Emery Roth's 1930 300 West 23rd Street

 

In 1750, Captain Thomas Clarke and his wife Mary purchased 94 acres of land north of the city as the site of their country estate, Chelsea.  The property passed to the Clarkes' grandson, Clement Clarke Moore, who began selling and renting building plots around 1818.  In 1845, he rented the southwest corner of Eighth Avenue and 23rd Street for 21 years at a yearly rental of $560.  The 21-year leases continued and in 1908, the Moore Estate leased the corner at $9,350 per year.  When that term expired on April 30, 1929, it signaled the end of the decades-long tradition of leasing the corner.  The Moore Estate sold the property to the newly formed 8th Av. & 23d St. Corporation.

James P. Eadie, who negotiated the sale, told The New York Times that the buyers would erect "a twenty-story apartment house to cost about $1,250,000."  The syndicate hired one of the best-known apartment building architects of the time, Emery Roth.  Construction was completed in 1930.  Roth had designed a monolithic, Art Deco-style structure that dwarfed the buildings in the neighborhood.  Faced in beige brick, Roth accentuated the six-bay-wide central midsection by filling the spandrels on both elevations with projecting, vertically stacked brick.  The sections rose three stories above the setbacks of the upper portion and terminated in Art Deco-style brick ornaments.  An impressive water tower housing dominated the penthouse level and gave the upper section an Oz-like atmosphere.

P. L. Sperr captured this image on December 26, 1936.  from the collection of the New York Public Library.

Apartments contained one to three rooms, "all of which are equipped for full housekeeping," according to the 1930 realtors' brochure.  "Full housekeeping" meant that each apartment had a kitchen.  The brochure boasted that they were "equipped with modern range, silent refrigerators and all-metal cupboards and ideally planned for quick and labor-saving cooking."  The building was outfitted with the last word in technology: a radio connection.  "In addition to the usual outlets for lamps, and other electric service, every apartment is provided with an outlet which connects directly with your aerial on the roof," boasted the brochure.

The 1930 brochure depicted the lobby saying, "The Main Entrance is a spacious hall, tastefully furnished.  Here, there is always a man in attendance to announce your visitors, to accept mail and packages for you and to help promote your comfort."  (copyright expired)

The apartments filled with middle-class professionals, like Dr. Edward Pravener, an initial tenant.  Prohibition and the Great Depression made the 1930s a period of gangsters, speakeasies, and crime.  Dr. Edward Pravener walked innocently into the nearby London Chemists drugstore just after midnight on February 7, 1932 and became an unwitting witness of a Hollywood-style rubout.

Gangster bootlegger and murderer Vincent "Mad Dog" Coll lived in The Broadmoor, across 23rd Street from No. 300.  He came into the pharmacy and entered a phonebooth.  The next morning,  The Bristol [Virginia] News Bulletin began an article saying, "Young Vincent Coll who was poison with a pistol and most feared of the Gotham 'guns,' got his load of lead in a telephone booth at 12:45 a.m. today.  A machine gunner chopped him down cooly [sic] and deliberately in a West 23rd Street drugstore."

Dr. Pravaner, the other two customers and the two clerks, were interrogated by detectives.  They all said, "that the slayer had carried out his deadly program as coolly and efficiently as if it had been carefully rehearsed," reported by The New York Times.  

The 1930 Real Estate Brochure depicted a typical floorplan.  (copyright expired)

Another initial resident was William Rhodes, a newspaper photographer.  In December 1934, he sublet his second-floor apartment to a young couple, Leslie Drew and his wife, the former Alice Potts.  Drew was a salesman for a publishing firm and he was suffering a serious condition that required surgery.  The couple, however, did not have the money to pay for the procedure.

At around noon on February 19, 1935, employees of the building smelled gas and called the Consolidated Gas Company to find the leak.  The fumes were strongest on the lower floors, so the building's superintendent, Frank Masefield, took the two gas company men to the basement.  At 2:00, there was a massive explosion.  "As tenants ran out excitedly, the three went to the inner court," said The New York Times, "They saw that the windows of Apartment 2C had been blown out."

On the apartment door, Alice Drew had posted a note for her husband:

Do not enter alone, I beg of you, especially with a lighted cigarette.  I am more afraid of life than death.  You frightened me in the theatre last evening, you looked so sick.  If you did not have my responsibility you could afford to get well.  I am an expensive luxury.  Lovingly, Alice

The three men pushed their way into the apartment and found the 32-year-old Alice "dead in the middle of a fire which was burning her clothes and the furniture," said The New York Times.  "Six jets on the gas range were turned on."  (Hopefully William Rhodes had insisted on a security deposit.)

Among the other residents at the time of the tragedy were Joseph F. Faulhaber and his wife, the former Eva Sarfaty.  Born in Cleveland, Joseph studied at the Case School of Applied Science and from 1910 to 1917 was associated with the Commercial and Industrial Corporation of America, described as "business doctors."  He was now the president of the Finance and Development Corporation and of the Quick Alarm Fire Detector Corporation.

Attorney Thomas F. Noonan, who lived here as early as 1936, was a widower.  Born in 1877, he was a life-long Chelsea resident. He graduated from St. Francis Xavier College in 1897 and received his M. A. degree from the same institution the next year.  He received his law degree from Columbia Law School in 1900, and was elected a justice of the Municipal Court in 1909.

On the afternoon of December 20, 1936, Noonan was presiding at a trial when a court officer whispered to him that Governor Herbert H. Lehman was on the telephone.  Noonan went to his chambers "and Governor Lehman informed him by telephone that he had been appointed a Supreme Court Justice," reported The New York Times.

In stark contrast to the respected jurist was Allan Coulter.  The 20-year-old moved in following his discharge from the U.S. Navy in December 1945.  He had been a radio technician on the aircraft carrier Lexington, during which time he acquired technical skills.  He used them to form a teenaged safe-cracking gang.  Two of his cohorts were 16 years old and the other was 17.  

Coulter's scheme utilized two-way radios that warned those on the inside of a building of approaching police.  Within three months, the youthful gang committed "seventy-five burglaries, including forty-two safe 'jobs,'" reported The New York Times on May 8, 1946.  It was the group's lavish spending that tipped off detectives.  The article said they squandered  the "$15,000 loot on girls, night clubs and parties on a grand scale."

They were arrested in February 1946.  Investigators searched Coulter's apartment here and found the walkie-talkie sets that he had "improved," and burglar tools.  "There was also a device on which the 'master mind' was at work: an infra-red ray gadget that would have furnished the gang 'invisible' light for their burglaries."  Coulter was convicted on a lesser charge of "having burglar's tools in his possession."

Somewhat surprisingly, Allan Coulter was "put on probation until 1957," reported The New York Times.  Three years later, in May 1949, he and four other men were arrested "with a 'walkie-talkie' device, after an alleged attempt to break into the safes of the New York Giants Baseball Club and the Personal Finance Company," reported The New York Times.  On May 6, a "laboratory of crime" was discovered in Coulter's apartment.  The Safe and Loft Squad discovered "between $35,000 and $40,000 worth of electrical equipment, radar devices, chemicals and books."  District Attorney Paul F. Reilly described Coulter as "the brains of the outfit," saying he had a "scientific mind" and was "a radar expert."  Coulter was convicted and sentenced to seven-to-fourteen years in prison.

A rendering of the building appeared on the cover of the 1930 realtor brochure. (copyright expired)

Gangster Joseph "Socks" Lanza lived here starting in 1953.  He was described by The New York Times as the "racketeer-czar of the Fulton Fish Market."  Born in 1900, he founded the Fulton Market Watchmen and Patrol Association at the age of 20.  His thugs charged fishermen, ship owners, peddlers and trucking companies "union license fees" and "protection" money.  In the 1920s, Lanza's organization was taking in the equivalent of $900,000 in 2026.

Lanza was sentenced to prison for labor extortion in 1943.  When he was released on parole in 1953, he moved into 300 West 23rd Street.  At 10:30 on the evening of February 5, 1957, Lanza was arrested in his apartment.  He was charged with violating his parole "by allegedly associating with gamblers and a woman believed to have been involved in the narcotics traffic and spending much more than he earned as a clerk in a hardware store," explained The New York Times.  The well-connected mobster, however, was soon back home.

Commissioner James R. Stone resigned under fire in April 1957 after he dismissed the parole violations against Lanza.  Governor W. Averell Harriman demanded an investigation to find out "why Lanza, a convicted extortionist and formerly a power in Tammany politics on the Lower East Side," had been released.  Joseph Lanza was returned to prison until 1960.  He died from cancer on October 10, 1968.

Among Lanza's neighbors in the building were Charles H. Farrell, his wife Mary, and son John H.  Charles Farrell was born in 1894 and served in the U.S. Army in World War I.  He became a court clerk assigned to the Chief Magistrate's Office in 1925, and was the Democratic leader of the Third Assembly District South.  John H. Farrell followed his father's political bent.  On February 14, 1957 he was elected to the State Senate.

Unmarried Elizabeth Thomson moved into 300 West 23rd Street in 1944.  The 96-year-old was still living here in December 1983 when she fell ill and temporarily moved in with her niece, Elizabeth DeKovessey in Englewood, New Jersey.  While she was gone, the building began the conversion to cooperatives.  Although she had continued to pay her rent, in July 1984, Elizabeth Thomson received an eviction notice.

A spokesman for the property owner told The New York Times, "We don't want to play the part of the heavy here, but no one bothered to contact us that Miss Thomson would be returning."  Elizabeth DeKovessey refuted that assertion, saying they had told the landlord she would return, "but chose to press the eviction since reissue of the apartment as a cooperative would command a higher price."  It appears that the negative publicity caused the management to change its mind and Elizabeth Thomson's eviction was rescinded.

Emery Roth's hulking Art Deco structure remains a prominent landmark on the intersection of Eighth Avenue and 23rd Street.

photographs by the author

Gronenberg & Leuchtag's 1929 118 Riverside Drive

 

Interestingly, the architects chamfered the 84th Street corner, but not the end at 83rd Street.

By the mid-1920s, opulent private dwellings were falling from favor as luxurious apartment buildings offered convenience and modern amenities.  In 1928, the Driveway Realty Corporation demolished the buildings at 337 through 339 West 83rd Street, the mansions at 110 through 118 Riverside Drive, and at 348 West 84th Street.  The syndicate, headed by Joseph H. Schwartz, hired Gronenberg & Leuchtag to design a massive apartment building on the site.

Completed at a cost of $1.2 million (about $22.6 million in 2026), the 16-story structure was designed in the Renaissance Revival style and faced in variegated beige brick.  Although the entrances were on 83rd and 84th Streets, they took the more impressive addresses of 110 and 118 Riverside Drive.  The architects embellished the overall spartan design with romantic stone and terra cotta Renaissance elements.  The identical entrances sat within two-story stone frames.  Intricately carved, layered columns flanked the double doors.  They sat within an arch with alternating carved and planar voussoirs.  Directly above was a triple arcade with twisted columns.

Added interest was achieved with faux terra cotta balconies with spiral columns, ornate panels of swag-draped cartouches and rondels with faces at the fifth and fourteenth floors.  An arched corbel table of terra cotta ran below the terminal cornice.

On May 15, 1929, The New York Times reported that S. Fishkin and C. F. Zittel had signed leases.  Carl Florian Zittel, known popularly as Zit, was among New York's most well-known talent agents and managers.  

C. F. Zittel (original source unknown)

Born in Patterson, New Jersey in January 1876, Zittel began his career as a boy selling newspapers on the corner of Fourth Avenue and 23rd Street.  By the time he and his wife, the former Martha Beatrice Bernstein, moved into 118 Riverside Drive, he had founded and was publisher of Zit's Weekly (a forerunner to Billboard), was the manager of the Central Park Casino, and an executive within Marcus Loew's theatrical chain.

At 10:30 on the morning of December 13, 1930, two delivery men arrived at the service entrance with a kitchen table wrapped in brown paper.  The New York Times reported, "They were admitted without question and were taken to the service elevator."  The pair went up to the eight-room Zittel apartment.  The maid, Maud Draggon, opened the service door on its lock chain.  One of the men explained, "We have a package here for you, but you aren't to let Mr. Zittel see it."  Assuming it was a Christmas present for Zittel, she opened the door.  The men slid the table into the kitchen.

Martha Zittel heard the noise and entered the kitchen.  The New York Times reported, "As she opened the door the tall man pointed his pistol at her and demanded 'money and jewelry.'"  She said she had nothing and he asked where the wall safe was.  Terrified, Martha said it was empty and when she opened it, indeed it was.

The veteran burglars knew that there would be another safe somewhere in the apartment.  They found it covered by a red velvet drape, pretending to be a pedestal for a large statue.  When Martha said she did not know the combination, one of the thugs placed a knife to her throat.  With trembling fingers, she unsuccessfully tried to work the combination once, and then the second time it opened.  "The men pushed her aside and started the quick work of cleaning out the contents."  The newspaper said, "Thirty-five minutes after they had casually ascended by the service elevator they went down again--the richer by $150,000 in jewelry.  They left the table...the only clue by which the police hope to establish some future contact with them."  The value of the heist would translate to $2.9 million today.

The Zittel apartment was by far not the only target of the ingenious burglars, who gained access by posing as floral deliverymen, upholsterers and other service men.  Ten months after the Zittel robbery, "two sleek young men," as described by The New York Times were arrested for the string of thefts.

Other residents at the time were William J. Pedrick, Max Henry Wurtzel and Radoye Yankovitch, the Consul General of Yugoslovia.

The Yankovitch apartment was the scene of social and diplomatic gatherings.  One event that straddled both was the dinner party they gave "in honor of Mrs. and Mr. B. Singer, Consul General of Turkey and president of the Pan-American Consular Corps of Chicago" on April 22, 1930.

William J. Pedrick and his wife, the former Rea Katherine Forhan, had four children.  He had served in the Army Air Service during World War I and became president of the Fifth Avenue Association in 1931.  His career would take a few turns in the coming years.  On February 11, 1935, The New York Times reported that he was stepping down to become president of William J. Pedrick & Co., "a new general insurance and real estate enterprise."  He would change course again seven years later when he was sworn in as Collector of Internal Revenue for the Second District on February 12, 1942.

Insurance broker Max Henry Wurtzel was a well-to-do bachelor.  He shared his apartment with his sister, Rose, her husband, Harry G. Matfis, and their son, Jerome.  The Matfis family lived with Wurtzel, it seems, because Harry Matfis was insolvent.  Wurtzel attempted repeatedly to get him onto his feet.  According to Dr. George L. Wurtzel, Max's brother, "Matfis was set up in the haberdashery business four times," by Max, and each time he failed.

The Great Depression dealt a blow to Max Wurtzel.  On November 23, 1933, The Chicago Daily Tribune explained, "Wurtzel recently lost $200,000."  His stress was heightened when Harry Matfis asked "to borrow more money" on November 21.  Early the next morning, Wurtzel walked into Harry Matfis's bedroom and shot him in the head while he was sleeping.  He then returned to his own bedroom and swallowed poison.

Rose Matfis discovered the carnage when she went into Harry's bedroom to awaken him.  Her brother had left a note on the back of one of his business cards:  "I am sorry to cause all this trouble, folks.  Take care of Jerry.  Please see that I am buried from Riverside Memorial Hospital."

Harry C. McClarity was president of the marine consulting firm H. C. McClarity Company and of the Union Stevedoring Corporation.  He and his wife, the former Hazel Dell, had a daughter.  Their country home, Dellcrest, was in Westport, Connecticut.  

At 11:00 on the morning of March 14, 1938, McClarity asked the butler, 44-year-old Lawrence L. Devine, "to go out and buy some cigarettes and newspapers," according to The New York Sun.  An hour later, McClarity became impatient and rang for the butler, who did not answer.  When Devine was not back at 1:00, McClarity, "searched the apartment promising himself he would fire the butler when he found him," said the article.

Suddenly, he had a alarming thought.  He went into his daughter's bedroom and opened the top drawer where she kept her jewelry box.  It was empty.  He then looked in his desk and discovered $1,300 in cash was gone.  The New York Sun reported, "Included in the jewelry was a brooch containing 281 diamonds and twelve emeralds, valued at $9,000; a clip pin made of 198 diamonds, worth $5,000; a diamond ring, valued at $3,500 and a diamond and pearl ring valued at $700."  

Two days later, The New York Times said that police were still searching for Devine after he disappeared "on the same day that $19,500 in jewelry and cash vanished from the McClarity apartment."  

This unidentified living room was photographed by Wurts Bros. in 1942.  from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York

At the time, Charles E. Hohn and his wife, Maia Bang, occupied a penthouse apartment.  Born in 1887, Hohn was a silk importer.  Maia Bang was born in Norway in 1880 and came to America around 1920 “as an assistant to Leopold Hauer,” according to The New York Times.  (Hauer was a Hungarian violinist, conductor and composer.)  Maia Bang was an accomplished violinist and violin teacher, and the author of several books on musical instruction.

Maia Bang died in their apartment on January 3, 1940.  Two years later, on March 8, 1942, a doorman noticed milk bottles and newspapers outside the apartment door.  Using a passkey, he entered the apartment and "found Mr. Hohn lying on the roof," according to The New York Times.  He called the police and a doctor.  They told reporters that Charles Hohn "had been dead about ten or twelve hours and that death was apparently due to a heart attack."

The building got a celebrity in 1940 when baseball star Babe Ruth and his wife, Claire Hodgson, moved in.  George Herman Ruth was born in 1895.  The stellar athlete earned the nickname The Sultan of Swat during his 22 seasons that ended in 1935.  He is remembered as one of the greatest baseball players of all time and when he and Clair moved into the Riverside Drive building, he was nothing short of an idol to millions of Americans.

Babe Ruth, his first wife, Helen Woodford, and their daughter in 1925.  from the collection of the Library of Congress

On March 25, 1946, Ruth was clocked at driving 60 miles per hour on the Saw Mill River Parkway.  It may have been his celebrity that earned him "a pass" when his ticket was dismissed.

Within a year, Babe Ruth was battling cancer.  On February 16, 1947, The New York Times reported that Babe Ruth had left the French Hospital, "perceptibly grayer, a little weak on his feet, and weighing 189 pounds."  He had lost 36 pounds since entering the hospital a month earlier.  He told a reporter, "I want to look at the river from my apartment window."

The President of Mexico, Miguel Aleman, visited New York City three months later.  He made time on his busy agenda to visit Babe Ruth in his apartment on May 5.

Ruth died in the hospital on August 16, 1948 at the age of 53.  His casket was displayed in the rotunda of Yankee Stadium for two days, seen by approximately 77,000 people.

Dr. Joseph Nisonoff occupied a medical suite here as early as 1942.  That year he was out on a $25,000 bail, charged with "performing an illegal operation" in May 1940.  (The polite term referred to an abortion.)  A similar charge had been dismissed in 1930.  He was in trouble again on November 26, 1942.  The New York Times reported that he had been "charged with homicide in connection with the death of a woman government employe [sic] after an illegal operation."  Assistant District Attorney James Carney described Nisonoff as a "murderer" and "unfit to be a doctor."

On April 8, 1943, Nisonoff was sentenced to "an indeterminate term in the city penitentiary."  In sentencing him, Judge Lester W. Patterson said, "There is no question in my mind that this man performed hundreds, maybe even a thousand abortions.  The dead girl was four months pregnant when he performed the abortion, and but for him the girl would be alive today."

Somewhat shockingly, a month later The New York Times reported that Nissonoff had been granted "a certificate of reasonable doubt pending [his] appeal in the Appellate Division" and had been released at $35,000 bail.   This time, however, Dr. Nissonoff was unsuccessful.  On April 20, 1945, he began his five to fifteen year sentence in State Prison.

In January 1959, Claire Ruth was scheduled to be interviewed by Edward R. Murrow for the popular television program Person to Person.  Her daughter and grandson traveled from New Hampshire to be part of the episode, which was to be filmed in the Ruth apartment.  But an unprecedented glitch occurred.

The managing agent for the building, Felix Harding, demanded a fee "for the use of the facilities."  Co-producer of the show, Jesse Zousmer "said that it was the first time in five years and 460 visits that such a problem had arisen," reported The New York Times.  The producers refused, saying "it would raise a question of doing the same thing for the hundreds of other people already interviewed."  Claire Ruth told The New York Times she was "deeply hurt" by the cancellation.

Claire Hodgson Ruth died of cancer in "her memorabilia-filled apartment," as worded by The New York Times, at the age of 76 on October 26, 1976.  The article said that in the 28 years since her husband's death, "Mrs. Ruth had devoted her life to his memory and achievements."

In 1982, the building was converted to cooperatives.  The co-op board, unfortunately, did not regulate the replacement windows, resulting in today's mish-mash of fenestration.  Otherwise, the nearly century-old structure survives lovingly intact.

photographs by the author

The Lost Good Will Chapel - 221 East 51st Street

from the collection of the New York Public Library

The Madison Avenue Presbyterian Church sat at the corner of Madison Avenue and 51st Street in 1887.  On August 1 that year, the trustees purchased the two-story brick house at 221 East 51st Street from John McNully, and the "two-story frame stable and two-story brick dwelling on rear" from Henry and Elizabeth Rabe, as reported by the Record & Guide.  The neighborhood was starkly different from that of the Madison Avenue Presbyterian, which was filling with opulent mansions.  Turtle Bay, on the other hand, teemed with breweries, slaughterhouses, coal yards, and such.  

It was precisely those conditions that attracted the attention of the trustees.  On November 4, 1887, architect James E. Ware filed plans for a "two-story and attic brick, stone and terra cotta Sunday School house" on the site.  Completed the following year, Ware's eccentric design was a marriage of Romanesque Revival and Queen Anne.  

Two arched entrances flanked a grouping of four slit-like windows.  They were overpowered by piers nearly equal in width.  Somewhat distractingly, Ware gave them and the pilasters of the entrances busy, protruding bands.  The upper story was dominated by three arches, the central of which was designed in a near Palladian configuration.  The thick bands of its outer engaged columns lined up with the quoins of the outer windows.  Ware generously used Queen Anne-style tiles on the upper floor--in the spandrels in the frieze between the floors, in the panels under the windows, and in the spandrels of the triangular gable.

The Good Will Chapel was more than a Sunday school, as Ware's plans suggested.  There was a kindergarten (operated by the New York Kindergarten Association), and the auditorium doubled as a meeting space for local groups and for lectures and such.

The severe differences in the social and financial status of the congregants of the Madison Avenue Church and the attendees of its chapel were clearly reflected in an article in the New-York Tribune on June 9, 1889.  It reported that the pastor of the Madison Avenue Church, Dr. Charles L. Thompson, and his wife would be spending the summer in Europe.  All wealthy churches closed in the summer social season because their congregants were at their country homes or resorts.  The Turtle Bay denizens, on the other hand, had no place to go.  "His church will be closed in July and August," said the article, "but there will be preaching every Sunday in the Good Will Chapel, in East Fifty-first-st."

Examples of the meetings held in the auditorium were the "concert and entertainment" held by the Goodwill Social Circle on October 17, 1889, and the "anti-Tammany meeting" that was held there on September 30, 1894.  The New York Herald reported that it was "attended by colored women, who have organized under the leadership of the wife of the Rev. Granville Hunt, the pastor of the colored Baptist church 352 West thirty-fifth street."  

In 1898, the Madison Avenue Presbyterian Church sold 221-223 East 51st Street to Congregation Orach Chaim (the Path of Life).  The congregation was formed in 1870 and before moving in, it hired architect William C. Sommerfeld to make interior renovations.  His plans included, "new partition, erect platform, erect toilet room."

Congregation Orach Chaim would not remain here for especially long.  On June 23, 1906, the Real Estate Record & Builders' Guide reported that it had sold the property to Congregation Beth Hamedrash Hachodosh Talmud Torah.  The name did not easily roll off the tongue, and the shul was familiarly known as Torah Synagogue.

Seats in synagogues, even in financially depressed neighborhoods, cost the congregants.  On  May 13, 1907, for instance, Abraham Trew leased "seats Nos. 3 and 11 on main floor and gallery" for $100.  The rent would translate to about $3,500 today, but the lease ran for three years.

The congregation suffered what was either simple vandalism or malicious antisemitism on the evening of March 13, 1911.  There were approximately 300 worshippers in the auditorium, according to The New York Times, when a brick crashed through the skylight "and fell on the knees of Aaron Goodman, a real estate man."  The article said, "it just missed his head, but a shower of glass fell on him and inflicted many light cuts."

Another congregant picked up the brick and took it to the East 51st Street Police Station.  A detective discovered a second brick that had been thrown through the skylight, "but had been intercepted by a beam and did not fall among the worshippers."  The article noted that the synagogue was surrounded "by a number of tenements," and hurling bricks from the windows would be simple.  Police surmised that the missiles had been thrown by neighborhood boys.

image via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services

On September 20, 1950, Rabbi David B. Kahane, "one of the youngest ordained clergymen in the country," according to The New York Times, was appointed head of what was now known as the East Fifty-first Street Orthodox Synagogue.  The outspoken cleric would clearly make his stance on religious, political and social issues from the pulpit over the coming years.

The congregation was highly honored on May 12, 1951.  The New York Times reported, "Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion, accompanied by members of his entourage, attended Sabbath services yesterday morning at the East Fifty-first Street Synagogue, 221 East Fifty-first Street."  Rabbi Kahane said, "Having in our presence the first Prime Minster of Israel for the last 2,000 years fills us with joy and exuberance."

Rabbi David B. Kahane was unafraid to express his personal views in his sermons.  On May 26, 1951, he lambasted the United Nations Security Council's ordering Israel to stop draining swamps for new housing.  He said the orders "insult the Jewish heroes of Israel, but also brings shame and humiliation to the United Nations."  And in March 1956, he addressed racism in America:

The racial problem is an issue out of which Civil War has been made in our country and a mis-handling of this matter can split our nation irreparably asunder.  President Eisenhower must immediately assume firm leadership by summoning religious, educational and political leaders from all races to a White House racial conference and must categorically assert that all debate about segregation must accept the premise of law and order.

In 1961, serious discussions about replacing the old building were taking place.  That year, architect S. Brian Baylinson filed plans for a six-story synagogue that would cost Congregation Beth Hamedrash Hachodosh Talmud Torah the equivalent of $3.2 million today.  It did not get built.

Five years later, the architectural firm of Kavy & Kovovitt designed a five-story synagogue that would cost the equivalent of $7.4 million to build.  That, too, did not come to pass.

Then, in 1969, James E. Ware's somewhat quirky but lovable 1888 structure was demolished.  The congregation worshipped at 224 East 52nd Street during the construction of their new home.  Designed by Herbert Fleischer Associates, the two-story Sutton Place Synagogue was consecrated on September 22, 1974.

photograph by ajay_suresh

William Jose's 1871 162 Stanton Street

photograph by Carole Teller

William Jose was born in Prussia around 1843 and was first listed as an architect in New York City directories in 1869.  In his short career he would design numerous buildings, mostly in the Bowery neighborhood, before his death in 1885.  In November 1870, he filed plans for a five-story "brick store and tenement" at 158 Stanton Street for developer G. Bohm.  That project quickly expanded with two more abutting buildings at Nos. 160 and 162.

The 25-foot-wide structures were completed in 1871.  Like its identical neighbors, 162 Stanton Street was faced in red brick above a cast iron storefront.  Jose's Italianate design included molded lintels above the elliptically arched windows.  The ambitious cast metal cornice lined with foliate brackets was upheld by elaborately scrolled corbels.  Delicate akroteria perched on its corners.  The arched pediment with its half-round panel was a trademark William Jose touch.  Similar pediments can be seen in his 1873 5 Spring Street and the Conrad Stein brewery building, completed in 1883.  

photograph by Carole Teller

Two stores flanked the residential entrance.  The initial occupants were Sigmund Blum's "segar" store and Adamina Kuyper's candy and soda shop.  (Adamina was the widow of Joseph Kuyper.)

Adamina Kuyper closed her store in 1876.  An auction of the contents gives a hint of her Victorian shop.  The auctioneer listed:

Contents of a Candy Store: counters and shelving, showcases, jars, tables, chairs, stoves &c; also one large marble Soda Water Fountain.

Frederick Hausmann purchased the lot and continued to operate the candy and soda shop.  By then, George Bergen was running the cigar store.  The tenants upstairs were, for the most part, working class.  Living here in 1876 were Christopher Bingenheimer, a barber; "spinner" John Harer; and the Hefner and Niglutsch families.  John Hefner did not list a profession in directories, possibly because he was retired.  Frederick Hefner, likely his son, was a clerk.  John C. Niglutsch was a physician and Anthony Niglutsch worked as a tailor.

Kate Stern left 162 Stanton Street on the morning of November 12, 1893.  She had not gotten far when two crooks grabbed her pocketbook and ran.  A policeman overtook them on Stanton Street.  The youthful perpetrators--Morris Wilbur was nine years old and Burnett Ernstein was eleven--were held at the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children until appearing before a magistrate in Essex Market Court.

Samuel Michaelson's tailor shop occupied one of the storefronts at the turn of the century.  On the night of November 9, 1900, the clothing store of Max Stumpf on Attorney Street was "ransacked," as worded by The New York Times.  The burglars essentially emptied the shop, taking "101 ladies' finished capes, 21 ladies' unfinished capes, 22 men's coats, 1 vest, 36 boys' caps, 10 flannel shirts, 1 roll chinchilla cloth, 1 roll black cloth, 1 roll brown cloth, 1 roll velvet cloth, 5 pieces trouserings, and 1 bag fur edging," according to Stumpf's detailed inventory.

Two days later, Max Stumpf rushed up to two police officers and excitedly said that he saw some of his goods in an express wagon.  The officers followed it to 139 Attorney Street where the driver delivered the goods to Harris Needle in a second floor room.  He and the driver, Samuel Pepper, were arrested.  At the station house they said that they were paid "to deliver the goods by Samuel Michaelson."  Michaelson was also subsequently arrested.  The New York Times reported, "He denied that he knew anything about the goods.  He also denied that he had ever seen Needle or Pepper."

The Rappaport family lived in a top floor apartment around the same time.  In the hot summer months, tenement dwellers often slept on the fire escapes.  On the night of August 23, 1901, Mrs. Rappaport put two of her children, Bessie and Israel, to bed on the fire escape.  Her six-year-old son, Samuel (known as Sammy), slept with her that night.  Samuel woke up around 6:00 the next morning and told his mother, "I'm going to wake Bessie."

The Evening World reported that the three children began playing on the fire escape and "Sammy climbed up a board leaning against the railing.  He lost his balance, tumbled over the railing and fell the entire six [sic] stories to the street."

When Bessie screamed, her mother rushed to the window.  Looking down, she saw Sammy "lying in a broken, lifeless heap on the pavement, far below, with two men over him."  Frantic, Mrs. Rappaport ran down to the street just as the boy was being carried into a drugstore.  "His back was broken and his skull crushed from striking against the iron rails as he fell," said the article.  Adding to the tragedy, the boy's plunge was witnessed by dozens of children.  "Most of them knew him and wept at the shocking death of their little playmate," said The Evening World.

John M. Robbins, who lived here in 1906, worked as a  "telegrapher."  On the night of August 26 that year, he sat down at a table in the restaurant in Pennsylvania Railroad terminal in Jersey City.  For whatever reason, the 55-year-old started a near panic.  The New York Herald reported, "a stifled scream from one of forty women dining in the restaurant" was heard at about 8:00.  "The cause of the scream was an elderly man calmly removing his underclothing," said the article, which added, "After one look the women concealed their faces behind fans and handkerchiefs."

A group of men surrounded Robbins and helped him get dressed.  The New York Herald said, "He was profuse in his apologies and was allowed to remain and finish his meal."  But only ten minutes later, he "cunningly removed his shoes and coat, and was divesting himself of his trousers when another woman raised an alarm."  This time two railroad detectives covered him with a tablecloth and escorted him to an anteroom where he was dressed and arrested.

In 1916, New York City suffered a terrifying epidemic--poliomyelitis.  More than 9,000 cases were reported in the city that year and more than 2,000 victims died.  On August 20, the New York Herald headlined an article, "Keep Children Out of City Is Warning."  In it, Dr. John S. Billings cautioned New Yorkers to keep their children at their country homes rather then returning to the city.  That was not an option for tenement families.  Listed among the hundreds of new cases in the article were Izzie and Abe Schivalatt of 162 Stanton Street.

The Hyman Richmond family lived here at the time.  They invited eight guests to a Shabbat meal on March 3.  The evening would not end well.  The New-York Tribune reported, "the eight guests fell from their chairs suffering from ptomaine poisoning, too ill to be moved to their homes."  An ambulance arrived and the victims "were all put to bed in corners of Richmond's apartment except Frank Ruhlau."  He was seriously ill and taken to Gouverneur Hospital.  Tragically, the next day the New-York Tribune reported, "The seven other guests were still under care of physicians at the scene of the kosher dinner, when news was brought to them early this morning that Ruhlau had died."

At the time of the tragedy, the stores were occupied by Louis Kravitz's clothing shop and Morris H. Schlesinger's hardware store.

On the evening of September 12, 1922, 70-year-old resident Henry Lawrence left 162 Stanton Street "to visit friends in Rivington Street," as reported by The Evening World three days later, adding, "He has not returned home."  That friend was Solomon Sternberg.  He told a reporter from the New York Herald that Lawrence had $200 when he left his apartment.  The Evening World was pointed, saying, "There is a suspicion of murder in the case of Henry Lawrence."  (Newspapers did not follow up with the story, so Lawrence's fate is unclear.)

image via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services

On October 1, 1958, Nelson A. Rockefeller took his campaign for Governor to the Lower East Side.  He stopped into Jack Levy's Famous, a hot dog and pizza stand, chatted in Spanish to Puerto Rican locals, and shook hands and greeted pedestrians.  One of those was Mila Litbach, who lived at 162 Stanton Street.  The New York Times described her as "an elderly woman with a kerchief on her head."  Rockefeller greeted, "Hello!"

Unimpressed, Mila Litbach responded, "Can I put 'hello' in the bank?"

She told him she could not find a suitable apartment at a rent she could afford.  Rockefeller said "That is a very serious problem," and told her about a bond issue.  "If we can get that passed, it will help relieve the shortage of apartments for elderly people who live alone like you."

"I should live so long," said Mila Litbach with a shrug as she walked away.

The building was renovated in 1985, resulting in a total of 11 apartments.  In the alterations, the brick was painted and the storefront removed to accommodate apartments.  Surviving at the otherwise featureless ground floor are two narrow cast iron pilasters and a delicate rope detail around the entrance way.

photograph by Carole Teller

many thanks to artist Carole Teller for suggesting this post

Buchman & Kahn's 1925 49 West 38th Street

 photograph by Carole Teller

By the post-World War I years, the millinery district had migrated northward to the neighborhood around Sixth Avenue in the 30s.  In 1923, Wolf Ramzon hired well-known architects Buchman & Kahn to design a 16-story "fireproof manufacturing building" at 49 through 53 West 38th Street.  Completed in 1925, construction cost Ramzon the equivalent of $8.2 million in 2026.

Buchman & Kahn started with a Renaissance Revival-style canvas and embellished it with elaborate terra cotta decorations.  Above the storefront, vast openings sat within metal inlay.  A series of closely placed, tall and narrow windows filled the second floor, and three side-by-side stylized Chicago windows engulfed the third.  All three lower floors sat within an intricate, Celtic inspired frame.

An intermediate cornice introduced the upper section.  Against a dragon scale background, the corbels took the form of whimsical faces.  The complex terra cotta decorations of the fourth floor included Celtic knots and plaques of fantastic animals and bearded faces.

The architects gave the corbels of the intermediate cornice delightful personalities.  photograph by Carole Teller

The upper floors were faced in beige brick.  The mid-section was defined by two six-story, faceted terra cotta columns.  An arcade with blind tympana distinguished the eleventh floor and multi-level cornices supported the upper section.

Expectedly, most of the original tenants were from the millinery industry.  Among them were the Beverly Hat Company, Inc., Trucikan Hat Company, Ideal Hat Co., the Rite-Hat Works, and I. Rosenberg & Co., Inc.  The Ideal Hat Co. had barely moved in before it was looking for an office worker.  An advertisement in The New York Times on September 16, 1925 read, "Young girl in advertising department of millinery manufacturer; typewriting experience essential."

In 1929, Trucikan Hat Company reorganized as Fairway Hat Company.  In doing so, it trimmed its staff, reducing the amount of hat blockers from eight to four.  The executives met with the on-site head of the union, named Mendelowitz, to decide which employees would be kept and whom would be fired.  In the meantime, the union members held their own meeting and drew straws.  The outcome did not mesh with the list Mendelowitz and management had come up with.  A stand-off resulted in a strike and an attempt to oust Mendelowitz by union members, who accused him of "a complicated maneuver and sell out," as reported by The Daily Worker on December 10, 1929.  

Extraordinarily intricate terra cotta decorates the facade.  photograph by Carole Teller

Two months later a strike against the Bobby Hood Company, Inc. turned violent.  On February 7, 1930, The New York Times reported, "Negro strikebreakers armed with lead pipes, shears and hammers engaged at 6 o'clock last night in a street brawl with pickets of the Millinery Workers' Union...who were marching in front of the Bobby Hood Company, Inc., at 49 West Thirty-eighth Street, where the strike-breakers were employed."  The article said that crowds heading to the subway were halted by the disturbance, "which soon became a free-for-all."  

It took police an hour to quell the riot that resulted in dozens suffering bruises and cuts.  Five persons were arrested on charges of felonious assault.  Somehow Samuel Goodkind, the owner of the Bobby Hood Company, had gotten involved.  The New York Evening Post reported that he was arrested for disorderly conduct.

photograph by Carole Teller

At the time of the affray, a delicatessen occupied the ground floor space.  On February 28, 1930, two armed men entered and subdued the manager, Ernest Roebke, who was bound and gagged.  The crooks stole $73 from the cash register and then jumped onto an uptown subway headed to to their next target, a deli on Columbus Avenue.  This time they were less successful.  A passerby noticed the hold-up and called police.  Patrolman Shallo and Farro arrived just as the thieves were leaving.  Ricardo Angeli warned them, "stand back or I'll plug you."  The New York Sun reported that the cops "paid no attention to his command and leaped toward him, Shallo felling the raider with a blow of his nightstick."  Angeli was arrested ("after treatment by an ambulance surgeon," according to the article), but his accomplice escaped.

The building continued to attract millinery firms during the Depression years.  The Moran Hat Company leased the 16th floor in 1932 and the Maecon Hat Company was here as early as 1937.  But textile and apparel firms were appearing, as well.  The Modern Miltex Company was here in 1944, for instance, when it advertised, "Hand Crocheters.  Good pay, full or part time."

Among the tenants in the 1960s were Don Sophisticates, Inc., Merchants Importing, Inc. and Sheru, dealers in beads.  At the time, the country was experiencing The Age of Aquarius, marked by hippies, free love, and anti-war protests--and beads.  For a century, bead companies catered to apparel and millinery firms.  Now Sheru was a popular destination for individual customers.  Writing in The New York Times on August 31, 1975, Judmi Glassman listed a few of their uses: "making belts, headbands, window hangings, room dividers and purses."  She informed readers that "larger beads are sold by the dozen, en masse (about 1,000 beads) or individually" at Sheru.

Decades later, on August 13, 1993, The New York Times reported that Steve Sherwin, a partner in Sheru, had exhumed cartons "stored since the 1960s" and "started selling off the cache."  The article said, "Among the store's 3,000 kinds of beads are red cherries, crimson strawberries and purple grapes made of glass."

photograph by Carole Teller

The ground floor space where Ernest Roebke was bound and gagged in 1930 became the Dineen Nealy showroom around 2002.  It featured furniture designed by architects Craig Nealy and Joan Dineen.  More recently, Pink of Manhattan, a nail salon, moved into the space.  Although the storefront has been modernized, Buchman & Kahn's striking structure is almost untouched a century after its opening.

many thanks to artist Carole Teller for suggesting this post