Thom & Wilson's 1884 142 East 79th Street

 

James A. Frame was a prolific real estate developer in the later decades of the 19th century.  On December 1, 1883, the Real Estate Record & Builders' Guide reported that he would be erecting 18 houses on East 79th Street, 13 at the southeast corner of Fourth Avenue (today's Park Avenue) and five at the southwest corner of Lexington Avenue.  The architectural firm of Thom & Wilson would be designing the two projects.

Completed in 1884, the eastern-most structure, 142 East 79th Street, was clad in brownstone.  Its stone stoop was offset to the west.  Thom & Wilson's neo-Grec design included ornate window frames on the 79th Street side.  They sat on bracketed sills and wore molded cornices supported by corbeled piers.  Below the pressed metal terminal cornice was a frieze of rosette-decorated panels.

An advertisement described:

Southwest Corner of Lexington Ave.; handsome four story high-stoop, brown-stone dwelling, two-story extension, beautifully decorated, hard-wood trimmed; all improvements; on cable road, street 100 feet wide, size of lot 20x102.

James A. Frame sold 142 East 79th Street to John W. Haaren in April 1885 for $35,000 (about $1.2 million in 2026).  Haaren was a partner in the importing firm of Haaren & Meinken, founded in 1865 with Henry Meinken.  Both men dealt in real estate, as well.  Haaren and his wife, Marie, had four children, John William, Henry F., Mamy M., and Lena W.  

On the afternoon of March 11, 1891, John and Marie went for a drive.  The New York Herald reported, "He drove a spirited team hitched to a light side-bar buggy."  At around 6:30, they stopped at the house of a friend on 57th Street near Ninth Avenue.  John ran in "to speak to his friend," while Marie waited in the buggy.  Just as he was leaving, a Ninth Avenue elevated train passed.  The New York Herald reported, "The noise of the train frightened the horses, and they started on the run through Fifty-seventh street."  John ran after them, but fell.  Getting to his feet, he continued the chase.

The panicked horses crashed into a truck at 57th Street and Third avenue.  Two policeman caught the horses and calmed them.  Inside the buggy, Marie Haaren was unconscious.  By the time John arrived (no doubt breathless from his marathon), a neighborhood doctor had diagnosed Marie with "nervous shock."  Based on that, when the ambulance arrived John asked them to take her to their home, rather than a hospital.

It was an understandable decision, but a fatal one.  Marie regained consciousness on the way home, but fainted again.  The New York Herald reported, "On reaching her home she was taken to her room, and almost immediately died."  The 56-year-old had a history of heart problems and, according to the newspaper, "it is thought the fright caused by the runaway brought on an attack of the disease."

Marie's funeral was held in the parlor of 142 East 79th Street on March 15, followed by a service at Immanuel Lutheran Church on Lexington Avenue and 88th Street.

John Haaren sold 142 East 79th Street in 1896.  John L. Jordan converted the basement to a commercial space and the upper floors into three sprawling apartments, including one duplex.  

The store, with the address of 1140 Lexington Avenue, became home to S. Blumberg's drug store while the apartments were rented to well-to-do tenants.  A mysterious woman who moved into the building in June 1903 was Jane Leroy.  The "jewel-bedecked woman" was arrested for shoplifting in a Broadway department store on August 27, caught "stealing doilies worth $23.10," as reported by The Evening Post.  (The value of the lacy heist would translate to about $868 today.)

As it turned out, Jane Leroy was, in fact, the wife of jeweler Henry R. Levi.  They originally lived in Washington D.C., but according to The Evening World, now lived in a luxurious home at 315 East 46th Street.  The couple, it appears, were having domestic problems.  Levi arrived at the stationhouse that evening and furnished his wife's staggering $19,000 bail.

The next day, a lawyer's clerk told the magistrate that "the woman was too ill to appear."  Magistrate Ommen would not have it.  "That's no good.  I'll give you until 11 o'clock to produce the defendant, otherwise her bond will be forfeited," he demanded.  The New York Herald reported, "A little later Mrs. Levi came to court in a carriage.  She persisted in saying she was Jane Leroy, a housekeeper living at 142 East Seventy-ninth."  

As early as 1913, the store space was home to Frederick Bahr's grocery store.  It would become the Planodome Market within a decade.

"St. Peter's" magazine, September 1913 (copyright expired)

In the meantime, William J. Baird occupied an apartment here as early as 1919.  The bachelor was an "athletic instructor," according to the New-York Tribune.  On March 20, he took his  fiancé, Alice Whitman of Brooklyn, to the Palace Theatre.  The night ended badly.  William briefly excused himself during intermission.  When he returned to his seat, Alice told him that Dr. Albert L. Roth, who sat nearby, "had annoyed her during his absence."  The New-York Tribune reported that Baird left his seat "and punched the face of Dr. Albert L. Roth."  He and Alice then started out of the theater.  

Dr. Roth called out to a sailor nearby to stop him.  The sailor held Baird until a policeman responded and arrested him.  In night court, Baird explained his actions, saying, "I lost my temper, but I am willing to apologize."  The New-York Tribune reported, "Dr. Roth, who had lost a tooth, would have none of his apology, and Baird was fined $10, which he paid."

In 1929, architect Lafayette A. Goldstone was hired to renovate the building.  The stoop was removed and a triangular pediment placed over the new, sidewalk-level residential entrance.  There were now offices on the second floor, one apartment each on the third and fourth floors, and two "non-housekeeping" apartments on the fifth.  (The term meant that they had no kitchens.)

The ground-floor entrance to the apartments can be seen in this 1940 tax photo.  via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services.

The tenants continued to be well-to-do.  The widow of Dwight Morgan Platt and her daughter, Miriam Dwight, lived here in 1929 when Miriam was married to John Merrill Congdon in Sherry's on October 21 that year.  The engagement and the wedding were heavily covered in society pages for weeks.

Wealthy widow Eila Haggin McKee, daughter of millionaire James B. Haggin, moved into an apartment building next door in 1928.  The structures were owned by the same firm.  The New York Times reported, "she missed the flowers that were her hobby on her Summer estate, Blue Blinds, at Smithtown Branch, L. I., so she rented the roof space on the adjoining building at 142 East Seventy-ninth...at a cost of $800 annually."  The article said, "The roof was only a step down from her apartment next door, and she sealed the stairway in the apartment at No. 142 which led to the roof."

The last remnant of James A. Frame's ambitious row, 142 East 79th Street is dwarfed by its neighbors today.

Problems came in 1936 when Eila McKee died.  The New York Times explained that the executors canceled the lease on the apartment, "presuming that the cancellation agreement also covered the garden space."  It did not.  By then, the buildings were separately owned.  The estate was in court for at least three years trying to untangle the complicated issue, which not only dealt with the rent, but the restoration of the internal staircase and access to the roof in 142 East 79th Street.

As early as 1940, Ruth Forster's florist shop occupied the ground floor.  In 1955, it was known as Betty Forster, Inc., the name presumably that of Ruth's daughter.  In the late 1980s, a florist shop, now the Strakes Florists, still occupied the space.

During a renovation in 1974, the residential entrance was moved to the Lexington Avenue side (although retaining the East 79th Street address).  The 79th Street entrance now accessed the store.  The remodeling resulted in offices on the second floor and one apartment each on the upper stories.

photographs by the author

The Skinny 144 First Avenue

 

photograph by Anthony Bellov

In the 1830s, the eastern blockfront of First Avenue between Eighth and Ninth Streets was lined with low Federal-style store-and-house buildings.  Change would soon come as throngs of immigrants inundated the neighborhood.  Private homes were converted to rooming houses and vintage buildings on the avenues were replaced with tenements and stores.  Around 1851, a row of Greek Revival store-and-flat buildings was erected at 142 through 148 First Avenue.

The buildings were faced in red running bond brick above the storefronts.  Their Greek Revival design included featureless brownstone lintels and wooden corbeled cornices.  No. 144 First Avenue was just 16-feet wide.  As early as 1852, Mary McGuinness, a widow, lived here, working as a seamstress.  She may have operated the upper floors as a boarding house.  Living here at the same time were Edward McGorren, a real estate agent, and carpenter James Robinson.

At the same time, Gaius H. Nash operated his pharmacy in the store.  He had a short commute to work, since he lived in the new building next door at 146 First Avenue.  (He and his family would move above the store around 1857.)  After working for Nash for several years, an employee became disgruntled by his lack of advancement in 1854.  In June he advertised:

To Druggists--The Advertiser having had eight years experience in the compounding of medicine, is anxious to obtain a clerk's situation.  Best city Reference.  Apply at Dr. Nash's store, 144 First avenue, for two days.

Calling the proprietor "Dr. Nash" was a stretch.  It would not be until around 1859 the he closed his drugstore here and enrolled in the New York University School of Medicine.  He would earn his title "doctor" in 1864.

Sharing the upper floors with the Nash family in 1856 were  a young Irish-born couple, John J. and Margaret Ahern (John worked as a clerk); the extended Ramsey family; and policeman Charles McMillen.  

Margaret Ahern, "formerly of the city of Cork, Ireland," as reported by The New York Sun, died in her rooms here on November 28, 1856 at the age of 18.  Her funeral was held in the couple's rooms.

There would be another funeral in the building within a few months.  The Samuel Ramsey family, who would remain at least through 1865, crowded into an apartment.  They included adult sons James (an engineer) and Robert, and the latter's wife, Margaret, and their three-year-old son, John.  On May 1, 1857, little John succumbed to "congestion of the brain," as described by the New York Herald.  His funeral was held here on June 2.

Joanna Regiersky opened a jewelry store in the former pharmacy space in 1859.  On January 31, 1860, she took two $1,000 St. Louis and Iron Mountain Railroad Company bonds to Jacob Little & Co. on Wall Street to have them cashed.  The New York Times reported, "but as it was after banking hours, she was requested to call the next day."  In fact, the astute clerk was stalling.  He recognized the bonds as having been stolen from the home of Alexander H. Nones two months earlier.  When Joanna returned, an officer was waiting for her.

As it turned out, the burglar (who also took $400 worth of jewelry) was Joanna Regiersky's brother-in-law, Julius Werner.  She told the officer that he had promised her $100 if she successfully cashed the bonds.  Joanna was ordered to send him a message saying that he was needed to "attend the business."  When he arrived, he and Joanna were arrested.  

The incident apparently ended Joanna Regiersky's jewelry shop.  The space became the barbershop of Franz Haberstroh.  (He would alternatively spell his first name Frank and Francis.)

John Wille, a tailor, not only occupied an apartment here by 1868, he owned the building.  Also living here that year was Charles A. Cappa, a musician.  In June 1868, Wille sold the structure to Franz Haberstroh.

Haberstroh did not retain ownership for very long.  By 1872, he closed his barbershop and sold 144 First Avenue to Michael Klopf and his wife, Anna M. H. Klopf.  The couple had three children, Henry, Katie and Lizzie.  Michael opened his "stoves" store in the ground floor space.  It may have been Klopf who slightly updated the appearance of the building by having cast metal cornices added to the lintels.

Michael Klopf died in 1900.  The store space became home to Paul Limbach's "butter and egg" store.  The entrepreneur struggled in business.  On November 9, 1904, the New York Produce Review and American Creamery reported that Paul Limbach's business had failed.  He, nevertheless, rallied and on March 28, 1906, The City Record reported that he had been given a license "to sell milk at No. 144 First avenue."  Only four months later, on July 31, The New York Times reported that he had declared bankruptcy.

While the simple blocks and wooden fascia board were typical of the Greek Revival style, the full-height of the top floor and the slightly-molded cornice showed the emerging Italianate style.  photograph by Anthony Bellov

Rutilio Colorosso, a coal dealer, his wife and six children arrived from Italy in 1892 and moved into 144 First Avenue in 1900.  In the summer of 1911, he opened a second coal store at 406 East 9th Street.  The Italian community was plagued by a terroristic group called La Mano Nera, or the Black Hand, at the time.  The Italian-American group used violence, including assassinations and bombings, to extort money from well-to-do Italians.  On September 11, 1911, The Evening World reported, "Outward evidence of prosperity, manifested by the opening of a new place of business for the sale of coal, wood, ice and cheap wine has brought upon Rutilio Colorosso the unwelcome attention of Black Hand extortioners."

Within four weeks of opening the new store, Colorosso received two Black Hand letters, each demanding $1,000.  They warned him that "he and his family would be blown to pieces in their home unless he paid the money," reported The New York Times.  Colorosso dismissed the letters until the night of September 4.

At 10:30, janitor David Leper locked the street door.  About an hour later, residents of the top floor heard someone walking on the roof.  Minutes later, a massive explosion shattered the doors "of every flat in the four stories of the building," reported The New York Times.  Plaster from the ceilings fell upon sleeping tenants.  The bomb had been placed directly in front of the Colorossos' door.  Where the door had been there was now a four-foot wide hole in the floor.  The article said, "In every room in the house debris crumbled from the ceilings to a depth of several inches."  The Colorossos' 15-year-old son, Joseph, "was thrown out of his bed against the opposite wall."  Happily, he was not hurt.

Two days later, The New York Times reported on the arrest of Giuseppe Costabile, "a shrewd, narrow-eyed Italian," for the bombing.  The article said, "the police believe they have caught the chief and master-mind of a gang of blackmailers who have set most of the thirteen bomb explosions reported in the last month."  If Costabile was, indeed, the bomber, his arrest did not deter the determined extortionists.

That same day, Colorosso received another letter and the following week, on the morning of September 11, a second bomb was discovered in the building.  The Evening World said, "The explosive was dynamite, properly equipped with a detonating cap.  Only two inches of the twelve-inch fuse was burned.  Doubtless the fuse went out while the man who placed the bomb was running way."

The New-York Tribune reported, "The bomb, the police said, was unmistakably designed for Frank [sic] Colarusso [sic]."  The Evening World added, "The bomb found at Colorosso's floor this morning was of sufficient strength to have blown in the front of the building."

In 1940, the sheet metal cornices over the windows were deteriorating.  One of top floor examples had already fallen off.  via the NYC Dept of Records Information Services.

Most of the residents of 144 First Avenue continued to be Italian in the succeeding decades.  Salvatore Rezze and Charles Carnesi lived here in 1929.  On June 1 that year, the Daily Star reported that they had been arrested as part of a "counterfeiting gang."  Rezze, Carnesi, and Anthony Scarpello were arrested after a sharp-eyed taxi driver recognized the $5 bill they paid him was a fake.  Their capture led to "the seizure of the 'plant' where, it is believed, several hundred thousand dollars in bogus bills have been manufactured since the first of the year," said a Secret Service spokesperson.

By the Depression years, the store was home to the Italian American Grocery & Delicatessen.  At the end of Prohibition, Fortunato Liberto obtained a liquor license for the business.

The contemporary building next door, one-third wider than No. 144, received a replacement cornice at some point.  photograph by Anthony Bellov

Today a laundromat occupies the ground floor where a modern storefront and replacement entrance doors can be seen.  The Victorian window cornices are gone, but the vintage wooden terminal cornice survives.

many thanks to Anthony Bellov for suggesting this post.

The 1889 John and Catharine Brosnan House - 146 West 74th Street

 

Real estate was one of the few businesses in which women would thrive in the 19th century.  In 1888, Mary J. Coar hired architect Edward L. Angell to design five upscale rowhouses at West 74th Street between Ninth and Tenth Avenues (renamed Columbus and Amsterdam, respectively, in 1890).  Mary Coar was not only the owner and developer of the project, but she was listed as the contractor as well.

Angell's plans, filed in March, described five four-story "brick, brown stone trimmed" dwellings.  Each would cost $25,000 to construct, or about $902,000 in 2026.  Designed in the popular Queen Anne Style, they were completed in 1889.  Like the other four houses, the basement and parlor levels of 146 West 74th Street were clad in rough-cut brownstone and the upper floors in red brick.  A dog-legged box stoop rose to the double-doored entrance, protected by a stone hood decorated with foliate designs and turret-like finials.

A charming three-sided bay above the entrance supported a small balcony to the third floor.  The transoms at the first through third floors were filled with colorful stained glass, while the upper sashes of the top floor were divided into multiple panes, typical of the Queen Anne style.

This photograph of the row in 1940 shows the stained glass transoms and upper Queen Anne-style sashes intact.  via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services.

The house was purchased by John and Catharine Brosnan.  The couple had five children, John Jr., Loretto G., Mary T., Angela M., and Francis Xavier.

Born in Ireland, John Brosnan came to New York City at around 15 or 16 years old.  He listed his profession as "grocer;" however, his business at 157 Fulton Street was more accurately described as a saloon and wine importer.  

An ardent Roman Catholic, he did not operate a rowdy, disreputable establishment.  The New York Times would later say that he was "well known among wine traders throughout the United States" and that he "made a specialty of importing Spanish, Portuguese, and other wines not only into this country...but also to various countries of Europe."  He also suppled altar wine to many Roman Catholic churches.

Opened in 1850, Brosnan's operation was not opulent.  The New York Herald would later say, "The fittings were crude in their simplicity but they lent a distinctive atmosphere to the place.  They consisted chiefly of plain sawed oak with heavy cage wire to protect the bottle shelves.  A cash register never found its way into the establishment."  The New York Sun would add, "The old ale pumps, bright like those of venerable English inns, shine benevolently out of the dim background."

Nearly revered was a table in a rear room.  Called the Garibaldi Table, it was there in 1850, according to The Sun, that "Garibaldi planned the liberation of Italy."  On February 2, 1919, the newspaper would recall:

The room where Garibaldi assembled his junta is just as it was in his day.  In the middle of it is a ponderous table with massive curlycue legs and topped with an octagonal slab of red marble.

The "Garibaldi Table" could be admired, but no one was permitted to sit at it.  The Sun, February 2, 1919 (copyright expired)

Francis Xavier Brosnan was enrolled in Columbia University's School of Mines when the family moved in.  He would graduate with a civil engineering degree.  Upon his marriage to Mathilda Claire Jones, the population of 146 West 74th Street increased by one.  Sadly, Mathilda died on September 9, 1896.  Her funeral was held in the parlor on September 12 followed by a solemn requiem mass at Francis Xavier's Church on West 16th Street.

During a severe snow storm on the evening of February 13, 1899, the three Brosnan daughters entertained friends.  At 9:00 John, Catherine and Francis went to bed.  Two hours later, the sisters' guests left.  The New York Herald reported, "They had just put out the lights and gone to bed when one of them smelled smoke coming from the basement and awakened their parents."

The New York Times reported, "A citizen turned in an alarm," but the fire engines were severely hampered by the snowdrifts.  The New York Herald said that at Columbus Avenue and 74th Street, "Both got stuck in the snow.  The firemen had to drag the lines of hose up to the house, which was in the middle of the block, and by that time the flames had gained a good headway."  The family (except John) hurriedly dressed and ran to the Burke house across the street.  "Instead of making his escape or attempting to dress, Mr. Brosnan, who is about seventy years old, devoted his efforts to save a grand piano that was in the parlor where the floor was burning."

When firefighters arrived, they found Brosnan "dressed in a nightgown and an overcoat, trying to push the piano from the parlor into the hall," according to the New York Herald.  He was "in imminent danger of going with the instrument through the burning floor into the flames below," said The New York Times.  Despite his protest, the firefighters carried Brosnan through the waist-high snowdrifts to the Burke house.  

There, Catharine exclaimed that she had laid her diamond earrings on the dresser.  George Patterson, an underwriter who had arrived along with the firefighters, overheard this.  He ran into the burning house, found the jewelry, and brought it to Catharine.  When the blaze was extinguished, the New York Herald said, "The two upper floors of the house were badly damaged."  The New York Times reported the damages at $8,000 to the structure and $10,000 in furnishings.  (The total loss would translate to about $721,000 today.)

There was more significant collateral damage unknown at the time.  On March 7, 1899, the New York Herald wrote, "John Brosnan, an importer of wines and groceries who was widely known throughout the country, died on Saturday at his home, 146 West Seventy-fourth street, after an illness of two weeks."  His death was attributed to "shock and exposure to the cold on the night of February 13, when Mr. Brosnan's house was partially wrecked by fire."  Because of the fire damage to the house, Brosnan's funeral was held at the Church of the Blessed Sacrament on 71st Street and Broadway.

Francis X. Brosnan never remarried, nor did his sisters marry.  The women were active in society, however.  On February 3, 1907, for instance, the New York Herald reported, "Miss Angela Brosnan recently entertained the members of the Thursday Matinee Whist Club at her home, No. 146 West Seventy-fourth Street.  Miss Nora Costello won the prize for the best playing."

Like Mary J. Coar, who erected the Brosnan house, Mary and Angela Brosnan engaged in real estate operations.  They bought and rented properties singly or together throughout the first decades of the 20th century.  (Their sister, Loretto G. Brosnan, died on March 1, 1909.)  

On April 18, 1910, the New-York Tribune reported that Mary T. Brosnan leased her father's saloon from the estate.  She and Angela continued to wheel and deal in real estate.  On June 20, 1911, The New York Times reported that Mary had purchased a Christopher Street property for $6,500, and on April 24, 1912, the Board of Aldermen reported that the sisters had leased 22 Vandam Street "for the use of the Department of Health as a Tuberculosis Clinic."

 

A view of Brosnan's just before Prohibition closed it forever.  The Sun, February 2, 1919 (copyright expired)

In October 1919, Congress passed the Volstead Act, which would usher in Prohibition.  It meant the end of the venerable Brosnan's on Fulton Street.  The Brosnan siblings sold their lease on the property and newspapers throughout the city lamented the barroom's closing.  On March 7, 1920, The Sun remarked that Prohibition:

...wiped out Brosnan's saloon at 157 Fulton street.  Here, however, the heirs of old John Brosnan, who founded the business, were only too glad to accept the handsome price offered them by the bank for their lease on the property, for the Brosnan establishment was renowned for good whiskey and its mellow and potent old ale on draught.

Angela M. Brosnan died in the house on April 19, 1920.  Her funeral was held in the Church of the Blessed Sacrament on the 21st.  

Five years later, on November 7, 1925, the Real Estate Record & Builders' Guide reported that 146 West 74th Street had been sold.  "It is the first sale of the parcel in 35 years," said the article.  The purchaser was another Irish native, John Carway.

Carway was the proprietor of two restaurants--the Dublin Club on the second floor of 149 East 42nd Street and The Dublin on 82nd Street and Amsterdam Avenue.  Only months after he purchased the former Brosnan house, on March 13, 1926, the Irish-American newspaper The Advocate reported, "A branch of the Dublin restaurant...has been opened at 146 West 74th street, under the name of the 'Dublin House."  The article said, "Both are under the management of Mr. Caraway [sic], a well-known Dublin man and caterer."  Carway's opening advertisement called the restaurant, "A rendezvous for gourmets; discriminating people appreciate exclusiveness."

On May 7, 1926, The New York Times said the Dublin House "occupies a dwelling.  Its patronage consists largely of the sporting element and theatrical people.  It is known as one of the 'high-class' eating places of Manhattan and has a large bar."  It was that large bar that got Carway into trouble.  A week before The Times' article, Government agents "seized $3,000 worth of liquor there," said the article.

The incident seems to have rehabilitated John Carway's operation.  At least for a time.  On April 1, 1932, The New York Times reported, "Another raid was made on the Dublin House, 146 West Seventy-fourth Street, a restaurant occupying three floors."  The Prohibition agents seized 75 bottles and arrested Carway and three waiters.

By 1943, 146 West 74th Street was operated as a rooming house.   When it was sold in September that year, The New York Times described it as a "remodeled rooming house."  It was purchased by Mary Mackay in May 1950.  She was the president of the newly formed 146 West 74th Street, Inc.

A renovation in 1972 resulted in duplex and triplex apartments.  Another remodeling, completed in 1988, added a penthouse level, unseen from the sidewalk.   Despite the unfortunate loss of the stained glass transoms and the Queen Anne upper floor sashes, the Brosnan house survives remarkably intact.

photographs by the author

The Lost Eldridge Street Jail - 22 Eldrige Street

22 Eldridge Street is the three-story building, second from left.  Close inspection of the single unshuttered window reveals iron bars.  from D. T. Valentine's Manual, 1860 (copyright expired)

On December 9, 1856, the New-York Daily Tribune reminisced about Eldridge Street, saying it "was not many years ago the northern limit of the city, and whilom [i.e., formerly] a quarter where many of the ancient Knickerbockers had their residences, and where, in ancient days...houses were built upon solid foundations."  The article pointed out 22 Eldridge Street, "between Division and Walker now, or soon to be called Canal."  A wealthy citizen who erected that residence, said the journalist, "probably intended [that it ] should shelter him and his children, and his children's children, even unto the third and fourth generation."  He mulled:

How little he thought that the time would come when the mansion-house would be converted, as it was, into a public school-house, instead of a dwelling for his children!

The writer was recalling the Hart & Belden school, which occupied part of the handsome, Georgian-style mansion by 1822.  The proprietors leased the building from the city, which, strangely enough, reserved the upper portion for a watch-house.  (Watch-houses were used as bases for night watchmen and for temporarily holding prisoners.)  

The privy in the rear yard, intended for a single family when erected, was sorely overused at the time.  The Minutes of the Common Council on April 29, 1822 described "the yard attached to the Watch house [is] in a filthy & offensive State and having become highly offensive to its occupants."  A resolution was passed to install a cesspool on the property.

In 1824, the building was leased to Seely & Olmstead, who continued to oversee the school.  The Minutes of the Common Council on April 26 that year reported that Seely & Olmstead "beg leave to state that there are Some Repairs absolutely necessary to be done for the preservation of the Building."  The Council allocated $25 to $30 to make repairs to the "upper part of the Watch house."

The type of temporary incarcerations in the Watch-House was exemplified in a January 29, 1839 article in The Evening Post.   The coroner was called to examine "the body of a man named Edward Norton, who was on Sunday night found drunk in the street, and brought to the Watch House by a Watchman, and died in the course of the night.  Verdict--death from intemperance."  

The bizarre symbiotic school-and-watch-house arrangement came to an end in 1841.  On May 11, the Board of Assistant Aldermen approved a resolution for " altering the Old Watching in to a Debtor's Prison."

The first debtor's prison in New York, according to Philip Klein's 1920 book Prison Methods in New York State, was opened in 1699.  The irony of the concept was that anyone could have the person who owed him money incarcerated, and that incarceration made the prisoner's ability to earn money to repay his accuser impossible.  In 1856, the New-York Tribune would remark, "Imprisonment for debt, in any form, is looked upon by us as a relic of a barbarous age," and yet the Debtor's Prison went on.

According to the newspaper on December 9, 1856, the parlor and second floors held ten cells each, "six upon one side and four on the other--seven single and three double, and of course only those next the front and rear walls are lighted, except at second hand through the cell doors opening into the hall."  The second floor was reserved for "United States prisoners."  In the basement were the kitchen and accommodations for the jailor's family.  The top floor was a single, large room outfitted with cots and could hold 35 "poor debtors."

Among the first to be jailed here was Lawrence Connelly, a recent immigrant.  Under the Federal Militia Act of 1792, all able-bodied white male citizens from 18 to 45 were required to enroll in the state militia.  Connelly and his family occupied a rear room at 59 Cross Street.  The New-York Tribune reported on January 1, 1842, "A notice to train [i.e. enroll] was left for him, in a front room, but he, residing in a back apartment, never saw or heard of it."  Connelly was arrested for "the non-performance of Militia duty, though he is an alien," reported the article.

The enraged newspaper titled its article "Military Despotism" and said, "He is without a dollar, while his family are without the necessaries of life, and suffering from sickness."  Mrs. Connelly went to "the Colonel" who told her "her husband may be let off upon the payment of the jail expenses."  The $5 fee--equal to $200 in 2026--"is utterly beyond their means," said the New-York Tribune.  The newspaper pleaded, "Will someone who has an extra five dollar bill see that this poor man is liberated this morning?"

The "jail expenses" that the Connellys faced was yet another ironic element of the debtor's prison.  The jailer was given the discretion of fixing "the price of board" for the prisoners.  And unlike other civic institutions, which were governed by the city, the jailer was not salaried.  Instead "this is a fee-office," explained the New-York Daily Tribune.  The newspaper noted, "It is an office where the incumbent must be strongly tempted to peculate upon the prisoners."  (In 1856, there was a fee of $1.50 "for receiving and discharging a prisoner," and a weekly "boarding fee.")

Not all prisoners were debtors.  A young woman arrived in New York City from France in 1843.  The National Anti-Slavery Standard reported on September 21 that she "was betrayed by a fellow in this city, under promise of marriage."  The woman told her friends of "the outrageous means to which he had forced her to resort to conceal the crime."  [Translated to 21st century terms: he had forced her to abort the pregnancy.]  Because the story spread, her former lover sued her for slander and she was locked up in the Eldridge Street Prison.  

The Eldridge Street Prison quickly earned a gruesome reputation.  On December 17, 1845, The Evening Post described it as "that loathsome abode" where "inhumanity and rascality are practised upon the unfortunate."

Perhaps the first instance of slaves being held here came in 1847.  The slave ship Lembranca was seized and the slaves brought to the Eldridge Street prison for holding.  Although slavery had been outlawed in New York for years, New York City's sympathies were, for the most part, with the South and those industries (like cotton) that were so important to New York City's finances.  On August 12, 1847, the National Anti-Slavery Standard reported that Judge Edwards had remanded the custody of the slaves to the Lembranca's captain.  

In response to the abolitionists who feared for the slaves' fates, the captain, "generously consented to take $300 each for them, affirming that they would be worth $500 each in Brazil," reported the newspaper.  The abolitionists took matters in their own hands.  When the captain arrived on August 9 to retrieve the slaves, they were gone.  The National Anti-Slavery Standard reported, "On Sunday night they were safe in their cells when the keeper retired to rest.  In the morning they were not to be found, though the keys of the keeper remained where he had put them the night before, on his table."

An article in the February 1856 issue of The Prisoners' Friend described the conditions here.  It said "the Jail in Eldridge street is a place of suffering, and a standing monument of public injustice."  If the prisoners "behave well," they were allowed to walk around in the corridor between cells.  "If noisy, or disobedient, they are sometimes confined for days in the cells."  At the end of the corridor was a single water closet "and this too is the place for washing."  The article continued:

Thither male and female, white and black, without any screen of decency other than the closet door, are forced to repair, and in the gradual loss of delicacy, moral and physical, stone for the crime of debt.

Charles Carpentier committed what newspapers termed The Great French Railway Fraud in 1856.  A cashier of the North Railway Company, he and his accomplices, Eugene and Louis Grelet, embezzled $1 million--nearly 40 times that much today--and fled to the United States.  

The Grelet brothers were captured and imprisoned in the Eldridge Street Jail.  Eugene Grelet would never leave.  On May 22, 1857, the New-York Daily Tribune reported, "A fortnight since his health began to decline, and the disease soon took the form of an inflammation of the brain."  Eugene Grelet died in the jail on May 21.  Many wondered what actually precipitated the young man's death.

On July 23, 1860, the slave brig William R. Kirby was captured by a United States steamer.  The crew had fled, "leaving their breakfast uneaten upon the table," said The New York Times.  The William R. Kirby arrived in New York City on August 13.  In searching the vessel, three young boys were discovered hiding in the hold.  About 12 or 14 years old, they were naked other than "trinkets of brass and copper" hung around their necks.  The boys were taken to the Eldridge Street Prison "where they will be comfortably quartered until they are wanted as witnesses against the vessel," said the article.  (How they were expected to testify is unclear, since, of course, the African youths did not speak English.)

After visiting the Eldridge Street Jail in the fall of 1860 and seeing the boys fed, a writer wrote to the editor of the New-York Dispatch.  His racist recount said in part:

If you will call about the time rations are served...you will see them served to the prisoners, worse than any decent man would feed his hogs.  You will see wild African boys from the coast of Africa, captured from a slaver, rushing foremost for their supplies, half naked, and with unwashed hands, howling their gibberish, while respectable gentlemen, who are retained here merely on ex parte and malicious affidavits, charging debt and fraud, but totally unsupported, are compelled to stand back until these semi-savages are served.

In 1862, the new Ludlow Street Jail opened and replaced the Eldridge Street facility.  No. 22 Eldridge Street was leased to John Connelly in March 1864 "at $490 per annum," according to the New-York Tribune.  (The annual rent would translate to about $10,400 in 2026 terms.)   He converted it to a rooming house.

The city sold the property to Connelly in April 1867 for $9,900.  In reporting the sale, the New-York Tribune described it as being "formerly the 'Eldridge-st. Jail.'  The building is of brick, about 25 feet front and 55 feet in depth.  It is rather old and somewhat dilapidated."

Connelly demolished the vintage structure later that year.  It was replaced by a four-story Italianate-style brick building that survives.

photograph by Secret Egypt

G. Fred. Pelham's 1891 110 Eighth Avenue

Real estate developers Weil & Mayer embarked on an astonishingly ambitious project in 1891, demolishing all the vintage structures on the east side of Eighth Avenue between 15th and 16th Street and hiring architect G. Fred. Pelham to design a sprawling complex of store-and-flat buildings on the site.  Pelham designed the structures, eight on the avenue and one each on the side streets, in the Romanesque Revival style.  Above the storefronts, the openings altered from arched to square-headed floor-by-floor.  Faced in light-colored brick and trimmed in terra cotta and brownstone, their design strayed from pure Romanesque with Renaissance Revival terra cotta plaques on the side streets and occasional Queen Anne sunburst parapets atop the Eighth Avenue cornices.  Most strikingly, perhaps, (and a commission that kept stone carvers busy for months), were the portrait keystones above the arched openings--exactly 100 of them.  Each one carved with its own personality, some grimacing, some smiling, others seemingly crying out.

Painted today, these three keystone exemplify the stone carvers' craft and the variety of their work.

Typical of the buildings was 110 Eighth Avenue, one of the two middle structures.  It, like the others, filled with working class families.  

Among its early tenants was Joseph Garity, born in Ireland in 1858.  On May 21, 1893, he went to Isaac Frankel's second-hand clothing store on Seventh Avenue to buy a coat.  He attempted to haggle with Dora Frankel, who was tending the store, about the price of a coat.  The New York Herald recounted their discussion:

"That's $9," said Mrs. Frankel.

"I'll give you six.  It's only worth five," said Garity.

"It's worth fifteen, but you can have it for nine," returned the proprietress.

Garity put his hand in his pocket and produced $6.50 and a razor.  He opened the razor.

"Now, will you take $6.50, or won't you?" he demanded.

"Get out of my place," ordered Mrs. Frankel.

The Evening World reported that he "slashed at Mrs. Frankel."  Dora Frankel jumped back, and screamed, and ran behind the counter.  Her scream caught the attention of a policeman who was passing by.  The New York Herald said said he, "ran in to find Mrs. Frankel and Garity doing a turn around the counter, the woman being well in the lead."  Rather than buying a coat, Garity ended his day in jail.  The New York Herald commented, "He is a tough character and has done time."

The stupefying row as it appears today.  No. 110 Eighth Avenue is behind the black car.

A tenant named Livingston and his wife, Alice, lived at 110 Eighth Avenue in the mid-1890s.  Livingston was a traveling salesman and the couple took in a boarder, Edith Reed.  Livingston was on the road in upstate New York in June 1896.  

Early on the morning of June 13, Policemen Lane and Culhane were walking their rounds when Alice and Edith hollered at them from the apartment window.  The policemen arrived to find the two women holding a pair of young men hostage.  The incredible story they recounted was a bit hard to believe.

According to Alice Livingston, at 2:30 a.m. she and Edith were "startled by a knock on the door."  Alice opened it and two men, Martin Maroney and David Rosenheim, 27 and 28 years old respectively, pushed their way in.  Alice said she had never seen them before and ordered them out, but they laughed at her.  Rosenheim went into Alice's bedroom.  The New York Times reported, "She followed to eject him, but Maroney, without any warning, threw her down and held her, and with the help of Rosenheim took $50 in five-dollar bills from her clothing."  The men attempted to flee, but Edith locked the door, trapping them inside.  The women then screamed for help from the window.  (Ten five-dollar bills were found in Rosenheim's pocket.)

In the Jefferson Market the next day, Maroney and Rosenheim told a much different story.  They told the magistrate that they frequently called on the women when Livingston was away on business.  The New York Times reported that they testified, "on this occasion earlier in the evening they had displayed the money, and the women had fixed up this story so as to get possession of it."  The men were held in $1,000 bail each awaiting trial.

At the time of the incident, the store in 110 Eighth Avenue was home to William Baum's grocery.

Like the buildings' keystones, the carved faces above the entrance to 110 Eighth Avenue were different.  Their distinctly disparate styles suggest they were carved by different artisans.

A horrific tragedy occurred here on June 4, 1899.  The New York Journal and Advertiser reported, "Kizia Chapman, one year old, fell to the sidewalk from a window on the second floor of No. 110 Eighth avenue, yesterday afternoon, while playing there with her mother."  The little girl's skull was fractured and she died in the New York Hospital shortly afterward.

Tenant Madge Corcoran was 30-years-old and unmarried in 1904.  She was one of the party of five couples who went on what The New York Times termed an "automobile party" on the night of October 6 that year.  Albert Noyes drove the group in his "big Panhard touring automobile," reported The Evening World.

Another member of the party, Thomas Murphy, told investigators later, "We went to Mount Vernon and we stopped at every roadhouse on the way."  The party's revelry turned to tragedy in an instant just past midnight.  The Evening World reported that Noyes drove his car, "in which was a gay party of five women and four men," over the 30-foot embankment at Jerome Avenue and 161st Street.  The big automobile landed on the tracks of the New York Central Railroad.  The article said it, "was struck by a swiftly moving train and reduced to fragments in a twinkling."  Madge Corcoran was one of the passengers who were instantly killed.

William Baum still operated his grocery store on the ground floor on July 21, 1913 when a fire broke out in packing cases in the cellar early that morning.  It was discovered by Patrolman Thomas J. Eagan who, "ran through the house and warned the tenants," as reported by The Evening Post, which said he "led nearly one hundred and fifty tenants to the roof...while fire raged in the basement."  The article said:

Those rescued were Mrs. Bridget Flynn, eighty-six years old, an invalid, and Miss Rose Sazoretti, sixteen years old.  Mrs. Flynn was partly overcome by smoke, and was revived by the other tenants.  Miss Sazoretti, who was in her apartment on the fourth floor, was revived on reaching the roof.

The rescue of Bridget Flynn was more dramatic than the report initially made it sound.  Officer Egan discovered, after he thought everyone was safe, that James Bernie, his wife Edna, and Bridget Flynn (Edna Bernie's aunt) were missing.  He went back into the building to find Egan trying valiantly to carry Bridget Flynn up the stairs.  With the help of the Bernies, he carried the invalid woman to the roof.

William Baum's grocery store was taken over by Ginsberg Brothers, operated by I. Ginsberg, by 1918.  Ginsberg got into trouble with the Federal Government because of World War I price controls.  On January 26, 1918, The New York Times reported that the Federal Food Board heard a case "against a retail grocer who frankly admitted that he had overcharged for sugar."  The New-York Tribune said, "After five hours' examination Ginsberg admitted his offence and turned over to the board his $186.94 excess profit."  

Tenant John Garland, a truck driver, went to the Marlborough Grill on Broadway and 36th Street on Saturday night, October 7, 1922.  Prohibition had been in effect for two years and, unfortunately for him, a plain clothes detective was on duty there, too.  The 22-year-old was caught with a pint bottle of liquor and arrested.  

Garland worked for Denzer & Nathan, which dealt in silk.  Two years after his regrettable encounter with the agent, he was in the news again.  On the night of October 6, 1924, he got behind the wheel of a Denzer & Nathan truck, loaded with $25,000 worth of silk.  (The figure would translate to about $471,000 in 2026.)  His assistant, James McCarthy was in the passenger seat.  They made it as far as West 28th Street near Tenth Avenue when the truck was forced to the curb by six armed men.

Garland and McCarthy were loaded into the crooks' automobile and taken to First Avenue and 81st Street where they were released.  The following day, the New York Evening Post reported, "Police had to little to work on today in their hunt for six armed bandits who held up and escaped" with the trunk.

image via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services.

Andrew Ventroff lived in 110 Eighth Avenue in 1933.  A registered Communist, he was part of an enormous throng who assembled at a Brooklyn pier on May 25 that year to confront Hass Weidemann.  The New York Times explained that Weidemann was the "representative of Chancellor Hitler" at the Chicag0 Century of Progress Exposition.  German artist, Gotthold Schneider, accompanied him on the voyage.

When the more than 1,000 Communists, carrying placards and banners, mobbed the pier, the two Nazis were spirited away in a tugboat.  The New York Times said, "The disturbance began, when on learning that they had been balked of the object of their attack, the Communists started several fights with persons whose sympathies appeared to be on the side of Hitler."  A melee between 100 policemen and the mass of Communists erupted.  In the end, 43 of the protestors were arrested (including Andrew Ventroff), and four policemen and three Communists were injured.

The storefront was remodeled during the Depression years with a faux stone front.  In the 1970s, it was home to Gilbert's Army & Navy Store.  

image via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services

The complex of buildings was intact in 1940 (above).  The misguided painting of the masonry and removal of the cornice in the late 20th century greatly impaired the buildings' architectural integrity.

By then, the cornice had been removed from all the buildings and the masonry painted.  Sadly, those modernizations significantly diluted G. Fred. Pelham's personable 1891 design.

photographs by the author