The 1928 Art Deco 3 East 84th Street

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

In 1924, 43-year-old architect Raymond M. Hood anticipated the Art Deco style with his stylized neo-Gothic skyscraper, the American Radiator Building.  Three years later, his design for a nine-story-and-penthouse apartment building for publisher Joseph Medill Patterson would be full-blown Art Deco.  Hood worked in association with John M. Howells on the design.  Known only by its address, 3 East 84th Street, the building is faced in limestone.  Vertical, full-height bays draw the eye upward to the geometric shapes and setbacks that would inspire Hollywood set designers a decade later.

Hood placed the entrance under a frieze of zig-zagging, Mayan-inspired carvings.  The motif was echoed in large, pressed metal spandrel panels and in the geometric grills that fronted the single set of French windows on each floor.

Completed in 1928 at a cost of $275,000 (about $5 million in 2026), the building won the American Institute of Architects award for "the best apartment house over six stories" that year.  At the awards dinner, Philip L. Goodwin, unfamiliar with the still new "Art Deco" term, struggled to pin down the style.  He said in part that the building:

...is in the modified form of the so-called modern style.  By this I mean that is has no cornice, a setback and the treatment of the spandrels between the windows is simple, with such decoration as there is, of a non-historical sort.  In order words, Messrs. Hood and Howells, the architects, have designed the building of modern materials and ornamented it with design invented by themselves, and not gotten out of a book.

Each apartment contained ten rooms and engulfed an entire floor.  Rents started at $4,000 per year--about $8,250 per month in today's money.  Decades later, in 1995, architectural journalist Christopher Gray would comment, "The interior was also surprising, a wild combination [of] abstract patterns  and ornament--the elevator was nearly Mayan in character."  

Among the initial residents was its builder, Joseph Medill Patterson, who occupied the penthouse.  Born in 1879, he founded and published the New York Daily News.  

Joseph Medill Patterson, around 1910.  from the collection of the Library of Congress.

Following his father's death in 1910, he took over the management of the Chicag0 Tribune.  He also wrote plays that dealt with societal problems.  He lived here with his mistress, news editor Mary King, and their son and daughter.  Patterson's wife, the former Alice Higginbotham, charged him with desertion that year, although they would not be divorced until 1938.

The spectacular Art Deco entrance doors, photographed here in 1929, survive.  photograph by Wurts Bros. from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York

Other initial residents were Maude M. Monell, Carleton W. Betts and Paul Whitcomb.  On September 19, 1928, the New York Evening Post reported that Whitcomb had leased an apartment and two months later, on November 23, 1928, the newspaper reported that Betts "leased an apartment consisting of an entire floor."

Carleton Walter Betts graduated from Yale in 1916 where he had been a football star.  He married Ruth J. Teal on November 5, 1919 and they had a daughter, Audrey.  

Carlton Walter Betts during his Yale football years.  from the collection of the Library of Congress

Like his landlord, Betts apparently had a wandering eye.  He and Ruth were divorced in April 1931 and on March 18, 1932, The New York Times reported that he and Ruth Moore Moriss MacCollom had been married.  His bride, too, was divorced.

Maude M. Monell was the widow of Colonel Ambrose Monell, the wealthy president of the International Nickel Company, who died in 1921.  Maude was the sole heir to his massive estate--equal to $270 million today.  Living with her were her two sons, Edmund Converse and Ambrose 3d.  A daughter, Barbara, was married.

Like all the residents of 3 East 84th Street, Maude Monell's movements were documented within the society columns.  On February 21, 1929, for instance, The New York Times noted, "Mrs. Ambrose Monell returned from Europe yesterday on the Olympic and is at the Plaza before going to 3 East Eighty-fourth Street."  (Wealthy families routinely checked into high-end hotels after being away for extended periods.  That gave the domestic staff time to put away dust covers, bring in fresh flowers and otherwise ready the homes.)

The Monell name appeared in newsprint six months later for a much more somber reason.  Ambrose, who was 23, was killed in an airplane crash at Greenwich, Connecticut on August 2, 1929.

The family of James Aloysius Farley lived here as early as 1930.  Born in 1888, Farley married Elizabeth A. Finnegan (known familiarly as Bess) on April 28, 1920.  They had three children, Elizabeth, Ann and James Jr.  On March 19, 1930, The New York Sun reported that Farley, "is likely to be appointed as [Police Commissioner Grover] Whalen's successor by Mayor Walker."  The article described Farley as "chairman of the Boxing Commission, and secretary of the Democratic State Committee, who made a fortune in the building supply business and whose standing in Tammany Hall is A-plus."  

James Aloysius Farley, from the collection of the Library of Congress.

His meteoric rise within the Democratic political sphere was reflected in an article three years later.  On January 11, 1933, The New York Sun reported, "The President-elect and Mrs. [Franklin D.] Roosevelt will be guests tonight at a dinner given by Mr. and Mrs. James A. Farley at their home at 3 East Eighty-fourth street.  Among the guests will be Cardinal Hayes, Mgr. Keegan and Edward J. Flynn, Democratic leader of the Bronx."  Later that year, Roosevelt appointed Farley the United States Postmaster General.

From his start operating a building supply business, Farley rose to become one of the most recognized figures in American politics, serving as chairman of the New York State Democratic Committee from 1930 to 1944, and of the Democratic National Committee from 1932 to 1940.  The family left 3 East 84th Street in 1943 to live in the Waldorf-Astoria.

In the meantime, a British-born couple, John J. and Jeanne Dwyer, worked as Joseph Patterson's butler and chambermaid.  In September 1930, Joseph and Mary went to Chicago for an extended period.  In December, Joseph Patterson's daughter, Alica, "an aviation enthusiast," as described by The New York Times, occupied the apartment before traveling to China.  

On March 16, 1931, the ninth-floor tenant complained to the superintendent, Frank Paine, that water was seeping through the ceiling.  When no one answered the penthouse door, Paine used his passkey.  The New York Times reported, "He found the water was coming from a tap in the kitchen sink that evidently had been open for several days."  He went looking for the Dwyers.  A radio played in one of the room.  Paine found the principal bedroom door locked and, after forcing it open, discovered the couple's bodies.  John J. Dwyer had shot his wife and then committed suicide.  Detectives said they were "as a loss to explain why the tragedy took place in Mr. Patterson's room rather than in the room assigned to the servants."

Princess Lazarovich-Hrebelianovich and her step-son, Prince Doushan, lived here in 1941.  On July 15 that year, her husband, Serbian Prince Eugene Lazarovich-Hrebelianovich died in Heidelberg, Germany at the age of 71.  Prior to her marriage in 1903, the Princess was actress and author Eleanor Calhoun.  (The Prince's first wife had died three years earlier.)  She had collaborated with the Prince in writing a two-volume work, The Serbian People: Their Past Glories and Their Destiny, published in 1910.

Eleanor Calhoun in the role of Dora in Diplomacy in 1895.  from the collection of the New York Public Library

In her previous life, Eleanor Calhoun debuted on stage as Juliet in Romeo and Juliet in the Grand Opera House in San Francisco.  She was known for her Shakespearean roles and appeared in London and Paris.  Upon marrying Prince Lazarovich-Hrebelianovich, she devoted herself "to her husband's interests in the liberation of Serbian lands in Macedonia," according to The New York Times.  She wrote her memoirs, Pleasures and Palaces, in 1915 and in 1926 her The Way: Christ and Evolution was published.  

The fascinating Princess Eleanor Calhoun Lazarovich-Hrebelianovich died in her apartment at the age of 92 on January 11, 1957.

On August 30, 1943, The New York Sun reported that Elliott Nugent, "producer and actor," and his wife, Norma Lee, had taken an apartment.  Two months later, the newspaper reported that Shelton Ellsworth Prentice and his wife, Sheila Potter, had signed a lease.  

Wurts Bros. photographed the building again in 1946.  from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York

Born in Dover, Ohio in 1896, Elliott Nugent's father, J. C. Nugent, was also an actor.  When he and Norma moved in, he had appeared in numerous motion pictures and directed the 1939 Bob Hope-Paulette Goddard film The Cat and the Canary and Never Say Die the same year, also starring Hope.  

Elliott Nugent in a 1931 MGM publicity shot.

Sheldon Ellsworth Prentice was born in New York City in 1914 and graduated from Harvard University in 1936.  He was a partner in the investment banking firm Dominick & Dominick at 14 Wall Street.  He and Sheila had two daughters, Clare, who was three, and Sheila, who was two; and a newborn son, Sheldon Jr.  In January 1942, Prentice took a leave from Dominick & Dominick to join the U.S. Naval Reserves.  He came home on leave in March 1944 after serving in the South Pacific.  It would be the last time his family would see him.  On March 31, 1945, The New York Times reported that the 31-year-old had been killed in action in the Pacific.

In 1957, Doris Duke and her mother, Nanine, donated their magnificent mansion at 1 East 78th Street to New York University's Institute of Fine Arts.  Doris and her husband, James H. R. Cromwell, moved into 3 East 84th Street.  (The press routinely ignored Doris's married name, although she was known socially as Mrs. James H. R. Cromwell.  At the time of their moving into 3 East 84th Street, Fortune magazine estimated Doris Duke's assets at "between $100,000,000 and $200,000,000."  The lower figure would translate to more than $1 billion today.)

Doris Duke had barely settled in when she suffered a terrific loss.  She had a flight to Paris to catch on the afternoon of November 5, 1957.  When her chauffeur was late, at around 5:40 she hailed a taxicab in front 3 East 84th Street "en route to New York International Airport, Idlewild, Queens," as reported by The New York Times.  Just as her luggage was loaded into the cab, the chauffeur drove up.  The newspaper reported, "Miss Duke's luggage was transferred out of the cab.  Apparently, however, one small flight bag was left in the trunk."  It was a significant oversight.  Inside the bag was jewelry valued at the equivalent of $175,000 today.  The New York Times reported that Duke, "canceled her scheduled trip to Paris and returned to Manhattan, where she reported her loss to police."  It is unclear whether the jewels were recovered.

Hood and Howells's ground breaking Art Deco structure survives wonderfully intact--an easily overlooked architectural wonder hidden on a side street.

uncredited photographs by the author

The August O. Hoddick's 1908 27-29 East 30th Street

 

photograph by Carole Teller

Nearly all the well-to-do residents of Rose Hill had moved northward by the turn of the last century, and office buildings and hotels replaced their elegant private homes.  On May 4, 1907, architect August O. Hoddick filed plans for a seven-story "brick and stone apartment hotel" to be erected at 27 and 29 East 30th Street.  The building would cost developer J. C. Howard $60,000 to erect, or about $2 million in 2026 terms.  On June 1, the Real Estate Record & Builders' Guide commented, "Two buildings will be demolished."

Completed the following year, Hoddick's design was a marriage of styles.  A blend of Renaissance Revival and Beaux Arts, it was splashed with French classic elements.  The ground floor, with its two yawning arches and heavy, undressed stone, was drawn from the waning Romanesque Revival style.  Above it were five stories faced in red brick and terra cotta.  Atop a prominent cornice, two French classic dormers pierced the slate shingled mansard.  

J. C. Howard owned the abutting Queen Anne-style hotel at the corner of Madison Avenue, which opened in 1881.  Hoddick visually connected the buildings by extending bandcourses at the first and second floors (including a elaborate terra cotta Queen Anne-style course), and borrowing the design of the brick-stepped intermediate cornice of 121 Madison Avenue for the spandrel below the fourth floor windows.

Erected two decades apart, the two buildings shared elements.  photograph by Carole Teller

The building apparently served as an annex to 121 Madison Avenue for two decades.  Then, on August 28, 1920, the New York Herald reported that both structures "will be extensively altered into stores, offices and lofts."  The renovations were completed in August 1921.  The former lobby now held two stores and the upper floors held showrooms and offices.

The building filled mostly with garment firms.  Among the first were P. Zeller, which leased the fifth floor; dressmakers Swaybill & Miller; the Spiegel Dress Company; and dress manufacturer Maurice Klapper.  The stores were leased to Abrahamowitz & Jacoby and Irving Friedman.

An unexpected tenant arrived the following year.  On November 30, 1922, the New-York Tribune reported that "Miss Louella Wright...will conduct a luncheon club for the National Association of Book Publishers."

Louella Wright's luncheon club would be an anomaly within the tenant list.  Other firms to move in over the next few years were the Noble Dress Company and Morris Goodman, which dealt in fabrics.

image via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services

The conversion to offices and showrooms, however, failed.  In 1928, George and Edward Blum renovated the building, returning it to an apartment hotel.  Above the ground floor stores were "non-housekeeping apartments."  (The term meant that the suites did not include kitchens.)

An advertisement in The New York Sun described the two- and three-room suites in the "Just Completed Apartment Hotel" as having "very large rooms, fireplace, tiled baths, high ceilings, etc."

One of the commercial spaces became home to Calvin H. Goddard's fledgling Bureau of Forensic Ballistics.  An expert in firearms, he was a pioneer in the microscopic comparison of fired bullets and cartridge cases.  His services had been used in the Sacco and Vanzetti case in 1927.

On June 14, 1929, The New York Times reported that Goddard, "probably will be invited to head a criminal detection laboratory affiliated with Northwestern University."  The article said, "At his office at 27 East Thirtieth Street Major Goddard yesterday was reported out of town.  He recently has been in Chicago working on some of the gang murders."  Those "gang murders" are known today as the Valentine's Day Massacre.

Once shingled in slate, the mansard is sheathed with metal today.  photograph by Carole Teller.

In the meantime, the apartments were home to financially comfortable professionals.  On April 8, 1937, for instance, The New York Sun reported, "Tomorrow is to bring a Sunday cocktail party by Mr. and Mrs. Pierson Mapes at their residence, 27 East Thirtieth street, in honor of Mrs. Mape's parents, Mr. and Mrs. Cortlandt Godwin."  Mapes was president of the National Broadcasting Company and his wife, was the former Priscilla Godwin. 

On February 6, 1953, The New York Times reported that 112 Madison Avenue and 27-29 East 30th Street had been purchased by real estate operators Myron and Ira Hechler.  The article noted, "The structures, formerly a hotel, were renovated in 1940 by the Seamen's Bank for Savings."

The building continued to attract middle-class residents.  Living here by the early 1960s was psychologist and graphologist Clara Goldzieher Roman.  Born in Budapest, Hungary in 1882, she came to the United States in 1947, two years after her husband, businessman Aurel Roman, was murdered by the Nazis.

From 1932 until her leaving Hungary, Roman served as a handwriting expert within the Hungarian Criminal Courts.  The author of Handwriting, A Key to Personality, she joined the faculty of the New School in 1948.  Starting in 1951, she served as a research consultant to the Treatment Clinic of the Manhattan Children's Court.  Clara Goldzieher Roman traveled to Austria in 1962.  She died there on September 7 at the age of 80.

In 2003, Torino, an Italian restaurant opened in the ground floor.  It was followed by The Crooked Knife in 2007.

photograph by Carole Teller

At some point the ground floor stonework was painted black, and the red brick given a coat of putty-colored paint.  Otherwise, little has has changed externally to August O. Hoddick's 1908 design.

many thanks to artist Carole Teller for suggesting this post

The 1903 Ogden and Mary Bishop Mansion - 9 East 84th Street

In the 1870s, the blocks branching off from Fifth Avenue in the 80s saw the construction of high-stooped brownstones.  At the turn of the century, however, those ubiquitous chocolate-colored homes were out of fashion.  They were quickly being replaced or drastically remodeled as lavish, American basement mansions.

On October 5, 1901, the Real Estate Record & Builders' Guide reported, “Mr. F. De R. Wissmann, believing that there is a demand for high-class English basement dwellings, has undertaken the erection of two of the finest type, at Nos. 9 and 11 East 84^th st, almost adjoining the residence of the late J. Hooker Hamersley.”  The article added, “Warren & Wetmore, the well-known architects, have been entrusted with the duty of designing these houses, and the result will undoubtedly appeal to that class of people who appreciate well-planned residences suitable for entertaining.”

Construction of the limestone faced mansions was completed in 1903 at a cost of $210,000--about $4 million each.  Fraternal twins, No. 9 was slightly less showy than No. 11, which boasted a two-story bay upheld by a sumptuous cartouche.  The midsection of No. 9, in contrast, featured grouped windows, those of the second floor, or piano nobile, fronted by an iron-railed stone balcony.

A second balcony sat atop the limestone cornice above the third floor.  The fifth floor took the form of a mansard, pierced with round, copper-clad French dormers.

Finding an owner for the opulent palace was apparently tricky for Wissmann.  It was not until December 30, 1906 that the New York Herald reported that he had sold 9 East 84th Street to Mary Cunningham Bishop and her brother, Ogden Mills Bishop. 

Born in 1864 and 1878, respectively, they were two of the eight children of Heber Reginald Bishop and Mary Cunningham.  Heber Bishop died in 1902 leaving an estate equal to $116 million in 2026 terms.

Neither Mary nor Ogden would marry.  The siblings moved through society nearly as a couple, traveling, entertaining, and spending their summers together.

On October 15, 1911, the New-York Tribune remarked, "Ogden Mills Bishop and Miss Mary Bishop will spend the winter abroad.  Their house, No. 9 East 84th street, will be occupied for the season by Ogden Livingston Mills and his bride, who was Miss Margaret Rutherford."

Ogden Livingston Mills was a second cousin of the Bishops through the Cunningham family.  He was born on August 23, 1884 to the socially prominent Ogden Mills and his wife, the former Ruth T. Livingston.  He and Margaret Rutherford were newlyweds, married a month before the New-York Tribune's article.  Margaret had a pedigree equal to that of her husband.  The daughter of Lewis Morris Rutherfurd Jr. and Anne Harriman Rutherfurd, she was the step-daughter of William Kissam Vanderbilt and the granddaughter of Lewis Morris Rutherfurd and Oliver Harriman.

Ogden Livingston Mills, from the collection of the Library of Congress

The couple quickly entered the social swirl.  In reporting on "the first big assemblage of fashionable New Yorkers" at the opening of the 1911-12 Metropolitan Opera season, the New York Herald remarked on October 29, "Mr. and Mrs. Ogden Livingston Mills, who are now at Roslyn, L. I. and will soon be at 9 East Eighth-fourth street, will probably be in the box of Mrs. Mills's stepfather, William K. Vanderbilt."

As it turned out, the Millses' stay at 9 East 84th Street would extend well past that winter social season.  In fact, Mary and Ogden Bishop established their permanent residency in Paris.

Ogden L. Mills was highly involved in the Republican Party.  On December 16, 1913, for instance, the New-York Tribune reported, "Ogden L. Mills, treasurer of the Republican County Committee, recently made a tour of the state to determine just what sentiment there was for a progressive organization of the Assembly."  The article noted, "On Friday night, he had several of the local leaders and a dozen or more of the upstate progressive leaders at a dinner conference at his home, No. 9 East 84th street."  Mills would be a delegate to the 1912, 1916 and 1920 National Conventions.  

The Mills country estate (today a state park) with its sprawling neo-Classical mansion was in Staatsburgh, New York.  from the collection of the Library of Congress.

The population of 9 East 84th Street was somewhat unexpectedly increased in 1914.  George Winthrop Sands and his wife, Tayo Newton Sands, had two children, George Jr. and Anne Barbara.  George Sr. was the step-son of William K. Vanderbilt (the son of Anne Harriman Vanderbilt from her first marriage) and the half-brother of Margaret Rutherfurd Mills.  George Sands died in an automobile accident in France on July 29, 1908.  George Jr. and Anne were orphaned on August 23, 1914 when their mother died of tuberculosis at the age of 26 in Anne Harriman Vanderbilt's French home, the Château St. Louis de Poissy.

Ogden and Margaret were made guardians of George and Anne, who were six and eight years old, respectively.  Along with the children came their governess.  In reporting on Tayo Sands's will on December 22, 1914, The New York Times said, "There is a bequest of $5,000 to Andree Pitiot, governess of the two Sands children, at 9 East Eighty-fourth Street."

The family remained at least through 1915, the year Ogden Livingston Mills was elected to the New York State Senate.  In the meantime, the title to 9 East 84th Street had been transferred to Francis Cunningham Bishop, a sister of Ogden and Mary Bishop.

In 1918, Francis leased the mansion to Prentiss L. Coonley, director of the Gas Defence Plant on Long Island City.  Francis briefly lived here before selling the property in August 1920.  The Real Estate Record & Guide reported that the buyer was "a prominent resident of a city in the Middle West, who is coming to New York to live."

Moving day, October 5, 1920, was fraught with drama.  The Evening World reported, "Miss Bishop was moving yesterday and left her handbag with the money in it on a table."  Later that afternoon, Francis opened her bag and discovered the money, a total of $21, was missing.  Police went to the moving company's office.  Under heavy interrogation, the van driver confessed.  He took off his shoe and pulled out the cash.  (It would translate to about $335 today.)

The prominent Middle Westerners mentioned by the Record & Guide were railroad mogul George Theron Slade and his wife, the former Charlotte Hill.  Charlotte was the daughter of James J. Hill, president of the Great Northern Railroad.  The couple was married in 1901 in the Hill mansion in Minnesota.  They had two children, George Norman, born in 1902, and Georgiana Mary, born the following year.

George Theron Slade (original source unknown)

By the time the Slades purchased 9 East 84th Street, George was a vice president of the Northern Pacific Railroad, president of the Tide Water Oil Sales Corporation, and a director of the Lehigh Valley and the Southern Railway.  The family maintained a residence in St. Paul, Minnesota.

Tragically, just three years after moving into the mansion, Charlotte Hill Slade died "after a long illness," according to The New York Times on December 14, 1923.  She was 48 years old.

Charlotte had been independently wealthy.  She left an estate equal to more than $28 million today.  After certain charitable bequests, she left her real estate to George and the rest to the children.  George and Georgiana would have a long wait to receive their inheritances.  The will said, "when the son and daughter attain the age of 30 years each is to receive $300,000 out of the trust and on attaining 40 years of age all of the principal."

George took over the responsibilities of organizing his daughter's debut and her engagement.  He announced Georgiana's engagement to Charles L. Peet on October 24, 1929.  The ceremony took place in the 84th Street mansion on December 30 that year.

George T. Slade died in the St. Paul residence on January 24, 1941.  While the bulk of his estate was divided between Georgiana and George, he left 3,000 acres of land in North Dakota as "an inviolate sanctuary for migrating birds."  Georgiana inherited 9 East 84th Street and its furnishings.

image via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services.

Georgiana and Charles Peet lived in St. Paul and were, apparently, not interested in retaining possession of the Manhattan townhouse.  On June 11, 1941, The New York Times reported that Georgiana had sold the mansion to "a former resident of Rome, Italy."  That buyer was Count Cecil Pecci-Blunt.

He was born in Brooklyn as Cecil Blumenthal, the son of a wealthy merchant.  Following his father's death, Cecil's mother moved to Paris and changed their surname from Blumenthal to Blunt.  There she married Duke de Montmorency.  Cecil grew up in what was termed "the Continental circuit."  He married Mimi Pecci, a member of an aristocratic European family.  She was the niece of Pope Leo XII, who conferred Cecil a Papal title of count.  Following the marriage, Cecil reinvented his surname, merging his wife's and part of his own.  The couple had five children.  

Count Cecil Pecci-Blunt (original source unknown)

In addition to the 84th Street townhouse, the Pecci-Blunts maintained a "handsome house in Montecito, a ranch of many acres in Arizona, an imposing residence in Paris, an ancient palazzo in Rome and Villa Reale, a country retreat at Marlia in the Tuscan hills," according to the San Francisco Chronicle.

Ten years later, on December 3, 1951, The New York Times reported that Bee-Lee Holdings, Inc., had purchased "the former residence of Cecil Pecci-Blunt."  The article said, "The new owners plan to convert it to small apartments from plans by Alexander Zamschnick, architect."

The renovation resulted in doctor's offices on the first floor and two apartments each in the upper portion.  On September 18, 1992, The New York Times reported, "Marc de Montebello, the 27-year-old son of the Metropolitan Museum of Art's director, Philippe de Montebello, is opening a private art gallery at 9 East 84th Street."  The gallery, according to the article, would specialize in 19th and early 20th century paintings and drawings.  The Montebello gallery would be joined in the building by Victoria Munroe Fine Art the following year.

In 2017 a fire that tore through 7 East 84th Street spread into No. 9.  The restoration resulted in 9 East 84th Street's being returned to a single-family home.  It was sold by real estate investor and venture capitalist Carl Berg and his wife, Rachel, in 2019 for $19 million.  In reporting the sale, The New York Times remarked that it had "seven bedrooms, six full baths and four powder rooms.  Its amenities include a basketball court and a 53-foot pool with a separate hot tub."

photographs by the author

Emery Roth's 1930 300 West 23rd Street

 

In 1750, Captain Thomas Clarke and his wife Mary purchased 94 acres of land north of the city as the site of their country estate, Chelsea.  The property passed to the Clarkes' grandson, Clement Clarke Moore, who began selling and renting building plots around 1818.  In 1845, he rented the southwest corner of Eighth Avenue and 23rd Street for 21 years at a yearly rental of $560.  The 21-year leases continued and in 1908, the Moore Estate leased the corner at $9,350 per year.  When that term expired on April 30, 1929, it signaled the end of the decades-long tradition of leasing the corner.  The Moore Estate sold the property to the newly formed 8th Av. & 23d St. Corporation.

James P. Eadie, who negotiated the sale, told The New York Times that the buyers would erect "a twenty-story apartment house to cost about $1,250,000."  The syndicate hired one of the best-known apartment building architects of the time, Emery Roth.  Construction was completed in 1930.  Roth had designed a monolithic, Art Deco-style structure that dwarfed the buildings in the neighborhood.  Faced in beige brick, Roth accentuated the six-bay-wide central midsection by filling the spandrels on both elevations with projecting, vertically stacked brick.  The sections rose three stories above the setbacks of the upper portion and terminated in Art Deco-style brick ornaments.  An impressive water tower housing dominated the penthouse level and gave the upper section an Oz-like atmosphere.

P. L. Sperr captured this image on December 26, 1936.  from the collection of the New York Public Library.

Apartments contained one to three rooms, "all of which are equipped for full housekeeping," according to the 1930 realtors' brochure.  "Full housekeeping" meant that each apartment had a kitchen.  The brochure boasted that they were "equipped with modern range, silent refrigerators and all-metal cupboards and ideally planned for quick and labor-saving cooking."  The building was outfitted with the last word in technology: a radio connection.  "In addition to the usual outlets for lamps, and other electric service, every apartment is provided with an outlet which connects directly with your aerial on the roof," boasted the brochure.

The 1930 brochure depicted the lobby saying, "The Main Entrance is a spacious hall, tastefully furnished.  Here, there is always a man in attendance to announce your visitors, to accept mail and packages for you and to help promote your comfort."  (copyright expired)

The apartments filled with middle-class professionals, like Dr. Edward Pravener, an initial tenant.  Prohibition and the Great Depression made the 1930s a period of gangsters, speakeasies, and crime.  Dr. Edward Pravener walked innocently into the nearby London Chemists drugstore just after midnight on February 7, 1932 and became an unwitting witness of a Hollywood-style rubout.

Gangster bootlegger and murderer Vincent "Mad Dog" Coll lived in The Broadmoor, across 23rd Street from No. 300.  He came into the pharmacy and entered a phonebooth.  The next morning,  The Bristol [Virginia] News Bulletin began an article saying, "Young Vincent Coll who was poison with a pistol and most feared of the Gotham 'guns,' got his load of lead in a telephone booth at 12:45 a.m. today.  A machine gunner chopped him down cooly [sic] and deliberately in a West 23rd Street drugstore."

Dr. Pravaner, the other two customers and the two clerks, were interrogated by detectives.  They all said, "that the slayer had carried out his deadly program as coolly and efficiently as if it had been carefully rehearsed," reported by The New York Times.  

The 1930 Real Estate Brochure depicted a typical floorplan.  (copyright expired)

Another initial resident was William Rhodes, a newspaper photographer.  In December 1934, he sublet his second-floor apartment to a young couple, Leslie Drew and his wife, the former Alice Potts.  Drew was a salesman for a publishing firm and he was suffering a serious condition that required surgery.  The couple, however, did not have the money to pay for the procedure.

At around noon on February 19, 1935, employees of the building smelled gas and called the Consolidated Gas Company to find the leak.  The fumes were strongest on the lower floors, so the building's superintendent, Frank Masefield, took the two gas company men to the basement.  At 2:00, there was a massive explosion.  "As tenants ran out excitedly, the three went to the inner court," said The New York Times, "They saw that the windows of Apartment 2C had been blown out."

On the apartment door, Alice Drew had posted a note for her husband:

Do not enter alone, I beg of you, especially with a lighted cigarette.  I am more afraid of life than death.  You frightened me in the theatre last evening, you looked so sick.  If you did not have my responsibility you could afford to get well.  I am an expensive luxury.  Lovingly, Alice

The three men pushed their way into the apartment and found the 32-year-old Alice "dead in the middle of a fire which was burning her clothes and the furniture," said The New York Times.  "Six jets on the gas range were turned on."  (Hopefully William Rhodes had insisted on a security deposit.)

Among the other residents at the time of the tragedy were Joseph F. Faulhaber and his wife, the former Eva Sarfaty.  Born in Cleveland, Joseph studied at the Case School of Applied Science and from 1910 to 1917 was associated with the Commercial and Industrial Corporation of America, described as "business doctors."  He was now the president of the Finance and Development Corporation and of the Quick Alarm Fire Detector Corporation.

Attorney Thomas F. Noonan, who lived here as early as 1936, was a widower.  Born in 1877, he was a life-long Chelsea resident. He graduated from St. Francis Xavier College in 1897 and received his M. A. degree from the same institution the next year.  He received his law degree from Columbia Law School in 1900, and was elected a justice of the Municipal Court in 1909.

On the afternoon of December 20, 1936, Noonan was presiding at a trial when a court officer whispered to him that Governor Herbert H. Lehman was on the telephone.  Noonan went to his chambers "and Governor Lehman informed him by telephone that he had been appointed a Supreme Court Justice," reported The New York Times.

In stark contrast to the respected jurist was Allan Coulter.  The 20-year-old moved in following his discharge from the U.S. Navy in December 1945.  He had been a radio technician on the aircraft carrier Lexington, during which time he acquired technical skills.  He used them to form a teenaged safe-cracking gang.  Two of his cohorts were 16 years old and the other was 17.  

Coulter's scheme utilized two-way radios that warned those on the inside of a building of approaching police.  Within three months, the youthful gang committed "seventy-five burglaries, including forty-two safe 'jobs,'" reported The New York Times on May 8, 1946.  It was the group's lavish spending that tipped off detectives.  The article said they squandered  the "$15,000 loot on girls, night clubs and parties on a grand scale."

They were arrested in February 1946.  Investigators searched Coulter's apartment here and found the walkie-talkie sets that he had "improved," and burglar tools.  "There was also a device on which the 'master mind' was at work: an infra-red ray gadget that would have furnished the gang 'invisible' light for their burglaries."  Coulter was convicted on a lesser charge of "having burglar's tools in his possession."

Somewhat surprisingly, Allan Coulter was "put on probation until 1957," reported The New York Times.  Three years later, in May 1949, he and four other men were arrested "with a 'walkie-talkie' device, after an alleged attempt to break into the safes of the New York Giants Baseball Club and the Personal Finance Company," reported The New York Times.  On May 6, a "laboratory of crime" was discovered in Coulter's apartment.  The Safe and Loft Squad discovered "between $35,000 and $40,000 worth of electrical equipment, radar devices, chemicals and books."  District Attorney Paul F. Reilly described Coulter as "the brains of the outfit," saying he had a "scientific mind" and was "a radar expert."  Coulter was convicted and sentenced to seven-to-fourteen years in prison.

A rendering of the building appeared on the cover of the 1930 realtor brochure. (copyright expired)

Gangster Joseph "Socks" Lanza lived here starting in 1953.  He was described by The New York Times as the "racketeer-czar of the Fulton Fish Market."  Born in 1900, he founded the Fulton Market Watchmen and Patrol Association at the age of 20.  His thugs charged fishermen, ship owners, peddlers and trucking companies "union license fees" and "protection" money.  In the 1920s, Lanza's organization was taking in the equivalent of $900,000 in 2026.

Lanza was sentenced to prison for labor extortion in 1943.  When he was released on parole in 1953, he moved into 300 West 23rd Street.  At 10:30 on the evening of February 5, 1957, Lanza was arrested in his apartment.  He was charged with violating his parole "by allegedly associating with gamblers and a woman believed to have been involved in the narcotics traffic and spending much more than he earned as a clerk in a hardware store," explained The New York Times.  The well-connected mobster, however, was soon back home.

Commissioner James R. Stone resigned under fire in April 1957 after he dismissed the parole violations against Lanza.  Governor W. Averell Harriman demanded an investigation to find out "why Lanza, a convicted extortionist and formerly a power in Tammany politics on the Lower East Side," had been released.  Joseph Lanza was returned to prison until 1960.  He died from cancer on October 10, 1968.

Among Lanza's neighbors in the building were Charles H. Farrell, his wife Mary, and son John H.  Charles Farrell was born in 1894 and served in the U.S. Army in World War I.  He became a court clerk assigned to the Chief Magistrate's Office in 1925, and was the Democratic leader of the Third Assembly District South.  John H. Farrell followed his father's political bent.  On February 14, 1957 he was elected to the State Senate.

Unmarried Elizabeth Thomson moved into 300 West 23rd Street in 1944.  The 96-year-old was still living here in December 1983 when she fell ill and temporarily moved in with her niece, Elizabeth DeKovessey in Englewood, New Jersey.  While she was gone, the building began the conversion to cooperatives.  Although she had continued to pay her rent, in July 1984, Elizabeth Thomson received an eviction notice.

A spokesman for the property owner told The New York Times, "We don't want to play the part of the heavy here, but no one bothered to contact us that Miss Thomson would be returning."  Elizabeth DeKovessey refuted that assertion, saying they had told the landlord she would return, "but chose to press the eviction since reissue of the apartment as a cooperative would command a higher price."  It appears that the negative publicity caused the management to change its mind and Elizabeth Thomson's eviction was rescinded.

Emery Roth's hulking Art Deco structure remains a prominent landmark on the intersection of Eighth Avenue and 23rd Street.

photographs by the author

Gronenberg & Leuchtag's 1929 118 Riverside Drive

 

Interestingly, the architects chamfered the 84th Street corner, but not the end at 83rd Street.

By the mid-1920s, opulent private dwellings were falling from favor as luxurious apartment buildings offered convenience and modern amenities.  In 1928, the Driveway Realty Corporation demolished the buildings at 337 through 339 West 83rd Street, the mansions at 110 through 118 Riverside Drive, and at 348 West 84th Street.  The syndicate, headed by Joseph H. Schwartz, hired Gronenberg & Leuchtag to design a massive apartment building on the site.

Completed at a cost of $1.2 million (about $22.6 million in 2026), the 16-story structure was designed in the Renaissance Revival style and faced in variegated beige brick.  Although the entrances were on 83rd and 84th Streets, they took the more impressive addresses of 110 and 118 Riverside Drive.  The architects embellished the overall spartan design with romantic stone and terra cotta Renaissance elements.  The identical entrances sat within two-story stone frames.  Intricately carved, layered columns flanked the double doors.  They sat within an arch with alternating carved and planar voussoirs.  Directly above was a triple arcade with twisted columns.

Added interest was achieved with faux terra cotta balconies with spiral columns, ornate panels of swag-draped cartouches and rondels with faces at the fifth and fourteenth floors.  An arched corbel table of terra cotta ran below the terminal cornice.

On May 15, 1929, The New York Times reported that S. Fishkin and C. F. Zittel had signed leases.  Carl Florian Zittel, known popularly as Zit, was among New York's most well-known talent agents and managers.  

C. F. Zittel (original source unknown)

Born in Patterson, New Jersey in January 1876, Zittel began his career as a boy selling newspapers on the corner of Fourth Avenue and 23rd Street.  By the time he and his wife, the former Martha Beatrice Bernstein, moved into 118 Riverside Drive, he had founded and was publisher of Zit's Weekly (a forerunner to Billboard), was the manager of the Central Park Casino, and an executive within Marcus Loew's theatrical chain.

At 10:30 on the morning of December 13, 1930, two delivery men arrived at the service entrance with a kitchen table wrapped in brown paper.  The New York Times reported, "They were admitted without question and were taken to the service elevator."  The pair went up to the eight-room Zittel apartment.  The maid, Maud Draggon, opened the service door on its lock chain.  One of the men explained, "We have a package here for you, but you aren't to let Mr. Zittel see it."  Assuming it was a Christmas present for Zittel, she opened the door.  The men slid the table into the kitchen.

Martha Zittel heard the noise and entered the kitchen.  The New York Times reported, "As she opened the door the tall man pointed his pistol at her and demanded 'money and jewelry.'"  She said she had nothing and he asked where the wall safe was.  Terrified, Martha said it was empty and when she opened it, indeed it was.

The veteran burglars knew that there would be another safe somewhere in the apartment.  They found it covered by a red velvet drape, pretending to be a pedestal for a large statue.  When Martha said she did not know the combination, one of the thugs placed a knife to her throat.  With trembling fingers, she unsuccessfully tried to work the combination once, and then the second time it opened.  "The men pushed her aside and started the quick work of cleaning out the contents."  The newspaper said, "Thirty-five minutes after they had casually ascended by the service elevator they went down again--the richer by $150,000 in jewelry.  They left the table...the only clue by which the police hope to establish some future contact with them."  The value of the heist would translate to $2.9 million today.

The Zittel apartment was by far not the only target of the ingenious burglars, who gained access by posing as floral deliverymen, upholsterers and other service men.  Ten months after the Zittel robbery, "two sleek young men," as described by The New York Times were arrested for the string of thefts.

Other residents at the time were William J. Pedrick, Max Henry Wurtzel and Radoye Yankovitch, the Consul General of Yugoslovia.

The Yankovitch apartment was the scene of social and diplomatic gatherings.  One event that straddled both was the dinner party they gave "in honor of Mrs. and Mr. B. Singer, Consul General of Turkey and president of the Pan-American Consular Corps of Chicago" on April 22, 1930.

William J. Pedrick and his wife, the former Rea Katherine Forhan, had four children.  He had served in the Army Air Service during World War I and became president of the Fifth Avenue Association in 1931.  His career would take a few turns in the coming years.  On February 11, 1935, The New York Times reported that he was stepping down to become president of William J. Pedrick & Co., "a new general insurance and real estate enterprise."  He would change course again seven years later when he was sworn in as Collector of Internal Revenue for the Second District on February 12, 1942.

Insurance broker Max Henry Wurtzel was a well-to-do bachelor.  He shared his apartment with his sister, Rose, her husband, Harry G. Matfis, and their son, Jerome.  The Matfis family lived with Wurtzel, it seems, because Harry Matfis was insolvent.  Wurtzel attempted repeatedly to get him onto his feet.  According to Dr. George L. Wurtzel, Max's brother, "Matfis was set up in the haberdashery business four times," by Max, and each time he failed.

The Great Depression dealt a blow to Max Wurtzel.  On November 23, 1933, The Chicago Daily Tribune explained, "Wurtzel recently lost $200,000."  His stress was heightened when Harry Matfis asked "to borrow more money" on November 21.  Early the next morning, Wurtzel walked into Harry Matfis's bedroom and shot him in the head while he was sleeping.  He then returned to his own bedroom and swallowed poison.

Rose Matfis discovered the carnage when she went into Harry's bedroom to awaken him.  Her brother had left a note on the back of one of his business cards:  "I am sorry to cause all this trouble, folks.  Take care of Jerry.  Please see that I am buried from Riverside Memorial Hospital."

Harry C. McClarity was president of the marine consulting firm H. C. McClarity Company and of the Union Stevedoring Corporation.  He and his wife, the former Hazel Dell, had a daughter.  Their country home, Dellcrest, was in Westport, Connecticut.  

At 11:00 on the morning of March 14, 1938, McClarity asked the butler, 44-year-old Lawrence L. Devine, "to go out and buy some cigarettes and newspapers," according to The New York Sun.  An hour later, McClarity became impatient and rang for the butler, who did not answer.  When Devine was not back at 1:00, McClarity, "searched the apartment promising himself he would fire the butler when he found him," said the article.

Suddenly, he had a alarming thought.  He went into his daughter's bedroom and opened the top drawer where she kept her jewelry box.  It was empty.  He then looked in his desk and discovered $1,300 in cash was gone.  The New York Sun reported, "Included in the jewelry was a brooch containing 281 diamonds and twelve emeralds, valued at $9,000; a clip pin made of 198 diamonds, worth $5,000; a diamond ring, valued at $3,500 and a diamond and pearl ring valued at $700."  

Two days later, The New York Times said that police were still searching for Devine after he disappeared "on the same day that $19,500 in jewelry and cash vanished from the McClarity apartment."  

This unidentified living room was photographed by Wurts Bros. in 1942.  from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York

At the time, Charles E. Hohn and his wife, Maia Bang, occupied a penthouse apartment.  Born in 1887, Hohn was a silk importer.  Maia Bang was born in Norway in 1880 and came to America around 1920 “as an assistant to Leopold Hauer,” according to The New York Times.  (Hauer was a Hungarian violinist, conductor and composer.)  Maia Bang was an accomplished violinist and violin teacher, and the author of several books on musical instruction.

Maia Bang died in their apartment on January 3, 1940.  Two years later, on March 8, 1942, a doorman noticed milk bottles and newspapers outside the apartment door.  Using a passkey, he entered the apartment and "found Mr. Hohn lying on the roof," according to The New York Times.  He called the police and a doctor.  They told reporters that Charles Hohn "had been dead about ten or twelve hours and that death was apparently due to a heart attack."

The building got a celebrity in 1940 when baseball star Babe Ruth and his wife, Claire Hodgson, moved in.  George Herman Ruth was born in 1895.  The stellar athlete earned the nickname The Sultan of Swat during his 22 seasons that ended in 1935.  He is remembered as one of the greatest baseball players of all time and when he and Clair moved into the Riverside Drive building, he was nothing short of an idol to millions of Americans.

Babe Ruth, his first wife, Helen Woodford, and their daughter in 1925.  from the collection of the Library of Congress

On March 25, 1946, Ruth was clocked at driving 60 miles per hour on the Saw Mill River Parkway.  It may have been his celebrity that earned him "a pass" when his ticket was dismissed.

Within a year, Babe Ruth was battling cancer.  On February 16, 1947, The New York Times reported that Babe Ruth had left the French Hospital, "perceptibly grayer, a little weak on his feet, and weighing 189 pounds."  He had lost 36 pounds since entering the hospital a month earlier.  He told a reporter, "I want to look at the river from my apartment window."

The President of Mexico, Miguel Aleman, visited New York City three months later.  He made time on his busy agenda to visit Babe Ruth in his apartment on May 5.

Ruth died in the hospital on August 16, 1948 at the age of 53.  His casket was displayed in the rotunda of Yankee Stadium for two days, seen by approximately 77,000 people.

Dr. Joseph Nisonoff occupied a medical suite here as early as 1942.  That year he was out on a $25,000 bail, charged with "performing an illegal operation" in May 1940.  (The polite term referred to an abortion.)  A similar charge had been dismissed in 1930.  He was in trouble again on November 26, 1942.  The New York Times reported that he had been "charged with homicide in connection with the death of a woman government employe [sic] after an illegal operation."  Assistant District Attorney James Carney described Nisonoff as a "murderer" and "unfit to be a doctor."

On April 8, 1943, Nisonoff was sentenced to "an indeterminate term in the city penitentiary."  In sentencing him, Judge Lester W. Patterson said, "There is no question in my mind that this man performed hundreds, maybe even a thousand abortions.  The dead girl was four months pregnant when he performed the abortion, and but for him the girl would be alive today."

Somewhat shockingly, a month later The New York Times reported that Nissonoff had been granted "a certificate of reasonable doubt pending [his] appeal in the Appellate Division" and had been released at $35,000 bail.   This time, however, Dr. Nissonoff was unsuccessful.  On April 20, 1945, he began his five to fifteen year sentence in State Prison.

In January 1959, Claire Ruth was scheduled to be interviewed by Edward R. Murrow for the popular television program Person to Person.  Her daughter and grandson traveled from New Hampshire to be part of the episode, which was to be filmed in the Ruth apartment.  But an unprecedented glitch occurred.

The managing agent for the building, Felix Harding, demanded a fee "for the use of the facilities."  Co-producer of the show, Jesse Zousmer "said that it was the first time in five years and 460 visits that such a problem had arisen," reported The New York Times.  The producers refused, saying "it would raise a question of doing the same thing for the hundreds of other people already interviewed."  Claire Ruth told The New York Times she was "deeply hurt" by the cancellation.

Claire Hodgson Ruth died of cancer in "her memorabilia-filled apartment," as worded by The New York Times, at the age of 76 on October 26, 1976.  The article said that in the 28 years since her husband's death, "Mrs. Ruth had devoted her life to his memory and achievements."

In 1982, the building was converted to cooperatives.  The co-op board, unfortunately, did not regulate the replacement windows, resulting in today's mish-mash of fenestration.  Otherwise, the nearly century-old structure survives lovingly intact.

photographs by the author