The Lost West End Theatre - 362 West 125th Street

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

During the 1896 St. Louis Republican National Convention, 34-year-old Meyer R. Bimberg came up with the idea of printing pictures of the candidates on tin buttons.  Hearing that McKinley and Hobart would get the nomination, he had 100,000 buttons made—the first political campaign buttons in history.  Later, his buttons that read "Our Choice for Governor" for candidate Theodore Roosevelt sold "like hot cakes," according to The New York Times.  Bimberg became widely known as "Bim the Button Man."

In 1898, Bimberg invested in real estate, erecting a public hall on the Lower East Side.  He would eventually erect five theaters throughout the city.  In 1902, he turned his focus to the what was then known as the West End, where there was a dearth of theaters.  He acquired the vacant lots at 362 through 370 West 125th Street, just west of Eighth Avenue and hired the architectural firm of Neville & Bagge to design a theater on the site.

Designed in the Spanish Baroque style, the tripartite design included a striated brick-and-terra cotta base dominated by a wide cast-iron-and-glass marquee.  The second and third floors were faced in beige brick.  The openings of the midsection were filled with colorful stained-glass, with the three center windows arranged in a Palladian configuration and crowned with elaborate terra cotta ornaments.  The frieze below the bracketed cornice announced West End Theatre.  A handsome balustrade completed the design.

Meyer R. Bimberg personally opened the theater on November 3, 1902.  The New York Times said it contained, "all the most improved electrical devices, superb interior appointments, and safeguards against fire."  The article continued:

From an artistic standpoint the new theatre will be attractive to the eye, the decorators having made effective use of the color scheme, maroon and green, which has been carried throughout the entire building.  The large, roomy chairs are covered with green velour, and the carpets of a rich maroon blending in pleasing harmony with the other decorations.

On each tier were "reception rooms" and below the lobby was a smoking and lounging room for male patrons.

Tickets ranged from 25 cents to $1 (roughly $10 to $40 in 2026).  Actress Alice Fischer appeared in Mrs. Jack on the theater's opening night.

Bimberg soon ran afoul of the Penal Code that prohibited entertainments on Sunday other than singing and concerts.  The New York Times blatantly said, "A general vaudeville show is usually given here which lasts until half-past 11 o'clock.  There are sketches, burlesques, all sorts of variety acts, including singing and monologues."  But during the week of January 3, 1903, the police warned the management "to comply strictly with the law."

Patrons packed the theater on Sunday January 11, 1903 to see the regular Sunday offering.  Instead, one singer after another came on stage.  The New York Times reported, 

Then some of the people began hissing and catcalls followed, women joining in until the theatre was in an uproar.  "Rank!" "Stale!" "Say, this is New York!" and other cries of derision greeted the singers."

The manager came on stage and explained the situation, saying finally, "Please blame the police and not me."  The entire audience eventually walked out.

The following month, on February 10, 1903, The New York Times reported that Bimberg had sold the West End Theatre to Weber & Fields for $300,000.  The comedy team of Joe Weber and Lew Fields had recently added theater management to their resumes.  The article noted that this was "their third theatre."  The partners said they would "carry out the present engagements" through the current season, but refused to say what the next year's attractions would be.

In fact, Binberg had partnered with the pair to form the Bin-Web Corporation.  Binberg still owned a portion of the property, but gave up its management.

image by Byron Company, from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York.

A critic on the staff of The Theatre was pleased with the new management.  In its November 1903 issue, he said that under Weber & Fields the theater "is commodious and comfortable, handsomely furnished and decorated, and the attractions being among the best."  The plays, it said, "draws refined, intelligent audiences at Broadway prices."

Those refined and intelligent audiences were enjoying grand opera and concerts by the end of the year.  During the week of December 20, Weber & Fields presented a concert by the New-York Symphony Orchestra, and productions of Otello, La Traviata and Carmen in English.

New Yorkers were thrilled when Weber & Fields announced that Madame Adelina Patti would appear on November 27, 1903.  Arguably the most famous operatic soprano in the world, her appearance would guarantee a full house, but it would also take a huge chunk out of the ticket sales.

Fans waited an hour for the prima-donna to appear on stage.  While they waited, Patti "waited placidly in her apartments at the Savoy Hotel," reported The New York Times.  Her delay, said the article, "cost the audience a large share of its good temper."  The problem was a detail in the contract.  Adelina Patti insisted upon the payment of $5,000 "before she would budge one inch toward the stage of the West End Theatre," explained The Times.  But when the receipts were tallied, they totaled only $3,180.  The diva's agent told the manager, "Mme. Patti could not think of leaving the Savoy with only $3,180 in sight."  (The figure would translate to $117,000 today.)
Lew Fields was contacted and the $2,000 was sent to the theater.  

The concert went on, the audience was mollified, and Weber & Fields took a severe financial blow.  The next morning Adelina Patti headed off to San Francisco.  The New York Times said, "Mr. Fields was not to be seen, but sent out word that he was too overcome to speak."

In its May 1904 issue, The Theatre commented, "The West End Theatre is growing steadily in popularity, due to the astute policy which takes up to Harlem some of the best attractions seen on Broadway."  

Weber & Fields continued to mix grand opera and orchestral concerts with dramas and comedies.  On April 10, 1907, for instance, The New York Times announced that the Van den Berg Opera Company "will begin a Summer engagement at the West End Theatre on Monday, May 6, in grand and comic opera at popular prices."

The next year, Weber & Fields leased the theater to the Shubert brothers, Lee, Sam and Jacob.  They opened with John Mason in The Witching Hour on September 21, 1904.  The New-York Tribune noted, "It is the intention of the Messrs. Shubert to present here only first class productions, and they are to be varied."

Actress Marie Dressler opened here on February 24, 1913 with the Dressler's Players.  The audience might have been impressed with the 45-year-old woman's capabilities.  The playbill listed "The entertainment staged by Miss Dressler, curtains and decorations designed by Miss Dressler, costumes designed by Miss Dressler."  She also, of course, appeared in the troupe's production of Camille.  The New York Times remarked, "Miss Dressler proved that she had not forgotten how to hold an audience."

Renovations to a movie theater included a new marquee, blade sign, and the removal of the balustrade, seen here in 1929.  from the collection of the New York Public Library

On March 15, 1914, The Sun reported that the West End Theatre "will be dedicated from to-morrow on to the film plays."  The venture was short lived.  On February 11, 1915, International Music and Drama reported, "Taking heed of the signs of the times, and noticing that the craze for moving pictures is on the wane, and that there is a distinct interest in the revival of the stock company proposition, the management of the West End Theatre has decided to return to this policy."  The theater opened with Nobody's Widow.

In August 1919, the Real Estate Record & Builders' Guide reported that Bin-Web Corporation had leased the building to Marcus Loew.  As a nod to Meyer R. Bimberg, who died in 1908, he tweaked the named to Bim's West End Theatre.

On the night of November 6, 1921, manager Robert McNaab locked the theater and headed home with the evening's receipts.  The New York Times reported, "In a deserted district, McNaab said, someone struck him over the head."  Three men grabbed the package containing $1,500 and fled in an automobile.  The robbers were never found.

There were more than 800 patrons in the theater on the afternoon of June 20, 1940 watching The Shriek in the Night.  Suddenly, two large sections of the plaster ceiling 75 feet above them collapsed.  The New York Times said they "crashed atop of those in the front rows."  Six movie-goers were injured enough to be hospitalized.

By the early 1970s, the West End theater featured horror and action films.  New York Amsterdam News, September 16, 1972.

The West End movie theater closed in 1975.  It was acquired that year by the La Gree Baptist Church.  

The marquee and stained glass were gone when the church operated from the structure.  (photographer unknown)

Le Gree Baptist church remained in the building for four decades, selling it to a developer in July 2016.  On December that year, the Commercial Observer announced that Haim Nortman had filed plans for a commercial-residential structure on the site.

image via cityrealty.com

The William Sackett Jr. House - 123 East 10th Street

123 East 10th Street (left) is identical to its next door neighbor.

Once part of Director General Peter Stuyvesant's farm, or bouwerij, the block of East 10th Street between Second and Third Avenues saw an explosion of development in the early 185os.  Robert and Franny Carnley moved into a newly built house at 191 Tenth Street and in 1854 Robert erected two matching homes next door at 193 and 195 (they would be renumbered 123 and 125 East 10th Street in 1865).

Four stories tall and two bays wide above a low basement, their rusticated first floors held fully arched openings.  Full-width cast iron balconies fronted the second floor windows.  The red brick-faced upper floors featured elliptically arched openings with molded stone lintels.

Carnley originally rented 193 Tenth Street.  His first tenants were the family of James P. Harper, a grocer, who remained through 1857.  They were replaced by the Kendall family.  Merchant Joseph A. Kendall operated an enterprise at 30 Barclay Street and Rufus W. Kendall ran a dry goods business on Vesey Street.

On January 20, 1864, the Carnleys' daughter, Frances (known as Fanny), married William H. Sackett, Jr.  The couple initially moved into the Carnley house, but by 1866 they owned and occupied 123 East 10th Street next door.  Sackett operated a furniture business at 397 Eighth Avenue.

Like many families, the Sacketts took in a boarder.  Living with the family in 1868 was Luke Wisely.  He unwisely decided to take a swim in the East River at the foot of East 17th Street on July 2 that year.  The New York Times reported that he "undressed himself to bathe...and on jumping in struck his head on a rock, sustaining severe injuries."  Wisely was taken to Bellevue Hospital and it appears he recovered.

Later that year, in December, William and Fannie welcomed a son, Robert Carnley Sackett.  Tragically, the boy died at the age of one-and-a-half on June 23, 1870.  His funeral was held in the house two days later.  (The couple would have two other children, Emma Carnley and Isabel Thompson Sackett.)

The Sacketts left 123 East 10th Street in 1871, but retained ownership.  The Donoho family occupied it in 1872.  Sisters Mary and Margaret, who were 25 and 28 years old respectively, worked in Archer & Anderson's bookbindery at 81-85 Centre Street.

At 5:20 on the afternoon of Christmas Eve 1872, a fire broke out in the Centre Street building.  On December 26, The New York Times reported, "It was hoped that all had been rescued from the building by the firemen, police, and others, who were soon on the spot, but there now seems no reason to doubt that seven or eight persons lost their lives."  The girls' brother, John Donoho, searched at the Franklin Street Police Station and the Park Hospital for the women with no success.  Four days after the inferno, the New York Herald reported that the Donoho sisters were among the seven bodies still not recovered from the ruins.

The following year, the Barker family rented the house.  William H. Barker worked in City Hall, as did Edward P. Barker, who was a deputy park commissioner.  (Edward was appointed in 1858 with an annual salary of $480, or about $19,000 in 2026.)  William J. Barker listed his profession as a clerk in 1873, but ran a storage business on Washington Street by 1876.

The Barkers remained here at least through 1880.  The house saw a rapid succession of renters until Dr. Richard W. Muller moved in around 1892.  Born in 1860, he was considered a specialist in diseases of the scalp and hair.  

Muller originally rented at least one room in the house and his first tenant was Charles Moehling, described by The New York Times as "a well-educated and highly-cultured German."  Moehling was the head bookkeeper at the banking house of Ladenburg, Thalmann & Co. 

If Dr. Muller was hoping for engaging conversation with his roomer, he was disappointed.  The highly-private Moehling spent his evenings in his room, studying and writing.  He contributed several lengthy articles on finance and literature to local German-language newspapers.  Muller remarked later, "in all the time Mr. Moehling was in my house, I never exchanged five minutes' conversation with him.  He lived entirely to himself, like a hermit, almost."

On the morning of February 22, 1894, Moehling left home unusually early.  Instead of going downtown to his office, he went to Central Park.  Around 11:00 that morning, Park Policeman McKenna found the body of the 50-year-old in a clump of shrubbery.  He had shot himself in the left ear with a 32-calibre pistol.  Next to the dead man was a note that read,

My name is Charles E. Moehling, and I occupy a furnished room in the house of Dr. R. W. Muller, 123 East Tenth Street.  I desire that my body be taken to Charles Diehl’s undertaking shop in Essex Street.

No one could imagine why the bookkeeper had taken his life, although Dr. Muller noted, “The servant in the house said she had noticed him several times feeling his way about the house, as if he were losing his sight, and it may be because of his failing sight and utter friendlessness that led him to take his life.”

Dr. Muller had two roomers in 1895, attorney Reginald H. McMinn and Ellen M. Coe, the head librarian of the New York Free Circulating Library.  The New York Herald described Ellen as "a handsome woman of about 45."  She was appointed head librarian when the Free Library was organized years earlier.  While living here, she met one of Muller's well-respected patients, Dr. Joseph H. Rylance, rector of the nearby St. Mark's Church in the Bowery.

Rev. Rylance's wife died in 1885.  Now, on February 15, 1895, he announced that Ellen M. Coe "would shortly become his wife," as reported in the New York Herald.  The high-profile engagement was covered in several newspapers, resulting in a barrage of reporters rushing to the Free Circulating Library.  Ellen was ready for the onslaught.  When a reporter from The Evening World attempted to interview her, "a bright-eyed, rose-checked young woman" told him, "Miss Coe wishes me to say that she is very much distressed at the publicity given to her name, and she refers inquirers to the Rev. Dr. Rylance."

Ellen Coe's marriage resulted in a vacancy.  On August 16, 1895, an advertisement in the New-York Tribune read, "Cosily furnished rooms; one or two gentlemen; conveniences, private house; reasonable."

By 1899, Dr. Daniel Cook took over the lease of 123 East 10th Street.  An 1867 graduate of the University of New York, he advertised his office hours as 8 to 10 a.m. and 5 to 7 p.m.  Cook's reputation earned him a well-known clientele.  On April 14, 1899, for instance, the New York Journal and Advertiser reported that boxing manager Martin Julian was in "very critical condition with typhoid pneumonia."  The article said, "This famous promoter of pugilistic events is being attended by Dr. Cooke, of No. 123 East Tenth street."

Cook remained here until June 1904 when Frances Sackett sold the house to Bernhard Schneller.  (Schneller simultaneously purchased No. 125 from Henry H. and Harriet W. Holly.)  

Schneller's first tenant was yet another physician, Dr. Alfred H. Stiebeling.  Born in 1866, Stiebeling would create headlines three decades later.  His six-year-old granddaughter would die in 1927 and on July 12, 1937 The Berkshire Eagle would title an article, "Doctor Takes Poison at Grave of Granddaughter."

In the meantime, the respectability of some occupants of 123 East 10th Street had declined.  On June 1, 1914, the New York Press reported that George Borden had been arrested as one of the four men who committed a jewel heist from an Avenue A store.

Charles Kirchman rented a room here in December 1914.  He told the landlady that his name was William Dillon and that he had just lost his job with the Brooklyn Rapid Transit Company.  (It is unclear why he disguised his identity.)  Three weeks later, Kirchman was still unable to find employment.  On January 25, 1915, he wrote a letter to his sister, saying in part, "My last prayer is that God will deliver my soul into a better world than the one I am leaving."  The next day, The Evening World reported, "His body was discovered to-day in the gas-filled room."

The following year, Julius Segletti occupied a room here.  On Saturday night, July 15, he took his sweetheart to a dance hall on East 8th Street.  As they prepared to leave, 22-year-old Carrol Marres approached and asked, "May I dance with your lady?"

Segletti replied, "She's too tired."

"But just one dance wouldn't harm.  May I?"

"No," replied Segletti.

Marres walked away.  Fifteen minutes later Segletti and his girlfriend left the hall.  As they walked along Avenue A between 7th and 8th Streets, Marres rushed up from behind.  He drove a knife into Segletti's head.  He died of a fractured skull in Bellevue Hospital.  Marres was captured the following day and Segletti's girlfriend, whose name was withheld, identified him as the murderer.

image via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services.

Living here at midcentury was life-long bachelor Colonel Julian Fairfax Scott.  Born in Maryland in 1877, he was a member of the New York National Guard.  In 1909, he was appointed Cleaning Commissioner in charge of the Bronx.  He died in the house on November 14, 1953.

Scott was followed at 123 East 10th Street by Dr. Edward Campbell Berger and his wife, Ethel.  An osteopathic physician, Berger graduated from the Philadelphia College of Osteopathy.  During World War II he served with the U.S. Army in North Africa and Italy.  While living here he was with the administrative department of the Outpatient Service of the Osteopathic Hospital and Clinic of Le Roy Hospital.

Both 123 East 10th Street and his architectural twin have survived in remarkably pristine condition.

The venerable house was never converted to apartments and remains a single-family home today.  Its exterior appearance is essentially unchanged since 1854.

photographs by the author

The Evangelical Lutheran Savior (Sts. Kyril & Metodi Bulgarian Cathedral) 552 W. 50th St.

 

 

photograph by Farragutful

On the evening of September 4, 1887, fire broke out on the second floor of the tenement building at 552 West 50th Street.  The following day, the New-York Tribune wrote that the flames had spread throughout the five-story building "and early this morning were still burning fiercely."  Tenements in the Hell's Kitchen district like this one were crammed with indigent families.  The article said that fire department officials predicted "that not less than ten bodies were buried in the burning ruins."

Steinhardt & Son erected a "three-story brick ribbon factory" on the site.  A minor labor problem arose in the summer of 1893.  The Evening World reported that some union members "had been insulted at Steinhardt's factory, 552 West Fiftieth street, for refusing to work on Memorial Day."  

On October 1, 1897, Herman von Hollen purchased the building for $12,000 (about $468,000 in 2026).  The buyer was, more precisely, Reverend Herman von Hollen, rector of the Evangelische Lutheriske Heilands Kirche (Evangelical Lutheran Savior Church).  

Born in Hanover, Germany on December 1, 1852, Von Hollen was ordained in 1878.  He married Matilda Lomberg in 1890 and had seven children, three of whom died in childhood.  The Von Hollens relocated to New York City in 1896.  Rev. Von Hollen organized the congregation in March 1897, just seven months before purchasing the factory building.  He had chosen a hardscrabble neighborhood in which to minister, and his was the first Lutheran church in Hell's Kitchen.

Within a month of the purchase, Von Hollen had commissioned the architectural firm of Kurtzer & Rohl to renovate the factory into "a three story brick dwelling and mission house."  The renovations cost him the equivalent of $117,000 today.  The architects' focus was the interior and little of the building's exterior appearance was altered.  In his 1907 Genealogical and Family History of New York, William S. Pelletreau described the Lutheran church:

It is a brick edifice, neatly furnished, with a seating capacity of about four hundred.  The work of the church is in larger degree among a poor class of the German population.

By 1903, the church was known simply as the German Lutheran Christ Church.  The renovated factory is the light-colored brick structure toward the left.  Federation magazine, June 1903 (copyright expired)

The Von Hollen family, a caretaker, a maid, and a housekeeper occupied the upper floors.  

The ruffians of the Hell's Kitchen neighborhood were noted for their mischievousness, not their piety, as the newly-arrived German minister soon discovered.  On June 28, 1898, The New York Press reported that he defended himself before Magistrate Kudlich when he was accused by "half a dozen women" of abusing their children.  Von Hollen explained, "that he and his congregation were annoyed by children of the neighborhood, who howled around the church and threw stones and tin cans through the windows during services."

The mothers, "accused the minister of running out of the church and pulling the children's ears," said the article.  The magistrate sided with Von Hollen and dismissed the case, "but warned the women to be careful of their children's conduct hereafter."

Despite the magistrate's order, little changed.  Three years later, on May 18, 1901, The Evening World reported that Von Hollen had discovered two boys attempting to break into the church.  When he confronted them, John Ruck and Charles Kaiser, both 12 years old, pelted the minister with rocks.  It was a substantial assault.  The New York Morning Telegraph said that when Von Hollen appeared in court, "His scalp was furrowed by cuts and his clothing was gore [i.e., blood] stained."  But Rev. Herman von Hollen was what the newspaper described as, "One of the so-called 'turn the other cheek folk.'"  He begged Magistrate Zeller to "give the boys another chance," according to The Evening World.  Zeller told the delinquents that "were it not for Dr. Von Hollen's appeal...he would send them both to the House of Refuge."

Adolph Hernman worked as the caretaker of the property and lived in an upstairs room.  The German immigrant sported "a beard of patriarchal dimensions," as described by the New York Herald.  He, too, would become a target of neighborhood hooligans.  On August 15, 1905, he was walking along West 50th Street with a package when four boys "came up to him and asked for a match," as reported by the newspaper.  When he thrust his free hand into his pocket to get the match, "the four boys grabbed him.  Each one got a fistful of whiskers and the four pulled in different directions."

The reporter presumed that the prank was "exceedingly painful to the flesh, but more lacerating to the spirit."  Hernman found a policeman who "offered himself as the hook if Hernman would walk through the block again as bait."  And sure enough, within a few minutes one of the boys, 16-year-old Charles Kabish, attempted to grab the caretaker's beard.  The policeman rushed in and nabbed him.

The New York Herald reported, "Kabish wept a bucketful in court, but Magistrate Finn has seen boys cry before."  The teen was jailed for a day to spend "in meditation upon the evil of pulling whiskers and being caught at it."

In 1907, Rev. Herman von Hollen purchased a one-story brick church on Walton Avenue in the Bronx.  He retained ownership of the East 50th Street structure, and leased it to the Roman Catholic Church of St. Clemens and Mary.  The congregation occupied the building as it collected funds for its own structure.  On November 4, 1911, The New York Times reported that the St. Clemens and Mary congregation had purchased "two old residences" at 408 and 410 West 40th Street.  The article said, "a new edifice for the parish work is to be erected at once."

The new St. Clemens and Mary Church building was completed in 1912.  The consecration ceremony was held on May 26, but it went horribly awry.  The New-York Tribune headlined an article, "Crowded Stand at Church Collapses."  The article said that 3,000 persons panicked as the stands inside the church buckled.  Although 15 people were injured, some enough to be hospitalized, the ceremony went on.

Rev. Herman von Hollen now leased the West 50th Street building to the newly formed Saints Cyrillus and Methodius congregation.  It was founded by Franciscan friars to serve the increasing Croatian immigrant population.  The 1914 The Catholic Church in the United States of America recalled:

On October 16, 1913, this parish was formally established for the Croatians and entrusted to Rev. Ambrose Sirca, O.F.M.  An old church at 552 West 50th Street which was formerly used by St. Clemens' Polish congregation was obtained and dedicated to SS. Cyrillus and Methodius.

On New Year's Day, 1915, The New York Times reported that Von Hollen had sold the property to "St. Cyril and Methodius Catholic Church."  Now that the congregation owned the building, it set out to make it look like a proper church.  In April 1915, it commissioned architect Frederick J. Schwartz to remodel the structure.  The New York Herald reported that his plans  "consist of building an entire new front wall, new stairs to the choir, new vestibule, and an addition to the choir loft for a sanctuary and sacristy."  The renovations cost the equivalent of $483,000 today.

Schartz's neo-Gothic design gave nods to the Croatian congregation's roots.  Faced in beige brick and trimmed in sandstone, the facade was dominated by a two-story, Gothic-arched stained-glass window.  The copper-clad steeple atop a square, featureless base reflected traditional Southeastern European prototypes.

The main stained-glass window depicts Saints Cyril and Methodius.  photograph by Carole Teller

The renovated church was dedicated on September 30, 1915.  The New York Herald reported, "and it will be known henceforth as the Church of Sts. Cyril and Methodius."  The article noted, "This will be the church centre for more than five thousand Catholics who came to the United States from Croatia, in the southern part of Austria-Hungary."

Aloysius Viktor Stepinac was the Archbishop of Zagreb (in Croatia).  Stepinac was imprisoned by the Yugoslav Government in 1946 for accused treason.  Croatian-American citizens protested.  On October 12, 1948, The New York Times reported on the "two young women in Croat peasant costumes" and five young men who picketed the Yugoslav consulate on Fifth Avenue.  The article said, "The young women said they were members of the Stepinac Club of New York, connected with the Church of Sts. Cyril and Methodius of 552 West Fiftieth Street."

In 1974, the congregation of Sts. Cyril and Methodius merged with that of St. Raphael's Church on West 41st Street and moved into that building.  The East 50th Street structure empty sat until 1979, when it was purchased by the Bulgarian Eastern Orthodox Church.  The diocese made renovations, completed in 1984.  It was dedicated on May 12.

The following day, The New York Times reported that dozens of lay volunteers had "worked countless hours transforming a dilapidated church on the West Side of Manhattan into the showpiece of Bulgarian-American life in the New York metropolitan area."

photograph by Carole Teller

The article said that three artists, "who worked more than 70 hours a week on the project for the last two years," headed the group that embellished "nearly every square inch of the interior of the St. Kiril and Metodi Eastern Orthodox Church."  The main force behind the remodeling, including its financing, was 43-year-old Bulgarian immigrant Anton Russev.  The article said the painting was either done directly onto the plaster walls, or on panels in Russev's Lafayette Street studio.  An official of the Bulgarian Eastern Orthodox Church said this was the only structure in the United States "that has been decorated in traditional style with Eastern Orthodox icons."

photograph by Carole Teller

The congregation is still in the building with its riveting history.

many thanks to artist Carole Teller for suggesting this post.

J. M. Felson's 1929 218 West 10th Street

image via streeteasy.com

Abraham Schwartz was a builder and real estate developer, head of the A. M. Schwartz Building & Construction Company.  On May 2, 1928, he purchased three three-story apartment buildings at 340 through 344 Bleecker Street and the abutting, five-story apartment house on the southwest corner of West 10th Street.  The next day, The New York Times announced that the old structures, "will be razed and replaced by a modern six-story elevator apartment building containing electric refrigeration and other modern improvements."

Schwartz commissioned the Russian-born architect Jacob M. Felson to design the building.  Completed the following year, the residential entrance was placed at the western end of the West 10th Street side.  The four stores along Bleecker Street were designed with deep arcade show windows that enabled the proprietors to create large displays.  (The corner store was double the size of the other three.)

Completed in 1929 at a cost of $238,700 (about $4.73 million in 2026), Felson's sleek, tripartite 1920s take on the Medieval Revival style included an arched corbel table below the fifth floor cornice, and stepped Tudor-inspired gables with blank shields atop the parapet.  Above the residential entrance Felson placed a carved Renaissance-inspired panel.

Abe Schwartz could not have predicted that the Stock Market would crash the year his building opened.  In August 1931, he lost the property in foreclosure.

A woman who lived here at the time (whose name was not disclosed in newspaper articles) was having an affair with a married Brooklyn man, Valentine C. Bauman.  In the meantime, Ruth C. Bauman was doing some private investigating on her own and tracked down her wandering husband to Manhattan and 218 West 10th Street.  On the evening of November 4, 1931, Ruth and "several of her friends," according to The Brooklyn Standard Union, barged into the apartment.  

Ruth told a judge on January 8, 1932, "There he was sitting on the side of the bed in two-piece underwear talking to a woman in [a] flesh-colored negligee."  According to Ruth Bauman, her husband remarked, "Here I am."  The article said that Ruth was "a free woman today."

The arcade storefronts survived as late as 1941.  via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services.

Jane Carabine and Margaret Dusseau shared an apartment here as early as 1932.  Margaret came home early on the night of February 26, 1933, to discover her 30-year-old roommate dead.  The New York Times reported, "Gas was escaping from a jet of the kitchen range."  Police called Jane's death accidental.

As early as 1963, Aldo's Italian restaurant occupied the southern-most commercial space.  It was replaced by Boomer's soul food and jazz restaurant around 1972.  That year New York Magazine called it "a casual Village place where spareribs and black-eyed peas are served up with great sounds by the likes of Ray Bryant, Bobby Timmons and Cedar Watson."

The De Santis-Jensen "semi-antiques shop," as described by The New York Times on August 21, 1965, filled the corner space.  Owned by Stuart Jenson and Anthony de Santis, the shop appealed to "the special kind of person who appreciates kookiness as much as we do," according to Jensen.  He told The Times, "Barbra Streisand hasn't been in here, but Tony Perkins has, and so have Eli Wallach, Leonard Bernstein and Anne Bancroft."

photo by The New York Times photographer Bill Allen, August 21, 1965

Living here by 1987 was Glenn R. Purdy, an editor for Travel Agent magazine.  On July 23 that year, Purdy did not arrive at work.  When no one could reach him, senior editor Joe Murphy went to his apartment.  Getting no response from inside, Murphy walked over to the nearby Sixth Precinct station house.

Officers returned with Murphy and entered the apartment.  "They found Mr. Purdy's body on the living room couch," reported The New York Times.  According to one of the officers, the 57-year-old had been stabbed in the back and his pockets had been "ripped apart."  Because there was no sign of forced entry, officials thought Purdy knew his killer.  A bloody kitchen knife was recovered in the apartment.

The building's most celebrated tenant was playwright, librettist and screenwriter Terrence McNally, who lived here with his life partner (and, later, husband), Broadway producer and former civil rights attorney Tom Kirdahy.

Born on November 3, 1938, McNally graduated from Columbia University in 1960.  The next year, he was hired by novelist John Steinbeck and his wife to tutor their two teenaged sons while they traveled.  (McNally was already in a relationship with playwright Edward Albee.)

His first full-length play, This Side of the Door, was produced in 1962, and his Broadway debut came in 1965 when he was just 26 years old.  He would go on to write hits like Love! Valour! Compassion!, Master Class, and The Ritz.

Terrance McNally posed in front of the marquee of his first Broadway musical, The Rink, in 1984.  from the collection of the New York Public Library.

In reviewing his Mothers and Sons in the Observer on March 26, 2014, Rex Reed called the play "a masterpiece," and McNally, "one of the greatest contemporary playwrights the theater world has yet produced."  He also wrote the books for the musicals Kiss of the Spider Woman and Ragtime.  

McNally addressed gay sexuality and the AIDS crisis.  Writing in The New York Times on March 24, 2020, Jesse Green and Neil Genzlinger said, "His gay stories never came across as a narrowing of theater's human focus but as an expansion of it, and by inviting everyone into them he helped solidify the social change he was describing."

McNally and Kirdahy were still living at 218 West 10th Street when the four-time Tony Award-winning playwright died in Sarasota, Florida on March 24, 2020 at the age of 81.

photo via streeteasy.com

For decades the southern space on Bleecker Street was home to Manatus, a diner-type restaurant, while the Village Apothecary on the corner enjoyed equal longevity.  They were replaced by the Saint Theo's restaurant and a Pdpaola jewelry store, respectively.

The Wesson-Leland Mansion - 123 East 79th Street

 

Eufrasia Aguilar Leland and Emma Martha Leland were born in 1836 and 1844 respectively, two of the nine children born to Francis Smith Leland and Eufrasia Bernardina Aguilar Piriz.  Emma married Charles Howland Wesson, who died in 1873 when their only child (also named Eufrasia) was just three years old.

In 1906, the sisters purchased the two 20-foot-wide dwellings at 123 and 125 East 79th Street and hired the architectural firm of Foster, Gade & Graham to replace them with a double-wide mansion.  Simultaneously, Emma's daughter, Eufrasia, and her husband, artist Allen Tucker, commissioned Robins & Oakman to design a residence next door at 121 East 79th Street.  The two firms' neo-Georgian designs worked together in creating a harmonious effect.

Writing in The Architectural Record in November 1911, critic Montgomery Schuyler praised, "see how a big house and a little house may dwell together in amity on account of the employment of the same materials in both, when the designs of them have nothing in common beyond a loose and general agreement on 'style.'"

The Wesson-Leland mansion coexisted happily with its smaller neighbor.  The Architectural Record, November 1911 (copyright expired)

Faced in Flemish bond brick and trimmed in marble, the sisters' residence was three stories tall above a shallow basement.  Its Georgian inspired elements included fully-arched openings at the first floor, layered and splayed stone keystones at the second, and a dignified balustrade atop the cornice.

The women moved within society as a pair.  On July 7, 1918, for instance, the New York Herald reported, "Mrs. Charles Howland Wesson and her sister, Miss Eufrasia Leland of 123 East Seventy-ninth street, after a stay in Lenox, have gone to Poland Springs."

Eufrasia Aguilar Leland died in the East 79th Street mansion at the age of 88 on November 14, 1924.  Her funeral was held at the Church of the Incarnation on Madison Avenue three days later.  The following month, on Christmas Day, Emma died in the house.  Interestingly, her funeral on December 27 was held in the Church of the Resurrection on East 74th Street.

Dorothy May Jordan Robinson purchased the mansion.  Born in Boston in 1885, she was, according to The New York Times, "daughter of the late Eben D. Jordan, merchant of Boston and at one time a member of the famous dry goods firm of Jordan, Marsh & Co."  The newspaper said she "inherited a handsome fortune from her father."

Dorothy was estranged from her husband, Monroe Douglas Robinson, whom she married in 1916.  She had custody of their only daughter, Dorothy, who was eight years old in 1925.  Before moving in, Dorothy hired architect Mott Schmidt to add a fourth floor.  Set back from the roofline, the addition was greatly hidden behind the balustrade.

The new addition peeks above the balustrade in this 1940 photograph.  via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services.

Dorothy Robinson would not be alone with her daughter and servants in the commodious home for long.  She obtained her divorce in December 1925, and on March 4, 1926, The New York Times reported that she and Elbridge Gerry Chadwick had been married in the house "in the presence of a few friends."

Chadwick, too, was born in Boston (he in 1881) and had lived in New York City since the turn of the century.  He was a partner in the real estate firm of Brown, Wheelock, Harris, Vought & Co.  "Mr. Chadwick and his bride left the city immediately after the ceremony," reported The New York Times, "and on their return they will make their home at 123 East Seventy-ninth Street."  The couple's country home was in Syosset, Long Island.

Both Dorothy and Elbridge sat on the board of the Philharmonic Symphony Society of New York, and entertainments in the mansion often centered around music.  In 1937, conductor Arthur Rodjinski of the Cleveland Orchestra was invited by the society as a guest conductor.  On February 19, The New York Post reported, "Mr. and Mrs. Elbridge Gerry Chadwick will be hosts at the reception in his honor to be held at their residence, 123 East Seventy-ninth Street."

On February 5, 1938, The New York Post reported, "One of the largest as well as most important weddings of the late season in town is that of Miss Dorothy Douglas Robinson, a grand-niece of President Roosevelt and cousin of Mrs. Roosevelt, to Randolph Appleton Kidder."  (Monroe Douglas Robinson, who came from Paris to give her daughter away, was the son of Corinne Roosevelt Robinson, sister of Theodore Roosevelt.)  The article said, "there will be a large reception at the residence of the bride's mother, Mrs. Elbridge Gerry Chadwick."

Elbridge Gerry Chadwick died in the East 79th Street mansion at the age of 63 on March 23, 1945.  Within a few years, Dorothy sold the house to Ronald and Marietta Endicott Peabody Tree.

The couple, who had recently divorced their spouses, were married on July 26, 1947.  They had one child, Penelope, born in 1949.  Marietta brought her daughter from her previous marriage, Frances Fitzgerald, into the marriage.

Ronald Tree from the collection of the U.K. National Portrait Gallery

Tree's name at birth was Arthur Ronald Lambert Field Tree.  He was born in England of American-born parents, Arthur Tree and Ethel Field, daughter of Marshall Field.  Ronald served as a Member of Parliament from 1933 to 1945.  The family also maintained a home in Barbados, "Heron Bay."

Marietta Tree was as much involved in politics as she was in society.  She became county Democratic chairperson and in 1952 was involved in the presidential election campaign of Adlai Stevenson.  

Stevenson, of course, was defeated in that election.  On January 21, 1953, The New York Times reported, "A half-hour before the inauguration of the man who defeated him at the polls, Adlai E. Stevenson left New York for Barbados."  The article said, "He will stay at Mr. and Mrs. Tree's home in St. James Parish, Barbados."  On the plane was Marietta Tree.  "Mr. Tree will join them Saturday," said the article.

Marietta Tree and Adlai Stevenson before boarding the airplane to Barbados.  The New York Times, January 21, 1953

In fact, Marietta and Stevenson were having a romantic affair, one reportedly acknowledged and accepted by Ronald Tree, who was bisexual.  The New York Times would later explain that Marietta "served as unofficial hostess at dinners Mr. Stevenson gave in his apartment in the Waldorf Towers."  

In 1954, Marietta was elected to the Democratic State Committee and on April 13, 1959, she was sworn in as a member of the New York City Intergroup Relations Commissions.  President John F. Kennedy appointed her to the United Nations Commission on Human Rights in 1961.  The New York Times said, "She arrived at the United States mission almost every day in a chauffeur-driven Rolls Royce."

Marietta Tree and Adlai Stevenson were together in England on July 14, 1965 when, as worded by The New York Times, Stevenson "dropped dead on a London street."  The article said, "She tried vainly to revive him with mouth to mouth respiration."  According to her biography by the Human Rights Commission, that evening she wrote in her diary, "Adlai is dead.  We were together."

Ronald Tree died on July 14, 1976 and Marietta moved to One Sutton Place South where she would remain until her death on August 15, 1991.  

No. 123 East 79th Street next became home to John S. Samuels III.  Born in Galveston, Texas in 1933, Samuels received his law degree in 1960.  He and two other investors borrowed $4.5 million in 1973 to buy the Leckie Smokeless Coal Company.  Within a year the firm's earnings were reported at $50 million and in February 1979, three years after moving into 123 East 79th Street, he appeared on Fortune magazine's list of America's wealthiest men.  It reported his personal fortune to be as much as $300 million (about $1.3 billion in 2026 terms).

A month before that article, on January 9, 1979, The New York Times headlined an article, "House Ransacked," and reported, "The town house of John S. Samuels 3d at 123 East 79th Street was ransacked over the weekend by burglars who took gold and silver flatware, trays and place settings, according to the police, who estimated the value of the items as $500,000."  (By the time of the heist, Samuels was, as well, the chairman of the New York City Opera Company and the City Center.)

The East 79th Street mansion was one of five residences owned by Samuels.  He had two country estates on Long Island, a townhouse in London, and a home in Galveston, Texas.  

In 1979, John Samuels and his wife, the former Ellen Richards separated.  (They had four children, including actor John Stockwell.)  At the time, he was already experiencing financial problems.  An article in The New York Times on March 26, 1981 explained, "A series of reverses, starting in the late 70's, forced him to liquidate many of his personal and corporate assets."  Just two months later, the newspaper reported, "The fine town house at 123 East 79th Street, formerly the home of Marietta Peabody Tree, a former member of the United States delegation to the Union Nations, and the home since 1976 of John S. Samuels 3d, has been bought at auction for $4.05 million by the Brazilian Government."

The article said that the mansion "will be the residence of Brazil's United Nations head of mission."  The Wesson-Leland house remains the property of the Government of Brazil.

photographs by the author