Monday, March 18, 2024

The Lost Hotel Dauphin - Broadway and 67th Street

 

To the left, at 66th Street, is the Hotel Marie Antoinette.  from the collection of the New-York Historical Society.

In 1894, William F. Flanagan opened his elegant new Hotel Marie Antoinette at the northwest corner of Broadway and 66th Street, designed by J. Munkowitz.  Four years later Franklin Pettit sold the abutting vacant plot to the north to August M. Bruggeman for around $190,000--around $6.8 million in 2024.  The Record & Guide commented, "The buyer will erect a 10-sty apartment hotel on the site."

Bruggeman's plan never came to pass.  On February 22, 1902, the Record & Guide reported that the Broadway Realty Co. had hired architect C. P. H. Gilbert to design a 12-story apartment hotel on the site.  Before ground was broken, the developer had leased the building to Albert R. Keen, the proprietor of the Hotel Marie Antoinette.

Charles Pierpont Henry Gilbert had firmly established his position as a leading architect of the period.  But he was known for designing opulent mansions and townhouses, and so the Hotel Dauphin would be a step away from his specialty.

At the time, William Earl Dodge Stokes's magnificent Ansonia apartment hotel, designed by Paul E. M. Duboy, was rising six blocks to the north on Broadway.  The Hotel Dauphin would echo its French Beaux Arts architecture--its brick-and-limestone facade rising to a massive mansard with elaborate dormers and copper cresting.

An advertising postcard from post-World War I depicted Broadway with no traffic.  

The hotel--which offered both permanent and transient accommodations--opened on April 15, 1903.  The New-York Tribune reported, "about four hundred guests inspected the handsome new dining rooms, offices, parlors, reception rooms, suites, etc...Several dinners were given, in gayly decorated dining rooms, in honor of the occasion."  Among the visitors were some of New York City's wealthiest citizens, including John D. Crimmins and his wife, William D. Sloane, and William Crittenden Adams.  

Those residents who gave dinner parties included renowned soprano Emma Eames and her husband, artist Julian Russell Story.  Eames made her professional debut in Roméo et Juliette with the Paris Opera.  She debuted with the Metropolitan Opera in November 1891, quickly becoming a favorite of New York audiences.  

Madame Emma Eames, from the collection of the Library of Congress

Born in England in 1857, Story came from an artistic family.  His father was sculptor William Wetmore Story and his brother was a well-known sculptor, as well.  He was best known for his portraits of well-heeled sitters.

Julian Russell Story, Hartford Daily Courant, February 25, 1919 (copyright expired)

The New-York Tribune noted, "F. J. Middlebrook and Miss Middlebrook, too, gave a dinner, at which Mr. and Mrs. Henry S. Thompson, Dr. Russell Bellamy and Mrs. Bellamy, Robert E. Dowling, Miss Potter and Mr. and Mrs. William H. McIntyre were guests."  It added, "Dr. Bellamy, who is the house physician of the Cliffs, at Newport, will be the physician of the new hotel."

Although the new hotel dwarfed its predecessor, Albert R. Keen (who now managed both hotels) touted it as "an annex" to the Hotel Marie Antoinette and marketed both under that name.  It caused understandable confusion and newspapers sometimes differentiated between the structures by referring to the "Hotel Marie Antoinette on 66th Street" and the "Hotel Marie Antoinette on 67th Street."  

A 1916 advertisement grouped both hotels under a single name.  The $2.50 per day starting rate would equal about $69 in 2024.  (copyright expired)

On December 12, 1913, Michigan attorney Devere Hall checked into a ninth floor suite in the northern hostelry.  The 60-year-old was a leading corporation lawyer in his home state, and was once considered for a seat on the State's Supreme Court.  The Evening World said, "Overwork caused a nervous breakdown a year ago."  Hall came to New York to be treated by nerve specialist Dr. Spitzka, who happened to be a boyhood friend.  Hall's adult son, Ray, came with him, taking a furnished room near the hotel.

At 8:30 on the morning of December 14, Ray went to his father's room.  To his surprise, Hall was not there and the bed had not been slept in.  The Evening World reported, "The shoe and sock underneath the open window prompted the son to look out and discover his father's body."  Suicide was ruled out.  The body, which landed on the roof of the hotel's engine room, was clad in underclothing and the other shoe and sock.  Investigators surmised Hall had sat on the sill to remove his shoes and socks and fell backwards out of the window.

In 1929, the hotel regained its individual identity.  After a court battle over which facility could use the name Hotel Marie Antoinette (which the 66th Street owners won), it became the Hotel Dauphin.  On January 11, 1930, the Atlanta, Georgia newspaper The Constitution, noted, "Mr. and Mrs. Guy Mark Mankin, who were the recent guests of their mother, Mrs. Hamilton Douglas, are making their home for the present at the Dauphin Hotel, New York city."

Mrs. H. Magen lived here in 1934 when she read of Gimbel Brothers new policy of "telling the whole truth, good or bad about every article."  In an announcement, the department store offered a $10 reward "to the person who first reports to it any misleading or untrue statement about or claim for qualities of any article of merchandise advertised."

The period of marketing both buildings as the Hotel Marie Antoinette, as in this 1911 postcard, still causes confusion.

Mrs. Magen wasted no time in reporting her disgruntlement with the heating pad she had purchased for 50 cents.  It was advertised to "retain heat 10 to 15 hours."  The New York Sun reported on February 5 that Mrs. Magen was the first customer to receive the $10 award.  "The Gimbel people tested the pad and felt it succumb to the weather after seven hours."  Mrs. Magen's $9.50 profit from the falsely advertised item would equal a satisfying $208 today.

The dining room and ballroom were favorites for large groups.  On April 27, 1938, for instance, the Columbia Daily Spectator reported, "The banquet given annually in honor of the basketball squad at the College of Pharmacy will be held tonight at the Dauphin Hotel."

Columbia Daily Spectator, March 18, 1947.

After mid-century, the Hotel Dauphin was the frequent meeting spot for Irish-American groups.  On May 16, 1953, for instance, the New York Irish American Advocate reported on the final meeting of the I.R.A. Pettigo 1922 Memorial Committee.  The group was formed to honor the soldiers of the Irish Republican Army who died in the summer of 1922.  The article said, 

A very satisfactory financial report was submitted.  Letters were read from the Memorial Committee in Ireland thanking all who helped to make the drive for funds a financial success.  The amount was much larger than it was expected.  Receipts were received from Ireland for the full amount already sent.  A vote of thanks was passed to all who gave donations. 

One of the last of Irish-American events was held here in May 1960.  The New York Irish American Advocate reported on March 27, "The Williamstown Social Club, N.Y. at a meeting held in the Dauphin Hotel...voted to hold a dance on May 7 at the Dauphin Hotel, 67th St. & Bway, N.Y.," adding, "Persons from the Williamstown Co. Galway area, interested in joining the organization can do so at a meeting on Sunday, April 24, at the Dauphin Hotel at 4 P.M."

The various groups that rented the dining room and ballroom would soon have to find other venues.  In 1963 the block was demolished as part of the vast Lincoln Square urban renewal project.  A 32-floor mixed use structure occupies the site today.

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Saturday, March 16, 2024

The Rev. John Leighton Wilson House - 47 East 30th Street

 


Born in Sumter, South Carolina on March 25, 1809, John Leighton Wilson graduated from Columbia Theological Seminary in 1833, sailing almost immediately to West Africa for the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions.

Rev. John Leighton Wilson (original source unknown).

After helping establish a mission in Cape Palmas, Liberia, he worked with the people there until 1834, when he returned to America to marry Mary Elizabeth Bayard, the daughter of a prominent Savannah, Georgia family.  The newlyweds sailed back to Cape Palmas that year to work with the Grebo people.  Over the years, the Wilsons created schools, translated school books, hymns, and parts of the Bible into Grebo, and helped establish other missions.

The Wilsons returned to America in 1852 due to John's health issues.  He was elected Secretary for the Presbyterian Board of Foreign Missions in New York located at 23 Centre Street, and shortly afterward purchased the newly built house at 47 East 30th Street.

Their 19-foot-wide home was four stories tall above a low English basement.  Anglo-Italianate in design, it was faced in brick and trimmed in brownstone.  Ornate Italianate ironwork protected the areaway and stoop.  The first floor openings were fully arched and set within deeply molded frames.  A stone bandcourse introduced the upper floors, and a wooden cornice with a latticework frieze capped the design.

The wooden latticework below the cornice is unusual.

Although the Wilsons were ardent abolitionists, in 1861 (either just before or after the first shot in the Civil War), they returned to the South.

While the Wilsons occupied 47 East 30th Street, Harriet Hunter ran an upscale boarding house on Union Square.  On November 1, 1861, she announced in the New York Herald, "Mrs. Hunter has removed from No. 30 Union square, to No. 47 East thirtieth street, where she can accommodate a few persons for the winter."

Among her first boarders were the unmarried Sayre sisters, Ophelia, Emily A. and Elizabeth H.  The women may have been newcomers to New York City, since they joined the Fifth Avenue Presbyterian Church that same year.

An ad placed in the New York Herald on February 12, 1862 caught the eye of Ebenezer Storer.  "Mrs. Hunter, 47 East Thirtieth Street, has two pleasant Rooms for rent; one suitable for a physician's office.  Possession immediately."  Dr. Storer took the room and lived and practiced there at least through 1880.

Among the boarders in 1864 through 1866 were John H. Anthon and his wife.  Highly involved in civic and charitable causes, Anthon was an inspector of public schools, and his wife was the First Directress of the Orphan Asylum Society of the City of New-York in Bloomingdale (today's Upper West Side).  

By 1867, Elizabeth J. Hunter (presumably Harriet's daughter) was operating the boarding house.  Either she or one of her boarders lost a valuable pet in 1870.  An announcement in the New York Herald on April 28 read: 

Lost--April 27, a small green parrot, with red bead [sic] and red feathers in tail; he is a little larger than a canary; $20 reward will be given to anyone who will return him to 47 East Thirtieth street.  He is the gift of a friend, therefore particularly valuable to the owner.  

The sizable reward would translate to more than $450 in 2024.

Dr. Ebenezer Storer was an ardent proponent of temperance.  In 1874 he joined a long list of physicians who signed a "medical declaration" to the State and Federal Governments that said in part, "We are of [the] opinion that the use of alcoholic liquor as a beverage is productive of a large amount of physical disease; that it entails diseased appetites upon offspring; and that it is the cause of a large percentage of the crime and pauperism of our cities and country."  The declaration proposed state and federal laws that would "confine the traffic in alcohol to the legitimate purposes of medical and other sciences, art, and mechanism."

Laura M. Thorpe, who "belongs to one of the most fashionable families of Philadelphia," according to The National Police Gazette, took rooms in the house in 1878.  The newspaper described her as "a handsome blonde of about twenty-five years."  Her husband, Gould H. Thorpe, a "wealthy produce merchant" had sued her for divorce earlier that year "on the ground of infidelity to her marriage vows."  The indiscretion had been carried out with one of New York's wealthiest young men, Lloyd Phoenix, the son of Philip Phoenix and the grandson of Stephen Whitney.

Both Laura Thorpe and Lloyd Phoenix were "well known among New York 'society' people," said The National Police Gazette.  Their illicit relationship had caused what the journal on January 11, 1879 called "a social scandal which for months has been the talk of the up-town clubs and of 'fashionable' society circles."  On December 26, 1878, the scandal became even more public.  Laura Thorpe sued Phoenix for a physical attack in her rooms here.

According to Mrs. Thorpe, on December 18 Phoenix came to her rooms and demanded his love letters, fearful that they would be used as evidence in her divorce case.  When she refused, he seized an iron poker "and with this formidable domestic weapon inflicted several blows," according to The National Police Gazette.  The article continued,

Then, as she further alleges, Mr. Phoenix, by no means satisfied with the frightful havoc he had made with her beauty, seized a chair and augmented the bruises, wounds and dislocations by at least two.  After that he, so she claims, took from the mantel a majolica vase, which she specifically says cost $20, and with violence threw it at her, thereby breaking it into fragments.

Hearing the crash, two servants rush into the room and Mrs. Thorpe directed one of them to find a policeman.  Phoenix fled.

The National Police Gazette reporter asked Laura Thorpe why Phoenix would think that beating her would prompt her to relinquish the letters.  He recounted the ensuing conversation:

"Oh!  It is not the first time he has done such a thing, and this time he tried to kill me," said Mrs. Thorpe.

"Do you mean that he has beaten you before this?" 

"Twice before this," she replied, "On one occasion he lamed me seriously by the violence of his blows. This time he pointed a revolver at me and was fingering the trigger, when I knocked it from his hand and screamed for help." 

In 1880, Dr. Augustine Arrango shared Storer's office, most likely during a transitional phase.  In 1881 only Arrango was listed here.   

That year, on April 2, Virgil Lopez was sitting in Arrango's waiting room.  Through the window he noticed another patient, Elvina De Molina ascending the stoop.  Suddenly, 14-year-old James Goss rushed up, grabbed Elvina's pocketbook and ran.  Almost before she could realize what had happened, Goss ran down the stoop in pursuit of the teenage purse snatcher.  At the corner of 31st Street and Fourth Avenue (today's Park Avenue South), Goss tackled and overcame the youth.  The New York Times said on April 3, 1881, "The lad was arraigned before Justice Flammer, at the Jefferson Market Police Court, and committed for trial in default of $500 bail."

Never married, Elizabeth J. Hunter died in 1889 and bequeathed 47 East 30th Street to Sarah F. Richards, most likely a relative.  She leased it that year to Dr. John Warren, who would occupy the doctor's office and rent rooms in the upper floors.  Unlike the Hunter women's fashionable boarders, most of Warren's were in the theatrical profession.

Among the earliest was Charles Franklyn Henry De Witt Chatterton, who had for years been private secretary to theatrical manager Henry E. Abbey.  The New York Times called Chatterton "one of the best known and most highly esteemed of the theatrical people of this country."  Somewhat interestingly, when Chatterton was bedridden in the spring of 1891, he did not consult his landlord doctor.  On May 9, The New York Clipper reported, "The condition of Charles P. Chatterton, who has been ill with consumption, at his home, No. 47 West Thirtieth Street, this city, was reported last week as being somewhat improved. Dr. Curtis said the hemorrhages were practically over, and, although the sick man was in a critical condition, it was hoped he would rally."

Chatterton's recurring condition proved fatal three years later.  When he died on October 11, 1894, The New York Times mentioned, "He had been subject to hemorrhages for a long time, and three times within the last three years attacks of this kind have been so severe that his life has been despaired of."

Boarding at 47 East 30th Street at the time were four other theatrical professionals--the married couple Grace Sherwood and Jerome Sykes, 22-year-old actor Ulysses Alton, and 28-year-old John Walton, also an actor.  Grace Sherwood was described by the New York Press as "one of the most popular and charming women in her profession," and her husband was stage manager of the Bostonians.  She became pregnant while living here, and had to give up her role of Chollie Kell in Passing Show.

Tragically, Grace died here on May 2, 1894 while giving birth to twins.  In reporting her death, the New York Press said, "Mrs. Sykes was well known and liked in the profession."

In 1894, both Walton and Alton would be in trouble with police.  The first was John Walton, who landed a role in Mr. Barnes of New York that year.  On September 5, 1894, Walton and a friend, William Harvey walked up Sixth Avenue with two women, dropping them off at 30th Street.  As the females walked away, Walton accused, "You made a fool of me before those women," according to the New York Sun, which noted, "Harvey contradicted him with an oath."

With that Waldon pulled out a knife and made several slashes to Harvey's clothing, but failed to wound him.  The New York Sun reported, "Policeman McDonald, who jumped off a Sixth avenue car just then, arrested the fighters and took them to the West Thirtieth street station.  Walton was bailed out by Shanly, the restaurant keeper."

Ulysses Alton was behind bars a month later.  On October 13, 1894, he and another actor, John E. McGoward, stepped into the cigar store next to Daly's Theatre.  While there, according to The Press, their "discussion waxed warm, and Alton grabbed an automatic slot machine and hit McGowan on the head, inflicting serious scalp wounds."

In 1896, Sarah Richard offered the house for lease again, describing it as an "unfurnished, four-story brown-stone and brick English basement dwelling; newly painted and decorated."  The new proprietor seems to have replaced the sometimes troublesome theater tenants with professionals like Benjamin Orne, a stockbroker.

Sarah Richard's son, J. Swift Richards, sold 47 East 30th Street to Sheppard K. de Forest in September 1913.  He quickly remodeled it into bachelor apartments.  

The New York Times, September 7, 1913 (copyright expired)

Among the initial tenants was N. Val Peavey, a pianist who used his apartment here as his New York teaching studio.  (He lived in Brooklyn.)   Another was stockbroker John F. Murphy, who had started in the brokerage business in 1898.  He and his wife lived here until his death on September 3, 1918.

In 1941, the Italianate ironwork and other Victorian details were intact.  image via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services.

By mid-century the once elegant neighborhood had significantly changed.  A renovation completed in 1948, resulted in a veterinarian office on the ground floor, a kennel in the basement, and a triplex apartment on the second through fourth floors.

Surprisingly, a veterinarian office still occupies the ground floor.  Today there are six apartments in the former Wilson house--its former elegance lost to paint, abuse and a commercial awning.

photographs by the author
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Friday, March 15, 2024

The Barber Badger House - 15 King Street

 



In 1817 John Jacob Astor I paid Aaron Burr "handsomely," according to one source, for his Richmond Hill Estate slightly south of Greenwich Village.  In doing so, he took over the land lease from Trinity Church, upon which the estate stood.  Over the next decade, Astor leveled the land and laid out streets, including King Street, named for Revolutionary War soldier and member of the Continental Congress Rufus King.  By the mid-1820s, prim brick-faced houses were rising along the new blocks.

Among them was 15 King Street, on the northwest corner of Congress Street.  Two-and-a-half-stories tall, its peaked attic level was pierced by two dormers at the front, and three windows on the side--two of them were arched and the other was quarter-round.  A stable, accessed on Congress Street, sat within the rear yard.

A century before Sixth Avenue mowed a swatch through Greenwich Village, 15 King Street sat within a quiet residential neighborhood.  map by G. W. Bromley & Co. from the collection of the New York Public Library.

The house became home to the Barber Badger family by the early 1830s.  Born in Coventry, Connecticut on June 24, 1793, Badger was an editor and publisher.  He was the original editor of The Christian Advocate and Journal, founded in 1826.  He resigned in 1831 to establish the New York Weekly Messenger, acting as its publisher and editor.  He and his wife Sarah had a son, Thomas B. Watt Badger, born in 1819.

On Monday morning, June 10, 1833, Thomas and at least one of his parents had a particularly heated argument.  The teen left the house and disappeared.  If his parents thought he would cool down and return, they were mistaken.  A week later, the frantic couple placed a heartfelt notice in the Evening Post.  Saying Thomas had "left his parental home...under circumstances peculiarly painful," the detailed description noted, "He was a bright intelligent lad, in the 14th year of his age; rather full face, fair skin and large black eyes; the nail on the fore finger of the right hand had been torn nearly off by an accident, and has not yet grown out."  After describing his clothing, the notice said, 

He left home without hat or cap, but may have obtained one since.  Any person who shall return the lad to his parents, No. 15 King street, New York, or inform them where he may be found, shall be rewarded for the trouble and expense which they may incur in such a deed of mercy and benevolence.

It appears the youth was found.  A Thomas Badger was listed as a silver merchant in New York a decade later.

Sarah B. Badger died at the age of 52 on March 15, 1837.  As was customary, her funeral was held in the parlor at 15 King Street two days later.  Within three years Barber Badger left the house, which became home to the Gideon Fountain family.

A merchant doing business on Whitehall Street, Fountain had deep American roots.  His first French Huguenot ancestor, named de la Fontaine, arrived in Staten Island before 1658.  Gideon and his wife, the former Maria Slover, had six children, Jansen, Loo B., Emma Slover, Kate, Mary Ann, and Eliza Ross.  Despite what must have been snug conditions, the Fountains took in a boarder.  In 1840 it was James W. Greenman.

Gideon Fountain was highly involved in local politics.  He was a member of the Henry Clay Club of the Eighth Ward, and was on its Committee of Arrangements for a ball held at the Tivoli Saloon (the former Aaron Burr mansion nearby) in February 1842.  He ran for alderman on the Whig ticket in 1843, receiving a blistering assessment in an anonymous letter to the editor of the New York Herald in April that year.  The writer said Fountain's "intentions are pure, but [he is] a decided flash in the pan."

Youngest daughter Eliza Ross Fountain created this charming sampler in 1827 at the age of 9.  image via samplings.com.  

That year, Fountain served as the Chairman of the  Inspectors of Election in the Eighth Ward.  Things got especially heated during a meeting on November 8.  Two months later, on January 5, 1844, the New York Herald reported, "James McMurray and Peter Crawford were put on trial for an assault and battery on Gideon Fountain."

On February 12, 1848, the New York Herald reported that the State Senate was considering Gideon Fountain's nomination for Harbor Master, a responsible and coveted position.  He was confirmed and would hold the position of Harbor Master for years.  It necessitated his relocating his family to Brooklyn.

The King Street house became home to Calvin Demarest, a carman (a driver of a delivery vehicle).  Living with the family in 1856 and '57 was James H. Demarest, also a carman and presumably a son or brother.  Like the Fountains, the Demarests took in a boarder.  In 1860, for instance, their boarder was policeman Joseph Halsted, and in 1872 Howard Barrett, another carman, lived with the family.

In March 1873, Calvin Demarest hired architect J. C. Doremus to design a full-height, 10-foot extension to the rear of the house.  The extensive renovations cost him the equivalent of $30,000 in 2024.  It was most likely at this time that the quarter-round window in the attic was bricked shut.

Nine years later, on April 28, 1882, Demarest sold 15 King Street to milk dealer Louis H. Muller for $12,000.  The figure would translate to about $354,000 today.

Around 1890 Muller retired.  It appears that several of the people with whom he associated were less than respectable.  On August 20, 1891, The New York Times reported that he had furnished the $4,000 bail to get Edward Bechtodt, "the green-goods swindler," out of jail.  The article said Muller "swore that he owned real estate worth $35,000."  ("Green goods" was a 19th century term for counterfeit money.)

Two years later, on July 26, 1893, The Evening World began an article saying, "The notorious Katie Metz was again a prisoner in Jefferson Market Court this morning.  Katie is one of the boldest of the many disorderly women [i.e. prostitutes] who frequent the Tenderloin district, and she has been arrested more times than any one can remember."  The frustrated journalist said, "Each time that she has been arrested, Katie has been sent to the island in default of bail, and she has always managed to get the bail."  

As an example, he noted, "she was arrested June 7 and sentenced to one month on the island.  Louis H. Muller, of 15 King street, became her surety in the sum of $400."

Barber Badger's stable sat where the garage door can be seen today.

Like all well-heeled families in Manhattan, the Mullers summered away from the city.  And summer homes, like townhouses, required help.  On June 17, 1896, an  advertisement appeared in The World that read, "Housework--German girl for private family going to country; good wages.  Mrs. L. Muller, 15 King st."

In the first years of the 20th century, the neighborhood around 15 King Street had become one of Italian immigrants.  In April 1917, Muller leased the house to Dr. Alfred Benevento.  

On May 12, 1919, the doctor's nephew, Attillio Graziano, was discharged from the army and moved in with him.  Formerly a drug clerk, Graziano had served with the 305th field Hospital overseas during World War I.  Like many returning servicemen, he suffered from what today would be diagnosed as post traumatic stress disorder.  The day after his nephew moved in, Dr. Benevento discovered the 23-year-old dead from an overdose of morphine.  The Sun reported, "Dr. Benevento said he evidently had miscalculated the quantity of drug which he took to quiet his nerves."

In 1920 Dr. Alfred Benevento replaced the old Badger stables with a "private garage," as described in Department of Building records.  He would not enjoy it for long, however.  Two years later Louis H. Muller sold the property to Alberto Baratta. 

Dr. Benevento's garage is seen here around 1940.  from the collection of the New York Public Library

When Baratta  purchased the property, Sixth Avenue still ended at Carmine Street.  In 1925 the massive project of extending the avenue southward was begun.  It wiped out hundreds of buildings, narrowly skirting 15 King Street and virtually erasing Congress Street.  

photo by Edmund Vincent Gillon from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York

Dr. Anthony J. Poggi, Jr. and his wife Marie lived in the house after mid-century.  Poggi received his degree from the New York College of Dentistry on June 14, 1923.  The couple had two daughters, Frances and Evangeline.  Marie Poggi, described by The Villager as "a lifelong Villager," died in the King Street house on April 27, 1965.  


A renovation completed two years later resulted in a two-family home.  Other than expected alterations like replacement windows, outwardly the venerable house is little changed after 200 years.

photographs by the author
no permission to reuse the content of this blog has been granted to LaptrinhX.com

Thursday, March 14, 2024

A 1935 Remodel - 29 West 9th Street

 


As the upscale tenor of Fifth Avenue spilled over to the side blocks in the decade prior to the Civil War, builder Dennis McDermott erected a pair of handsome residences on the north side of West 9th Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenues in 1854.  

Designed in the Anglo-Italianate style, their entrances within the rusticated first floor were a few steps above the sidewalk.  A full-width cast iron balcony fronted floor-to-ceiling windows on the second floor, and bracketed cornices crowned the design.

Dr. William E. Parsons, described by The New York Times as "one of the most prominent and wealthy dentists of New York," purchased 17 West 9th Street (later renumbered 29) as an investment.  His tenant seems to have operated it as a high-end boarding house in the 1850s.  Among the residents in 1856 and 1857 were Robert B. Clerk, who was appropriately a clerk; William Clibborn; and merchant John Dean.  

In the late 1860's, Dr. Caleb C. and Dr. Phoebe A. F. Dusenbury lived here.  The unusual husband-wife medical team were described by The American Spiritualist as "Doctors of Magnetics."  Adherents of the "Magnetic Movement Cure," they used "vital magnetism, electricity, baths, &c." to eradicate disease "without stimulants or drugs."  The American Spiritualist touted, "No drunkards or cripples made here."

In the meantime, Dr. William E. Parsons and his family lived at 86 Christopher Street.  He and his wife Louisa had five children.  Trouble within the family came around 1869 when Parson's brother Rueben died leaving a fortune of $75,000 to William's children.  (The inheritance would translate to about $1.7 million in 2024.)  Parsons, who "wanted the money himself," according to The New York Times, managed to overturn his brother's will and receive the entire amount.

The resulting furor within the family prompted Louisa to leave her husband and move into the West 9th Street house with her adult son, Rev. Reuben J. Parsons.  The New York Times reported, "With this money and that which he had of his own, Dr. Parsons retired from active life and went to Pound Ridge, in Westchester county to live."

Reuben J. Parsons was born in 1841 and ordained a Roman Catholic priest in 1866.  The American Catholic would later say he was "the son of a mixed marriage, his father Protestant, his mother one of the old faith."  He would be best remembered as a church historian, producing both books and articles for decades.  While living here in 1872, his first book, A Biographical Dictionary was published.

Although Louisa Parsons and Rev. Parsons left 29 West 9th Street in 1875, the drama of the Parsons family played out in newspapers for years.  The day after Louisa died in 1892, Dr. Parsons married his housekeeper, Miss Pullen.  The couple already had a child, Jessie K, who was 17 years old at the time.  At some point William E. Parsons rewrote his will, leaving his entire estate to Jessie and ignoring the children he had with Louisa.

Parsons died on April 11, 1897.  William E. Parsons Jr. and his sister Emily Parsons Wagstaff sued to overturn the will, asserting their father "was unsound, mentally, for years before his death and when the will was made," according to The New York Times.  The Washington D.C. newspaper The Times reported, "The suit was hotly contested, but in the end the courts upheld the will, and the young woman was left in absolute possession of the money.  Since then she has lived an aimless life."

Jessie Parsons came to New York City on November 1, 1897 and checked into the Manhattan Hotel "where she was known as a frequent guest," according to The Times of Washington D.C.  Three days later the newspaper reported, "At noon yesterday her body was found in the bed.  She had shot herself in the mouth."  William E. Parsons Jr. was not sympathetic, telling a reporter from The New York Times that she most likely killed herself "because she knew she hadn't done right."  The Parsons siblings renewed their fight in court to obtain their father's fortune.

Sisters Josephine I. Parsons and Emily H. Parsons Wagstaff had purchased 29 West 9th Street from their father in November 1890 for $17,400--about $586,000 today.  They leased it to Judge Robert Ludlow Fowler and his wife, the former Julia Groesbeck.  The couple, who were married in 1876, had four children, William Slocum Groesbeck; Robert, Jr.; Mary and Elizabeth Burnet Groesbeck.

A judge in the Surrogate Court, the erudite Fowler had published Our Predecessors and their Descendants for the Fowler family a year before moving into the West 9th Street house.  Julia busied herself with charitable work, donating items like blankets and yard goods to organizations like the Utica State Hospital and the New York Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children.

Like her neighbors, Julia Fowler maintained a domestic staff.  On September 20, 1896, she advertised, "Wanted--Butler and cook; man and wife; with first-class reference."

On the evening of September 30, 1900, what turned out to be a minor incident resulted in chaos and panic on the block.  The New-York Tribune reported, "A little wind blew a curtain against a lighted gas jet on the third floor of the home of R. L. Fowler, at No. 29 West Ninth-st., last evening.  The fire was extinguished in a few seconds without more than slight damage to the curtain." 

But before the flames were put out, a passerby saw them and ran down the block to send in an alarm.  Firefighters were informed that the Chinese Consul's house at 26 West 9th Street was burning.  They arrive to find no fire.  "The firemen then thought the blaze was in Dr. Hubbard's, at No. 27, and without waiting to ask they smashed off the knob of the front door and rushed into the house."  The astonished Hubbards explained that the small fire had been at the Fowler house.  The New-York Tribune reported the fire fighters "returned to quarters."  Dr. and Mrs. Hubbard were left to deal with their broken-in door.

The following year, Joseph Parsons and Emily Wagstaff leased the house to S. S. Chamberlain for one year at $1,800 (about $65,000 today).  Then in 1902 the sisters rented 29 West 9th Street to Dr. Thomas C. Chalmers.

A widower, Chalmers came from a medical family.  His father was Dr. Thomas C. Chalmers, Sr., and his older brother was Dr. Matthew Chalmers, who had served as an assistant surgeon in the Navy during the Civil War.  Matthew Chalmers retired the year Thomas and his family moved into 29 West 9th Street and Thomas absorbed his practice.

Dr. Thomas Chalmers graduated from New York University in 1897, and was a member of the Sons of the Revolution.  Living with him was his daughter Louise.  She became engaged to Reginald Ducat in 1911.  On May 27, five days before the wedding, Louise hosted a dinner party for the ten bridesmaids and ushers.  The Sun mentioned, "Miss [Elizabeth] Ducat will give a luncheon for the same guests at Sherry's and Mr. and Mrs. L. Valentine Pulsifer...will give a dinner for them."

Louise's wedding in Grace Church was reported in detail in the society pages.  The New York Times mentioned, "The church ceremony was followed by a small reception at the home of the bride's father, 29 West Ninth Street.  Mr. and Mrs. Ducat will spend most of the Summer in England, where Mr. Ducat was educated at Trinity College."

Society was stunned when, only four weeks later on July 30, 1911, The New York Times reported that Dr. Thomas C. Chalmers was engaged to Elizabeth Ducat.  The article said, "Those who heard of it looked upon the match as a rather romantic one, for it was only on June 1 that Miss Ducat acted as maid of honor at the wedding of Miss Louise Chalmers."  It continued, "Miss Ducat is considerably younger than the physician...After Aug. 19 Dr. Chalmers and his bride will be at home in West Ninth Street."

But, instead, the Palmer sisters leased the house to newlyweds Richard and Lois Swan Lawrence.  The couple was married at the American Embassy in Paris on September 29, 1911, and a month later, on November 7, 1911, The New York Times reported they rented the house "for a term of years."  But tragedy would change that.  

On August 28, 1912, The New York Times reported, "Mrs. Lois Swan Lawrence, the wife of Richard Lawrence, died at her home, 29 West Ninth Street, on Sunday."  Lawrence almost immediately moved out, and in December the house was leased to Ernesta Davis.

No. 29 West 9th Street was again a social center when lawyer William Marston Seabury and his wife, the former Katharine Emerson Hovey, leased the house in the post-World War I years.  The couple had three daughters, Katharine Lispenard (who often went by her middle name), Etheldreda, and Muriel Gurdon.

On December 28, 1919, the New York Sun reported, "[Mr. and] Mrs. William Marston Seabury gave a dansant yesterday afternoon in their home 29 West Ninth street, for their daughters, Miss Katharine Lispenard Seabury and Miss Etheldreda Seabury.  The guests, numbering about one hundred, included many of this year's debutantes and students from Harvard, Yale and Princeton who are at home for the holidays."  (Muriel, who was nine years old, was still too young to participate.)

A year later, on December 25, 1920, the New York Herald announced, "Mr. and Mrs. William Marston Seabury of 29 West Ninth street have sent out invitations for an afternoon dance next Friday for their daughters, the Misses Lispenard and Etheldreda W. Seabury.  Miss Lispenard Seabury will be one of next season's debutantes."

As preparations were being made for Lispenard's debut, on October 23, 1921 the New York Herald noted, "During the summer Miss Seabury made an extended trip through Europe.  Her mother plans to hold an old fashioned afternoon reception to introduce her daughter on December 17 at the family home."  The article said her family had been "associated with the history of New York since Colonial days...She is directly descended from the Lispenard and Leonard families who gave their names to some of the oldest streets in this city and also of Bishop [Samuel] Seabury, the first Episcopal Bishop of America."

After having been in the family for nearly seven decades, Josephine L. Parsons and Emily H. Wagstaff sold 29 West 9th Street in April 1922.  

In 1935 the house was given a striking remodeling.  Architect William S. Gregory, who was best known for designing churches, gave the brick and brownstone a veneer of stucco.  The 1854 lintels and sills were removed, as was the cast iron balcony.  In place of the second floor windows, a wall of steel sash casements was installed.  The cornice was replaced with a parapet decorated with protruding pipe-like tiles.

29 West 9th Street was originally a copy of 31 West 9th Street, at left.  image via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services.

The basement, first and second floors were renovated to a triplex apartment.  There were now two apartments each on the third and fourth floors.

Living here from 1962 to 1972 were children's author Maurice Sendak and his domestic partner, psychoanalyst Eugene Glynn.  While living here Sendak wrote and illustrated Where the Wild Things Are.  On March 10, 1964, The New York Times reported it had won the Randolph J. Caldecott award for "most distinguished American picture book."  The article noted, "Some book critics have termed Mr. Sendak's creations too frightening for children, but the committee of librarians found them 'grotesque, kindly and humorous--never terrifying."


Sendak also wrote In the Night Kitchen, published in 1970, while living here.  That year he received the Hans Christian Andersen Award.  In 1996 he was honored by President Bill Clinton with the National Medal of Arts.

photographs by the author
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Wednesday, March 13, 2024

Emery Roth & Sons's 1938 2 Sutton Place South

 

image via streeteasy.com

By the first years of the Great Depression, the Sutton Place neighborhood--described by The New York Times in 1920 as "a slum"--was rapidly transforming into one of Manhattan's most fashionable enclaves.  In 1937, the old houses at the southwest corner of Sutton Place South and 57th Street were demolished and Emery Roth & Sons was commissioned to replace them with a high-end apartment building.  

Notable for designing apartment buildings, Emery Roth & Sons drew from the Italian Renaissance for 2 Sutton Square South.  The two-story base was clad in mauve-veined stone, its entrance discreetly tucked within a recessed, corner porte-cochère behind a stone balustrade.  Here well-heeled residents could alight from their vehicles in privacy.  In contrast to the relatively unadorned upper floors, the porte-cochère featured double-height Corinthian pilasters and spandrels of carved Renaissance decorations.

The is entrance hidden within the porte-cochère .  image via streeteasy.com


The brick-faced upper floors were relatively unadorned, other than stone quoins and a course of inset geometric designs between the third and fourth floors.  The triptych windows were as much an architectural element as mere fenestration.

Among the early residents were newly-married William Saroyan and his bride Carol Grace, who leased one of the penthouses.  Still in the U.S. Army, the playwright and novelist was stationed in the Astoria Army Post in Queens, assigned to the Army's film unit.  According to Lawrence Lee and Barry Gifford in their 1951 Saroyan, A Biography, Saroyan was not cut out for military life.  "What is certain is that, by the late summer of 1943, Saroyan's obstinate attitude had gotten him into serious trouble with the Army."

William Saroyan in 1940.  from the collection of the Library of Congress.

One morning a slipped disc prevented the writer from commuting to the Queens post.   He called his sergeant and explained the situation.  The Army was not so understanding a few months later.  Saroyan wrote,

A month later, I couldn't get out of bed again, so again I phoned, and I believed the situation was the same as last time, but around eleven two military police, two medical corps sergeants, and  two privates all came up to the penthouse at 2 Sutton Place South.

He was taken to a military hospital for observation as to determine "whether he should be discharged as mentally unfit," according to his biographers.

Another playwright in the building was Rose Franken and her writer husband William Brown Meloney.  The couple married in 1937.  Among the works Franken completed while living here were the 1937 Of Great Riches; Strange Victory and Claudia: the Story of a Marriage, both published in 1939; and the 1940 When Doctors Disagree.

In 1946, producer Walter Wanger was searching for an apartment in the Sutton Place neighborhood as a setting for his film Smash-Up, starring Susan Hayward and Eddie Albert.  In his Keep 'Em in the East--Kazan, Kubrick, and the Postwar New York Film Renaissance, Richard Koszarski writes, "Wanger was even 'stymied for a while by the reluctance of Sutton Place property owners to cooperate in the interests of cinematic art' until one friendly tenant, the playwright Rose Franken, allowed access to her apartment at 2 Sutton Place South."

The most celebrated tenant to date was actress Marilyn Monroe, who moved in following her divorce from baseball great Joe DiMaggio in 1955.  Barbara Leaming, in Marilyn Monroe: A Biography, writes, "On the morning of February 25, 1956, a limousine pulled away from 2 Sutton Place South.  Marilyn, a dark mink coat slung over her shoulders, was on her way to the airport."  Monroe was headed to the West to shoot Bus Stop.  Simultaneously, playwright Arthur Miller was flying to Nevada where he would establish a six-week residency in order to file for divorce from Mary Slattery Miller.

Marilyn Monroe gets into a waiting car at 2 Sutton Place South.  image via themarilynmonroecollection.com

Although several accounts have Monroe and Miller being married in her 2 Sutton Place South apartment, the couple was wed at the Westchester County Courthouse in White Plains, New York on June 29, 1956.  They took an apartment around the corner at 444 East 57th Street.

A much different sort of entertainer at 2 Sutton Place South was Mabel Garrison.  Described by the Daily News as "one of the leading American coloratura sopranos of her time," she had joined the Metropolitan Opera Company in 1914.

The affluence of the residents' was reflected in an incident involving Harry P. Barrand and his wife, the former Helen Stukenborg in 1961.  Barrand was vice president of Manufacturers Hanover Trust Company (where he first met Helen).  The couple was married in Grace Church on April 3, 1948.

Harry and Helen returned from Europe on September 8, 1961.  Cab driver Anthony Soldano picked them up at the pier.  When the Barrands unpacked, they realized that a bag containing $50,000 in jewelry (closer to $490,000 by 2024 conversion) was missing.  The 38-year-old cabbie was tracked down in Florida and arrested on October 21.

Living in a 10-room penthouse apartment in 1963 were Carl J. Schmid and his wife.  Schmid was the owner of Julius Schmid Inc., a pharmaceutical firm.  When the maid answered the door at 1:30 on the afternoon of May 2, 24-year-old David McNeil and 16-year-old Wendell Shanks asked to see Mrs. Schmid.  The Daily News reported, "Mrs. Schmid was at the luncheon table when they were ushered in.  She was immediately suspicious."

"Are you Mrs. Schmid?" asked McNeil (who had recently been released from federal prison after serving a term for impersonating an officer).

Mrs. Schmid replied, "I am, but I'm afraid I don't know you."

"Well, I know you.  This is a stickup," he answered.

Burglarizing the penthouse would be simple.  The Daily News reported, "The Schmids returned only on Wednesday from Europe.  Still in bags, unpacked and easy to cart off when the intruders showed up, were tens of thousands of dollars worth of furs and jewelry."

With unbelievable calm, Mrs. Schmid rose from the table and eased her way out of the room while the young men were distracted.  She later explained, "I nudged Doris.  We walked to the foyer and out the door.  They made no move to stop us.  We went down in the elevator to the ground floor, and the manager called police."

As luck would have it, an elevator maintenance man was working in the building, and he shut off power to the elevators.  When police arrived, they merely waited at the staircase doors to make their arrests.  With the crooks in custody, the mystery remained, according to the Daily News, "how did McNeil know about the Schmids and where they lived?"

By far the most socially prominent resident of 2 Sutton Place at the time was Consuelo Vanderbilt Balsan, the former Duchess of Marlborough.  Her summer estate was in Southampton, Long Island.  The daughter of William Kissam and Alva Smith Vanderbilt, she was married to the ninth Duke of Marlborough in St. Thomas Church on Fifth Avenue on November 6, 1895.

Consuelo Vanderbilt Balsan, the former Duchess of Marlborough.  from the collection of the Library of Congress.

The Duke and Duchess divorced in 1921.  Later that year Consuelo married Lt. Colonel Louis Jacques Balsan of the French Air Army.  The couple built a villa at Ãˆze on the French Riviera, and during World War II came to the United States where Consuelo Balsan regained her United States citizenship.  Balsan died in 1956 at the age of 88.

Consuelo Vanderbilt Balsan lived here and in Southampton, supporting her many charities, until her death on December 6, 1964 at the age of 88.

Millionaire Michael Bloomberg was 34 years old before he turned his attention to romance.  He married Susan Elizabeth Barbara Brown on December 15, 1976.  His biographer, Joyce Purnick writes in Mike Bloomberg, Money, Power, Politics, "The newlyweds lived first at 2 Sutton Place South on the East Side, then moved to Armonk in suburban Westchester in the mid-1980s."

Emery Roth & Sons's dignified and discreet 2 Sutton Place South continues to house well-heeled New Yorkers, its outward appearance barely changed in nearly a century.

many thanks to reader Lowell Cochrane for suggesting this post.
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