The Gershom Nathan House - 73 Bedford Street

Joshua Isaacs owned considerable land in Greenwich Village in the decade following the Revolution.  In 1799 he began construction of his substantial free-standing home at the corner of the recently opened Bedford and Commerce Streets.  Two years later, Isaacs transferred title of 77 Bedford Street and the abutting vacant lots to his son-in-law, Harmon Hendricks.  Following Hendricks's death in 1821, the Bedford Street properties were left in trust to his daughter, Hettie, who was married to Aaron L. Gomez.

Charles Oakley was perhaps the most prolific builder in the district in the 1830s.  In 1836 he leased the lots at 73 and 75 Bedford Street from the Hendricks-Gomez family.  He erected two Greek Revival style homes on the sites, each  two-and-a-half stories tall and faced in Flemish bond brick.  

The doorway of 73 Bedford sat above a short stoop and was flanked by narrow sidelights.  A squat attic level took the place of the dormers that would have been seen in the Federal style of a few years earlier.  The ends of the paneled, brownstone lintels were given modified Greek key designs.

The first occupant of 73 Bedford Street was silversmith Charles M. Williams.  He had been a partner of John I. Monell in the mid-1820s in Monell & Williams, but seems to have been working alone by now.  

The silver top of this cut glass canister in the collection of the Philadelphia Museum of Art is stamped with Charles M. Williams mark.

Charles M. Williams disappears from directories in 1837, suggesting he died that year or shortly afterward.  The house became home to Henry and Eliza Haines.  Their only son, John Henry, died on February 4, 1839.  His funeral was held in the parlor the following day.

The next year, Deborah Coley, the widow of William G. Coley, and her son William Jr. occupied 73 Bedford Street.  William ran a fruit business at 195 Washington Street.  The Coleys would remain into the late 1840s, after which another widow, Diana Traphagen, leased the house.

Diana was the widow of William D. Traphagen.  Living with her was her daughter Ellen D., who became a teacher in the early 1850s.  In 1854 she taught in the primary department of School No. 41 on Greenwich Avenue at Charles Street, earning $175 a year (about $6,500 in 2025).

Not surprisingly, Diana Traphagen took in boarders.  In 1851, for instance, they were Charles W. Juhnke, a varnisher, and Elizabeth Van Pelt, a nurse.  Elizabeth was the widow of John Van Pelt.

Hettie and Aaron L. Gomez still owned the land on which 73 Bedford Street sat.  On October 28, 1853, their daughter Rosalane (known as Rosalie) was married to Gershom Seixas Nathan.  Diana Traphagen's lease apparently expired in 1858 and the following year Rosalie and Gershom Nathan moved into the Bedford Street house.  (Diana did not move far away.  In 1859 she was living at 67 Bedford Street.)

Like his wife's family, Gershom's had supported the American Revolution.  His father, Simon Nathan, arrived in the colonies in 1773 and immediately threw his support to the cause.  He also was active in the Jewish community and was a trustee of Shearith Israel Congregation.  

Gershom was born on September 26, 1821.  He and Rosalie had seven children, Frances, Clarence Seixas, Stella, Edgar Joshua, Benjamin, Elvira and Solis.

Gershom Seixas Nathan (original source unknown)

Shortly after moving in, Rosalie advertised for domestic help.  Her ad on October 4, 1859 read, "Wanted--A cook; one who understands plain cooking, making bread and to do the washing of a small family; wages $7 per month."  (The broad list of duties would earn the servant the equivalent of $265 a month today.)

On July 12, 1864, five years after the family moved in, Gershom died at the age of 42.  It is unclear how long Rosalie and the children remained at 73 Bedford Street.  She eventually moved far north to 113 West 87th Street where she died on April 16, 1890.

As early as 1871, the former Nathan house was home to Hudson W. Ball, a real estate agent, his wife, the former Katherine Kane, and their son Hudson H. Ball, who was a clerk.  The family rented the house until 1887 when they moved to 51 Morton Street.

Terrence H. Forrest leased 73 Bedford Street in the 1890s, paying $187.50 per quarter, according to Gomez documents.  The rent would translate to nearly $26,000 per year in today's money.  Forrest ran a laundry business on the East Side of Manhattan.  On June 4, 1896, The World said, "In Bedford street, where many of the old settlers still dwell, despite the attractions of Harlem and other newer neighborhoods, Terrence is a man of influence, both social and political."

For several years, according to the article, Forrest had suffered from dropsy (known today as edema).  Nothing had alleviated the condition and, "with each relapse his strength faded away, until he retained hardly any of his former strength."  Finally, in the spring of 1896, Forrest's condition was dire.  The World reported, "It was decided that the last sacraments of the Catholic Church should be administered to the dying man."  

Father McCabe of the Church of St. Anthony of Padua arrived at the house.  Along with the items for administering extreme unction, he brought a relic of St. Anthony in a gold case.  The World reported, "He anointed the sick man's body with it while all around prayed, with heads bowed."  

On June 4, The World recounted, "Almost immediately, it is said, the man rallied, and from that moment grew stronger and stronger until now, his family declare, he enjoys his former health."  Neither Father McCabe nor Terrence Forrest would discuss the matter.  "In the neighborhood, however, the case is much talked about, and Mr. Forrest is looked upon by many as one saved from the grave," said the article.

Forrest's name was back in the newspapers the following year when his turnout (a two-wheeled carriage) ran down bicyclist Annie W. Browne uptown on 62nd Street.  The New York Journal and Advertiser reported, "Her bicycle was wrecked, but she was not injured."  Forrest was initially arrested, "but upon his promise to pay for the damage he was liberated."

The Forrest family remained at 73 Bedford Street through 1899, after which it was operated as a boarding house for more than a decade.  Interestingly, in 1917 Rosalie and Gershom Nathan's son, Clarence Siexas Nathan, leased his childhood home "for a term of years."

In October 1923, the Gomez family began liquidating about a dozen properties, including 73 through 77 Bedford Streets.  On November 18, 1923, The New York Times reported, "Greenwich Village has a new community art center.  It is in Bedford and Commerce Streets, where the noise of motor traffic on Seventh Avenue never penetrates."  A group of artists, writers and performers had bought up the Bedford Street houses and hired architect Ferdinand Savigano to remodel them.

Savigano raised the attic to a full floor, its vertical wall composed of more glass than brick.  Artists' studio spaces like this were highly popular in Greenwich Village.  Seven years later, Bedford Street was widened, requiring the removal of the stoop.  The entrance to 73 Bedford Street was moved to the rear, accessed through a gateway on Commerce Street.

Shorn of its stoop, the former entrance of 73 Bedford Street hovered above the sidewalk in 1941.  image via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services.

Living in the remodeled house were Warren C. Clark, an investment statistician and graduate of Williams College; Joseph Cox, the managing editor of Adventure magazine; and Kathleen Keenan (known as Katy to her friends), who was a dietician for Child's Restaurants.  In October 1927, The Lyre of Alpha Chi Omega described Kathleen's "cozy little apartment at Greenwich Village."

Another remodeling in 1938 resulted in one apartment in the basement and two each on the upper floors.  One of the units was rented by actress and dancer Joan McCracken in 1944.  Her husband, Jack Dunphy, had been called to military duty.  In her 2003 biography of McCracken, The Girl Who Fell Down, Lisa Jo Sagolla writes:

McCracken focused on settling into her ground-floor garden apartment at 72 Bedford Street.  To McCracken, home was a haven in which to escape.  She had a knack for turning her urban apartments into snug little oases, filled with plants and flowers.  She papered her apartment walls herself, made her own slipcovers, and filled her home with the products of her favorite hobby--antique furniture shopping.  One of her prized pieces was an antique Pennsylvania Dutch cupboard.  Collecting seashells and unusually shaped pieces of driftwood was another of McCracken's hobbies, and her New York apartment sported specimens she and Dunphy had picked up along the shore during their honeymoon in Provincetown.

McCracken had a contract with Warner Brothers, but had been allowed to return to New York to work on the Broadway play Bloomer Girl.  

Joan McCracken as Daisy (right) in the Broadway production of Bloomer Girl.  Life magazine, November 6, 1944.  

Jack Dunphy would never join his wife at 73 Bedford Street.  In 1948 he met Truman Capote at a cocktail party and the two would have a relationship until Capote's death.  Joan McCracken went on to film, Broadway and television roles to general acclaim.  But health complications brought an end to her career.  She died in 1961 at the age of 43.

In 1985, the house was renovated again, at which time the stoop was refabricated.  There are now a duplex apartment in the basement and first floor, and one apartment each on the upper floors.  

photograph by the author

The Walter E. Strobel House - 317 West 103rd Street

 

Around 1888, Daniel Hallecy and John J. Egan, established the Egan & Hallecy Construction Company.  They quickly became a force in Manhattan development, erecting scores of rowhouses.  In 1891 they began construction of five upscale homes at 315 to 323 West 103rd Street designed by Martin V. B. Ferdon.  Completed the following year, each of the brownstone faced, three-story-and-basement homes had cost $16,000 to erect, or about $553,000 in 2025 terms.

The residences were designed in the Renaissance Revival style.  At 317 West 103rd Street, the wing-walled stoop spilled down to beefy stone newels, each girded with foliate carvings with a face in profile.  The double-doored entrance featured an elegant fan light and sat within an elaborate framework.  Caryatid-like brackets supported fruit-carved capitals.  The arch included a fearsome portrait keystone and foliate spandrels.  A full-height, rounded bay rose tower-like to the denticulated cornice.

The house was purchased by Richard Albert and Helena Waples Babbage.  The couple had two children, Helena Maude and Richard.  Their residency would be relatively short-lived.  On March 4, 1895, an advertisement in the New York Press read:

317 West 103d St.--A superior 3 story and basement brownstone house, 20x55, with an extension, on the upper side of the street, and commanding charming views of the beautiful Riverside Drive and the Hudson; it is near the palatial residences on the drive and is in all respects desirable.

The Babbages sold the house to Eva P. and Abraham M. Graff on September 20, 1895, sparking a rapid-fire turnover of the property.  Three days later, the Graffs sold 317 West 103rd Street to George E. and Florence E. S. Weyl.  They remained just over two years, advertising it in January 1899 as being "in one of the choicest blocks up town."

It was next home to educator and author James E. Russell, dean of Teachers' College at Columbia University.  Born in Hamden, New York, he graduated from Cornell University and did post-graduate studies in Jena, Berlin and Leipsic.

Journal of Education February 27, 1902 (copyright expired)

Finally, starting around 1905, the house had long-term residents with the Strobel family.  Following his graduation from the College of the City of New York in 1896, Walter E. Strobel entered Strobel & Wilken Co.  It was co-founded by his grandfather, Charles Strobel in 1849 (at the time, the firm was "devoted to the manufacture of pocket books," according to the Crockery and Glass Journal decades later).  Strobel's father, Emil, was president of the firm when the family moved into the 103rd Street house.  (Emil and Elsa Strobel lived four houses away, at 309 West 103rd Street.)

Strobel & Wilken Co. had greatly diversified since its inception.  In 1878 it advertised, "importers and wholesale dealers in Fancy goods, Druggist, Sundries, Smokers' articles & Toys."  But by the turn of the century, it was mostly known for its German-made bisque dolls marked with the initials SWC.

image via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services

While Walter managed the business, his wife busied herself with more social pursuits.  On March 10, 1907, for instance, The New York Times reported, "A pretty bridge party was that given recently by Mrs. Walter E. Strobel in her home, 317 West 103d Street."

Upon the death of Emil Strobel in 1916, Walter became vice-president.  He briefly was president, and then in February 1926 was elected as a member of the board.

Walter retired in 1936.  By then, the couple spent their summer months in Tarrytown, New York, where they were visible members of summer society.  The Daily News of Tarrytown, for instance, reported on June 29, 1938, "Today, Mrs. Walter E. Strobel of New York City is entertaining at the club at a lunch for 20 guests."  "The club"  mentioned in the article was the Sleepy Hollow Country Club.

It is unclear when the Strobels left 317 West 103rd Street.  It was converted to apartments, two per floor, in 1960.  Among the tenants that year was Krythia Helen Reid.  She was a documents assistant within the New Zealand Mission to the United Nations.  

A rooftop addition was added to the Strobel house around the turn of the 21st century.  

photographs by the author

The Lost Daniel Ransom House - 16 West 21st Street

 

from the collection of the New York Public Library

Daniel Ransom and his brother, Warren A., operated the boot and shoe business W. A. Ransom & Co.  Daniel and his family lived at 152 Second Avenue when an advertisement appeared in the New-York Tribune on March 20, 1851:

For Sale--the new 3-story and attic house, with freestone front, 16 West Twenty-first-st. 25 by 65 feet, built in the very best manner, and can be immediately occupied.

The newly-built residence was similar to the opulent homes being constructed on Fifth Avenue, just steps to the east.  The ornate cast iron area and stoop railings morphed to a full-width cast iron balcony at the parlor level.  The classical pediment above the arched, double-doored entrance was supported by foliate brackets.  Handsome molded lintels above the segmentally arched openings sat upon scrolled brackets.

Daniel Ransom married Esther A. Jones in 1842.  When they moved into 16 West 21st street, they had three children:  Helen, Frank, and Kate, who were eight, seven and four years old respectively.

In 1864, Daniel Ransom fell ill.  He died at the age of 51 on April 30.  His funeral was held in the parlor on May 2.

In an interesting turn of events, five years later the widow and her brother-in-law, Esther and Warren A. Ransom, were married.  Warren's wife, Mary Elizabeth Leavitt, had died in 1855.  Esther and Daniel's children were still unmarried and living in the house when their mother and uncle wedded.

The Ransom family's social position was reflected in Helen's, Frank's and Kate Ransom's being invited to the wedding of the Spanish Minister, Señor Mauritio Lopez Roberts to Angela Terre on November 28, 1870.  Others in the church that afternoon were the Ministers of Russia, Prussia, Portugal and Italy, the French Charge d'Affaires and high-level socialites with surnames like Fowler, Hewitt, Skidmore, and Sherman.

The following year, Helen was married to Celestin Astoin and the couple headed to Europe.  Tragically, Helen's honeymoon voyage turned to grief.  The 33-year-old groom died on  the steamer Pereire on October 25.  Helen arrived home with the body a month later and his funeral was held in St. Patrick's Cathedral on Mott Street.

(When Helen's father-in-law, Felix Astoin, died in January 1884, he left her a substantial amount of Manhattan real estate, including the famous Knickerbocker Cottage on Sixth Avenue.)

Ironically, Kate suffered a similar fate.  She married William Lowndes on May 22, 1875.  Less than four years later, on April 23, 1879, William died at the age of 35.  Kate moved back into her family's 21st Street home.

Kate Ransom Lowndes spent the summer of 1891 at the exclusive Grand Union Hotel in Saratoga, New York.  She died there at the age of 44 on August 17.   

By the time of Kate's funeral, Warren A. Ransom had retired.  Possibly a victim of a stroke, he was described by The New York Times as an invalid.  

The family's home was, by now, hemmed in by commercial buildings.  Stubbornly resisting the northward migration of their neighboring millionaires, the Ransoms' house was an anachronism of a more refined era.  Possibly because of  those changes, Kate's funeral was not held in the house.

Warren A. Ransom died at the age of 79 in the West 21st Street house on March 26, 1900, and his funeral was held in the Church of the Holy Communion on March 28.

Now only Esther and Frank, who never married, occupied the vintage residence.  Esther died here on October 15, 1903 at the age of 80.  Her funeral, too, was held in the Church of the Holy Communion.

Six decades after the family moved in, the last Ransom died on April 27, 1912.  Frank J. Ransom left an estate equal to about $14.6 million in 2025 money.  The New York Times said, "He was a bachelor and left no near relatives."  He left much of his fortune to institutions, like the St. Luke's, Roosevelt, and New York hospitals, and $200,000 to the Church of Holy Communion.  

He was generous to his domestic staff.  His coachman, Thomas Hart, and Francis Dawson, "who worked around his house," both received $1,000 (about $32,400 today).  Ransom left the same amount to two maids, Julia Cunningham and Maggie Burke; and $500 and $25,000 in trust each to servants Sabrina McGrath and Bessie Kane.

Two years later, on March 22, 1914, The New York Times reported that the Frank J. Ransom estate had sold 16 West 21st Street, mentioning that it, "has been in the family ownership since 1851."  L. Napoleon Levy paid $20,000 for the property, about $629,000 today.

The house was converted to the headquarters of the Waistmakers' and Dressmakers' Union.  By 1919 the name was changed to the International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union.  During a sweeping labor strike, on February 11 that year, the New-York Tribune reported, "A bank for the payment of strike benefits to 20,000 striking dress and waist workers is to be opened to-day at 16 West Twenty-first Street."   

In the 1920s, other unions joined the ILGWU in the house.  On December 19, 1929, The Daily Worker reported, "A pre-convention membership meeting of the New York District of the National Textile Workers Union will be held this evening at 8 o'clock at 16 West 21st St."

The stoop was removed by the time this photo was taken in 1941.  via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services.

All of the organizations were closely scrutinized by Congress's Special Committee on Un-American Activities.  In 1938, the Workers' International Relief was in its crosshairs.  The Committee noted that the group was founded in 1921 "on Lenin's suggestion."

In 1942, the venerable Ransom residence was demolished, replaced with a one-story truck garage.  

image via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services.

That building was replaced in 2005 with a 14-story apartment building.

J. M. Felson's 1942 223 East 61st Street

image via compass.com

Born in Russia in 1886, Jacob M. Felson received his architectural training at Cooper Union, opening his office in 1910.  At the time, the Sixty-First Methodist Episcopal Church, organized during the Civil War, worshipped in the distinctive Victorian Gothic building it had erected in the 1870s.  

When this photograph was taken in 1941, the church's days were numbered.  via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services.

The Sixty-First Methodist Episcopal Church merged with Christ Church Methodist at 60th Street and Park Avenue in 1933.  The following year, the congregation of the French Episcopal Eglise du Saint-Espirit moved into the church.  Just over a decade later, on October 7, 1941, The New York Sun reported that the Valcourt Realty Corporation had purchased the building.  "A six-story apartment house to contain forty-nine suites and 124 rooms and estimated to cost $200,000 will be erected on the site," said the article.  (The construction cost would translate to about $4 million in 2025.)

Throughout the Depression years, J. M. Felson had kept busy designing Art Deco and Art Moderne-style apartment buildings.  His design for 223 East 61st Street would be different--a 1940s take on Georgian architecture.  While Felson's fenestration--casements and tripartite windows--was distinctly modern, he gave the red brick facade details inspired from early American precedents.

The arched, double-doored entrance sat within a Georgian frame of fluted Doric columns, topped with an elegant swan's head pediment and stylized pineapple.  The end windows wore splayed brick lintels with stone keystones.  The building was crowned by a brick pediment decorated by a central shield flanked by swags.

photograph by Lowell Cochrane

The apartments, eight per floor, became home to middle- and upper-middle class tenants.  Among the initial residents were Faith B. LeLacheur and Clarissa Cooper.  A graduate of Wellesley College, Faith was a nurse.  Clarissa was a teacher of French and a translator of French literary works.  She received her master and doctorate degrees from Columbia University.  In the 1920s she obtained her pilot license and was an award-winning driver for the American Women's Voluntary Service during World War II.  The couple decorated their apartment, according to The New York Times later, with an "extensive array of antiques."

Other early residents were journalist Robert Simpson and his wife, the former Luz Rudolph.  Born in 1896, Simpson was the son of a journalist.  Like his father, Robert worked for newspapers in Charleston and Huntington, West Virginia before relocating to New York and joining The Evening World.

photograph by Lowell Cochran

In 1929, Simpson joined The New York Times on the city desk.  He would eventually focus on scientific issues, especially plant genetics and world problems.  While working at The Times, he contributed many articles to other popular and trade periodicals, like his scathing article for The Saturday Review that rebutted claims of Soviet geneticist, T. D. Lysenko.

Simpson left The New York Times in 1959 and joined the public relations firm of Thomas J. Deegan Company.  He was public relations director for the Preakness at Pimlico Race Track in 1962, and was publicity consultant for Pan American Airways.

Typical of the Simpsons' neighbors in the building were Russell P. Kantor and his wife, the former Mabel Chamberlain.  Kantor was president of Victor Gloves, Inc. and grand director of ceremonies of the Masonic Order's Grand Lodge of the State of New York.

Clarissa Burnham and Faith B. LeLacheur still occupied their apartment in 1979.  Clarissa died on June 29 that year at the age of 84.

Vivian Williams cleaned the couple's apartment once a week.  Three months after Clarissa's death, on October 17, 1979, Williams entered and immediately noticed a grandfather clock knocked to the floor in the entry hall.  She discovered Faith LeLacheur's body in the bedroom.  The 81-year-old had been murdered by "multiple stab wounds," according to police, who would say only, "that she had 'possibly' been raped," reported The New York Times.  The apartment had not been ransacked and, apparently, not robbed.  There were indications, however, that the elderly woman had valiantly struggled with her attacker.

There are still eight apartments per floor and, outwardly, little has changed to J. M. Felson's reserved design.

many thanks to reader Lowell Cochran for suggesting this post.

The 1833 Horace Whitehorn House - 23 Vandam Street

 

In 1833, Israel and Sarah F. Clark were living in the two-and-a-half story house at 21 Vandam Street that Clark, a mason and builder, had erected in 1826-27.  That year, Daniel Turner erected four similar homes at 23 through 29 Vandam Street.  Israel Clark purchased 23 Vandam Street, next door to his home, as an investment property.

Although the Greek Revival style was gaining favor by then, Turner remained faithful to the Federal style seen in the earlier buildings (like the Clark house) along the block.  Two stories of red, Flemish bond brick sat upon a brownstone basement.  The elegant entrance included fluted, Ionic columns and delicate carving around the transom.  Two dormers perched above the cornice.

Clark's first tenant was real estate broker Ichabod Hoit, whose office was at 71 John Street.  In 1836, he advertised space in the basement for rent as an office, noting it was "well calculated for a physician or a lawyer."

During the first years of the 1840s, the house was apparently operated as a boarding house.  Living here in 1843, for instance, were two carpenters, Andrew Switzer and James Willis and their families, and Sidney Youngs, a tailor.

Around 1845, Horace Whitehorn moved his family into 23 Vandam Street.  Born on April 21, 1808 in Newport, New York, Whitehorn was a tailor.  He married Deborah Blanchard on April 18, 1832 and the couple had two sons: John, born in 1834; and Steven, born in 1837.  Horace's tailoring establishment was at 90 Bowery.  Also living here by 1850 was Horace's brother, Samuel Whitehorn, a clothier on William Street.

On August 26, 1854, Horace was "returning from a trip to the West," according to The New York Times.  He had stayed the night in Poughkeepsie and at 8:00 that morning went to the train station.  As he was purchasing his ticket to New York City, "he discovered that his pocket-book had been abstracted," said the newspaper.  The theft was newsworthy in that the pocketbook contained "$2,200 in bank notes and drafts,."  The amount would equal about $82,400 in 2025.

Within a few years, the Whitehorns relocated to Warren, New York.  The Vandam Street house saw a series of occupants throughout the next decade.  Clerk and firefighter Jacob Marcellus lived here in 1865-66; followed by Ebenezer D. Hoyt.  Born in 1824 in Norwalk, Connecticut, Hoyt's first American ancestor, Simon Hoyt, arrived in America in 1629.  Ebenezer D. Hoyt died in the Vandam Street house on September 13, 1871.

The residence was purchased by Morgiana W. Farrell, the widow of Henry Farrell.  Her three young adult children, Eleanor B., Edward and Jesse, moved in as well.  Eleanor was a teacher in the Boys' Department of School No. 20 on Chrystie Street.  The family took in one boarder at a time.

The quiet of 23 Vandam Street was upset on the night of October 1, 1876, when the Farrell brothers became embroiled in a quarrel.  The New York Times reported, "A fight followed, during which Edward stabbed Jesse in the back beneath the left shoulder, and in the left hand, with a pocket-knife."  Edward fled the house before police arrived.  

The police surgeon who attended Jesse described his wounds as "of a dangerous nature."  The Times reported that Jesse, "refused to inform the Police as to the origin or cause of the quarrel, and said it was a family affair, in which he was as much to blame as his brother."  Two detectives were detailed to look for Edward.

Following Morgiana Farrell's death, 23 Vandam Street was sold "by order of the executrix" in 1888.  It was resold two years later to John Brosnan for $12,000 (about $415,000 today).  Brosnan simultaneously purchased 20 Vandam Street and used both properties for rental income.

Living at 23 Vandam Street in 1892 was the family of Peter Quinn.  He owned two liquor stores, one at 109 Varick Street and the other at 188 Bleecker Street.  The following year, Patrick and Celia Burke McGowan leased the house.  Patrick McGowan was a clerk--the nebulous term ranging from a low level office position to a highly responsible one.  The couple had a son, John.  Living with the family was Celia's 22-year-old brother, Michael Burke.

Burke was a laborer on the subway when the family moved in, but by 1893 he was unemployed.  That year, in August, he was afflicted with what The Evening World described as "intestinal troubles."  The newspaper said that because of the condition, "frequently at night [he] would walk down to the piers near the foot of Canal street."

On the night of September 11, 1893, Alexander Gill and John Rohan were "sitting under the old city dump at Canal street," according to The Evening World.  The men saw Burke walk out on the pier and gaze at the water for a few minutes.  He then walked "on to the dumps and sat down near the edge," said the article.  "Suddenly he took off his hat and slid into the water."

Gill and Rohan, along with two others, ran to the spot, but Burke had disappeared beneath the water.  A police officer got a boathook and eventually fished Burke's body out of the river.  The Evening World reported that Celia McGowan did not think her brother "intended to commit suicide, but thinks he was overcome by weakness and fell into the water."

In 1887, the McGowans had a baby.  About the same time, they sublet the second floor to a widow, Augusta Heirle.  She lived there with her parents, a Mr. and Mrs. Lynn.  The New-York Tribune described the accommodations saying, "There are three rooms on the second story of the house, a front room, a middle or dark room and a rear room."

Fire was a constant threat in the 19th century.  That became frighteningly clear in the winter of 1898.  On February 12, The Evening Post reported, "A lamp exploded last night in the home of Patrick McGowan, No. 23 Vandam Street."  Happily, a passing policeman rushed in and helped extinguish the fire.

There would be another, more serious explosion in the house the following year.  On April 23, 1899, the New-York Tribune reported that men from the Consolidated Gas Company "were busy yesterday afternoon fixing the meter and pipes of the house."  One of the men was in the "dark room" on the second floor.  Augusta Heirle and her mother were in the rear room having dinner.

"Suddenly there came a tremendous explosion," said the article.  "The house was violently shaken; all the windows on the second floor and attic were blown out, pictures were thrown from the walls and Mrs. Heirle and Mrs. Lynn were thrown from their seats to the floor."  Downstairs, Celia McGowan thought the house was about to collapse.  "She ran terrified with her eighteen-months-old child in her arms," said the New-York Tribune.  Simultaneously, three firefighters from Engine Company No. 30 happened to be passing.  They rushed into the house, fully expecting to find a fire, but there was none.  The second story worker, who was only slightly cut on the nose, had the presence of mind to shut off the gas immediately.  In the meantime, the explosion was heard for blocks around and "a great crowd gathered" outside the house.

In 1900, John Brosnan sold 23 Vandam Street to Mary T. Brennan.  She continued to lease it to the McGowans.  John McGowan was a young man by now and that year he was managing St. Anthony Catholic Church's amateur baseball team.

image via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services

Patrick McGowan died here on February 17, 1902 at the age of 50.  Celia and her sons continued to lease the house through 1905, when Mary T. Brennan sold it.  The dwelling saw a series of owners throughout the post-World War I years.  It was purchased in 1924 by William S. Coffin, who was buying up scores of properties in the district at the time.  Although Coffin converted almost all of the vintage houses to apartments, often altering them with shed dormers, he left 23 Vandam Street relatively untouched and sold it to his tenant, a Mrs. Cusack, in April 1924, shortly after he purchased the property.

The house remained a single-family home until 1974, when it was converted to apartments--one per floor.  A renovation completed in 1985 returned the upper three floors to one residence, with an apartment in the basement level.

photographs by the author

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The 1861 Lee B. Anderson House - 35 Stuyvesant Street

 

The Director General of the West India Company in New Netherlands, Peter Stuyvesant, established two farms far north of the settlement in March 1651.  A lane that separated Bouwerij #1 and #2 would eventually become Stuyvesant Street.  In 1803, Stuyvesant's great-grandson, Petrus, erected a Federal-style house at what would be numbered 21 Stuyvesant Street as a wedding present for his daughter Elizabeth and Nicholas Fish.

When East 10th Street, part of the rigid street grid of the 1811 Commissioners Plan, was opened in 1826, the diagonally-running Stuyvesant Street created an odd shaped parcel, the triangular point of which Elizabeth Stuyvesant retained as her garden.  Four years after Elizabeth's death on September 16, 1854, Matthias Banta purchased the point for development.

Historians attribute the resultant rowhouses to James Renwick, Jr., who had designed the magnificent Grace Church about three blocks to the west in 1846.  Completed in 1861, the Anglo-Italianate, five-story-and-basement homes varied from 16- to 32-feet-wide and (because of the triangular plot), their depths ranged from 16- to 48-feet.  Like its neighbors, the rusticated brownstone basement and first floors of 35 Stuyvesant Street sat below four stories of red brick trimmed in brownstone.  The tall, fully-arched windows of the second floor held hands by means of a stone bandcourse.  Each of the architrave frames of the upper openings were treated slightly differently.

Margaret Russell VanDuzer, who most likely leased 35 Stuyvesant Street, operated it as an upscale boarding house.  High end boarding houses accepted a limited number of residents.  In 1863, VanDuzer's boarders were the families of John Joseph Clarke and Benjamin Constable, both drygoods merchants.

In 1871, Margaret VanDuzer leased 126 West 10th Street as her boarding house, and Eliza A. Roe, the widow of George Roe, took over.  Five years later, Clara A. Dunbar, another widow, operated the boarding house.

Charles Merriweather moved into rooms here in 1888.  Born in Louisville, Kentucky in 1856, his father was W. H. Merriweather, described by The New York Times as "a rich pork packer."  Charles graduated from the Forest House Military Institute.  Despite his affluence, he did not have a sterling reputation.  The New York Times said, "he was reared in luxury and idleness."  The New York Press was even more direct, saying he "was graduated as a bachelor of sciences, but was indolent and wayward and did not continue his studies.  He did continue his dissipations, however, and finally embraced the stage as a means of livelihood."

When he took rooms at 35 Stuyvesant Street, he was working as a theatrical agent.  He began a dalliance with a servant girl in the house, and when she became pregnant he married her "to save her name," according to The New York Press.  The New York Times reported, "his downfall dates from this event, as she proved to be ungrateful and worthless."  In January 1889, he left her.  The New York Press explained, "he cynically took up the profession of a gambler and did well until a streak of bad luck cleaned him out in May."

On August 23, 1890, contractor Edward Cunningham and Policeman Cullen were standing on East 15th Street near the East River.  They saw, "a handsome, slim and neatly-dressed man" walk down the dock, tear up a letter, and plunge into the water.  He was pulled out "after he had sank twice," according to The New York Times, and taken to Bellevue Hospital where Charles Merriweather was resuscitated and arrested.  (Attempted suicide was a jailable offense.)  The newspaper said, "Two hours later he was none the worse for his bath and able to tell [his] very interesting story."  (He had torn up the letter, he explained, to destroy his identity.)  What happened to the "worthless" Mrs. Merriweather and her child is unclear.

In the late 1890s, a Mrs. Weischert leased the boarding house.  The Sun, in 1899, described it as "one of the clean and respectable furnished-room houses which are common in the German section of the city."  Living here was German-born Alexander Weiser, who had loaned Mrs. Weischert part of the money needed to purchase the lease.

Directly behind 35 Stuyvesant Street was the rooming house of another widow, Laura Aster, at 126 East 10th Street.  Her husband died in 1889 and in 1898 she leased the 10th Street house "and supported herself by letting out furnished rooms," according to The Sun.  

Alexander Weiser somehow became acquainted with Laura Aster, who was about 40 years old.  The Sun said, "he used to visit her, coming through the gate in the rear fence."  The Morning Telegraph said that letters discovered later made it "evident that Weiser and Mrs. Aster...had intimate relations."  Weiser became infatuated with the widow and began "importuning Mrs. Aster to marry him ever since he knew her," said The Sun.  Laura Aster, however, was less smitten.

In the meantime, issues over the loan made things between Weiser and Mrs. Weischert become tense.  The Sun said they quarreled and "the difficulty [led] to his being turned out of the house."  He sued, and was awarded part of the money.  

His leaving the Stuyvesant Street house did not dampen his ardor for Laura Aster and Weiser became a stalker.  The Sun said he, "paid unremitting attentions to Mrs. Aster, visiting her and writing letters to her."  She told her brother that his attentions "were distasteful to her," and said, "He acts as if he's crazy about me.  I wish he would stop bothering me.  I don't want him around."

At around 10:00 on the morning of September 16, 1899, a delivery boy, who came daily, arrived at the East 10th Street house.  Getting no answer at the door and finding it locked, he got a box and peered into a window.  He saw the bodies of a man and Laura Aster on the floor.  He and a street cleaner attempted the doors and windows.  "This drew an immense crowd," said The Morning Telegram.  A police officer came around to 35 Stuyvesant Street and through the rear gate (just as Weiser was accustomed to), and forced the rear door.  It appeared that Weiser had shot Laura Aster in the back of the head while she was cooking.  Weiser then shot himself in the left temple.

On December 18, 1901, Josephine McCarthy, described by The Evening World as, "a pretty girl, twenty-two years old," took a furnished room here.  She asked to be called at 6:00, but when a servant knocked on the door, she did not answer.

Later a friend, Marie Vloff, arrived.  The Evening World reported, "when she also failed to arouse her she said that something was wrong."  The door was forced open and Josephine was found unconscious.  Gas was found to be leaking from a stove.  Despite Marie Vloff's insistence that Josephine had money and "had no trouble," the physician who arrived said he believed she had attempted suicide.  Josephine McCarthy was held in the prison ward at Bellevue Hospital.

This 1941 photograph predated the now-famous wisteria vine by more than a decade.  image via the NYC Department of Records & Information Services.

A similar incident occurred three years later.  By now Charles Dosetla operated the rooming house and among his tenants were the Thomas family.  Frederick A. Thomas was a student in a business college.  When his father returned to their rooms around 6:00 on January 23, 1904, he found the 17-year-old, "lying on the bed partly dressed and unconscious."  It appeared that Frederick disconnected the gas tube from the stove and attached it to a table lamp.  Without lighting it, he lay down on the bed.  The New York Times explained, "The regulator on the lamp was turned so as to allow the gas to escape."  This time the incident was deemed accidental.  Sadly, doctors at Bellevue Hospital said, "he has small chance of recovery."

The criminal careers of roomers Louis Libby and William Shapiro ended in August 1912.  Russian-born gangster Herman M. Rosenthal, a.k.a. the Black Ace, turned informant and narrowly escaped an assassination attempt in July that year.  Despite a warning by the district attorney to stay low, he went to the Metropole Cafe, a Tenderloin district nightclub, on July 15.  At around 1:30 a.m., Rosenthal was told that someone wanted to see him outside.  He stepped out and was gunned down. 

The license plate of the getaway car was tracked to Libby.  On August 12, The Sun reported that it, "led the police to 35 Stuyvesant street, where Libby and Shapiro, owners of the automobile, were feigning sleep."  The Kingston Daily Freeman reported, "William Shapiro, the chauffeur who drove the automobile which carried the assassins to and from the Hotel Metropole for the murder of Herman Rosenthal, had turned states evidence and would make a full confession."  The article said he "would name every man who rode in the car and tell every fact that he knew in connection with the killing."

The house changed hands a few times over the subsequent years until 1958, when Lee B. Anderson purchased it.  An arts education teacher, Anderson had begun collecting Gothic Revival American furniture and accessories at a youth, far before the style was considered collectible.  He filled the house with a remarkable collection of Civil War Era paintings, furnishings and bric-a-brac.

Lee B. Anderson in the Stuyvesant Street house.  from the collection of the Lee B. Anderson Estate

The house and his collection were included in an exhibition "The Gothic Revival Style in America, 1830-1870" at the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston, and was featured in articles in The New York Times, House & Garden, World of Interiors, and Art & Antiques.

Anderson's bedroom and first floor.  Arts & America, 1971

It is unclear whether Anderson planted the wisteria vine that would climb its bricks over the subsequent decades.  If not, it was young when he purchased the house.  Anderson carefully cultivated it, earning him a 2003 Village Preservation Award for "making the Village a more beautiful place."

Janet Bryant photographed the wisteria in May 2021.  image courtesy of Jane Bryant

Artist and collector Hunt Slonem told Andriane Quinlan of Curbed in 2023, "Everybody and their dog came there."  He rolled off the names of Andy Warhol, fashion designer Halston, Cher, Lee Radziwill and actress Sylvia Miles as examples.

photos from Arts & America, 1971

By the first years of the 20th century, Glenn Zecco shared the house, acting as Anderson's caretaker.  Lee B. Anderson died in 2010, leaving the Lee B. Anderson Memorial Foundation to support institutions that advance the appreciation of decorative arts.  Glenn Zecco remained in the house until 2023, when it was sold.

many thanks to reader Janet Bryant for suggesting this post

photographs by the author