Schwartz & Gross's 1926 215 West 78th Street

 

When Leopold M. and Lina R. Whitehead moved into the high-stooped brownstone at 215 West 78th Street, their home was the height of domestic fashion.  It was one of ten high-stooped brownstones designed by Thom & Wilson in 1890.  By the post-World War I years, however, the vogue for apartment living had supplanted that of private homes.  In 1926, the Brevoort Estates, Inc. demolished four of the vintage homes--211 through 217 West 78th Street, and hired the architectural firm of Schwartz & Gross to design a nine-story apartment building on the site.  

Construction cost $300,000, or about $5.5 million in 2026 terms.  The architects designed the building in a 1920s take on Renaissance Revival.  A classic broken pediment with a cartouche and shield sat above the centered entrance within the rusticated limestone base.  The upper eight floors were clad with red brick and trimmed in stone and terra cotta.  Schwartz & Gross arranged them into two matching side-by-side sections--both flanked with full-height rounded bays.  Every other spandrel of the bays were ornamented with elaborate Renaissance-style decorations.  The architects forewent a cornice in favor of a brick parapet.

Canvas awnings at every window shielded heat and damaging sunlight.  The building replaced brownstones like those seen on either side.  via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services.

Potential renters could choose apartments of either four or five rooms.  An advertisement in The New York Times on November 14, 1926 was headlined "New Building" and touted, "Baths, glass enclosed showers, beautiful bay windows."  It noted there was a "special doctor's or dentist apartment with A-C and D-C current" available.

Among the early residents was bachelor William McCabe, also known as "Tough Willie."  He was described by The New York Evening Post as a "Broadway sport."  McCabe owned a stable of race horses and financed prize fighters.  Most importantly, however, he was a close associate of gangster Arnold Rothstein.  

On November 1, 1928, Willie McCabe and Arnold Rothstein joined other underworld figures in a "high spade" poker game.  Three days later, the game was still going on and Rothstein had lost $320,000.  Claiming the game was fixed, Rothstein refused to pay and was gunned down.  Willie McCabe suddenly disappeared.

The New York Evening Post reported on November 14, "McCabe has not been at his home, 215 West Seventy-eighth Street, since the shooting."  The article said, "McCabe, now sought by [District Attorney Jaob H.] Banton, is in Savannah, Ga., promoting dog races."

But then, The New York Times reported that McCabe had "dropped out of sight...only to bob up a week or so later with what District Attorney Banton said was an iron-clad alibi."

Willie McCabe continued to skirt law enforcement, but his gangland career ended on August 26, 1931.  The New York Times reported, "The underworld went about its robberies, its stabbings and its threats yesterday."  The article said that while McCabe had managed for years to be "unmolested by the police, [he] got into trouble with his own kind."  McCabe was fatally stabbed "in an early morning brawl in the 61 Club at 61 East Fifty-second Street."   

Details inspired by the Italian Renaissance decorate the facade.

Willie McCabe was assuredly well-acquainted with another resident, Herman Handler and his wife, Thelma.  Born in 1895, Handler was, like McCabe, a bookie.  In April 1935, while he was in Hamburg, Germany, he met Margie Lee, a "member of a group of acrobatic dancers," as described by The New York Times, while her troupe was touring.  Herman and the blonde dancer began an affair, although Margie would later insist she never knew he was married.

In July, Thelma found a photograph of Margie and the couple separated.  Thelma "insisted, however, that she and her husband remained friendly and kept in touch with each other by telephone," said The New York Times.  Herman moved into the Hotel Belvedere on West 48th Street.  Like Willie McCabe, he would run afoul of "his own kind."

Two months after leaving 215 West 78th Street, on September 12, 1935, The New York Times reported, "Herman Handler, 40 years old, a bookmaker...was found shot dead at 7 o'clock yesterday morning in his roadster."  Detectives said that evidence showed that Handler was shot in his car and "driven to the place as he was dying."

The family of David and Etta Simon, lived here in the early 1940s.  Born in 1902, he was an insurance broker.  The couple had two sons, Lewis and Robert, born in 1928 and 1932 respectively.  On December 8, 1941, the day after the attack on Pearl Harbor, America declared war on Japan.  It would make a significant impact on the Simons. 

On March 18, 1942, The New York Sun said that "everything was peaceful in the household of David Simon, 43...until a reporter arrived with the information that Simon's serial number was drawn fourth in the draft."  The article said that Robert and Lewis "started jumping about the living room, shouting, 'Daddy's in the army, Daddy's going to war.'"

Simon told the reporter he was ready to fight.  "I'd like to be with MacArthur."  And Etta was equally enthusiastic.  "They ought to take all the men," she said, adding, "I can go to work.  I was a stenographer before I was married and I could go back to that."

Another family in the building directly affected by the war was that of Eugene and Florence B. Moses.  The couple was married in 1914, and had two children, Eleanor, born in 1916, and Charles G., born in 1919.  Like David Simon, Charles was inducted into the army.  On September 2, 1943, the War Department issued the latest list of missing and wounded in action.  Among those injured in the "North African Area including Sicily" was Charles G. Moses.  (Happily, Charles returned to America safely, and on February 28, 1947, The New York Times reported that he and his wife, the former Peggy Levi, had welcomed a daughter.)

In 1957, singer Johnny Mathis released his second single to sell one million copies, "Chances Are," and later that year his "Wild is the Wind" was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Original Song.  Riding high on his success, the following year he purchased 215 West 78th Street.  It was, perhaps, his first real estate investment.  He later would tell a British reporter, "I've bought apartments in New York, and a post office in the Midwest."  Mathis owned 215 West 78th Street until April 1963.

Among the tenants at the time was Lucy Seckel Stark, the widow of surgeon and gynecologist Meyer M. Stark, and former wife of poet and novelist James Oppenheim.  Lucy graduated from Hunter College and Teachers College.  She began teaching English in 1925 and did not retire until 1955.

Freelance photojournalist Solomon Charles Tobach and his wife, Dr. Ethel Tobach, were residents by the 1960s.  The couple was married in 1947.

Ethel was born on November 7, 1921 in the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic and was brought to America as an infant.  She received her Ph.D. in comparative psychology from New York University in 1957.  By the time she and Solomon moved into 215 West 78th Street, she was affiliated with the American Museum of Natural History.  She co-founded the Animal Behavior Society in 1964 and in 1972 became vice president of the New York Academy of Sciences.

Solomon Tobach "specialized in taking pictures of news personalities," according to The New York Times.  He worked for The Associated Press, the Agence France Press, United Press International and The Medical Tribune.  Solomon suffered a fatal heart attack in their apartment at the age of 51 on February 19, 1969.  Ethel would survive to the age of 93, dying on August 14, 2015.

The building became a co-op in the 1970s.  It is essentially unchanged, sans the canvas awnings, since its opening in 1926.

photographs by the author

The Lost Rebecca Mason Jones Mansion - 705 Fifth Avenue

 

from the collection of the New York Public Library

John Mason began his career as a dry goods merchant and branched into banking and railroads.  (He was the second president of the Chemical Bank and a founder of New York City's first railroad, the New York & Harlem.)  In 1825, he purchased several acres of rocky terrain north of the city in what would become Midtown Manhattan.  Three of Mason's daughters married into the socially prominent Jones family.  Mary, the eldest, married Isaac Jones; Rebecca married his cousin, Isaac Colford Jones; and Serena married George Jones.

Mason died in 1839 but his will was tied up in court for 15 years.  Heirs, including Mary Mason Jones, charged that as he was dying, unscrupulous relatives (including Rebecca and her husband) propped him into a sitting position, tied him between a chair in the back and a board in front to keep him from slumping over and forced his signature.  Finally, in 1854, the case was settled and the midtown property divvied up.  Mary Mason Jones received the vacant land between Fifth to Park Avenue and 57th to 58th Streets.  Rebecca inherited a like amount--Fifth to Park Avenue between 55th and 56th Streets.

Both women were widows.  In 1867, Mary Mason Jones commissioned Robert Mook to design a striking row of marble-faced mansions on Fifth Avenue between 57th and 58th Streets, anchored by her own home at 1 East 57th Street.  Rebecca Jones followed suit, hiring architect Detlef Lienau in 1869 to fill the blockfront from 55th to 56th Streets with resplendent Second Empire-style mansions. 

Lienau had come to New York from Paris in 1848.  Called by the Columbia Spectator decades later in 1936 as "the first architect with Paris training to practice in the United States after Colonial times" and a "leading architect of the period," he was instrumental in introducing the Second Empire style to America.  By now, he had designed the mansions of millionaires like Hart M. Shiff at 32 Fifth Avenue, William C. Schermerhorn at 49 West 23rd Street, and John Jacob Astor III at 338 Fifth Avenue.

 

Lienau designed the eight, five-story mansions in an A-B-A-B-B-A-B-A configuration, the mansards of the A models rising slightly higher than those of the others.  Unlike Mary Mason Jones's marble row, Lienau faced these with "Ohio stone," a type of sandstone.  The 1881 New York Illustrated said that, rather than the ubiquitous brownstone in New York City, this gave the homes "the happy union of lightness with the ideal of mass and dignity."  It said the mansions had a "genial, homelike aspect."

(Interestingly, Rebecca's niece, author Edith Jones Wharton, did not agree.  In an article in Harper's Weekly in 1938, she called the row, "a block of pale greenish limestone houses (almost uglier than the brownstone ones)."

Rebecca Colford Jones initially lived in 705 Fifth Avenue, at the far right.  from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York.

Like her sister had done, Rebecca retained the southernmost mansion, 705 Fifth Avenue, for herself.  Her country homes were in Saratoga, New York and Newport, Rhode Island.  Rebecca retained possession of the entire row, reserving two of the homes for the use of her children, Helen and Lewis Colford.  Helen and her husband, Woodbury Langdon, moved into the mansion at the far end of the block; and Lewis and his wife Catharine, moved into No. 707. 

Rebecca's townhouse was the scene of the dowager socialite's polite entertainments.  In 1873, for instance, The Daily Graphic reported on her "rose-bud party."  (The term "rose-bud" referred to debutantes.)  The young women would meet "a select company of gentlemen," and each would receive a bunch of rosebuds.

In 1880, The New York Sun described the entertainments within Rebecca's home, saying that "many luxuries and delicacies, as well as many European forms of entertainment, were introduced which had been unknown to the thrift and simplicity of our grandfathers."

Rebecca Mason Jones died in 1879.  On February 15, the New-York Tribune reported that she left Helen Langdon "the east side of Fifth-ave., from Fifth-fifth to Fifth-sixth-sts."  Rebecca had been concerned that her heirs would break up the handsome row.  She wrote in her will:

It has long been a favorite idea with me that this property should be kept together, both because it was so derived by me from my father, and because it is my judgment that is can be more advantageously improved for future uses if held entire than if I were to divide it by my will.

Sydney Colford Jones was Rebecca's grandson, the only son of Lewis Colford Jones and Catherine Berryman.  Soon after his grandmother's death, the 26-year-old applied to the courts to change his name to Sydney Jones Colford.  On May 27, 1879, the New-York Tribune explained, "the reasons for the change assigned by the applicant...were that the surname Jones was too common to properly distinguish any one hearing it."

These interior shots do not identify the particular mansion within the row.  from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York.

While his widowed mother remained at 707 Fifth Avenue, Sidney and his wife, the former Laura Chartrand, moved into No. 705.  In the spring of 1881, The New York Times reported the heart-wrenching story of "Madani, the poor Arab in the New-York Hospital."  The article initiated donations from New Yorkers.  On May 11, the newspaper reported that a donor who signed his name "a New-Yorker" had sent in $2, and "Lately, a lady, who had also read in The Times about the poor refugee, left him $15."  The article continued, "Mr. Sidney [sic] C. Colford, of No. 705 Fifth-avenue, told the hospital authorities that if there was not a sufficient amount of money contributed for paying Madani's passage home he would make up the balance out of his own pocket."

As early as 1887, Margaret A. Oliver was operating 705 Fifth Avenue as an exclusive boarding house.  Also living in the mansion were her son, William B. Oliver, Jr. and his wife, the youngest daughter of multi-millionaire John W. Masury.  The upscale operation was reflected in her testimony in 1889 when she said:

About the 1st of May 1 [1888] I let [rooms] to Prof. Rees...In the family of Prof. Rees were a gentleman, wife, two children, and maid, five persons.  Prof. Rees paid $45 a week for the whole family.

The weekly board would equal $1,530 in 2026. When asked how she would describe her board (i.e, the food she supplied her guests) she replied, "First class.  Better than a hotel, there is nothing better than I would buy.  Yes, it was as good as a first class hotel board, yes."

Among Mrs. Oliver's boarders in 1887 was Rev. Sullivan H. Weston.  The unmarried cleric was born in Bristol, Maine on October 7, 1816 and had been assistant rector of St. John's Chapel since 1852.  In 1886 he developed a tumor, but only his physician was aware of it.  On the morning of October 3, 1887, "he arose before breakfast, left the house at 705 Fifth-avenue, where he was boarding," reported The New York Times, "and went to a private hospital."  That afternoon, he underwent an operation.  The surgery seemed to have been successful and The Sun reported, "He sent word daily to his boarding house at 705 Fifth avenue of his progress toward recovery."

But then, on October 15, the newspaper reported, "Last Tuesday, however, lockjaw set in, with fatal results."  The Sun commented that his friends "were shocked by the news of his death."  Extensive obituaries of the esteemed cleric were published in numerous newspapers.

Helen Jones Langdon died in 1895 and the Fifth Avenue block was inherited by her son, Woodbury Gersdorf Langdon.  On November 24, 1896, The New York Times reported that he was doing $4,000 worth of "alterations" to 705 Fifth Avenue.  He leased his grandmother's former mansion to railroad mogul Edward H. Harriman and his family.  Born in 1848, Harriman married Mary Williamson Averell in 1879 and they had six children (including William Averell Harriman who would become Secretary of Commerce under President Harry S. Truman, Governor of New York, U.S. Ambassador to the Soviet Union and to Britain.)  The family's country estate, Arden, was near Tuxedo, New York.

On March 19, 1910, The New York Times reported a shocking development.  "The Woodbury G. Langdon house, No. 705 Fifth avenue, was leased...to Eugene Glaenzer & Co., art dealers.  That was the first business invasion of this part of Fifth avenue."  

 

The Evening Post, November 29, 1910 (copyright expired)

In remodeling the mansion for commercial purposes, Langdon created a charming outdoor area with a fountain in his grandmother's rear yard for Glaenzer & Co.

The Air-Scout, January 1911 (copyright expired)

Langdon continued to garner upscale tenants for the property.  In 1912, Bagues Freres Co., a decorative ironwork designer and manufacturer, moved in.

Architecture & Building, November 1912, (copyright expired)

In what most likely would have troubled Rebecca Jones, on December 5, 1912, The New York Times reported that Woodbury G. Langdon had recently erected an apartment house "on the Fifth-sixth Street portion of the block."  Now, said the article, he had sold the entire blockfront to the Number 705 Fifth Avenue Corporation.  (What it did not mention was that Langdon was its president.)

This photograph around 1912 shows Langdon's new buildings on the northern part of the block.  Only a sign for Eugene Glaezner & Co. discreetly placed on the 55th Street side of the Jones house hints that it is no longer a private mansion.  photograph by George P. Hall, from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York.

The Rebecca Mason Jones mansion remained, relatively intact, until it and the houses at 707 through 711 Fifth Avenue were demolished for the National Broadcasting Company Building, which survives.

photograph by the author

The 1889 Louis Isaacs House - 349 West 122nd Street

 

Within three years, Joseph W. and Abram Alonzo Teets transformed the block of West 122nd Street between Morningside and Manhattan Avenues from vacant lots into a neighborhood.  In 1888, they hired architect J. A. Webster to design eleven three-story-and-basement brownstone houses on the north side of the block.  The following year, Webster was back, designing ten houses on the south side for the brothers.

Among the initial project, completed in 1889, was 349 West 122nd Street.  Just 15-feet wide, it was identical to its neighbors.  The tall stoop was guarded by beefy iron newels and railings.  Each floor was belted with carved foliate bands, and the windows wore prominent molded cornices supported by fluted brackets.  

Financially involved in her sons' development projects was Louisa S. Wood Teets.  On July 5, 1890, for instance, she purchased five of the northern houses--342 to 360 West 122nd Street--from Joseph and Abram Alonzo Teets for $25,000.  By then she owned 349 West 122nd as well.

Louisa Teets sold the house to Louis Isaacs, who listed his occupation as "buyer" at 309 Grand Street.  He and his wife, the former Marion Norburn, had five children, Charles Richard, Margaret Maud, Alfreda, Howard Norburn, and Florence Belle.  The eldest, Charles, was 10 years old in 1889 and the youngest, Florence Belle, was an infant.

Somewhat surprisingly, when Louis Isaacs sold the house in December 1906, the purchaser was Philip Teets, the widower of  Louisa (she died in 1895).  He paid $8,900 for the property, or about $320,000 in 2026 terms.

Teet leased the house to the family of James F. Douglass, a woolens importer at 244 Fifth Avenue.  He and his wife had a son and daughter.

The quiet lives within the household was upset when the Douglasses' name became fodder for newspaper articles nationwide in 1907.  At the beginning of summer, daughter Lorene, who was then 15 years old, was invited to a gathering of teens at the summer cottage of Joseph A. Physioc, a theatrical scenery painter, in Bayville, Long Island.  The Physiocs' son, Joseph, Jr., was also 15.

Also at the party on June 4 were Lilac MacManus, "a prospective heiress of New York city, 16 years old," as described by the Montana newspaper The Anaconda Standard; and 16-year-old Frank A. Libby.  

At some point, the four decided to sneak away and get married.  They made their way to Oyster Bay and the parsonage of Methodist minister Rev. M. Wilson.  Joseph Physioc said he was 22 years old and an engineer, Libby said he was 21 and was also an engineer.  The girls professed to be 18.

Despite their youthful appearance and clothing, and the fact that the four giggled and made light of the ceremony, Rev. Wilson married the two couples.  When the marriages came to light, according to The Anaconda Standard, they "caused wrath and consternation in the homes of four well-known New York families."  The news scandalized the summer community as well.  On September 13, 1907, The New York Times said, "Gossip has been busy all summer at the little village of Bayville, L. I., concerning a rumored double wedding, in which all of the contracting parties were under 17 years of age."

Lorene Douglass's mother was incensed and blamed Rev. Wilson.  She told a reporter from the Spokesman-Review, 

My daughter wore short dresses and had her hair down her back.  She had told me no effort was made to alter their childish appearance.  Lorene does not appear to realize the seriousness of this thing.  She said that while the minister was before them everybody tittered and acted as though the affair was a great joke.

A reporter from the The New York Times was less successful in getting an interview.  When he called at the 122nd Street house on September 12, "a servant said that Mr. and Mrs. Douglas [sic] were in Canada.  She also said that they had no daughter named Lorene."  The journalist tried a second attempt that afternoon.  "A young man, who said he was a son of Mr. and Mrs. Douglas [sic] said that his mother was upstairs, but could not be seen," said the article.

When he asked if Lorene was home, the young man said, "I have no sister.  This marriage story is all a mistake."

Despite the family's denials, The New York Times discovered that the Douglasses "consulted their lawyers early in the Summer, and were told that the marriages were not binding owing to the ages of the four."

Philip Teets died that year.  In September 1909, the Teets estate placed 349 West 122nd Street on the market.  An advertisement described it as being "in a quiet, elegant section of Harlem; an ideal residence."

As seen today, the rich woodwork of the parlor level continued throughout the upper floors. images via zillow.com

It was purchased by Elizabeth Cassidy Henry Smith, a real estate operator, and wife of Charles J. Smith.  The house was rife with Charleses.  In addition to the couple's son, Charles, Jr., Charles A. Henry was the son of Elizabeth's previous marriage.  It appears that the only male in the household not named Charles was John A. Smith.  The young man worked as a topographical draftsman in the Bronx Borough President's office.  His annual salary in 1914 was $1,350 per year--a modest $43,700 today.

Charles Smith was too young to fight in World War I, but his half-brother was not.  Charles A. Henry went overseas with the Army.  On November 19, 1918, the New-York Tribune reported that he was missing in action.  Shortly afterward, an official Government announcement listed him "killed in action."

Charles J. Smith died on April 30, 1922 and his funeral was held in the parlor on May 3, followed by a requiem mass at Corpus Christi Church at 121st Street and Broadway.  Around this time, Elizabeth's widowed father, John Cassidy, moved into the house.  

Charles Jr. was still here in 1928, when he was involved in a serious accident.  He and an associate, James O'Brien, were riding in a taxicab on Madison Avenue on March 2 when it crashed into another cab at 85th Street.  One "ran into a window of the Busy Bee Grocery at 1,143 Madison Avenue," reported The New York Times, and the other "crashed into the window of the Reese & Reese Cleaning Establishment, across the street."  Charles Smith suffered serious cuts and O'Brien's skull was fractured.  Neither of the cabbies was injured, but both were arrested, "charged with reckless driving," according to the article.

There would be one more funeral in the house.  John Cassidy died on April 19, 1919 and his funeral was held on the 22nd.  Elizabeth Smith sold 349 West 122nd Street shortly afterward.  

It appears that it was next operated as a rooming house.  Surprisingly, given that the Harlem neighborhood was now the epicenter of Manhattan's Black community, the tenants seem to have been mostly German.  Living here in 1934, for instance, were Peter Franz and Meyer Goldschmidt.

image via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services.

The Depression years saw a quick turnover of owners.  The property was sold again in December 1936, and resold in November 1937 for $6,500 (about $142,000 today).

Rooming here in 1938 was 35-year-old John Workman, described by the Long Island City Daily Star and North Shore Daily Journal as a "Negro WPA worker."  (The Works Progress Administration was created in 1935 to create jobs during the Great Depression.)  He was working on a construction project at the North Beach Airport on October 6 that year when something went horribly awry.

The newspaper said he was arrested on a charge of attempted felonious assault after being "accused of trying to beat up a foreman" on the job.  The foreman, Joseph Urlacher, pressed the charges.  It was not the first time Workman had been in trouble.  The article said he, "was acquitted of another felonious assault charge last year."

A recent floorplan shows the current configuration.  image via zillow.com

Relatively recently restored to a single-family home, a surprising amount of original interior detailing survives throughout the house.  

photographs by the author

The 1830 Peter P. Ramsey House - 361 Bleecker Street

 

The population explosion in the Greenwich Village district beginning in the 1820s made ordinary businessmen part-time real estate developers--like hatter James Haslet (sometimes spelled Hazlet).  In 1829, he signed a 21-year lease with the Reformed Dutch Church for a portion of the Bleecker Street blockfront between Amos (later West 10th Street) and Charles Streets.  (The church, erected two years earlier, occupied the remainder of the block.)  The lease demanded that he "immediately" improve the lots with "six good and permanent brick or stone buildings at least two stories in height."  Haslet was prohibited to erect any structure that would be a "nuisance," like a factory.

He erected six 17-foot-wide houses that were completed in 1830.  Faced in Flemish bond brick, they originally rose two-and-a-half stories tall.  Their Federal design included peaked roofs with dormers (most likely just one per home).  It is unclear whether all the houses included a shop, but that was the case with 343 Bleecker Street (renumbered 361 Bleecker in 1867).

The original occupant was Alpheus Hawley, who operated a dry goods store.  The Hawley family's residency would be relatively short.  As early as 1836, Peter P. Ramsey and his family occupied the upper floors while his shoemaking shop was on the ground floor.  Living with the Ramseys was Stephen Keeler, a shoemaker who most assuredly worked for Ramsey.  In 1840, a different shoemaker lived with the family--Cornelius Cooper.

The same owner-worker relationship continued in 1850 when shoemaker Alfred Brush took over the house and store.  Living with his family for the next six years was shoemaker Luke Concklin.  (Luke changed the spelling of his surname to Conklin in 1852.)

Brush's shoe and boot shop seems to have been thriving, because in 1852 through 1854 he had a second employee, John F. Purdy, who lived nearby on Amos Street.  Outside of his business Brush was involved in civic affairs and in 1855 and 1856 served as a city councilman.  

E. Downes took over the shoe store around 1857.  Unlike his predecessors, he did not live over the shop.  He and his family lived at 72 Bedford Street.  There were now two tenants in the upper floors.  The Smith family and Chauncey B. Scranton, a clerk.  (Both John and Conklin Smith were hatters, although they operated separate shops--Conklin's on Park Row and John's on Canal Street.)

After decades of its being a shoe store, in 1864 Edward P. Welch moved his confectionary shop into the ground floor.  There were still two tenants upstairs--George Barnett, a clerk, and carpenter Thomas C. Whitman.  At the time, Peter Asmussen's coffin business was at 291 Bleecker Street.

Around 1867, Asmussen acquired this property (he would continue to purchase Greenwich Village real estate throughout the coming decades).  He moved his undertaking shop in and established his family in the upper floors.  Asmussen was, as well, a sexton in St. John's Lutheran Church on Christopher Street.

Interestingly, given Peter's apparent religious bent, the Asmussen's shared the upper portion of the house with the Stadtmuller family in 1867 and 1868.  Henry Stadtmuller listed his profession as "beer."  Daughter Annie Stadtmuller taught in the girls' department of School No. 20 on Chrystie Street.

By 1873, John F. Asmussen, presumably Peter's brother, had joined the business.  That year Peter and his wife moved far north to 160 East 63rd Street and John moved into 361 Bleecker Street with his wife, the former Mary Meyn, and their eight children.  

The Real Estate Record & Builders' Guide reported on November 6, 1875 that Peter Asmussen had hired architect Henry Grube to remodel 361 Bleecker Street.  The attic was raised to full height, the facade "rebuilt of brick," and a fashionable Italianate cornice installed.  Corniced, sheet metal lintels were included in the remodeling.

Renting rooms from the Asmussens 1879 were a young couple named Crawford.  The husband was a bookkeeper by profession, but he lost his job around September that year.  His resultant frustration became directed to his wife, Ellen.  On September 30, the New-York Tribune reported that Ellen, "a respectable-looking woman, age twenty-two years," had been arrested and charged for attempted suicide, "by throwing herself from the sea wall of the Battery Park."  

In court, Ellen explained to Justice Morgan that her husband was, "improvident in his habits, and rude in his manners toward her; and that when intoxicated he would beat her brutally," as reported by the New-York Tribune.  The judge was moved by her story and dismissed her case.  How Ellen Crawford's domestic life played out is unknown.

In 1888, Peter Asmussen sold the similar building at 355 Bleecker Street to John.  The family moved the undertaking business to that property.  (The following year John erected a livery stable at 56 Barrow Street, which also housed the company's hearse, wagon and horses.)

Peter Asmussen leased the store at 361 Bleecker Street to John J. Keyes as early as the mid-1890s.  Keyes ran a drugstore in the space.  Living upstairs was the family of William L. Reid, who ran an express business at 103 Bank Street.

Herman Meyersfield took over the drugstore in 1895.  He had a scare on the Fourth of July 1896.  The following day, the New-York Tribune reported on the many small blazes that were set off by children playing with fireworks.  Among the casualties was "Herman Morris's [sic] awning at No. 361 Bleecker-st."  The article said he suffered $25 worth of damage, or about $963 in 2026 terms.

Peter Asmussen died in 1903.  His estate continued to lease 361 Bleecker Street. 

Charles Schulz's contracting business had replaced the drugstore about three years earlier.  He and his family lived upstairs.  At the turn of the century, he listed his profession as "painter," but he was much more than that.  Highly involved with Tammany Hall, he was awarded profitable contracts with the city.  He was still living here, for instance, on June 12, 1905 when he received contracts to paint two public schools, Nos. 77 and 123.

The Tammany Times, December 17, 1910 (copyright expired)

The Peter Asmussen estate sold 361 Bleecker Street and two other properties in October 1909.

In the post-Depression years, a modern arcade storefront was installed.  The shop became home to Ruggiero's Fish Market.  

The new arcade storefront made window shopping easy for passersby.  from the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services.

Following the fish store was Helène, a boutique-style lampshade shop run by Helène Lenart.  The New York Times described her wares as "made-to-order, simple in design and moderately priced."  Lenart moved to West 4th Street around 1950.

An unexpected tenant arrived in the ground floor space in 1954--Elektra Records, founded by Jac Holzman in 1950 in his shop, the Record Loft.  In their Folk City--New York and the American Folk Music Revival, authors Stephen Petrus and Ronald D. Cohen explain:

In 1954, after producing seven or eight records, Holzman decided to focus on record production rather than retail, so he closed the Record Loft and moved Elektra around the corner to larger offices at 361 Bleecker Street.

The authors note, "Elektra became a center for gatherings of folk musicians."  Recording artist Theo Bikel recalled, "Folkies would meet with cheap wine and beer and no eats, smallish rooms, just large enough to have some elbow room so you could play a guitar or banjo, and most everybody played and sang."

As early as 1959, sculptor Alfred Van Loen lived and worked at 361 Bleecker Street.  Born in Germany in 1924, he studied sculpture at the Royal Academy of Amsterdam.  He taught at Vassar, Hunter College and Columbia--and in his studio here.

On November 12, 1959, The Villager reported, "Classes at sculptor Alfred Van Leon's studio, 361 Bleecker St., have begun for the fall and winter schedule on Mondays and Wednesdays."  The article noted, "An exponent of direct carving, he also has a class at the North Shore Community Art Center, Roslyn, L.I."  Van Loen's work is included in the permanent collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Museum of Modern Art.

A renovation completed in 1965 resulted in an "art gallery with artist's studio and office" on the ground floor, and one apartment each on the upper floors.

The entire building, however, became the Kelter–Malcé antiques shop by 1973.  Jolie Kelter and Michael Malcé sold "quilts, folk art, garden furniture, and other antiques," according to Elaine Louie of The New York Times, adding that the couple "are a walking, talking encyclopedia of 19th- and 20th-century decorative arts."  The pair, who originally lived above the store, closed it in the spring of 1992.  The New York Times reported on May 7, "They will conduct their antique business from their 1850 Italianate town house [on Jane Street]."

At some point, the arcade storefront was modernized.  In the early 2000s, the space was home to Sleek, an apparel boutique, and by 2010 a James Perse clothing shop occupied it.  It was replaced by Rains, another boutique.  Through it all, the unassuming building with its remarkable history remains relatively intact since its 1875 remodeling.

photographs by the author

The Abused 1880 Engine Co. 17 - 91 Ludlow Street

 

photograph by Carole Teller

In the first half of the 19th century, New Yorkers were protected by volunteer fire companies.  Among them was Elephant Company, organized prior to Evacuation Day in 1783.  In 1831, according to George William Sheldon in his 1882 The Story of the Volunteer Fire Department of the City of New York, it "moved to the vicinity of Essex Market and stationed at 91 Ludlow Street."

An act by the New York State Assembly in 1865 coupled Brooklyn and New York with a professional fire organization, the Metropolitan Fire Department.  The volunteer companies were disbanded and, in many cases, the new companies took over the old firehouses.  The house at 91 Ludlow Street became home to Engine Company 17.  It would not be long, however, before the city realized that state-of-the-art facilities were necessary.

Napoleon LeBrun was appointed architect for the Metropolitan Fire Department in 1879.  His son, Pierre, joined him in 1880 to form Napoleon LeBrun & Son.  They went to work designing dozens of firehouses--42 of them before the turn of the century.  Among the first would be Engine Company 17.  On August 9, 1879, the Real Estate Record & Builders' Guide reported that the city would erect "two three-story brick engine houses at No. 91 Ludlow street and 604 East Eleventh street."  

The LeBruns created a single design for the structures, which followed the traditional firehouse layout.  The centered bay doors sat within a cast iron base.  The two upper floors were faced in red brick and trimmed in terra cotta and stone.  LeBrun & Son’s Queen Anne design was splashed with neo-Grec elements, most notably the stone lintel that floated above the central second-story opening.

image via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services.

(Not surprisingly, given the number of firehouses on their drafting tables, LeBrun & Son repurposed the design, only slightly tweaking it in other houses, like Engine Company 27 on Franklin Street, and Engine Company 5 on East 14th Street.)

Construction cost the city $9,024, or just under $300,000 in 2026, and it proceeded with lightning speed.  Seven months after the announcement, on March 21, 1880, the New York Dispatch reported, "The new building for Engine Company No. 17, located at No. 91 Ludlow street, is completed and the company a few days since took formal possession of the same."  The facility was on the cutting edge of firefighting technology.  The article noted, "They have all the new appliances and improvements, such as the patent swinging harness, etc., etc."

The transition from volunteer to professional status did not entirely change the laddies' rough edged reputations.  John Carney was attached to Engine Company 17 in 1881.  He and his brother, Bernard, were drinking in Fay's saloon on East 14th Street on Friday night, November 18, when, according to John, they "had a falling out about a family matter."  As he lay dying at Bellevue Hospital later, he explained, "My brother was abusive, and I shoved him away from me.  He then plunged a knife into my abdomen on the left side."  

The Evening World described the dormitory on the second floor of Engine Company 17 on December 31, 1889:

It is a long room, about twenty feet above the street, the walls on either side being lined with iron cots, whereon the firemen sleep.  Each man turns in wearing his flannel underclothes.  His boots stand at his bedside with the trousers so disposed about them that he can jump from the cot into both without losing a moment.  In order to get quickly to the floor below the men slide down a polished slender brass pole.

Charles H. Morris had been a firefighter with Engine Company 17 for several years at the time of that article.  The other members were acutely aware that he was a sleepwalker.  In the summer of 1887, for instance, "he dreamed there was an alarm and jumped from his cot to the pole, and, still asleep, slid down carelessly and broke four toes on his right foot," reported The Evening World.  "I dreamed there was an alarm," he said upon wakening.

And around December 14, 1889, Assistant Foreman Charles J. Autenreith awoke to see Morris carrying his street clothes from beside his bed to his locker on the third floor, and then return to bed.  Autenreith woke Morris, who thought the other men were playing a trick on him by taking his clothes upstairs and then telling him he had done it.

At 12:40 a.m. on December 30, 1889, Engineer Maguire and Fireman Smith were on duty when they heard a crash.  Thinking that a horse had fallen, they rushed to the rear and found Morris unconscious and bleeding at the base of the brass pole.  Whether he had dreamed of an alarm, of simply sleep-walked accidentally into the hole could not be determined.  "It is certain that he came down head first, for his skull is fractured at the forehead," reported The Evening World.  The article said doctors in Gouverneur Hospital said "he has but one chance in a hundred for recovery," and noted that should he die his widow and four children would receive a pension of $300 a year (about $10,600 today).

A surprising, unofficial member of Engine Company 17 lived and worked briefly with the men in 1894--a female journalist.  In recording the interesting events of the past year, in January 1895 The World Almanac and Encyclopedia recounted:

Meg Merrilies spent a week with Engine Company No. 17, in their quarters at No. 91 Ludlow Street, dressed in boy's clothes, for convenience, with rubber boots and rubber coat.  She lived the life of one of the fire-laddies, attending regularly to her duties, jumping from sleep at the alarm, sliding half-awake down the pole, swinging on the engine as it left the house, dashing into smoke and fire, and in every way sharing the hardships, the dangers, and the glory.

The entry described a woman who was equal to the tasks of any veteran firefighter.  "She drove engine horses back from fires, carried a choking bay through dense smoke to a place of safety at the risk of her own life, and wound up the week of remarkable activity by helping her associates fight the big fire at Broadway and Leonard street."

By the turn of the century, the crowded Lower East Side neighborhood kept Engine Company 17 more than busy.  The New York Herald reported that in 1906, it had responded to 1,062 calls.  "In other words," said the article, "the men...had to answer an alarm before sitting down to breakfast, dinner or supper, and then some."

The following year, the city hired architect Alexander Stevens to update the house with "iron stairs, skylights, walls and windows."  The renovations cost $12,000.  As the work proceeded, on October 23, 1908, The Sun explained the temporary arrangements.  "The horses and engines are camping in the street opposite their quarters in a temporary wooden house...The harness is attached to the ceiling, ready to drop in case of alarm."  The article noted, "The engine company is in the centre of the Ghetto and has to answer more alarms than any other on the lower East Side."

Fire companies were famous for their mascots--dogs that ran to fires along side the engines and provided comfort and company to the members during quiet times.  At the turn of the century, Topsy was Engine Company 17's mascot.  When he was accidentally killed by the horses, Topsy's son, Bunk, who was still a puppy, took his place.  On March 31, 1908, The New York Times called Bunk "the smoke-eating mascot of Engine Company 17" and said he "never lets the men of No. 17 get put out of his sight."

Bunk, of course, was with the company when it responded to a fire on the Joy Line Steamship Company pier on March 30, 1908.  Constructed of heavy logs covered with pitch and soaked in creosote, the pier burned slowly and spewed poisonous smoke.  The firefighters of the several companies on the scene were blinded by the thick smoke and staggered "with pain to the open as fast as they got into it," said The New York Times.  More than 50 firefighters had to be treated and 17 others were hospitalized.  The beloved Bunk did not survive.

Another remarkable mascot came in the form of Rex, "a black and white bulldog," as described by the New-York Tribune.  Fireman Tom Foley found him on a cold winter day and brought him to the station house "more dead than alive."  Like his predecessors, Rex became a member of the company.  On June 14, 1912, The Evening World described him as "no pretty dog, either.  He was a bull, with heavy jowls and legs which spoke strength and not beauty, but for four years he had guarded the fire house night and day when he was not on duty at some blaze or sniffing about in search of fire."

It was Rex's "sniffing about" that made him stand out among all the fire station mascots throughout the city, however.  He not only ran along with the fire engines to the blazes, he had the ability to detect the odor of fires and alert the crew.

In March 1912, Rex was awarded a firemen's helmet after he smelled a fire on the roof of a Ludlow Street tenement.  The Evening World reported, "He called the firemen and what would have been a bad blaze was averted."  Shortly afterward, reported the newspaper, "Rex discovered a blaze in Essex street and put up such barking and howling that a man who was passing investigated and then sent in the alarm."  The New-York Tribune said that during the time Rex had been with Engine Company 17 he "had been instrumental in saving seven lives."

On the night of June 13, 1912, Engine Company 17 responded to a fire.  On the way, according to the New-York Tribune, Rex was kicked by one of the horses.  The article said he was so badly hurt, "that a patrolman was summoned from the Clinton street station to put him out of misery."  When the firefighters returned that night, they "laid him on a litter of straw and placed his collar, with four medals, about his neck."

On the night of July 26, 1920, firefighters from Engine Company 17 witnessed an automobile swerve and fatally hit a pedestrian.  Almost immediately, a mob formed among the "hundreds of persons" who saw the accident, yelling, "Lynch him!"  The New York Times reported, "the firemen were able to get the driver into the engine house after he had been slightly bruised and cut."  But the ordeal was not over.

The firefighters barricaded the bay doors and called for police backup.  The New York Times said, "When the reserve policemen arrived the mob began to pummel them."  Fire Lieutenant Poggi and some of his men slipped out of one of the smaller doors with axe handles to help the police disperse the mob.  The article said, "Stones and bricks were hurled at the uniformed men, but few were injured."  Finally, after about half an hour, the firefighters and policemen were able to scatter the rabble.  The driver, Charles Gersowitz, said that Frank Bloomberg had walked directly into his path.  He was charged with homicide.

Napoleon LeBrun & Son used identical ironwork for the ground floor bays of several other firehouses.  The layered piers are a handsome touch. photograph by Carole Teller

The passing decades had not lessened the company's relentless schedule.  On November 25, 1925, Municipal Reference Library Notes reported, "According to the New York Times the busiest fire company in New York City is Engine Company No. 17 located at 91 Ludlow Street.  During 1924 Engine No. 17 responded to a total of 1,288 alarms."  The article noted that it sat within "the most congested district in the world, where humanity is so densely packed together that there is scarcely elbow room."  It added, "Members of Engine 17 scarcely know what it means to be idle for they are kept on the run day and night."

After occupying its firehouse for just under six decades, on May 1, 1939 Engine Company 17 was relocated to 185 Broom Street.  The firehouse was briefly used by the city's Sanitation Department.  Then, on March 21, 1941, The New York Times reported, "Last Friday the firehouse at 91 Ludlow Street was sold at public auction to Louis Keehn, a jobber in toys and stationery, for $18,000."  Not only did the city turn over the deed to Keehn, it provided him the mortgage on the property.

In January 1951, Keehn hired the architectural firm of S. Gardstein & Son to renovate the building at a cost of about $60,500 in today's money.  The truck bay was expanded and the southern openings of the second and third floors were bricked up.  The remodeling resulted in a store on the ground floor, an office on the mezzanine, and storage in the upper floors.

photograph by Carole Teller

Louis Keehn & Brother remained in the building at least into the 1960s.  The sorely disfigured structure, designed by one of the period's most influential firehouse architects, gives little hint of its original appearance and its fascinating history.

many thanks to artist Carole Teller for suggesting this post