The 1950 Rockefeller Guest House - 242 East 52nd Street

photograph by Epicgenius

An advertisement in the New York Herald on February 18, 1866 offered the "modern high stoop house" at 242 East 52nd Street for sale.  A mirror-image, two-bay wide Italianate dwelling sat next door.  At the time, the once-rural Turtle Bay district was quickly being industrialized as factories, breweries and the like cropped up along the riverfront.  By the Depression years, 242 East 52nd Street had lost its stoop and converted to furnished rooms.  As early as 1940, it was abandoned.

242 and 244 East 52nd Street were an eyesore in 1940.  via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services.

John D. Rockefeller III married Blanchette Ferry Hooker in 1932.  They moved into 1 Beekman Place, part of a much-changed area of Turtle Bay, in the 1940s.  The couple were avid art collectors, but "modernist" art, according to Rockefeller, was his "wife's department."

In 1948, Blanchette proposed they erect "a town house designed largely to accommodate visiting members of the family," according to The New York Times.  More importantly, she wanted a venue to display her avant-garde artworks and to entertain.  The couple were well acquainted with Philip C. Johnson.  In 1930 he became director of the architecture department of the Museum of Modern Art, founded by John's mother, Abby Aldrich Rockefeller, in 1929.

The Rockefellers acquired 242-244 East 52nd Street and commissioned Johnson to design their guest house.  The vintage houses were gutted, leaving only two stories of brick side walls.  In his 1952 New York Architecture 1650-1952, Huson Jackson notes, "Although technically a remodelling [sic] job, virtually nothing of the original buildings remains except the party walls.  (By preserving them, the project was deemed "remodeling" and, therefore, circumvented the rigors of "new construction.")

On September 2, 1949, The New York Times reported, "An outstanding example of modern architecture and equipment in a town house designed largely to accommodate visiting members of the family is nearing completion in the Beekman Place section of Manhattan for John D. Rockefeller 3d and his wife."  The article stressed, "The owners, however, will continue to live in their apartment just around the corner."  (A Rockefeller spokesman said, "they preferred to call the new dwelling an adjunct to their apartment, rather than a family guest house.)

Johnson faced the symmetrical, nearly windowless base in Flemish bond, ruddy red brick.  The upper portion was mostly glass--six panels divided by steel bars.  Privacy would be accomplished by draperies.  The New York Times explained that the house was "divided into two sections."  The rear wall of the living room, said the article:

...will be of glass and will look out on a patio with a tree and small pool designed to give an 'outdoor' effect. Reached by stepping stones across this courtyard will be the separate one-story master suite of bedroom, bath and dressing room.  The bedroom also will have a plate-glass wall looking out on the courtyard, and with heavy draperies for privacy.

Above the living room were two smaller bedrooms and two baths.  The New York Times remarked, "It was reported that the furniture and furnishings would be made especially to fit in with the unusual character of the house."

Blanchette Rockefeller in the living room.  from the Library of Congress's Gottscho-Schleisner Collection

Construction was completed in 1950.  Referring to Philip Johnson's close relationship with Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, The New York Times architectural critic Paul Goldberger would later comment, "The exterior is Miesian, with glass, steel and brick creating an air of formality; within is a reflecting pool and an enormous space that is less Miesian than proto-SoHo loft."

from the Library of Congress's Gottscho-Schleisner Collection

(Interestingly, years later Philip C. Johnson said, "The top of the house doesn't exist for me.  I only added it because there is no point to doing a one-story house in New York.  It would look all wrong.")

The public had a chance to see the house in May 1951 when the City Garden Club of New York held its annual showing of gardens and penthouses.  The New York Times said, "Also open will be a New York guest house with modern pool at 242 East Fifty-second Street."  It was opened to the public again in 1954 when a benefit exhibition of young artists' works was held here.

The house was often used as additional space for the Museum of Modern Art.  In his 1973 Good Old Modern: An Intimate Portrait of the Museum of Modern Art, Russell Lynes writes:

It was presided over by a butler named Charles, who could and frequently did run up luncheons for a small number of trustees and donors to the Museum, for Important Persons and those being wooed.  There, too, were cocktail parties and small dinners and the ever present hazard of someone accidently backing into the shallow pool.

In 1955, Blanchette Rockefeller donated the building to the Museum.  It was used for events and functions until the MoMA's East Wing (also designed by Philip Johnson) was completed in 1964.

from the Library of Congress's Gottscho-Schleisner Collection

On February 7 that year, The New York Times reported, "The Museum of Modern Art has sold its Guest House."  The article noted, "The new owner is Mrs. Robert C. Leonhardt, the wife of a Manhattan business consultant, who also owns a Johnson house in Lloyd's Neck, L. I."  In reporting on the $100,000 sale (about $1 million in 2026), the article called the house, "one of Mr. Johnson's most striking designs."

Leonhardt and his wife, the former Lee Sherrod, had two children.  He told The New York Times, "the transaction was agreed upon in April, 1962."

Philip C. Johnson became the next occupant of 242 East 52nd Street when Lee Leonhardt leased it to him following the death of Robert Leonhardt.  Johnson shared the house with his partner, exhibition designer and former art dealer, David C. Whitney.  The couple introduced artworks by the likes of Andy Warhol, Frank Stella, John Chamberlain and Roy Lichtenstein.  They also repainted the interiors white.

London antiques dealer Robin Symes purchased the property in 1979.  He filled the house with an astounding collection of Art Deco furniture.  The New York Times described, "Robin Symes's collection of Art Deco lacquered or leather-wrapped furniture--the largest private holding of designs by the innovators Pierre Legrain and Eileen Gray--includes many classics of the Paris style."  Symes's partner, Christo Michailidis recalled first seeing the house to Rita Reif of The New York Times, saying, "We needed a house in New York like a hole in the head."  But, he said, they fell in love with it "as an art work."

A decade, on April 2, 1989, The New York Times reported that the entire Symes collection was slated to be sold at auction by Sotheby's.  Included in the artwork was the Rockefeller Guest House.  In reporting that it would be among the items sold (the first real estate offering ever by Sotheby's), Rite Reif noted, "Although not a landmark, it was one of Mr. Johnson's earliest architectural projects and is cited in many books on architecture."  The winning bid for the house was $11.16 million, or about $29 million today.

photograph by Epicgenius

Designated an individual New York City Landmark in 2000, the Rockefeller Guest house has undergone several owners.  It was most recently sold in December 2023 for $20 million.

The 1892 Felix Hamberger House - 123 East 95th Street

 

In two phases--completed in 1890 and 1892--developer Francis J. Schnugg erected 17 abutting houses on the northern side of East 95th Street between Park and Madison Avenues.  Nearly filling the blockfront, they were designed by Louis Entzer Jr. in a happy blend of styles.  Among the second phase was 123 East 95th Street, a mirror image of No. 125.  The structures' Rorschach-like design was best exemplified in the shared molding and Renaissance Revival carving that straddled the doorways.

Along with side-by-side stoops, the parlor floor ornaments unified the pair.

Entzer's potpourri of styles included Gothic Revival inspired square-headed moldings at the parlor level, the Renaissance Revival carving above the doors and faceted oriels at the second floor in the same style, Romanesque Revival arched windows and eyebrows at the third floor, and neo-Classical swags and wreaths in the pressed metal cornices.

No. 123 was purchased by Felix Hamberger, an insurance broker.  The family's upper-middle-class status was reflected in their ads looking for domestic help.  In wealthy families, the roles of the staff were highly defined, while in middle-class homes servants took on several responsibilities.  An advertisement on October 2, 1895 read: "General housework and plain cooking for family, adults.  123 East 95th st." and the following year, on June 15, 1896, an ad sought a "Girl to do plain cooking, washing and ironing for small family of adults."

Francis Schnugg reclaimed the house in foreclosure in 1902.  It was sold to Bernard Neuhaus who resold it to Charles Gulden in June 1906.  Gulden purchased the house as an investment and leased it to Dr. George A. Friedman and his wife.  The couple had two small children.

Among the Friedmans' staff was Katie Becker, described by the New York Herald as "a Hungarian girl of 22."  On April 27, 1912, the newspaper said that Katie was "such a model maidservant that [the couple] wouldn't part with her for anything.  Peace and quiet usually follow Katies ministrations to household needs."

That peace and quiet was shattered the the night of April 25.  Dr. Friedman came home late from a meeting at Mount Sinai Hospital.  "He found his wife and Katie in the dining room, where Katie had prepared a late supper," said the New York Herald.  Just as Friedman sat down in the basement level dining room, Katie remarked that she smelled smoke.  The doctor investigated and found the portieres between the living room and his consulting room were on fire.  The fire was put out, but Katie was "greatly excited."

Dr. Friedman assumed that Katie had accidentally set the curtains on fire while lighting the gas fixtures.  He told Katie that "she wouldn't be scolded," but she insisted that she had nothing to do with the fire.  Unconvinced, Friedman and his wife went back to their dinner and Katie went upstairs.

Seconds later, the Friedmans were jolted by Katie's screams.  The doctor bolted out of the basement door to find a policeman.  The street was busy with men and women who were leaving a dance nearby.  By the time Friedman brought back a policeman, he found his parlor floor crowded with passersby who "had run in to find out what the matter was."  He also found Katie, "lying on the floor under a small table."

The curtain incident had been, apparently, a distraction by an intruder.  When Katie came to, she told of entering her room to surprise a "big man."  She told investigators that he "put chloroform to her mouth and then dragged her downstairs, throwing her into the room where she was found," according to the newspaper.  Other than the $2.50 that had been in her purse, the intruder took nothing.

Because of that, police did not believe Katie's story.  The New York Herald said, "The police were somewhat inclined to think that Katie's digestion was out of order."  Her employer, however, trusted her.  Dr. Friedman now accepted that the "queer burglar" had set the curtains on fire and "that it was a real adventure that Katie met with when she climbed the stairs."  The article said, "So Katie won't loose her job on a charge of being too imaginative."

Dr. Friedman placed what many readers must have consider a bizarre ad in the "Lost" columns of The New York Times on July 14, 1913.  "LOST--Six rubber stomach tubes, July 9, on Lexington car, 118th St.; reward.  Physician, 123 East 95th St., 9 to 1 P.M."

The Friedmans continued to rent 123 East 95th Street through 1918.  On January 28, 1919, the New-York Tribune reported that the Charles Gulden Estate had leased it to Mrs. Harry Symonds.  She was still occupying the house when the Charles Gulden Estate offered it for sale in November 1920.

It is unclear whether Mrs. Symonds continued to lease the house from the new owner, or if she, in fact, was the purchaser.  Either way, she continued to live here.  Her vocation was the breeding of pedigree Pekingese dogs and in 1921 a dozen of her dogs were listed in The American Kennel Gazette and Stud Book.

On December 12, 1925, Noble T. Macfarland and Helen Brantingham were married in Rockford, Illinois.  Macfarland was a 1919 graduate of Amherst College and was a partner in Beckhard & Macfarlane, concert promoters.  The February 1926 issue of the Amherst Graduates' Quarterly noted, "They live at 123 East 95th Street."

As early as 1929, Henry Anderson Rapp (known as Harry) and his wife, the former Elizabeth Reilly, occupied the house.  The couple was married in 1927 and on January 7, 1929, The New York Times reported that their daughter had been born the previous day.  Suzanne Elizabeth would get a sister, Elizabeth Pamela, in 1936.  

Sharing the house by then were Henry's older brother, William J., and his wife, the former Martha Florentine Geyer Rapp.  A maritime attorney, Henry was a partner in the law firm Hann & Rapp.  Also living here was the brothers' widowed mother, Anna G. Reilly Rapp.  Anna was born in 1870.  Her husband and William's and Harry's father, Francis Berkely Rapp, died in 1921.

A young Anna G. Reilly Rapp as she appeared around the 1890s.  (original source unknown)

It was almost assuredly the Rapps who altered the parlor opening to French windows with multiple panes sometime before 1940.

The updated parlor window was in place in 1940.  via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services

The Harry Rapp family's trip to the Bronx on July 4, 1940 was doubly unlucky.  They got a flat tire in Pelham Manor and Harry pulled over to change it.  While he worked, Forest L. Appelby, Jr. slammed his car into the rear of Harry's.  The Daily Argus of Mount Vernon, New York reported, "Both cars were considerably damaged."

Anna G. Rapp died at the age of 75 on October 11, 1946.  Her estate of "more than $10,000," according to the New York Star Journal, was divided equally among her six children.

By the time of Susanne Elizabeth's engagement to E. D. Farrell Sullivan in January 1951, her family had moved to 118 East 93rd Street.  William and Martha continued to live in the East 95th Street house.  

William J. Rapp, who was still actively working at the time, died of a heart attack on December 19, 1965 at the age of 73.  It is unclear how long Martha continued to live at 123 East 95th Street.

An original mantelpiece survives on the parlor floor.  image via streeteasy.com

At some point, the house was converted to a two-family home.  Much of the interior detailing survives and from the exterior the house has changed little since the parlor windows were updated in the early 20th century.

photographs by the author

The Schuchman Apartments - 126 East 12th Street

 

photograph by Anthony Bellov

Born in Hesse-Darmstadt, Germany in 1851, John P. Schuchman arrived in New York City in 1868.  He became an attorney and was highly active in the Lower East Side German community, known as Kleindeutschland.  He sat on the Tenement House Committee in the 1890s, which worked to improve the conditions of the working-class.  His involvement in the German community was greatly reflected on April 17, 1894 when he signed a 13-year renewable lease on 190 Third Avenue, known as Scheffel Hall.  In 1891 he was appointed a judge in City Court.

In 1900, Judge Schuchman purchased the two vintage houses at 126 and 128 East 12th Street between Third and Fourth Avenues.  On March 11, The New York Times reported that John G. Prague had filed plans for "a six-story brick and stone flat" on the site.  He pr0jected the construction cost at $60,000, or about $2.37 million in 2026.

The commission was unusual for Prague for several reasons.  The prolific builder-architect worked almost exclusively on the Upper West Side where he created more than 200 private rowhouses, and he most often worked for himself.

Prague was known for his ebullient decorative elements.  Interestingly, for The Schuchman he focused only on the first floor.  Above a short stone stoop, he blended brick and brownstone to create a stark contrast of sharp angles (created by the crisp quoins around the openings) and sensuous Romanesque carved ornaments.  The keystone of the foliate carved, concave-arched entranceway took the form of a female head from which swirling ornaments spread Medusa-like.  Unlike most Medieval inspired carvings of the Romanesque Revival style, Prague's boiled with movement.

The stone carver made the decorations come alive--seeming to spume from the portrait keystone.  The bases of the engaged columns are vibrant with flame-like movement.  photograph by Anthony Bellov

Prague was unexpectedly reserved in the mid- and upper sections.  Faced in yellow ironspot brick, their square-headed openings wore uninspired, flat brownstone lintels.  The top floor sat within molded cornices.

There were four apartments per floor in The Schuchman, which was described by the New York Herald as "a bachelor apartment house."  An advertisement described: "Five rooms and bath; hot water, elevator, steam heat."  

Among the first to move in was its owner, Justice John P. Schuchman.  Other residents were middle-class professionals--at least one doctor and several lawyers.  Another initial tenant was Willis H. Alling, who used his apartment as his studio.  He advertised, "teacher of piano and organ, interpretation in singing, Concert and Studio Accompanist."

Although patent attorney Jacob N. McIntyre was "a sufferer from paralysis," as worded by The New York Times, he continued working and had offices in the Temple Court Building.  He hired Signey C. Olesen as his nurse and housekeeper in 1895.  But when he moved into The Schuchman he dismissed her.  The unemployed woman was infuriated.

On January 3, 1901 McIntyre (who "uses an ear trumpet," according to the New-York Tribune) was arrested.  Signey C. Olesen accused him of stealing a $300 pair of diamond earrings from her.  She also charged, "that through the entire six years of her service, although she was to receive $20 a month, she received only about $50 in all from Mr. McIntyre."  

The two faced off in court on January 11.  Olesen asserted that the 65-year-old had given her the earrings "in lieu of salary."  McIntyre countered that, "he simply let her wear them once, and that he never gave them to her."  The case was dismissed because there was no hard evidence against McIntyre.

photograph by Anthony Bellov

At the time, 58-year-old Dr. David Cory shared a first-floor apartment with a man identified only as "a Mr. Ryan."  The physician suffered with alcoholism.  Were his patients to discover that their doctor had a drinking problem, Cory's career would be ruined.  On July 30, 1901, police found him "in a state of alcoholic coma" on Fourth Avenue at 14th Street.  He was taken to the Belleville Hospital alcoholic ward where he said his name was "John Correy" and his contact was "Mrs. Ryan," at 126 East 12th Street.  He was released the next day.

On August 19, Dr. Cory was found drunk and unconscious again.  Once again he was taken to Belleville Hospital, but this time he died "less than thirty minutes after he was admitted," as reported by the New York Herald.  A reporter visited his apartment at The Schuchman, but "Mr. Ryan was not at home," said the New York Herald.

Justice John P. Schuchman retired from the City Court on January 1, 1902.  Two years later, on the evening of September 28, 1904, he returned home and "met a man on his way out.  The man was carrying the hall carpet on his back," reported The Evening World.  When Schuchman asked Edward Conner what he was doing, he responded that he was merely "taking the floor covering out to dust it."

Using street slang that he no doubt picked up during court cases, Judge Schuchman said, "I think that you intend to dust with the carpet."  ("To dust" meant to hurry off or flee.)  Schuchman attempted to detain Connor, but he "fought vigorously."  The uproar attracted Policeman Kepko who arrested the would-be carpet thief.  In court Connor confessed, "If I'd knowed a judge lived in the house I'd have passed it by.  I suppose I'll have to do me bit now."  (To "do one's bit" was to serve a jail sentence.)

The young bachelor Charles R. Buffalow lived here as early as 1905.  On February 25, 1907, he gave himself a dinner "on the anniversary of his 22d birthday," as worded by The New York Age.  The article said his twelve guests "were entertained in a most charming manner."  The lifestyles of The Schuchman residents were reflected in Buffalow's menu that evening.  The article listed the "relish course" as including oysters, blue points on the half shell, sherry and salted almonds.  For the soup course there was green turtle soup, deviled crabs, fish, and white wine.  The entree included roast filet beef, mushrooms, petit pols pommes and champagne; and asparagus vinaigrette was the salad course.  The dessert course was "biscuit tortoni and dematasse [sic] cordials."

John Schuchman rented an apartment on January 9, 1908.  He had, apparently, not thoroughly vetted his new tenant.  Schuchman arrived home three nights later to find police in the building.  "What is all this excitement about?" he asked.  "I am John Schuchman, formerly Justice of the City Court.  I own this apartment house and live upstairs."

To his surprise, Police Captain Shaw responded, "I am raiding a poolroom.  These men are prisoners."  (A poolroom was an illegal gambling operation.)  The New York Herald said, "The ex-Justice said he found it hard to realize that such a thing as a poolroom had got into his house."  

Among the prisoners were Dan O'Rourke, alias Diamond Dan, and George Wilson, alias Chick Trigger, both well-known Bowery figures.  The New York Herald said the police "found racing sheets and other things connected with the ponies" in the apartment.  

On May 2, 1908, The New York Sun reported that around 7:30 the previous evening John P. Schuchman was driving a runabout (a light buggy) on Lenox avenue.  Suddenly, "his horse took fright at an automobile near 117th street and dashed into a trolley car."  The impact was significant.  The article said that the horse "hit the car squarely amidship and the Judge was thrown through the side window of the car."  Astoundingly, Schuchman was catapulted through the trolley car window.  "He landed in the aisle, knocking over in his flight Ethel Douglas, 7 years old."  The New York Times remarked, "Mr. Schuchman's entrance caused a panic among the passengers."

The little girl was not injured, however Schuchman was removed from the trolly unconscious.  Shaken up, he was treated for cuts on his head, face and hands on the site.  His horse, sadly, broke a foreleg and had to be shot.

Later that year, John P. Schuchman moved back to Hesse-Darmstadt, Germany.  He died there in 1914. 

This turbulent corner carving is alive with writhing leaves and vines.  photograph by Anthony Bellov

The residents of The Schuchman continued to be professional.  Living here in 1914 was John B. Golden, a Democratic Assemblyman.  He sat on the assembly's committee of Codes and Public Education.

William Boland and his wife, Magdalen, lived here in the post-World War I years.  Born in 1843, Boland served in the Civil War.  In 1924, he was one of the last 300 surviving veterans of that war living in New York City.  During the city's Memorial Day parade on May 29 that year, "Those who had fought in the three wars within the generation's span shouldered guns again," said The New York Evening Post.

Despite his advanced age, William Boland marched with the Lloyd Aspinal Post.  In its extensive coverage of the military event, The New York Evening Post recounted a touching moment.  It said that when his unit reached the reviewing stand, "William Boland, eighty-one...looked searchingly around for a lavender hat.  The owner of that bonnet also was looking for him.  They spied each other at the same time."  The article continued:

Mrs. Magdalen Boland, her little hat bobbing clambered down from the stand as her husband stepped from the ranks.  They stood in front of the reviewing stand and kissed.  Then Boland ran to join his company.

By the Depression years, several of the tenants of 126 East 12th Street showed activist tendencies.  On September 28, 1935, two residents, 21-year-old William Castle and 22-year-old John Lamarr, were arrested as part of a mass demonstration.  The group, the National Students League, had been protesting a motion picture that, according to The New York Times, "shows a radical youth in an unfavorable light in comparison with a conservative American."

The 1936 Official Report of the Special Committee on Un-American Activities listed several residents of 126 East 12th Street as registered Communist Party members.

The arrest on March 6, 1937 by Federal agents of resident See Too, who operated a retail business, was shocking.  That afternoon, the freighter Taybank arrived in Brooklyn from Shanghai with crates consigned to See Too.  Customs officials "seized 600 tins of prepared smoking opium," reported The New York Times.  Agents said that the importance of the raid did not lay in the amount of the drug captured, "but in the fact that the raid had broken the link of a major smuggling ring with world-wide activities stretching from Shanghai to New York."

The New York Times reported, "The dark, chunky See Too sat in the outer room of headquarters of the special agents [and] at 5 o'clock last night he was still there, puffing on a long cigar, his face expressionless."

At around the time of See Too's arrest, the ground floor of 126 East 12th Street was given a coat of stucco.  

image via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services.

A more drastic modernization came in the 1960s or 1970s when the intermediate and terminal cornices were removed.

The cornices were gone as early as 1980.  via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services.

Happily, a restoration initiated in 2017 included the installation of approximate replicas of the cornices, the removal of the ground floor covering, and the cleaning and repairing the masonry.

many thanks to historian Anthony Bellov for suggesting this post

The 1921 David Belais Building - 137 West 14th Street

 

photograph by Carole Teller

The de Peyster family acquired land above Greenwich Village around 1820.  The first de Peyster arrived in New Amsterdam in 1685 and since that time, said the New York Journal, "New York had chosen her generals, jurists and merchant princes" from the family.   Just after the end of the Civil War, James de Peyster erected a handsome mansion on the property, at 137 West 14th Street.

As the turn of the century neared, the once-elegant West 14th Street block was increasingly becoming commercial.  The de Peyster family, however, remained.  When the wedding of Emily Petit and Robert Ralson Crosby was held in the drawing room on December 12, 1898, the New York Journal and Advertiser commented, "This is the spacious old de Peyster mansion, one of the very few of the Knickerbocker homes that are still occupied in the lower part of the town."

When Wilson de Peyster died on March 7, 1911, The Press reminded readers that he "was a member of one of the oldest New York families, being in the seventh generation from Johannes de Peyster, founder of the family, and related to the Beekmans, the Winthrops and the Livingstons."

On January 6, 1917, the Record & Guide reported that Philip Aaronson intended to erect a nine-story loft building on the site of the de Peyster mansion.  Something upset those plans, but not before Aaronson demolished the vintage residence. 

When David Belais purchased the property from the de Peyster family three years later, in November 1920, the New York Herald described it as a "vacant lot."   The article mentioned, "He will erect a six story loft building for his own occupancy," and The New York Times added, "The property has been in the ownership of the de Peyster family for a hundred years."

Belais hired architect Victor C. Farrar to design the building.  The plans were quickly scaled back and a month after The Times article, Farrar filed plans for a "three-story brick and limestone loft building."

Completed the following year, the project cost Belais $30,000, or about $540,000 in 2026 terms.  Faced in limestone above the storefront,  Farrar's design was overall Renaissance Revival, but the many-paned openings, six-over-nine at the second floor and six-over-six at the third, harkened to Colonial precedents.  A dignified, balustraded parapet crowned the design.

A brownstone mansion survived next door, sans stoop, in 1940.  The 3-golden-globes of the Silberstein pawn shop hangs above the 2nd floor of No. 137.  via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services.

David Belais was a metallurgist and manufacturing jeweler.  Born in Greenwich Village, he was a graduate of City College and a descendant of an esteemed rabbinical family.  His great-grandfather, according to The New York Times, was "Chief Rabbi of England during the reign of George III."

In the late 19th century, Belais started experimenting with alloys in hopes to find a metal that could substitute platinum.  He found success in 1917 when he formulized "white gold."  The following year he filed for a patent and received it on February 10, 1920, just prior to buying the de Peyster property.

The Keystone, September 1926 (copyright expired)

David Belais was as well-known (if not more so) for being a "friend to animals," as worded by The New York Times.  He founded the Humane Society of New York in 1904 and served as its president without any compensation.

Belais died at the age of 70 "after a long illness," according to The New York Times, on June 5, 1933.  His business was closed.

Four months later, on October 30, The New York Sun reported that Solomon D. and Abraham Silberstein had purchased 137 West 14th Street.  The brothers operated D. Silberstein's Sons pawn shop.

Like all other pawn shops, D. Silberstein's Sons occasionally auctioned off unclaimed items.  Typical was the auction on September 10, 1942 that focused on "diamonds, jewelry, second-hand watches."

On August 3, 1946, The New York Times reported that D. Silberstein's Sons had sold the property.  Renovations completed the following year transformed the building to "factory" space throughout for the Norma Pencil Corporation.  

A 1950 ad termed 137 West 14th Street the "Norma Building."  The Jewelers' Circular-Keystone, August 1950.

Known for its four-color mechanical pencil, the Norma Pencil Corporation improved on the item in 1953.  On September 6, The New York Times reported it "has a new working model of its Multikolor Pencil, containing a ball-point filler instead of one of the customary four different colored leads now used."

The Norma Pencil Corporation occupied 137 West 14th Street into the mid-1960s.  

The building became the Dolphin Center in the late 1960s.  An early presence here was Alternate U, described by the N. Y. Amsterdam News on March 15, 1969 as a "'college' free of grades, credit and age restrictions created to give alienated Americans the tools to correct social injustices."  The school opened on the third floor on February 10 that year.

The article explained that its 1969 catalog included 25 courses:

...ranging in subjects from the King and Kennedys assassinations and the mimeograph as a revolutionary tool to life in Hanoi, anarchism, unidentified flying objects, institutionalized oppression, the Middle East and Marxian economics.

On June 30, 1971, the New York Militant described the Dolphin Center as "a beehive of effective organizing and nonviolent action."  Headquarters in the building, said the article, were "the Psychologists for Social Action, New York Sane Council, Vets for Peace, Medical Committee for Human Rights, Computer People for Peace and other groups."  The newly-formed Women's National Abortion Action Coalition (WONAAC) opened its headquarters here that year.

Also in the building was the Courtyard Playhouse.  In April 1970 soprano Judith Kurz "and others," according to The New York Times, performed in Performance Plus.  And the following year, on May 6, 1971, The Villager reported that the Courtyard Playhouse Foundation "is presenting a new children's show at 1:30 p.m. every Saturday and Sunday throughout the summer."  The children's shows, like Jack and the Beanstalk, produced in May 1974, were favorites for years.

The building was renovated in 2011-12.  The theater space became Theaterlab.  In 2017 the Offside Tavern occupied the ground floor and by 2019, Secret Loft was on the second floor.  During the televised Democratic Presidential Debates that year, "The comedians behind 'Pod Damn America,' a self-described gothic socialist comedy podcast, will offer commentary and riffs at Secret Loft," reported The New York Times.

The top floor was home to the Art of Our Century Gallery.  According to the Village Preservation Blog, in August 2020, "Art of Our Century Gallery was inspired by legendary art world figure Peggy Guggenheim's 1942-1947 gallery on 57th St."

Today Victor Farrar's 1921 storefront has been decimated.  But close inspection reveals that an elegant wavecrest frieze carved into the limestone survives--a relic of a time when patrons shopped for white gold-and-diamond cocktail rings and bracelets here.

many thanks to artist Carole Teller for suggesting this post

The William C. and Emma Orr House - 50 West 76th Street

 

Real estate developer Leonard Beeckman embarked on an ambitious project in 1887 by breaking ground for nine, 19-feet-wide rowhouses on West 76th Street between Eighth and Ninth Avenues (renamed Central Park West and Columbus Avenue, respectively, in 1890).  Designed by George M. Walgrove, the homes were completed in 1889.  

(Walgrove, incidentally, would be appointed a Parks Commissioner in January 1906, only to be forced to resign that November for using his post "for political purposes," according to Mayor George B. McClellan.)

Among the most striking of the homes was 50 West 76th Street.  Above the doglegged box stoop, Walgrove striated the parlor floor by alternating wide dressed stone with narrow rough cut strips.  Elegant Renaissance-style pediments crowned the center windows of the second and third floors.  The other openings sat within multi-layered, stepped architraves topped with molded cornices.

The house was briefly owned by Reverend Dr. Edmund Guilbert.  Born in 1837, he was rector of the Episcopal Church of the Holy Spirit on Madison Avenue.

Rev. Dr. Edmund Guilbert, Annals of an Old Parish Historical Sketches of Trinity Church Southport Connecticut 1725 to 1898 by Rev. Edmund Gilbert D. D.(copyright expired)

Rev. Guilbert was the victim of two "rogues," as described by the New York Herald in the summer of 1891.  On July 1, the Waterbury, Connecticut Evening Democrat explained that one "well dressed young man" would board a boat heading from New York to summer communities.  He would find an unaccompanied valise on the deck and, just before the gangplank was raised, his accomplice on the pier would wave frantically as if there were an emergency.  The first man would grab the valise and rush off the boat.  The Evening Democrat said, "So frequent had these thefts become, that...policemen were detailed to watch."  

Like most wealthy Manhattan churches, the Church of the Holy Spirit closed during the hot summer months while their congregants abandoned the city for their summer estates or fashionable resorts.  On July 22, Rev. Guilbert boarded the Monmouth to Sandy Hook.  The Evening World reported that just as the ship's whistle blew, a "well dressed young man" hurried to the pier with a valise.  Police caught Henry Hamilton, whose story "was all knocked in the head when the rightful owner of the valise, Rev. Dr. Edmund Guilbert...appeared on the scene and told how he had left the valise for a moment in the saloon."  The Evening Democrat said that among the contents were stocks, the value of which "has been placed at thousands of dollars."

At the time of the incident, Rev. Guilbert had already tendered his resignation from the Church of the Holy Spirit.  In 1890 he accepted the position of rector of Trinity Episcopal Church in Southport, Connecticut.  On November 7, 1891, the Real Estate Record & Builders' Guide reported that Edmund Guilbert had sold 50 West 76th Street to William C. Orr and his wife, the former Emma Philbin.

Born in Brooklyn, Orr graduated from St. Francis Xavier College in 1868 and received his M. A. degree the following year.  A specialist in real estate law, he was counsel for the Fifth Avenue Bank, the Emigrant Industrial Savings Bank, and the Home for the Aged of the Little Sisters of Poor.

William and Emma had three sons--Philbin, Sherwood and William Jr.--and three daughters--Constance Philbin, Jeannette, and Florence.

The Orrs apparently took in a boarder and in 1896 a "Mrs. Nickerson" listed her address here.  She was a daughter of John Forman of Asbury Park, New Jersey and a sister of Laura Forman.  In May 1896, the women's widowed father remarried and Laura, who was unmarried, "became restive under the changed conditions," according to him.  To complicate the situation, George H. Lefferson began "paying attention" to Laura.  The New York Sun commented that John Forman "was not well disposed toward the young man."

In July 1896, Laura came to New York to visit her sister.  Suddenly, on July 16, a carriage stopped in front of 50 West 76th Street and several men got out.  They forcibly put Laura into the vehicle, and took her to the House of Mercy in Inwood.  Her father had arranged to have her incarcerated there.  The New York Sun reported, "Her father paid her board there, although most of the inmates are supported by the institution."

Constance Philbin Orr died "after a short illness," according to The New York Times, on July 9, 1910.  Somewhat surprisingly, her funeral was not held in the house, but at the Church of the Blessed Sacrament on Broadway and 71st Street.

Within three years, the Orrs left 50 West 76th Street and they leased the the home to the Daniel O'Connell family.  Like his landlord, O'Connell was an attorney.  Born in Bridgeport, Connecticut, he graduated from De La Salle College in Toronto and earned his law degree from the New York Law School.  He and his wife, the former Marcella Harlin, had two sons and three daughters.  

President Grover Cleveland appointed O'Connell an Assistant United States District Attorney.  He was, as well, president of the McNab & Harlin Manufacturing Company.

On the afternoon of March 14, 1916, Daniel and Marcella O'Connell took in the matinee at the New York Theatre on Broadway and 44th Street.  At 4:30, Daniel O'Connell, as reported by the New-York Tribune, he fell "unconscious while in the theatre."  The 61-year-old had suffered "an attack of apoplexy," as reported by The New York Times.  (The term most often refers to a stroke today.)  He died in the ambulance on the way to the hospital.

Daniel O'Connell's funeral was held in the parlor of 50 West 76th Street on March 17, followed by a mass at the Church of St. Paul the Apostle on Columbus Avenue and 59th Street.  

The Orrs continued to lease the house to well-to-do tenants until William C. Orr's death in 1926.  It was purchased by Hannah Marshall who operated it as unofficial apartments.

In 1940, 50 West 76th Street looked no different than it does today.  via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services.

Living here in 1932 were Henry Ritter and his wife, Anna.  Born in Hartford, Connecticut in 1874, Henry was an inventor.  For several years he had been paralyzed from the waist down.  On May 23, Anna went out after getting Henry settled into a chair.  He was reading his newspaper and smoking a cigar when the newspaper caught fire.  Unable to get up, the fire spread to his clothing.  Another resident, Joseph Babalco, smelled smoke and entered the apartment.  The New York Times reported that he "found Mr. Ritter's clothing still burning."  He beat out the fire and called for an ambulance, but Ritter was dead by the time it arrived.

Gershon Legman rented an apartment here in 1937.  According to Mikita Brottman in her 2004 Funny Peculiar, Gershon Legman and the Psychopathology of Humor, "Legman's main personal interest at this time, and his first publication, was Oragenitalism, a small volume of 'Oral Techniques in Genital Excitation for Gentlemen."  

Gershon Legman, from the collection of Judith Legman

Born on November 2, 1917, Legman was educated at the University of Michigan.  He would become the editor of the magazine Neurotica in the 1940s and a folklorist and critic.  His The Horn Book: Studies in Erotic Folklore and Bibliography and The Rationale of the Dirty Joke would be published in 1964 and 1968 respectively.

In 1967, 50 West 76th Street was converted to apartments.  Then, a renovation completed in 2013 returned it to a single-family home.  

photographs by the author

The Lost Clinton Hall - Beekman and Nassau Streets

A public pump sits opposite Clinton Hall.  The fence surrounds the churchyard of the Old Brick Church.  from the collection of the New York Public Library

Established in 1820 and opened on February 1821 at 49 Fulton Street, the Mercantile Library Association afforded a reading room and library for young clerks just beginning their business careers.  In 1829, its members established the Clinton Hall Association (named for beloved New York City Mayor and Governor DeWitt Clinton, who died the previous year) to erect a formidable new building.  The site chosen was formerly occupied by the 1761 theater in which Hamlet was first staged in the United States.  At the southwest corner of Beekman and Nassau Streets, it faced the 1767 Old Brick Church.  Scribner's Monthly would remark decades later, "Beekman street was pretty well up town in those days."

The association hired 26-year-old architect Alexander Jackson Davis to design the multi-use structure.  (Davis partnered with Ithiel Town, a respected and well-established architect, that same year.  Although it would make sense that Clinton Hall was a collaboration of the pair, only Davis is listed as its designer.)  

On July 21, 1829, The Evening Post reported on the cornerstone laying ceremony.  It began at noon with "a procession composed of the Trustees and the Clergymen, who were to officiate,...the subscribers, the Mercantile Library Association, and the members of other public Institutions" from City Hall to the site.  The stone was laid "in the midst of a large assembly of citizens" by Isaac Carow, vice president of the Chamber of Commerce, and Alexander Jackson Davis.

Dedicated on November 2, 1830, Davis's Greek Revival design successfully disguised the fact that the structure was, in fact, two separate buildings.  The New York Annual Register of 1831 explained, "The cost of the building was about $50,000, independent of Clinton Hotel, the property of Philip Hone, Esq. which is under the same roof, fronting on Beekman-street, and cost about the same as the Hall."  (Not coincidentally, Philip Hone was the chairman of the Mercantile Library Association.)  The combined construction cost would translate to about $3.5 million in 2026.  

The New-York Annual Register, 1831 (copyright expired)

The granite base was girded by a low flight of stone stairs.  It contained stores--six in the Clinton Hall portion and two in the hotel--that provided income.  The upper three floors were faced in brick "stuccoed in imitation of stone," said the New-York Annual Register.  Calling it a "noble and substantial edifice," the register said Clinton Hall was "dedicated to Literature, Science, and the Arts."  Within the upper floors were the Mercantile Library's large lecture room, library,  and reading room.  (The lecture room could be rented by outside groups.)

Philip Hone, who served as mayor from 1826 to 1827, hired Joseph M. Bispham to run his hotel.  On October 20, 1830, The Evening Post reported, "This elegant and commodious establishment is not completed...We understand Mr. Bispham is especially qualified to discharge the duties of the Host, and that his gentlemanly manners will render Clinton Hotel a place of fashionable resort and temporary residence."  The article added, "Its connexion [sic] with Clinton Hall will always preserve it as a conspicuous point in the public eye."

The Clinton Hall Bookstore was among the first of the commercial tenants.  The New-York Annual Register, 1831 (copyright expired)

In addition to housing the Mercantile Library, Clinton Hall was designed to accommodate long-term tenants.  Perhaps the first was the National Academy of Design, which moved in in 1830.  Frank Leslie's Popular Monthly said that starting in 1831, the academy's annual exhibitions "were held in much more commodious and altogether more suitable rooms, on the third floor of the Mercantile Library, in Clinton Hall."  The article reported that the National Academy of Design paid an annual rent of $500 (or $18,000 today) "for these apartments."

On November 11, 1831, The Evening Post noted that the National Academy would be opening its "school of the Antique," saying, "The instructors will be the gentlemen of the council."

from the collection of the New York Public Library

To pay for the building's construction, the directors sold Clinton Hall Stock.  But, "the sickness which shortly after prevailed in the city," as worded by The Evening Post, abruptly halted the fund-raising.  The city was ravaged by a cholera epidemic that took the lives of between 3,500 and 3,515 New Yorkers.  Roughly one third of the city's residents fled northward.  On January 9, 1832, The Evening Post reported, "Eighteen thousand dollars yet remain to be subscribed for, ere the Board of Trustees can proceed with vigor to the attainment of the magnificent ends aimed by this institution."

But at the time of the article, things were returning to normal.  On the same page was a notice that, "A course of lectures is to be commenced to-morrow evening, at Clinton Hall...The subject is Political Economy."

New York University's 1916 Annual Catalogue would recall its early years: "The work began with instruction in the Undergraduate College with special courses in Mathematics and Physical Science in the fall of 1832, the classes being held in Clinton Hall."

Although slavery was abolished in New York City in 1827, the city's economic dependence on the South placed its abolitionists overwhelmingly in the minority.  That was vividly shown in a passage in The American Metropolis:

To Tammany belongs the honor of the first victory over abolitionists in New York City.  In 1833 abolitionists attempted to hold their first meeting at Clinton Hall (Nassau and Beekman Streets).  It was prevented by a riotous crowd, which promptly celebrated its victory by adjourning to Tammany Hall and passing resolutions denouncing abolition.

Publisher Daniel Appleton established a bookstore in the Clinton Hotel side of the building.  It sold his own publications as well as books imported from England.   

James Gordon Bennett, the publisher of the New York Herald, rented offices in Clinton Hall as early as 1836.  That year the fiery publisher began a campaign "in favor of the great mass of the tenantry of New York, against the grasping landlords," in his words.  He was served an eviction notice in February 1837.

Bennett's editorial in the New York Herald on February 8 said that he had paid his quarterly rent in advance and that his eviction was "in consequence" of his campaign for renters.

I have every reason to believe that the Clinton Hall Association, a species of Real Estate Monopoly, composed as it is of speculators and fanatics, have determined to violate the implied engagements of their Agent with me, and to turn me out, as a punishment for my manifold transgressions towards the cause of the rich and powerful.

Upscale hotels were constant targets of burglars and the Clinton Hotel was no exception.  On November 23, 1843, the National Anti-Slavery Standard titled an article "Something New" and reported that two thieves, Richard Martin and George Fisher, had been arrested "for stealing wearing apparel from Clinton hotel."  They had an innovative burglary tool, "an instrument for turning a key outside, which has been turned by a person inside, and left in the door."

from the collection of the New York Public Library

By the mid-1840s, the Clinton Hotel was operated by Simon and Warren Leland.  (The brothers would later conceive of hotel chains.)  The problem of hotel thievery became personal to him in 1847.  On December 8 The Evening Post reported that William Seiler, an employee in the hotel, had been arrested for "stealing a frock coat from Warren Leland."  The young man had been hired four months earlier and during that time, "coats, &c. have been taken to the amount of $100."

In July 1848, The Institution for the Savings of Merchants' Clerks, a bank for young businessmen, opened on the ground floor.  The institution had been incorporated just three months earlier.  It would become the Union Square Savings Bank in 1905.

The Clinton Hotel hosted wealthy Americans and distinguished foreigners.  On June 21, 1851, for instance, The Evening Post reported that the entourage of "Count Villaneva, Intendent General of the Island of Cuba," were occupying rooms here.  Included were "Count Villanova, the Count's private Secretaries--Colonel Pinillas, General Carrillo--Colonel Pasejo and family, Post Captain Amero, Colonel Delango, and their servants."

At the time, the end of the line for the hotel and the Mercantile Library's occupancy in Clinton Hall was nearing.  On June 9, 1854, the New York Herald reported, "The Mercantile Library for several years past has been much cramped for room in its quarters in Beekman street, and after the urgent solicitations of its members, the Clinton Hall Association decided to purchase a more favorable site for the institution."  The association purchased the Astor Place Opera House on Astor Place.  The Mercantile Library Association's annual report in January 1855 said that the move from Clinton Hall was effected on June 8, 1854.

Two years later, in February 1856, a days-long auction of the furnishings of the Clinton Hotel began.  Hundreds of lots, including "a very large assortment of China and Glass Ware," mahogany dining tables and "several very large size Oil Paintings, very valuable," were sold.  The New York Times reported, "The Clinton Hotel property has been purchased by the Park Bank Company for $115,000."  The article said the bank would "fit up the old house temporarily."

The renovated Astor Place Opera House was renamed Clinton Hall.  Confusingly, the Beekman Street building retained the name, as well.  The downtown building was converted to offices, many of which were occupied by publishing firms.  Ironically, one of the new tenants was office of the Anti-Slavery Association.  

Other tenants in the 1860s were W. H. Bidwell, publisher of Bidwell's American Theological Review and W. H. Bidwell's Eclectic Magazine of Foreign Literature; the newspaper Independent, and Rev. John Marsh's Journal of the American Temperance Union.  One non-publishing tenant was financier and president of the Atlantic Telegraph Company, Cyrus Field, here as early as 1863. 

In 1881, banker Eugene Kelly purchased and demolished Clinton Hall.  On its site, he commissioned Silliman & Farnsworth to design a ten-story office building, the Temple Court Building.

King's Handbook of New York City, 1892 (copyright expired)