The 1891 Warren Building -- Nos. 903-907 Broadway

photo by Alice Lum

In 1890 the stretch of Broadway between Union Square and Madison Square was Goelet Territory.  The fabulously wealthy land-owning family famously acquired real estate which it never sold; instead developing its holdings, collecting rents, and becoming richer.

Sitting symbolically in the middle of it all was the old Peter Goelet mansion, an eccentric survivor from Broadway’s residential days; now completely engulfed in commercial structures, many of which were built and owned by Goelets.

On April 17, 1879 Harriette Louise Warren married Robert Goelet, the brother of Peter.  Robert’s personal fortune was estimated at around $12 million at the time.  Before the end of the year Peter would die, increasing Robert’s wealth even more.

The new Mrs. Goelet was the daughter of eminent lawyer George Henry Warren.   The well-respected Warren was a leading force in the operations of the Metropolitan Opera and a director of the Union Trust Company.   

Reportedly it was Harriette who chose Stanford White and the firm of McKim, Mead & White as the architects for the striking Goelet Building, erected at the southeast corner of Broadway and 20^th Street in 1886.  Harriette’s father would follow suit four years later when he called upon the architects to design a commercial building on the opposite, northwest corner.   The resulting 7-story neo-Renaissance building was completed a year later.  Like the Goelet Building it faced, it was named after its owner—the Warren Building.

Also like the Goelet Building, the Warren Building was most likely mostly the work of Stanford White.  Both buildings took full advantage of the diagonal orientation of Broadway which created non-rectangular plots.  While the Goelet Building featured a soft, rounded corner; the Warren Building was crisp and angled with a chamfered  corner.

A variety of materials resulted in a lush façade—a two story arcade, most likely of marble, supported five floors of buff-colored brick lavished with terra cotta and marble ornamentation.   At the fourth floor cast iron balconies added dimension.   The exuberance of decoration prompted Brickbuilder magazine to complain it was “atrociously overloaded.”

photo by Alice Lum

The new building replaced old structures like George W. Croney’s tailor shop (The New York Times noted he “preferred to be known as an agent for an English woolen house”) and stretched fifty-eight feet up Broadway and 70 feet along 20th Street.

The Union Square neighborhood attracted high-end jewelers like Tiffany & Co. that catered to the carriage trade.  Among the first premium retailers in the Warren Building was jeweler Charles Seale & Co.  In September 1891 William Dix entered the store and claimed he had a customer interested in diamonds.  He signed a “memoranda” and walked out with $1,478 of gems (almost $35,000 today).

When Dix failed to return, Charles Seale had him arrested.  When the prisoner appeared before Justice O’Reilly in the Tombs Police Court on October 3 charged with grand larceny, his defense was questionable.  According to The New York Times, “In court he said that he had lost the property.”

Terra cotta lion heads stare down from the cornice above the wonderfully-encrusted facade -- photo by Alice Lum

Another jeweler in the building was Strasburger & Co., importers of Swiss watches.   Like Seale & Co., its expensive goods attracted shady characters.   An especially dangerous customer entered the store at around 5:30 in the afternoon on March 9, 1894.

Reuben L. Armstrong “made a trifling purchase,” according to The New York Times, and paid for it with a $20 check drawn on the National City Bank of Brooklyn.   (The “trifling purchase” would be worth about $500 in today’s dollars.)   The store clerk recognized that the check was a forgery and sent a messenger to retrieve a policeman.  Policeman McCullough arrested Armstrong and led him to a Sixth Avenue horse car that would take them to the station house on West 13^th Street.

McCullough had no hand cuffs with him and “as he was an undersized man, simply kept his right hand upon Armstrong’s shoulder,” explained The Times.  It would not be enough.

The prisoner fumbled in his pockets, pulled out a revolver and shot the policeman in the abdomen.  But because Officer McCullough was slightly bent over, the bullet failed to seriously wound him.  “The weapon was discharged, but the ball, after tearing a big hole in the policeman’s uniform and slightly scarring his skin, fortunately did no further damage,” reported The Times.

McCullough blew his whistle and four policemen descended upon the street car and the would-be cop killer.  “Armstrong was taken to the station house.  He insisted that he had no intention of shooting the policeman, and had merely attempted to throw away the revolver, together with a number of checks which he had in his pocket,” said the newspaper.

At the police station his situation became worse for Armstrong.  While he claimed the forgery of checks was not his idea—it had been suggested by a companion—and he was recognized as being wanted for horse stealing.

That same year the original show windows along East 20^th Street and at the corner were replaced, however the general appearance of the arcade remained intact.

The dry goods dealers Hass Brothers was in the building at the turn of the century.   Among the firm’s employees was 25-year old Dudley Fanning who lived far north at No. 105 West 119^th Street.  A few weeks before Fanning was to leave on a buying trip to Paris in 1902, he was at his summer house in Spring Lake, New Jersey.    An automobile spooked the horse pulling his carriage, which overturned; however the bachelor Fanning seemed “but slightly hurt.”

The young man was possibly more injured that it appeared.  He was staying in London on his way to Paris on August 10 when he drove “into the court yard of the Hotel Cecil in an automobile and had declared that he was the Saviour,” said The Times.  The newspaper reported the following day that he “will remain in the Infirmary until to-morrow, when he will be taken before the Lunacy Commissioners.”

A representative of Hass Brothers told reporters “Mr. Fanning has been in our employ for a year.  He has always been a sober, steady man, and the only reason I can give for his present state is that he met with an accident three weeks ago, which may have deranged him.”

This father, real estate dealer Thomas M. Fanning asked reporters to respect the family’s privacy, adding “It is a very sad thing for a young man to leave for a business trip in perfect health and suddenly lose his mind.”

The white marble second floor survives -- photo by Alice Lum

Among the businesses in the building in 1909 were T. J. Keveney & Co., importers of linoleum and commission merchants of carpets and rugs; and the manufacturing jewelry firm of A. Ludwig & Son.  Brothers Emil and George Ludwig lived together at No. 3609 Broadway and were motor boat enthusiasts.  The men were members of the New York Motor Boat Club located at 147^th Street and the Hudson River.

Tragedy struck when, on August 25, 1909, the brothers took a motor boat onto the Hudson River and somehow one or both fell overboard.  In attempting to save each other, both were drowned.

In 1912 The American Hatter reported that “Young Bros., the popular New York Hatters, will open a new store at 903 Broadway, northwest corner of Twentieth street, where space has been leased for a term of years at an aggregate rental of $100,000.”   The hefty rent and the recognized name of Young Brothers may have been responsible for the substantial renovation of the retail level that year.

A 1912 advertisement noted the store would be closed for Decoration Day -- (copyright expired)

The marble columns were taken away and the show windows, which had extended slightly into the sidewalk area, were brought flush to the façade.

Young Brothers continued to sell men’s hats from the Warren Building into the 1920s.   But by now the more prestigious retailers had moved further up Fifth Avenue.  The building filled with a variety of a small offices and manufacturers like the Primus Company that dealt in “umbrella accessories.”  The firm occupied a full floor for nearly a decade in the 1920s and 30s.

By May 26, 1920 when this photograph was taken, the balconies were lost and the modern storefronts lined the sidewalk.  photogrpah from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York  http://collections.mcny.org/C.aspx?VP3=SearchResult_VPage&VBID=24UP1G351NSB&SMLS=1

At some point the Warren Building’s wonderful cast iron balconies were lost.  The structure was purchased by the Ridless family in the second half of the century and in 2009 began work on replacing the mid-century store front with something much more architecturally sympathetic.

The “atrociously overloaded” Warren Building is a visual joy; sadly overlooked because of its location across from the attention-grabbing Goelet Building.

photo by Alice Lum

The Cornelius N. Bliss House -- No. 29 East 37th St.

In the decade before the outbreak of civil war, wealthy citizens abandoned the Bond Street and St. John’s Park neighborhoods for the developing Murray Hill area further north.  By 1861 the north side of East 37^th Street between Madison and Park Avenues was lined with fashionable brownstone-fronted residences.  

On the night of Thursday January 4 that year a young man was walking past No. 29 East 37^th when he slipped on the ice-covered sidewalk.  The New York Times reported on the fatal fall.  “The accident occurred in consequence of the slippery condition of the sidewalk, and the unfortunate man fell with such force against the area steps that his skull was fractured.” 

It was a traumatic event on a normally quiet and refined block.

As brownstone mansions rose nearby on Fifth Avenue, the 37^th Street block was similarly  home to millionaires.  When Jacob Berry sold the four-story house at No. 29 to John M. Cornell in March, 1882, his neighbors included publisher Parke Goodwin, financier J. Pierpont Morgan, and sugar baron Theodore A. Havemeyer.

Cornell was a partner in J.B. and J.M. Cornell, manufacturers of architectural ironworks.  While the wealthy iron merchant was living here, another successful businessman was making a name for himself in political circles.  Cornelius Newton Bliss lived just three blocks south at No. 198 Madison Avenue.

Bliss was 49 years old when Cornell moved into the 37^th Street house.    He had come to New York shortly after 1866 when his dry goods firm opened a branch in the city.  Bliss, Fabyan & Co., became one of the leading dry goods commission houses in the country.  But it was his interest in politics that made Bliss a household name.

Active in Republican politics, he actively supported the local reform movements.  He served as Chairman of the Republican State Committee in 1887-88 but was reticent to seek a political office.  When President Harrison was poised to offer him a cabinet position he persuaded his friends not to present his name.  He declined the nomination for Governor of New York in 1885 and again in 1891. 

In 1892 he was made Treasurer of the National Republican Committee, a position he would hold for four successive campaigns.  Finally, when William McKinley took office in 1897 Bliss accepted the position of Secretary of the Interior.

In 1900 when President McKinley prepared to run for his second term, he offered Bliss the vice-presidency.  Characteristically, Bliss declined.  The following year William McKinley was assassinated.

Although 72-years old in 1905, Bliss was still active in business and political life.    On May 16 that year The New York Times noted that John Cornell had sold the house at No. 29 East 37^th Street.  “Cornelius N. Bliss has bought for his own occupancy the four-story brownstone-front dwelling…near Madison Avenue.”

Change was happening on the block that year.  At the northeast corner of Madison Avenue and 37^th Street the sumptuous Joseph DeLamar mansion was being completed, as was the Charles H. Ditson residence next door at No. 19—both designed by mansion architect C.P.H. Gilbert.  It was a time when wealthy homeowners were remodeling or replacing the outdated brownstones for stylish residences.

Cornelius Bliss would do the same.  The prudish Victorian was given a make-over resulting in a white marble Beaux Arts façade.  A wide stone stoop spilled down to the sidewalk.  At the second floor a stone balcony supported by elaborate carved brackets stretched the width of the residence, protected by a delicate iron railing.  The parlor floor openings were recessed, framed with gentle concave arches.

The underside of the marble balcony is intricately carved.

With Bliss in the updated house were his wife, Elizabeth, their daughter Lizzie and son Cornelius, Jr.  By now he was President of the Fourth National Bank; a director of the Central Trust Company, the American Surety Company, the Home Insurance Company, the American Round Bale Press Company and the Equitable Life Assurance Society.  He was a member of some of the most exclusive men’s clubs in the city including the Union League, Metropolitan, Century and Lotos.

An art collector, Bliss was a member of the National Academy of Design and the Metropolitan Museum of Art.  Daughter Lizzie was passionate about modern art and the 37^th Street house filled with works by Renoir, Degas, Monet and Arthur Bowen Davies. 

Cornelius Newton Bliss -- photo Library of Congress

The next year Cornelius Bliss was responsible for the Republican Party’s finances when he spearheaded the Harriman fund to help the Theodore Roosevelt presidential campaign.  Bliss managed to solicit a $100,000 donation from the Standard Oil Company; a major part of the $260,000 raised.

The Bliss family divided their summers between their estate on Jekyll Island, Georgia where Cornelius was a member of the famous Jekyll Island Club (sometimes called The Millionaires Club), and their country home in Oceanic, New Jersey.

As the new year approached in December 1910—just five years after moving in to the 37^th Street house—Cornelius N. Bliss showed the first signs of fading.  On New Year’s Eve The New York Times reported that although Bliss had been ill and confined to the house for the past ten days, he was reportedly “recovering rapidly and it is expected that he will be about in a few days, at any rate, in time to celebrate his seventy-eighth birthday in the latter part of next month.”

The birthday indeed came and went, but Bliss’s health did not improve.  The family spent the summer of 1912 at the Oceanic estate;  but Bliss "was so feeble that he was able to leave the house only a few times during the Summer,” said The Times.   The millionaire’s doctor, Arthur W. Bingham, spent the summer with the family.

In September a special steamer was chartered to transport Bliss back home to 37^th Street.  When the steamer docked in New York, reporters met the boat.  The family tried to hurry Bliss through the crowd without making a statement.  But the old man, after years in the public eye, refused.

“I have occupied public office so long that the newspapers have certain rights regarding me,” he told his son and daughter.  He then dictated a statement on the spot to be distributed among the reporters.

Two weeks later, at 7:00 on the evening of October 9, 1911 Cornelius Newton Bliss died in the house on East 37^th Street.  The New York Times reported that “The cause of death was heart disease, due in great measure to extreme age.”

The funeral was held in the house at 11:00 on the morning of October 12.  To represent the Chamber of Commerce at the funeral was a specially-appointed committee that included millionaires J. Pierpont Morgan, Jacob H. Schiff, John Claflin and Cleveland H. Dodge, among others.

J. Pierpont Morgan approaches the steps of the house for the funeral of Cornelius Bliss on October 12, 1911.  Morgan's mansion is at the near corner to the left in shadows.  photo Library of Congress

Bliss left a fortune of over $4 million which was divided among Elizabeth, Lizzie and Cornelius, Jr.   The 37^th Street house was assessed at $120,000 (a little over $2 million today).  The published estate not only enumerated assets like the Jekyll Island and Oceanic estates and furniture, two automobiles appraised at $1,900 and $3,500 and artwork; but lesser items as well.  “At his estate Oceanic, Monmouth County, New Jersey, he had an old brown horse worth $20, a team of bay horses worth $400, and a $15 donkey.  On this estate also he had an old cow worth $15, three Jersey and Alderney cows worth $225 and three heifers worth $90,” reported The Times.

Elizabeth and Lizzie continued to live on at No. 29 East 37^th Street.  Elizabeth died in the house in September 1923 and her funeral was held here at 2:30 on the afternoon of September 30.

Lizzie was a well-known patron of the arts and continued her father’s love of collecting.   She was among the leading collectors of modern art in New York and contributed to the landmark Armory show of 1913.  Known also as Lillie, she was a central figure in the founding of the Museum of Modern Art.  The rooms of the house were hung with works by Gauguin, Matisse, Modigliani, Picasso, Cezanne, Seurat and Davies.

In 1926 Lizzie hosted a series of lectures in the house.  On February 9 Forbes Watson gave the fifth lecture in the series, speaking to a group on “An Interpretation of Modern Art.”

The street address is incorporated into the entranceway carving.

The 66-year old was still living her when, in August 1930, her brother sold the Bliss home to his own corporation, Ravdon Realty Corporation for $150,000.   Despite the sale, Lizzie remained in the house until her death seven months later in March 1931.

Her massive art collection was donated mostly to museums.  150 works of art went to the Museum of Modern Art.  Other museums benefiting from bequeaths included the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C.; the Phillips Academy at Andover, Massachusetts; the San Francisco Art Association, The Portland Art Association in Oregon; the St. Paul Art Institute; the Newark Museum; the Memorial Art Gallery in Rochester, New York; and the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Lizzie Bliss -- http://www.moma.org/images/modern_women/lexicon/AP87.jpg

Eyebrows in the art world were raised when two paintings by Arthur B. Davies, “Line of Mountains” and “Sleep,” were refused by the Tate Gallery in London.  Sinclair Hamilton, Lizzie Bliss’s attorney, received a “cordial” letter from the Gallery declining the gift.  The lawyer diplomatically told reporters that although no reason had been given for the refusal, “lack of space in which to display the paintings probably had dictated the decision.”

Former president of the American Art Dealers Association, F. Newlin Price, was more direct.  The New York Times said he “expressed surprise that London should show so little interest in American art and said that this country should be congratulated that the paintings had been returned.”

By 1936 the house had been divided into apartments—two on each floor other than the parlor, which was a single apartment.   The upscale block still drew well-to-do residents, like Antonia Hatvany who lived at No. 29.

Antonia’s sister was Hungarian dramatist Baroness Lili Hatvany, married to Baron Julius Madarassy-Beck of Budapest.   When their daughter, Mariella Madarassy-Beck, married Robert Cox in the nearby Church of the Transfiguration on February 4, 1939, Antonia held the reception in her spacious apartment here.

In January 1943 The Times reported that a “Murray hill property changed hands with the sale by Cornelius N. Bliss, banker of the four-story apartment house at 29 East Thirty-seventh Street to Jules V. Pallister.”  

After nearly four decades in the Bliss family, the new owner made slight changes.  By the following year there were two apartments on each floor other than the second, where there were three.

Cornelius Bliss’s striking white home still stands out among its neighbors.  The rooms where modern masterpieces once hung remain apartments and the elegant façade is little changed.

non-credited photographs taken by the author

The 1929 Foltis-Fischer Bldg. -- No. 411-13 Park Avenue So.

photo by Alice Lum

At the age of 19, Constantine Foltis immigrated to New York in 1909 and found a job with the Childs restaurant chain.  By 1928 he owned several stores, known as the Foltis Food Shops, which focused on healthful produce and meats.

The 1920s saw the rise in popularity in a new concept in dining—the self-service restaurant.   Chains like Horn & Hardart provided shop girls and businessmen quick, inexpensive meals in clean and attractive environments.  Constantine Foltis got in on the act.

On December 13, 1928 he consolidated his stores with another small chain of shops along with an assortment of restaurants, creating the Foltis-Fischer self-service restaurants.  Moody’s Industrial Manual recorded that he acquired “chains of restaurants formerly operated as Foltis Food Shops and the Fischer Food Shops and 15 independent restaurants, making a total of 29 restaurants acquired.”

Foltis immediately expanded.  Within the year he announced in The New York Times a planned restaurant at No. 411-13 Fourth Avenue (later renamed Park Avenue South).   On September 11, 1929 the newspaper said that “following alterations of the present property, they will open their thirty-first restaurant.”

On the site was a four-story building that housed the O. L. Cushman Co. lunchroom.  On the second floor were offices and the top two floors held “non-housekeeping apartments,” as recorded in Department of Buildings records.  Foltis commissioned Erhard Djorup to renovate the existing structure.

The Austrian-born architect had been busy as a partner in Bark & Djorup designing Art Deco office buildings like the massive 1384 Broadway completed in 1928 for developer Abraham Lefcourt.  But that same year the partnership fell apart and the Foltis-Fischer restaurant was apparently one of Djorup’s first independent commissions afterward.

Djorup brought the old building squarely into the Jazz Age.  A two-story base of black stone was highlighted with white Art Deco decorations at the second floor and gold at the first.   A frieze within the central double-height arch announced the restaurant’s name.  On either side stair-stepped openings at both levels were flanked by streamlined pilasters.  The upper floors, clad in white terra cotta, were decidedly less decorated.  Above it all an Art Deco parapet also advertised the Foltis-Fischer name.

photo by Alice Lum

The renovations were completed in May 1930.  The sidewalk level housed the restaurant, the second floor was used as offices, and the third and fourth floors were, again, rented as residential space.  



A matchbook cover (front and back) hawks the wholesome qualities of the fare.

Foltis continued to market his restaurant as serving wholesome foods.   The timing of his ambitious venture, however, was unfortunate.   As the building at 411-13 Fourth Avenue was being renovated, the Stock Market Crash plunged the nation into the Great Depression.   It was also a time of labor unrest and organized crime bullying of small business.

Trouble started for the restaurants when, in July 1932, underworld boss Arthur Flegenheimer (known in mob circles as Dutch Schultz) and his gang organized the Metropolitan Restaurant and Cafeteria Association.   The Association took control of two unions “by threats, violence and corruption,” according to district attorneys later, and restaurant employees were forced to join.

Restaurant owners, including Foltis-Fischer, were convinced to join the association by threats and actual throwing of stench bombs, beatings and other violence, intimidation of customers and employes, and placing picket lines where there were no strikes,” reported The New York Times.  The Association was collecting $5,500 a week in “membership dues.”

By October 31, 1936 when the Schultz gang was indicted on charges of extortion, attempted extortion and conspiracy in the $2 million-a-year racket, the Foltis-Fischer restaurants had paid out $9,975 in protection money—almost $150,000 today.

Despite the restaurant’s paying its “dues;” in 1933 workers in the Foltis-Fischer chain went on strike.   In May that year Dorothy Day, writing in The Catholic Worker, opined “For generally bad working conditions, Foltis-Fischer is one of the worst restaurants in New York.  You will notice that men are picketing up and down in front of their chain of restaurants throughout the city, and the strike of employees there has been a bitter one.”  She added “If the public cooperated with the workers and refused to go into a restaurant where men were picketing in front, there might be more chance for strikers to win their fight for justice.”

photo by Alice Lum

The same year that workers were picketing in front of 411-13 Fourth Avenue Adolf Hitler became Chancellor of Germany.  Within a month the German Reichstag was burned to the ground and two weeks later the first concentration camp, Oranienburg, was opened.  By the end of 1933 Hitler had full dictatorial power and Germany had withdrawn from the League of Nations.
 

It would be years before the United States was pulled into a world conflict; but the Foltis-Fischer Co. chain took an early and symbolic stand.  On May 8, 1934 it was announced “That thousands of New Yorkers heretofore using the German yeast product, Savita, will do without it, became known yesterday as the Foltis Fischer Corporation restaurants and retail shops prepared to ban this and other German imports.”

The Depression, the mob, and labor problems all took their toll.  In 1938 the company declared bankruptcy after a decade of doing business.   In 1944 the Emigrant Industrial Savings Bank sold the building to the 411 Fourth Avenue Realty Corporation.

Throughout the remainder of the century the structure remained unchanged—offices and a showroom on the ground floor, offices on the second, and four apartments per floor above.  Most remarkable is that the wonderful Art Deco façade remained, for the most part, untouched.

In 1991 the ground floor became a restaurant once again.  Les Halles Boucherie Rotisserie is still in the space today, despite the astonishing fact that the bold zig-zagged frieze still reads FOLTIS-FISCHER after nearly a century.

The 1907 House of Relief Stables -- No. 7 Jay Street

photo by Alice Lum

In 1894 the New York Hospital, located on 15^th Street, opened a downtown facility, the House of Relief, on the corner of Hudson and Jay Streets.  The five-story structure--the only medical facility in lower Manhattan--offered free emergency and clinical services for the downtown area.

By 1905 the facility was taxed and an annex building was planned.  The anticipated structure would serve as a stable and storage area for the ambulance vehicles and horses.  On the upper floors a modern laundry operation would handle the heaps of bed linens, towels and other items from the hospital.

Directly behind the House of Relief stood the old three-story house at 9 Jay Street where, in the 1870s, Margaret M. Krekeler had run her boarding house and restaurant.  The hospital purchased the site from the Edward C. Center estate in April 1905.  The architectural firm of Robertson & Potter was given the commission to design the new building.

Completed in 1907, the orange brick structure was based essentially on a firehouse design.  The architects reined in costs by using brick for most of the decorative elements—quoins at the corners and around the windows and bursting voussoirs above.

Creative brickwork provided most of the detailing.  The lion heads along the metal cornice closely resembled those on the House of Relief -- photo by Alice Lum

The first floor was girded in a series of brownstone bandcourses, a pressed metal cornice was adorned with lions heads and dentil molding, and on the Staple Street side a terra cotta cartouche on the third floor displayed the entwined monogram of New York Hospital.  The corner site allowed for a second vehicle entrance to the rear of the building.

Stealing the spotlight from the building proper was the graceful street bridge that connected the third floors of the House of Relief to the stable and laundry building.  The inventive overhead shortcut allowed workers to rush laundry back and forth without going to ground level or being exposed to the elements.

A graceful street bridge connected the hospital with the laundry level of the annex -- photo by Alice Lum

On the ground floor horses were groomed and fed; and ambulances were maintained.  Above, workers sweltered in steamy conditions as bundle after bundle of linens were laundered, ironed, and folded.

In 1915 the City of New York assessed the “three story brick stable” at $40,000—over half a million in today’s dollars.  But the Society of the New York Hospital was about to leave its downtown facilities.  On October 25, 1919 The Sun reported that “The New York Hospital has been acquired by the Government…and the sale also includes 9 Jay street, northwest corner of Staple street, a three story building.”

A handsome terra-cotta cartouche bears the monogram of the New York Hospital -- photo by Alice Lum

The buildings were used by the Public Health Services for years.  In the 1990s the Hospital building was filled with, appropriately, medical offices.   The ambulance and laundry building on Jay Street was being used as manufacturing space at the time.

In the mid 1990s Zoran Ladicorbic, Ltd., produced wearing apparel here.   The operation came to an abrupt halt when the U.S. Government filed suit again the manufacturer for violations of the Care Labeling Rule, violations of the Textile Act, violations of the Wool Act, and Unfair or Deceptive Acts or Practices in Violation of the FTC Act.

In 1998 the building was converted to a single-family residence.  The main bay doors have been replaced with modern, attractive replacements.  But otherwise the building that housed horse-drawn ambulances below and laundry facilities above is highly intact—including the picturesque street bridge.

photo by Alice Lum

Thanks to Jim Walther for suggesting this post.

The 1894 House of Relief -- Nos. 67-69 Hudson St.

photo by Alice Lum

In 1771 the New York Hospital was established on Broadway opposite Pearl Street when the area was essentially still residential.  Nearly a century later, in 1869, it followed the northward tide of homes and relocated to West 15^th Street.   The move ensured that citizens in the Union Square and Bond Street areas would have a nearby medical facility; but it left the downtown area without one.  The Sun later reported that “there was much solicitude lest the lower part of the city should be left without hospital facilities.”

The Police Commissioners offered an old police station at 160 Chambers Street for the hospital to use as an emergency facility.  Called the House of Relief, or the Chambers Street Hospital, it opened in 1875 and offered free services in which was now a commercial and often gritty neighborhood.

On November 8, 1894, The New York Times recalled that “Few institutions of the kind in the country have become as famous as the old Chambers Street Hospital.  Cases by the thousand have been treated there.  Bridge jumpers, attempted suicides, victims of the Russell Sage bomb thrower, victims of would-be murders, accident cases, and thousands of patients whose cases have not called for newspaper attention have passed through its doors.  Columns have been written in a critical way about the alleged brutal conduct of the ambulance surgeons, and words of praise have been bestowed upon the physicians in charge.”

By 1893 there was a desperate need for a new building downtown.  That year the ambulance department responded to 2,844 calls—twice as many as the New York Hospital proper.   The out-patient department treated 22,555 patients while 2,339 others were housed in the wards.   The Chambers Street building—never intended to be a hospital—was thirty years old and showing its age.

The Sun called the old building “homely” and “barrack-like” and The New York Times said it was “wholly unsuited to its purposes” and “dirty and cramped.”   The Governors of New York Hospital began construction on a new House of Relief, alternately called the Hudson Street Hospital, in 1893.

Situated at 67 to 69 Hudson Street at the corner of Jay Street, it was designed by Cady, Berg & See.   Costing $300,000 (about $7 million in 2013), the five story brick structure was not only a state of the art medical facility, it was an architectural beauty.  As it neared completion on July 29, 1894 The Sun remarked “Architecturally it is a pleasing contrast to the great brick mercantile structures of no particular beauty in that busy part of the city.  Its exterior presents a clean-cut appearance, relieved a bit by the arched windows of the basement floor, the neat balconies, one on each face, and the graceful main entrance with its Roman arch of red sandstone and supporting Greek pillars of the same material.”



The Sun published a sketch of the new structure on July 29, 1894 (copyright expired)

Adding drama to the design was a double entrance staircase leading to the centered entrance.  The New York Times deemed the structure “handsome and commodious” and “an ornament to the neighborhood.”

Outpatients entered the high-ceilinged main reception room faced with Tennessee marble and cherry woodwork.  “It is as light and clean as newly laundered linen,” reported The Sun.   Lighting was provided by both electricity and gas.

Citizens in layers of Victorian clothing suffered in the summer heat.  Among the innovative features of the new hospital was the sunstroke ward.  The Sun reported that when a patient was received, “he will be wheeled to the entrance of the ward.  There he will be transferred to a net swinging by four chains from an overhead railway attached to the ceiling.  Then, he will be railroaded to the cold bath or the cold spray.  If to the latter all clothing will be stripped from him and he will enjoy a cooling spray over the body.  After he has received due treatment in the ward he will be taken by the elevator to a roofed enclosure, open to the breezes on all four sides, on the top of the building.”

A patient is treated at the innovative Sunstroke Ward -- The New York Times April 25, 1895 (copyright expired)

The newspaper assumed that if the elaborate treatment failed, it was not the fault of the hospital.  “After all this luxurious treatment, if the patient doesn’t get well it may be supposed to be his own fault and not due to the inefficiency of science.”

Male and female wards were separated for decency’s sake.  On the third floor was a private ward “for distinguished patients.”  That floor also included the main operating room, etherizing room and a matron’s room.

Exceptionally handsome ironwork leads to the entrance -- photo by Alice Lum

Up-to-date technology ruled the fourth floor.  Here was the kitchen, the laundry, the refrigerating room and rooms for “the female help.”  According to The Sun “The laundry work will be done according to the most improved methods.  The washing machines will be turned by electricity, and the linen will all be ironed by flat-irons, which receive their motive power direct from an electric motor by means of wire attached to the handles.  Ironing here will assume some of the characteristics of a fine art, the attention of the operating being confined entirely to the skillful guiding and not the propelling of the iron.  The clothes will be dried in a special drying room.”

The hospital boasted central heating by means of registers in the ceilings and floors.  The New York Times said “The system to supply fresh air in the rooms at any temperature is admirable,” and The Sun wrote “So effective is the heating and ventilating apparatus that the entire supply of air in the rooms can be changed in from four to sixteen minutes.”  The Sun pronounced that “With these and other features the hospital authorities believe they have the finest hospital in the city.”

Lion heads decorate the metal cornice.  Note the added touch of the blind arch in the brickwork of the chimney.  photo by Alice Lum

At 10:00 on the night of Tuesday November 6, 1894 the old House of Relief on Chambers Street treated its last patient—James A. Leonard, a 33-year old barkeeper who arrived with a scalp wound.  The first case to walk in the door of the new hospital on Hudson Street was 9-year old Dominick Zizto, a newsboy who had fractured his wrist.

Six months after Dominick’s broken wrist the hospital was buzzing with activity.  The New York Times wrote on April 25, 1895 “The Governors of the [New York Hospital Society] call especial attention to the fact that this institution is situated in the down-town section of the city, in the neighborhood of wharves, ferries, and crowded streets, and in the midst of traffic, where casualties are frequent.”  The New-York Tribune reported that month that the hospital’s ambulances had responded to 2,812 ambulance calls already.

Ambulances accessed the hospital through the elaborate iron gates to the side.  In 1907 the brick house, seen in the shadows behind the hospital, would be razed for a modern ambulance stables and laundry facility -- photo by Wurtz Bros. from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York http://collections.mcny.org/C.aspx?VP3=SearchResult_VPage&VBID=24UP1G31WP45&SMLS=1&RW=1280&RH=915

The cases that walked or were wheeled through the doors of the House of Relief reflected the sometimes dangerous neighborhood.  Such was the case on November 27, 1897 when Henry Levy, a shoemaker at 49 Bayard Street, tried to break up a confrontation between two customers over a $2 debt one owed the other.

The two men turned their aggression on Levy.  One “whipped out a penknife and stabbed the little cobbler nine times in the face and head, while the other workmen stood by too transfixed with terror to help him,” reported The New York Times.  The newspaper said that the assault “resulted in his being taken to the House of Relief on Hudson Street, and being so swathed in bandages that his head looked like a snowball, animated by a pair of human eyes.”

The reporter assumed that the incident “will probably lead him to summon the police the next time a fight is started in a room he happens to be in.”

To accommodate the rather unsightly fire escape, the cast iron balcony on the Hudson Street facade was lost -- photo by Alice Lum

A peculiar case was that of Thomas Donohue who had crawled into a “sawdust box” on the Barclay Street freight pier the night of August 27, 1902.  He was noticed by Foreman Murphy sleeping on the pier around 1:00 the following day and ordered to move.  “Later Murphy again saw the man when his attention was called to his presence on the stringpiece by Gateman Whalen.  Whalen then summoned Policeman Foley and instructed him to remove the stranger,” reported The Evening World.

Officer Foley roused Donohue “who with great difficulty struggled to his feet and walked north about a hundred feet, when he sat down in a secluded spot.  No further attention was paid to him,” said the newspaper.  The Evening World openly wondered why the policeman did not seek medical attention for the man.

Late that night, Foreman Murphy heard groans and again found Donohue in the same sawdust box.  This time the man was taken to the House of Relief where he died of starvation at 3:15 on the morning of August 29.  The irony of how Donahue had come to the last stages of starvation in a busy metropolitan area was not lost on The Evening World.  “He starved in a district which supplies Greater New York with its food products and from which thousands of tons of good things to eat are shipped daily.”

In the years just prior to World War I New York was in the grip of terrorists—anarchists and other social and political radicals.  Some of the victims ended up at the Hudson Street House of Relief.

On April 8, 1911 The New York Times recapped some of the incidents during the past year.  “On Jan. 8 a bomb exploded outside the door of the place occupied by Francisco Scupelito, and on April 28 there was another explosion.  On July 12 there was an explosion in front of Joseph Saraguse’s dairy, and on July 24 a bomb was set off in one of his milk wagons in a ferry boat returning from Jersey City.

“A three-pound explosive projectile burst yesterday while Carlo Verstraelin, 13 years old…was playing with it in front of his home.  It tore his right forearm and hand and cut and bruised his body, and cut the right leg of Sadie Schneider, 22 months old…whose body was lacerated also.  Both were taken to the House of Relief.”

Three months after the wounded children were brought in, the House of Relief was busy treating victims of a heat wave.  On July 6, 1911, 72 persons had died from the heat in New York City within the past four days, and there were at least 300 “prostrations.”  Temperatures lingered at above 100 degrees.

The New York Times reported that on July 5, although the temperature had cooled to “a maximum of 92 degrees” the “suffering in the street level was more intense.  All day long and throughout the night the ambulances raced up and down, responding to twice as many calls as on any day previous.”

Doctors and nurses at the Hudson Street Hospital attended to a steady stream of victims who collapsed in the street—among them laborer William Longe who had been working in an excavation at Canal Street and West Broadway; Norva Gray who dropped to the pavement at Broadway and Fulton Street; Joseph Buchanan, a 28-year-old chauffeur “overcome in front of 11 Pine Street;” and 45-year-old engineer William Brockway who fainted at 119 Nassau Street.

The horse-drawn ambulances that rushed to their aid were dispatched from the hospital’s annex built in 1907.  Located directly behind the hospital, at the corner of Jay and Staple Streets, the $40,000 building served not only as a stable and ambulance garage; but the laundry facilities were housed upstairs, connected to the main building by a street bridge across Staple Street.

One of the most colorful patients in the hospital was Charles “Chuck” Connors.  A well-known figure in the Chinatown and Bowery area, he was memorialized “in song and on the stage,” according to The New York Times in 1913.  Connors acted as a self-appointed tour guide through the seedy and mysterious neighborhoods for uptown residents and tourists.  The Times said “In his role as guide ‘Chuck’ put on his toughest manners and talked Bowery argot for the benefit of his out-of-town clients.  In private life he was just picturesquely illiterate.  He came to be known as the ‘Mayor of Chinatown,” and none knew the quarter as well as he.”

The Chinese residents, the police, and the missionaries of the slum neighborhoods knew and liked him.  The Chinese “profited with him in exploiting spurious opium dens and other haunts staged for the sole benefit of visitors.”  Connors was credited with inventing the slang associated with the Bowery area.

Connors’ first wife, Nellie, died in 1905 and when his second wife, Rosie, died around 1911 “Church withdrew to his humble home and infrequently returned to his old haunts,” said The New York Times on May 11, 1913.

His “humble home” was a three-room apartment on Doyer Street that had been furnished and maintained for him during his life by a provision by Richard K. Fox.  On May 10, 1913 he told the old black woman, Mrs. Chin, who took care of him “I’m not good for many more days.”  The woman called several of his friends who surrounded his bedside.

“If I’m going to cash in, let it be here in Chinatown,” he whispered.

Dr. Shields was summoned from the House of Relief.  Connors was suffering from pneumonia and was taken to the hospital; but he lingered only a few hours after arriving.  The New York Times reported that “Arrangements for an elaborate funeral are being made by the Chinese merchants of the quarter.”

With the United States' entrance into the war, the government took over the House of Relief in 1918.  On March 14 the New-York Tribune reported that “The United States government has taken over the Hudson Street Hospital for military patients…Announcement was made that ambulance service from the hospital would be discontinued to-day.  Patients now there will be transferred to Bellevue and Flower hospitals.”

Although painted green, the architectural elements executed in brick are still clearly evident -- photo by Alice Lum

The New York Times explained the new function of the hospital.  “The plan of both the army and navy, as it is understood here, is to bring men back to this country if they are injured or so ill that their recovery is a matter of a long time.  In this way the medical facilities abroad can be devoted to acute cases with prospects of rapid recovery, and men who either are to be under long care or who must be discharged from the service when convalescence is complete can be taken out of the way.”

In 1920, the Annual Report of the New York Board of Social Welfare noted that “On May 1, 1918, this branch hospital was closed to civilians; none but sailors admitted since.”

Many of the wounded were not bedridden and the Red Cross thought it would be nice for them to see a bit of Manhattan before being discharged and sent elsewhere.  On April 1, 1919 The Sun reported “An appeal to automobile owners to take wounded soldiers for outings each afternoon between 2 and 5 o’clock was issued yesterday…Many of the men are in town just a week before being sent to camps elsewhere, and only by such rides as requested can they see anything of New York.”

Throughout the 1920s and early 1930s the old House of Relief was called “The United States Marine Hospital.”  In 1975 it was renovated for private medical offices, and a decade later was converted to residential use.

The brick façade has been inexplicably painted green and an unfortunate fire escape mars the Hudson Street façade.  But the handsome former hospital is still a commanding corner presence in a much changed neighborhood.