The Jennie Cunningham Croly House - 171 East 71st Street

 

photograph by the author

In 1866 real estate developer James O'Kane erected a row of six identical homes on the north side of East 71st, between Third and Lexington Avenues.  Designed by prolific architect John Sexton, each was just 15-feet-wide and rose three stories over a high basement level.  Their Italianate design featured double-doored, arched entrances below impressive pediments supported by foliate brackets.  The architrave-framed segmentally-arched windows sat upon molded sills.  Identical, individual cornices crowned the homes.

No. 171 East 71st Street became home to the family of Robert Ward, whose hosiery business was far downtown on White Street.   The Wards remained at least through 1873, after which James T. Shylock and his wife resided here briefly.

Shylock was described by the New York Herald as "a wealthy married man."  His carousing with a friend in the spring of 1876 landed him in jail and brought humiliating publicity.  In an article titled "Bad Shylock," the New York Herald recounted that he had approached Officer Cumming in the notorious Tenderloin District, "and demanded to know if certain houses were ones of ill-fame."  The New York Times reported that Cumming told Shylock, "he had better leave."
 

The newspaper continued, "He accosted the officer, and abused him with vile language.  The officer again met him talking to a prostitute on Twenty-sixth street."  The woman fled, but Shylock remained, daring Cumming to arrest him.  His "loud and abusive language" drew a crowd of about 50 onlookers.  When Cumming attempted to take Shylock into custody, "he struck the officer a terrible blow in the face and attempted to seize his club," said the New York Herald.  The article reported, "It was with a great deal of difficulty and not until he had been severely punished, that he was finally secured in a cell in the station house."

In court, Shylock showed no remorse, expressing "his intention to hammer out the brains of the officer."  The judge fined him $10 and fifteen days in the Tombs.

In 1877, 171 East 71st Street became home to Dr. Benjamin Morje, starting a long tradition of physicians at the address.  Morje's son Anthony worked as an office clerk.  The family lived here until 1880 when real estate operators Samuel H. Leszynsky and Charles A. Troup purchased the property.

They leased it to Dr. G. Arnold until 1882, when they sold 177 East 71st Street to David Goodman Croly and his wife, Jennie Cunningham Croly.  As was common, the title was placed in Jennie's name.  The couple had a son and a daughter.

Croly was a well-known journalist.  He was city editor of the New York Herald in 1856 when the couple married.  He later became managing editor of the newspaper, and then editor of the Daily Graphic.

Jennie Cunningham Croly, however, was better-known than her husband.  A pioneering female journalist, she had started her career with the New York Sunday Dispatch.  She was working at the New York Herald when she met Croly.  Over the years she was connected with several newspapers and magazines, wrote books under the pseudonym Jennie June, and co-founded Sorosis club for women writers and the New York Woman's Press Club.

In 1887 Jennie Croly purchased a half-interest in Godey's Lady's Book and served as its editor.  Her abilities and interests went far beyond journalism.  American Women reported, "She was chosen president of the Women's Endowment Cattle Company...That company, incorporated under the laws of New Jersey, had a capital stock of $1,500,000 and controlled 2,000,000 acres of grazing land in New Mexico, with thousands of head of cattle."

An ardent feminist, Jennie testified before the Senate Committee on Labor and Capital in 1883.  Her exhaustive testimony exposed the "peculiar hardships of women in this country."  Among her suggestions was the making of public education mandatory for girls.  Several of Croly's books were aimed at women, such as For Better or Worse, Jennie Juneiana: Talks on Women's Topics, and Thrown on her Own Resources.

Jennie Cunningham Croly, Progressive Era, copyright expired

American Women mentioned, "Her home has for years been a center of attraction for authors, artists, actors and cultured persons.

In April 1892 Dr. Oscar Peter Honegger and his wife Augusta Louise purchased 171 East 71st Street.  The couple paid $14,000 for the property, or about $430,000 in 2023 terms.

Born in Pennsylvania in 1855, Honegger received his medical degree in Heidelberg, Germany in 1879.  He also attended Pittsburgh University and the University of Zurich.  He and Augusta had one daughter.

A few months after moving into the 71st Street house, Honegger was called to a tragic case.  The parents of 23-year-old Isaac Henry called him to their home on the night of January 10, 1893.  The New York Sun reported, "Henry admitted to the Doctor that for the last five years he had been addicted to the use of opium."  His habit forced him to smoke "five and seven grains of opium a day."  This time the young man would not survive and died the following day.  "Dr. Honnegger [sic], in his death certificate, gave chronic opium poisoning as the cause of death," said the article.

In his free time, Oscar Honegger was an avid chess player.  He founded the Metropolitan Chess Club and served as its president until resigning on June 15, 1897.  The American Chess Magazine said, "much against the will of the members, he was allowed to step out of office."  Calling him "a player of no mean ability," the article added, "the most genial of men, Dr. Honegger was an ideal president, indeed.  He is a physician with a large practice."

The Honeggers had a large St. Bernard dog.  On the afternoon of May 6, 1900, it was hit by a Lexington Avenue cable car near 71st Street.  The World reported, "The dog got caught under the car and was fearfully mangled."  When it was finally extracted, the horrific condition of the animal became evident.  "One woman fainted and many screamed," said the article.

Back at 171 East 71st Street, the Honeggers' daughter had a playmate over.  Their carefree afternoon was about to turn horrific.  The World reported, "An excited young man recognized the dog as the property of Dr. Honegger...and dragged the still animate body into the doctor's house without giving the family any warning, causing two little girls, whose playfellow the dog had been, to go into hysterics."  The St. Bernard died within a few minutes of being brought to the house.

In December 1905 Dr. Honegger purchased a house on East 91st Street and sold 171 East 71st Street to brothers James Otis and William Stone Post.  They were the sons of eminent architect George Browne Post, and a year before purchasing the house had joined their father's practice, which became George B. Post and Sons.

The brothers shared the townhouse and, apparently, the Post summer estate, Claremont, in Bernardsville, New Jersey.  James and his wife were childless, while William and Lillian Marie had two daughters, Marian and Lillian.

In April 1914, the Posts sold 171 East 71st Street to Dr. Albert R. Lamb.  A 1907 graduate of Columbia University, Lamb married Helen Foster on January 4, 1910.  When they moved into their new home, their daughter Mary Nightingale was three years old.  Albert Jr. arrived later that year, on December 3, 1914, and daughter Priscilla was born on May 28, 1919.

Lamb was a pathologist at the Presbyterian Hospital.  When America entered World War I, he received a commission in the Medical Corps, and at the end of the conflict was a member of the American Commission in Paris to Negotiate Peace.

In July 1921 Dr. Lamb was appointed professor of clinical medicine at the College of Physicians and Surgeons, and attending physician at the Presbyterian Hospital.  

A year later Lamb sold 171 East 71st Street to another physician, Dr. Henry Alsop Riley, and his wife the former Margaret Hamilton.  Born in 1887, he graduated from Yale University in 1908 and received his medical degree from the College of Physicians and Surgeons in 1912.  A specialist in nervous and mental diseases, in 1930 he was a professor of neurology at his alma mater.

Dr. Riley retired as attending neurologist of the Neurological Institute of the Columbia-Presbyterian Medical Center in 1962, and ended his private medical practice in 1964.

No. 171 East 71st Street became home to Geoffrey T. Hellman, described by The New York Times journalist Alden Whitman as "The New Yorker writer, humorist, bon vivant and clubman."  Hellman married his second wife, the former Katherine Henry, in 1960.  The couple had a daughter, Katharine.

Born on February 13, 1907, Hellman had been with The New Yorker since 1929.  The humorist was the author of two books, Mrs. de Peyster's Parties and Other Lively Stories From The New Yorker, and How to Disappear for an Hour.  Whitman said of him, "Mr. Hellman moved easily among the wealthy New Yorkers of the Upper East Side, for he himself was the great-grandson of Joseph Seligman, the international banker."

Hellman died of cancer in the 71st Street house on September 26, 1977.  His daughter by his first marriage, sitar player Daisy Paradis, still lives in the house.

An interesting side note is that because the address appears prominently in the background of several scenes in the 1961 motion picture Breakfast at Tiffany's, fans routinely mistake 171 East 71st Street as the house of the film's character Holly Golightly.  The actual location was next door, at 169 East 71st Street.

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The 1873 No. 458 West 49th Street

 

On February 6, 1873 real estate operator Maurice Levi purchased property on the south side of 49th Street just east of Tenth Avenue from William Astor.  Within the year he had replaced the old structures on the site with five brownstone-faced flat (or apartment) buildings, stretching from 450 to 458 West 49th Street.

Like its identical neighbors, 458 West 49th Street was four stories tall, its entrance sitting above a short, three-step stoop.  Its Italianate design featured a handsome double-doored entrance that would have been fitting in a merchant class residence.  Its paneled pilasters and entablature were carved with rosettes, a foreshadowing of the emerging neo-Grec style.  Sturdy foliate brackets upheld a classic, triangular pediment that matched those of the windows on this level.

The upper floor openings sat upon molded sills upheld by delicate brackets, and were crowned by carved lintels.  A pressed metal cornice with foliate and plain brackets included raised panels within the frieze.

The building filled with mostly Irish-born tenants, the early residents having surnames including Mulroy, Mooney, Mulligan, Tobin and McManus.  And while it sat within the notorious Hell's Kitchen neighborhood, the building's residents seem to have been hard-working and respectable.  Living here for at least a decade starting around 1900, for instance, was former police officer Andrew B. Mooney.  He had retired from the police department on November 8, 1883 and lived on a $600-a-year pension--an income that translates to about $18,500 in 2023.

Tenants like Edmund Murphy seem to have worked hard to improve their conditions.  At a time when most office workers were male, he studied "Pitmanic shorthand," the system developed by Sir Isaac Pitman in 1837.  By 1909 he was a member of The Shorthand Club.

At least one resident around that time could afford an automobile--possibly a taxicab.  But John Farrell's car seems to have left something to be desired.  On December 13, 1910 he appeared in court and was fined $1 for operating a "smoking automobile."  Just over two weeks later, on New Year's Day 1911, he was pulled over again, and this time was arrested.

The city had earlier enacted what the New York Herald described as the "anti-smoke law."  The newspaper complained about the "disregard many have for this health saving regulation."  Farrell was one of 40 drivers arrested that day and this time his fine was stiffer--five times as much as his previous penalty.  The $5 fine, equal to about $150 today, most likely hit Farrell's cash flow hard.

A long-time Irish resident was James J. O'Connor.  In 1915 he was appointed a commissioner of deeds, a civil service position similar to today's notary public.  He was still here in 1923, when he was a member of the Friends of Irish Freedom.

Living here in 1917 was Bernard Grennan.  The 39-year-old worked as a laborer building the subway.  On April 17 that year he was working on an excavation in Brooklyn at St. Felix Street, near Hanson Place.  At around 10:30 that morning disaster struck when a cave-in occurred.  The front walls of two houses broke away and slid into the hole, according to the Brooklyn Standard Union.  The foundations of two other houses were undermined and the article said "the entire fronts of both will probably have to be taken down."

Amazingly, only one worker was killed.  At least six others were injured, including Bernard Grennan.  He and his co-workers were taken to Brooklyn Hospital where he happily recovered.

The tenant list of 458 West 49th Street continued to be filled with Irish surnames for decades.  Then, by the third quarter of the 20th century, the Hell's Kitchen neighborhood saw gentrification.  

In the 1970s artist Frank Taira lived and worked here.  Born in San Francisco to Japanese immigrant parents in 1913, they had returned to Japan in 1928, leaving the 15-year-old to fend for himself.  He worked as a houseboy to support himself.  The prize money he won in a competition sponsored by a Japanese-American newspaper to create a cartoon promoting Japanese-American relations enabled him to enroll for a month in the California School of Fine Arts.  

It was a life-changing experience.  By the time he moved into 458 West 49th Street his paintings had been exhibited at several solo shows, including the 1967 Hudson Guild Gallery exhibition Frank Taira: Oils.  

Another artistic resident was actress and singer Nell Snaidas, who lived here in the late 199os.  She graduated from the Mannes College of Music, having begun her career at the age of 16 as a soloist in a tour of the New Jersey Opera Theater.  She appeared on Broadway in Hair and starred internationally in the role of Christine in The Phantom of the Opera.

No. 458 West 49th Street is the best preserved of the 1873 row, its handsome carvings still crisp after a century and a half.

photographs by the author

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A History of Tragedy and Change - 176 Seventh Avenue

In the late 1840s a row of three house-and-store buildings were erected on the west side of Seventh Avenue, between 20th and 21st Streets.  Their builder designed them in the Greek Revival style--with flat brownstone lintels and understated wooden cornices.  The entrances to the upper floors, next to the storefronts, were handsome examples of the style, their doors flanked by pilasters and sidelights, and topped by four-panel transoms.  But instead of the short attic floor seen in pure Greek Revival buildings, the houses had full-height fourth floors, a hint of the emerging Italianate style.  Additionally, the common bracketed cornice above the storefronts featured carved rosettes, a decorative element more expected in Italianate.

In 1851 the ground floor of the middle house, 150 Seventh Avenue, was occupied by Richman & Schwartz, glaziers.  It was run by Moses Richman and Charles Schwartz.  (The address would be renumbered 176 in 1868.)  Moses Richman lived above the store in the boarding house run by Margaret Mulloy, a widow.  Like Richman, her other tenants were middle class, including Charles McCamley, a "crocker," or pottery maker; and attorney Edward P. Clark.

Within only two years, the tenants were mostly working class.  In 1853 they included a painter, two "marblecutters," and a carpenter.  Although Moses Richman continued to board here, the shop had become William Lewis's oyster house.

Also living in the rooms, of course, were the tenants' wives and children.  The spouses of working class husbands most often did their best to add to the family's income.  A typical advertisement in the New York Herald in November 1853 read:

Wanted--A situation by a young woman to do general housework, in a small private family; is a good plain cook, and a first rate washer and ironer.  Has the best of city reference.  Please call at 150 Seventh avenue, first floor, back room, for two days, if not engaged.

A young couple, James and Charlotte McKeon lived here in 1862.  Tragically, their one-a-half-year-old son, Charles H. McKeon, died on June 26 that year.  The little boy's funeral was held in their rooms three days later.

By 1868, the store was home to Thomas Dewhurst's clothing  and tailor shop.  The occupants upstairs at the time were Dederick F. Fulle, a policeman who would stay for several years; stone setter John McCormick; John P. Hatterig, a plater; and "segarmaker" Frederick Hulsburger.

A noticeable change to the commercial space came in 1872 when Peter Meinecke transformed the former Dewhurst tailor shop into a beer saloon.  Its backroom became a favorite gathering space for the Democratic Association of the 17th Assembly District.  On October 22, 1874, for instance, The Evening Telegram reported on its meeting the previous evening, saying the members "endorsed the entire Tammany Hall ticket."

At the time, there were two widows living upstairs--Catherine Wilmot and Eliza Worth.  One of them undoubtedly ran the boarding house.  She placed a purposefully misleading advertisement in the New York Herald on February 2, 1873 that read:

A lone woman, having a nice home, will let a small hall room to a lady, in business during the day preferred.  Call at 176 Seventh avenue, one stairs up.

The ad carefully sidestepped the fact that there were numerous boarders, and gave the clear impression that the widow lived alone.

In 1874 the saloon was operated by B. & J. Schuman.  One of the boarders, C. W. Pani, listed his occupation as "beer," suggesting he worked in the saloon.  The other residents included a smith, a clerk, a shoemaker and a plasterer.

French immigrants Joseph and Charles Centlair shared a room in 1877.  Charles, who was 27 years old, was a trained cook.  French chefs were highly sought by high-end restaurants and wealthy families.  But for some reason, he was having a difficult time finding a position.

On April 12, Charles did not return to 176 Seventh Avenue.  Nearly a month later, on May 10, a body was found in the Hudson River at West 13th Street.  He was identified as Charles Centlair.  The New York Times reported, "The circumstances surrounding the case of this man are such as to warrant the supposition that he committed suicide while subject to despondency resulting from inability to procure employment."

The Peter Doelger Brewery took over the lease of the saloon in 1881.  It was common in the 19th century for brewers to lease saloons throughout the city, thereby ensuring that only their products were sold there.  The saloon would occupy the space util 1895 when a much different business signed the lease--Augustino Spiala's barber shop.

Spiala nearly lost his business on January 8, 1896.  In fact, the entire building could have been destroyed.  A boy who worked for Spiala, Salvatore Afroste, lived in the basement.  The Evening Post reported that he "placed a lighted candle on a pile of magazines near the bed."  Salvatore fell asleep and awoke to find the room on fire.  "He tried to extinguish the flames, but when the fire got beyond his control he became frightened and ran from the house."  Happily, while the fire extended into the barber shop, it was extinguished by firefighters before it spread further.

The common storefront cornice and all three Greek Revival doorways survived in 1941.  176 Seventh Avenue is the middle building.  image via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services.

Living upstairs in 1898 were Edward Tibbetts, his wife, Jennie, and their three children who ranged from 8 to 15 years old.  Jennie had been suffering from consumption (known today as tuberculosis) for years.  The family's situation worsened when Edward was rushed to Bellevue Hospital on November 2 with a "hemorrhage of the stomach," according to The New York Times.  (The condition was possibly a perforated ulcer.)  The 39 year old died that night.

When Jennie was told of her husband's death, she replied, "I will soon follow."  And, indeed, the next day she was dead.  The couple was given a joint funeral on November 6.  The three children, now orphans, were separated.  Another tenant of 176 Seventh Avenue, a Mrs. Billings, took in the 15-year-old daughter.  The son and other daughter were taken by their uncle, a Mr. Condon.

Another death occurred in the house the following year.  Antonio Cotrina, who lived here with his wife, Rosina, died in July 1899.  His funeral was held on July 14, but Rosina would not see it.  As the cortege headed to the East Side, disaster struck as it cross the streetcar tracks at 32nd Street and Third Avenue.

The New York Times reported, "The hearse had crossed the tracks, and the first coach, which contained the widow, Mrs. Rosina Cotrina; Dominico Raymond...and three children of Mrs. Cotrina, was close to it."  Just as the coach was on the tracks, a northbound cable car smashed into it, slamming it against the pillar of the elevated railroad.  A doctor treated the passengers on site.  The article said, "they returned home, the funeral proceeding to Calvary Cemetery without them."

The ground floor continued to house a barber shop until 1903, when it became Levin & Feinberg's cigar store.  But by the Depression years, it was once again a barber shop.  

A renovation completed in 1962 resulted in two apartments per floor above the store.  In 1996, the space that had been a beer saloon in the 1870s became Ciel Rouge, a lounge described by New York Magazine as "a glamorously-dark, decadent deep-red womb where men pretend they're fellas and women vamp like dames."  More recently it became home to Bar Veloce, a self-described modern Italian wine bar.

The handsome storefront cornice was most likely lost when 178 Seventh Avenue next door was remodeled in 1984.  But although the wonderful Greek Revival residential entrance was lost in the second half of the 20th century and the brick given a coat of salmon-colored paint, 176 Seventh Avenue retains much of its early 19th century appearance.

photographs by the author

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Neville & Bagge's 1897 600 West 114th Street

 

Contractor William Drought hired the architectural firm of Neville & Bagge to design a "stores and tenement" building on the southwest corner of Broadway and 114th Street in 1897.  The challenging plot was 95-feet-wide but only 25-feet-deep.  The structure would cost Drought the equivalent of just over one million in 2023 dollars.

Faced in beige Roman brick and trimmed in limestone, the Renaissance Revival style building was divided into horizonal sections by three intermediate cornices.  Splayed lintels with scrolled keystones and Renaissance style pediments decorated the openings, while the limestone facing of the building's rounded corner drew the eye.  A single store occupied the Broadway side, and a pressed metal cornice and decorative frieze capped the structure.

The striking entrance portico sat atop a low stoop.  Four polished granite Scamozzi columns upheld a stone entablature carved with two unusual portrait rondels.  The work of a skilled craftsmen, they seem to portray actual persons--one a rather morose looking woman, the other a gentleman in an 18th century wig.  Two portraits carved into the window pediments directly above suggest contemporary persons, especially the male face with a turn-of-the-century hairstyle and moustache.

Interestingly, Neville & Bagge's inclusion of windows on the western side of the building attests that the architects were confident that the gore lot next door, where a craggy outcropping of Manhattan shist loomed, would not be developed.  

Unlike most apartment buildings on the Upper West Side, Drought did not give this one a name; instead, it was identified only by its address.  The apartments contained seven rooms and a bath.  Residents, who paid between $600 and $720 a year (an affordable $1,850 per month today), enjoyed amenities like "hall service."  The term referred to uniformed employees who helped with packages, ran errands, and such.

The apartments filled with professional tenants.  Among the earliest were educator Mary Lydia Bower, a graduate of Hampton Institute in Virginia; Andrew Grant, described by the New-York Tribune as "a wealthy builder;" and Isaac D. Marshall, the secretary, treasurer and a director in the New York National Land Association.

The cornice survived in 1941.  image via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services.

In 1901 the family of educator Francis Elbert Brooks moved in.  Francis had married Marie Pernessin, a widow, in March 1899.  Living with the couple was Marie's daughter Noémi.  Francis Brooks took a job at the Horace Mann School on 120th Street, the same school that Noémi attended.

It was possibly there, as co-editor of the school's yearbook, that Noémi's artistic talents first came to light.  She would go on to marry Antonin Raymond, and work together with him on designing more than 500 structures in Asia, Europe and the United States--including working with Frank Lloyd Wright on the 1921 Imperial Hotel in Tokyo.  Noémi's broad range of talents included interior design, sculpture, graphic design, painting, illustration, and furniture, rug and textile design.

Upper West Side apartments often served double-duty as vocal studios, and 600 West 114th Street was not an exception.  In 1913 soprano Caryl Bensel lived here.  The New York World wrote that year, "Her singing has created no little sensation in Fifth Avenue salons."  And by 1916 baritone Vernon d'Arnalle had his studio in the building.

Living here at the time were Gustave Fitzhugh Touchard, his wife, the former Margetta McPherson (who went by Margaret), and their daughter Alberta Louise.  In 1914, Gustave Touchard Jr. and his newborn child moved in following the death of his 21-year-old wife Emeline.  She had died from complications with the birth.

The younger Gustave Touchard was well known to tennis fans.  He had won the 1911 U. S. Nationals doubles tournament, and won the U. S. National Indoor Tennis Championship title three consecutive years--from 1913 through 1915.  (Emiline Touchard, incidentally, had also participated in lawn tennis tournaments before their marriage.)

Gustave Fitzhugh Touchard Jr.  from the collection of the Library of Congress

The young man worked at Abercrombie & Fitch where he was in charge of the golf supply department.  Sports fans were no doubt shocked when they read the New-York Tribune article on July 28, 1915 that reported he "admitted stealing $140 worth of golf balls."  The article said, "Many of his old-time friends have written to the court in his behalf."

Touchard's attorney pleaded for lenience, saying "the young man had yielded to temptation only when misfortunes forced him."  The New-York Tribune reported, "His wife died, said his counsel, leaving him with an infant and many bills."  The judge allowed him to return to the West 114th Street apartment to await his sentencing.

The Touchard family's misfortunes continued with the death of Gustave Sr., just months before Alberta Louise's wedding.  On December 20, 1916, her marriage to John Naglee Burk, a journalist with the Boston Transcript, took place in the apartment.  Because the family was in mourning, The Sun explained, "only relatives and a few intimate friends were invited," adding, "the bride was unattended."

Although Gustave Touchard Jr. had escaped jail time for the golf ball theft, the tragedy of his life persisted.  With the outbreak of World War I he joined the U. S. Army Aviation Corps.  He was detailed as an instructor at Camp Borden in Canada where, in August 1918, he underwent a throat operation.  On September 7, The Washington Herald reported, "He was preparing to leave when it was found necessary to perform a second operation for an abscess on the brain."  The 30-year-old Touchard did not survive that surgery.

A resident with a progressive and unusual career in the post-World War I years was Marie Cahill, "woman detective," as described by the New-York Tribune.  In 1921 she was hired by the defense team in the case of Marie Frye, who was suing Walter B. Gage for $50,000 (more than $750,000 today) for hitting her with his automobile and permanently crippling her.

The trial, which extended several days, began in December 1921.  On December 24, the New-York Tribune reported, "Since the trial opened Miss Frye has been carried into court because of her ostensibly crippled condition.  Several times the trial has been interrupted by the plaintiff's fainting spells."  Then, on December 23, Marie Cahill took the stand.

She testified that she first saw Frye "walk from her home to a picture house.  The young woman walked normally, Miss Cahill insisted," said the New-York Tribune.  Marie struck up a conversation and "formed Miss Frye's acquaintance."  After that, the two met several times.  The article said Marie Cahill "accompanied her on walks and rides with young men, during which the witness declared, Miss Frye drank from a pocket flask offered by her escort and smoked cigarettes."  It was damning testimony.

Living here at the time were Francis E. Brooks, a French instructor at Columbia University, his wife, who taught French at Horace Mann School, and their daughter.  In 1924 Francis Brooks began obsessing "that he would lose his job," according to The New York Times.  His condition worsened to what was diagnosed as nervous depression, and he was admitted to William J. Gould's sanitarium in Monterey, Massachusetts on June 20.  His wife initially traveled to Massachusetts to be near him, but then sailed to France with their daughter.

The sanitarium was a working farm.  On August 27, 1924, The New York Times reported, "For the past five weeks Mr. Brooks had been working in the hayfields and seemed to have improved."  He was, instead, deftly hiding his deep depression from the staff.

On the afternoon of August 26, Brooks eluded the attendants and sneaked into a barn where, according to The New York Times, he "built a platform from which he could reach a rafter, tied a half-inch rope around his neck and jumped."  It was several hours before his body was discovered.

In the second half of the 20th century, Columbia University acquired 600 West 114th Street as student, faculty, and staff housing.  At some point the cornice and frieze were removed, most likely because of dangerous deterioration, but overall the building is little changed after nearly a century and a quarter.  Columbia also owns the gore lot next door, with the amazingly surviving schist outcropping which locals have named Rat Rock.  The institution has said it does not intend to remove the craggy boulder.

photographs by the author

many thanks to historian Anthony Bellov for suggesting this post

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The Julius Chambers House - 9 West 84th Street

 

In March 1884, architect Frank F. Ward designed a row of six narrow, three-story houses for Margaret A. Brennan on West 84th Street, just east of Ninth (later Columbus) Avenue.  Another developer, Terence Keirnan, apparently took notice and the following year, in May, he purchased the plots at 3 through 9 West 84th Street, just off Central Park West, from Alfred Corning Clark.  The deeds demanded "that only first-class dwelling houses would be erected on the property."

As Margaret A. Brennan had done, Keirnan hired Frank F. Ward to design the 19-foot-wide houses.  Each would cost the equivalent of $494,000 in 2023 to construct.  On August 14, 1886 the Real Estate Record & Guide reported that the homes were nearly completed, saying Kiernan was installing the interior woodwork.  The article noted that the entire block was now nearly developed and that the "handsome character of the improvement on Eighty-fifth street is particularly noticeable."

Kiernan's brownstone-fronted houses were four stories tall above English basements.  Ward's formal Renaissance Revival design included intricately carved panels at the parlor level, and complex architrave framing of the upper floor windows.  The doorway, with its carved and paneled double doors, was flanked by Scamozzi pilasters that upheld a double cornice.  Ward strayed from Renaissance Revival in the stoop, where the iron railings were quintessentially Queen Anne with a delightful sunburst motif.

In October 1890 Kiernan sold 9 West 84th Street to Julius Chambers.  Chambers paid $32,000 for the property, or about $985,000 today.

Joseph Pulitzer had lured Chambers to his New York World as its managing editor the previous year.   Born in Bellefontaine, Ohio in 1850, he began his journalistic career as a "printer's devil" at the age of 11 at the Bellefontaine Republican.  (A printer's devil was an apprentice who did various tasks like fetching type and ink.)  Chambers had made journalistic history  while working for the New York Tribune.  In an early example of what today would be called undercover reporting, he had friends commit him to the Bloomingdale Insane Asylum where he gathered inside information on the facility.  After ten days, his friends had him released and a series of shocking articles were published.  Chambers's articles earned him the distinction of being labeled the original muckraker by many.

Julius Chambers, from the collection of the Minnesota Historical Society

Just months before buying the 84th Street house, Chambers found himself in court.  Millionaire drygoods mogul Alexander Turney Stewart died on April 10, 1876, after which a number of unflattering articles appeared in the New York Tribune.  On April 30, 1890 a grand jury voted to indict Chambers along with Pulitzer and two other executives for "contriving and intending to injure, defame, and vilify and disgrace the memory, character, name and reputation of Alexander T. Stewart," as reported in The New York Times.  The charges were later dismissed.

Chambers was an author of several books, as well.  While living here he published the fictional The Rascal Club in 1893.  Publisher F. Tennyson Nelly wrote of the book that year, "It is certainly a book to charm all youthful readers; and many an old greybeard upon dipping into its fascinating pages will find himself being carried back over the decades that have elapsed since, in good company, he haunted the 'ol' swimmin'-hole.'  There is a vigor in Mr. Chambers' descriptions of life in an Ohio town during war times that amounts almost to enthusiasm."

No. 9 West 84th Street was sold in 1905 to Weston J. Smith and his wife.  The couple had one child.  Smith was the head of the dress-goods department of Ehrich's Department Store on Sixth Avenue.  A shocking scandal would bring the Smiths' residency to an abrupt end within a year.

In the summer of 1905, a 14-year-old girl, Annie Eppert, was hired in the store as a "cash girl."  Later in court she would testify "that she was a virtuous girl."  Court papers said, "shortly after her employment at Ehrich's store [Smith] manifested an interest in her and frequently expressed a desire to have her meet him outside, to have her go riding with him and to have her take dinner with him."

The girl initially refused, but, finally, just before Christmas 1905, she met him at the elevated station platform at 58th Street and Sixth Avenue.  He gave her car fare and told her to meet him at Central Park.  In the park, "he persuaded her to let him have intercourse with her in a secreted spot, after which they separated and she went home."  After the encounter, she again refused his advances, but he was resolute and the girl fell victim to him a second time on January 11, 1906, again in the park.  But this time a police officer came upon them while engaging in the act.

The prosecuting attorney told the court, "The defendant's wife and child were doubtless at their dinner or awaiting his return a few blocks to the west."  He was tried and found guilty of abduction and rape.  

Intricate Renaissance style carvings decorate the parlor level, including a bas relief face.  The sunburst railings can be glimpsed in the example to the right.

Shortly afterward Thomas Malloy purchased 9 West 84th Street.  Not long after the family moved in, the Malloys' daughter Elizabeth received her teacher's license on September 17, 1907.

Sometime after midnight on December 15, 1914, fire broke out in the apartment building next door.  The Sun reported the blaze "drove the ten families living there to the street in their nightclothes."  The article said that the families, shivering in the winter night air, "were given shelter in the home of Thomas Maloney [sic] at 9 West Eighty-fourth street."

Following Thomas Malloy's death, the family sold 9 West 84th Street to Frank and Rose V. Dingle in December 1920.  The couple resold the house in June following year to Charles S. Short.

It appears that in selling the house, the Dingles also let staff go.  An advertisement in the New York Herald that same month read, "Couple, congenial, would like to take care of estate, &c; or what have you to offer.  Bodkin, 9 West 84th st., New York city."

Short converted the house to a total of 14 furnished rooms.  Among the roomers in 1939 were Patrick O'Rafferty, a 42-year-old steeplejack; and Thomas Reilly.  

The two men were arrested separately in October that year on the complaint of Sally Ridder.  She told police they had appeared at her door representing themselves as detectives of the District Attorney's office.  They searched her apartment for a revolver and, when the "found" one, offered to "fix things up" for $200.  The New York Sun reported, "The commotion Miss Ridder made at this point, she said, put the men to flight."  Both men pleaded not guilty, however the article said, "A chuckle swept the line-up room and even O'Rafferty couldn't resist a grin when it was revealed that his record included a prison term of a year and a half in Dublin on charges of high treason, murder and escape."

In 1972, 9 West 84th Street was converted to apartments--a duplex in the basement and parlor level, and two apartments each on the floors above.  A subsequent renovation completed in 2009 returned it to a single family home.

photographs by the author

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The Lost Nathaniel Prime Mansion - 90th Street, between Avenue A and First Avenue

 

William Rickarby Miller painted this watercolor of the mansion in 1855, decades before alterations were made.  (original source unknown)

The first Prime to arrive in America, Mark Prime, helped settle Rowley, Massachusetts, where he died in 1683.  Five generations later, in 1768, Nathaniel Prime was born, the fourteenth of fifteen children of Joshua and Bridget Hammond Prime.  The 1898 Prominent Families of New York said, "He was settled in New York before the close of the eighteenth century, and became one of the greatest merchants and bankers of that period."

More specifically, Prime relocated to New York City in 1795 and a year later opened an office on Wall Street, listing himself as "stock and commission broker."  In 1808 he partnered with Samuel Ward III to form Prime & Ward.

Oliver Ingaham Lay copied John Trumbull's earlier portrait of Nathaniel Prime in 1879.

Nathaniel Prime married Cornelia Sands on June 7, 1797.  The couple would have six children.  They moved into the former Kennedy mansion at 1 Broadway.  At the time, wealthy families maintained summer estates in the upper portions of Manhattan, most of them close to the cooling breezes of the East or Hudson Rivers.  In 1800 Prime purchased 24 acres of land "near Hurlgate," as described by The Spur decades later, the area most often called Hell Gate.

The Primes' summer home reflected several of the Georgian architectural details of their townhouse--a second floor Palladian window surmounted by a half-round attic window, for instance.  A full-width veranda caught the river breezes.  Delicate foliate bands ran below the dentiled cornice and pediment.

The rear of the mansion was only slightly less impressive than the front.  Orphans crowd the second floor balcony in this photo.   from the collection of the Frank Cousins Collection of the NYC Public Design Commission.

The Primes were neighbors with wealthy families like the John Jacob Astors (whose summer estate Hellgate took its name from the area), Robert Lenox, and Stephen Whitney.  All of their estates were soon threatened by the relentless northward expansion of the city.  The families joined forces in 1827 when the city proposed to open 86th Street.  According to his 1972 book Origins and History of the Village of Yorkville in the City of New York, among Prime's neighbors to sign a petition were Mary Waldron, Joseph Foulke, Phillip Rhinelander, "and, although they did not sign the petition, John Jacob Astor, Commodore Chauncey and others," opposed the work.

It read in part:

The land on each side is attached to country estates not contemplated to be sold in lots and the proprietors do consider it would be an actual injury to them.  While they would be heavily assessed for it and any improvement, they also show that there are valuable stone walls on each side of the road and some buildings of considerable value to be taken down which will make the assessment very heavy without any material advantage at least for many years to the public.

The push worked, at least for a while, and the estates remained unmolested.  In its January 1835 issue, The American Gardener's Magazine described the Primes' gardens and "forcing houses" where produce was grown, saying, "This place is well known, as containing one of the finest ranges of forcing houses in the vicinity of New York.  These have been built within a few years and the vines, peaches, &c. planted in them, have just come into bearing."  The journalist wrote, "We never observed grapes which set finer, at this early season of the year; the peach trees were also covered with fruit; so much so that they would need thinning out."  The article went on to explain, "Mr. Prime has a large cistern in front of his range, from which water is supplied of the green-house, forcing houses, and to all parts of the garden."  In closing, the writer noted, "The views of the surrounding scenery, from Mr. Prime's pleasure ground, in the summer, is said to be delightful."

Cornelia Sands Prime (original source unknown)

At the time of the article, according to Prominent Families of New York, Nathaniel Prime "was rated as one of the five richest men in America."  He had essentially retired from active business at the time, and moved permanently to the Hell Gate estate.  It was a decision that, in the opinion of the American a few years later, would lead to his death.

Prime, described by The Spur as "stout, thick, short and heavy of build, but a wonderfully shrewd calculator," had become despondent in the fall of 1840.  His condition was serious enough that on November 22 Cornelia called Dr. Edward Delafield to the house.  She told him her husband was "very altered" and "seemed to be under great melancholy."  Prime told the physician that "he looked at things in a gloomy manner, for which he could not account, as he was perfectly easy in his circumstances."  Delafield diagnosed him with "blood to the head, for which I have occasionally bled him," he later told the Morning Herald.

On the morning of November 26, Prime told Cornelia he was going into town.  Those who interacted with him there said he was "well apparently, and cheerful," as reported by the American.  He arrived home at around 1:00 and had luncheon with Cornelia.  The Morning Herald reported, "At 2 o'clock...he withdrew from the dining table, and retired to his bedroom."  He took a book with him and told Cornelia he was going to rest for awhile.

Thirty minutes later she entered the bedroom.  The Morning Herald related:

Upon examining the apartment it appeared that he had laid upon the bed--that he had taken his coat and cravat off, and that he had been reading his prayer book--it was found open either on or near the bed, and his spectacles lying near it.  He had evidently risen from the bed, taken a razor, placed himself before small looking glass, at which he was accustomed to shave, and there cut his throat, after doing which he went into another room, laid the razor down and fell upon the floor, on the spot where he was found by Mrs. Prime.

Dr. Delafield opined "he committed the act under a temporary derangement of intellect," and the coroner's jury decided he "put an end to his own existence, in a temporary fit of mental alienation, produced by bodily indisposition."  The American had its own explanation, blaming Prime's retirement.  "The want of its accustomed work may possibly have caused the mind to prey upon itself."  The newspaper said Prime's shocking death offered an important lesson: "Never to abandon the mental or other pursuits that may have contributed to your rise in life--stick to this oar till you go down, and you will go down in good temper, and like a man."

Cornelia would live until 1852, but she almost immediately left the mansion.  She most likely moved into Lane Cottage on the property, where her son Rufus was living.  The main house became home to wealthy attorney Richard Milford Blatchford.

Born in 1798, Blatchford married Julia Ann Mumford in 1857.  The couple had five children.  An influential attorney, successful businessman, and close associate of William H. Seward, he was intimate friends with important figures like Daniel Webster and former mayor Philip Hone.

Richard Milford Blatchford, A Genealogical Record of the Family of Rev. Samuel Blatchford D. D., 1912 (copyright expired)

On October 9, 1844, Philip Hone wrote in his diary, "I went yesterday to dine at Mr. Blatchford's, at Hell Gate.  The party consisted of old Mr. J. J. Astor and his train bearer and prime minster, Mr. Coggeswell; Mr. Dandon, Ole Ball, the celebrated Norwegian violinist (we used to call it fiddler), and myself."  Hone stayed overnight.  He continued:

When I arose this morning I contemplated the enchanting scene: the clumps of fine old trees, clothed in the gorgeous foliage of autumn; the lawn, still bright and green; the rapid waters of Hell Gate, covered with sailing vessels and steamboats--all combined to present a picture of consummate beauty.  In this place, so rich in the beauties of art and nature, in the enjoyment of pecuniary independence, and happy in his family relations, did the former proprietor (Mr. Prime) commit suicide.

The Blatchfords' townhouse was at 6 East 14th Street in the fashionable Fifth Avenue neighborhood.  There on December 23, 1857 Julia Ann Blatchford died.  Three years later, on November 8, 1860, Richard M. Blatchford married Angelica Hamilton.  Sadly, she died two days after their eighth anniversary, on November 10, 1868.  

It was about this time that Blatchford sold the Hell Gate mansion and the block surrounding it to the Sisters of Notre Dame and purchased a summer estate in Newport. 

He would marry one more time.  On January 18, 1870 he married Katharine Hone, the daughter of his good friend.  It was at the Newport estate that he died on September 4, 1875.

At the time of his death, the district known as Hell Gate was fully developed.  The Sisters of Notre Dame used the former Prime block--once admired for its blooming gardens and fruit trees--as the site of St. Joseph's Orphan Asylum.  On August 17, 1887, the New York Dispatch noted that the orphanage, "supports, educates and employs orphans and homeless and neglected children, especially of German birth, until the age of sixteen, when they are set to work to take care of themselves."

The Sisters of Notre Dame placed an angel statue in the yard, and fire stairs on either side of the house.   from the collection of the Frank Cousins Collection of the NYC Public Design Commission.

In 1909, the Historical Guide to the City of New York mentioned that despite the mansion's current use, "some of its old fireplaces and mantels are preserved and from its upper balcony is obtained a fine view of Hell Gate."  The Edison Monthly recalled the building's origins in an article titled "Yorkville Days" in June 1916.  "The country house, which looks across Hell Gate, is a model for suburban homesteads, with broad verandas at front, sides, and rear sheltering its rooms from sun and wind."

But the end of the line for the venerable Prime mansion was on the near horizon at the time of the article.  On July 21, 1918, The New York Times reported, "One of the most important developments in the upper Yorkville district that has been undertaken for many years is now in progress on the entire block bounded by First Avenue, Avenue A, Eighty-ninth Street, and Ninetieth Street."  The article explained that the Sisters of Notre Dame realized their work could be "more economically and satisfactorily carried on outside of the city limits."  It also pointed out the massive increase in value the block had seen in the 50 years since the property was purchased.

The Prime mansion, seen here heavily altered around 1900, was among the last surviving summer homes in the neighborhood.  from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York 

The buildings on the block were razed and replaced with modern structures.

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