The 1888 Nos. 117-119 Hudson Street

John Castree was three years old when he arrived in New York from Ireland in 1814.  As he grew he worked in the grocery store of his uncle, James Beatty, learning that trade.  He established his own business and by the time he was 25 was wealthy enough to purchase a fine residence in the fashionable St. John’s Park neighborhood.  In 1836 his house at No. 121 Hudson Street sat among other handsome Federal-style mansions that ringed the bucolic park.

But change was to come to St. John’s Park.

By the end of the Civil War the neighborhood had been essentially abandoned to commerce.  Warehouses and freight yards replaced most of the mansions and those that survived were converted for business.  Unlike his neighbors, John Castree stayed on.  Recognizing its real estate potential, not only did he retain ownership of No. 121; he gobbled up surrounding property.

In 1888 he commissioned architect Thomas R. Jackson to design a warehouse building at Nos. 117 and 119 Hudson Street, directly across the street from his former home.  The area had become the center of the provisions district and Jackson’s resulting structure was intended to cater to such firms.  Six stories tall, the sturdy Romanesque Revival structure was six bays wide on Hudson Street and stretched 10 bays to the west along North Moore.  Jackson designed the base with a focus on ventilation to retard damage to perishable foodstuffs.  Wide bays between cast iron piers on Hudson Street could be secured at night or in foul weather by iron shutters.  But when opened, they allowed fresh air and cooling breezes to waft through the interior.

Heavy iron shutters, seen closed at left, disappeared into the piers when open -- photo by Alice Lum

Jackson used blocks of rough cut granite as lintels and band courses to disrupt the heaviness of the red brick mass.  Intricate, swirling foliate panels filled the spandrels below the openings of the third, fifth and sixth floors.  Romanesque burst forth at the upper level with arched openings, terra cotta capitals and a strapping brick-corbeled cornice.  It would be the first of three corner buildings at Hudson and North Moore Streets that the architect would produce for the family.

photo by Alice Lum

John Castree died in 1889, just months after the building was completed.  At the time E. C. Hazard & Co, importer and manufacturer of “fancy groceries,” was operating from the nearby 87-91 Hudson Street.  Like Castree, Edward Clarke Hazard was a self-made, wealthy businessman.  Although successful by 1883, his fortunes would soar when that year he set out to produce “a pure article of tomato catsup,” as described in William Nelson’s 1902 The New Jersey Coast in Three Centuries.  He purchased 165 acres of land in Shrewsbury, New Jersey to grow tomatoes; built a factory and laboratory and began production of Shewsbury Tomato Ketchup, “celebrated for its purity and excellence.”

Hazard relocated to No. 117-119 Hudson Street where the firm distributed its catsup, canned tomatoes, baked beans and mushrooms, and imported delicacies.  The building would be the firm’s headquarters for years.

Acutely aware of his lack of formal education, Edward Hazard read voraciously and devised his own advertising campaign based on Shakespearean quotations.  Display cards were posted in the street cars and by printing them in color Hazard ensured they would stand out.

“I rang fifty changes on these condiments in my street-car advertising, each one introduced by a Shakespearean quotation,” he told Art in Advertising in November 1895.  “Though many of them were known to every schoolboy and familiar as household words, yet I flatter myself in the new ‘dressing’ we gave them they lost the chestnutty flavor.”  The Hazard ads consistently stressed the purity of its product—no additives were ever used in its production.

Art in Advertising published four examples of Hazard's Shakespeare-inspired street car ads in November 1895 (copyright expired)

The E. C. Hazard & Company business blossomed and by the turn of the century it was also producing and distributing its own chili-pepper and burnt onion sauces, salad dressings and mayonnaise, various jellies and other condiments under the Shewsbury label. 

Jackson documented the year of construction in beautifully executed terra cotta panels.  photo by Alice Lum

Following his death on February 2, 1905, American Industries noted “When Mr. Hazard died his business was one of the largest and most prosperous in the country, and it was his boast that his entire success had been due to the fact that he had never used any adulterants, as preservatives or as coloring matter, in any of the foods which he manufactured.

The firm was taken over by Edward’s son, Elmer C. Hazard and three investors.  The business which had grossed as much as $5 million a year under its founder's direction was quickly in trouble.  On August 22, 1907 the New-York Tribune reported on the bankruptcy of E. C. Hazard & Co.  Saying the bankruptcy was based on the company’s inability “to meet claims against it,” the newspaper estimated the number of creditors to be over 200.

Around the same time dyers and colorists were moving in to the building.  In 1911 I. J. R. Muurling was here, as was the German-based firm, Farbenfabriken of the Elbertfeld Company.  Not only was Farbenfabriken a maker of textile dyestuffs; oddly enough it also produced aspirin.  A year later the corporation was absorbed by the Bayer Company, Inc., also a German corporation.  The firm’s name would soon appear in the newspapers, not because of its textile dyes or aspirin; but because of espionage and political scandal.

Hugo Schweitzer worked for Bayer at No. 117 Hudson Street and in August 1915 the New York World exposed a plot by which the chemist was supplying chemicals to the German government for munitions making.   The New-York Tribune on August 17 said Schweitzer “is frankly recognized as the agent of the German government” and was involved in “a clever scheme calculated to insure the supply for German arms of $1,400,000 worth of phenol (carbolic acid) from the factory of Thomas A. Edison.”

Until Schweitzer’s exposure as an agent “in total disregard of this country’s neutrality” he had “always been respected as a chemist of great skill and loyalty,” said The Sun later.  He was later discovered to be involved in the dissemination of pro-German propaganda.  Although he maintained his mansion at No. 410 Riverside Drive, his reputation was forever ruined   On December 20, 1917 with the United States now firmly involved in the war, he fell ill and three days later was dead.  In reporting the death of the 57-year old scientist, The Sun focused, as expected, on his role in the espionage rather than his accomplishments.

At the time of World War I Bayer was still mainly known for its dyes -- Textile World Journal, June 30, 1917 (copyright expired)

Schweitzer’s high-profile involvement with the German government probably played a hand in the Bayer Company’s being taken over by the Alien Property Custodian a month later, in January 1918.  This was followed on August 21 by the arrest of five company officials.  “The men were taken on Presidential warrants and are charged with being dangerous enemy aliens,” reported the New-York Tribune the following day.

Jackson successfully used a medley of materials--elegant terra cotta, hefty brick corbels, rough-cut granite, and wonderful antefixae (mainly ignored from below) atop the corners.  photo by Alice Lum

Following the war, the Bayer Company edged back into a normal business routine and before long few remembered the wartime turmoil.  By 1921 Bayer, which held a trademark on the word “aspirin,” was better known throughout the country for its pharmaceuticals than for its dyestuffs.  Other dye producers were still in the building, however.  The Grasselli Chemical Co. was a major producer of vat colors for textiles and remained in the building in the 1920s.

Bayer was still producing both dyes and aspirins in January 1927 when burglars broke into the stockroom here.  They made off with aspirin worth $90,000 (over $1 million today).  The New York Times reported “The robbers, it was found, had taken 1,286 cartons of aspirin.  Each carton contained five gross of small tin containers, and was valued at $70.  To have carried away so many cartons, it was said, the robbers must have used two trucks.”

The picky thieves took only aspirin; leaving the dyes and other products behind.  But before they had a chance to liquidate their booty, police closed in.  By February 27, 1927 thirteen men had been arrested and nearly all of the stolen aspirin was recovered.

At mid-century the T. M. Duche & Sons firm, importers of fruits and nuts, was here.  But by the 1960s the Tribeca neighborhood was changing.  Commercial lofts and warehouses were slowly taken over by art galleries and studios as the area became trendier and less industrial.  In 1963 the former loading dock received a facelift with modern glass doors and aluminum frames to accommodate a furniture store.

By 1978 a dance theater, Marleen Pennison & Dancers, had taken over the third floor loft; and in 1991 the ground floor held a health food store.  Nearly a century and a half after its completion, Thomas R. Jackson’s No. 117-119 Hudson Street is little changed.  A striking example of a utilitarian structure that did not sacrifice handsome design for functionality.

The original industrial metal steps survive as do the handsome piers. photo by Alice Lum

The 1849 Congregation Anshe Chesed -- No. 172 Norfolk Street

photo by Alice Lum

The governor of Nieuw Amsterdam, Peter Suyvesant, had a strong and simple view on religion:  he was right and all others were wrong.  A member of the Dutch Reformed Church, he forbade citizens to “admit, lodge or entertain…any one of the heretical and abominable sect called the Quakers” in 1655.  The following year he refused Lutherans the right to organize a church.  So it was not surprising that when the first Jews landed in New York in 1654 they were met with severe discrimination.

By the 1820s the Jewish population in New York City was still relatively small; yet it was substantial enough to have three separation congregations: Congregation Shearith Israel, the oldest; Congregation B’nai Jeshurun; and Congregation Anshe Chesed.  Composed of German, Polish and Dutch Jews, Anshe Chesed was the youngest group, established in 1828.  Between 1812 and 1846 the Jewish population would swell from 400 to 10,000 and by the start of the Civil War there would be more than two dozen synagogues in the city.  Large numbers, however, did not mean wide-spread acceptance.

Congregation Anshe Chesed was made up mostly of immigrants with little money or status.  They worshiped in rented rooms until 1842 when the old Quaker Meeting House at No. 38 Henry Street was purchased and converted to a synagogue.  Within a decade the congregation grew to be the largest of any synagogue in America.

Anshe Chesed (People of Kindness) distinguished itself from other Manhattan congregations as well by embracing the Reform Movement.  But this change would not become fully rooted until the group built a new, impressive synagogue on Norfolk Street.  As it outgrew the Henry Street facility, trustees began searching for a new site by 1848.  Three lots at Nos. 172 to 176 Norfolk Street, between Stanton and Houston Streets, were purchased for $10,000 (around a quarter of a million dollars today).  In an ironic twist of poetic justice, the lot was part of Peter Stuyvesant’s former estate.

Several architects submitted drawings and a vote in February 1848 resulted in the commission going to Alexander Saeltzer.  The German born architect turned to Gothic Revival for the new structure.  The style had first appeared in New York a decade earlier and would soon become the favorite for Christian churches.  Because of that, later synagogue architects would shy away from Gothic as being too church-like.  But for now, Saeltzer forged ahead with vigor.

His completed brick structure featured the expected pointed arched openings and carved tracery. Two sturdy towers flanked a recessed central section.  Pinnacles and gently sagging moldings adorned the windows; while inside a superb groined-arched ceiling was supported by clustered columns.  The once-tiny congregation of impoverished immigrants had arrived.

photo by Alice Lum

The new shul was formally consecrated on May 16, 1850 with elaborate ritual.  It was the largest synagogue in New York, capable of accommodating 700 men on the main floor and 500 women in the gallery.  The inclusive guest list to the dedication included several Christian clergymen, the mayor and members of the Common Council.

Now in its new home, some reform changes were made--like the introduction of a choir of both sexes.  Little by little other innovations would be accepted.  In 1869 a pipe organ was purchased and later families were permitted to sit together during worship.  On December 28, 1873 The New York Times said “Innovations were gradually introduced; and at a general meeting of the congregation, held a week ago, they declared themselves in harmony with every principle enunciated and proclaimed by reformed Judaism, prepared to adopt the most radical measures to bring their worship to accord with modern ideas.”

As a sort of by-product of this decision, the congregation applied to consolidate with the Temple Adath Jeshurun.  “Thus the oldest orthodox congregation of the City of New York has become merged entirely with a congregation recognized as the leading radical reform congregation of the country,” announced The New York Times.

The combined congregation built a new synagogue uptown on Lexington Avenue.  The Norfolk Street shul was purchased by Congregation Shaari Rachmim, which sold it 13 years later to the First Hungarian Congregation Oheb Zedek.  It would not be until June 19, 1890 that this congregation received its first rabbi and appropriate celebration surrounded his arrival. 

The New York Times reported that the synagogue was “completely filled” at the reception of the Rev. Dr. Philip Klein.  Before the congregation were six other rabbis, three judges and other dignitaries.  Following the ceremony a banquet was given.  The importance with which the congregation viewed the event was evident in the list of letters of regret that were read.  Among them were notes from “President Harrison, Vice-President Morton, ex-President Cleveland, and Mayor Grant.”

Along with its Hungarian-born congregants, the synagogue was also spiritual home to many Russians.  In 1905 the Russian government began an all-out persecution of Jews.  On March 12 that year a cable from a group of Jews in Berlin arrived at The New York Times office describing “a new period of persecution of Jews in Russia and alleging that Russian anti-Semites are making a systematic attempt to arrange a repetition of the Kishineff massacre.”  The cable said that manifestos were being distributed “advocating massacres of Jews” with rewards to those who carried them out.

By December the threats had been made real and Russian Jews were being slaughtered.  Speaking to the First Hungarian Congregation on December 4, 1905, Rev. H. Pereira Mendes said that they were the congregation who felt the most grief; for they personally received the letters from Russia.

“The world has never witnessed a time like this.  There have been times of intense suffering at the hands of one nation where the others could not help.”  The rabbi tried to give hope, saying that from the terror would come reform.  “There must be scenes of horror, yet, but can we doubt the ultimate result?  It is equal rights for all Jews in Russia.  The horrors have stirred up the world, and now we will have a government of the people by the people and for the people.”

Sadly, the ultimate horror for Jews in Europe was still a few decades away.

The following year, on November 4, 1906, the cornerstone was laid for the Hungarian congregation’s new synagogue in Harlem.  For a while Congregation Ohab Zedek would maintain both locations.  “The old synagogue in Norfolk Street will be in charge of the Rev. Philip Klein,” reported The New York Times, “and an assistant will be appointed to officiate at the new temple, which will be completed by Jan. 1.”

Congregation Ohab Zedek was still on Norfolk Street in 1910 when Jacob A. Rich married Sarah Siegel.  The ceremony would not have drawn attention normally.  Neither the bride nor groom was socially important—as a matter of fact Rich was a member of one of New York’s lowest caliber groups, the newsboys.  Like shoeblacks, the boys earned a meager existence on the streets and many slept and were fed in lodging houses built specifically for them.

But Jacob Rich, known as Jack Sullivan on the street, had earned the title “King of Newsboys.”  And his wedding was a major event in the Lower East Side.  “Two hundred newsboys will leave the Newsboys’ Home in a body and march to the synagogue in honor of the ‘king,’” reported the New-York Tribune on November 24, 1910.  “Following a reception at the Café Boulevard the couple will go to Lakewood, where they will spend their honeymoon.”

In 1934 the brick was still exposed.  photograph from the collection of the New York Public Library

On July 2, 1921 the New-York Tribune ran a one-line article announcing that the Norfolk Street Synagogue had been sold by the First Hungarian Congregation to the Congregation Sheveth Achin Anshe Slonim.  The newest congregation in the building would stay on for half a century.  But by the 1970s changes in the neighborhood pushed the members out.  In 1974 the building was abandoned.

About five years after it was abandoned, the building was in serious disrepair -- photograph by Edmund V. Gillon, from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York, http://collections.mcny.org/C.aspx?VP3=SearchResult_VPage&VBID=24UAYWPK65ED&SMLS=1&RW=1280&RH=915

Vandals broke in and what damage they did not do, weather and vermin finished.  The once elegant sanctuary was in ruins when Spanish artist Angel Orsensanz stumbled across it.  The oldest surviving synagogue structure in Manhattan and the fourth-oldest in the country; it was on the verge of devastation.

photograph by Edmund V. Gillon, from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York, http://collections.mcny.org/C.aspx?VP3=SearchResult_VPage&VBID=24UAYWPK65ED&SMLS=1&RW=1280&RH=915

The painter and sculptor purchased the derelict property in 1986 and converted it to an art gallery and performance space.  The brick walls are now stucco-covered and brightly painted.  Inside much of the architectural detail has been preserved, although like the façade, it has been brightened with a spectrum of vivid hues.  The building’s original purpose has come to life again, as well, with the Shul of New York worshipping below street level.

photo by Alice Lum

The marvelous and nearly-lost historic building is tucked away on little Norfolk Street where few New Yorkers have ever ventured.

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The Lost Calumet Club--267 Fifth Avenue

The combined mansions sit behind a heavy iron fence in 1902.  photo by Byron Company, from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York http://collections.mcny.org/C.aspx?VP3=SearchResult_VPage&VBID=24UAYWQ9TVQ1&SMLS=1&RW=1280&RH=915

In 1879, the year the Calumet Club was organized, the neighborhood of Fifth Avenue and 29^th Street was among the most exclusive in Manhattan.  Quiet and refined, it was marked by the brownstone mansions of Manhattan’s elite.  At the northeast corner, in No. 267 lived the family of Hartman Kuhn, while next door at No. 269 lived Henry Delafield and his daughter, Frances Henrietta.  Delefield’s wife, Mary Parish, had died in the house in 1870, just five years after their marriage.

Membership in at least one exclusive men’s club was de rigueur for wealthy gentlemen.  Originally simply social organizations; as more clubs sprouted they specialized.  There were athletic clubs like the New York Yacht Club and the Racquet Club, political clubs, clubs that focused on professions or interests, and university clubs. 

The Calumet Club began with just 15 members whose intentions were to establish a place where art and literature could be discussed.  A decade later The New York Times remembered,

When the club was established not very long ago there was an intellectual element in its organization which promised to make it popular among artists and literary men.  Its very name was chosen by a man of important literary attainments, and was intended to signify that democracy within its walls between exponents of the purely intellectual and the purely money-bag portions of society such as wine, pipes, and love have ever been known to establish.

From its 15 original members, the roles rapidly swelled and the club quickly outgrew its leased house on 13^th Street.  On April 12, 1885, The New York Times reported, “The club is one of the most successful that has ever been organized in this city.”  At the time, the club’s membership limit of 300 had nearly been reached.  It began looking for a commodious clubhouse that would reflect the social status of its members.  And it soon found one--the two brick-and-brownstone homes at Nos. 267 and 269 Fifth Avenue.

The Calumet Club announced that it would move into the combined homes “in all probability” after May 1, 1886.  The news that the Calumet would have a Fifth Avenue address caused a stir among a few of the other high-class clubs.  Two months later, The New York Times wrote, “Already several members have resigned from the St. Nicholas and have gone over to the Calumet Club.  The Calumet Club has announced its intention of removing to Fifth-avenue next May, when its present lease expires, and there is no doubt that if the St. Nicholas Club is not on the avenue by that time many members will resign from the St. Nicholas in favor of the Calumet.”

As predicted, the two mansions were internally combined and all was in order for the May 1886 move-in.  On April 18, 1886, The New York Times reported, “So well regulated are club matters that it is as easy for a club to move as for—well, say Barnum’s circus, which flits like the traditional Arab.  The membership of the Calumet has largely increased since the decision to move to the Avenue.”

The grand, combined mansions would provide the necessary amenities expected in a gentleman’s club—smoking rooms, billiard rooms, library, dining areas, for instance.  Upstairs were both sleeping rooms and suites for resident and non-resident members. 

Heavy canvas awnings shielded the interiors from the heat and damaging effects of direct sunlight -- photo from the collection of the New York Public Library

Although King’s Handbook of New York City rather unfairly said in 1892, “The Calumet is a club for the men whom the limit of membership and the long waiting list keep out of the Union” there was no doubt regarding its high-end membership.  Potential members were nominated by a standing member, then voted upon by a Governing Committee.  An initiation fee of $170 was required and dues were $65 per year for resident members—a total of about $3,500 today.

Each summer the families of wealthy New Yorkers escaped the heat by heading to Newport, Bar Harbor, or their country estates.  Their mansions were shuttered for three months and the furniture and artwork shrouded against dust.  During the summer weekdays the millionaire businessmen, bankers and attorneys, therefore, stayed at their clubs.  Along with Calumet Club members who used the rooms during the summer months, there were also unmarried members who lived permanently here. 

The move to Fifth Avenue had an unintended repercussion.  Certain sons of millionaires, attracted by the address, sought and were awarded memberships.  Their shallow interests diluted the scholarly tone set by the original group of artists and writers.  Little by little those veteran members walked away.

On December 20, 1889, The New York Times lamented, “the influences of Fifth-avenue have been, it is said, steadily in the ascendant, and the habitués of the Astor-place publishers have gradually removed themselves from their now haughty companions and have gone where more congenial associates are possible.  Thus came a limited divorce between the purely intellectual and the purely financial cliques in the organization.”

But all traces of the original club were not yet gone, said the article:

Nevertheless, there has remained a faint aroma of the author’s pipes in the smoking room of the club, and some of the older members look back with undisguised regret to the time when these circulators of thought were wont to meet.  They tell that then there was conversation concerning other things besides pools and London burlesque actresses, and that even in the card room, when a bluff was successful, could be heard quotations from Horace instead of condemnations of Hoyle.

On January 16, 1896, the club was rocked when it was discovered that several of the members’ rooms had been burglarized.  Clubmen across the city united in the belief that either club employees were involved in the crime, or were simply incompetent.  The New-York Tribune, on January 19, said that clubmen believed, “some of the employes [sic] at the Calumet Club deserved severe blame for the robbery at the club on Thursday night, and that the superintendent of the club could not escape censure for the evident lack of fidelity among the attendants.  It was declared that no thief could invade the rooms of a club if the attendants were watchful and sober, and that it is the business of a club superintendent to engage only servants who are vouched for as entirely trustworthy.”

The morning after the theft, police arrested two men for stabbing Frank Boylan in Battery Park.  In the course of their investigation they found property stolen from the Calumet Club, wrapped in a monogrammed club towel and stashed in a public lavatory there.

Clarence Andrews was among the members robbed.  He had recently taken his apartment on the second floor here and The Sun remarked that “he was quite a heavy loser” in the theft.  However, as “most of the jewelry was recovered shortly afterward,” the newspaper said “Mr. Andrews paid no more attention to it.” 

Not, at least, for a while.

Well known in music and art circles both in New York and Europe, Andrews also held memberships in the Union League, Players’, Racquet Club, Seawanhaka-Corinthian Yacht Club, and the American Fine Arts Society.  About two weeks after the burglary, he returned to his apartment to find he had been robbed once again.  The Sun reported, “The value of jewelry taken he estimates at about $450.”  That figure would amount to a little over $12,000 today.  But it was not merely the monetary value of the jewelry that concerned Andrews.  “I lost many family souvenirs that can never be replaced,” he said.

Now tenant and landlord became engaged in a heated tug-of-war.  “After the second robbery Mr. Andrews contended that the club was responsible for his loss, as it had allowed careless methods to prevail in its management of things.  The managers of the club took a widely different view of the matter, and refused to make any reparation for the losses which he had sustained.”  Finally an incensed Clarence Andrews packed his things and moved two blocks north to 489 Fifth Avenue.  “His reasons for so doing, he said yesterday, were simply because he felt that he did not have any protection while he stayed there and that in the event of another robbery he could expect nothing in return from the club,” reported The Sun.

The club managers promptly requested that he pay the rent on the suite for the rest of the year, since he had promised to stay that long.  The heated dispute went on for nearly a year until, in December 1896, the Calumet Club dropped Andrews from its membership roles.  He never paid the rent, by the way.

In 1904, the Calumet Club was a pivotal part of the shocking scandal that rocked New York society.  Wealthy wine merchant Frank de Peyster Hall had long been a member.  He was President of the F. de Peyster Hall Company and lived nearby at 113 West 28th Street in what The Evening World called “luxurious surroundings.”   Hall held memberships in other exclusive men’s clubs including the St. Anthony Club and the New York Yacht.

The unmarried millionaire sometimes stayed overnight at the Calumet Club and nighttime activities resulted in his being asked to resign.  Like all men’s clubs, young boys were employed as bellboys to handle messages and tend to the incidental needs of the members.  When club officers heard of the “gossip of bellboys” the youths were questioned.  Club attendants said that “over a long period of time” the “boys were afraid to go to Hall’s room while he was living in the club.”

This led to an investigation by discreet private detectives.  A young detective was placed in the Calumet Club as a bellboy.  “On the strength of his evidence the manager of the detective agency, according to the club officials, went to Mr. Hall, handed him a resignation blank and asked him to fill it in,” reported The Evening World some months later.

The sensational facts of Hall's “disgraceful practices” were kept from the public and Hall’s resignation was reported to be due to his unhappiness with the way the club was managed.  But little by little rumors leaked out.  By September 1904 his business partners heard the story and he was forced to resign. 

On October 5, in an effort to control the “ostracism both socially and in business circles” he was enduring, Frank De Peyster Hall sued Alfred H. Bond, president of the Calumet Club, and George A. Carmack, secretary of the New York Yacht Club. Charging the men with slander, he sued each for $50,000.

Hall’s attempt to save face backfired.  As attorneys prepared their cases, newspapers were told that at least “seven witnesses, all of whom are boys” would testify.  To make matters worse, Bond sent a message to Hall’s lawyers saying, according to The Evening World, “that he desired no further publicity, but that if the suit were pressed he would lay the evidence in his possession before the District-Attorney, which the object of beginning criminal proceedings.”

Frank De Peyster Hall, once eminently successful and respected, had his back to the wall.  Pederasty in 1904 was not only a despicable crime, it was damning.  If his case went to trial, Hall would be shamed and ruined.

On October 10, The Evening World reported, “It was Hall’s custom to take his breakfast in his room every morning at 8.45 o’clock.  Malvina Morse, the negro maid, took the breakfast to the room at the usual hour to-day.  The door was slightly ajar.  She knocked, but receiving no reply she entered.

“The sight that greeted her eyes caused her to drop the tray and rush into the passage with a scream of horror.  Hall was lying dead on the floor alongside the bed.  There was a bullet wound in his head and a pistol clasped in his right hand.”

The disgraced club member had taken the only way out he could conceive.

Well-dressed spectators line the club's 29th Street side as policemen head west to Fifth Avenue to join The Police Parade on June 1, 1897.  photo by Byron Company, from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York http://collections.mcny.org/C.aspx?VP3=SearchResult_VPage&VBID=24UAYWQ9TVQ1&SMLS=1&RW=1280&RH=915

As had been the case with Clarence Andrews, the management of the club did not always see eye-to-eye with its members.  In 1884 Fleming Tuckerman loaned the club a portrait of Benjamin Franklin by artist Benjamin West.  It was a family heirloom, purchased from the West family by an uncle and inherited by Tuckerman from his father.  By 1908, the portrait had hung in a conspicuous spot in the club for more than two decades.  And now Tuckerman requested the painting back.

The club management reminded Tuckerman that the portrait was a gift.  Tuckerman reminded the club that it was on loan.  The issue ended up in court with Tuckerman demanding the return of his painting or $4,000.  The club held its ground and testified that the Benjamin Franklin portrait was property of the Calumet Club, a gift from a generous member—Fleming Tuckerman.  On January 8, 1909, Tuckerman won his case and regained possession of the painting.  One assumes his previously enjoyable evenings in the clubhouse came to an end.

By 1914, the area around the Calumet Club that had been fashionably residential in 1886 was overwhelmed by commerce.  On June 3, the members voted “almost unanimously in favor of moving the club to a location further uptown,” according to the New-York Tribune.  The newspaper noted “In the last few years many of its neighbors have moved in the uptown direction, which fact has influenced many Calumet members to urge a similar course.”

The “similar course” resulted in the club’s purchase of the Henry B. Hollins mansion at 12 West 56^th Street.  The Real Estate Record & Builders’ Guide reported on the sale on June 27, 1914 and one week later it announced that the old clubhouse had been subleased.  “Alterations are to be made for business purposes,” it said.

The proud clubhouse briefly became home to the Home Relief Shop.  Here donated items were resold for charity.  “The objects of the Shop are three: To afford opportunity to the poor to buy warm winter clothing at a nominal sum; to give employment to women in the sewing rooms, where the worn garments are refurbished and donated materials made up, and to give direct relief to the poor through the charitable work of St. Mark’s Hospital,” explained The Evening World on December 18, 1914.

The lush vines have been stripped away and signs announce the impending demolition in 1915 -- photograph from the collection of the New York Public Library

But the tide of commerce would soon overtake the Calumet Club building.  Four months later, on April 17, 1915, The Real Estate Record & Builders’ Guide reported that the property had been sold for $600,000.  “The new owners will erect an eleven-story structure for their own occupancy.”  Within a year the combined mansions at 267 and 269 Fifth Avenue were gone; replaced by an office building.

The Edwardian skyscraper known as 267 Fifth Avenue still stands, albeit with an altered base.  photograph from the collection of the New York Public Library

The 1871 Samuel Morse Statue - Central Park

photo by Alice Lum

In 1825, portrait artist Samuel Finley Breese Morse was in Washington D.C. working on the portrait of Lafayette commissioned by the City of New York.  His work was interrupted by a horse messenger who delivered a letter from Morse’s father that read, “Your dear wife is convalescent.”  The following day, as Morse rush to return home to New Haven, he received a second letter telling him that his wife had died.

Realizing that the slow means of delivering messages was to blame for his not being aware of his wife’s sickness and death, the disconsolate artist focused on discovering a process of rapid long distance communication.  Nearly two decades later, in 1842, Morse had developed the single-wire telegraph and co-developed the Morse code.  Following a demonstration of his device between two committee rooms in the Capitol, he awaited passage of a Senate bill to approve $30,000 for construction of an experimental 38-mile telegraph line between Washington and Baltimore.

On the last day of the session, the bill had not been voted on and Morse was told there was no hope it would be.  The disappointed inventor went to his hotel to leave for New York the next day.  As he was heading to breakfast the following morning, a woman, Annie Ellsworth, was waiting for him.  She congratulated him on the passage of his bill.

He replied, “You are mistaken.  I was told last night it could not be reached this session, and I was just about returning to New York, quite disappointed.”

Assured by Miss Ellsworth that the bill had indeed passed, the elated Morse promised her that when the line was completed, she would dictate the first message relayed.  A year later, in May 1844, the line was ready and Samuel Morse sent to Annie Ellsworth asking what her choice for the first message would be.  Her return message was “What hath God wrought.”

Samuel F. B. Morse’s telegraph changed communication in the 19^th century no less than the internet did in the 20^th.  In 1865, a movement was underway in New York to honor the inventor with a statue—a highly unorthodox concept considering that Morse was still alive. 

On December 23, Mayor C. Godfrey Gunther vetoed the idea of the Common Council; but not because he was opposed to the statue.  Instead, Gunther objected to the proposed site at Broadway and Sixth Avenue, which he deemed, “ineligible.”  “The appropriate place, in my judgment,” he wrote, “is in the Central Park.”

Fund raising proceeded, nevertheless, and in July 1870 publisher and committee chairman James D. Reid announced that “over a thousand contributions, amounting to nearly $2,000, have been received.”  The New York Times on July 7, reported, “The subscriptions are mainly from superintendents, operators and messengers in the telegraph service throughout the Union, and range in amount from twenty-five cents to $25.”

At the time, the committee envisioned “a marble statue, standing by the side of which will be placed the first form of the Morse register, on a suitable support, the whole to be raised upon a single step of plain white marble, and encircled by an open railing to protect it.”  The final cost was projected to be $5,000, and The New York Times expected that “the work will probably be begun by a New-York sculptor within a few days.”

Now the committee needed to secure a spot in Central Park.  In his application to the Park Commissioners on July 22, 1870, James D. Reid wrote in part, “Prof. Morse’s fame rests on a basis so permanent, so cosmopolitan and beneficent, that it leads us to the assurance that you will assign to our use some distinguished spot in the beautiful grounds under your control.”

By now, the cost of the memorial had doubled.  The New York Times reported on December 4, 1870, "The statue will cost $10,500."  That figure would translate to about $181,000 today.

The intention was to unveil the statue on Morse’s 80^th birthday, April 27, 1871.  No time could be lost.  By now, the idea of marble statue had changed to one of bronze.  Sculptor Byron M. Pickett had been chosen for the project and on December 4, 1870, The New York Times reported on the accepted model:

The statue is seven feet high, and is at once a striking likeness and highly-finished work of art.  The figure is standing, dressed in an ordinary frock coat, with a large fur-collared cloak hanging loosely over the right shoulder, and drooping down the back.  The left hand is resting on a telegraphic instrument from which a strip of paper is issuing, the other end being held in the right hand.

The strip of paper drooping from Morse’s hand would hold the words “What hath God wrought.”

The telegraph strip in Morse's hand reads "What hath God Wrought."  photo by Alice Lum

The newspaper made one slight criticism.  “The head and face are strikingly like the original, although the statue appears to be that of a person some few years younger than Prof. Morse.” 

Delays prevented the unveiling to be held on Morse’s birthday as hoped and June 10 was set for the event.  A week before, The Times updated readers on the pending “imposing ceremonies.”  “Platforms for speeches in the public parks, bands of music, &c, all have been duly arranged; also, an excursion down the harbor.  Gen. Davis, military commander of the Port of New-York, has placed at the services of the Inaugural Committee, the fine United States Army Band stationed at Governor’s Island.”

Decades later, in 1914, Morse’s son, Edward Lind Morse, remembered, “It was a perfect June day and the hundreds of telegraphers from all parts of the country, with their families, spent the forenoon in a steamboat excursion around the city.  In the afternoon crowds flocked to the park where, near what is now called the ‘Inventor’s Gate,’ the statue stood in the angle between two platforms for the invited guests.”

Fabric awnings protect dignitaries from the sun as well-dressed attendees watch the unveiling -- Hearth and Home, July 1, 1871 (copyright expired)

Governor John T. Hoffman presided and speeches were given by Mayor Abraham Oakley Hall and William Cullen Bryant, who presented the statue to the City. (Later Bryant would joke about the awkward circumstances, since the Park Commissioners had earlier refused to erect a statue of him because he was still alive.)  Noticeably absent was Samuel F. Morse, himself.  His son would explain, “Morse himself refused to attend the ceremonies of the unveiling of his counterfeit presentment, as being too great a strain on his innate modesty.”

James D. Reid agreed, writing in his Telegraph in America, “Mr. Morse was incapable of such an indelicacy…Men of refinement and modesty would justly have marveled had they seen him in such a place.”

In glowing Victorian prose, The New York Times remarked on Pickett’s ability to treat Morse’s advanced age with dignity.  

The head is excellent.  The difficulties of age have been successfully combated, and the sculptor, realizing the scope of his work, has brought out in the Professor’s face all the glowing majesty that has decked it in those moments when the situation called up his powers, and flashed his soul through the mask of his features.  The resemblance has been carefully preserved, while the beard has been arranged so as to increase the air of majesty so conspicuous on the brows.

 

Central Park visitors contemplate Morse's statue -- from the collection of the New York Public Library

Taste in art constantly changes and within two decades The Sun would be less appreciative of Pickett’s work.  On November 2, 1890, an article mentioned, “At Seventy-second street and Fifth avenue is the Inventor’s Gate, so called possibly because a rather humorous statue of Prof. Morse stands near it.”

Three years later, vandals made off with the statue’s bronze tape.  On December 19, 1893, The Evening World reported, “the telegraphers of the city were given permission to put a new bronze tape in the hands of the statue of Prof. Morse, in Central Park, as the original tape is missing.”

For decades, however, the statue was revered and visited by those in the telegraphy profession.  On May 31, 1902, the New-York Tribune remarked, “A delegation representing the Morse Club went to Central Park yesterday morning and placed a wreath and some flowers on the monument of Samuel F. B. Morse, the inventor of the telegraph.”

photo by Alice Lum

But more than a century later, few visitors to the Park make note of the statue to the inventor who revolutionized communication.  The man whose invention was so important that a memorial was erected while he was still living is little noticed by passersby who do not look up from their cell phones.