Carl Maria von Stroheim und Nordenwall.

Stroheim, in reality, was the son of a Jewish hat maker and manufacturer.

Despite the royal pedigree he claimed, Stroheim landed a less-than-regal position wrapping Christmas packages at the Simpson-Crawford Department Store. But wrapping packages would not be the boy’s career. Erich von Stroheim went on to California to become one of the greatest directors of the silent screen era.

Henry Siegel’s widely-spread corporation of department stores collapsed in 1914. The store closed its doors in March and sat eerily quiet for three weeks while the firm was re-organized. Then on April 6 it reopened as the new Simpson Crawford Corporation brought back almost all its former employees.

The grand days of The Ladies’ Mile were over, however.  Macy’s, Lord & Taylors, B. Altman’s and others had erected modern new stores in Midtown.  Only a year after its reorganization Simpson Crawford collapsed.

By 1916 the elegant department store was converted into a mail-order warehouse and a U.S. Navy Post Office. The beautiful atrium was floored over and the sections of the building were sold to separate owners; parts becoming small manufacturing space.

In 1941 the first floor was converted to an automobile showroom. Enormous ramps were cut through the floors and a garage area installed. Two decades later Apex Technical School took over the southern-most section of the building. Today, where smartly-dressed women in white gloves shopped for gowns from Paris, young men and women learn automotive repair, air conditioning and welding.

In 2006 Cook+Fox Architects reclaimed the 8th Floor dining room, resigning it into award-winning offices and workspace.

While nearly all of the grand emporiums of The Ladies’ Mile have been restored and recycled for residential or retail spaces, the most exclusive of them all still waits its turn. Despite the disfigurement inside and some unfortunate alterations on the exterior, Simpson-Crawford’s elegant stone building still prompts mental ghosts of shoppers who did not need to see price tags.

non-credited photographs taken by the author

Two Abused Federal Survivors at Nos. 298-300 Grand Street

photo by Robert K. Chin, www.nychinatown.org

Not all of the Federal style homes built in Manhattan during the 1820s and 1830s were wide, elegant residences.  Along Grand Street two matching brick house were erected at Nos. 298 and 300, intended for working class families.

Each was two-and-a-half stories high with a prim dormer punching through the pitched roof.  The street would have been lined with similar houses and the children of craftsmen, bakers, carpenters and deliverymen would have played together here.

At the time the houses were constructed, Manhattan was rapidly growing.  In 1830 the population had grown to 202, 589.  A decade later it had risen fifty-percent to 312,710.   The downtown area necessarily spread northward, engulfing the residential neighborhoods.

Before long, the ground floors of the houses along Grand Street were converted to commercial spaces.  The neighborhood became filled with hatters and other merchants who lived in the second stories above their shops.  In 1848 Eber T. Peacock ran his bookbinding shop from No. 280 Broad Street.  Two years later, however, he had moved into No. 298 Grand Street, living upstairs.  Peacock would remain here until the years just prior to the Civil War.

After the war, the area continued to change.  In 1882 James D. McCabe , Jr. wrote “Grand street east of the Bowery is one of the busiest and liveliest in New York.  It is devoted to the cheap dry goods and millinery trades, and does a thriving business.  Some of the establishments are large and elegant, but the customers belong chiefly to the humbler walks of life.  Occasionally a west side lady in search of a bargain comes into the street, but such visitors are rare.  On Saturday night, the street is in its glory.  The stores are open until a late hour, and the colored lamps of the stores and blazing torches of the sidewalk hucksters’ stands give to it the effect of a partial illumination.  Shops and sidewalks are all thronged and the air is alive with the sound of voices.”

Waves of German immigrants flooded New York Harbor in the 1870s, settling on the Lower East Side.  Theodor and Frederick Lohr were among them.  Although they apparently never worked together, the Lohrs were accomplished makers of musical instruments.

Theodor moved his shop three times before settling at No. 298 Grand Street, listed here in the American Musical Directory of the United States and Provinces in 1885.  The Directory called him a “musical instrument importer,” however Lohr personally made most of his violins, banjos, harmonicas and guitars.

While Lohr employed only one “workman” and “two boys” he was able to maintain an inventory of “150 dozen banjos,” according to “Musical Instrument Makers of New York.”

The Grand Street neighborhood around Allen Street continued to attract Jewish German immigrants.  At the turn of the century Theodor Lohr was publishing Yiddish music in addition to his instrument manufacturing.  In 1901 his advertisement in the New York Tribune marketed “zithers, mandolins, and guitars; also music for the same.”  Apparently the market for banjos had fallen off. 

By now Grand Street was one of the major cross-town thoroughfares in Manhattan, connecting the East River ferries to Long Island with the Hudson Street ferries to New Jersey.   Double horsecar tracks ran down the street and businesses selling everything from soldering fluid to school supplies operated here.

In the meantime, before Theodor Lohr moved his business into No. 298, William H. Merrick was established next door at No. 300 Grand Street.  Problems occurred on Friday night, June 28, 1872.  Merrick let his guard down with Ellen Josephs, whom The New York Times called “a woman of abandoned character.”  Ellen ran off with Merrick’s gold watch and chain, valued at $185.

Merrick faced the difficult choice of reporting the theft to police or keeping quiet; thereby avoiding the embarrassing need to explain why the degraded woman was in his rooms.

In October 1894 25-year old Frederick Kall was living upstairs at No. 300.  The young German man was engaged to Hetty Sonberg, called “a pretty brunette” by The Evening World.  In 1892 Kall presented his sweetheart with a diamond engagement ring.  It would become the center of a police court case.

A year later, in September 1893, Kall was stricken with typhoid fever.  His finance nursed him through the illness.  When the man recovered, he asked for the ring back, telling Hetty he wanted to have it repaired.  On October 22, 1894 she asked for her ring back.  Kall refused. 

“It’s all over, Hetty.  Our engagement is broken off,” he told her according to the newspaper.  He gave back all her letters and presents she had given him.

When Judge Taintor asked Kall why he ended the relationship, he explained that while he was sick, Hetty had left him alone for two days “and went to a picnic.”

The distressed girl protested to the judge.  “That’s not so, Your Honor,” she cried.  “I love him still and shall never love another.  I should like to have the ring as a souvenir.”

The judge allowed Hetty to keep her souvenir.

Asphalt shingles slather the dormers, yet some Federal detailing still survives -- photo Ellen Brenna Dougherty

Before long Mrs. Louis Goldstein opened her millinery shop downstairs.  Her husband was an ice cream dealer and the pair was not getting along very well by the time Independence Day rolled around in 1900.  That afternoon Goldstein walked into his wife’s shop and began destroying her merchandise—by eating it.

The New York Times reported that he “lunched at her expense off a brace of stuffed birds, topping off with a liberal portion of a Spring bonnet.”  While he ate the millinery, he “found time to violently threaten his wife,” said The Times.

The ice cream dealer was arrested, charged with threatening to kill his wife.  The destructive vandalism charges resulting from eating headwear were apparently ignored.

In 1929 a similar house at No. 294 down the block still survives -- photo NYPL Collection

By the early part of the 20^th century the two little houses at Nos. 298 and 300 Grand Street had been heavily altered.  Broad, glass store fronts had been installed long ago and the paired windows at the second floor of No. 298 had been replaced with a wide plate glass window to allow extra light into the loft space.

Three years later, in 1932, the cars look the same, but the Victorian building next to No. 298 has been replaced by a short Art Deco-inspired structure. -- photo Museum of the City of New York

Before long the expanding Chinatown neighborhood would overtake Grand Street.   Today the two houses look much as they did in 1939; however the German Jewish names on the businesses have been replaced with Chinese.   The two sad little houses are amazing—if derelict—survivors of nearly 200 years of Grand Street history.

Many thanks to reader Courtney Shapiro for requesting this post

Hunt & Hunt's 1906 Alvin Building -- 373 Fifth Avenue

Times were much different when Charles H. Russell lived in his impressive brownstone mansion at the corner of 5^th Avenue and West 35^th Street.  The avenue was the most fashionable address in the city and just two blocks south on the opposite side of the street were the mansions of brothers William B. Astor and John Jacob Astor III.

But times change.

The Astors razed their homes.  John Jacob Astor demolished his mansion and, to spite his sister-in-law Caroline Astor, built the hulking Waldorf Hotel on the site.  Caroline followed suit, erecting the Astoria Hotel and moving further up the avenue.  It was the beginning of the end of the neighborhood.

By 1902 Russell’s home at 373 Fifth Avenue was being converted to commercial use by Fishel, Adler & Schwartz.    The high-end art dealers renovated the old mansion beyond recognition.  “The entire building has been remade and a notable facade takes the place of the old brownstone front,” reported The New York Times on July 3, 1903. 

Some of the interior walls were faced with marble and skylights were installed in a few of the galleries “which flood the pictures with daylight in the murkiest weather and bring out the most delicate shades of the oil paintings,” the reporter noticed.

The expensive renovations would be short-lived, however.    As wealthy New Yorkers abandoned their high-stooped mansions and fled north, this stretch of Fifth Avenue filled with the marble and limestone palaces of the best-known merchants.  Tiffany & Company’s white marble palazzo designed by Stanford White was completed in 1905 as was the monumental B. Altman Department Store that took up the entire block from 34^th to 35^th Street.

The little art gallery building was doomed.   Architects Hunt & Hunt, the sons of esteemed architect Richard M. Hunt, designed an eight-story showroom and office building for Joseph Fahys & Co.  The main leasee would be the silversmiths Alvin Manufacturing Company.

As the building neared completion in 1906, it was the last straw for French jeweler, Boucheron.  The company had leased the building at 590 Fifth Avenue with intentions of opening a New York store.  But now the jeweler decided the avenue was becoming too crowded.

“The recent tendency of jewelers to move to Fifth Avenue, it is said, has convinced the French merchants that the field is well filled,” said The Times, specifically pointing out the Alvin Building.

Boucheron remained in Paris and Alvin Manufacturing had one less business rival.

The completed building was thoroughly modern.   The brick façade boasted little ornamentation other than terra cotta panels, a decorated cornice below the eighth floor, and restrained, dripping ornaments and wreaths inspired by the Beaux Arts movement.   The building’s architectural reserve marked a stark shift from the over-ornamented styles of the previous quarter century.



The Alvin Manufacturing showroom featured mahogany cases and heavy electrical lighting fixtures -- photo the New York Architect 1906 (copyright expired)

Alvin Manufacturing installed its showrooms in the long retail space.  Polished wooden cases glistened with silver flatware, vases and trinkets under the electric illumination of massive hanging fixtures.

In the offices above, a variety of tenants moved in, including at least two dentists, Dr. William C. Fischer and Dr. Alison Harlan.   The building had been opened only a year when Dr. Harlan did work on the teeth of the famed opera singer, Madame Calve.  The doctor would regret it.

Madame Calve had been referred by another patient, Joan Schon, who made a living as a masseuse.   When Ms. Schon mentioned that she knew the diva, the dentist offered to pay her one-third of his fee if she would arrange an introduction.  After Dr. Harlan billed the opera star $900 for work done, he forgot about the verbal agreement with Ms. Schon.

The upset masseuse sued the doctor for $333 and won the case after a publicized battle.

Awnings shade window shoppers at Alvin Manufacturing's store.  Some brownstone houses still remain on Fifth Avenue while commercial buildings, like the white Tiffany & Co. building in the background, have replaced others. - NYPL Collection

Along with the dentists a long-standing tenant was A. I. Reed Mfg. Company, makers of leather stationery products, hand-tooled purses and bags, and other leather items.   One of the first to sign a lease, A. I. Reed would be here for decades.

Only five years after building its New York headquarters, Alvin Manufacturing moved on.   Alvin sublet the retail space to Walpole Brothers  in 1911 for 15 years at a total rent of $350,000.  The new tenant was a London-based manufacturer of high-quality Irish linens.

As World War I raged in Europe, the Alvin Building saw various apparel companies move into the upper offices.  Goodwin Corsets were here, making not only women’s foundations but post-surgical abdominal support belts; Oregon City Mfg. Company produced woolen blankets, Navajo Indian robes, steamer and automobile robes, “mackinaw clothing, flannel and cassimere overshirts, overcoats, bath and lounging robes;” and Laura E. Post ran her “artistic knit goods” business from here.

The building was also the headquarters of the League of Women’s Voters in the last years before 19^th Amendment to the Constitution.   As the amendment became fairly assured, the league offered “all kinds of first aid to women voters in a strictly nonpartisan fashion, characteristic of the organization.”  In October 1919 this included free access to records of candidates running for office and answering questions about feminist issues.

A full year before the right to vote was guaranteed, the league was holding a “Registration Tea” at the Hartley House and a few months later, Mrs. Charles Tiffany was the main speaker at a political discussion in the headquarters; her topic being “Do Representatives Represent?”

She didn’t think so.

The Fifth Avenue neighborhood continued to change.  The massive Waldorf-Astoria hotel was razed in 1929 to make way for the iconic Empire State Building.  Walpole Brothers linens was replaced by jewelers Bowman, Foster, Wurzburger, Inc.; which was then replaced by Jackman’s Furriers.  Then in 1943 the retail space became home to Sidney Meyer home furnishings, draperies and upholstery fabrics.

The store was home in the 1950s and 60s to Pfaff Sewing Machine Company, a West German firm.  In August 1954, while other stores like Lord & Taylor up the avenue were displaying classic contemporary fashions – wide-skirted dresses with fitted bodices and up to four petticoats—Pfaff opted to display Christian Dior’s latest French line which the press was calling the “flat look.”

Dior had come up with a “controlled-bosom” design that removed the feminine curves so popular at the time.  A Times reporter called one dress “an unbelted tube of taffeta.”  Passers-by were as unimpressed.

“It looks like a hunk of clothesline.  Dior will never get away with it,” remarked one man.  And when a 10-year old girl asked her mother “What are those things, Mama?” the newspaper reported that her mother’s response was “They’re supposed to be Paris fashions,” and hustled the little girl away.

By the 1980s, when the National Catalog Network and the American Committee on Italian Migration had their offices here, the street level of No. 373 Fifth Avenue had been barbarously destroyed.  Any trace of Hunt & Hunt’s first floor retail space was obliterated.

New owners converted the building, in 2007, into a boutique hotel called Hotel 373 Fifth Avenue.  The ground floor where Edwardian women in plumed hats once shopped for silver tableware is now a Starbucks coffee shop.   But on the whole Hunt & Hunt’s modern office and store building survives with little change.

non-credited photographs taken by the author