The United States Express Bldg - 2 Rector Street (101 Greenwich)

 

image via archinect.com

Born in Oswego, New York on July 15, 1833, Thomas Collier Platt was described by The New York Times as, "for nearly a quarter of a century the undisputed 'Easy Boss' of the Republican organization in this State."  Known popularly as Tom Platt, he served two terms in the U.S. House of Presentatives and three terms in the U.S. Senate.  He was highly involved in the consolidation of five counties into the City of Greater New York.  The Times noted that he knew "every President, personally, since Lincoln."

In 1879, Platt became secretary and a director in the United States Express Company and was elected its president the following year.  He still held that position nearly 30 years later when, on July 7, 1905, the architectural firm of Clinton & Russell filed plans for the firm's new headquarters on the northern side of Rector Street between Greenwich Street and Trinity Place.  The plans called for a 23-story "brick and stone office building" projected to cost $1.6 million to erect (about $57.2 million by 2024 conversion).

As the caissons for the foundation were being sunk into the bedrock three months later, Carpentry & Building explained, "The first five stories of the façade will be of granite, while the remaining stories will be of brick trimmed with terra cotta.  The style of architecture will harmonize with the Empire and Trinity buildings."  That style would be, for the most part, a commercial take on Renaissance Revival, with nods to Gothic Revival and touches of Beaux Arts.  As the building rose, Henry Alexander Horwood, writing in The Metropolitan Magazine, said, "Trinity churchyard is in front of it and from Broadway it will loom up like a giant in the background." 

The decoration of the original, terra cotta-clad top section included elaborate piers, and spandrels containing classical figures.  photograph by Wurts Bros from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York.

The United States Express Building was completed in the fall of 1906.  An interesting innovation was a second floor arcade that connected the stations of the Sixth Avenue and the Ninth Avenue elevated trains.  The United States Express Company occupied the lower floors and rented the upper portions to a variety of tenants.  On December 1, 1906, for instance, the Record & Guide reported that the 17th floor had been leased to the Safety Car Heating and Lighting Co. for ten years, and the Lackawanna Steel Co. had signed a lease on "almost all of the eighteen floor for a long term."

A significant tenant was the Carnegie Safe Deposit Company, which on January 24, 1908 installed what the Topeka State Journal described as, "the largest steel vault in the world."  The article said, "The huge plates used are of the same quality of steel as is used by the leading nations in the protection of their battleships, and are proof against even any modern high power gun cable of being brought to an attack on the vault."  Each of the steel plates, made by the Bethlehem Steel Company, weighed 756 tons.  The doors to the vault weighed 20 tons each, yet the article said, "These are hung with such delicate precision that a child can swing them."

This photo was captioned "One of the Plates in the World's Largest Deposit Vault" in The Topeka State Journal on January 24, 1908 (copyright expired)

Interest switched from the massive vault to a scandal involving Thomas C. Platt five months later.  A front page article in The Evening World on May 18, 1908 was headlined, "Platt's Letter to Mae Wood Signed 'Lovingly, Tom" and the article detailed Mae Catharine Wood's divorce suit against the former senator.  The interesting thing about the case was that Platt already had a wife, and he insisted he and Wood had never been married.

The article said, "Mae Catharine Wood-Platt asserts that she was married secretly to the Senator in the Fifth Avenue Hotel on the night of Nov. 9, 1901.  Two years later, she says, he married Lillian Janeway."  Although Platt did not attend the court session on May 17, 1908, Mae Catharine Wood was undeterred in exposing embarrassing details and reading torrid love letters during her testimony.

The scurrilous proceedings lasted until May 27 when the judge declared, "I cannot credit the plaintiff's evidence as to the alleged marriage and the testimony as it impresses the court is that this is a most wicked design to support a false and fictious clam by forgery and perjury."  Mae Catharine Wood was sent to the city prison on charges of perjury "unless she furnishes a bail in $5,000," reported the Daily News of Kearney, Nebraska.

The lobby boasted carved stone, a deeply coffered ceiling, and mosaic floors.  photograph by Wurts Bros from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York.

An advertisement for an office in the building on April 7, 1917 touted its up-to-the-minute amenities.  "Fire proof building, light, heat and service included, circulating ice water, excellent toilet facilities."  The "circulating ice water" was a somewhat common means of cooling large buildings in the decades before air conditioning.  A refrigeration plant in the basement sent frigid salt water through copper tubing within the walls, noticeably lowering the temperatures during the hot months.

Among the several attorneys with offices in the United States Express Building in 1920 was Frank I. Finkler, who acted as his own lawyer in a startling case against his son-in-law, John F. McNulty, in July that year.  Finkler accused him of bigamy, of trying to poison the entire Finkler family, and of setting fire to his house to conceal a theft of $5,600 worth of Liberty Bonds.

Finkler's daughter, Martha Ruth, had served in the Women's Motor Corps of America during World War I.  One morning she was assigned to drive Lieutenant McNulty to the New York Navy Yard.  A romance blossomed and "despite her father's objections," according to The Evening World, they were married in the Cathedral of St. John the Divine on April 2, 1919.  The newspaper said, "Later it was found that McNulty had previously married Mary Wasal Oct. 28, 1908, and Ruth Ennis, by whom he had three children, on Nov. 8, 1911.

One morning, Finkler's wife saw McNulty drop mercury tablets into the coffee pot that was boiling on the stove.  She poured the contents into the sink.  Later, McNulty witnessed Finkler place Liberty Bonds in his desk drawer in the library.  After a fire later gutted the room, Finkler applied to Washington for redemption of the bonds, only to be told they had been sold.

On July 18, 1920, Finkler's daughter took the stand.  "But she had scarcely started to give her testimony," reported The Sun, "when, overcome by sight of the prisoner, the father of her child, she toppled from the witness chair in a faint, which lasted nearly an hour."  She was unable to return to the courtroom.  Nonetheless, McNulty pleaded guilty to bigamy, while denying he had tried to kill the Finkler family or to having stolen the bonds and set fire to the house.  He was sentenced to two to five years in Sing Sing Prison.  Finkler told the reporters, "It has cost me $24,000, including the Liberty Bonds, to rid my daughter of this man."

The Brickbuilder, July 1907 (copyright expired)

On January 12, 1925, The New York Times reported that the Electric Bond and Share Company, "purchased for its future home the twenty-three-story office building at 2 Rector Street."  The article noted, "The building was erected by Thomas P. [sic] Platt as President of the United States Express Company and was considered the finest building of its kind."  The new owners enlarged the skyscraper by adding three floors, the architecture of which honored the Clinton & Russell design.

Joseph A. Eggers worked in the mail room of the Electronic Bond and Share Company.  On the evening of February 25, 1933, the 40-year-old was seen sorting mail, and then he disappeared.  Suddenly, Joseph Hawthorne, the manager of the Western Union branch office in the rear extension of the building, was startled by a loud thud.  Investigating, he found Eggers's body "wedged in a ventilator," according to The New York Times.  He had thrown himself from a window on the 21st floor.

John J. McMullen, the owner of the Houston Astros, purchased 2 Rector Street in March 1981 "for a price reported in trade circles as $23 million," reported The New York Times.  (The figure would translate to more than $77 million today.)

Cesar Martinez, who worked for the building's management firm as a security guard, helped his sister, Eridania Rodriquez, obtain a job here as a cleaner in 2008.  Almost a year later, on July 7, 2009, Eridania failed to meet her co-workers for their evening meal at 9:00.  When they looked for her, they found only a hair clip and a mop.  In the room where the employees changed into their uniforms, they found her clothing and purse.  Her cart was abandoned on the eight floor.

The building was carefully searched, but no trace of the woman was found.  Two days later, The New York Times reported that police suspected foul play.  Then, on July 11, the newspaper reported, "After days of fearing the worst, the police said they believed they found the body of Eridania Rodriguez, a 46-year-old woman missing since Tuesday night."  At 8:50 on Saturday morning, an officer found a body inside an air-conditioning duct near the 12th floor.

Joseph Pabon, who worked as an elevator operator in the building, was arrested and convicted in April 2012 for murder and kidnapping.  He was sentenced to 25 year to life in prison.

image via polycor.com

A renovation by architects Montroy Andersen DeMarco completed in 2018 resulted in "a significant repositioning," as worded by the firm's website.  The vintage building was modernized to accommodate 21st century tenants, including "the financial and hospitality sectors."  With the updates came a new address, 101 Greenwich Street.

many thanks to reader Laurie Gwen Shapiro for requesting this post

Emery Roth's 1925 310 West End Avenue

 

Emery Roth is perhaps best known for his sophisticated Art Deco style apartment buildings.  But in 1924, when he was hired by the 310 Corporation to design a 15-story structure at the southeast corner of West End Avenue and West 75th Street, he turned instead to the Italian Renaissance for inspiration.  Completed the following year, the building was clad in brown brick and trimmed in stone and terra cotta.  

The two-story entrance framework included crown-capped Renaissance style shields, elaborate capitals, decorative finials, and a complex carved frieze that included portrait rondels.  Other romantic details were stone balconettes at the 13th floor that supported double-height arcades.

An advertisement in The New York Times on May 20, 1925 stressed the "oversize" apartments, saying that a five-room apartment was "equal to a splendid 6-room suite."  The apartments, said the ad, were "built to an ideal" with "spaciousness the keynote."  A five-room apartment included two bedrooms, a dining alcove, foyer, "five large closets," two baths and a servant's room.  The ad noted each apartment had a separate delivery entrance.  There were also 3- and 4-room apartments available.  Rents for a five-room unit ranged from $2,800 to $3,400 a year--equal to about $4,525 per month for the most expensive in 2024 terms.

Among the early tenants was actress Anna Laughlin Monroe, known to theater audiences nationwide as Anna Laughlin.  On April 6, 1937, the Springfield [Missouri] Leader and Press commented that she lived "in a richly-furnished apartment on West End avenue."

Born in Sacramento California in 1885, Laughlin began appearing on stage as a child.  In 1902, at the age of 16, she was cast in the role of Dorothy Gale in the new play The Wizard of Oz, which opened in Chicago and played on Broadway through 1904.  The Associated Press called her "the toast of Broadway when Fred Stone was doing his scarecrow dance in the 'Wizard of Oz'." 

In 1904, a diamond merchant named Dwight "Van" Monroe saw Laughlin on stage and was smitten.  "Every night for four weeks he bought a ticket--an aisle seat on the fourth row--to hear Anna Laughlin sing 'Rosalie'," recalled the Associated Press in 1937.  The couple was married in 1906 and had a daughter, Lucy.

Anna Laughlin appeared in 18 silent films between 1913 and 1915, and following her husband's death in 1925, she returned to Broadway in The Fall Guy, after which her theatrical career came to an end.

Anna Laughlin, from the collection of the New York Public Library.

In the meantime, Lucy Monroe had taken over the spotlight.  Anna had encouraged her daughter's musical ambitions and in 1925 Lucy joined the Ziegfeld Follies.  By the time her mother moved into 310 West End Avenue, she was known nationally as a singer.  Her stellar career drove a wedge between her and her mother, and eventually led to Anna Laughlin Monroe's death.

On April 5, 1937, Anna wrote a long, accusatory note that read:

This is goodbye.  People are dreadful.  I love my child.  I have given all I have in the world to put her where she is now.  She has gone.  This is a suddenly strange place.  I want her.  I ask my God from heaven--let me in.

Lucy is never coming back.  Where did I fail?  What is wrong?  She does not know what she is doing.

I had intended to sublet, but no one came.

Oh, I hate to dim out the light and turn my back upon all the things so dear to my heart.  Forgive me, dear God.  We were so eager to see things together, but my darling daughter has forsaken me.  Please, Heavenly Father, watch over my child and protect her.

She then pulled a kitchen chair up to the range, opened all the gas jets and placed her head in the oven.  She was found dead later that day.

The building continued to attract well-heeled tenants through the Depression and World War II years.  On August 25, 1941, for instance, the New York Sun reported that John Wershing had taken an apartment "of five rooms and two baths," noting he was the "owner of a sugar plantation in Puerto Rico."  Living here at the time were David Zimmern and his wife, the former Sadie Goodstein.  A retired diamond importer, he had been a partner in Zimmern, Rees & Co. for six decades.

Joseph Hunt Bourland was born in Clarendon, Texas on January 31, 1911.  After graduating from Texas A. and M., he entered the Naval Academy.  He and his wife, Gertrude, lived here when the United States entered World War II and Bourland, now a Lieutenant Commander, was called to action.

On July 30, 1943, the 1,525-ton submarine Runner was commissioned with Bourland assigned as the skipper of its 65-man crew.  Gertrude Bourland received the worst imaginable news three months later.  On October 27, 1943, The Times Record reported, "The Navy today announced the loss of the submarine Runner, presumably in the Pacific."

The second half of the century saw an influx of residents involved in the arts.  Amy Zahl, who lived in apartment 12C, had a long-term houseguest in writer Adele Wiseman from September 1960 through June 1961, according to Ruth Panofsky's The Force of Vocation.  Born in 1928 in Canada, Wiseman's first novel, The Sacrifice, was published in 1950.  While living here she wrote "Duel in the Kitchen," a short story published in Maclean's magazine in January 1961.

According to Kate Bassett in her 2014 In Two Minds: A Biography of Jonathan Miller, British theatrical director, actor and author Sir Jonathan Wolfe Miller and his wife, Rachel Collet, rented an apartment here while living in New York City in 1964 while Miller directed Robert Lowell's The Old Glory at the American Place Theatre.

By 1967, the year that 310 West End Avenue was converted to a cooperative, artist and sculptor Clara Shainess lived here.  Born in 1896, she was known for her geometric abstractions.  Listed in Who's Who of American Women and Who's Who in American Art, her work was exhibited at the 1939 World's Fair, and in gallery exhibitions for decades.

Ronald Steven Lauder and his wife, the former Jo Carole Knopf, were residents starting around 1987.  Born in 1944, Ron Lauder was one of two sons of Estée and Joseph Lauder and an heir to the Estée Lauder cosmetics company.  He was, more importantly, a politician and activist.

In 1984, he was made Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for European and NATO Policy at the Department of Defense.  Two years later, President Ronald Reagan appointed him U.S. Ambassador to Australia.  After leaving that position in 1987, he returned to New York City.  While living here in 1989, he ran for mayor of New York City, losing to Rudy Giuliani.

Emery Roth's staid brown brick building is little changed since it opened in the spring of 1925.

photographs by the author

The Lost St. Ambrose Church - Prince and Thompson Streets

 

image from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York

On Monday, January 25, 1838, Charles B. Moore, the Master in Chancery, sold the property at the southwest corner of Thompson and Prince Streets at auction.  The nearly square plot measured 70 feet along Prince Street and 67 feet on Thompson.  Sitting upon it was a stoic granite building, erected before the Revolutionary War for military purposes and since converted to a Scotch Presbyterian church.  According to Herbert B. Steele, in an interview with the New-York Tribune in March 1903,

The site was originally that of a fort, you know, during British occupation, and afterward used by our own soldiers as a garrison.  You can see where the cellar walls are stoutly buttressed.  Thousands of pounds of gunpowder have been stored there at one time...After the war closed?  Oh, yes, it was then used for government stores and by the city till the Presbyterians got hold of it, in 1815, and made a church of it.

Four months after the auction, on March 29, 1838, an announcement in The Evening Post said that the "Eighth Ward Protestant Episcopal Church, corner of Prince and Thompson sts." would be renting pews three days that week from 3 to 6 p.m.  Before a year had passed, the church's name had been changed to the Church of the Annunciation.  It would be just the first of several name changes to come.

Its military origins made the gray granite building about as somber as an ecclesiastical structure could be.  The addition of a shallow gable roof had given it a vaguely Greek Revival appearance, as did the unusual earred stone lintels over the Thompson Street openings.

A common method for congregations to raise funds to pay off their mortgages was a fair.  A notice in The Evening Post on December 28, 1839 announced, "The Ladies' Sewing Society attached to the Church of the Annunciation, (Rev. Dr. Seabury, Rector,) intend holding a fair for the sale of a variety of useful and fancy articles, at the Lyceum building, in Broadway, second door south of Prince st."

The Church of the Annunciation remained here until 1847 when it moved north to 14th Street.  The Thompson Street building became home to Emmanuel Church.  On December 10, 1848, its new rector, Rev. Alexander S. Leonard, took the pulpit.  The congregation's stay would be short.  Six years later, on July 9, 1853, The New York Times reported,

The Vestry of the Anglo-American Free Church of St. George the Martyr, have rented the building on the corner of Prince and Thompson-streets, heretofore occupied by the congregation of Emmanuel Church...The location is intended to be but temporary.

The Church of St. George the Martyr was organized in 1845.  The New York Times said its primary purpose was, "to provide a church to which persons coming from Great Britain could resort; secondly to afford help by way of counsel to those who stand in need of it, and thus to save them from many pitfalls; and, thirdly, to administer to their material wants, and especially to give aid to the sick."

As intended, the congregation's time here was "but temporary."  It moved far north to 44th Street between Fifth And Sixth Avenues and the Thompson Street church became a "chapel of ease," or "overflow mission," for St. Thomas's Church, then at the corner of Broadway and Houston Streets.  On September 4, 1858, the New-York Tribune reported, "The Rev. Ralph Hoyt, whose name is pretty well known both as a poet and a clergyman, officiates regularly at the (free) chapel of St. Thomas Church at the corner of Prince and Thompson streets...We mention the fact of his present location for the benefit of persons who may desire to hear him.  The seats are free."

The dizzying series of name changes was not over.  The New York Times reported on November 29, 1866 that St. Ambrose Church, "lately constituting the Mission Chapel of St. Thomas' Church, meeting at the corner of Prince and Thompson-streets, has just been organized and incorporated."  

At the time, the district that would become known as Soho was still affluent, its streets lined with elegant Federal and Greek Revival mansions.  Herbert B. Steele would recall the affluent families who worshiped at St. Ambrose Church, saying, "a long row of coaches stood before its door after service, and many of the city's old families were represented among its vestrymen--Commodores Vanderbilt and Gerry, General [John G.] Barnard, R. Fulton Cutting and A. T. Stewart, whose home was then in Sullivan-st."

The congregation became known for its outreach.  On June 8, 1868, The New York Times remarked, "The Friendly Society of St. Ambrose Church (Episcopalian), although but little known to the general public--by reason of the quiet and unostentatious manner in which its work has been conducted--is one of the most deserving of Christian charities, having for its object the pecuniary relief of the aged poor of all Protestant denominations, without reference to sex, color or nationality, within the limits of that parish."

The need to provide financial help to citizens within the boundaries of the parish was a hint of the changes that were taking place.  By 1874, the influx of poor immigrants had changed the neighborhood from one of refined private homes to tenements.  The other churches abandoned the district as their congregants moved further uptown.  The Diocesan Record of Mississippi said on October 3 that year,

This is the only church we have in a ward overcrowded with thirty-five thousand souls.  Amid these thousands, chiefly of the very poverty stricken, the Rev. Mr. Sill, the rector of St. Ambrose, moves about giving counsel in hours of dire extremity, both for soul and body.  St. Ambrose was originally built for the Scotch Presbyterians; it afterwards became the chapel of a wealthy uptown congregation.

Worshipers in St. Ambrose Church could expect to hear stern Victorian instruction.  On March 15, 1874, for instance, Rev. Frederick Sill's topic was "Temperance and Industry."

The changing demographics necessitated the addition of a priest, the Rev. Stander, as "missionary to the Italians."  On November 13, 1875, in reporting on the confirmation of 85 new parishioners, The Evening Post said, "The services were conducted in the Italian language" and "the Italians made the responses and sang the psalms and hymns in their own tongue."

Rev. Frederick Sill's successor was the wealthy Rev. Joseph Bloomfield Wetherill.  His wife was the daughter of Judge J. Lawrence Smith and a niece of millionaire Alexander Turney Stewart (an original congregant of St. Ambrose).  Herbert B. Steele would recall, "He and his wife put their whole souls into the upbuilding of the church, and spent any amount of money on it."

Among their improvements was the addition of six "very fine paintings," as described by Steele, purchased in Italy.  He estimated their value at "fifty or sixty thousand dollars."  (That appraisal would translate to roughly $1.7 million in 2024.)

image via Saint Thomas Church Fifth Avenue by J. Robert Wright (original source unknown)

At around 5:30 on the evening of January 24, 1883, sexton Alexander Bradley went to the church to light the stoves in preparation for that night's services.  He took his young son with him.  He unlocked the door, but found it barred from the inside and could hear footsteps within the church.  Leaving his son on the stoop, he "ran around to Prince street and found one of the windows open," reported The Sun.  He climbed in.  There was no one inside and now the front door was open.  His son said a man had rushed out and run away.

The would-be burglars had cut the paintings from their frames, torn up the carpets and rolled the paintings inside.  In the small yard behind the church, a stovepipe was found, in which the largest of the paintings had been stashed.  Luckily, according to the article, none of the artwork was "much injured."  The sexton had arrived just in time.  The entire communion service had also been packed up for removal.  The Sun noted, "In the course of the search for valuables the robbers discovered a bottle of wine intended for the communion service on Sunday next.  They poured a portion of it into two small silver vessels belonging to the communion service, and drank the rest."

Herbert Steele later added, "The pictures were replaced and the matter hushed up," but iron grating was installed over the windows.

The Rev. Joseph Bloomfield Wetherill died on December 6, 1886.  His funeral was held in St. Ambrose Church on December 8.  Steele said, "After Dr. Wetherill's death his widow removed the paintings, as they were really personal property."

As more Germans poured into the neighborhood, still another priest was brought into St. Ambrose.  On November 24, 1900, The Church Standard reported that the Rev. Henry C. Dyer had been appointed "to take charge of the services in the Italian language," while noting, "the Rev. Geo. F. Langdon has charge of the services in English, and the Rev. Martin Albert ministers to the German congregation."

At the time of the article, the end of the line for the venerable church, which had been described by The Sun at the time of the attempted robbery in 1883 as "a plain, substantial-looking stone building," was on the near horizon.  On March 8, 1903, the New-York Tribune reported that the Church of St. Ambrose "is to be torn down in April to make room for a ten story tenement house."

The article noted, "Last Sunday, a slight noise in the vestibule attracted the sexton's attention, as he has been obliged to keep a sharp lookout for small boys of penny pitching proclivities, who make this spot their rendezvous.  Instead, he found two young men whom, in his provincialism, he took for reporters, until from the questions and conversation about the old church it transpired that they were a Vanderbilt and a Cutting, come to look for the first and last time at the church of their ancestors."

The replacement building survives.  image via apartments.com

The Antonio Di Giovanni Bakery Building - 228 Elizabeth Street

 

As early as 1836, John Hunn leased 228 Elizabeth Street and the "four lots adjoining."  He and his partner operated the Field & Hunn "Hide House" at 228 Elizabeth Street, advertising "slaughter hides--1000 middling slaughter hides, averaging from 60 to 70 lbs. for sale" that year.  Hunn was one of many residents and business owners in the district to protest again the city's proposed extension of Centre Street from Broome to Houston Street in 1838, arguing that the project was "calculated, not for public benefit, but for the promotion of individual interest."

By 1845, Hunn ran the business alone.  On October 28 that year, he promised buyers, "the highest market price for fat and sheep skin," and offered sellers "four cents for all [hides] weight over 60 lbs."

The "hide house" was gone in 1856, replaced by two houses, one in front and another in the rear yard.  John Cassidy, a laborer, and his family occupied the front house and William Griffin, another laborer, and Rosanna Levy, the widow of Richard Levy, lived in the rear dwelling.

Around 1872, the the front building was raised to four floors.  The ground floor held a store, home to John McCabe's grocery, while the upper floors were crammed with immigrant families, most of them Irish.  Seventeen families were listed at the address.  They included four shoemakers, three tailors, a plumber and several laborers.  Three female occupants listed their occupations as dressmakers.

In November 1880, Charles W. Voltz purchased 228 and 185 Elizabeth Street simultaneously, spending $20,000 for the two properties (about $615,000 in 2024).  The grocery store at 228 Elizabeth was slightly renovated to accommodate a butcher shop run by Verando Luigi.  (The proprietor's surname reflected the rapidly changing demographics of the neighborhood, from Irish to Italian.)  

The butcher shop was converted to a bakery within a few years.  It was run by Antonio di Giovanni.  Among his workers in 1893 was Marino Giardino.

The residents of the block were plagued by gang violence in the last decade of the century.  On March 19, 1893, The Sun noted, "What the police call 'The Leather Shoe Gang' hangs out in Elizabeth street, between Prince and Houston."  A day later, The New York World, said, "The gang has lately been successful in its thieving exploits, it is believed, for the hoodlums who compose it have been unusually aggressive for the last three days, attacking many Italians in the neighborhood."

The World reported, "Marino Giardino, a baker, of No. 228 Elizabeth street, having tired of buying immunity from the beating by giving up dimes for the Leather Shoe loafers to rush [to] the growler [i.e., beer mug] resisted late Saturday night their demands for money."  Giardino paid the price for his resistance.  "Thereupon he was set upon by the gang in front of his own door," said the article.  The Sun added that he "was beaten by the gang, and one of them stabbed him in the left shoulder because he would not give them beer money."  Two of the members were caught and arrested, but not before the gang stabbed Pietro Venio in the leg shortly after the assault on Giardino.

As with all bakeries, the employees had to be on the job in the early morning hours to get the day's bread and rolls baked.  Once that was accomplished, Antonio di Giovanni's staff went downstairs to sleep for about an hour.  On February 4, 1896, The Journal reported, "Several bakers were taking a nap yesterday morning in their basement workroom, No. 228 Elizabeth street.  One of them waked up and saw a man climbing out of a rear window."  The bakers were all soon awake and running down Elizabeth Street after the burglar.  When they captured John Brown at the corner of Prince and Mott Streets, they found a silver watch belonging to one of the men in his pocket.

Among the tenants in 1897 was the family of Antonio Dannanzio.  When his 18-year-old daughter Pepina did not come home in July that year, he accused Monelli Illusi, a 24-year-old stonecutter, of "enticing" her away from home.  Illusi was arrested for abduction.  The Sun reported on July 26, "The girl was found locked in Illusi's room."

Another tenant, Emma Martin, died a mysterious death on May 23, 1898.  The Sun reported, "the woman had been complaining of heart trouble for some time past."  She went to a neighborhood drugstore and bought some medicine.  Shortly after taking it, the 38-year-old died.  Her husband requested that the coroner perform an autopsy.  (The results were never published.)

On August 1, 1900, Antonio di Giovanni leased the entire building.  He, perhaps, knew the property was for sale and did not want to lose his bakery.  The following month, Bullowa & Bullowa (interestingly, a law firm) purchased 228 Elizabeth Street.  Startlingly, the 1900 census shows 81 people living at the address, 75 of whom were Italian immigrants.

Among the new owners' first acts was to request "an inspection of bakery, No. 228 Elizabeth Street," from the Department of Buildings.  Then, in August 1903, the architectural firm of Kurtzer & Rentz was hired to remodel the building.  The results were striking.

Above the storefront, a dramatic balustraded balcony with two pineapple finials fronted paired French windows.  The window configuration--with arched, cast metal surrounds decorated with palmettes and twining vines in the tympana and cherubic faces in the keystones--was copied at the third and fourth floor.  The flanking French windows were protected by iron Juliette balconies, their lintels decorated with classical urns.  A stepped parapet terminated in a sunburst.

The upper openings were originally romantic, French windows.  Image from the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services.

Allio Salvatore, who lived here in 1904, was admitted to the Columbus Hospital in November that year with consumption.  He had been involved in a feud with another Italian immigrant, Giuseppe Alizea, who lived at 68 Baxter Street.  Alizea, fearing that Salvatore might die before he could exact revenge, "deliberately feigned dementia in order to get into the hospital," according to The New York Times on November 20.

The two men ended up in the same ward and another patient, Pino Amelio, told police later "that during the day they had been muttering threats at each other."  Alizea found his opportunity when the Sisters of the Sacred Heart of Jesus were at evening prayer.  The New York Times reported,

The attention of the lone attendant was first called to the tragedy when he heard loud cries ringing through the corridor.  He hurried out to find Salvatore crouching beneath a statue of the Blessed Virgin with his eyes raised appealingly.  Above him, with a knife in his hand and uttering fierce maledictions, stood Alizea.  Salvatore's face was cut and bleeding, and he was holding his hand over a wound near the heart.

When the attendant rushed to the scene, Alizea walked calmly back to his cot.  He brandished his knife at anyone who approached.  It was only after a detective knocked the knife from his hand with his nightstick that Alizea could be arrested.  "The police, putting two and two together, said that it was the climax of a vendetta," said the article.

The bakery was modernized in December 1909 after architect A. Vendrasco was hired to install a new oven.  It was apparently a significant upgrade, costing the equivalent of $19,000 today.

The history of violence for residents of 228 Elizabeth Street continued into the Depression years.  On July 28, 1931, The New York Sun reported, "Gondolfo Avisno, 22 years old, of 228 Elizabeth street, was shot twice about 1:30 A.M. today by gunfire from a moving automobile in Mulberry street, near Prince street."  The two men who were walking with Avisno were not hit and they took him to St. Vincent's Hospital in a taxi cab.  Avisno was apparently the target of a gang hit.  The article said his companions, who obviously did not want to become involved, "rang the bell, and disappeared."

Twenty-five-year-old Joseph Dimaggio (not to be confused with the famous ballplayer) lived here in 1973.  The construction worker was at an urban renewal project at West Street and Harrison Street on December 6 that year when his luck seemed to take a miraculous turn for the better.  As a Brink's armored truck rumbled by the site, a bag "jolted out of the unlatched door," according to The New York Times.  Dimaggio and three co-workers grabbed it.  Inside was $16,200 in one-dollar bills.

The Times reported, "The money was reportedly divided up and, at least for a while, no one was the wiser.  Brink's knew only that a bag of money and either been lost or stolen from the truck."  Dimaggio and his cronies were temporarily richer.  But that night, "an anonymous caller tipped the company off."

On Friday morning, before leaving for work, Dimaggio opened his door to detectives.  He and the three others were arrested on charges of grand larceny.  All the money was recovered.

The former bakery space was home to Kremer Pigments in the 1990s and early 2000s, run by a German chemist, Dr. Georg Kremer.  New York magazine said on October 1994, "Forgotten colors are Dr. Georg Kremer's obsession."  He created his artists' pigments from natural materials.  The magazine described his shop, saying, "Though bare bones and no bigger than a cubbyhole, it's ablaze with color."

Today an eyewear store occupies the ground floor.  There are nine rental units in the upper floors.

photographs by the author

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The 1884 James and Ella Knowles House - 166 West 130th Street

 

Real estate developer and architect William J. Merritt was prolific in the Upper West Side and Harlem neighborhoods in the 1880s and 1890s.  His rowhouses were almost always intended for middle-class families and were often designed as charming Queen Anne ensembles.  In 1884, he completed a row of four 20-foot wide homes at 164-170 West 130th Street, just east of Seventh Avenue (later Adam Clayton Powell, Jr. Blvd.).

Among them was 166 West 130th Street, a three-story and basement house the design of which was a successful marriage of Queen Anne and Romanesque Revival.  A dog-legged box stoop fronted the English basement which, like the lower three-fourths of the parlor floor, was clad in undressed brownstone blocks.  Chunky voussoirs crowned the arched openings at this level.  The two-sided brick oriel that dominated the second floor was decorated with terra cotta Queen Anne tiles, while rough-cut brownstone bandcourses ran above and below the openings of the second and third floors.

The house became home to the James and Eleanor (known familiarly as Ella) Davidson family.  Married on April 22, 1861, the couple had nine children.  Living with the family was James's widowed mother, Eliza.  (Eliza died at the age of 76 two years after the Davidsons moved in.)

Despite what must have been snug conditions, Andrew Anderson lived here by 1888.  Possibly a relative of the Davidsons, he was a native of Berwick-on-Tweed, England and arrived in New York City in 1834.  The American Art Journal said, "One of the piano manufacturers then was John Pithie, in Bleecker Street.  Mr. Anderson went into business with Mr. Pithie, and at length gained entire control of the business."

The London & Provincial Music Trades Review described Anderson as, "one of the first to establish the piano manufacturing industry in New York."  Anderson sold both his own pianos and those of other makers.  On October 15, 1888, The London & Provincial Music Trades Review reported, "He was seized with paralysis some months ago, and never recovered from it."  Andrew Anderson had died in the 130th Street house on September 5, 1888 at the age of 81.  His funeral was held in the parlor two days later.

In 1891, Charles Edward Knowles graduated from Brown University.  His brother, William Wells Knowles, was attending the Free Academy of the City of New York at the time.  William would enter the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris in 1896, becoming an architect.  Among his works would be the Harlem Y.M.C.A. and the Queens County Courthouse (the latter co-designed with Alfred H. Eccles).

A tragic accident occurred on October 31, 1903.  The Buffalo [New York] Courier reported that Cosimo Cilinerto, "a young Italian...went to the house at No. 166 West 130th Street at about 4 o'clock to deliver some meat.  While he was in the house, according to witnesses, a gasoline automobile came through the street, and when it got opposite the horse let out an extra loud puff."  The horse was frightened and galloped west towards Eighth (today's Frederick Douglass Boulevard) Avenue.  Standing on the corner were two women who were "knocked flat."

The article said, "The older woman's back was broken and her ribs crushed in.  The younger woman's skull was fractured and several of her ribs broken, and the horses' hoofs made several deep wounds on her body."  Both women died minutes after being taken to a hospital without being able to identify themselves.  Cosimo Cilinerto was arrested.

On April 25, 1903, James Knowles sold 166 West 130th Street to Charles Napier Brenan and his wife, the former Mary A. Byrne.  Mary's widowed mother, Ann Byrne, lived with the couple by the post-World War I years.  The house was the scene of Mary's funeral on February 23, 1920.

The Brenans sold the house in April the following year.  By then, the Harlem neighborhood had become the center of Manhattan's black community.  The house became home to the family of Leander Mendis Miles.  Miles's brother-in-law, Dr. Percy Vaughan, lived with the family.

On October 4, 1930, the Richmond [Virginia] Planet, reported, "Mrs. Minnie Mundin Stows, has returned from a three weeks' visit to New York where she visited her sister, Mrs. Leander Mendis Miles and her brother, Dr. Percy Vaughan.  Mrs. Stows accompanied her nephew, William Mundin Miles to New York."

Young William Mundin Miles would remain in New York with his aunt and uncle, and eventually his parents would move in as well.  William entered Columbia Law School where he was editor of the Columbia Law Review.  His burgeoning legal career was interrupted by World War II.  On January 29, 1943, the New York Age reported, "Staff Sgt. William Mundin Miles was appointed warrant officer at Ft. Dix, N. J.  Warrant Officer Miles, who is the son of Mr. and Mrs. Stanley Miles, of 166 West 130th street, has made an outstanding record since his induction last April."

image via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services.

By 1955, 166 West 130th Street was operated as a rooming house.  Among those living here that year were Carrie Lindsay and John W. Gilbert.  

Although it has never officially been converted to apartments, there are four rental units in the building today.

photo by the author

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The Joseph Upham Orvis House - 140 East 34th Street

 

Born in Granville, New York on November 3, 1816, Joseph Upham Orvis traced his American roots to George Orvis, who lived in Farmington, Connecticut as early as 1652.  Joseph began working at the age of 16 in his uncle's dry goods store in Manchester, Vermont.  He relocated to New York City in 1854 and, after working in the mercantile business for four years, co-founded the Park Bank.  In 1864, he left that organization to organize the Ninth National Bank of New York, of which he was president.

It was about the same time that Orvis moved his family into a handsome home at 164 East 34th Street (renumbered 140 East 34th Street in  1868).  In 1864, he and his wife, the former Mary Elizabeth Nazro, had six surviving children.  Four others had died (two of them, Helen Wells and George Herbert, a month apart in November and December 1859, respectively).  Living with the family was Joseph's widowed mother, Lucina Chipman Upham Orvis, known affectionately as Cina.  The Orvis family's country home was in Castleton-on-Hudson, New York.

Cina Orvis died at the age of 75 on April 17, 1867 and her funeral was held in the parlor the following afternoon.

By 1871, in addition to his presidency of the Ninth National Bank, Joseph U. Orvis was president of the Security Bank, a director of the Standard and Resolute Fire Insurance Companies, and chairman of the Finance Committee of the Union Dime Savings Bank.  The following year, he opened another private banking business with his son, Charles Eustis.  Joseph U. Orvis & Co. offered large loans to corporations.

The wedding of daughter Sarah Belle (who was known by her middle name) to Charles A. Hammond on May 18, 1881 was a socially visible affair.  Quiz: A Fortnightly Society Journal called it a "quite notable" wedding, adding, "After the ceremony there was a reception given by the bride's father, at his residence No. 140 East Thirty-fourth street."  

James Upton Orvis, A History of the Orvis Family in America, 1922 (copyright expired)

In March 1883, Joseph and Mary Orvis traveled to Chattanooga, Tennessee with one of their daughters to attend a wedding.  Afterward, they "went to Florida to enjoy a short visit," according to the Cedar Rapids, Iowa newspaper, The Gazette.  On the way, Orvis contracted a severe cold.  He died in Palatka, Florida on March 30, 1883.

Mary Orvis purchased a newly-built house on West 81st Street from developer Samuel Colcord in February 1887.  As part of the transaction, she sold 140 East 34th Street to Colcord for $31,500 (just over $1 million in 2024).

Colcord was leasing the house to the James L. Stewart family by 1894.  When he sold it to James J. Brown on August 1, 1896, the Stewarts remained on as tenants.  

Unlike the Orvis family, the Stewarts, while financially comfortable, were middle-class.  The couple had three sons, James, Jr., John and George.  James and John listed their occupations as machinists, and George worked in the bookbinding industry as a "stamper."

James J. Brown and his wife, Mary, were in financial trouble at the turn of the century.  The East 34th Street house was scheduled to be sold at foreclosure auction on December 10, 1901.  The Browns seem to have skirted the problem by a wily move.  Mary C. Brown sold the house to James Wilson, Jr., who transferred title back to Mary Brown a few months later.

In the meantime, at least one of the Stewart brothers had found a way to make significant income.  On April 5, 1903, The New York Times entitled an article "James Stewart Arrested."  The day before, a raid had been made on the Garfield Club, "an alleged poolroom."  (The term did not refer to billiards, but to illegal horse betting.  Telegraph wires transmitted the winners and losers directly into the poolroom.)  Over 100 patrons were in the club when the raid was made.  The article said, "James Stewart, known as 'Lightning Jim,' is said by Capt. Shire to be the ex-Republican leader of the district."  Stewart was 39 years old at the time.

The Stewart family left 140 East 34th Street shortly after the scandal.  The house became a boarding house.  By the fall of 1904, the changes in the once-refined residential street were reflected in Miss Fitzgerald's Bureau's occupying the basement level.  The employment agency placed domestics, as evidenced by an advertisement in The New York Times on October 29, 1905:  "Cooks, chambermaids, nurses, governesses, laundresses, waitresses; couples to do work of house; wanted immediately.  Miss Fitzgerald's Bureau, 140 East 34th St."

In April 1910, the Browns offered the house for rent, describing it as an, "Excellent location for business stores or boarding house; low rental; twenty years' lease may be obtained."  The ad was answered by millionaire socialite and activist Alva Erskine Vanderbilt Belmont.  Before she installed her Belmont Club in the house, Mary C. Brown made $5,000 in renovations for her.

The basement level, where Miss Fitzgerald's office had been, was leased to Herrmann's Seed Store.  Despite the misleading name, the society florist advertised regularly in publications like Club Women of New York, and would remain here into the Depression years.

Club Women of New York, 1914 (copyright expired)

Alva Belmont was present for the opening of the Belmont Club on December 2, 1910.  The New York Times explained, "The building was formerly a private house.  The basement is to be used for a store, and the main floor, which Mrs. Belmont has taken for her settlement, has large windows across the front.  There is a large extension to the lower floor, as all the rooms have been thrown into one, making a hall large enough to accommodate several hundred persons."

The article continued,

The front part of the house will be furnished for a sitting and writing room for the members, and the large hall will have tables along the sides of the walls, with hinges so that they may be let down when not in use and make room for the meetings which will be held there.

The Belmont Club was a multifaceted organization.  Operating here was the Belmont-Collegiate-Equality-Suffrage-League (which held a Christmas party for 2,000 children here in 1910); the Artist League of the Political Equality Association, which held exhibitions of art by women; and the Artists' Musical Branch of the Political Equality Association.

The indominable Alva Erskine Vanderbilt Belmont.  from the collection of the Library of Congress 

In addition, the parlor floor was transformed daily to the "suffrage lunchroom."  Businessmen in the neighborhood were welcomed, but they first had to become members of the suffrage organization.  The New York Times said, "Most of the things on the menu are 5 cents, with chicken 10 cents.  The variety will not be large, sandwiches, soup, coffee, tea, and milk being the staples."

The upper floors were leased as bachelor apartments (meaning they had no kitchens).  Rent in 1912 was listed at $30 to $45, furnished or unfurnished.  The price would translate to about $1,460 per month for the most expensive.

The Belmont Club moved to "Mrs. Belmont's new suffrage headquarters at No. 15 East 41st Street," as reported by the New-York Tribune, in September 1911.  The Southwestern Store took over the parlor level.  The shop sold Western articles, like Navajo rugs and Native American blankets.  An advertisement in The New York Times in November 1912, noted, "interior decorating of dens and corners a specialty."

As World War I raged in Europe, Herrmann's urged Americans to plant vegetable gardens.  An ad in May 1917 was headlined, "Do Your Bit--Raise food, raise plenty of it!"  Saying, "whenever you have a chance to lower the cost of production, make use of that chance," Herrmann's offered suburbanites wholesale prices.  "These prices are half of the regular ones," said the ad.  "They mean lots of labor and no profit for us.  But we are willing to do OUR BIT for the country."

Following Mary Brown's death in 1921, 140 East 34th Street, described as a "five story business building and apartments," was sold.  Six years later, architect Joseph J. Furman was hired to renovate it.  He removed the stoop, created a new storefront at street level (still home to Herrmann's), and remodeled the second floor to offices and a studio apartment.  The upper floors continued to hold kitchenless apartments.

The handsome Italianate window surrounds survived in 1941.  image via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services.

Herrmann's remained in the building at least through 1931.  Businesses came and went from the lower two floors throughout the 20th century.  In 2006, the Dumont Plaza Parfumerie, a beauty supply store, occupied the ground floor.  To the rear was Le Petite Spa, described by Suz's Spies--The Guide To Day Spas as offering, "body treatments, facials, makeup, waxing (for men and women), man/peds and massages."

The cornice with its especially pleasing fascia is unchanged since the Orvis family occupied the house.

Today there are nine rental apartments in the upper floors.  The ground floor, where society women purchased plants and bulbs for decades, is home to a Dunkin Donuts.

photographs by the author

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