The 1907 66th Street Studio Building - 131-135 East 66th Street

 

photograph by Gryffindor

The first studio building in America--a structure designed especially as working spaces and residences of artists--was the 1858 Tenth Street Studios in Greenwich Village.  The concept gained traction at the turn of the century, when upscale buildings were erected with soaring studio spaces flooded with natural light from vast windows.  In 1905, a syndicate including artist Walter Russell laid plans for a sumptuous studio building at the northeast corner of 66th Street and Lexington Avenue.

Interestingly, the group, called the East 66th Street Studio Building, hired the architectural firm of Pollard & Steinam and B. Hustace Simonson to prepare the plans.  But at some point, Charles A. Platt took over the project.  And he was much more than a hired architect; he was an investor.  Upon the building's completion, an announcement in The New York Times on December 5, 1907, noted that the corporate name of the East 66th Street Studio Building had been changed to Nos. 131-135 East 66th Street.  It was signed by "Charles A. Platt, President."

from Monograph of the Work of Charles A. Platt, 1913 (copyright expired)

The 11-story, Renaissance Revival style structure was faced in limestone.  An urban palazzo, it featured two bold and elegant entrances with imposing broken pediments atop double-height Scamozzi columns.  Divided into four horizonal sections by bandcourses and intermediate cornices, the building is crowned by a dentiled and modillioned cornice that the Landmarks Preservation Commission has called, "one of the finest in the city."

from Monograph of the Work of Charles A. Platt, 1913 (copyright expired)

An advertisement called the 10- and 12-room suites, "houses within [an] apartment house."  The ad described the "smaller 4 and 7 room suites" as being "quite as desirable in their own way."  The building had both cooperative apartments and rentals.  Among the initial residents of 131 East 66th Street were its designer, Charles A. Platt, and his second wife, Eleanor Hardy Bunker.  The couple's summer home was in Cornish, New Hampshire.

The soaring studios with their nearly double-height windows were on the north side of the building, unseen from the street.  They attracted artists like Elizabeth Gowdy Baker, who held an exhibition of "portraits in aquarelle," as described by The New York Times on April 1, 1914, in her studio through April 4 that year.  Resident Henriette A. Clark exhibited at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts the following year.

Two views of Charles A. Platt's studio.  from Monograph of the Work of Charles A. Platt, 1913 (copyright expired)

The bachelor artist William Howard Hart was an early resident.  The 50-year-old landscape artist hosted a "soiree Francaise" in his studio on the night of January 27, 1913.  The Sun reported that Le Peril Jaune "was acted by Mme. Henri Goiran, wife of the French Consul in New York; Mlle. de Sombreuil, Reginald Francklyn and Rene Wildenstein."  Additionally, "Mlle. Regnier and Gerald Onativia gave Louis XV dances in costume, and afterward there was general dancing."

Platt was not the only architect in 131 East 66th Street.  William Emerson was here by 1913 when he and the recently widowed Frances Hillard White Moffat surprised society by marrying.  George Barclay Moffat, who was a Harvard classmate of Emerson, died on December 4, 1911.  The Brooklyn Daily Eagle, on January 15, 1913, said that Frances "had been a widow only a little more than a year" and explained, "the marriage is the culmination of a friendship of more than ten years' standing."

William Emerson, from the Century Association Archives.

Pianist, conductor and composer Ernest Henry Schelling and his wife, Lucie Howe Draper, lived here at the time.  Born in New Jersey in 1876, Schelling was a child prodigy, making his debut at the Academy of Music in Philadelphia at the age of four.  In 1896, at the age of 20, he began studying with Ignace Paderewski.  The teacher-pupil relationship grew to a life-long friendship.

On April 29, 1915, The Sun reported, "Mr. and Mrs. Ernest Schelling gave a dinner and reception last evening at their home, 131 East Sixty-sixth street, for Ignace Paderewski, the pianist."  The guest list included not only figures from the musical world, but from Manhattan's social elite, including the Harry Harkness Flaglers, Mrs. Henry A. Alexander, and Alessandro Fabbri.

Artist and dealer Alice Creelman and her husband, journalist James Creelman, were also residents of 131 East 66th Street.  On the afternoon of December 14, 1916, Alice hosted a "private benefit entertainment" in her apartment at which Augusta C. Gaynor sang.  Her appearance was notable.  The previous day she had announced, according to The New York Times, that she, "is shortly to make her debut as a professional concert singer."  She was the widow of assassinated New York City Mayor William J. Gaynor, who had died three years earlier.

Interestingly, four years later Augusta Gaynor moved temporarily into the Creelman's 131 East 66th Street suite.  She announced the engagement of the youngest of her seven children, Ruth Merritt Gaynor, here on December 9, 1920.  

And the following month, on January 15, 1921, Brooklyn Life reported, "The marriage of Mrs. Helen Gaynor Bedford, daughter of Mrs. William J. Gaynor and the late Mayor Gaynor, and Mr. Whitney Kernochan, son of Mr. and Mrs. J. Frederick Kernochan...took place Friday afternoon, January seventh, at the home of Mr. and Mrs. James Creelman."

The Platts' library featured herringbone floors, an antique mantel and a stenciled, beamed ceiling.  from Monograph of the Work of Charles A. Platt, 1913 (copyright expired)

In the meantime, on February 24, 1918, the New York Herald reported, "Mr. and Mrs. Chandler P. Anderson have returned to 135 East Sixty-sixth street from a visit to the Spanish Ambassador and Mme. Riano in Washington, D.C."  Chandler Parsons Anderson was the first Counselor of the United States Department of State and his wife was the former Harriet S. Ward.  During World War I, he served as special counsel on international affairs within the War Industries Board.  The couple's summer home was in York Harbor, Maine. 

Chandler Parsons Anderson, from the collection of the Library of Congress

A prominent couple in 135 East 66th Street were historian Henry Osborn Taylor and his wife, the former Julia Isham.  Born in 1857, Taylor was an authority on ancient literature and culture.  He and Julia were married in 1905.  Their apartment included architectural pieces imported from Europe, including "a pair of old Italian doors of bronze and wood, and an old Italian stone mantelpiece," as later mentioned by The New York Times.

Henry Osborn Taylor, from the 1917 Harvard College Class of 1878 Secretary's Report (copyright expired)

When Julia's brother, artist and writer Samuel Isham, died in 1914, leaving an estate equal to more than $15.7 million in 2024, he bequeathed all his "paintings, family silver, plate and bric-a-brac to his sister," as reported by The Sun on June 21.  She also received "$250,000 outright."  That amount would translate to $7.86 million today.  Included in the artwork was a collection of Japanese prints that Julia donated to the Metropolitan Museum of Art.  In appreciation, she was made a Fellow in Perpetuity.

And when she inherited what a century earlier had been the Isham family's country estate at 212th Street and Broadway, she donated it to the city.  It became Isham Park.

Julia Isham Taylor died in the apartment on March 6, 1939 at the age of 74.  Henry Osborn Taylor survived her by two years, dying here on April 11, 1941 at the age of 84.  He left the bulk of his estate to Harvard College "to help increase the salaries of the professors, teachers and instructors."

On September 8, 1939, The New York Times reported that T. G. MacKenzie and his wife, Ethel Maude, had taken "a nine-room duplex apartment."  The couple's quiet life here would be a welcomed change.  Thomas George MacKenzie was a mining engineer.  Born in Nova Scotia in 1882, his career had taken him from Cape Breton, Canada to Mexico in 1912.  In 1924, he was taken hostage by Hipolito Villa, brother of Pancho Villa.  He was held for three months before escaping.  Maude had worked tirelessly in the meantime to try to achieve his release.

In 1924, Charles A. Platt was selected to design the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C.  It would be one of his last major commissions.  He died at the Cornish, New Hampshire estate on September 12, 1933 at the age of 71.  Eleanor Hardy Platt survived him by two decades, dying in Cornish on November 26, 1953 at the age of 84.

Hildreth Meière lived here at mid-century.  The most prominent muralist of her day, she was highly instrumental in introducing Art Deco to America.  She was responsible for, among other important works, the striking red mosaic walls at One Wall Street, the colorful figurative roundels of Radio City Music Hall, and The Pillars of Hercules, now in the Center of Hellenic Studies in Washington, D.C.

A fascinating resident was Gretchen Green, whose 1936 autobiography The Whole World and Company chronicled her astounding career.  The daughter of an itinerant preacher, she studied at the College Settlement in Philadelphia and the New York School of Philanthropy.  Her varied positions included a police officer and welfare director in Boise, Idaho, and a worker at Ellis Island helping incoming immigrants.  She worked in Moracco, ran a women's clinic at Tagore University in India, and operated tea houses in Venice.

During World War II, Green ran a Camel Corps in Africa for General Archibald Wavell, and worked in Royal Air Force Clubs in Britain and in Bahrein.  In New York, she opened Miss Green's Canteen for servicemen and furnished the Lady Halifax Club at 587 Fifth Avenue, for British servicewomen stationed here.  Following the war, her work in helping Britain rebuild earned her membership into the Order of the British Empire.  She was, as well, a founder of the School for Seeing-Eye Dogs.  

At the beginning of the 21st century, Robert and Blaine Trump purchased and combined three units--a duplex and two one-bedroom apartments--into a 6,500-square-foot residence.  They hired designer Greg Jordan to plan the space.  In addition to the $8 million they spent on the apartments, by May 2006 they had spent an additional $1.5 million in design and construction costs.  Then, with the apartments gutted, they separated after two decades of marriage.  They put the "far-from-finished triplex," as described by William Neuman of The New York Times on May 14, 2006, on the market for $17 million.

image via compass.com

Henry Hope Reed of the Municipal Art Society testified during the Landmark Preservation Commission's hearings in 1970 regarding the designating of 131-135 East 66th Street as an individual landmark.  He described the structure as "one of the finest" of the New York apartment houses of "the American Renaissance."

The Joseph J. O'Donohue, Jr. House - 262 West 73rd Street

 

In the 1880s, the Upper West Side experienced a flurry of construction as developers erected long rows of brick and brownstone rowhouses.  Among them was William J. Merritt, the principal in Merritt & Co.  He would be responsible for scores of residences in the area, designing many of them himself.  In 1888 alone, Merritt & Co. advertised 38 new houses, including both sides of the block of 73rd Street between West End Avenue and Broadway.

The four-story houses on the southern side, from 246 to 272 West 73rd Street, were not designed by Merritt.  A year earlier, he commissioned prolific architect Charles T. Mott, with whom he often worked, for the project.  The outcome was striking.  Mott drew inspiration from the French Renaissance, particularly, according to architectural historian Andrew S. Dolkart, the medieval castle Pierrefonds.

The romantic row evokes images of damsels and knights.

The picturesque assemblage of dormers and towers, oriels and mansards created a romantic streetscape.  Among the row was 262 West 73rd Street.  Its basement and parlor levels were faced in brownstone.  The brick-clad upper floors were almost completely consumed by a rounded bay, girded above the third floor by a complex, copper balustrade.  The fourth floor was capped with a conical tiled roof.

The house became home to William Stevens Louderback and his wife, the former Emma Beekman.  The family moved in just in time for a triple celebration.  On November 13, 1888, The New York Times reported, "Mr. and Mrs. W. Stevens Louderback celebrated their silver wedding last evening at their new residence, 262 West Seventy-third-street."  The New-York Tribune noted, "The anniversary was of three-fold interest, as it was as well the occasion of their daughter's introduction to society, and a housewarming.  Miss Etta Louderback assisted her mother to receive."

The triple entertainment was a sparkling opening of the new residence.  "Several hundred guests were present," said The New York Times.  Among the high society figures present was millionaire heiress Helen Gould.

The Loudebacks' residency would be short.  In August 1891, Joseph J. O'Donohue, Jr. and his wife, the former Marie Louise Bruner, purchased the house.  The couple was married on October 27, 1887 and had two sons, Joseph, 3d, who was three years old, and Henry, who was a newborn.  Two daughters would be born in the house--Marie in 1896, and Ethel in 1901.  The family's summer home was in Elberon, New Jersey.

O'Donohue's father was well known to New Yorkers.  A millionaire grocery dealer, he had been a member of Tammany Hall since 1856.  Joseph, Jr.'s business interests were wide-flung.  He was president of the Brooklyn and North Ferry Company, president of the Agatine Shoe Hook and Eyelet Company, vice-president of the General Realty and Mortgage Company, and a director in two railroads, an insurance company and other corporations.

The family was deeply religious and Marie involved herself with Catholic charities.  She was, for instance, president of the Ladies of Charity of St. Vincent de Paul.

The O'Donohues received unexpected house guests early in the morning of February 4.  The New York Times began an article saying, "The families occupying the handsome row of dwellings in Seventy-third Street, between West End Avenue and the Boulevard [i.e., Broadway] were aroused between 12 and 1 o'clock this morning by a fire which was caused by an overheated furnace in the basement of George Crawford's home, 272 West Seventy-third Street."

The family escaped into the cold night in their bedclothes.  While firefighters battled the blaze, which luckily did not extend above the basement level, The New York Times reported, "The Crawford family went to the home of Joseph J. O'Donohue at 262 West Seventy-third Street for the night."

Interestingly, O'Donohue's uncle, James O'Donohue, lived with the family by the turn of the century.  (This despite the fact that his son, Louis V. O'Donohue was a well-to-do manufacturer and banker.)  Born in 1830, James was at one time City Chamberlain and was a member of the coffee firm John O'Donohue's Sons before his retirement.  He died here at the age of 71 on December 12, 1901.

By 1911, Henry was enrolled at Princeton University and Joseph, Jr. was associated with his father in business.  On May 27 that year, Joseph was married to Rose Mildred Taylor in the Church of the Blessed Sacrament on West 71st Street.  

When The Sun reported on the Monmouth County Horse Show on July 29, 1915, it mentioned that Joseph J. O'Dohonue, Jr. was first vice-president of the association.  It also noted that his parents were among the viewers "in the boxes and on the lawn."  No mention of Rose Taylor O'Donohue was made.  That was because, as reported by The Evening World four months later, since April she had "been living in Reno in luxurious apartments."

Joseph, Jr. was now back in the West 73rd Street with his parents.  On October 16, 1915, The Evening World reported that Rose Mildred Taylor O'Donohue, "prominent in New York and Washington society," had been granted a divorce.  She charged her 27-year-old husband with "desertion and non-support."  The article said O'Donohue was said to be out of the city and "his father would say nothing about the case."

Joseph, Jr. was granted duel custody of the couple's son, Joseph J. O'Donohue, 4th.  He would live in the 73rd Street house six months of the year.

Ethel Louise was the first of the O'Donohue daughters to marry.  On May 30, 1920, The Sun reported that her wedding to Alwyn Ball 3d had taken place in the Louis XVI suite of the St. Regis Hotel.   "Miss O'Dohonue was once identified with the summer life in Elberon, N. J., where her parents had a villa, but for three summers they have had a place in Greenwich, Conn.," said the article.

The following year, on October 9, the O'Donohues announced Marie Gladys's engagement to C. R. Coster Steers.  The couple was married on November 7, 1922.

Joseph and Marie hosted a dinner party on December 20, 1925.  Among the monied guests was Thomas M. McCarthy, the treasurer of the wholesale grocery firm Austin Nichols & Co.  The Christmas week party ended tragically when, after dinner, the 74-year-old McCarthy suddenly became ill.  The New York Times reported he, "died a few minutes later, presumably from heart disease or acute indigestion."

As with all well-to-do New Yorkers, the society columnists followed Joseph and Marie O'Donohue's movements.  In July 1927, The Sun reported, "in June [they] will go to Bretton Woods for the Summer," and the following year, in July, the newspaper said that they would be taking Joseph J. O'Dohonue, 4th along with them "to the Apawamis Club at Rye for part of the summer."

Marie Bruner O'Donohue died on December 29, 1928.  Joseph remained in the house and it appears that his grandson was living with him full time by now.  On February 1, 1930, the Rye Chronicle reported, "Mr. Joseph J. O'Donohue, well known member of the Apawamis Club, gave a dinner Tuesday evening at his home 262 West Seventy-third Street to celebrate the birthday of his grandson, Joseph J. O'Donohue 4th.  Following the dinner Mr. O'Donohue took his guests to the theatre."

In 1941, the tile roof was intact.  image via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services.

After living here for 44 years, O'Donohue sold 262 West 73rd Street in 1935.  (He died two years later.)  Architect Frederick S. Keeler was hired by the new owners to convert the house to furnished rooms.

It was purchased by architect Henry J. Gazon in January 1954.  It continued to be a rooming house until a renovation completed in 2012 resulted in ten apartments.

While little survives of Charles T. Mott's interiors, outwardly the picturesque house is greatly intact.

photographs by the author

The Lost 1825 St. Thomas's Church - Broadway and Houston Street

 

image from The New York Mirror, 1829 (copyright expired)

On October 12, 1823, as the city expanded ever northward, members of three Episcopal congregations--Trinity, Grace and St. George's--joined to form a new parish that would be known as St. Thomas's.  Among the founders, who included some of the wealthiest men in the city, were Charles King, William Beach Lawrence, and William Backhouse Astor.

Saint Thomas's Church was incorporated on January 9, 1824.  The trustees quickly acquired an 80-foot wide plot of land within the former Herrick farm.  Located at the corner of Broadway and Houston Street, it extended through to Mercer Street.  According to The New York Times, the congregation paid $14,000 for the land (equal to about $456,000 in 2024).  Six months later, on July 27, the cornerstone was laid.

The trustees had chosen one of the preeminent architects of the day, Alexander Jackson Davis.  His Gothic Revival design for St. Thomas's Church would be patently Davis with two octagonal towers flanking a massive Gothic arched window below a stepped gable.  The eaves along the sides were crenellated, another David hallmark.

Charles Burton's 1831 print reveals the handsome mansions that lined Broadway.   from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York.

The Mercer Street property behind the church was plotted into 58 burial vaults.  An advertisement in the New-York Evening Post on April 12, 1824 offered,

Private Vaults

The Vestry of St. Thomas' Church offer to build Vaults for families, on their property the corner of Broadway and Houston streets.  The terms may be known by applying to

        CHAS. KING, No. William-st.

        MURRAY HOFFMAN, 25 Pine-st. or

        RICHARD OAKLEY, 108 Front-st.

St. Thomas's Church, which stretched 118 feet along Houston Street, was completed in 1826.  Saying it was "built of rough stones," Miller's Stranger's Guide to New York would describe it in 1866 as, "one of the earliest and best specimens of the Gothic."  The Evening Post described the interior as being "chiefly of oak" including the "rich and finely carved oak furniture."  The organ, according to the newspaper, was "one of the finest in the city."

Alexander Jackson Davis's rendering depicts a rather simple interior with an oak ceiling.  from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York.

The church would be the venue of notable marriages and funerals, but perhaps none drew as much attention as the funeral of John Jacob Astor I on April 1, 1848.  The Evening Post reported, "The procession left the house of his son, in Lafayette place, on Saturday afternoon, and passed on foot to St. Thomas's church."  Astor's pall bearers were among the most influential men in New York City, including Washington Irving, Philip Hone, James G. King, James Gallatin and Judge Thomas J. Oakley.

"The coffin was of the richest mahogany, lined with lead," said the article, "and that lined with white satin, there being a square of plate glass over the face so as to allow those who wished to view the face of the deceased."  Following the service, Astor's coffin was temporarily interred in William B. Astor's vault behind the church until "a suitable mausoleum should be provided" in Greenwood Cemetery.

George Harvey titled his watercolor of St. Thomas's Church "Night-Fall"  from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York.

As he did every Saturday evening in the colder months, on March 1, 1851 the sexton lit the cast iron stove so the church would be warm for the morning's services.  The New-York Tribune reported, "About 1 o'clock on Sunday morning, a fire was discovered in St. Thomas' Church, on the corner of Broadway and Houston-st.  Before the firemen could reach the spot, the whole interior was in flames, and there is now nothing left of the time honored edifice but the bare walls."

The Evening Post said, "The alarm was immediately given, but too late to save the building...The walls, being of a massive structure, were but slightly impaired in their strength, with the exception of the tower on the north side, which has been considerably cracked by the intense heat."  

By the time of the disaster, the district around St. Thomas's Church was no longer bucolic and residential.  The New-York Tribune presumed that the church would not rebuild, but sell the property "and the proceeds applied to the erection of a new edifice further up town."

As the vestry considered its options, The Evening Post, sensing a public danger, demanded that the surviving portions of the building be demolished.  An article on April 2, 1851 said in part, "The proper authorities should see at once to the removal of these ruins, before any damage is done to life and property."

Instead, however, the structure underwent a massive reconstruction.  But the decision came with tragedy.  Seven months after the fire, on October 7, 1851, The Evening Post reported that at about 11:00 that morning, a scaffolding on which four men were "at work in re-laying the wall of that edifice" collapsed.  The workers plunged about 30 feet.  "One man was instantly killed, and most shockingly mangled," said the article.  "Another was so badly injured as to die before he could be removed to a place for treatment."  The other two were less seriously injured and taken to a hospital in stable condition.

Miller's Strangers Guide to New York credited the blaze that gutted the interior with improving it.  Its 1866 edition said the renovations resulted in "its present commodious and elegant internal appointments."

Despite the expense of restoration, less than nine years later, on April 21, 1860, The New York Times reported that the rector and vestrymen of St. Thomas's Church had applied to the courts to sell the property.  Saying that the building was too small, the petitioners said it "will seat only about one thousand persons."  A significant impetus, no doubt, was the increasingly commercial and rowdy neighborhood. 

Already, however, there was a conflict within the congregation.  "A number of the property-holders and vault-owners," said the article, "oppose the movement, alleging that more than half of the congregation reside below Fourteenth street."

In 1865, St. Thomas's Church (left) sat amid a bustling, congested Broadway neighborhood.  from the collection of the New York Public Library

The discussion went on for five years.  Then, on August 2, 1865, The New York Times reported that the property "has been sold to a large clothing-house in Broadway for the sum of $175,000."  The deal included the caveat that the building "is not to be removed until May 1866, when the site will be occupied as a store."  The transaction did not entirely solve the problem of the vaults, however, which were not included in the sale.  "The remains of the Astors were, at a comparatively recent date, removed and laid in Trinity Cemetery; and it appears that similar action has been taken by many vault-holders," said The Times.  Nevertheless, six stubbornly refused to move their families' remains.

A month later, the vestry announced it had purchased the northwest corner of 53rd Street and Fifth Avenue as the site of its new structure.  The New York Times said, "It is supposed...that Upjohn & Co. will be employed as architects."  The supposition was correct.  The cornerstone to the new St. Thomas's Church designed by Richard Upjohn and his son, Richard Mitchell Upjohn, was laid on October 14, 1868.

By then, Alexander Jackson Davis's solid stone structure had been gone for two years as the congregation shared space in another church.  On June 12, 1866, The New York Times had reported, "The demolition of St. Thomas' Church, at the corner of Broadway and Houston-street, which was commenced a few weeks ago, is now nearly completed, and scarcely one stone of the edifice remains upon another."  (The six families who had held out on removing the remains in their vaults, had eventually capitulated.)

The 1885 Charles L. Holt House - 117 West 130th Street

 

On January 10, 1885, the Record & Guide reported that real estate developer Samuel O. Wright was constructing a row of four brownstone-fronted homes at 117 to 123 West 130th Street.  Three stories tall above English basements, they were designed by the architectural firm of Cleverdon & Putzel in the neo-Grec style and completed before the year's end.  Beefy cast iron railings and newels originally graced the stoops.  The architects dipped into the popular Queen Anne style with details like the inset tiles at the basement and parlor levels, and the sunflower-themed cornice frieze.

The easternmost house, 117 West 130th Street, became home to Charles L. and Anna B. Holt.  Born in New York City in 1834, Holt was a tobacco merchant with offices at 156 Water Street and the secretary and director of the Leaf Tobacco Board of Trade.  

Holt was better known, however, for his involvement in education.  He was a member of the New York City Board of Education and in 1885 became a trustee of the College of the City of New York.  He was, as well, a member of the American Museum of National History, the City College Club, and the Men's Club of Harlem.

Anna B. Holt was an accomplished artist.  Her works appeared throughout the 1890s at the annual exhibition of the National Academy of Design.  She and Charles had a daughter, Lillian.

Like all her neighbors, Anna oversaw a small domestic staff.  On September 16, 1890, for instance, she advertised for a "chambermaid and waitress in private family; city references required."  ("City references" were much easier to check and greatly reduced the risk of "the servant girl game" by which young women would take jobs simply to rob the employer.)

The Holt drawing room was the scene of refined entertainments, such as the violin recital by Hubert Arnold held here on October 26 1894.  The American Art Journal said he was "assisted by Mrs. Eleanor Garrigue Ferguson, pianist, and other artists."

Charles L. Holt fell ill on New Year's Day 1902.  He died on April 8 "from a complication of diseases," according to The New York Times.  His funeral was held in the house two days later.

Anna and Lillian underwent a terrifying incident on November 22, 1905.  That afternoon they were on the third floor when they heard someone trying to break into the scuttle (the trap door to the roof).  They locked the door to that room, then called police.

Before help arrived, two 19-year-olds had broken into the scuttle but, finding themselves locked in the room, returned to the roof and looked for other targets.  They entered the house of Enoch C. Bell at 103 West 130th and "worked at will" in the third-floor bedroom of the Bells' daughter, Harriett.  John Murphy and Frank J. Stanley rifled the young woman's drawers before heading back up through the scuttle.

There they encountered the two policemen who had answered Anna Holt's call.  "We are looking for pigeons," Stanley told them.  The New York Herald reported, "[Policemen] O'Connor and McDonald drew their revolvers and the burglars surrendered."  But the incident was not over.

The officers holstered their weapons as they led the burglars back to the open scuttle, "when the prisoners turned suddenly upon the policemen and grappled with them," reported the New York Herald.  The teens, described as "powerful men," fought furiously.

Murphy yelled to his cohort, "Roll them over the edge," and the four became engaged in a life-and-death battle.  The article said, "Locked in one another's arms, two policemen and two burglars fought on the edge of a roof in West 130th street yesterday afternoon for fifteen minutes in full view of many hysterical women who had climbed to the tops of their nearby dwellings.  Many times the policemen were near to death as the burglars sought to throw them four stories to the street below."

As the neighbors watched helplessly, the burglars repeatedly wrestled O'Connor and McDonald to the edge of the roof.  Finally, "once their revolvers were in their hands again they were masters of the situation."  The Bell family was unaware they had been burglarized until $1,500 of Harriett Bell's jewelry was discovered in the teens' pockets.

Anna Holt was engaged in a different type of drama in March 1907 with her newly-hired cook, Catherine Cominsky, described by The Sun as "an Irish-Pole."  After a week "of disaster to crockery and tempers," Anna decided to fire Catherine and attempted to do so on March 29, but the cook refused to leave.  An argument ensued.  The Sun said, "when [Catherine] began to use picturesque Irish-Pole idioms to back up her position, Mrs. Holt retreated."

Now Anna and Lillian had a disgruntled cook barricaded in the kitchen as dinner time came and went.  Annie Hogan, the Holts' "second girl" offered to help.  (Second girls were domestics who came in on certain days to do chores like laundry.)  The Sun said she "soon returned from the kitchen with an ultimatum from Catherine to the effect that if the cook couldn't cook no second girl need apply."

Desperate, Anna called the police.  Luckily, the sergeant at the 125 Street police station had experience in such matters.   He later told a reporter, "It's easy.  You just tell them it's a shame such a fine looking girl should work in such a place and a little more of the blarney, and out they go as pleasant as you please.  I always pick a good looking cop for the job, and that helps some."

Annie Hogan summed up the encounter saying, "Aw, no, there wasn't no trouble.  Catherine just took to them two cops like they was her long lost brothers.  And they lugged her off very kind and considerate."  And with that, peace was restored to the Holt household.

Attorney William Henry Hanford and his wife, the former Francis Hill Hays purchased the Holt house in 1910.  The elderly couple (William was 70 and Francis was 68) had three adult children.

Francis's unmarried sister, Mary Ella Hays, died on August 26, 1912.  When her will was read, Francis was not pleased.  Mary Ella's estate--equal to several million dollars in today's money--went almost exclusively to a cousin, John R. Hill.  He had grown up in the Hays household as a child.  Francis received "some jewelry valued at little more than $500," reported The New York Times on October 4.

Mary Ella Hays had been confined "as an insane patient" in the Rivercrest Sanitarium in Queens, according to The Times.  The will, however, had been executed 17 years earlier, in 1887.  Francis went to court to overturn the will.  She insisted that her sister was insane when she made it, despite not being diagnosed as such.  Additionally, she asserted "that John Hill constituted himself chief beneficiary through duress and fraud."  She demanded that the will be invalidated "and the fortune turned over to her as the sole next of kin," said The New York Times.  (It is unclear whether Francis was victorious in her suit.)

William Henry Hanford died on January 15, 1913.  Francis remained in the West 130th Street house until March 18, 1919 when she sold it to Catherine L. Minifie.  Catherine resold it two days later.

By now Harlem was quickly becoming the center of Manhattan's black community.  No. 117 West 130th Street was operated as a rooming house, home to working class tenants.  Among them in 1921 was Estelle Counts.  She worked as an elevator operator in an apartment house at 18 West 107th Street near Central Park where Mrs. Regina Teidelbaum lived.

On April 19 that year, Mrs. Teidelbaum returned home after taking her 17-month-old baby, Martin, to the park.  The New York Herald reported, "When the elevator stopped at the fifth floor of the apartment [building] she got out of the cage and started to draw out the baby carriage, in which Martin was asleep."  But before she could do so, the elevator started up, crushing the carriage and killing the baby.  The newspaper reported that Estelle, "said she did not know how the car started."

Tenants routinely placed position-wanted ads in local newspapers.  One, who placed an ad in the New York Herald on July 26, 1922, was unexpectedly picky in the domestic job she was looking for.  "Half time or whole position, colored girl; two or three in family; no children."  Another, named Van Bergen, was less restrictive in her requirements on August 16, 1922.  "Housework, half time; experienced; colored; reference."

While other tenants worked as domestics, mechanics, and such, Ellen C. Brown was busy socializing.  On April 11, 1925, for instance, The New York Age reported, "The New York Hampton Club was entertained at the beautiful home of Mrs. Ellen C. Brown, 117 West 130th street, Tuesday evening, March 31.  The occasion was a forum meeting."  Three months later, the newspaper announced, "The members of the Block Association of 130th street, between Lenox and Seventh avenues, gave a surprise party, Monday evening...in honor of the birthday of Mrs. Ellen Brown of 117 West 130th street, who was the organizer and first president of the block association.

In 1941, the cast iron stoop railings and newels were intact.  image via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services.

Ellen C. Brown was a social presence on the block for years.  On February 5, 1927, The New York Age reported, "Prof. Henry Thomas of San Francisco, Cal., entertained the Music Study Club Monday night at the home of Mrs. S. Brown, 117 West 130th street," and five years later, the newspaper wrote, "On Sunday, November 13, the Sunflower Relief Club gave a tea at the home of Mrs. Ellen Brown, 117 West 130th street."

Ellen's list of club memberships seems endless.  On January 11, 1936, The New York Age reported on the holiday party of the Carolina Club of Williams Institutional Church that she hosted the previous week.  "The spacious domicile was decorated in Christmas style, and the guests, formally attired, made merry to the tunes furnished by Prof. B. Williamson and his orchestra."

Interestingly, the residence was never officially converted to apartments, although there are ten rental units listed in the house today.  At some point in the 20th century the cast iron stoop railings and newels were replaced with modern railings and concrete newels.

photograph by the author 

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The 1908 Seward Park Branch Library - 192 East Broadway

photo by Jim Henderson

Born in the attic of a tiny house in Dunfermline, Scotland, Andrew Carnegie's family could not afford a book.  According to the director of the New York Public Library in 1902, the young Carnegie promised, "that if he ever obtained the means he would establish a public library."  True to his word, in 1901 Andrew Carnegie, now a multimillionaire, offered the City of New York a gift of $5.2 million to build free circulating libraries.  The condition was that the city would provide the land and maintain the libraries.   

On June 6, 1908, the Record & Guide reported that work on the foundations of the Seward Park Branch, one of the Carnegie libraries, had begun.  The branch was designed by Babb, Cook & Welch--the firm that in 1899 had designed Carnegie's 64-room neo-Georgian mansion.  (The firm, at the time, was Babb, Cook & Willard.  Daniel W. Willard left the firm in 1908 and Winthrop A. Welch took his place.)  Perhaps as a nod to the philanthropist, their design for the Seward Park Branch would have striking similarities to the Carnegie Mansion.

A turn-of-the-century postcard depicts the mansion.

The Record & Guide noted, "The library is one of the largest and most important of the branches yet to be built, serving as it does a very crowded district of the city."  The Lower East Side neighborhood had filled with mostly Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe.  Like Carnegie's, the families were too poor to afford books, and would heavily rely on the library.

The guide said, "The Jefferson st. front of the structure will be the most important and faces on Seward Park; but the two entrances are in wings on East Broadway and Division st."  One entrance was for adults, the other for children.  A rusticated Indiana limestone base would uphold three floors of red brick.

The Record & Guide said, "The interior finish will be of quartered white oak with rift grain Georgia pine floors and painted plaster surfaces."  On the first and third floors were the adults' circulation and reading rooms.  The children's department took up the entire second floor.  The roof behind the handsome stone balustrade was not wasted.  It would hold "a large out-of-door reading room, arranged to be well shaded by awnings when required and provided with electric lights for use in the evening," said the Record & Guide.

photo by Wurts Bros. from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York.

The Seward Park Branch library was dedicated in the summer of 1909.  The ceremonies included school children who greatly impressed a New York Public Library official.  On December 26, 1909, The Sun quoted him saying:

Opening exercises usually have nothing of novelty about them.  This one had a novelty--the music supplied from an East Side public school.  The selections were of the best, and for young boys and girls whose parents had been but a few years in this country the execution was marvellous [sic].

from the collection of the New York Public Library

The school district's superintendent, Miss Richman, encapsulated the neighborhood and the children who would be using the library:

Not more than two per cent of the people in the districts which I superintend are of non-Jewish parentage.  At least 86 per cent of them are Russian Jews.  The others come from the various smaller countries of southeastern Europe.  Only a few of the parents of our school children were born on this side of the water.  Our pupils are only one generation removed from Russia, and the language of their homes, the synagogues and the shops which they frequent is some form of Yiddish.

Both the children and their parents were thirsty for knowledge.  The New York Times reported on May 9, 1913, "The annual report says that the Seward Park Branch of the library reads 425,571 books a year--that is to say, the readers take them home from the library and into their homes."  The article noted that of that amount, "only 51 per cent was fiction" and, "At Seward Park there are sterner uses for life and time than the reading of fictitious weal and woe."  It added, "Nothing short of an inspection of the Seward Park Library actually at work in its polyglot neighborhood will convey any idea of its enormous social power."

Throngs of children file into the second floor Children's Department.  from the collection of the New York Public Library

While they felt welcomed within the library which made books available in Russian, German, Yiddish and English, the immigrant readers were facing conspicuous discrimination outside the library's walls.  In his June 30, 1911 annual report, Federal Commissioner of Immigration William Williams denounced the Eastern European inflow, calling the refugees, "backward races with customs and institutions widely different from ours and without the capacity of assimilating with our people as did the early immigrants."  Despite this, the New York Public Library report that year said the Seward Park Branch circulated more books than "any other branch library in the world."

The children's interest in reading was reflected in the Seward Literary Club, organized in 1911.  The Bulletin of the New York Public Library explained in 1914 that it "is composed of Jewish boys who have met together for three years at the Seward Park branch to exchange reviews of books they are reading, to tell stories, and to hold occasional debates."

An article in The New York Times on March 9, 1913 flew in the face of William Williams's bigoted remarks of two years earlier.  "It is not far-fetched to say that many of the statesmen of the future are now in the making at Seward Park library," it said.

The open-air, rooftop reading room, sheltered by canvas awnings.  from the collection of the New York Public Library

The library was, as well, a cultural center for the neighborhood.  In April 1914, librarian Frank Goodell worked with the Hebrew Sheltering and Immigrant Aid Society to organize an exhibition of figures of immigrant citizens.  The New York Times said the presentation was meant, "To demonstrate the serious character of the Jewish immigrants from Russia and Rumania and their eagerness for self-improvement and assimilation of American influence."

The cultural programs consciously related to the neighborhood demographics.  On December 30, 1917, The Sun reported, "At the Seward Park Branch Public Library there is now open an exhibition of the work of Nathaniel Dolinsky, a comprehensive collection of paintings and drawings."  Dolinsky was born in Russia in 1890 and at 23 was the youngest artist to be exhibited in the 1913 Armory Show.

Adults check out books in the Circulation Department.  from the collection of the New York Public Library

A letter to the New-York Tribune published on October 20, 1922, pointed out the sad ratio between the voraciousness of the children and the supply of books.  "There are sometimes but six copies of a book and sixty or seventy demands daily from school children," said the writer.

A crush of juvenile readers wait at the desk in the Children's Department. from the collection of the New York Public Library

In November 1959, four filmmakers produced a motion picture, The Lower East Side and the Library--Yesterday and Today, in celebration of the Seward Park Branch's 50th anniversary.  The Villager noted, "One factor shown to be constant, however, is that neighborhood residents and patrons of the library are still ethnically varied."

The film highlighted the changing demographics of the Lower East Side.  "An example of this continuing 'melting pot' aspect of Lower East Side life," said the article, "is a shot of three very different neighborhood stores standing side by side--a Jewish butcher shop, a Chinese laundry, and a Spanish 'bodega.'"

As the face of the branch's patrons changed, so did the library's outreach.  In the third quarter of the century, films were screened for children, like The Ugly Duckling on August 3, 1975.

The East Broadway entrance.  photo by Beyond My Ken

More than a century after it opened its doors, the Seward Park Branch library remains an integral part of the much changed Lower East Side neighborhood.  Babb, Cook & Welch's dignified structure is a symbol of the philanthropy of another poor immigrant who thrived in his new home of America.