The Henry H. Keeler House - 128 East 31st Street

 

On November 11, 1856, Henry H. Keeler was married to Rachel C. Crane in "the Lafayette-place Church," as reported by the New-York Tribune.  Keeler was a partner with Julius A. Candee and Cornelius C. Demarest in the lime business Candee, Keeler & Co.  The newlyweds moved into the new three-story-and-basement house at 74 East 31st Street (renumbered 128 in 1867).  

The 16-foot-wide, brownstone-faced residence had been completed around December 1855.  Its cutting-edge, French Second Empire design included an arched pediment supported by foliate brackets over the doorway, and a projecting, three-sided parlor oriel.  The upper floor openings sat within robust architraves with molded cornices.  The leafy entrance brackets were echoed in the cast metal cornice.

Keeler was drawn into the mysterious case of Jane Augusta Blankman's death in 1860.  He and five other businessmen were impaneled as the coroner's jury to investigate the woman's "sudden demise, burial, and subsequent exhumation."  Jane Blankman's body had been exhumed "on the supposition that her decease was occasioned by sinister means," explained The New York Times on October 22.  After hearing lengthy testimonies, Keeler and his peers ruled that the 35-year-old had died from a stroke.

By 1864, the Keelers had moved to West 26th Street.  Merchant John Johnson and his family occupied the 31st Street house, while broker Conrad Phillip Bruns lived on Staten Island.

Bruns married 22-year-old Charlotte Emilie Switzer on December 16, 1863.  Interestingly, both of them went by their middle names.  Around 1866, they moved into the former Keeler house.

Born in Bremen, Germany on February 23, 1837, Bruns emigrated to the United States in 1858.  He found a job as a clerk in a brokerage house and rose within the firm.  The young man arrived at a propitious time.  In 1859, Edwin Drake successfully struck oil in Pennsylvania.  It triggered a frenzy of trading in "paper oil" and oil certificates.  The Evening World would later comment that Bruns, "made a fortune in the early days of oil speculation."

Not long after the couple moved into the East 31st Street house, twin boys--Philipp and William Ferdinand--were born on January 6, 1867.  Sadly, Philipp died five months later on June 24.  Another son, Edwin George, arrived on March 3, 1870.

Charlotte Emilie Bruns died at the age of 30 on April 23, 1872.  Her funeral was held in the parlor at 2:00 on the afternoon of the 25th.

Emilie had had domestic help, of course, but now servants were even more essential in the all-male household.  On April 25, 1873, an advertisement in the New York Herald sought: "Wanted--A cook; one who has lived in a German family preferred; also a chambermaid to assist in washing.  Apply, with reference, at 128 East 31st street."

Phil Bruns (as he was known familiarly) was "noted for his open-handed generosity," according to The Evening World.  His son seemed to have inherited the trait.  The 1888 Annual Report of The New York Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children noted that William F. Bruns had donated "25 books for reception-rooms" to the facility.

Known to his friends, as Willie, William Ferdinand Bruns died in the house on July 25, 1889 at the age of 22.  His funeral was held in the parlor two days later.

By then, Philip Bruns was well-known and well respected in Wall Street circles.  He had purchased his seat in the New York Stock Exchange in 1869 and now he and his surviving son were partners in the firm of Edwin G. Bruns & Co.  

At some point Philip Bruns had begun a romance with Madge M. Gurney.  It is possible that the two never married because Madge was "a victim of an incurable disease," according to The Evening World.

Conrad Philip "Phil" Bruns (original source unknown)

On the evening of August 4, 1893, Bruns met Henry G. Hilton to have dinner at the Casino in Central Park.  They rode in Hilton's surrey and, as reported by the New-York Tribune, "In turning the corner at Fifty-eighth-st. and Seventh-ave. the vehicle went around so quickly that Mr. Bruns was thrown out and he fell heavily on the pavement."  Hilton rushed back to his friend, "who was bleeding profusely."  Bruns was taken back to 128 East 31st Street where Dr. Henry Forbes said he was suffering with a broken nose and two fractures of the collar bone.  "The most serious injury, however, was the cutting of the artery under the right eye, which had caused a great loss of blood," said the article.

The next day Bruns was described as "delirious" and "in an exceedingly critical condition."  That evening, Madge Gurney visited him and "remained with him for sometime," according to The Evening World.  

Phil Bruns lingered for nearly two weeks, dying in the East 31st Street house at 6:15 p.m. on August 15 at the age of 56.  The Evening World commented, "The death of Philip Bruns removes from Wall street one of its most familiar and well-known personages."

On August 19, The Evening World reported that when Madge Gurney heard of Bruns's death, "she appeared to be greatly dejected."  The newspaper announced, "at 6:15 P. M. the next day she died at her rooms in the Milburn apartment house."  The article said they died 24 hours apart to the minute.

Perhaps because of the anticipated large attendance, Conrad Philip Bruns's funeral was not held in the house, but in the Church of the Transfiguration.  On August 17, The Evening World reported, "The casket was almost buried in flowers."

Before the turn of the century, George Bruns sold 128 East 31st Street to George Florence Scannell and his wife, the former Elizabeth Rafferty (known as Lizzie).  The couple had three sons: Frank Joseph, John Jay, George Jr.; and a daughter, Marie F.

Born on February 22, 1860, Scannell was highly involved in Tammany politics.  He worked as a clerk in the Surrogate's office and was the leader of the 25th Democratic District and the chairman of the Seneca Club.  

In the fall of 1900, the family received a horrific scare.  John, who was 15 years old, attended the College of St. Francis Xavier on West 15th Street.  He and a number of other boys were "playing leap-frog" in the gymnasium, according to the New York Herald on October 10.  The New-York Tribune explained that John, "had succeeded in jumping over two boys, and was trying to jump over three, when he fell, striking his head on the floor."  The New York Herald reported that he was taken to St. Vincent's Hospital unconscious and diagnosed with a "concussion of the brain."  The New-York Tribune's report was more dire, saying that the teen had sustained a skull fracture.  At the hospital that evening, his father was told "that his son would probably recover," said the New York Herald.  Happily, John Jay Scannell did recover.

On January 1, 1904, Manhattan Borough President John F. Ahearn informed the Municipal Civil Service Commission that George F. Scannell had been appointed Superintendent of Highways.  He replaced James G. Collins, whom 
The New York Times said had been "ousted" by Ahearn.  The position came with a salary of $5,000 (about $175,000 in 2026).

In 1905, a woman who said her name was Mary Scannell, began appearing at the stoop of 128 East 31st Street and at Scannell's office on Park Row.  She said she was the daughter of Scannell's brother, Thomas, and when he died, when she was five years old, she was sent to a convent.  She tracked down George Scannell, she said, through the New York Foundling Asylum.  Now she insisted that he support her.

The major flaw in Mary Scannell's story was that George never had a brother named Thomas.  She was, nevertheless, persistent.  Two years after she first rang the bell of 128 East 31st Street, George Scannell's patience was exhausted.  When she showed up at his office again on August 17, 1907, he had her arrested.  The New York Times reported, "She was sent to Bellevue Hospital for observation as to her sanity."

George Scannell's promotion to Superintendent of Highways in 1904 turned into a nightmare for the family.  James G. Collins had not gone quietly after being fired.  He sued the city and Scannell.  The New York Times reported, "To safeguard the city in case Collins should win the suit Scannell had to furnish a $10,000 bond to guarantee that he would turn back his salary to Collins.  His own house, which stood in his wife's name, was put up as security."

In December 1909, James G. Collins "bodily took possession of Scannell's office," reported The New York Times.  He barricaded himself inside and "held the fort for a number of days."  Astoundingly, Collins's ploy worked.  The newspaper said that Mayor William Jay Gaynor's "revocation of the office of Commissioner of Highways" finally "induced Collins to surrender his stronghold."  The article concluded, "Thus Scannell lost his job."

Not only did Scannell lose his job, Collins continued to sue him personally for his back wages of about $30,000, or about $1 million today.  In the meantime, Scannell was appointed the Superintendent of Records in the Surrogates' Office--the same position in which he had started.

George F. Scannell fell ill in May 1912.  On September 19, The New York Times headlined an article, "George F. Scannell Dead From Worry."  The 52-year-old had died in the 31st Street house the previous evening.  The Times reported, "It was the prospect of losing everything in the world, Mr. Scannell's friends said last night, which had suddenly made such a noted change in the man."

The original 1850s detailing was intact in this 1940 photograph.  image via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services.

On January 3, 1913, The New York Times printed a one-line story:  "Frank J. Scannell, son of George F. Scannell, has been appointed to his father's place as Superintendent of Records of the Surrogates' office."

The Scannell family finally received welcomed news in June 1916.  A court ruled that James G. Collins was entitled only to $3,000.  Elizabeth Scannell's tenuous hold on her home was restored.

Two months later, on August 22, George was married to Elizabeth O'Brien in the Church of St. John the Evangelist on East 55th Street.  Marie (who would never marry) attended the bride and John J. Scannell was his brother's best man.  

Frank was still living here with his mother and Marie as late as 1920, when he was appointed a commissioner of deeds.  Elizabeth sold 128 East 31st Street in September 1924 to the 5 Gramercy Park, Inc.

The firm operated the property as a rooming house and it continued to be such for decades.  When Mary Macfayden and her husband, Frank Netter, purchased the house in 1960, it was described as being vacant.  It was resold in 1964 when the couple began divorce proceedings.

A renovation completed in 1969 resulted in a photography studio in the basement.  It was most likely during this time that the Victorian details were removed from the doorway and windows.  

Shocking publicity came in 1981 when, on January 15, The New York Times reported that four men had been arrested for "operating houses of prostitution," one of which was 128 East 31st Street.

Renovations done in 2009 returned 128 East 31st Street to a single family home.  Despite the loss of most of the Italianate details, the Keeler house manages to retain its architectural charm.

photographs by the author

The 1903 Victoria - 250 Riverside Drive

 

photo by Deansfa

On March 29, 1902, the Real Estate Record & Builders' Guide described Jacob Axelrod as being, "well-known as a successful builder of apartment houses in this city."  He had recently organized the West Side Construction Co. and broken ground for its first project, "a 9-story and basement fireproof apartment house from the plans by George F. Pelham."  Located at the northeast corner of Riverside Drive and 97th Street, the Record & Guide said it "will be an appropriate ornament to the beautiful bend of the Drive that winds around this point."

Pelham had established a solid reputation as an apartment designer.  Called The Victoria, the building was completed in 1903 at a cost of $275,000 (just over $10 million in 2026).  Pelham designed the footprint of the Renaissance Revival-style structure as an H, thereby providing light and ventilation to every room.  Faced in beige iron-spot brick and trimmed in limestone, its turret-like, rounded corners on the drive not only provided exterior dimension, but increased airflow inside.  Renaissance-inspired stone balconies clung to the facade.  The bracketed terminal cornice was crowned with anthemions.  Although Pelham placed the entrance on the side street within the two-story striated base, the building took the more impressive address of 250 Riverside Drive.

The sloping terrain that confronted George Pelham can be seen in the stone water table, at sidewalk level at the right (at the entrance) and nearly a half-story above grade at the corner.  The World's New York Apartment House Album, 1910 (copyright expired)

Potential residents could select among apartments of five, six or seven rooms with a bath.  The Record & Guide reported that they provided "every modern improvement, including electric elevators...and long-distance 'phones for each apartment."  Occupants would enjoy, "gas ranges, sanitary exposed plumbing, and all the other appliances now demanded by tenants for the promotion of health and comfort."  The journal described the entrance hall as being a "splendor of marble and decorative effects."  

The Victoria filled with affluent, professional families.  The 1907 Dau's Greater New York Blue Book, considered the directory of fashionable society, listed 13 residents of the building, by then known as the Robert Fulton Apartments.

Every room had natural ventilation and light.  The World's New York Apartment House Album, 1910 (copyright expired)

The name change was initiated by architect and builder Robert T. Lyons, who purchased the property from the builder.  At the time of the 1907 Blue Book's release, he was living in his newly-built Rhineland Court, on the opposite corner of 97th Street.  

Among his tenants here in 1908 was a very disgruntled John M. Williams.  In April, the janitor, William Huneke, notified Williams about a plumbing problem and asked permission to enter his apartment to disconnect the steam and water pipes.  Williams refused.  And so Huneke spoke to Robert T. Lyons, who instructed him to use a passkey to enter the apartment.

On April 12, Williams discovered Huneke in his apartment and attempted to prevent him from doing the repairs.  According to Williams, the janitor assaulted him.  He promptly had Huneke arrested for disorderly conduct.  The New York Times reported, "The cell door had hardly closed on the janitor when in walked Robert Lyons, the owner of the house, who lost no time in informing the desk Lieutenant that he wanted to bail Huneke out."  Lyons, instead, got "a big surprise."

Lyons was also arrested on charges by Williams for allowing Huneke to enter his apartment.  The New-York Tribune reported, "Lyons was bailed out by his wife.  Then he bailed out the janitor."

On February 11, 1909, The New York Times reported, "Residents of Riverside Drive in the neighborhood of Ninety-Sixth Street are in a state of dire perturbation over the number of hold-ups, robberies, and assaults which have taken place in that region recently."  After nearly a month of attacks, apartment building tenants, said the article, had asked permission from the police department "to arm the elevator conductors."  

Among the victims of the crime spree was resident Mrs. C. E. Carpenter.  At around 7:30 on the night of February 9, she turned the corner of 95th Street onto Riverside Drive when "a man jumped from the shadow of an apartment house and struck her sharply in the face."  Mrs. Carpenter fell to the sidewalk and the thug grabbed her handbag and fled.

Mrs. Carpenter's screams alerted several nearby men, including Henry Danker, a grocery clerk who had just delivered goods to the Robert Fulton.  The intrepid youth chased the robber onto the New York Central railroad tracks along the river.  The New York Times reported that Danker, "closed in on him as he dodged in and out among the freight cars."  The crook flung Mrs. Carpenter's bag at his pursuer and escaped.  Danker returned it to Mrs. Carpenter, "who found that nothing had been taken from it."

Living here at the time was the family of cotton dealer Benjamin H. Ettelson.  Born in 1869, he married Rose Sanger on April 28, 1897.  The couple had two children, Lehman Sanger, born in 1898, and Dorothy, born in 1905.  

On January 25, 1909, Rose and two female friends embarked on a road trip to Connecticut.  The New-York Tribune reported, "The party reached 156th street and St. Nicholas avenue just as the children were coming out of Public School 46 and swarming through the streets."  Nine-year-old Charles Osborne "became confused when the automobile was within a few feet of him," said the article.  The Ettelson car struck the boy.

Rose Ettelson ordered the chauffeur, Munson J. Palmer, to stop.  The New York Herald said, "picking up the boy, [she] held him in her arms during the drive to the Washington Heights Hospital."  Osborne was diagnosed with a fractured skull.  Rose Ettelson was overwrought.  The Evening World said, "She refused to leave his bedside until midnight, and then would not ride again in the automobile which had hurt the boy, but went to her home in a livery cab."  In the meantime, Munson J. Palmer was arrested.

The Evening World, January 26, 1909 (copyright expired)

With dramatic prose, the following day The Evening World began an article saying, "Mrs. Charles Osborn lies inconsolate in her grief at her home...Beside her on the bed are her boy Charley's little cap, one of his rubber shoes and his school books, held together by a strap."  The article continued, "In her home, at No. 250 Riverside Drive, Mrs. Benjamin H. Ettelson is under a pall of grief only a little less poignant than that of the boy's mother."

Among the Ettelsons' neighbors in the Robert Fulton were author Maximilian Foster and his wife, the former Elizabeth Dickson.  The couple was married in 1904.  Born in San Francisco on February 27, 1872, Foster began his career as a newspaper writer for the New York Recorder in 1891.  By now, he had written In the Forest, published in 1902; Corrie Who?, in 1908; The Silent Partner the same year; and in 1909 he completed his play The Whirlpool.  He contributed articles to publications like Everybody's, Harper's, Collier's, the Saturday Evening Post and Atlantic Monthly.

Foster's I Want to Be a Lady was published in 1926. (copyright expired)

Foster would go on to write the screenplays for the 1918 Rich Man, Poor Man, and Something to Do, released in 1919.

An advertisement on August 13, 1916 listed annual rents for seven-room corner apartments at $1,300 to $1,400, and non-corner apartments at $1,000 to $1,500.  The most expensive rent would translate to $3,450 per month today.

On March 8, 1917, the Musical Courier announced, "The prima donna role of 'Gypsy Love' is being sung on tour this season by Finita De Soria, the Spanish soprano."  The Richmond, Indiana Item noted, "She has a truly remarkable voice, which she knows how to use in an adorably bewitching manner."

Finita De Soria, from the collection of the New York Public Library

On May 3, 1921, The New York Times related that Finita De Soria had reported the theft of $12,000 of jewels from her apartment.  The article said they included, "jewelry given the singer's father by the Queen of Spain."  She explained to police that she had gone to the theater and returned about 10:00.  "She said she found the door of her apartment wide open and the jewel box open on a dresser."  The value of the stolen items would translate to $210,000 today.

The police surmised that the burglar had come through the kitchen window and "made his escape boldly, going down in the elevator and coolly walking out the front door," said the article.  

Five months after the crime, Finita De Soria was losing patience.  On October 23 she wrote to Police Commissioner Richard Enright:

Dear Mr. Commissioner:

Is there an way you can help me to get some action from the 100th Street Police Station in the recovery of $12,000 worth of jewelry stolen from my apartment, at No. 250 Riverside Drive, on Sunday night, May 1?

I do not hope to get all the jewels, but I am particularly anxious to try to trace a set of earrings and a brooch of gold and blue enamel, both presented to my mother by the Queen of Spain.

Anything you can do to help me will be very greatly appreciated.

Four days later, a letter to the editor of The Evening World complained about the lack of headway in solving the crime.  The writer, who signed the letter "L.D.L.," said in part, "It seems to me a peculiar brand of 'efficiency' that neither protects the home from robbery nor cares enough to report what progress, if any, has been made in bringing the criminals to justice."

In the meantime, the "destruction of her new fall bonnet was the straw which broke the back of Mrs. Murgurdick J. Tashjian's married life," reported The Sun on September 23, 1920.  Murgurdick J. Tashjian was a dealer of antique rugs at 2605 Broadway.  His mother-in-law shared their apartment.  

When his wife came home with a new hat, he flew into a rage and smashed it.  Mrs. Tashjian sued for separation and the New York Herald said that since the incident she and her mother had "lived apart from her husband."  In court, Tashjian denied "his wife's charges of cruelty."

The romance of another resident in the building dissolved a decade later.  Stanley Vulgaris owned what was described by The New York Times as a "prosperous restaurant and cigar stand business."  He was romantically involved with a well-to-do widow, Olive Spencer.  Vulgaris proposed in July 1930 and the wedding date was set for New Year's Day 1931.  But, eight months after the date passed, according to Vulgaris, his beloved "refused to carry out her promise."

In response, in August 1931 Vulgaris sued his former fiancée for $25,000 for the "loss of his business," which he said he had lost "through devoting his time and attention to her;" another $25,000 for the money he spent "in an endeavor to entertain her and minister to her pleasure;" and $200,000 for her treatment that caused him "intense mental agony, pain, suffering and nervous affliction."  The total damages suffered by the wounded suitor would equal more than $5 million today.

Attorney Wilmer J. McAllister and his wife, the former Bessie Sterry, lived here around the same time.  Born in 1873, Bessie had a sterling American pedigree.  The New York Times explained that four maternal and four paternal ancestors "came to this country on the Mayflower."  Understandably, she was a member of the Daughters of the Founders and Patriots of America, the Daughters of the American Revoluti0n and the Colonial Descendants of America."  Bessie McAllister died here "after a long illness" at the age of 63 on October 31, 1936.

The building was renovated in 1937.  As part of the remodeling, the anthemion cresting on the cornice was removed.

 Two years before this photo was taken in 1939, the cornice had lost its decorative anthemions.   photo by Byron Company, from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York.

Attorney George A. Timone and his family lived here as early as 1942.  Born on November 10, 1903, he was a graduate of Fordham and Columbia Universities and became a member of the law firm of Latson & Tamblyn in 1937.  He and his wife, the former Virginia Mary Fletcher, had two sons, Richard and Donald, and a daughter, Virginia.  A devout Catholic, George would become the chairman of the New York Chapter of the Knights of Columbus, and counsel of the Cathedral Canteen, the National Catholic Community Service, United Service Organization. 

George A. Timone, The New York Times, December 15, 1971

Perhaps the first time Timone's name appeared in print was on December 2, 1942, when he appeared as a State witness in the trial of the three producers of Wine, Woman and Song, a play accused of being "indecent."  On October 15 that year, George and Virginia sat in the fifth row of the orchestra.  On the stand, he described a girl named Scarlet Kelly who "gyrated and pranced and danced around the stage in a purple and green ensemble that did not cover her."  He also told about a fan dancer who, after dropping her fans, wore only "her shoes and a groin cloth about two or three inches wide."

On March 8, 1946, The New York Times reported that Timone had been appointed by Mayor O'Dwyer as a member of the Board of Education.  In responding to the appointment, Timone said, "I am sure it will be a very fascinating life."

Eight years later, on October 5, 1954, Mayor Robert F. Wagner appointed Timone a justice of the Court of Domestic Relations (renamed Family Court in 1962).  The post came with a salary equal to $228,000 today.

Additionally, Judge Timone rose to be vice president of the Board of Education.  In 1969, he suffered a stroke, but continued to work "long hours in court," according to The New York Times.  He suffered a fatal heart attack on December 13, 1971 at the age of 68.  By then, his two sons were Roman Catholic priests.

The turbulence of the 1960s was reflected in the lives of some residents of 250 Riverside Drive.  Shirley Blackwell Cummings had a long career in newspaper and public relations work.  Then, on June 30, 1962, the New York Amsterdam News reported that she had been appointed "executive assistant to Dr. Samuel D. Proctor, Peace Corps Representative in Nigeria."  The article said she was "one of two Negro women who were named to key Peace Corps staff positions overseas."

Jonah Raskin and his wife, the former Eleanor Stein, lived here in 1969 when they were two of 65 demonstrators who were arrested at an anti-Vietnam protest.  The 27-year-old Jonah was an assistant professor at State University at Stony Brook, Long Island, and Eleanor, who was 23, was a law student at Columbia.  The pair was charged "with felonious assault, rioting and incitement to riot," according to The New York Times.

Eleanor Raskin's mug shot.  Hearings Before the Committee on International Security House of Representatives, August 7 1969.

But Jonah Raskin and Robert Reilly, a lecturer at the Baldwin School on West 74th Street, seem to have been singled out.  In a press conference in the Raskins' apartment here, the men said they were taken to a basement room in the East 51st Street precinct house, handcuffed, and beaten for 45 minutes.  The two said "policemen took turns beating them with nightsticks and blackjacks, and one policeman repeatedly kicked them."

The building was altered again in 1974.  This time the entire cornice was removed, leaving an unsightly scar and unfinished appearance.

Singer Beverly Donna Hodge, who was known professionally as Donna Wood, and her husband, composer and arranger George Howard Hodge, lived in an apartment near Lincoln Center.  Early on the morning of October 13, 1973, according to Beverly, the couple came home from a party and surprised "two armed and masked burglars."  The crooks struck George behind the ear with a blunt object, and bound and gagged the couple.  George Hodge died from his injuries.

Beverly sued the Lincoln Towers management for negligence in security.  But by August 1974, her well-planned scheme unraveled.  Former bartender John Hemmers, who lived in 250 Riverside Drive, was arrested as one of the two "burglars" hired by Beverly to murder her husband.   The 35-year-old Hemmers was found guilty of first degree murder on November 10, 1975.

photograph by Deansfa

Sadly shorn of its architecturally important cornice, 250 Riverside Drive has never lost its panache.  

many thanks to reader Aaron Fedor for suggesting this post

The Lost Louis Ohlman House - 130 East 83rd Street

 

When this photograph was taken around 1898, the picturesque house was squashed between an apartment building and grocery store.  from the collection of the New-York Historical Society

When the Civil War erupted, the vast countryside east of Central Park was sparsely developed.  And yet, the extension of the New York and Harlem Railroad along Fourth Avenue (later Park Avenue) in the 1830s, which included a station at 86th Street, sparked interest in the district.  A hamlet, Yorkville, grew up east of Third Avenue.

Just after the war, a two-and-a-half story and basement house was erected at 130 East 83rd Street, just east of Lexington Avenue.  About a decade before real development would swamp the neighborhood, the frame Italianate-style house reflected its rural setting.  Three bays wide and sitting back from the property line behind a prim wooden fence, its windows wore molded lintels.  The unusual porch above the wooden stoop was supported by wooden columns and its roof was in the shape of a hood.  What made the modest house stand out was its jig-sawed decorations--sometimes known as gingerbread.  Delicate, lacy forms hung like icicles from the porch roof and the eaves.  They were nearly copied in reverse by ornaments that pointed upward.

The house seems to have been rented.  Living here by 1873 was Anna M. Brewster, the widow of Stephen.  She was followed by Emma S. McLean, another widow, around 1876.  She took in a boarder, Henry I. Cooper, who worked as a clerk.  Emma left in 1878 and an advertisement in The New York Herald on June 2 read: "Furnished House to Let--$40 per month."  The rent would translate to about $1,400 in 2026.

By the early 1880s, English-born contractor Joseph Richardson owned large amounts of property in the neighborhood, including 130 East 83rd Street.  His own house was just a block away.  The multi-millionaire leased East 83rd Street house to the Louis Ohlman family in 1886.  

Louis Ohlman was a real estate agent and he operated his business from 130 East 83rd Street.  He and his wife had an adult son, Joseph H.  The family had a live-in servant, Maggie, who had been with them since 1875.  

Concerned about Joseph's future, Mrs. Ohlman would sometimes walk around the block to her landlord's house.  She would later testify, "I asked him to try and get my son a position."  Richardson, she said, would repeatedly told her "to let my son alone, and that he thought he would get along nicely."

Joseph Richardson had erected his bizarre home at the northwest corner of 82nd Street and Lexington Street in 1882.  It was one of the most famous residences in New York--not because of its grandeur, but because it was 102 feet long and only five feet wide.  It was known popularly as The Spite House because the eccentric Richardson erected it to get revenge on the developers who would not meet his price for the narrow strip.

Mrs. Ohlman's relationship with her cantankerous landlord was apparently very friendly.  According to her court testimony later, she would visit him and his wife, Emma, and occasionally Richardson would present small gifts, like passes to an afternoon outing.

Sometimes, Mrs. Ohlman's visits were more businesslike.  When Richardson began excavation for the large apartment building next door to 130 East 83rd Street, she worried.  Mrs. Ohlman testified, "in the first week in April [1897] I was very much troubled...and they dug so far down I was afraid my house would tip over, and I used to go in quite often and converse about that matter with Mr. Richardson."  Each time, Richardson assured her "that my house was on built on rocks, and he thought there was no danger."

And when the construction workers began throwing rocks and debris into the Ohlman's front yard, breaking some of the rose bushes, Mrs. Ohlman marched over to the Richardson house to complain.  "He said it was no use of taking any notice of those Italians, and that I should by no means speak to them, because they would only give me abusive language," she recounted.

When Richardson became ill in 1897, according to her court testimony, Mrs. Ohlman visited regularly, bringing fresh-cut flowers from her garden and often sitting with him for nearly half and hour.  The eccentric millionaire died on June 8, 1897, and Emma Richardson inherited 130 East 83rd Street.

In the meantime, Richardson had been correct regarding Joseph Ohlman.  He went into the sign business and, like his father, ran it from the East 83rd Street house.

Trow's Business Directory 1898 (copyright expired)

Joseph Ohlman died at the age of 30 on December 14, 1899.  Emma Richardson sold East 83rd Street shortly afterward to lawyer William T. Washburn, who lived at 52 East 79th Street.  

Washburn leased the property to Catherine and William H. Walsh, who operated it as a boarding house.  Among the conditions of the lease was that Washburn's mother-in-law, Mary Doughty, could occupy rooms on the second floor.  (Mary's husband had died in 1879.)  According to Washburn, "Mrs. Doughty lived in the Eighty-third street house because she was independent."

Catherine Walsh's other boarders were working class, many of them with Irish surnames.  Among their professions in 1904  and 1905 were carpenter and dressmaker.

Although Joseph Richardson had installed lighting gas in the house years earlier, Mary Doughty was afraid of using it.  Her son-in-law said that she, "read a great deal, but refused to have gas in her room, preferring the old fashioned oil lamp."  

At around 11:00 on the night of November 28, 1909, Catherine Walsh smelled smoke and she traced it to the second floor and Mary Doughty's door.  The New York Herald reported that she and other boarders "beat at the door in vain."  In the meantime, a policeman saw smoke pouring from a window, rushed in and broke in the door.  He smothered the flame with a blanket but it was too late for the 75-year-old Mary.

The New York Sun said, "On the floor was a broken kerosene lamp.  The theory was that while trying to move the lamp from a table to a bureau, Mrs. Doughty had dropped it and her dress got on fire."

William and Catherine Walsh had a daughter, Beatrice, who became an actress in 1901.   She appeared in The Follies and in the 1907 production of The Social Whirl at the Majestic Theatre on Columbus Circle.  Beatrice Walsh died in the 83rd Street house in December 1913.

image via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services.

The end of the line for the exquisitely charming wooden house came in 1923 when it and the wooden store building on the corner were demolished and replaced by a two-story brick store-and-office building designed by Thomas Paterson, Jr., which survives.

The 1830 Frederick Pattillow House -- 355 Bleecker Street

 

In 1827, as Greenwich Village rapidly expanded, the Greenwich Reformed Dutch Church erected a church at the northeast corner of Bleecker Street and Charles Street.  Two years later, the congregation leased the northern portion of the Bleecker Street blockfront to James Haslet (sometimes spelled as Hazlet).  The 21-year lease demanded that Haslet (who was a hatter) immediately fill the lots with "six good and permanent brick or stone buildings, at least two stories in height."  He was prohibited to erect a nuisance, like a factory or stable.

Haslet's builder leaned into the currently ubiquitous Federal style.  Two-and-a-half stories tall and just 17-feet-wide, the houses were faced in Flemish bond brick above a storefront.  Their peaked attic roofs would have been punctured by one or two dormers.

The southernmost of the row, 337 Bleecker Street became home to Frederick Pattillow and his family.  (The address would be renumbered 355 in 1867.)  Born in 1788, Pattillow was a tailor and he moved his shop into the ground floor. 

As was common, the Pattillows took in a boarder.  In 1836, Saloma, the widow of William McLaughlin, lived here; and in 1840 and '41, Francis Squire boarded with the family.  He was a moulder, or brickmaker.

The Pattillows left Bleecker Street in 1849 (Frederick would die on Long Island in 1873 at the age of 85.)  The "two-story brick house," as described in the auction announcement, was sold to Magdalene Ramsey (sometimes spelled Ramsay) on February 21 for $3,850--or about $163,000 in 2026 terms.

Magdalene opened a "fancy store."  Like the Pettillows, she took in one or two boarders at a time.  In 1852, for instance, they were James Pope, a mason, and Nelson Marselis, a clerk.

A female boarder in the spring of 1854 was seeking employment.  Her well-written advertisement in the New-York Tribune on May 22, read:

A person of respectability, a middle-aged widow, an Episcopalian, and well-educated, is desirous of obtaining a situation as seamstress, or companion to a lady; would be willing to make herself generally useful, and be found trustworthy and confidential.  Salary not so much an object as a comfortable home.  Please address post-paid, Mrs. J. A. No. 337 Bleecker-st., and appoint an interview.

Magdalene Ramsey had narrowed the offerings of her fancy store by 1855 when she listed it as "hair and perfume."  She remained here until selling the building to Peter Asmussen around 1867.

Around the same time, Asmussen acquired another of the 1830 row, 361 Bleecker Street.  He moved his family and his undertaking business into that building.  Asmussen leased the store here to a string of cigar shop owners.  In 1870, Henry F. Evers operated his "segar" store from the space.  August Hammerstedt took over the store in 1873, followed by Charles Mezger in 1879.

In 1875, Asmussen hired architect Henry Grube to enlarge 355 and 361 Bleecker Street.  He raised the attics to a full story, installed matching Italianate cornices, and placed pressed metal lintels and molded cornices over the windows.

Charles Mezger still operated the cigar store in 1888.  Living upstairs that year were John H. Decker, a builder; engineer George W. Downes; and Charlotte Guest, the widow of James W. Guest.  But they would all soon have to leave.

That year, Peter Asmussen sold 355 Bleecker Street to John Frederick Asmussen, presumably his brother.  John had been involved in the undertaking business with Peter for years.  Now with Peter retired, he headed the operation and moved it into the former cigar store.

John F. Asmussen was born in Schleswig-Holstein, Germany on June 12, 1838.  His family emigrated to the United States when he was 14.  After working in a tannery and a grocery, he joined Peter's undertaking business.  He was a sexton of St. John's Evangelical Church on Christopher Street, having succeeded Peter Asmussen in that position.

John and his wife, the former Mary Meyn, had four sons, at least two of whom, Jacob H. and Charles C., lived with them.  (The youngest, Charles, was only 12 years old when they moved in in 1888.)  Jacob did not enter the family business and in 1894 opened a men's furnishing goods store at 367 Bleecker Street.

Funerals were always somber affairs, but one held here in the winter of 1884 was especially heart-wrenching.  On February 15, the New-York Tribune reported that J. Clement Uhler had claimed the body of his wife, Emma, "from the dead house of the New-York Hospital."  The article graphically said, "The features of the dead woman were somewhat swollen and discolored; indeed, Mr. Uhler had had some difficulty in recognizing her by the fitful light of the lamp when he visited the dead house."

The Uhlers were poor and, apparently, had no family nor friends.  Uhler asked the pastor of St. John's Lutheran Church "to do what sacred offices were possible under the circumstances."  That night, at 7:00, a "sorrowful little party assembled in the back room of Asmussen's shop," said the article.  Other than the pastor's wife, only two other people were present.  After a "short fervent prayer," the pastor's wife and the other woman in the room placed white flowers into the casket and it was sealed.

Charles C. Asmussen entered the business upon his graduation from public school.  When Frederick retired in 1902, the 26-year-old took over.  Historian William Smith Pelletreau said in 1907, "since that time he has been the sole manager of the manifold interests connected with it.  He is enterprising and progressive in his ideas, and enjoys a great measure of popularity among the large circle of friends."  

The Asmussen funeral parlor was taken over by World War I by John K. Nusskern.  It continued as a well-regarded establishment.  Following the suicide of artist and writer Hans Stengel on January 29, 1928, for instance, The New York Times announced his funeral would be held "at the undertaking establishment of J. K. Nusskern at 355 Bleecker Street." 

"John H. Nusskern Undertaker" is stenciled on the window in 1940.  from the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services.

John H. Nusskern's operation would remain here into the 1940s, after which it was taken over by Fred Dannecker.  Dannecker died at the age of 51 on August 30, 1952.  In 1957, the funeral home became Horne-Dannecker and moved to 336 West 23rd Street.

In the meantime, the Funaro family had occupied the six rooms on the top floor as early as 1936.  William Funaro's name appeared annually on the Special Committee on Un-American Activities list of Communist Party members.  

In December 1960, Fernando Funaro, presumably William's son, filed an appeal to the State Rent Administration, complaining of the rent hikes he had endured.  Living with him in the apartment were his wife, their adult daughter and her husband, and their eight-year-old daughter.

Funaro said that from 1939 to 1951, he had paid $50 per month.  The rent rose to $57.50 per month in 1951 and in 1958 jumped to $75.00.  In retaliation to his appeal, the landlord filed an eviction order.  Happily for the Funaro family, the State revoked the eviction.  (The $75 monthly rent would translate to about $795 today.)

There are four apartments in the building today.  Where funerals were held for decades, a "custom scene laboratory" occupies the ground floor.  Other than an iron fire escape, the exterior of 355 Bleecker Street is mostly intact since its remodel in 1875.

photographs by the author

Emery Roth's 1909 The Whitestone - 45 Tiemann Place

 

photograph by Anthony Bellov

Following the death of former Mayor Daniel F. Tiemann in 1899, his widow, the former Martha Clowes, continued to live in their free-standing home at 607 West 127th Street.  Martha was born in 1807 and The New York Times said that she "retained her faculties in spite of her age."  She died in the house at the age of 97 on October 2, 1904.

Five years later, the newly organized Charter Construction Co. purchased the Tiemann property and hired Emery Roth to design an apartment building on the site.  The 34-year-old, Hungarian-born architect produced a show-stopper.  Completed at a cost of $185,000 (just over $6.5 million in 2026), its style has been called "Classical Revival."  In fact, Roth started with a blank Renaissance Revival canvas and adorned it with liberal splashes of Arts & Crafts and Vienna Secession.  

Roth anchored his tripartite design by cladding the one-story base in beige brick and the upper sections in brownish red brick.  A stylized Greek key band of terra cotta framed the entrance and ran below the second floor.  Green tiles of magnolia leaves--their branches alternating left and right--filled the spaces.  A Vienna Secession panel above the doorway announced the address.  

photograph by Anthony Bellov

The windows of the second floor were connected by a colorful terra cotta belt course with diamond panels, and they wore striking terra cotta lintels and cornices.  The diamond motif was repeated under the intermediate cornice above the fifth floor and again above the sixth-floor windows.  A deeply overhanging copper cornice with Vienna Secession arches and rondels completed the design.

photograph by Anthony Bellov

Offering apartments of two or three rooms, the Whitestone filled with professional and erudite tenants.  Among the earliest were Betty McDonald Bigelow, a 1909 graduate of Vassar, and Claude Stuart Hammond, a part owner of Teachers Magazine.

In 1920, the two-block long West 127th Street was renamed Tiemann Place, in honor of its esteemed former resident.  The Whitestone received the new address of 45 Tiemann Place.

Living here at the time was the enterprising W. H. Katz.  On July 25, 1921, he incorporated the Sound Tire Service, Inc. 

As early as 1924, attorney Nelson Jarvis Waterbury Jr. and his widowed sister, Elizabeth Jarvis Waterbury Streeter, occupied an apartment.  The siblings were the only occupants that year to appear in the Social Register of New York.  

Nelson and Elizabeth had grown up in a mansion at 13 West 56th Street in what was known as Millionaires' Row.  Their father, Nelson Jarvis Waterbury Sr., was County District Attorney from 1859 to 1861 and was Grand Sachem of Tammany Hall and Judge Advocate General of the State Militia.

Nelson Waterbury Jr. received his law degree from Columbia College in 1882.  Born in 1848, Elizabeth was the widow of William Henry Streeter, who died in 1902.  She died on January 28, 1925, her obituary noting, "Funeral private from her late residence, 'The Whitestone,' 45 Tiemann Place."

The building had attracted artistic figures by then.  Among the residents was composer and arranger Julius E. Andino.  Born in Puerto Rico, he came to the United States in 1894.  First working as a piano accompanist at the Grand Italian Conservatory of Music in Brooklyn, he eventually found his way to Tin Pan Alley, working anonymously for several leading songwriters.  In 1912 he founded the Musician's Music Publishing Co. and shortly afterward began writing scores for silent pictures.  His Schirmer's Photo-play Series was published in 1915.  While living here, he advertised his services under the nickname "Andy."

The Billboard, September 17, 1927 (copyright expired)

Andino was assuredly well-acquainted with a neighbor in the building, Laura Sedgwick Collins.  A musician, composer and actress, she was born in Poughkeepsie in 1859.  Among her compositions was a march, "The Two Republics," which was performed at the unveiling of The Statue of Liberty.

Laura Sedgwick Collins, A Woman of the Century, 1893 (copyright expired)

Also living here at the time were author and painter Harold Speakman and his wife, the former Russell Lindsay.  Born in Greenville, New Jersey on November 30, 1888, Speakman studied at the Chicago Academy of Fine Arts and in Paris and Munich.  

His far-flung resume was staggering.  He served on the front in Italy in World War I, and made a "thousand-mile journey on foot around Ireland" in 1924, according to Who's Who in America, which added that he "descended the Mississippi River from headwaters to Gulf by canoe and houseboat" in 1926-1927.  Among his books were Songs of Home and The Youngest Shepherd, both published in 1917; the 1919 From a Soldier's Heart; Beyond Shanghai, published in 1922; and Hilltops in Galilee, This Above All, and Here's Ireland, published in 1922, 1923, and 1925 respectively.

Russell Speakman was an artist as well.  She often collaborated with her husband in illustrating his articles and accompanied him on his adventures.  In 1928, for instance, they journeyed to India.

Upon their return, in August 1928, Harold Speakman was "operated on in Milwaukee for an internal trouble," according to The New York Times.  Six weeks later, at around 5:30 on the afternoon on September 24, he entered a cab and told the driver to take him to Bellevue Hospital.  Frank McGlynn would later recall that Speakman told him he was going to meet "a man riding a white horse."

At the hospital, Speakman paid McGlynn his 70 cent fare, walked a few paces toward the entrance, "drew a pistol and fired once."  The 39-year-old had shot himself in the temple.  The New York Times reported, "He died without regaining consciousness."  In his coat pocket was a grim note addressed "To Whom It May Concern."  

Get the police, ambulance and take me to where bodies belong.  You will receive further instructions later as to what to do with me.

photograph by Anthony Bellov

Dr. Walter Charles and Ruth Crucet Strodt were occupants of The Whitestone at the time of the tragedy.  The couple were members of the American Mathematical Society, and Dr. Strodt was an instructor of math at Columbia University.  He would write technical books like Principal Solutions of Ordinary Differential Equations in the Complex Domain.  

Born in Norfolk, Virginia on March 2, 1917, Ruth was a 1937 Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Barnard College and had been an assistant professor of mathematics at St. Lawrence University. 

Among their neighbors in the building was Helena M. Dickinson, who also had a mathematical bent.  She was a member of the American Statistical Association as early as 1928.

Other residents in the late 1920s and early 1930s were Dr. Edward Oliver Salant and Priscilla M. Rhodehamel.  Dr. Salant earned his Ph.D. in London and was a National Research fellow in physics at New York University.  Rhodehamel graduated from the Syracuse School of Library Science in 1931.  She started work in the Administration Office of the New York Public Library in 1936.

With war ranging in Europe, Roswell D. McClelland and his wife, the former Marjorie Miles, left the comforts of The Whitestone.  The couple were married in 1938.  McClelland (known to his friends as Ross) had degrees from Duke and Columbia Universities; and Marjorie graduated from Stanford and did graduate work in child psychology at the University of Cincinnati and Yale.  

On August 1, 1940, The New York Times reported that they had boarded the Pan American Airways Yankee Clipper from "the marine base at La Guardia Field" the previous day.  The article said the couple "will take charge of the Rome office of the American Friends Service Committee."  It added, "The McClellands said they hoped to study conditions in refugee camps in Spain and Southern France."  

This photo of the McClellands was taken in 1940, the year they left The Whitestone.  from the collection of the US Holocaust Memorial Museum.

The McClellands would not return to The Whitestone.  The American Friends Service Committee ceased operation in 1941 when the United States closed its borders to refugees.  The couple was disconsolate.  They wrote home in July that year:

We comfort ourselves by thinking of the 108 people that we have helped to emigrate since we set up shop in October, but we wish that the number could have been larger.

Rather than return home, the McClellands relocated to Marseilles where Ross worked to rescue prisoners in internment camps and Marjorie helped to get children from the camps and from Jewish  homes for a 1942 rescue transport to the United States.

They then moved to Geneva, and when President Franklin D. Roosevelt created the War Refugee Board in 1944, he placed Ross as his Presidential Representative.  Marjorie ran the AFSC office there.  After the war (during which the McClellands' two sons were born), Ross was made a U.S. Foreign Service officer and later the United States ambassador to Niger.

Living in a fifth-floor apartment at 45 Tiemann Place in 1983 were 20-year-old Robert McKnight, who was unemployed, and his mother.  In November that year, Robert was arrested in the subway "on charges of possessing cocaine and brass knuckles," according to the Staten Island Advance.

Two months later, at around 7:30 on the night of January 27, 1984, Robert McKnight climbed to the roof of 45 Tiemann Place and waited in ambush.  When 34-year-old police officer Dennis Brennan came down the street in a three-wheeled scooter, McKnight fired.  The Staten Island Advance reported that the bullet, "crashed through the windshield and into his chest."  Brennan, amazingly, survived after an eight-hour long operation at St. Luke's-Roosevelt Hospital Center. 

McKnight was taken from 45 Tiemann Place in handcuffs.  Associated Press Laserphoto, Staten Island Advance, January 30, 1984

Robert McKnight was arrested in the hallway of 45 Tiemann Place at 8:30 in the morning on January 29.  Police could not give a motive for the crime.  McKnight was charged with attempted murder of a police officer.

photograph by Anthony Bellov

An early example of Emery Roth's apartment building designs and one of its most striking, The Whitestone does not get the adulation it deserves.  While remarkably intact on the exterior, its lack of landmark designation makes it vulnerable to desecration.  

many thanks to historian Anthony Bellov for suggesting this post